What is my stock of godliness? That is one of the test questions. What are my treasures of contentment? What about peace and joy, and hallowed and blessed carelessness? How much pure laughter rings in my life? How much bird-music is heard in the chambers of my heart? Is the note of praise to be found in the streets of my soul? Am I rich in these things or pathetically poor? "By these things men live," and therefore of these things will I make my balance-sheet and reckon up my gains. SEPTEMBER The First _THE VIRTUE OF PROPORTION_ MATTHEW vi. 25-34. I must put first things first. The radical fault in much of my living is want of proportion. I think more of pretty window curtains than of fresh air, more of "nice" wallpaper than of the moving pageant of the skies. I magnify the immediate desire and minimize the ultimate goal. And so "things do not come right!" How can they when the apportionment is so perverse, when everything is topsy-turvy? If I want things to be firm and durable I must revere the Divine order, and must put first things first. "_Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness._" And, therefore, I must seek holiness before success. I am to esteem holiness with apparent failure as infinitely better than success with stain and shame. I must seek character before reputation. The applause of the world must be as nothing compared with the approbation of God. The favouring "voice from heaven" must be sweeter to my ears than the noisy cheers of the crowd. And I must seek righteousness before quietness. The way of disturbance is sometimes the way to peace. I must not be so concerned for a quiet life as for a life that is "right with God." SEPTEMBER The Second _PRAYER AND REVOLUTION_ JOHN iv. 43-54. This miracle began in a prayer. The nobleman went unto Jesus "_and besought Him_." In such apparently fragile things can mighty revolutions be born! "Prayer," said Tennyson, "opens the sluice-gates between us and the Infinite." It brings the frail wire into contact with the battery. It links together man and God. Prayer was corroborated by belief. "_The man believed the word that Jesus spake unto him._" By our faith we cut the channels along which the healing energy will flow. Faith "prepares the way of the Lord." Our faith is purposed to be a fellow-laborer with grace, and, if faith be absent, grace "can do no mighty works." The healing begins with the faith. "_It was at the same hour in which ... he himself believed._" These "coincidences" are inevitable happenings in the realm of the Spirit. When we offer the believing prayer, God's mighty energies begin to besiege the life for which the prayer is made. Mr. Cornaby, the Methodist missionary, declares how conscious he is in far-away China when someone is interceding for him in the home-land! The power possesses him in vitalizing flood! Hudson Taylor's mother shuts herself in a little room to pray, and eighty miles away her son is converted.