The diurnal revolution of the earth brings the joyful sunrise and the pathetic sunset.  The same annual revolution whirls us through the balmy summer days and the biting winter ones.  God’s purpose is one.  His methods vary.  The road goes straight to its goal; but it sometimes runs in tunnels dank and dark and stifling, and sometimes by sunny glades and through green pastures.  God’s purpose is always love, brother.  His withdrawals are gifts, and sorrow is not the least of the benefits which come to us through the Man of Sorrows.

So again, let these thoughts teach us to live by a very quiet and peaceful faith.  We find it a great deal easier to trust God for Heaven than for earth—­for the distant blessings than for the near ones.  Many a man will venture his soul into God’s hands, who would hesitate to venture to-morrow’s food there.  Why?  Is it not because we do not really trust Him for the greater that we find it so hard to trust Him for the less?  Is it not because we want the less more really than we want the greater, that we can put ourselves off with faith for the one, and want something more solid to grasp for the other?  Live in the calm confidence that God gives all things; and gives us for to-morrow as for eternity; for earth as for heaven.

And, last of all, make you quite sure that you have taken the great gift of God.  He gives it to all the world, but they only have it who accept it by faith.  Have you, my brother?  I look out upon the lives of the mass of professing Christians; and this question weighs on my heart, judging by conduct—­have they really got Christ for their own?  ’Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not?’ Look how you are all fighting and scrambling, and sweating and fretting, to get hold of the goods of this present life, and here is a gift gleaming before you all the while that you will not condescend to take.  Like a man standing in a market-place offering sovereigns for nothing, which nobody accepts because they think the offer is too good to be true, so God complains and wails:  I have stretched out My hands all the day, laden with gifts, and no man regarded.

  ’It is only heaven may be had for the asking;
  It is only God that is given away.’

He gives His Son.  Take Him by humble faith in His sacrifice and Spirit; take Him, and with Him He freely gives you all things.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS

   ’Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
   through Him that loved us.’—­ROMANS viii. 37.