THE heat is excessive; everyone is complaining, except those who have too much to do to think about the weather. In the room where these words are penned, our candles have turned limp, and have bowed over till their wicks are facing the mantel shelf! These limp and overcome composites will give no light! They are overwhelmed by the heat, and for all practical value are disposed of! As they hang down, each one facing and making obeisance to the other, they seem to say to the writer, “If you require light in such melting weather as this, you must find some more solid stuff to give it than we are made of―we are exhausted; we have given up all ideas of future usefulness, and therefore we cannot give you light.”
Whether there is anything specially weak about our composites we cannot tell, but their condition is a parable to us, saying, “Do not give up light-giving because of the furnace; let not sorrow and distress so melt your heart that the purpose for which you are left in this world is missed by you, and thus, instead of seeing your good works and glorying your Father who is in heaven, men say of you—See that Christian, he is as much under the power of circumstances as a man of the world; he says he has a Father in heaven, but he does not look like one who believes in a Father’s love.”