Gideon's Three Hundred.

Personally one's spirit is kept in peace, for truth does not change and Christ does not change, and one can rejoice if there are a few with whom it is possible to walk in the truth while confessing to the universal weakness and failure. We can thresh wheat behind the winepress like Gideon, getting the good out of what the Lord gives us, and in our spirits owning that the Lord alone is our help. He was slow of movement, saw difficulties in the way of his becoming prominent, did not dare to destroy Baal by daytime, but smashed his image under cover of darkness, wanted tokens on his own doorstep, and was granted a further one on the edge of the enemy's camp, and further had to see his large force reduced to one per cent of the original, from thirty thousand odd to three hundred and even then the three hundred going weaponless to the fight, having but a little testimony in the trumpets and a little light in the pitchers, but somehow it pleased the Lord to use the reduced numbers and the weaponless, nameless force to more purpose than all the large number who sought an easier path.

Many secede like the twenty-two thousand who shirked the conflict through fear; others drop out through want of directness of purpose and concentration on the conflict to which they were called, like the nine thousand seven hundred who wished to enjoy to the utmost any mercy that came within their reach. May we, dear brother, go on with God, though we be nameless and weaponless, though we have nothing that men would regard as resource; no one but God. "I will leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the Name of the Lord" (Zeph.).
W. H. Westcott.

Priesthood And Advocacy.

Priesthood is that I may behave well — advocacy is when I do not behave well. Priesthood keeps my heart in constant dependence in my walk — Its exercise is that I may not go wrong — Advocacy is when I have gone wrong.
J. N. Darby.