CHRISTIAN PROGRESS.

VOL. VII.]

NOVEMBER, 1882.

[No. 11.

Where is the Guest-chamber?

"THE MASTER

By Sophia M. Nugent.

SAITH UNTO THEE, WHERE IS THE GUESTCHAMBER, WHERE I SHALL EAT THE PASSOVER WITH MY DISCIPLES?"—Matt. xxvi. 18; Mark xiv. 14; Luke xxii. 11.

IT is my Lord's question to me to day-" Where is the guest-chamber?" He has sent His disciples to say it, but it is His own question, and as one of His sheep I know His voice. It is "the Master" who saith.

He saith, "Where?" I know now where it is. My guest-chamber is the best part of my being, He has been in my heart, and now He claims the place of honour. Shall I refuse it to Him? How can I? It is the Master who asks, and He might claim it and occupy it without asking me at all. But there is no compulsion with Him, until He sees that there is no other way of gaining His rights in me. He leaves it to my free will to open the door, and then to leave it open, free to His use. Can I disappoint such trustful love? By sending me that message He owns me as His servant, and I rejoice at that. Yes, my Master, "according to Thy Word, I am Thine, and all that I

have "-come in. Say of me, as of him of old, “He will shew you a large upper room." Didst thou know beforehand of me that I should make no hesitation, but shew at once what I had to give? Thank Thee for trusting me like this, blessed Lord Jesus.

Am I quite sure He means me? "The Master saith unto thee," He sends the message to the one who has a guest-chamber, and who has been furnishing and preparing in expectation of His fuller coming. He tells me, too, that He has known this, for part of His message was "The Master saith, My time is at hand." He knew quite well that I had had my heart and my hope fixed on His time, and that I was watching for more than I had seen of Him yet, that I was wishing for nearer fellowship and for further possession by Him. He knew He had my heart, and soon I found that He must have my intellect as well, and that made me "furnish and prepare," that so when He came He should find plenty of materials under His hand to use as He pleased. And now His time is at hand, and He comes; and I cannot thank Him enough that He saw that the place was ready for Him, and that now He will begin to use all the faculties which I had been preparing. I am glad it is a "furnished" guest-chamber which He will occupy. It is all of His grace that it is, for it was His love first made me His own, and the answering love in my heart was His doing also, for it was shed abroad there by the Holy Ghost. And so the spur to furnish and have the place ready for whatever He might choose to make of it is all His. All, all is Thine, my Master!

the love, the guest-chamber, the impulse to furnish it, the longing and watching for Thee to come!

What will He do in it when He comes? I am sorrowfully ashamed to think what I thought once about it-that though my heart might be His, it was rather a risk to give Him up the guest-chamber, the place of honour, the choice spots, because He might come in and spoil the goods, and scatter my treasures, and empty and destroy, and I did not think that He could find any use for learning and cultivation, and that it would be such a bare, denuded room if He occupied it. Oh, strange and shameful! Of course He will destroy and banish what comes between Him and me, and what fills His space; but when love is at the heart of the furnishing, and when I prepare faculties for Him to use, then He comes in and glorifies Himself in them, and makes use of everything. The pitcher of water has gone in “ and wherever there is the water of the Word, the Word Himself follows."

Where He lays claim to what love has prepared for Him, He comes to feast! He makes a supper in the room. He does not only give His disciples food, but He feasts Himself. When I think of it, “ my cup runneth over." He prepares a table for mc, and anoints me with the oil of joy by allowing my poor preparations to be a pleasure to Him, and by making from my furnishing His feast. My Lord, I have caused Thee tears enough; I give Thee a feast tonight. Come in and make Thine own feast out of my willing offering of what is Thine. It is blessed of Thee to let me surrender to Thee voluntarily

what Thou mightest well have taken forcibly, and it is glorious to find that I can minister to the fulfilling of Thy "desire," and Thou canst say in me, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with Thee." Thank Thee, Lord, for not letting me disappoint Thy desire.

He does more than feast, He makes a Passover there. He brings me into what I have been yearning to reach "the fellowship of His sufferings." I do not know all it means yet, but I see that where I surrender and give up the room to Him to do what He likes in, that He does begin to teach me what death with Him means, and that He lets me partake it with Him experimentally. He makes me one with Him in His Death, and one with Him in His Life. It is too high for me, I cannot attain unto it; but I can accept, and as I accept, it becomes true to me.

And so the yielded guest-chamber becomes the place of joy and feast over remembered rescue; the place of sharing with him His death; the place of proving that in the breaking is blessing, and that where He breaks He blesses; it is the place of feast to Him; it is the place of communion with Him and His disciples; it is the place of song led by His voice. But I may not forget that it is the place of loving warning also-" One of you shall betray Me," for my Master shields as well as feasts: and He knows that after baptism and communion comes temptation, so His fore-sighted love fore-arms me.

How may I know whether the guest-chamber is not yielded? By the absence of joy, by the absence of communion with Him, by there being no fellowship

with His children, by no song, no feast, no audible blessing, and no care to share in His death!

Oh, prepare and furnish but for Him, and He will come. To-day He is again watching for one to whom He shall say, "The Master saith unto thee, My time is at hand. Where is the guest-chamber, where I shall eat the passover with My disciples?"

Negatives in the Book of Proverbs.

PROV. iii. 11-27.

By E. Jane Whately.

(Continued from page 187.)

OUR next negative is one of quite a different nature. It is the same as the one we afterwards find reproduced in the Epistle to the Hebrews, " Despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him."

This precept shows us two wrong ways of meeting trouble; the commonest is the last mentioned-the fainting, or growing weary under trial. It is the ordinary way in which the world meets sorrow and pain; and too often real Christians, if not on their guard, will allow themselves to be as utterly crushed by affliction as if they did not believe themselves to be in the hands of a wise and loving Father.

We have to keep in mind, however, that we are very liable to judge our neighbours harshly and unjustly on this point. We may hastily conclude that another is "fainting," or simply giving way under the pressure of affliction, when perhaps the natural temperament, or the peculiar circumstances may be such that he is really making a far greater effort to bear up than another differently constituted who seems more courageous.