Part 61 (2/2)

”Without Me ye can do nothing,” not even in the unravelling of the problems which beset and besiege the mind.

If my mental pilgrimage is to be as ”a s.h.i.+ning light s.h.i.+ning more and more even unto perfect day,” I must begin with Jesus, and pay homage to His Kingly and incomparable glory. I must lay my treasures at His feet, ”gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.” Then will He lead me ”into all truth,” and ”the truth shall make me free.”

DECEMBER The Twenty-fourth

_ENTERING IN AT LOWLY DOORS_

”_Unto us a Child is born._”

--ISAIAH ix. 1-7.

How gentle the coming! Who would have had sufficient daring of imagination to conceive that G.o.d Almighty would have appeared among men as a little child? We should have conceived something sensational, phenomenal, catastrophic, appalling! The most awful of the natural elements would have formed His retinue, and men would be chilled and frozen with fear. But He came as a little child. The great G.o.d ”emptied Himself”; He let in the light as our eyes were able to bear it.

”_Unto us a Son is given._” And that is the superlative gift! The love that bestows such gift is all-complete and gracious. And the Son is given in order that we may all be born into sons.h.i.+p. It is the Son's ministry to make sons. ”Now are we the sons of G.o.d,” and we are of His creation.

”Lord, I would serve, and be a son; Dismiss me not, I pray.”

DECEMBER The Twenty-fifth

_CHRISTMAS CHEER_

”_Good will toward men!_”

--LUKE ii. 8-20.

The heavens are not filled with hostility. The sky does not express a frown. When I look up I do not contemplate a face of bra.s.s, but the face of infinite good will. Yet when I was a child, many a picture has made me think of G.o.d as suspicious, inhumanly watchful, always looking round the corner to catch me at the fall. That ”eye,” placed in the sky of many a picture, and placed there to represent G.o.d, filled my heart with a chilling fear. That G.o.d was to me a magnified policeman, watching for wrong-doers, and ever ready for the infliction of punishment. It was all a frightful perversion of the gracious teaching of Jesus.

Heaven overflows with good will toward men! Our G.o.d not only wishes good, He wills it! ”He gave His only begotten Son,” as the sacred expression of His infinite good will. He has good will toward thee and me, and mine and thine. Let that holy thought make our Christmas cheer.

DECEMBER The Twenty-sixth

_DAYBREAK IN THE SOUL_

ISAIAH ix. 1-7.

It is a lonely and a chilling experience to sit in the darkness. And the gloom and the cold are all the more intense when there is death in the house. In such conditions we are in great need of light and fire.

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