It was out of the common thing that the precious thing was brought; and it is out of the common things of daily life, presented obediently to Jesus and laid at His feet, that He brings His own glorious gifts, so that our whole lives become one great sacrament.--_W. Hay Aitken._ =September 10th.= _In the daytime . . . He led them with a cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. Psa. lxxviii. 14._ My day is my prosperity; it is the time when the sun of fortune is bright above me, and, therefore, it is the time when I need a shade. If my sunshine were not chequered I would forget Thee, O my God. But I have nights to meet as well as days. The night is my adversity; it is the time when the sun of fortune has gone down behind the hills, and I am left alone, and then it is, O my Father, that I need the light of Thy fire! My light of fire for the night is the vision of Calvary--the vision of Thy love in the Cross. I need the light of Thy fire "_all_ the night."--_George Matheson._ =September 11th.= _Now are we the sons of God: and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 1 John iii. 2._ "Now are we the sons of God." That is the pier upon one side of the gulf. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be, but when He shall appear we shall be like Him." That is the pier on the other. How are the two to be connected? There is only one way by which the present sonship will blossom and fruit into the future perfect likeness, and that is, if we throw across the gulf, by God's help day by day, the bridge of growing likeness to Himself, and purity therefrom.--_Alex. McLaren._ =September 12th.= _Behold, we go up to Jerusalem. Matt. xx. 18._ Never had there been such a going up to Jerusalem as that which Jesus here proposes to His disciples. He goes up voluntarily. The act was not enforced by any external compulsion. Jerusalem might at this time have been avoided. It was deliberately sought. It was a going up to a triumph to be reached through defeat, a coronation to be attained through ignominy and humiliation. O believer, in your walk through the world to-day, be strengthened, be comforted, be inspired, by the spectacle of the Captain of your salvation thus going up to Jerusalem! And remember, in all those apparently _downward_ passages of life, where sorrow, and it may be death, lie before you, that all such descents, made or endured in the Spirit of Jesus, are really _upgoing_ steps, leading you to the mount of God and the resurrection glory.--_J. B. Stratton._ =September 13th.= _These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work. 1 Chron. iv. 23._