life is the indorsement of the lips. It makes the words of the lips more
than they sound or seem. Or, it makes them less, sometimes pitiably less,
little more than a discount clerk ever busily at work. The words ever go
to the level of the life, up or down. Water seeks its level persistently.
So do one's words, and they find it more quickly than the water, for they
go _through_ all obstructions. And the life is the leveler of the words,
up or down.

So far as this second life is concerned a man's lips might be sealed, and
his tongue dumb, but his life in its purity and simplicity, its
unselfishness and sympathetic warmness will ever be spelling out Jesus.
And He will be spelled out so big and plain that the man hurriedly
running, or lazily creeping, or half blind in a cloud of dust, will be
stopping and reading. If there were but more re-incarnations of Jesus how
folks would be coming a-running to Him.

Do you remember that prayer in blank verse of the old Scottish preacher
and poet and saint, Horatius Bonar? He said:

"Oh, turn me, mould me, mellow me for use.
Pervade my being with Thy vital force,
That this else inexpressive life of mine
May become eloquent and full of power,
Impregnated with life and strength divine.
Put the bright torch of heaven into my hand,
That I may carry it aloft
And win the eye of weary wanderers here below
To guide their feet into the paths of peace.
I cannot raise the dead,
Nor from this soil pluck precious dust,