And this future of perfect conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ and possession of the wonderful inheritance, which, in its riches we cannot grasp now with out finite minds, is rapidly approaching. How soon it may burst upon us! Oh, friends, beloved in the Lord! Do we all enjoy this now in faith? Is it so that the Lord Jesus Christ becomes daily more real and precious to us? Do we live in the power of all this? The Patience of Christ. "BUT the Lord direct your hearts into the Love of God and into the _Patience of Christ_" (2 Thess. iii:5). With these words Paul exhorted the Thessalonian believers. They had many trials and difficulties. They suffered persecutions and were troubled. False alarms had affected their patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. The inspired exhortation puts before their hearts the Patience of Christ. Comfort and joy, encouragement and peace, would surely come to their hearts and strengthen them, if they remembered and entered into the Patience of Christ. And who can describe or speak fully and worthily of the Patience of our blessed Lord! It includes so much. All His moral Glory and Divine perfections are concealed and revealed in this Word. The word patience has a wide meaning. It means more than we generally express by it. Submission, endurance in meekness, waiting in faith, quietness, contentment, composure, forebearance, suffering in calmness, calmness in suffering; all and more is contained in the one word, Patience. And such patience in all its fulness and perfection the Son of God exhibited in His earthly life. Whenever we look in the Gospels, we behold this calm, quiet, restful patience. His whole life here on earth is but a continued record of patience. In patience His childhood was spent, and when in His twelfth year the Glory of His Deity flashed forth we read "He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them." In patience, He whose mighty power had called the universe in existence, toiled on, content in Nazareth, submissive to the Father, till after many years the day would come, when the work He had come to do should be begun and finished. To describe that Patience during His public ministry from Nazareth, where He had been brought up, to Golgotha, would necessitate a close scrutiny of every step of the way, every act and every utterance which came from His holy lips. What discoveries of His Grace and moral Glory we make, if under the guidance of His Spirit we meditate on His life here below. Humility and submission under God, patient waiting on Him, utter absence of all haste, perfect calmness of soul and every other characteristic of perfect patience, we can trace constantly in that wonderful life. What patience is revealed in the forty days in the wilderness, when He hungered and was with the wild beasts (Mark i:13). When Satan tempted Him and asked for stones to be made bread, He exhibited still His patience. In His service, that marvellous service rendered