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The eyes of self-forgetfulness are clear. They penetrate the secrets wonderfully. I hope our pretty schoolgirls will remember that nothing is so blind as vanity.

THEN, lastly, we should observe that the king's honours must not keep us from our duty. Mordecai was led in triumph through the streets; the horse he rode was royally caparisoned; he was robed in one of the king's robes of state; he was proclaimed as the man whom the king delighteth to honour. Every roof was crowded, every window was thronged, from every lane and alley the folk came pouring, as Mordecai rode in state through Shushan. And then? 'Mordecai came again to the king's gate' (v. 13). He went right back to the place where his duty was. No crowds, or cheering, or pageantry, or show, could keep this brave man from the post of duty. Now, our King may honour us in many ways. He may give us great strength or very signal talents. Above all, He may so illuminate our hearts, that we may 'For us to live, is Christ.' But whatever the favours be, our post is still our post. Remember Mordecai and

say,

the gate. God in His love crowns us with glory and honour, but the honour must not keep us from our duty.

FORTY-FOURTH SUNDAY

Evening

PHILIP AND THE ETHIOPIAN

Passage to be read: Acts viii. 26-40.

HILIP was in the full tides of work for Christ, when

PHIL

the message came from God that he must leave it. He had been preaching in Sebastè, the old city of Samaria, and his preaching had been crowned with

wonderful success, when suddenly there came the angel of the Lord with this summons to get southward towards Gaza. It was a strange command, swiftly and well obeyed. There was nothing of the spirit of Jonah about Philip. Perhaps Philip remembered Jesus in the desert, and thought he was going to meet his Master there. Then came the hour when the chariot rolled by. It was a very picturesque and lordly equipage. Its occupant was the chancellor of the Nubian exchequer, and he was reading aloud, as the Eastern custom is. A few broken syllables fell on Philip's ear in the brief respites of the jolting and the jarring, and Philip (to whom the Old Testament was doubly precious now) recognised the priceless chapter of Isaiah. Did he remember the prophecy of the psalms, Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God?' Here was the stretched-out hand of Ethiopia, and God had so ordered it that it was not stretched in vain. Philip ran up to the side of the chariot -it was going very slowly on that rough desert road. He asked the courtier if he understood the chapter. The answer came, 'How can I, without a guide?" And the passage closes with the preaching of a Saviour; and with the conversion, and the baptism, and the joy, of this true seeker from afar for God.

NOTE then the value of a single soul. It must have seemed very strange and dark to Philip that he should be summoned from his Samaritan work. The tide was with him; enthusiasm was heightening; vast crowds were moved by the preaching of Christ crucified. It would have been hard to leave all that through sickness; it was doubly hard to do it when well and strong. Could no one else be found for that desert work? Was it right to leave the thousands in Samaria for the single chariot of a southern courtier? I am sure that Philip had many a thought like that, for he was a man of like passions with ourselves. Then gradually it would grow very clear

to him that a single soul must be very dear to God. He would remember how the shepherd had left the ninety and nine, that the one sheep in the desert might be found. From that hour on to the day he died, Philip held fast, in all his work for Christ, to the infinite worth, in the eyes of Christ, of one. We must never forget that in a busy city. Where God is, we are not lost in any crowd. We are separately precious and separately sought. In the love of Jesus we all stand alone. One by one we are found, and led, and humbled, till the day break and the shadows flee away.

AGAIN, observe that the earnest do not despair when disappointed. There is something very noble in this courtier. There is a touch of true greatness in the man. In a heathen court, and with everything against him, his life had grown into a great cry for God. Somehow, he had got his hands on the Old Testament. Never a Jewish trader came to Meroë but the chancellor had earnest converse with him. Until at last nothing would ease his heart but the resolve to journey to Jerusalem. The Temple was there, and the priests and scribes were there-would he not learn all that he craved for, there? And now he is returning homeward, a weary, baffled, disappointed man. He had craved for bread, they had given him a stone. He had cried, like Luther when he first saw Rome, 'Hail, Holy City'; and the holy city had brought no solace to him. How many a man, in such a disappointment, would have cast his Scripture to the winds of heaven? But the eunuch was of another mould than that. His was too great a heart to nurse despair. He must still seek, he must still read, he must still study. He was deep in Isaiah on that desert road. And it was in that hour, when his journey seemed so useless, and his hope was quenched and his heart was sick and weary-it was then that he stepped into the light of Christ. We must remember there are disappoint

ments in all seeking. There come times when we all seem baffled in our quest. We are tempted to ask, What is the use of it? Is it worth while? Had we not better give in? We are often brought to the point of losing heart. In such moods recall the Ethiopian. He would still hold to it spite of all failure. And on the day when everything seemed vain, the footsteps of the dawn were on the hills.

THE

HEN lastly, God is behind many a chance meeting. I think that the driver of this Nubian chariot was not a little startled to see Philip; it was an unlikely place to light on any traveller. And when he got home to the stables of his master, and told the story by the fire of a night, all would agree that this accidental meeting had been one of the strange chances of the road. But we know that the meeting was not that. The hand of God had ordered and prepared it. It had been arranged for in the plans of heaven, though it seemed an accident to the dusky charioteer. We must believe that it is often SO. Our friendships and comradeships do not begin haphazard. We seem to be thrown across each other's path, but the hand of God has been ordering the way. Two people meet-we call the meeting chance. But life will be different evermore for both. It were well to strike out chance from our vocabulary, and in its place to put the will of God.

FORTY-FIFTH SUNDAY

Morning

HAMAN'S OVERTHROW

Passages to be read: Esther vii. 1-10; viii. 1-17.

WHEN

HEN the second day's banquet was spread, and the king and Haman were reclining at it with Esther, the king for the third time begged Esther to tell him the request she wished to proffer. It was a moment of supreme importance for Esther. The lives of thousands were hanging in the balance. The hour of opportunity was come; if it was not used, everything was lost. So Esther declared her nationality; and she reminded the king of the approaching massacre. Haman doubtless had urged it most plausibly once; it looked very different as told by Esther. So different that the King did not recognise it, and demanded in passion who was the author of this. Then Esther pointed to Haman at the table, and in an instant it all flashed back on Xerxes. He remembered the mandate he had so rashly signed, probably in an hour of drunken recklessness. And he rose from the feast, and went out to the garden (how differently from another King who did that!) tortured with the remembrance of his folly, and of the craft that had taken him unawares. Esther and Haman were now left alone, and Haman knew he had only one chance of life. He flung himself down at Esther's feet, as she lay reclining on her pillows at the table, and begged her passionately to have mercy on him. Just then the king came in; he pretended to misinterpret

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