things that are written therein."[51]

Here at the very outset is a plea, made to each one into whose hands the
little book may come, for a reading, and a careful thinking into, and
then, yet more, a bringing of the whole life up to the line of what is
found here. The blessing of God will rest peculiarly upon him who heeds
this threefold plea. That man is moving in the line of the plan of God.

A little past the midway line of the book, all at once, abruptly, in the
thick of terrible happenings being told, an unexpected voice comes.
Clearly it is the Lord Jesus Himself speaking. It is as though He were
standing by all the time throughout all these pages, watching with a
sleepless concern. Now He speaks out. Listen: "Blessed is he that
_watcheth_," that keepeth ever on the alert against the subtle
temptations, and the compromise that fills the very air, "and _keepeth
his garments_;"[52] sleeplessly, kneefully, takes care that no breath of
evil get into his heart, no taint of compromise stain his life, no
suspicion of lukewarmness cool his personal devotion to the absent
Jesus.

And again, doing sentinel duty at the rear-end, is the same plea.
"Blessed is he that _keepeth the words_ of the prophecy of this
book."[53] Reading, heeding, obeying, watching, living up to, this is
the earnest plea peculiar to this book. Clearly our Lord Jesus desires
earnestly that it be read. And He expects us to understand it. And He
pleads with us to live in the light of what He tells us here.

He that willeth to do shall know what he ought to do. He that doeth the
thing he does know will know more. And that more done will open the door
yet wider into all the fragrance of a strongly obedient life, and into a
clear and clearing understanding of the Lord Jesus Himself.

He that brings his life bit by bit up to the level of the earnest plea
of this special revelation, as bit by bit it opens to him, will find his
understanding of it wonderfully clearing. Obedience is the organ of
understanding. Through it there comes clear grasp of the truth.

A single recent illustration of this comes from Korea, that land that
gives us so much of the romance of missions, as well as so much of its
pathos. Dr. James S. Gale, of Seoul, tells of a Korean who had travelled
some hundred miles to confer with him about Christian things. He recited
to Dr. Gale the whole of the Sermon on the Mount without slip or error.
After this surprising feat of memory, the mi