Try for yourself to-day what was such great and long help to Moses.  Ask God, before you go down-stairs, for faith, “the eye of the soul,” so that you may walk all day long “as seeing Him who is invisible.”  When you are tempted to indulge in something wrong,—­idleness or carelessness, or selfishness,—­this will help you to give it up at once, and forsake it; for how can you give way to it when your eye meets His?  When something makes you afraid, this will make you brave and peaceful; for how can you fear anything when your God is so near?  When lessons, or work, or even having to be quiet with nothing to do, seem very tiresome, and you are tempted to be impatient, and perhaps cross, this will help you to endure and not only so, but to feel patient; for how can you be impatient when you are looking up to Him, and He is looking down on you all the time!

    “God will not leave me all alone,
    He never will forsake His own;
    When not another friend I see,
    The Lord is looking down on me.”

29.  Twenty-Ninth Day.

No Weights.

   “Let us lay aside every weight.”—­Heb. xii. 1.

If you were going to run a race, you would first put down all the parcels you might have been carrying.  And if you had a heavy little parcel in your pocket, you would take that out, and lay it down too, because it would hinder you in running.  You would know better than to say, “I will put down the parcels which I have in my hands, but nobody can see the one in my pocket, so that one won’t matter!” You would “lay aside every weight.”

You have a race to run to-day, a little piece of the great race that is set before you.  God has set a splendid prize before you, “the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” a crown that is incorruptible.

Now what are you going to do about the weights, the things that hinder you from running this race?  You know some things do seem to hinder you; will you keep them or lay them aside?  Will you only lay aside something that every one can see is hindering you, so that you will get a little credit for putting it down, and keep something that your own little conscience knows is a real hindrance, though no one else knows anything at all about it?  Oh, take St. Paul’s wise and holy advice, and make up your mind to lay aside every weight.

Different persons have different weights; we must find out what ours are, and give them up.  One finds that if she does not get up directly she is called, the time slips by, and there is not enough left for quiet prayer and Bible-reading.  Then here is a little weight that must be laid aside.  Another is at school, and finds that he gets no good, but a little harm, when he goes much with a certain boy.  Then he must lay that weight aside.  Another takes a story-book up to bed, and reads it while nurse is brushing her hair, and up to the last minute, and then her head is so full of the story that she only says words when she kneels down, and can not really pray at all.  Can she doubt that this is a weight which must be laid aside?