Then, “although the fig-tree may wither and no fruit appear in the vines, the labor of the olive fail and the fields yield no increase, the herd be cut off from the stall, and the cattle from the field, yet we will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of our salvation.” “Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round, On Jesus’ bosom naught but calm is found; Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown, Jesus we know, and He is on the throne.” MARCH 1. “Wait on the Lord” (Ps. xxvii. 14). How often this is said in the Bible, how little understood! It is what the old monk calls the “practice of the presence of God.” It is the habit of prayer. It is the continued communion that not only asks, but receives. People often ask us to pray for them and we have to say, “Why, God has answered our prayer for you, and you must now take the answer. It is awaiting you, and you must take it by waiting on the Lord.” This it is that renews the strength, until we mount up with wings as eagles, run and are not weary, walk and are not faint. Our hearts are too vast to take in His fulness at a single breath. We must live in the atmosphere of His presence till we absorb His very life. This is the secret of spiritual depth and rest, of power and fulness, of love and prayer, of hope and holy usefulness. “Wait, I say, on the Lord.” I am waiting in communion at the blessed mercy seat, I am waiting, sweetly waiting, on the Lord; I am drinking, of His fulness; I am sitting at His feet; I am hearkening to the whispers of His word. MARCH 2. “That good thing which was committed unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost” (II. Tim. i. 14). God gives to us a power within which will hold our hearts in victory and purity. “That good thing which was committed unto thee, keep by the Holy Ghost which dwelleth in us.” It is the Holy Ghost; and when any thought or suggestion of evil arises in our breast, the quick conscience can instantly call upon the Holy Ghost to drive it out, and He will expel it at the command of faith or prayer, and keep us as pure as we are willing to be kept. But when the will surrenders and consents to evil, the Holy Ghost will not expel it. God, then, requires us to stand in holy vigilance, and He will do exceeding abundantly for us as we hold fast that which is good, and He will also be in us a spirit of vigilance, showing us the evil and enabling us to detect it, and to bring it to Him for expulsion and destruction. “O Spirit of Jesus fill us until we shall have room only for Thee!” O, come as the heart-searching fire, O, come as the sin-cleansing flood; Consume us with holy desire, And fill with the fulness of God. MARCH 3. “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous but grievous; nevertheless afterward” (Heb. xii. 11). God seems to love to work by paradoxes and contraries. In the transformations of grace, the bitter is the base of the sweet, night is the mother of day, and death is the gate of life.