Is there not work waiting for us--work that no one else can do--work, too, that the Master has promised to help us perform? Shall He come and find that we still sleep? Or shall the Son of Righteousness, when He appears, find us waiting, as that painter waited, looking and longing for the first gleam of day? Surely those of us who thus wait on the Lord shall renew our strength, and, eagle-like, rise to greet the Sun.--_Thomas Champness._ =September 6th.= _The church of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood. Acts xx. 28._ Surely He may do what He will with His own. The price He has paid to make them His own is a sufficient guarantee that He will never make light of anything in which their welfare is at all concerned. We are precious to Him by the virtue of the blood which He has shed for us, and for Him to be found at any time wanting in solicitude for our happiness would be for Him to treat that blood of His as the sinners of this world treat it. The persuasion of Christ's love must be graven in our hearts so deeply that no semblance of indifference on His part will ever make the slightest impression upon us. This is the victory which overcometh the world.--_George Bowen._ =September 7th.= _The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost. Rom. xv. 13._ In spiritual as in earthly things there is great strength in hope, and, therefore, God's people are carefully to cultivate that grace. A well-grounded hope that, having been made new creatures in Jesus Christ, we are His; that with our names, though unknown to fame, written in the Book of Life, we have grace in possession and heaven in prospect; that after a few more brief years, pure as the angels that sing before the throne, we shall be brought with gladness into the palace of the King, to be like Christ and with Christ, seeing Him eye to eye and face to face--such hopes are powerful springs of action.--_Guthrie._ =September 8th.= _He asked life of Thee, and Thou gavest it him, even length of days or ever and ever. Psa. xxi. 4._ When poor men make requests of us we usually answer them as the echo does the voice--the answer cuts off half the petition. We shall seldom find among men Jael's courtesy, giving milk to those that ask water, except it be as this was, an entangling benefit, the better to introduce a mischief. There are not many Naamans among us, that, when you beg of them one talent, will force you to take two; but God's answer to our prayers is like a multiplying glass, which renders the request much greater in the answer than it was in the prayer.--_Bishop Reynolds._ =September 9th.= _This beginning of miracles did Jesus. John ii. 11._