bolize the affections of the Christ-believing heart. It had no songs of love and joy to sing in praise unto God till after its great saving change, when it passed from death unto life and from winter into spring. But the really trustful heart is full of gratitude and gladness. It warbles forth its love-songs and joy-notes unto God, and exclaims, 'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise.' The worldling sings that he may be happy, but the true Christian sings because he is happy. His happiness is a profound and ever-deepening blessedness. Love is in the heart of it, and love is the fountain of all genuine joy and peace, and the soul of all true praise. The loving heart must worship, just as the bird must sing. Christians delight to praise, ay! and they can bless God at all times and in all circumstances, having this sweet assurance that their worship is well pleasing unto Him, and that all His providential dealings with them shall be made the ministers of grace to their higher nature. The time of the singing

of souls is come. Their affections warble in the bosom, in the joyous springtime of their new life. The joy which inspires their praise is both Divine

and human; it is at once a measure of God's joy within them and also their own joy. It is the joy of love-love to God and love to men, and it, too, will find its final Home and Heaven in the attainment of the union of a perfect affinity with another, without which no true love can ever be satisfied. Every redeemed soul will enter into the fulness of spiritual union with Christ and God in Him; into social union with the blood-washed Brotherhood, and into counterpartal union with its Divinely-appointed mate, for in the beginning God made Man, male and female, and united them in marriage, and but for the blighting and disuniting power of sin, their marriage would have been eternal. And in the great future, when sin has been abolished by the redemptive work of Christ, then God's first purpose-which was perfect-will be gloriously restored and everlastingly perpetuated. Every little nest in the woodlands is a symbol of the universe, which is the one Infinite Home of the Divine family, and also a symbol of every separate dwelling or mansion-home in the house of the Eternal Father. In my Father's house are many mansions.'

CHAPTER XVI

THE SUMMER AS A SYMBOL

ALL the products of the earth, which the sunshine and showers of spring quickened into life, continue to grow, through the fervent months of summer. Buds burst into blossoms and set into fruit, and now the fruit is slowly, silently and yet surely developed day by day and month after month, until in the golden glory of the autumn season it hangs in ripened splendour on the drooping bough. In like manner, when the breath of a new spiritual life is Divinely breathed into a believer in Christ, the life ought henceforth It is the desire of God not only to to grow. give life, but to give it more and more abundantly. The new man of the Spirit is first vitalized and then developed in the old man of the flesh, like the vital germ in the core of a seed. And it will grow, just in proportion to the measure that the sunshine of Divine truth

f

and the rain and dew of Divine grace are re

ceived and appropriated.

This new man is the

real man-his own inmost self.

The spirit, and

not the body or the soul, is the highest part of his nature, and its development into all the power and beauty of which it is capable is the supreme salvation which God desires to bestow. The salvation of a man's spirit ensures the ultimate and eternal salvation of his soul and body also. It is therefore a great salvation.' Let it be noted, however, that the large and precious blessings Divinely given to the Christian, are not his salvation; they are only the means of salvation, just as light, heat, and moisture are means of growth to the products of the earth. Salvation is the upbuilding of the Christian himself into Christ. It does not consist in pardon and safety, nor in the possession and enjoyment of peace, hope, and happiness, but in the growth of his higher being into fulness of capacity and power. When this is clearly apprehended, then the intelligent believer will take heed to himself and seek above all things the culture of his spirit. Growth is the law of the Christian life, as of all other kinds of life whatsoever. The

life which is not developed will soon decay. It is a great grief to parents when their children do not grow-when either physically or mentally they are stunted and dwarfed; and what else can it be to the Divine Father when His children fail to appropriate the spiritual sustenance which He has so liberally provided, and consequently do not grow? The spiritual progress of many professing Christians is so small that it is not outwardly perceptible. There are others whose growth is chiefly a thing of the intellect rather than of the heart and life. The gospel to them is more of a philosophy to be studied, or a creed to be believed, than a revelation of saving truth to be appropriated and practised; therefore, while their knowledge is increased, their spiritual life and experience remain undeveloped. While growing in knowledge, they should also grow in grace; the former is a means to the latter. All their reading of God's Word and hearing of Christ's gospel will prove wholly useless, if not worse, unless they are impelled thereby to be more trustful and loving, more humble and holy, more prayerful and useful, more spiritually minded and Christlike.