February 1

"Behold, the eye of the Lord is upon those who fear him, upon those who hope in his mercy; To deliver their soul from death." Psalm 33:18-19.

A FATHER'S eye beaming with tenderness upon a rebellious, wandering child, inviting, welcoming his return—what adamant can resist it? The deepest, bitterest, truest grief for sin is felt and expressed beneath God's eye alone. When the wakeful pillow of midnight is moistened, when the heart unveils in secret to the eye of Jesus, when the chamber of privacy witnesses to the confidential confessions and pleadings of a contrite heart, there is then felt and expressed a sorrow for sin, so genuine, so touching, as cannot but draw down upon the soul a look from Christ the most tender in its expression, and the most forgiving in its language.

Let us always endeavor to realize the loving eye of Jesus resting upon us. In public and in private, in our temporal and spiritual callings, in prosperity and in adversity, in all places and on all occasions, and under all circumstances, oh! let us live as beneath its focal power. When our Lord was upon earth, "a man of sorrows," His eyes were dim with grief; but now that He is in heaven, they are as "a flame of fire,"—to His saints not a burning, consuming flame, but a flame of inextinguishable love. Deem not yourself, then, secluded believer, a banished and an exiled one, lost to all sight. Other eyes may be withdrawn and closed, distance intercepting their view, or death darkening their vision; but the eye of Jesus, your Lord, rests upon you ever, with unslumbering affection. "I will guide you with mine eye," is the gracious promise of your God. Be ever and intently gazing on that Eye—"looking unto Jesus." He is the Fountain of Light; and in the light radiating from His eye you shall, in the gloomiest hour of your life, see light upon your onward way. "By His light I walked through darkness."

"Bend not your light-desiring eyes below,
There your own shadow waits upon you ever;
But raise your looks to Heaven—and lo!
The shadeless sun rewards your weak endeavor.
Who sees the dark, is dark; but turns toward the light,
And you become like to that which fills your sight."

"We all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass , the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."