XVIII.

CHANGES.

Behold, I make all things new!--_Apoc._ xxi. 5.

How easily changes come about under Your hand, O Lord! Noiselessly, almost unnoticed, every hour of the day and night, all the world over, the most stupendous change is taking place--the change of the lowly substance of bread into Your Sacred Body, of wine into Your Precious Blood.

So is it in the world of souls. The most marvellous transformations cost You but a word. _Follow Me!_ And instantly apostle after apostle leaves all and follows You--mind, heart, views, ambitions, the whole aspect of life changed. _Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me?_ And he who had “beyond measure persecuted the Church of God”[52] rises to his feet ready to carry the name of Jesus “before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel”.[53]

With a word You can change _me_. The apathy for spiritual things would go--the dulness of sight, the slowness of heart, the low aims, the weak desires, the feebleness in the conflict with self, the niggardliness in Your service--all these would go. You could draw me within Your attraction; You could make me follow You, not simply through duty or interest, but with the quick step of one to whom Your service is the absorbing interest of life. You could make Yourself so much the need of my soul that it would turn to You as the flowers to the sun for warmth and colour, for growth, for beauty, for its very life. With a word You could work a change such as this. And what is there to hinder it? You are there in the tabernacle, O Sun of Justice, near enough to warm me through and through with Your heat; and oh, how often, did I only desire it, You would come still nearer, entering my very heart to make it live by You!

Say the word that You desire to say more than I to hear. Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth. Say the transforming word each morning over my heart when You stand at the altar and say it over the bread and wine. Say the word that will change the lowliest, the vilest thing of earth _into Yourself_. See my heart, see the hearts of all I love upon the paten, awaiting there Your creative word. Change them from what they are to what You would have them be.

[52] Gal. i.

[53] Acts ix.