4. Eemember, and let the memory lead to Contrition. Perhaps some man or woman holds the memory of some great lapse from goodness; some young man who for the first time has been tempted to sensuous sin ; some man who may have been led into slippery places in regard to business integrity. Perhaps some one would give a good deal if he or she could forget a certain moment of the past months which makes their cheeks hot yet whilst they think of it. To such comes this word: Eemember. Go into the presence of the black tiling, and get the consciousness of it driven into your heart ; for such remembrance is the first step to deliverance from the load, and to your passing, emanci- pated from the bitterness, into the future that lies before you.
5. And, then, remembrance of God will induce Consecration. What is consecration ? It is giving ourselves into God's hands. It is recognizing Christ as our Master, God as our Leader, and giving our life for His life, our love for His love.
^ How many moments stand out distinct before you as moments of high communion with God ? How many times can you remember of devout consecration to Him ? How many, when — as visitors to the Kiviera reckon the number of days in the season in which, far across the water, they have seen Corsica — you can remember this year to have beheld, faint and far away,
32 REMEMBER ALL THE WAY
" the mountains that are round about " the " Jerusalem that is above " ? How many moments do you remember of consecration and service, of devotion to your God and your fellows ? ^
I am but clay in Thy hands, but Thou art the all-loving Artist.
Passive I lie in Thy sight, yet in my selfhood I strive So to embody the life and the love Thou ever impartest,
That in my sphere of the finite I may be truly alive.
Knowing Thou needest this form, as I Thy divine inspiration, Knowing Thou shapest the clay with a vision and purpose divine. So would I answer each touch of Thy hand in its loving creation, That in my conscious life Thy power and beauty may shine.
Keflecting the noble intent Thou hast in forming Thy creatures ;
Waking from sense into life of the soul, and the image of Thee; Working with Thee in Thy work to model humanity's features
Into the likeness of God, myself from myself I would free.
One with all human existence, no one above or below me; Lit by Thy wisdom and love, as roses are steeped in the morn; Growing from clay to a statue, from statue to flesh, till Thou know me Wrought into manhood celestial, and in Thine image re-born.
So in Thy love will I trust, bringing me sooner or later Past the dark screen that divides these shows of the finite from Thee. Thine, Thine only, this warm dear life, 0 loving Creator! Thine the invisible future, born of the present, must be.^ 1 A. Maclareu. * C. P. Cranch.
The Good Will of a Lifetime.
DEUT.-ESTH. — 3
Literature.
Brooks (P.), The Candle of the Lord, 39.
Mackay (W. M.), Bible Types of Modern Men, 1.
Maclaren (A.), Expositions : Deuteronomy-1 Samuel, 61,
Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 256.
Smellie (A.), In tlie Secret Place, 183.
Taylor (W. M.), Contrary Winds, 200.
Christian World Pulpit, xlvii. 139 (Lees).
34
The Good Will of a Lifetime.
The good will of him that dwelt in the bush.— Deut. xxxiii. i6.
1. Moses had been young and now was old. The words of the text are taken from his benediction, which he pronounced upon the children of Israel as he stood with them on the borders of the promised land. There is something very touching in the reminiscence. The long journey through the desert is over. He has done God's work nobly and successfully. Well may he be proud of this people that he has led up to the threshold of their inheritance. But now his mind is running backward. This crowning of his mission with clear success reminds him of the time when his mission started out in mystery and weakness. He sees again a bush which he once saw by a wayside. He is a young man again, a shepherd keeping his father-in-law's flock on the back side of the desert, by Mount Horeb. He sees once more the bush on fire. He draws near again with unshod feet, and once more in his aged ears he hears the voice out of the bush commissioning him for the great work of his life. With that impulse which we all have felt, that brings up at the close of any work the freshened memory of its beginning, this old man sees the burning bush again as he saw it years before, only with deeper understanding of its meaning, and a completer sense of the love of God which it involved. He looks into the past, and all the mercy that had come in between — all the miraculous food, and the wonderful victories, and the parted waters, and the constant guidance, he sees now, were all certainly involved in that first summons of God which he had once obeyed so blindly ; and when he wants to give his people the benediction that represents to him the most complete and comprehensive love, it is touching to hear the old man go back and invoke " the good will of him that dwelt in the bush."