For their sakes I consecrate Myself.
John xvii. 19 (R. V. margin).

THE thought may help us in regard to all the temptations of our life, even the most hidden and solitary. It may help us to do battle with our despondency and sadness, with our restlessness and resentment, with the perverting and corrupting misery of ambition. We must be watchful and uncompromising, if the self-consecration is to do its work. One sin alone indulged, condoned, domesticated, may spoil it all; may cripple all our hope of helpfulness ; may baiBe the willingness of God to use us in His work for others. “For their sakes I consecrate myself.”  This, then, is our constant hope, that God will so cleanse and purify our hearts that they may not hinder the transmission to others of that light and truth which issue from His Presence. For that hope we would cast out all that defiles and darkens us; we would freely give ourselves to Christ, that He may enter in and rule and animate us; so that, through all our unworthiness, something of His brightness and peace may be made known to men.
Francis Paget.

Did I but live nearer to God, I could be of so much more help.
George Hodges.