THE MINISTRY OF PRAISE

PSALM CXV.

HE Lord hath been mindful of us : He will bless us." In that joyful assurance there is both retrospect and prospect. There is the trodden path

way of Providence, and there is the star of hope! The eyes are steadied and refreshed in sacred memories, and then they gaze into the future with serene and happy confidence. And so the Ebenezer of the soul becomes both a thanksgiving and a reconsecration.

Now perhaps our hopes are thin because our praises are scanty. Perhaps our expectations are clouded because our memories are dim. There is nothing so quickens hope as a journey among the mercies of our yesterdays. The heart lays aside its fears amid the accumulated blessings of our God. Worries pass away like cloudlets in the warmth of a summer's morning. And the recollections of God's goodness always make summer even in the wintriest day.

Now I see why the New Testatment is so urgent in the matter of praise.

Without praise many other virtues and graces cannot be born. Without praise they have no breath of life. Praise quickens a radiant company of heavenly presences, and among them is the shining spirit of hope.

THE DISTINCTION OF BEING
RECOGNIZED

JOHN X. 1-18.

HE Good Shepherd knows His sheep, and knows them by name. And that is what I am tempted to forget. I think of myself as one of an innumerable multitude, no one of

whom receives personal attention. My way is overlooked by my God." But here is the evangel -the Saviour would miss me, even me!

At a great orchestral rehearsal, which Sir Michael Costa was conducting, the man who played the piccolo stayed his fingers for a moment, thinking that his trifling contribution would never be missed. At once Sir Michael raised his hand, and said: "Stop! Where's the piccolo?" He missed the individual note. And my Lord needs the note of my life to make the music of His Kingdom, and if the note be absent He will miss it, and the glorious music will be broken. and incomplete.

There is a common vice of self-conceit, but there is also a common vice of excessive selfdepreciation. "My Lord can do nothing with me!" Yes, my Lord knows thee and needs thee! And by the power of His grace thou canst accomplish wonders!

SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT

"My sheep hear My voice!"-JOHN x. 19-30. HIS is spiritual discernment. We may test our growth in grace by our expertness in detecting the voice of our Lord. It is the skill of the saint

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to catch the still small voice" amid all the selfish clamours of the day, and amid the far more subtle callings of the heart. It needs a good ear to catch the voice of the Lord in our sorrows. I think it requires a better ear to discern the voice amid our joys! The twilight helps me to be serious; the noonday glare tends to make me heedless.

"And they follow Me!" Discernment is succeeded by obedience. That is the one condition of becoming a saint-to follow the immediate call of the Lord. And it is the one condition of becoming an expert listener. Every time I hear the voice, and follow, I sharpen my sense of hearing, and the next time the voice will sound more clear.

"And I give unto them eternal life." Yes, life is found in the ways of a listening obedience. Every faculty and function will be vitalized when I follow the Lord of life and glory. "In Christ shall all be made alive."

My Saviour, graciously give me the listening ear! Give me the obedient heart.

FALSE SHEPHERDS
EZEKIEL Xxxiv. 1-10.

HIS word of the Lord puts before me
the unlovely lineaments of the false
shepherds.

They are self-seeking. They

"feed themselves," but they "feed not the flock." They take up religion for what they can make out of it! It is a carnal ambition, not a holy service. It is used for getting, not for giving, for self-glorification and not for selfsacrifice. It is selfishness masquerading as holiness, the thief in the garb of the shepherd.

And, therefore, the false shepherds are devoid of sympathy. "The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick." Selfishness always tends to benumbment. Humaneness is fostered by sacrifice. Our sympathetic chords are kept refined by chivalrous deeds. Drop the deeds and all our refinements begin to coarsen, and we make no response to our brother's cries of need and pain.

And because there is no sympathy there is no quest. "My sheep wandered . . . and none did seek after them." How can we seek them if we have never missed them, if we have no sense that they are lost? Our Lord came in travail of soul to seek that which was lost." And I must share His travail if I would share in the search.

THE LOST SHEEP

EZEKIEL Xxxiv. 11-19.

|ND now, again, I am bidden to contemplate the gracious ministries of the Good Shepherd.

The Good Shepherd searches the "far country" for His lost sheep. "I will bring them . . . out of all places where they have been scattered." He goes into the hard wilderness of cold indifference, and wasteful pride, and desolating sin, searching "high and low" for His foolish sheep. And no place is unvisited by the Great Seeker! Every perilous. ravine, where a sheep can be lost, knows the footprints of the Shepherd. And He knows my far-country, and He is seeking me!

And the Good Shepherd brings His wandering sheep back home. "I will bring them... to their own land." We return from the land of pride to the home of lowliness, from hard indifference to gracious sympathy, from the barrenness of sin to the beauty of holiness. We come back to God's beautiful "lily-land" of eternal light and peace.

And what nutriment the Good Shepherd provides for the home-coming sheep! "I will feed them in a good pasture." Our wasted powers shall be renewed and strengthened by the fattening diet of grace. Love shall be both host and meat! "He will satisfy thy mouth with good things."