How different from the false and counterfeit peace in which so many are content to live, and content to die! The world's peace is all well, so long as prosperity lasts--so long as the stream runs smooth, and the sky is clear; but when the cataract is at hand, or the storm is gathering, where is it? It is _gone_! There is no calculating on its permanency. Often when the cup is fullest, there is the trembling apprehension that in one brief moment it may be dashed to the ground. The soul may be saying to itself, "Peace, peace;" but, like the writing on the sand, it may be obliterated by the first wave of adversity. BUT, "Not as the world giveth!" The peace of the believer is deep--calm--lasting--_ever_lasting. The world, with all its blandishments, cannot give it. The world, with all its vicissitudes and fluctuations, cannot take it away! It is brightest in the hour of trial; it lights up the final valley-gloom. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." Yes! how often is the believer's deathbed like the deep calm repose of a summer-evening's sky, when all nature is hushed to rest; the departing soul, like the vanishing sun, peacefully disappearing only to shine in another and brighter hemisphere! "I seem," said Simeon on his deathbed, "to have nothing to do but to wait: there is now nothing but _peace_, the _sweetest peace_." Believer! do you know this peace which passeth understanding? Is it "keeping (literally, '_garrisoning_ as in a citadel') your heart?" Have you learnt the blessedness of waking up, morning after morning, and feeling, "I am at peace with my God;" of beholding by faith the true Aaron--the great High Priest--coming forth from "the holiest of all" to "bless His people with peace?" Waves of trouble may be murmuring around you, but they cannot touch you; you are in the rock-crevice athwart which the fiercest tornado sweeps by. Oh! leave not the making up of your peace with God to a dying hour! It will be a hard thing to smooth the death-pillow, if peace be left unsought till then. Make sure of it _now_. He, the true Melchisedec, is willing _now_ to come forth to meet you with bread and wine--emblems of peaceful gospel blessings. All the "words of Jesus" are so many rills contributing to make your peace flow as a river;--"These things have I spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace." "I WILL HEAR WHAT GOD THE LORD WILL SPEAK, FOR HE WILL SPEAK PEACE UNTO HIS PEOPLE AND TO HIS SAINTS." 20TH DAY. "Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said"-- "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth."--Matt. xxviii. 18. The Supreme Investiture.