My Saviour, graciously give me the listening ear! Give me the obedient heart. JANUARY the Eighteenth _FALSE SHEPHERDS_ EZEKIEL xxxiv. 1-10. This word of the Lord puts before me the unlovely lineaments of the false shepherds. They are self-seeking. They "_feed themselves_," but they "_feed not the flock_." They take up religion for what they can make out of it! It is a carnal ambition, not a holy service. It is used for getting, not for giving, for self-glorification and not for self-sacrifice. It is selfishness masquerading as holiness, the thief in the garb of the shepherd. And, therefore, the false shepherds are devoid of sympathy. "_The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick._" Selfishness always tends to benumbment. Humaneness is fostered by sacrifice. Our sympathetic chords are kept refined by chivalrous deeds. Drop the deeds and all our refinements begin to coarsen, and we make no response to our brother's cries of need and pain. And because there is no sympathy there is no quest. "_My sheep wandered ... and none did seek after them._" How can we seek them if we have never missed them, if we have no sense that they are lost? Our Lord came in travail of soul to "seek that which was lost." And I must share His travail if I would share in the search. JANUARY The Nineteenth _THE LOST SHEEP_ EZEKIEL xxxiv. 11-19. And now, again, I am bidden to contemplate the gracious ministries of the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd searches the "far country" for His lost sheep. "_I will bring them ... out of all places where they have been scattered._" He goes into the hard wilderness of cold indifference, and wasteful pride, and desolating sin, searching "high and low" for His foolish sheep. And no place is unvisited by the Great Seeker! Every perilous ravine, where a sheep can be lost, knows the footprints of the Shepherd. And He knows my far-country, and He is seeking me! And the Good Shepherd brings His wandering sheep back home. "_I will bring them ... to their own land._" We return from the land of pride to the home of lowliness, from hard indifference to gracious sympathy, from the barrenness of sin to the beauty of holiness. We come back to God's beautiful "lily-land" of eternal light and peace. And what nutriment the Good Shepherd provides for the home-coming sheep! "_I will feed them in a good pasture._" Our wasted powers shall be renewed and strengthened by the fattening diet of grace. Love shall be both host and meat! "He will satisfy thy mouth with good things." JANUARY The Twentieth _THE PASSING OF THE BEAST_ EZEKIEL xxxiv. 23-31.