Then cometh Jesus with them into a place called Gethsemane [oil press.]--Matthew 26:36

There’s a peaceful vale in a sunny land
Where the hills keep guard around,
And the soft breeze stirs the olive trees
And the grass that clothes the ground.

And in the hush and solitude
Where even the birds are still,
There stands untended and alone
An ancient olive mill.

Through the long bright day the mill wheel turns
And the fruit is crushed by the stone,
And drips in silence the fragrant oil
In silence and alone.

But somewhere out in the circling hills,
Unseen, unheard, unknown,
The Master of the olive mill
Is mindful of his own.

So many hours the wheel must turn,
And stone on stone must grind,
And then he will come to his olive mill,
His need of oil to find.

He knows how heavy the weight must be,
How long to let it lie
Ere he can gather the precious oil
And throw the refuse by.

O child of God, are you being crushed
`Neath trial, pain or woe?
No eye to pity, no ear to hear,
No voice to whisper low?

Alone in your Gethsemane,
Christ watches with you there.
He will not suffer one ounce of weight
More than your strength can bear.

He chasteneth but to purify;
He crusheth but to raise;
In love he worketh his blessed will
To his glory’s endless praise.

In our affliction, afflicted still
He leaveth us not alone;
He will not forget, he will not forsake,
He is mindful of his own.

Annie Johnson Flint

The Servant of the Lord
Must Be Gentle

2 TIMOTHY 2:24

When God conquers us and takes all the flint out of our nature and we get deep visions into the spirit of Jesus, we see as never before the great rarity of gentleness of spirit in this dark and unheavenly world.

The graces of the spirit do not settle themselves down upon us by chance, and if we do not discern certain states of grace, and choose them, and in our own thoughts nourish them, they never become fastened in our nature or behavior. Every advance step in grace must be preceded by first apprehending it, and then a prayerful resolve to have it.

So few are willing to undergo the suffering out of which thorough gentleness comes. We must die before we are turned into gentleness. And crucifixion involves suffering. It is a real breaking and crushing of self which wrings the heart and conquers the mind.

There is a good deal of mere mental and logical sanctification nowadays, which is only a religious fiction. It consists of mentally putting oneself on the altar, and then mentally saying the altar sanctifies the gift, and then logically concluding, therefore, one is sanctified. Such a one goes forth with a gay, flippant theological prattle about the deep things of God. But the natural heartstrings have not been snapped and the Adamic flint has not been ground to powder, and the bosom has not throbbed with lonely surging sighs of Gethsemane. Not having the real death mark of Calvary, there cannot be that soft, sweet, gentle, floating, victorious, overflowing, triumphant life that flows like a spring morning from an empty tomb.

" And great grace was upon them all." — Acts 4:33

From Songs of the Nightingale