communicate to us all needful good.

And so it requires a loving heart on our part, in order to find joy
in such a promise. 'His eyes are as a flame of fire,' and He sees all
men; but unless our hearts cleave to Him and we know ourselves to be
knit to Him by the tender bond of love from Him, accepted and
treasured in our souls, then 'I will see you again' is a threat and
not a promise. It depends upon the relation which we bear to Him,
whether it is blessedness or misery to think that He whose flaming
eye reads all men's sins and pierces through all hypocrisies and
veils has it fixed upon us. The sevenfold utterance of His words to
the Asiatic churches-the last recorded words of Jesus Christ-begins
with 'I know thy works.' It was no joy to the lukewarm professors at
Laodicea, nor to the church at Ephesus which had lost the freshness
of its early love, that the Master knew them; but to the faithful
souls in Philadelphia, and to the few in Sardis, who 'had not defiled
their garments,' it was blessedness and life to feel that they walked
in the sunshine of His face.

Is there any joy to us in the thought that the Lord Christ sees us?
Oh! if our hearts are really His, if our lives are as truly built on
Him as our profession of being Christians alleges that they are, then
all that we need for the satisfaction of our nature, for the supply
of our various necessities, or as an armour against temptation, and
an amulet against sorrow, will be given to us, in the belief that His
eye is fixed upon us. _There_ is the foundation of the truest joy for
men. 'There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift
Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness
in my heart more than in the time when their corn and their wine
abound.' One look _towards_ Christ will more than repay and abolish