June 24 — Morning

and the paps which you have sucked. But He said, Yes rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it."-Luke 11:27, 28 It is fondly imagined by some that it must have involved very special privileges to have been the mother of our Lord, because they supposed that she had the benefit of looking into His very heart in a way in which we cannot hope to do. There may be an appearance of plausibility in the supposition, but not much. We do not know that Mary knew more than others; what she did know she did well to lay up in her heart; but she does not appear from anything we read in the Evangelists to have been a better-instructed believer than any other of Christ's disciples. All that she knew we also may discover. Do you wonder that we should say so? Here is a text to prove it: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant." Remember the Master's words-"From now on I call you not servants; for the servant knows not what his Lord dos: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known to you." So blessedly does this Divine Revealer of secrets tell us His heart, that He keeps back nothing which is profitable to us; His own assurance is, "If it were not so, I would have told you." Does He not this day manifest Himself to us as He does not to the world? It is even so; and therefore we will not ignorantly cry out, "Blessed is the womb that bare you," but we will intelligently bless God that, having heard the Word and kept it, we have first of all as true a communion with the Saviour as the Virgin had, and in the second place as true an acquaintance with the secrets of His heart as she can be supposed to have obtained. Happy soul to be thus privileged!