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Deeper than my consciousness is his insight into my trouble, and his manner as gentle as his intelligence is wise, soft words tenderly spoken, rest for weariness, strength for weakness, comfort for sadness.

In the solitudes of my soul, where no human footstep can tread, he is at home. I can find no chamber so interior and secluded where a grief may hide from him, or a wounded spirit lie tossing without his knowledge and presence. The balm which no human hand could reach me for my secret hurts his wounded hand brings in; the temptation, whose severity I could not make known to any intimate of my earthly fellowships, he foils with his ever-ready skill and power, for I am willing that he should know, and he is more than willing to defend. The weak and wavering will he steadies and rallies and girds with conquering energy.

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He makes all my bed for me in my sickness; comes in with a step that never jars; exacts nothing of effort and action, but only asks peaceful trust; excites no sensitive nerves, but only calms both body and soul; keeps unwearying vigils while he "giveth his beloved sleep; makes every wakeful hour bright with his dear, comforting presence, so that the silent, dark night is a chamber of radiant communion with him, and when my eyes question him of the issue, lays his finger on his lip and smiles till I am satisfied.

And on that lone, last journey, when friend and lover and brother retire from me, he gathers my arm in his, he leads me on through the darkness. I feel no weight of the sable gloom. I feel no fright at unseen awful terrors.

I am with him, and a dawning light paves soon my advancing path, and I see a pearly gate, and I enter a golden street, and my Guide and Friend presents me faultless before the presence of the excellent glory.

Is not this the friendship we want? Can we live without it? Can we die without it? If it were offered, could any heart that was not mad reject it?

scornful lips, but

They gave him his name of old, they spoke the truth, "Friend of publicans and sinners." He stands near us now and makes his gentle overture, "Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you." Will you have his friendship? Will you sacrifice everything else to make him your friend? Take this hymn of trust and make it yours:

"O holy Saviour, Friend unseen,

Since on thine arm thou bidst me lean,
Help me, throughout life's changing scene,
By faith to cling to thee!

Blest with this fellowship divine,

Take what thou wilt; I'll not repine;

For as the branches to the vine

My soul would cling to thee.

Though far from home, fatigued, oppressed,
Here have I found a place of rest,

An exile still, yet not unblest,

Because I cling to thee.

What though the world deceitful prove,
And earthly friends and hopes remove;
With patient, uncomplaining love

Still would I cling to thee.

Though oft I seem to tread alone

Life's weary waste, with thorns o'ergrown,

Thy voice of love, in gentlest tone,
Still whispers, "Cling to me!"

Though faith and hope are often tried,

I ask not, need not aught beside;

So safe, so calm, so satisfied,

The soul that clings to thee!"

XIII.

FAITH'S VENTURES.

BY FAITH ABRAHAM, WHEN HE WAS CALLED TO GO OUT INTO A PLACE WHICH HE SHOULD AFTER RECEIVE FOR AN INHERITANCE, OBEYED; AND HE WENT OUT, NOT KNOWING WHITHER HE WENT. -Heb. xi. 8.

T was a sublime venture in the strength of which

IT

Abraham went forth from Ur of the Chaldees in search of a strange land to be shown him of God. No geography of that unknown country lay before his eye. All the map he had of it was this misty sketch, without features or outlines, in the divine promise, "A land that I will shew thee." His home was in the rich, alluvial pastures of the lower Euphrates. That was his country, the place of his nativity, the place of his kindred and of his father's house. All the pleasantest and all the strongest ties of his life held him fast to that spot. Ancestral associations made the place sacred to his heart. There he himself had lived till he was now seventy-five years old. He was not a young man, standing alone, just beginning the world, and free to strike out whither he would in search of good successes; he was a man of family, with wife and aged father and youthful orphan nephew and a considerable household attached to his

movements and sharing his fortunes. The Canaan toward which the heavenly call bade him journey was at least four hundred miles away. All between was a pathless wilderness; there was no public road along which he might take his domestic tribe, following securely in the track of travellers who had gone before him. Swift streams unbridged, mountain chains with passes unexplored, secluded valleys, the hiding-place of robber bands, and the horrors of desert-life were certain perils to be encountered. And what precisely should be the reward? Something large, but vague.

But Abraham's faith was equal to the test. Ah, he had the strong, sweet comfort of a sure call from God. He knew what voice had spoken to him. There was no doubt about the word of command. That was audibly divine. And he so believed the Promiser that it was easy for him against all dissuasives to obey, or, if not easy, that great faith won the victory.

I think it was well for Abraham that that call was to an unknown future. It would have been a tougher strain upon his faith if he had seen what was to be written of him in the years to come. Doubtless he would still have triumphed, but it would have been after a sharper conflict. The promise that leads him out is this: "I will make of thee a great nation." When he arrives in Canaan, a stranger amid its powerful and populous tribes, the covenanted blessing in its repetition seems to recede. "Unto thy seed will I give this land." He flits about from mountain to mountain and vale to vale, building an altar here and another there, but not

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