are against me,” let this “word” rebuke the hasty and unworthy surmise. Unerring wisdom and Fatherly love have pronounced all to be “needful.”

My soul, is there aught that is disturbing thy peace? Are providences dark, or crosses heavy? Are spiritual props removed, creature comforts curtailed, gourds smitten and withered like grass?—write on each, “Your Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.” It was He who increased thy burden. Why? “It was needed.” It was He who smote down thy clay idol. Why? “It was needed.” It was supplanting Himself: He had to remove it! It was He who crossed thy worldly schemes, marred thy cherished hopes. Why? “It was needed.” There was a lurking thorn in the coveted path. There was some higher spiritual blessing in reversion. “He ‘prevented’ thee with the blessings of His goodness.”

Seek to cherish a spirit of more childlike confidence in thy Heavenly Father’s will. Thou art not left unbefriended and alone to buffet the storms of the wilderness. Thy Marahs as well as thy Elims are appointed by Him. A gracious pillar-cloud is before thee. Follow it through sunshine and storm. He may “lead thee about,” but He will not lead thee wrong. Unutterable tenderness is the characteristic of all His dealings. “Blessed be His name,” says a tried believer, “He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet” (literally, “equaleth” them), “he equaleth them for every precipice, every ascent, every leap.”

And who is it that speaks this quieting word? It is He who Himself felt the preciousness of the assurance during His own awful sufferings, that all were needed, and all appointed; that from Bethlehem’s cradle to Calvary’s Cross there was not the redundant thorn in the chaplet of sorrow which He, the Man of Sorrows, bore. Every drop in His bitter cup was mingled by His Father: “This cup which Thou givest me to drink, shall I not drink it!” Oh, if He could extract comfort in this hour of inconceivable agony, in the thought that a Father’s hand lighted the fearful furnace-fires, what strong consolation is there in the same truth to all His suffering people!

What! one superfluous drop! one redundant pang! one unneeded cross! Hush the secret atheism! He gave His Son for thee! He calls Himself “thy Father!” Whatever be the trial under which thou art now smarting, let the word of a gracious Saviour be “like oil thrown on the fretful sea;” let it dry every rebellious tear-drop. “He, thine unerring Parent, knoweth that thou hast need of this as well as all these things.”

“THY WORD IS VERY SURE, THEREFORE THY SERVANT LOVETH IT.”

3d Day.

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said”—

“Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”—John xiv. 13.

The Power of Prayer.

Blessed Jesus! it is Thou who hast unlocked to Thy people the gates of prayer. Without Thee they must have been shut forever. It was Thy atoning merit on earth that first opened them; it is Thy intercessory work in heaven that keeps them open still.

How unlimited the promise—“Whatsoever ye shall ask!” It is the pledge of all that the needy sinner requires—all that an Omnipotent Saviour can bestow! As the great Steward of the mysteries of grace, He seems to say to His faithful servants, “Take thy bill, and under this, my superscription, write what you please.” And then, when the blank is filled up, he further endorses each petition with the words, “I WILL do it!”

He farther encourages us to ask “in His name.” In the case of an earthly petitioner there are some pleas more influential in obtaining a boon than others. Jesus speaks of this as forming the key to the heart of God. As David loved the helpless cripple of Saul’s house “for Jonathan’s sake,” so will the Father, by virtue of our covenant relationship to the true Jonathan (lit., “the gift of God”), delight in giving us even “exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think.”

Reader, do you know the blessedness of confiding your every want and every care—your every sorrow and every cross—into the ear of the Saviour? He is the “Wonderful Counsellor.” With an exquisitely tender sympathy He can enter into the innermost depths of your need. That need may be great, but the everlasting arms are underneath it all. Think of Him now, at this moment—the great Angel of the Covenant, with the censer full of much incense, in which are placed your feeblest aspirations, your most burdened sighs—the odour-breathing cloud ascending with acceptance before the Father’s throne. The answer may tarry;—these your supplications may seem to be kept long on the wing, hovering around the mercy-seat. A gracious God sometimes sees it meet thus to test the faith and patience of His people. He delights to hear the music of their importunate pleadings—to see them undeterred by difficulties—unrepelled by apparent forgetfulness and neglect. But He will come at last; the pent-up fountain of love and mercy will at length burst out;—the soothing accents will in His own good time be heard, “Be it unto thee according to thy word!”

Soldier of Christ! with all thine other panoply, forget not the “All-prayer.” It is that which keeps bright and shining “the whole armour of God.” While yet out in the night of a dark world—whilst still bivouacking in an enemy’s country—kindle thy watch-fires at the altar of incense. Thou must be Moses, pleading on the Mount, if thou wouldst be Joshua, victorious in the world’s daily battle. Confide thy cause to this waiting Redeemer. Thou canst not weary Him with thine importunity. He delights in hearing. His Father is glorified in giving. The memorable Bethany-utterance remains unaltered and unrepealed—“I knew that Thou hearest me always.” He is still the “Prince that has power with God and prevails”—still He promises and pleads—still He lives and loves!

“I WAIT FOR THE LORD, MY SOUL DOTH WAIT; AND IN HIS WORD DO I HOPE.”

4th Day.

“Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said”—

“What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”—John xiii. 7.

The Unveiled Dealings.

O blessed day, when the long sealed book of mystery shall be unfolded, when the “fountains of the great deep shall be broken up,” “the channels of the waters seen,” and all discovered to be one vast revelation of unerring wisdom and ineffable love! Here we are often baffled at the Lord’s dispensations; we cannot fathom His ways:—like the well of Sychar, they are