that come from Christ by faith. Take them, and call upon the name of the
Lord, And can you refuse His gifts and withhold your praise? You can be
eloquent in thanks to those who do you kindnesses, and in praise of
those whom you admire and love, but your best Friend receives none of
your gratitude and none of your praise. Ignoble silence and dull
unthankfulness--with these you requite your Saviour! 'I tell you that,
if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out!'




A STAIRCASE OF THREE STEPS


'All those that put their trust in Thee ... them also that love Thy
name ... the righteous.'--PSALM v. 11, 12.

I have ventured to isolate these three clauses from their context,
because, if taken in their sequence, they are very significant of the
true path by which men draw nigh to God and become righteous. They are
all three designations of the same people, but regarded under different
aspects and at different stages. There is a distinct order in them, and
whether the Psalmist was fully conscious of it or not, he was
anticipating and stating, with wonderful distinctness, the Christian
sequence--faith, love, righteousness.

These three are the three flights of stairs, as it were, which lead men
up to God and to perfection, or if you like to take another metaphor,
meaning the same thing, they are respectively the root, the stalk, and
the fruit of religion. 'They that put their trust in Thee ... them also