Preface

At the request of the Editor of “The Christian World” I have embraced in a volume some of the short devotional pieces which from time to time I have been contributing to that paper. I have been induced to do so by the fact that so many have found them helpful and have made me aware of the benefit they have received. A few minutes will suffice to read any one of these. Each consists of two parts. The first is the suggestion of a thought; the second is the expression of a feeling — either in the form of a vi Preface.

prayer or of an invocation. But I hope that these two parts will never be divided in holy wedlock — that every fresh thought will be tinged with the heart’s emotion, and that every emotion of the heart will be winged by the inspiration of a thought. A devotional book is believed to be a very simple thing. It ought to be the most difficult composition in the world, for it should aim at the marriage of qualities which are commonly supposed to be antagonistic — the insight of the thinker and the fervour of the worshipper. My own conviction has increasingly been that the hours of our deepest devotion are precisely in those moments when we catch fresh glimpses of hidden things.

G. M.

Edinburgh, 1904.