July 8 - SATISFIED

"I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness."
—Ps. xvii. 15.

When the morning of eternity breaks, I shall be satisfied.

My senses will. Just now, the eye is not content with seeing, nor the ear with hearing. But aggrandisement awaits my bodily powers. I have hints of it in thrilling moments here, when I catch visions to which others are blind, and listen to voices that summon me away. Are not these harbingers and foregleams of the ultimate dawn ? " My eyes will behold Christ. My ears will be filled with the melody of His tones.

My mind will share the benediction. God holds back from me truth that would be too high and mysterious meantime. He keeps the best cup for the day when I shall quaff it with Jesus in His Kingdom. Hereafter I shall know even as also I am known—as clearly, unerringly, fully, as I myself lie open to my Lord's gaze. What an enlargement it will be for my intellect and thought!

And my memory will have her coronation. I shall drink no Water of Forgetfulness before entering God's Elysium. Still I will recall my sin and misery. But the remembrance will have lost its sting and poison, by reason of the glory that excelleth. The messages of memory will always be good and comfortable, because always she will dwell in the presence of Christ. Her perpetual study will be His salvation and His love.

My conscience, too, will enter into peace. It has been quieted since it saw Jesus bearing my sin in His own body on the Tree. It is growing under His tuition, I trust, in sensitiveness and delicacy and strength. But it is visited yet by alarms, and sometimes it is in dubiety as to its Master's command. Its last fear will vanish, its last problem will be solved, when it walks with the Lamb in white.

My will is certain to reap its ripest fruit. To-day there are fluctuations and disappointments in my believing life ; and, after I have been lifted from the dust to sit with princes, my will too often selects and does what is evil. It is waiting for its estate of perfection in heaven. There, of its own accord, it will forsake sin, and will serve Christ in His Temple. And that is better than "the shady city of palm trees " it lost so long ago.

My heart will be full. Even a Christian's heart has many unrealised yearnings, many broken aspirations. But when I come to the Father, when I see the person of my Saviour and have His endless companionship, when I find and keep my unforgotten dead—it is the heart's uttermost attained, and the heart's harbour made after the stormy sea.

When I awake. Lord Jesus Christ, I shall be satisfied if Thou bid me to some humble door among Thy many mansions. Some sheltering shade where sin and sorrow cease.