^ James Whillans.
200 THE PRACTICE OF ASSURANCE
the Divine Master wished to put the finishing touches to her purification, and thus enable her not only to walk with rapid steps, but to run in her little way of confidence and abandonment. Her words repeatedly proved this. " I desire neither death, nor life. Were Our Lord to offer me my choice, I would not choose. I only will what He wills ; it is what He does that I love. I do not fear the last struggle, nor any pains — however great — my illness may bring. God has always been my help. He has led me by the hand from my earliest childhood, and on Him I rely. My agony may reach the fui'thest limits, but I am convinced He will never forsake me." ^
6. And of what is he persuaded ? That " he is able to guard (A.V. keep) that which I have committed unto him against that day." The word rendered in the A.V. to keep is often used for guarding as armed men do. God, as it were, mounts guard on what we put into His hands. He comes to us in no mere metaphor, but in the deepest reality of the spiritual life, to guard us, to deliver us from our own evil and from outward evils, to be a wall of fire around us, and to keep us "against that day," with all its mysteries and terrors. Our hearts and anticipations go beyond the dark end of life ; and we think of all the mysteries which, though they be magnificences, strike a chill of strangeness into our hearts, and we wonder what is to befall us out yonder in the darkness where we have never been before and about which we know little except that the throne is to be set, and the books opened. St. Paul says to us, " He is able to keep against that day." So guarded in life, shielded from all real evil, preserved from temptation and from snares, brought unharmed through the hurtling of the pitiless storm of death, and shepherded in the fold beyond the flood, the soul that is committed to Him is safe. In that act of giving ourselves utterly up to God, lie the secret of blessedness and the guarantee of immortality. He is not going to lose the treasures committed to His charge. He prizes them too much. His hand will not let the deposit entrusted to Him slip, and He will say at the last what Christ said in the Upper Koom, only with a diverse application, " That which thou hast given me I have kept, and none of it is lost," and our souls will be safe in His hands.
* Somi/r TMr&se of Lisieux, 204.
2 TIMOTHY I. 12 20I
^ What was it that Duncan Mathieson once proposed that they should write upon his tombstone when he died ? It was the one word "Kept." When the grey hairs came on him, and he looked backward over the road he had trod, it was not his prayers, his tears, his toils, that shone conspicuous, though all were there ; it was the keeping power of God. There had been fears within and fightings without ; there had been war unceasing with princi- palities and powers ; dark foes unseen had thronged him and had tempted him, and had sought his overthrow. But he was more than conqueror in Christ who loved him. When a young man he had given himself to Christ. Eight onward from that hour he had been kept.^
Now wilt me take for Jesus' sake,
Nor cast me out at all; I shall not fear the foe awake,
Saved by Thy City wall; But in the night with no affright
Shall hear him steal without. Who may not scale Thy wall of might,
Thy Bastion, nor redoubt.
Full well I know that to the foe
Wilt yield me not for aye. Unless mine own hand should undo
The gates that are my stay ; My folly and pride should open wide
Thy doors and set me free 'Mid tigers striped and panthers pied
Far from Thy liberty.
Unless by debt myself I set
Outside Thy loving ken, And yield myself by weight of debt
Unto my fellow-men. Deal with my guilt Thou as Thou wilt,
And "hold" I shall not cry. So I be Thine in storm and shine.
Thine only till I die.^
1 G. H. Morrison, Th& Oldest Trade in the World, 66. • Katharine Tynan.
The Use of Scripture.
Literature.
Allon (H.), The Indwelling Ch/rist, 123.
Clifford (J.), Daily Strength for Daily Living, 373.
Driver (S. R.), Sermons on the Old Testament, 143.
Giljson (E. C. S.), The Old Testament in the New, 1.
Gray (W. H.), Old Creeds and New Beliefs, 126.
Grimley (H. N.), The Temple of Humanity, 218.
Gutcli (C), Sermons, 214.
Hamer (D. J.), Salt and Light, 219.
Hoare (E.), Great Principles of Divine Truth, 1.
Horton (R. F.), England's Danger, 105.
How (W. W.), The Knowledge of God, 15.
Hutton (A. W.), Ecclesia Discens, 70.
Ingram (A. F. W.), Tlie Call of the Father, 155.
Jefferson (C. E.), Things Fundamental, 105.
Jolin (Griffith), A Voice from China, 145.
Jones (T.), The Divine Order, 83.
Leach (C.), Sunday Afternoons with Working Men, 295.