_Jesus constrained His disciples to get into a ship. Matt. xiv. 22._ Jesus _constrained_ them to go! One would think that if ever there was the certain promise of success in a mission, it was here. Surely, here, if anywhere, a triumphant issue might have been confidently predicted; and yet here, more than anywhere, there was seeming failure. He sent them out on a voyage, and they met such a storm as they had never yet experienced. Let me ponder this, for it has been so with me, too. I have sometimes felt myself impelled to act by an influence which seemed above me--constrained to put to sea. The belief that I was constrained gave me confidence, and I was sure of a calm voyage. But the result was outward failure. The calm became a storm; the sea raged, the winds roared, the ship tossed in the midst of the waves, and my enterprise was wrecked ere it could reach the land. Was, then, my divine command a delusion? Nay; nor yet was my mission a failure. He did send me on that voyage, but He did not send me for _my_ purpose. He had one end and I had another. My end was the outward calm; His was my meeting with the storm. My end was to gain the harbor of a material rest; His was to teach me there is a rest even on the open sea.--_George Matheson._ =June 12th.= _Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Tim. ii. 15._ Have thy tools ready; God will find thee work.--_Charles Kingsley._ =June 13th.= _Come out from among them, and be ye separate. 2 Cor. vi. 17._ With all the world in his choice, God placed His ancient people in a very remarkable situation. On the north they were walled in by the snowy ranges of Lebanon; a barren desert formed their eastern boundary; far to the south stretched a sterile region, called the howling wilderness; while the sea--not then, as now, the highway of the nations, facilitating rather than impeding intercourse--lay on their west, breaking on a shore that had few harbors and no navigable rivers to invite the steps of commerce. May we not find a great truth in the very position in which God placed His chosen people? It certainly teaches us that to be holy, or sanctified, we must be a separate people--living in the world, but not of it--as oil, that may be mixed, but cannot be combined with water.--_Guthrie._ =June 14th.= _I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land. Gen. xxviii. 15._ "With thee," companionship; "Keep thee," guardianship; "Bring thee," guidance. =June 15th.= _I have set thee . . . that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. Acts xiii. 47._ _Ye shall be witnesses unto me . . . unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Acts i. 8._