THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES

 
 Itabrs from Ifte SCrrc of lift. 
 
 "Thy word is a lamp onto my feet and a light nnto my path." T*. cxlx., 10
 
 [eate from tjje 8Fm of fife. 
 
 A VERSE OF SCRIPTURE 
 
 WITH 
 
 WORDS OF COMMENT OR ILLUSTRATION, 
 
 FOR 
 
 ag in % fear. 
 
 " Healing leaves 
 Blown from the tree of life." 
 
 VAUOHAW. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 
 
 1122 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 No w York i Bonton i 
 
 5 BKOADWAT. I 141 WASIIINOTOK ST.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by the 
 AMERICAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL UNION, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 S* No books are published by the AMERICAN SUNDAY -SCHOOL 
 UNION without the sanction of the Committee of Publication, consisting 
 of fourteen members, from tlte following denominations of Christians, 
 r/.r.: Baptist, Metfiodist, Congregational, Episcopal, Presbyterian, 
 Lutlieran, and Reformed Dutch. Not mart than three of the members 
 can be of the same denomination, and no book can be published to which 
 any member of the Committee shall object.
 
 JS V 
 
 PEEFACE. 
 
 IT was a custom among the Moravians for 
 the elder brethren and sisters to visit daily 
 every house in the settlement, saluting the in- 
 habitants with a passage of Scripture called 
 "the daily word," a word of warning or of 
 promise, of comfort or of hope. It was the 
 watch-word for the day; and the soldiers of 
 Christ glowed with new ardour as it fell upon 
 their ears. The theme for meditation came 
 with the morning light, and the flame of de- 
 votion was enkindled by the divine message. 
 The manna fell daily for this church in the 
 wilderness. 
 
 Subsequently it became their custom to print 
 this daily word in advance for the year. From 
 this we have derived the idea of our daily text- 
 books. Elizabeth Fry, in the intervals of her 
 public labours, compiled several of these, and 
 found great pleasure in giving them to those 
 whom she casually met in the journey of life, 
 as tokens of her remembrance. 
 
 The present volume, in addition to the daily 
 
 1* 5 
 
 622653
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 word of divine truth, gives words of comment 
 from wise and good men, who have fashioned 
 their lives by these heavenly teachings. Our 
 faith is strengthened as the light comes to us 
 from those radiant stars shining in God's moral 
 firmament. We hear their voices murmuring 
 in the dim corridors of the past and 
 
 " Descending slow, with something heavenly fraught," 
 
 from the serene heights of immortality. Their 
 mighty faith, their keen apprehension of solemn 
 realities, their high aims and noble utterances, 
 rebuke our faltering steps. Holy thoughts 
 welling up from fountains of religious feeling 
 bathe our care-worn brows with their refreshing 
 waters. The electric chain of sympathy and 
 feeling is struck; and we know that we are 
 linked together in the bonds of a redeemed 
 humanity. 
 
 There are leaves in tropical climes so ample 
 that one can sit under their shadow, protected 
 from the fierce beams of the golden day. Even 
 so may we sit under the shadow of these leaves 
 of the Tree of Life, sheltered from the broad 
 glare of this garish world, each leaf spread- 
 ing and growing till it becomes a "pavilion" 
 of refuge and delight.
 
 from fee of Jife, 
 
 JANUARY. 
 1. ALL my springs are in thee. 
 
 Psalm Ixxxvii. 7. 
 
 Prayer for grace doth, as it were, set the mouth 
 of the soul to the spring, draws from Jesus Christ, 
 and is replenished out of his fulness, thirsting after 
 it and drawing from it that way. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Life, like a fountain rich and free, 
 Springs from the presence of my Lord ; 
 
 And in thy light our souls shall see 
 The glories promised in thy word. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 2. There is but a step between me 
 and death. xx . 3 . 
 
 Death comes, not according to the order of 
 nature, but the decree of God. How many in the
 
 8 JANUARY. 
 
 flower of their youth, and strength thought them- 
 selves at as great distance from death as the east 
 is from the west, when there was not the space 
 of an hour between them and death, between them 
 and hell ! The lamp suddenly expires by a blast 
 of wind, when there is plenty of oil to feed it. 
 
 BATES. 
 
 shadow' d form ! hidden face ! 
 
 Thou mak'st no haste approaching me, 
 But day by day, with steady pace, 
 
 Nearer 1 draw to thee. 
 
 3. my God, I trust in thee : let me 
 not be ashamed ; let not mine 
 enemies triumph over me. 
 
 Psalm xxv. 2. 
 
 There is no public action which the world is not 
 ready to scan ; there is no action so private which 
 the evil spirits are not witnesses of: I will endeavour 
 so to live as knowing that I am ever in the eyes 
 of mine enemies. HALL. 
 
 Though hosts encamp around me, 
 
 Firm in the fight I stand : 
 What terror can confound me 
 
 With God at my right hand ? 
 
 MONTGOMERY.
 
 JANUARY. 9 
 
 4. ye of little faith. Matt. vi. so. 
 
 The secret of your weakness is your little faith 
 and little prayer. The fountain is unsealed ; but 
 you only sip a few drops. The bread of life is 
 before youj yet you only eat a few crumbs. 'The 
 treasury of heaven is open j but you only take a few 
 pence. RYLE. 
 
 Impart the faith that soars on high, 
 
 Beyond this earthly strife, 
 That holds sweet converse with the sky 
 
 And lives Eternal Life ! 
 
 JANE TATLOB. 
 
 5. Lord, remember me ! 
 
 Luke xxiii. 42. 
 
 Lord Astley, before he charged at the battle 
 of Edgehill, made this short prayer : " Lord, 
 thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I 
 forget thee, do not thou forget me." 
 
 And when these failing lips grow dumb, 
 
 And mind and memory flee, 
 When thou shalt in thy kingdom come, 
 
 Jesus, remember me ! 
 
 MONTOOMIBY.
 
 10 JANUARY. 
 
 6. I said, I will be wise ; but it was 
 
 far from me. That which is 
 far off and exceeding deep, 
 who can find it out ?' 
 
 Eccl vii. 23, 24. 
 
 All our most laudable endeavours after know- 
 ledge now are only the gathering up of some scat- 
 tered fragments of what was once an entire fabric, 
 and the recovery of some precious jewels which 
 were lost out of sight and sunk in the shipwreck 
 of human nature. STILLINQFLEET. 
 
 These lower works, that swell thy praise 
 
 High as our thoughts can tower, 
 Are but a portion of thy ways, 
 
 The hiding of thy power. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 7. Wherefore God also hath highly 
 
 exalted him, and given him a 
 name which is above every 
 name. P^H. H. 9. 
 
 This is the name which we should engrave on 
 our hearts, and write upon our foreheads, and pro- 
 nounce with our most harmonious accents, and rest
 
 JANUARY. 11 
 
 our faith upon, and place our hopes in, and love 
 with the overflowings of charity and joy and 
 adoration. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Thy mighty name salvation is, 
 And keeps my happy soul above : 
 
 Comfort it brings, and power, and peace, 
 And joy, and everlasting love. 
 
 To me with thy great name are given 
 
 Pardon and holiness and heaven. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 8. And in every work that he began 
 in the service of the house of 
 God, and in the law, and in 
 the commandments, to seek 
 his God, he did it with all his 
 heart, and prospered. 
 
 2 Chron. xxxi. 21. 
 
 I have a work to do daily, with a will to do it 
 and a prayer upon it; and let that work be God's. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light 
 And hope that reaps not shame. 
 
 MlLTOH.
 
 12 JANUARY. 
 
 9: While I live will I praise the 
 Lord : I will sing praises unto 
 my God while I have any 
 
 being. Psalm cxlvi. 2. 
 
 I would not exchange the little, faint efforts I can 
 make towards praising God for all worldly comforts. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Let thy grace, my soul's chief treasure, 
 Love's pure flame within me raise ; 
 
 And, since words can never measure, 
 Let my life show forth thy praise. 
 
 KEY. 
 
 10. For me to live is Christ, to die 
 
 is gain. Philippians i. 21. 
 
 Happiness absolutely consists in such a state of 
 mind that death shall be welcome and life still 
 shall be sweet ; that is, in being equally prepared to 
 improve life or to resign it. FOSTER. 
 
 He is the happy man whose life e'en now 
 Shows somewhat of that happier life to come, 
 
 Content indeed to sojourn while he must 
 Below the skies, but having there his home. 
 
 COWPBR.
 
 JANUARY. 13 
 
 11. Who hath bewitched you, that 
 ye should not obey the truth ? 
 
 Galatians iii. 1. 
 
 How strange and mortifying, that progress in 
 personal religion is so difficult ! that it should not 
 b^ the natural, earnest, and even impetuous, tendency 
 of an immortal spirit summoned to the prosecution 
 of immortal interests ! FOSTER. 
 
 Yet man, fool man ! here buries all bis thoughts ; 
 
 Inters celestial hopes without one sigh ; 
 
 Prisoner of hope, and, pent beneath the moon, 
 
 Here pinions all his wishes ; wing'd by Heaven 
 
 To fly at infinite and reach it there, 
 
 When seraphs gather immortality 
 
 On life's fair tree, fast by the throne of God. 
 
 YOUNO. 
 
 12. Strangers and pilgrims on the 
 earth. Hebrew8 xL 13 
 
 Here thou art but a stranger travelling to thy 
 country where the glories of a kingdom are pre- 
 pared for thee : it is therefore a huge folly to be 
 much afflicted because thou hast a less convenient 
 inn to lodge in by the way. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 2 
 
 \
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 Strangers and pilgrims here below, 
 This earth, we know, is not our place, 
 
 But hasten through the vale of woe, 
 And, restless to behold thy face, 
 
 Swift to our heavenly country move, 
 
 Our everlasting home above. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 13. It is good for me that I have 
 
 been afflicted; that I might 
 learn thy statutes. 
 
 Psalm cxix. 71. 
 
 There is no season so proper for holy counsel and 
 sowing the good seed as when the heart is softened 
 by sorrow and mellowed by affliction. 
 
 LADY LETICE FALKLAND. 
 
 How wretched is the man that never mourn'd ! 
 I dive for precious pearls in sorrow's stream. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 14. Thou fool, this night thy soul 
 
 shall be required of thee. 
 
 Luke xii. 20. 
 
 This sentence is pronounced in heaven against 
 thousands that are now alive, conversant in the 
 vanities and business of the world, eating and drink-
 
 JANUARY. 15 
 
 ing, playing and trading, and all unconcerned as to 
 dying, yet shall breathe their last before to-morrow 
 and their unwilling souls be rent from the embrace 
 of their bodies. BATES. 
 
 Turn, mortal, turn : thy danger know : 
 j* u Where'er thy foot can tread, 
 
 The earth rings hollow from below 
 And warns thee by her dead. 
 
 HEBER. 
 
 15. There is joy in the presence of 
 the angels of God over one 
 sinner that repenteth. 
 
 Luke xv. 10. 
 
 There is no blessed soul goes to heaven but he 
 makes a general joy in all the mansions where the 
 saints do dwell and in all the chapels where the 
 angels sing; and the joys of religion are not uni- 
 vocal, but productive of rare and accidental and pre- 
 ternatural pleasures ; for the music of holy hymns 
 delights the ear, and refreshes the spirit, and makes 
 the very bones of the saint to rejoice. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Come, in your robes of light, 
 
 Ye seraphs, from above, 
 And ye, with heaven all bright, 
 
 Soft Cherubim of love.
 
 16 JANUARY. 
 
 Praise Him whose mighty love 
 
 Shared even death for men, 
 And the bright gates above 
 
 Threw wide for us again! 
 
 16. And it came to pass that the 
 beggar died, and was carried 
 by the angels into Abraham's 
 bosom. The rich man also 
 died, and was buried. 
 
 Luke xvi. 22. 
 
 While pride gathers in the heart, the angel is 
 ever writing in the book, and wrath is ever mantling 
 in the cup. Complain not in the season of woe that 
 you are parched with thirst; ask not for water as 
 Dives asked : you have a warning which he never 
 had. There stand the ever-memorable words of the 
 text, which break down the statcliness of man and 
 dissipate the pageantry of the earth: thus it is 
 that the few words of a God can make the purple 
 of the world appear less beautiful than the mean 
 garments of a beggar. 
 
 My days are shorter than a span ; 
 
 A little point my life appears : 
 How frail at best is dying man ! 
 
 How vain are all his hopes and fears ! 
 
 STEEL*.
 
 JANUARY. 17 
 
 17. The father to the children shall 
 make known thy truth. 
 
 Isaiah xxxviii. 19. 
 
 Holy parents never eat their meal of blessing 
 alone, but they make the room shine like the fire of 
 a holy sacrifice ; and a father's or a mother's piety 
 makes all the house festival and full of joy from 
 generation to generation. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Thus chasten'd, cleansed, entirely thine, 
 
 A flock by Jesus led, 
 The sun of holiness shall shine 
 
 In glory on our head. 
 
 HENKY KIRKK WHITK. 
 
 18. Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep 
 the sleep of death. 
 
 Psalm xiii. 3. 
 
 Like the bird of which travellers tell, that fans its 
 victims with its pinions until their sleep be sound, 
 while it draws the life-blood from their body, so 
 does the world lull into slumber the poor deceived 
 soul, and keep it thus in an unbroken calm even to 
 the solemn moment when it awakes in eternity. 
 
 HENRY BLUNT. 
 B 2*
 
 18 JANUARY. 
 
 Teach me thy love to know, 
 
 That this hew light which now I see 
 
 May both the work and workman show : 
 Then by a sunbeam I will climb to thee. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 19. A good man shall be satisfied 
 from himself. Prov. *iv. 14. 
 
 And conscience undoubtedly is the great reposi- 
 tory and magazine of all those pleasures that can 
 afford any solid refreshment to the soul. For when 
 this is calm and serene and absolving, then properly 
 a man enjoys all things and what is more himself. 
 But it is only a pious life led exactly by the rules 
 of a severe religion that can authorize a man's con- 
 science to speak comfortably to him. It is this 
 that must word the sentence before thjs conscience 
 can pronounce it; and then it will do it with majesty 
 and authority : it will not whisper, but proclaim, a 
 jubilee to the mind ; it will not drop, but pour in, 
 oil upon the wounded heart. SOUTH. 
 
 Holiness on the head ; 
 Light and perfections on the breast ; 
 
 Harmonious bells below, raising the dead, 
 To lead them unto life and rest; 
 
 Thus are true Aarons drest. 
 
 HERBERT.
 
 JANUARY. 19 
 
 20. Are there not twelve hours in 
 
 the day? If any man walk in 
 the day, he stumbleth not, 
 because he seeth the light of 
 
 this World. John xi. 9. 
 
 Every hour comes to us charged with duty, and 
 the moment it is past returns to heaven to register 
 itself now spent. My hours how trifled, sauntered, 
 dozed, sensualized, sinned, away ! ADAM. 
 
 Are there not in the labourer's day 
 Twelve hours, in which he safely may 
 
 His calling's work pursue ? 
 Though sin and Satan still are near, 
 Nor sin nor Satan can I fear 
 
 With Jesus in my view. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 21. Come unto me, all ye that la- 
 
 bour and are heavy laden, and 
 I will give you rest. 
 
 Matt. xi. 28. 
 
 If it were given us at this hour to behold in 
 vision the multitudes in every age who have drank 
 of the well of blessings which is continually
 
 20 JANUARY. 
 
 springing from this inestimable declaration, if our 
 Bibles could retain the pictured shadows of those 
 hosts of sad and sorrowing faces that in the long 
 succession of centuries and the wide variety of 
 Christianized countries have bowed over the page 
 that speaks these words of refreshment, and risen 
 renewed in hope and happiness, truly we might 
 have wherewith to silence the scoffer, a cloud of 
 witnesses to testify that the eye of the Lord is upon 
 them, upon them that hope in his mercy. 
 
 ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 With tearful eyes I look around ; 
 
 Life seems a dark and stormy sea : 
 Yet midst the gloom I hear a sound, 
 
 A heavenly whisper, " Come to me." 
 
 It tells me of a place of rest ; 
 
 It tells me where my soul may flee ; 
 Ah! to the weary, faint, oppress'd, 
 
 How sweet the bidding, " Gome to me" ! 
 
 ANON. 
 
 22. We are confident, I say, and 
 willing rather to be absent 
 from the body and to be pre- 
 sent with the Lord. 
 
 2 Cor. v. 8.
 
 JANUARY. 21 
 
 I can now contemplate clearly the grand scene 
 to which I am going : it appears to my mind very 
 magnificent and very awful : there is no cloud in 
 the prospect. MACLAINE. 
 
 There are crowns and thrones of glory ; 
 
 There the living waters glide ; 
 There the just in shining raiment 
 
 Standing by Immanuel's side. 
 
 EDHESTON. 
 
 23. Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my words shall not 
 
 away. Luke xxi. 33. 
 
 Words convey the mental treasures of one period 
 to the generations that follow ; and, laden with this 
 their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs 
 of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck 
 and the languages of common life have sunk into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Yet still the Lord, the Saviour, reigns, 
 
 When nature is destroy'd 
 And no created thing remains 
 
 Throughout the flaming void. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY.
 
 22 JANUARY. 
 
 24:. Thou wilt keep him in perfect 
 peace whose mind is stayed on 
 
 Isaiah xxvi. 3. 
 
 Thankful for Christ, thankful for every thing, and 
 always in a serene, quiet state of mind. ADAM. 
 
 Oh, why should I have peace ? 
 
 Why, but for that unchanged, undying love 
 "Which would not, could not cease 
 
 Until it made me heir of joys above? 
 
 ANON. 
 
 25. For he looked for a city which 
 hath foundations, whose build- 
 er and maker is God. 
 
 Heb. xi. 10. 
 
 Since we stay not here, being people but of a 
 day's abode, and our age like that of a fly and con- 
 temporary with a gourd, we must look somewhere 
 else for an abiding city, a place in another country 
 to fix our house in, whose walls and foundation is 
 Grod, where we must find rest, or else be restless for- 
 ever. JEREMY TAYLOR.
 
 JANUARY. 23 
 
 We see our distant home, 
 
 Though clouds rise oft between : 
 
 Faith views the radiant dome, 
 And a lustre flashes keen 
 From the new Jerusalem. 
 
 26. Thou art my hiding-place ; thou 
 shalt preserve me from trou- 
 ble; thou shalt compass me 
 about with songs of deliver- 
 ance. Psalm xxxii. 7. 
 
 Unless you can distrust all the influences of his- 
 tory and all the direct testimony of express lan- 
 guage, there is a happiness attainable by the service 
 of Christ which it would be absolute insanity to 
 ascribe to any earthly pursuit. Are all the records 
 of devotional literature a lie, or is the promise of the 
 Lord incapable of fulfilment ? ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 Thou hidden Source of calm repose, 
 
 Thou all-sufficient Love divine, 
 My help and refuge from my foes, 
 
 Secure I am while thou art mine ; 
 And lo ! from sin and grief and shame 
 I hide me, Jesus, in thy name. 
 
 CHARLES WESLET.
 
 24 JANUARY. 
 
 27. If this counsel or this work be 
 of men, it will come to nought : 
 but if it be of God, ye cannot 
 overthrow it. Acts v. 38, 39. 
 
 The gospel is a powerful engine for raising the 
 fallen nature of man ; but then God must have the 
 working of it. ADAM. 
 
 Except the Lord conduct the plan, 
 The best-concerted schemes are vain 
 
 And never can succeed ; 
 We spend our wretched strength for nought : 
 But if our works in thee be wrought, 
 
 They shall be blest indeed. 
 
 ANON, 
 
 28. God is love ; and he that dwell- 
 eth in love dwelleth in God, 
 and God in him. 1 John iv. 16. 
 
 The Christian draws nigh to God as a reconciled 
 father in the faith of Christ, presses on to a com- 
 plete victory over sin, and the glory of the inward 
 man in a pure and perfect heart. God to-day, and 
 what to-morrow ? God. ADAM.
 
 JANUARY. 25 
 
 God only knows the lore of God: 
 Oh that it now were shed abroad 
 
 In this poor, stony heart ! 
 For love I sigh ; for love I pine j 
 This only portion, Lord, be mine, 
 
 Be mine this better part. 
 
 29. A good name is better than pre- 
 cious ointment, and the day 
 of death than the day of one's 
 birth. Ecd. vii. i. 
 
 The acts of a holy religion and a peaceable con- 
 science make us live even beyond our funerals, 
 embalmed in the spices and odours of a good name, 
 and entombed in the grave of the holy Jesus, where 
 we shall be dressed for a blessed resurrection to the 
 state of angels and beatified spirits. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, 
 Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God, 
 Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load 
 
 Of death call'd life, which us from life doth sever. 
 
 Thy works and alms, and all thy good endeavour, 
 Stay'd not behind, nor in the grave were trod, 
 But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, 
 
 Follow'd thee op to joy and bliss forever. 
 
 3 MILTOV.
 
 26 JANUARY. 
 
 30. I count all things but loss for 
 the excellency of the know- 
 ledge of Christ Jesus my Lord. 
 
 Phil. iii. 8. 
 
 The very singleness of the object of his hope has 
 a power to elevate the Christian above the petty 
 concerns of daily life. ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 Then let us sit beneath the cross 
 And gladly catch the healing stream, 
 
 All things for him account but loss 
 And give up all our hearts to him, 
 
 Of nothing think or speak beside : 
 
 My Lord, my Love, is crucified. 
 
 CHAELES WESLEY. 
 
 31. The will of the Lord be done. 
 
 Acts xxi. 14. 
 
 The will of G-od is my pole-star; and, with my eye 
 constantly upon it, I shall be carried safely through 
 fill -*~nns and tempests. ADAM. 
 
 My God, my Father, while I stray 
 Far from my home on life's rough way, 
 Oh, teach me from my heart to say, 
 " Thy will, my God, be done !"
 
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 1. AND herein do I exercise myself 
 to have a conscience void of 
 offence toward God and toward 
 men. Acts xxiv. 16. 
 
 A tender conscience is an inestimable blessing, 
 that is not only quick to discern what is evil, but 
 instantly to shun it, as the eyelid closes itself against 
 a mote. THOMAS ADAM. 
 
 Quick as the apple of an eye, 
 God, my conscience make : 
 
 Awake my soul when sin is nigh, 
 And keep it still awake. 
 
 2. He, being dead, yet speaketh. 
 
 Heb. ii. 4. 
 
 I am convinced how great a deed he does who 
 makes one pious thought alive and active in the 
 human soul ; since I know how a single passage in 
 a beautiful book or in a religious conversation has
 
 28 FEBRUARY. 
 
 often had an influence on me for many days together; 
 and I shall to all eternity thank him to whom I am 
 indebted for the smallest benefit of this sort. 
 
 From the eternal shadow rounding 
 All our sun and starlight here, 
 
 Voices of our lost ones sounding 
 
 Bid us be of heart and cheer, 
 Though the silence, down the spaces, falling on the 
 
 inward ear. 
 
 3. I will bring my people again 
 from the depths of the sea. 
 
 Psalm Ixviii. 22. 
 
 The victories over Israel's enemies, with which 
 God blessed David's forces, are but types of Christ's 
 victory over death and the grave, for himself and 
 for all believers, and of the destruction of his and 
 the church's enemies. M. HENRY. 
 
 Though nature's strength decay, 
 
 And earth and hell withstand, 
 To Canaan's bounds I urge my way, 
 
 At his command : 
 The watery deep I pass, 
 
 With Jesus in my view, 
 And through the howling wilderness 
 
 My way pursue.
 
 FEBRUARY. 29 
 
 The goodly land I see, 
 
 With peace and plenty blest ; 
 A land of sacred liberty 
 
 And endless rest. OLIVEES. 
 
 4. Peace I leave with you, my peace 
 I give unto you: not as the 
 world giveth, give I unto you. 
 
 John xiv. 27. 
 
 When we once come to know and believe in good 
 earnest that there is a peace with God to be had, 
 and that it is the very thing we want, it will make 
 us cool in all other pursuits. THOMAS ADAM. 
 
 Why, then, am I, my God, 
 
 Permitted thus the paths of peace to tread, 
 Peace purchased by the blood 
 
 Of Him who had not where to lay his head ? 
 
 5. "We have an advocate with the 
 Father, Jesus Christ the right- 
 eous. 1 John ii. 1. , 
 
 I put my prayers into Christ's hands ; and what 
 may I not expect from them, when I have such an 
 advocate ? ADAM. 
 
 3*
 
 30 FEBRUARY. 
 
 My soul, with cheerful eye, 
 
 See where thy Saviour stands, 
 
 The glorious Advocate on high, 
 With incense in his hands. 
 
 STEELE. 
 
 6. "Who comforteth us in all our 
 tribulation, that we may be 
 able to comfort them which 
 are in any trouble by the com- 
 fort wherewith we ourselves 
 are comforted of God. 
 
 2 Cor. i. 4. 
 
 And what greater measure can we have than 
 that we should bring joy to our brother, who, with 
 his dreary eyes, looks to heaven and round about 
 and cannot find so much rest as to lay his eyelids 
 close together, than that thy tongue should be 
 tuned with heavenly accents, and make the weary 
 soul to listen for light and ease, and when he per- 
 ceives that there is such a thing in the world, and 
 in the order of things, as comfort and joy, to begin 
 to break out from the prison of his sorrows and by 
 little and little melt into showers and refreshment ? 
 This is glory to thy voice and employment fit for 
 the brightest angel. JEREMY TAYLOR.
 
 FEBRUARY. 31 
 
 Speak low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet 
 From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low ; 
 Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so 
 
 Who art not miss'd by any that entreat. 
 
 MRS. BROWNING. 
 
 7. For the living know that they 
 
 shall die ; but the dead know 
 not any thing, neither have 
 they any more a reward ; for 
 the memory of them is for- 
 gotten. Eccles. ix. 5. 
 
 This one omnipotent mighty idea, which no 
 sophistry can obscure and no audacity disarm, is all 
 abroad among the habitations of men, denouncing 
 the world as a vain illusion and pleading for the 
 rights and interests of eternity. OLIN. 
 
 Beneath our feet and o'er our head 
 
 Is equal warning given : 
 Beneath us lie the countless dead, 
 
 Above us is the heaven. 
 
 HEBER. 
 
 8. I will render praises unto thee, 
 
 for thou hast delivered my 
 soul from death. 
 
 Psalm Ivi. 12, 13.
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 What makes a happy life? Knowing that we 
 can smile on death. ADAM. 
 
 No terror has death or the grave 
 To those who believe in the Lord, 
 
 Who know the Redeemer can save, 
 And lean on the faith of his word. 
 
 GEORGE P. MOERIS. 
 
 9. He hath put a new song in my 
 
 mouth, even praise unto our 
 
 God. Psalm xl. 3. 
 
 Yes, you must accustom yourselves to that song: 
 you must mould and warble it here on earth, that 
 you may be perfect in it when you come to join 
 with saints and angels in their eternal hallelujahs. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 My Joy, my Life, my Crown ! 
 My heart was meaning all the day, 
 
 Somewhat it fain would say : 
 And still it runneth, singing up and down 
 These few sweet words: my Joy, my Life, my Crown ! 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 10. The just man walketh in his in- 
 
 tegrity : his children are bless- 
 ed after him. P. *x. 7.
 
 FEBRUARY. 83 
 
 Joy, peace, courage and divine charity have 
 power to propagate themselves. They act upon the 
 young more especially by sympathy and contagion. 
 They diffuse themselves spontaneously through the 
 family circle, transforming and assimilating gentle 
 natures and tender hearts by the divine grace of 
 which they are redolent. OLIN. 
 
 The power to bless my house 
 
 Belongs to God alone, 
 Yet, rendering him my constant vows, 
 
 He sends his blessings down. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 11. If we believe that Jesus died 
 and rose again, even so them 
 also which sleep in Jesus will 
 God bring with him. 
 
 1 Thess. iv. 14. 
 
 These that were, in their lower estate here, 
 temples of the Holy Ghost, shall be filled with that 
 fulness of joy that shall run over from the soul 
 unto them : they shall be conformed to the happy 
 and glorious souls to which they shall be united, 
 yea, to the glorious body of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 LEIGHTON.
 
 34 FEBRUARY. 
 
 'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose 
 Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
 How grows in Paradise our store. 
 
 KKBLK. 
 
 12. The light of the body is the 
 eye : if therefore thine eye be 
 single, thy whole body shall 
 be full of light. Matt. vi. 22. 
 
 Now for a single eye and a pure heart ! Now 
 there seems to be an opening to the happy time of 
 forsaking all ! It is only a glimpse ; but, if I keep 
 my attention fixed upon it, it will bring me full into 
 the light. ADAM. 
 
 Jesus, my single eye 
 
 Be fix'd on thee alone, 
 Thy name be praised on earth, on high, 
 
 Thy will by all be done ! 
 
 13. For our conversation is in hea- 
 ven ; from whence also we 
 look for the Saviour, the Lord 
 Jesus Christ. Phil iii. 20.
 
 FEBRUARY. 35 
 
 Faith converses with the angels and antedates- the 
 hymns of glory: every man that hath this grace is 
 as certain that there are glories for him, if he per- 
 severes in duty, as if he had heard and sung the 
 thanksgiving-song for the blessed sentence of dooms- 
 day. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Faith makes me any thing or all 
 
 That I believe is in the sacred story ; 
 
 And when sin placeth me in Adam's fall, 
 Faith sets me higher in his glory. 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 14. Here have we no continuing 
 city ; but we seek one to come. 
 
 Heb. xiii. 14. 
 
 We are pilgrims to a dwelling-place of blessed- 
 ness; and the light that streams through its open 
 portals ought to suffuse us as we approach them. 
 An anticipated beatitude, a sanctity that even now 
 breathes of Paradise, a grace which is already tinged 
 with the richer hues of glory, these should mark 
 the Christian disciple, and these as he advances in 
 years should brighten and deepen upon and around 
 him, until the distinction of earth and heaven is 
 almost lost, and the spirit, in its placid and unearthly 
 repose, is gone as it were before the body and at 
 /est already with its God. ARCHER BUTLER.
 
 36 FEBRUARY. 
 
 We are on our journey home, 
 Where Christ our Lord is gone ; 
 
 We will meet around his throne 
 When he makes his people one 
 In the new Jerusalem. 
 
 15. For it is not a vain thing for 
 
 you ; because it is your life. 
 
 Deut. xxxii. 47. 
 
 Let this be ever uppermost in my thoughts and 
 the great rule of my conversing with all, that we are 
 immortal beings, in the first stage of our existence, 
 full of mistakes, or unconcerned about the matter 
 and yet dreadfully concerned in the issue. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Heaven calls ; and can I yet delay ? 
 Can aught on earth engage my stay ? 
 
 Ah, wretched, lingering heart ! 
 Come, Lord, with strength and life and light, 
 Assist and guide my upward flight 
 
 And bid the world depart. 
 
 MRS. STEELE. 
 
 16. Looking for that blessed hope 
 
 and the glorious appearing of 
 the great God and our Saviour 
 Jesus Christ. Titus a. 13.
 
 FEBRUARY. 37 
 
 He who seldom thinks of heaven is not likely to 
 get thither, as the only way to hit the mark is to 
 keep the eye fixed upon it. HORNE. 
 
 Rise, happy morn ! rise, holy morn ! 
 
 Draw forth the cheerful day from night ; 
 
 Father, touch the east, and light 
 The light that shone when Hope was born I 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 1 7. Great peace have they which love 
 
 thy law; and nothing shall 
 offend them. Psalm cxix. 165, 
 
 Were there nothing else to commend religion to 
 the minds of men besides that tranquillity and calm- 
 ness of spirit, that serene and peaceable temper, 
 which follow a good conscience wherever it dwells, 
 it were enough to make men welcome that guest 
 which brings such good entertainment with it. fc 
 
 STILLINaFLEET. 
 
 Lord, how secure and blest are they 
 Who feel the joys of pardon'd sin ! 
 
 Should storms of wrath shake earth and sea, 
 Their minds have heaven and peace within. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 18. My days are like a shadow that 
 
 declineth . Psalm ciL 11. 
 
 4
 
 38 FEBRUARY. 
 
 I beseech thee, ponder what is life and what is 
 death. Life is the passing of a shadow, short, 
 troublesome and dangerous, a place which God hath 
 given us in time for the desiring of eternity. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Such are thy days, so shall they pass away, 
 As flowers that bloom at morn, at eve decay ; 
 But then there comes a life that knows no end. 
 FRANCIS S. KEY. 
 
 19. Whosoever liveth and belie veth 
 in me shall never die. 
 
 John xi. 26. 
 
 We should conceive of time and eternity as dif- 
 ferent periods of the same state or different degrees 
 qf the same kind of life, requiring the same dispo- 
 sition, but always improving, and not as separated 
 by a great gulf and quite different from each 
 other in their interests, pleasures, and employments. 
 This would be running time into eternity and bring- 
 ing eternity down to time; we should then think 
 and act like eternal beings and live here as we are 
 to do in heaven. Let the whole world, therefore, be 
 divided into two great sects, viz. : Timists and 
 Eternalists. ADAM.
 
 FEBRUARY. 39 
 
 That state 
 
 Of pure, imperishable blessedness 
 Which reason promises and Holy Writ 
 Insures to all believers. 
 
 WORDSWOBTH. 
 
 20. He forgetteth not the cry of the 
 
 humble. Psalm ix. 12. 
 
 No true prayer is lost, though we may have for- 
 gotten it. ADAM. 
 
 Blest are the humble souls that see 
 Their emptiness and poverty : 
 Treasures of grace to them are given, 
 And crowns of joy laid up in heaven. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 21. Strengthen ye the weak hands, 
 and confirm the feeble knees. 
 Say to them that are of a 
 fearful heart, Be strong, fear 
 
 not. Isaiah xxxv. 3, 4. 
 
 It is a fearful thing to see a man despairing. 
 Therefore in proportion to this I may tell the excel- 
 lency of the employment and the duty of that charity 
 which bears the dying and languishing soul from
 
 40 FEBRUARY. 
 
 the fringes of hell to the seat of the brightest stars, 
 where God's face shines and reflects comforts for 
 ever and ever. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Thou seest our weakness, Lord ; 
 
 Our hearts are known to thee : 
 Oh, lift thou up the sinking head ; 
 
 Confirm the feeble knee. 
 
 22. The law of his God is in his 
 heart ; none of his steps shall 
 
 slide. Psalm xxxvii. 31. 
 
 A surrender of the life to the guidance of duty 
 brings into the mind a power far more valuable than 
 would be the acquisition of new faculties : it 
 quadruples the efficiency of the old. It simplifies 
 all the movements of life. It cuts short a thousand 
 struggles with temptation and passion. It is a 
 thread of gold in the hands of inexperienced youth 
 and care-worn manhood, to conduct the willing and 
 obedient through the dark, pathless labyrinth of this 
 world. 
 
 The upright shall possess the land ; 
 
 His portion shall for ages stand ; 
 His mouth with wisdom is supplied ; 
 
 His tongue by rules of judgment moves ; 
 
 His heart the law of God approves : 
 Therefore his footsteps never slide.
 
 FEBRUARY. 41 
 
 23. He that spared not his own Son, 
 
 but delivered him up for us 
 all, how shall he not with him 
 also freely give us all things? 
 
 Rom. viii. 32. 
 
 
 
 He who has already done so much for me will 
 leave nothing undone. ADAM. 
 
 Fear not that he will e'er forsake 
 
 Or leave his work undone : 
 He's faithful to his promises 
 
 And faithful to his Son. 
 
 BBDDOMK. 
 
 24. I will strengthen them in the 
 
 Lord ; and they shall walk up 
 and down in his name, saith 
 the Lord. Zech. x. 12. 
 
 The choicest spirits of our race whether in the 
 public or retired walks of life, whether standing 
 forth before the world and battling with its vices 
 and errors, or shedding noiselessly a hallowed in- 
 fluence in the domestic circle have been men who 
 looked up to God for the high life of the soul and 
 for success to their benignant labours. PEARSON. 
 4*
 
 42 FEBRUARY. 
 
 Forth in thy name, Lord, I go 
 My daily labours to pursue, 
 
 Thee, only thee, resolved to know 
 In all I think, or speak, or do. 
 
 25. Light is sown for the righteous, 
 
 and gladness for the uprignt 
 in heart. Psalm xcvii - n - 
 
 Though they often appear clods of earth, ploughed 
 up, harrowed and broken with affliction, yet is there 
 that blessed seed cast into them which will certainly 
 sprout up to immortality and eternal life, as all the 
 beauties of a flower lie couched in a small, unsightly 
 seed. HOPKINS. 
 
 Palms of glory, raiment bright, 
 Crowns that never fade away, 
 
 Gird and deck the saints in light, 
 Priests and kings and conquerors they. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 26. What ! could ye not watch with 
 
 me one hour ? Matt. xxvi. 40. 
 
 Two things are matter of daily astonishment to 
 me, the readiness of Christ to come from heaven 
 to earth for me, and my backwardness to rise from 
 earth to heaven with him. PEABCE.
 
 FEBRUARY. 43 
 
 Go watch and pray : thou canst not tell 
 How near thine hour may be ; 
 
 Thou canst not know how soon the bell 
 May toll its notes for thee. 
 
 Death's countless snares beset thy way : 
 
 Frail child of dust ! go watch and pray. 
 
 27. In whom, though now ye see 
 
 him not, yet believing ye re- 
 joice with joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory. 1 Peter \. 8. 
 
 Those that are diligent in working for salvation 
 many times have high spring-tides of joy, joy that 
 is unspeakable and glorious, that rusheth in upon 
 the soul and ravisheth it with a sweet and potent 
 delight, while it is in ways of obedience. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Oh, 'tis delight without alloy, 
 
 Jesus, to hear thy name ! 
 My spirit leaps with inward joy : 
 
 I feel the sacred flame. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 28. Go out into the highways and 
 
 hedges. Luke xiv. 23.
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 " Pure- religion and undefined," overleaping the 
 narrow boundaries of circle and sect, goes forth in 
 quest of the objects of charity in the highways and 
 hedges. It looks after the greatest sufferers. It 
 seeks the lost sheep in the wilderness far away. No 
 pass-word is demanded at the door of its heart. 
 
 A poor man served by thee shall make thee rich ; 
 An old man help'd by thee shall make thee strong : 
 Thou shalt be served thyself by every sense 
 Of service which thou renderest. 
 
 MRS. BEOWNING. 
 
 Leap-Year. 29. As he thinketh in 
 his heart, so is he. 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 7. 
 
 Our condition in the scale both of moral and in- 
 tellectual being is in a great measure determined 
 by the control which we have acquired over the 
 succession of our thoughts, and by the subjects on 
 which they are habitually exercised. 
 
 ABERCROMBIE. 
 
 This warfare is within. There, unfatigued, 
 This fervent spirit labours. There he fights 
 And there obtains fresh triumphs o'er himself, 
 And never-withering wreaths, compared with which 
 The laurels that a Csesar reaps are weeds. 
 
 COWPEB.
 
 MARCH. 
 
 1. I AM doing a great work, so that 
 
 I cannot come down: why 
 
 should the work cease whilst 
 
 ' I leave it and come down to 
 
 YOU ? Nehemiah vi. 3. 
 
 No ! stand off, for I am working for eternity, an 
 eternity that is but a few days hence, a boundless, 
 a bottomless, an endless eternity, into which I know 
 not how soon I may enter ; and woe to me, yea, a 
 thousand woes to me, that ever I was born, if my 
 great work be not done before the days of eternity 
 come upon me ! HOPKINS. 
 
 As by the light of opening day 
 
 The stars are all conceal' d, 
 So earthly pleasures fade away 
 
 When Jesus is reveal'd ; 
 Creatures no more divide my choice, 
 
 I bid them all depart, 
 His name, his love, his gracious voice, 
 
 Have fix'd my roving heart. NEWTON. 
 
 45
 
 4b MARCH. 
 
 2. The Lord thy God in the midst 
 of thee is mighty : he will save, 
 he will rejoice over thee with 
 joy ; he will rest in his love, 
 he will joy over thee with 
 singing. Zeph. iii. 17. 
 
 If, in the happy phrase of Butler, our post- 
 humous life, instead of being altogether a beginning 
 anew, be rather a going on, what scenes of loveli- 
 ness and irradiations of faith may unveil and beam 
 upon the soul when the Divine Giver tenderly 
 takes it back, and lays his hand on that his own 
 instrument of music, and stills the jar and the dis- 
 cord of earth, and brings every thought and feeling 
 and desire into tune, and draws out all the powers, 
 and opens all the stops, and wakes the harmonies so 
 long sleeping ! ROBKRT WILMOTT. 
 
 High throned on heaven's eternal hill, 
 In number, weight and measure still 
 
 Thou sweetly orderest all that is ; 
 And yet thou deign'st to come to me 
 And guide my steps, that I, with thee 
 
 Enthroned, may reign in endless bliss. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY.
 
 M A B C H. 47 
 
 3. Ye shall be baptized with the 
 Holy Ghost. Acts xi. 16. 
 
 A lively sense of God's mercy in Christ and love 
 in the heart, is not this the Spirit's baptism of fire ? 
 And what have I to do in the world but to get and 
 keep it? ADAM. 
 
 Spirit of the living God, 
 In all thy plenitude of grace, 
 
 Where'er the foot of man hath trod, 
 Descend on our apostate race. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 4. Faith is the substance of things 
 hoped for, the evidence of 
 things not seen. Hei. xi. i. 
 
 Faith is a certain image of eternity: all things 
 are present to it: things past and things to come 
 are all so before the eyes of faith that he in whose 
 eye that candle is enkindled beholds heaven as 
 present, and sees how blessed a thing it is to die in 
 God's favour and to be chimed to our grave with 
 the music of a good conscience. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR.
 
 48 MARCH. 
 
 Faith can raise earth to heaven, or draw down 
 
 Heaven to earth ; make both extremes to meet, 
 
 Felicity and misery ; can crown 
 
 Reproach with honour ; season sour with sweet. 
 
 Nothing's impossible to faith : a man 
 
 May do all things that he believes he can. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 5. I press toward the mark for the 
 
 prize of the high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Phil. iii. 14. 
 
 Be assured that the white robes of the blessed are 
 not the robes of indolence, but the mantles and 
 decorations of conquest. ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 Unwearied may I this pursue, 
 Dauntless to the high prize aspire, 
 
 Hourly within my soul renew 
 
 This holy flame, this heavenly fire, 
 
 And day and night be all my care 
 
 To guard the sacred treasure there ! 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 6. Lay ujf for yourselves treasures 
 
 in heaven, where neither moth 
 nor rust doth corrupt, and
 
 MARCH. 49 
 
 where thieves do not break 
 through nor steal. For where 
 your treasure is, there will 
 your heart be also. 
 
 Matt. vi. 20, 21. 
 
 I had rather enter into the meaning of this say- 
 ing, and be in full possession of the spirit of it, than 
 be lord of the universe. ADAM. 
 
 That precious wealth shall be their dower 
 
 Which cannot know decay, 
 Which moth or rust shall ne'er devour 
 
 Or spoiler take away. 
 
 LTTB. 
 
 7. Teach me to do thy will; for 
 thou art my God. 
 
 Psalm cxliii. 10. 
 
 We make Christ but a titular prince if we call 
 him king and do not his will. 
 
 MATTHEW HENRY. 
 
 Peace, troubled soul, thou need'st not fear : 
 Thy great Provider still is near ; 
 Who fed thee last will feed thee still ; 
 Be calm, and sink into his will. 
 J) 5
 
 50 MARCH. 
 
 8. Wherefore, seeing we also are 
 compassed about with so great 
 a cloud of witnesses, let us lay 
 aside every weight, and the 
 sin which doth so easily beset 
 us, and let us run with pa- 
 tience the race that is set be- 
 fore US. Heb. xii. 1. 
 
 What we do is transacted on a stage of which 
 all in the universe are spectators. What we say is 
 transmitted in echoes that will never cease. What 
 we are is influencing and acting on the rest of man- 
 kind. Neutral we cannot be. Living, we act, and 
 dead, we speak ; and the whole universe is the 
 mighty company, forever looking, forever listening, 
 and all nature the tablets, forever recording the 
 words, the deeds, the thoughts, the passions, of 
 mankind. GUMMING. 
 
 Press on ; the loved behold thee now : 
 Press on ; they'll welcome thee above : 
 
 Press on, until upon thy brow 
 
 Is placed the glorious crown of love.
 
 MABCH. 51 
 
 9. And he arose, and rebuked the 
 
 wind, and said unto the sea, 
 Peace, be still. And the wind 
 ceased, and there was a great 
 
 Calm. Mark iv. 39. 
 
 When without are fightings and within are fears, 
 Christ can give peace. If he say, " Peace, he still," 
 there is a great calm. HENRY. 
 
 Commit thou all thy griefs 
 
 And ways into his hands, 
 To his sure trust and tender care, 
 
 Who earth and heayen commands ; 
 Who points the clouds their course, 
 
 Whom winds and seas obey : 
 He shall direct thy wandering feet, 
 
 He shall prepare thy way. 
 
 J. WESLEY. 
 
 10. This year thou shalt die. 
 
 Jer. xxviii. 16. 
 
 Conscience is a clock which in one man strikes 
 aloud and gives warning; in another the hands 
 point silently to the figures, but strike not : mean- 
 time hours pass away, and death hastens, and after 
 death comes judgment. BISHOP TAYLOR.
 
 52 M A K C H. 
 
 The year rolls round, and steals away 
 
 The breath that first it gave : 
 Whate'er we do, where'er we be, 
 
 We're travelling to the grave. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 11. Choose you this day whom ye 
 
 will serve. Joshua xxiv. 15. 
 
 A partial, half religion is a state of terrible 
 anxiety. ADAM. 
 
 I choose the path of heavenly truth, 
 
 And glory in my choice : 
 Not all the riches of the earth 
 
 Could make me so rejoice. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 12. For ye have need of patience, 
 
 that after ye have done the 
 will of God ye might receive 
 the promise. Seb. x. 36. 
 
 On earth prayer, improvement, waiting; in heaven, 
 praise, perfection, happiness. ADAM. 
 
 Through waves and clouds and storms 
 
 He gently clears thy way : 
 Wait thou his time ; so shall this night 
 
 Soon end in joyous day. 
 
 J. WESLEY.
 
 MARCH. 53 
 
 13. They shall lie down alike in the 
 dust, and the worms shall 
 cover them. Job xxi. 26. 
 
 A man may read a sermon the best and most pas- 
 sionate that ever man preached, if he shall but enter 
 into the sepulchres of kings. There is an acre sown 
 with royal seeds, the copy of the greatest change, 
 from rich to naked, from ceiled roofs to arched 
 coffins, from living like gods to die like men. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 There, when the turmoil is no more 
 
 And all our powers decay, 
 Our cold remains in solitude 
 
 Shall sleep the years away. 
 
 HENRY KIBKK WHITE. 
 
 14. "Wait on the Lord: be of good 
 courage, and he shall strength- 
 en thine heart : wait, I say, on 
 
 the Lord. Psalm xxvii. 14. 
 
 In the lovely relationship of prayer the highest 
 and the lowest may be invisibly united. 
 
 ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 5*
 
 54 MARCH. 
 
 thou who mournest on thy way, 
 With longings for the close of day ! 
 He walks with thee, that Saviour kind, 
 And gently whispers, " Be resign'd." 
 , Bear up, bear on : the end shall tell 
 The dear Lord ordereth all things well. 
 
 15. My flesh and my heart faileth, 
 
 but God is the strength of my 
 heart, and my portion forever. 
 
 Psalm Ixxiii. 26. 
 
 With the single exclamation, " My God ! my God \" 
 the spirit of Gustavus Adolphus passed from the 
 storm of battle into the world of rest. 
 
 What though my flesh and heart decay ? 
 Thee shall I love in endless day. 
 
 16. Examine yourselves, whether ye 
 
 be in the faith; prove your 
 own selves. 2 Cor. xui. 5 
 
 Do I bring myself to the touchstone of truth, or 
 make myself the touchstone? ADAM. 
 
 What image does my spirit bear ? 
 Is Jesus form'd and living there ? 
 
 DAVIKS. 
 54
 
 MARCH. 55 
 
 17. The staff of bread. Psalm cv. 16. 
 
 We are to ask for and to use these earthly enjoy- 
 ments only as travellers, that make use of a staff 
 for their help and support whilst they are in their 
 passage home. And we are hereby also taught to 
 crave no more than will suffice for our convenient 
 supplies: otherwise we make our staff our burden 
 and our support itself a load and pressure. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Father, supply my every need ; 
 
 Sustain the life thyself hast given : 
 Oh, grant the never-failing bread, 
 
 The manna that comes down from heaven. 
 
 18. Bless them which persecute 
 
 you ; bless, and curse not. 
 
 Rom. xii. 14. 
 
 My lord, more I have not to say, but that like 
 as the blessed apostle St. Paul was present and 
 consented to the death of St. Stephen and kept the 
 clothes of them that stoned him, and yet they be 
 both twain compeers and holy saints in heaven and 
 shall continue there friends together forever; so I 
 verily trust and heartily pray that though your 
 lordships have on earth been my judges to my con-
 
 56 M A E C H. 
 
 demnation, we may yet hereafter meet in heaven to 
 our everlasting salvation. 
 
 Conclusion of SIR THOMAS MORE'S address 
 to his judges after sentence of death 
 passed upon him. 
 
 Whene'er the angry passions rise, 
 
 And tempt our thoughts and tongues to strife, 
 To Jesus let us lift our eyes, 
 
 Bright pattern of the Christian life. 
 
 19. That I may know him, and the 
 
 power of his resurrection, and 
 the fellowship of his suffer- 
 ings, being made conformable 
 unto his death. Phil. m. 10. 
 
 One sensible experimental proof of Christ's power 
 and presence in time of conflict, of danger or tempta- 
 tion, will hardly ever be forgotten, and binds the 
 soul to him in trust and affiance more than a thou- 
 sand arguments. ADAM. 
 Counting gain and glory loss, 
 
 May I tread the path he trod, 
 Die with Jesus on the cross, 
 Rise with him to live with God ! 
 
 20. I would not live alway. 
 
 Job vii. 16.
 
 MARCH. 57 
 
 This is a place of sorrows and tears, of great evils 
 and a constant calamity : let us remove from hence, 
 at least in affections and preparation of mind. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 I would not live alway, away from my God, 
 Away from yon heaven, that blissful abode, 
 Where the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains 
 And the noontide of glory eternally reigns. 
 
 MUHLENBEEG. 
 
 21. Tarry ye here, and watch with 
 
 me. Matt. xxvi. 38. 
 
 Surely he was destitute indeed of help when 
 he entreated them who he knew would be but 
 miserable comforters. But he would hereby teach 
 us the benefit of the communion of saints. 
 
 HENRY. 
 
 Thou who in the garden's shade 
 
 Didst wake thy weary ones again, 
 Who slumber'd at that fearful hour, 
 
 Forgetful of thy pain, 
 Bend o'er us now, as over them, 
 
 And set our sleep-bound spirits free, 
 Nor leave us slumbering in the watch 
 
 Our souls should keep with thee. 
 
 WHITTIBR.
 
 58 MARCH. 
 
 22. Strong in faith. Rom. iv. 20. 
 
 Faith can do more than remove mountains : it 
 can still a clamorous conscience, make a bad con- 
 science good, soften a hard heart, bend a stubborn 
 will, and bring God and man together. ADAM. 
 
 There faith lifts up her cheerful eye, 
 
 To brighter prospects given, 
 And views the tempest passing by, 
 The evening shadows quickly fly, 
 
 And all serene in heaven. 
 
 TAPPAN. 
 
 23. Therefore, if any man be in 
 
 Christ, he is a new creature : 
 old things are passed away; 
 behold, all things are become 
 
 new. 2 Cor. v. 17. 
 
 The appearance of every thing was altered: there 
 seemed to be as it were a calm, sweet cast or appear- 
 ance of divine glory in almost every thing. I often 
 used to sit and view the moon for a long time, and 
 in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds 
 and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these 
 things, in the mean time singing forth, with a low 
 voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Re- 
 deemer. EDWARDS.
 
 MARCH. 59 
 
 Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss ; 
 
 Exalted manna ; gladness of the best ; 
 
 Heaven in ordinary ; man well drest ; 
 The milky way ; the bird of paradise ; 
 Church-bells beyond the stars heard ; the soul's blood ; 
 The land of spices ; something understood. 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 24. We spend our years as a tale 
 
 that is told. Psalm xc. 9. 
 
 Night is hastening and spreading its wings over 
 us. We burn away our precious days and miserably 
 waste our light and our life. We exhaust our 
 strength and lavish out our affections upon toys 
 and fond nothings ; and that life of our's which the 
 Psalmist calls a " tale" for its shortness, we make a 
 tale for its vanity. BISHOP HOPKINS. 
 
 And is it in the flight of threescore years 
 To push eternity from human thought 
 And smother souls immortal in the dust ? 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 25. Love your enemies ; bless them 
 
 that curse you; do good to 
 them that hate you, and pray 
 for them which despitefully 
 use you and persecute you. 
 
 Matt. v. 44.
 
 60 MARCH. 
 
 When I pray as heartily for my enemy as I do 
 for my daily bread, when I strive with prayers 
 and tears to make God Ms friend who himself will 
 not be mine, when I reckon his felicity amongst 
 my own necessities, surely this is such a love as 
 in a literal sense may be said to reach up to heaven. 
 
 SOUTH. 
 
 loving and forgiving, 
 
 Ye angel words of earth, 
 Years were not worth, the living 
 
 If ye too had not birth : 
 Still breathe your influence o'er us 
 
 Whene'er by passion cross'd, 
 And, angel-like, restore us 
 
 The paradise we lost. 
 
 26. My voice shalt thou hear in the 
 morning, Lord. Psalm \. 3. 
 
 No word spoken to God from the serious sense 
 of a holy heart is lost : he receives it and returns 
 it into our bosom with advantage. A soul that 
 delights to speak with him will find that he also 
 delights to speak with it. And this communication 
 certainly is the sweetest and happiest choice, to 
 speak little with men and much with God. 
 
 LEIGHTON.
 
 MARCH. 61 
 
 I cannot ope mine eyes, 
 
 But thou art ready there, to catch 
 
 My morning soul and sacrifice. 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 27. Be of good cheer. Mark vi. 50. 
 
 Thy battle-cry, Christian! thy charm against 
 despondency in the great strifes of life ! It pos- 
 sesses a mystic force beyond all the amulets of 
 Oriental fame. "Be of good cheer." "Never despair." 
 How cheerfully it echoes along the chambers of the 
 soul ! What a call to its sinking energies ! How 
 it silences the silly prattle of fear ! How it revives 
 the silent, drooping heart of hope I 
 
 Give to the winds thy fears ; 
 
 Hope, and be undismay'd : 
 God hears thy sighs and counts thy tears ; 
 
 God shall lift up thy head. 
 
 J. WESLEY. 
 
 28. As a dream when one awaketh. 
 
 Psalm Ixxiii. 20. 
 
 What is this world ? A dream within a dream. 
 As we grow older, each step is an awakening. The 
 youth awakes, as he thinks, from childhood; the full- 
 grown man despises the pursuits of youth as vision- 
 ary; the old man looks on manhood as a feverish 
 dream. The grave, the last sleep ? No ! it is the last 
 and final awakening. WALTER SCOTT. 
 
 6
 
 62 MARCH. 
 
 Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dreamt 
 Of things impossible ! (Could sleep do more ?) 
 Of joys perpetual in perpetual change ! 
 Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave ! 
 Eternal sunshine in the storms of life ! 
 How richly were my noontide trances hung 
 With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys, 
 Joy behind joy, in endless perspective, 
 Till, at Death's toll, . . . 
 Starting I woke, and found myself undone. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 29. For by grace are ye saved, 
 
 through faith; and that not 
 of yourselves : it is the gift of 
 
 God. EpJi. ii. 8. 
 
 Mercy is God's right hand; with that God gives 
 all: faith is man's right hand; with that man takes 
 all. DONNE. 
 
 Save us by grace, through faith alone, 
 A faith thou must thyself impart, 
 
 A faith that would by works be shown, 
 A faith that purifies the heart. 
 
 C. WESLEY. 
 
 30. Set your affection on things 
 
 above, not on things on the 
 earth. Coi. in. 2.
 
 MARCH. 63 
 
 Were we lodged in a star, then the earth would 
 appear very small, and almost nothing, as the stars 
 do now to us : so, were we more above, the earth 
 would appear either as very small or as nothing. 
 Thus it is with a child of God : he soars up by the 
 wings of faith and love to the heavenly Jerusalem, 
 and the earth appears very inconsiderable. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 From earth we shall quickly remove 
 And mount to our native abode, 
 
 The house of our Father above, 
 The palace of angels and God. 
 
 31. Cleanse thou me from secret 
 
 faults. .FWmxix.-12. 
 
 Not a few of the tragedies of sin are wrought out 
 before no witnesses but God and the erring soul. 
 Men heap up wrath in the secret places of their 
 own hearts. Fearful histories there are of souls 
 undone, which will only be read when the books 
 shall be opened at the final judgment. 
 
 Oh, bid my fainting spirit live, 
 
 And what is dark reveal, 
 And what is evil, oh, forgive, 
 
 And what is broken heal, 
 And cleanse my nature from above 
 In the deep Jordan of thy love.
 
 APRIL. 
 
 1. I CAN do all things through Christ 
 
 which strengtheneth me. 
 
 Phil iv. 13. 
 
 What can I not bear with the help of God ? What 
 can I do or suffer without it ? ADAM. 
 
 Strong in the Lord of Hosts 
 
 And in his mighty power, 
 Who in the strength of Jesus trusts 
 
 Is more than conqueror. 
 
 2. When the times of refreshing 
 
 shall come from the presence 
 of the Lord. Acts \\\. 19. 
 
 Prayer is the key to open the day and the bolt 
 to shut in the night. But as the skies drop the 
 early dew and the evening dew upon the grass, 
 yet it would not spring and grow green by that 
 constant and double falling of the dew, unless some 
 great showers at certain seasons did supply the rest: 
 
 04
 
 APRIL. 65 
 
 so the customary devotion of prayer twice a day is 
 the falling of the early and the latter dew; but, if 
 you will increase and flourish in the works of grace, 
 empty the great clouds sometimes, and let them fall 
 into a full shower of prayer ; choose out the seasons 
 in your own discretion when prayer shall overflow 
 like Jordan in the time of harvest. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Saviour, visit thy plantation ; 
 
 Grant us, Lord, a gracious rain : 
 All will come to desolation 
 
 Unless thou return again. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 3. Whom have I in heaven but 
 thee ? and there is none upon 
 earth that I desire besides 
 
 thee. Psalm Ixxiii. 25. 
 
 It is to thee, Lord God, that I owe all things, 
 and it is to thee that I now surrender up all that I 
 am. Do with me, my God, whatsoever thou 
 pleasest. Thou seest my weakness and misery 
 without thee. Thou knowest that there is nothing 
 in heaven or on earth that I desire but thee alone. 
 
 MADAME GUYON. 
 B 6*
 
 66 APRIL. 
 
 And, oh, when faith is merged in sight 
 And death's mysterious shadows flee, 
 
 Thee first in that unfading world 
 The just made perfect long to see. 
 
 The rainbow round the throne grows dim ; 
 
 The pearly gates attract no more ; 
 For heart and eye with Christ are fill'd, 
 
 And Faith can hare no richer store. 
 
 JONES. 
 
 4. Let my prayer be set forth before 
 thee as incense, and the lift- 
 ing up of my hands as the 
 evening sacrifice, fsaim cxii. 2. 
 
 Sincere confession, praising of the holy name of 
 our God, with thankful acknowledgment of re- 
 ceived mercies, of these sweet ingredient per- 
 fumes is the incense of prayer composed; and by 
 the divine fire of love it ascends unto God, the 
 heart and all with it ; and when the hearts of the 
 saints unite in joint prayer, the pillar of sweet 
 smoke goes up the greater and the fuller. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Softly now the light of day 
 Fades upon our sight away : 
 Free from care, from labour free, 
 Lord, we would commune with thee.
 
 A P E I L. 67 
 
 Soon from us the light of day 
 Shall forever pass away : 
 T!i en, from sin and sorrow free, 
 Taka us, Lord, to dwell with thee. 
 
 5. The angel of the Lord encampeth 
 round about them that fear 
 him, and delivereth them. 
 
 Psalm, xxxiv. 7. 
 
 Faith is the realizing power. Beholding God 
 even now around us, it prepares for heaven by 
 already habituating to the presence of heaven's 
 eternal Master. Even this existing world is a 
 scene of deep awe to the spirit of faith : it is per- 
 vaded by the providence of God ; it is visited by 
 his angels. 
 
 How oft do they their silver bowers leave 
 To come to succour us, that succour want ! 
 
 How oft do they with golden pinions cleave 
 The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant, 
 Against foul fiends to aid us militant ! 
 
 They for us fight, they watch and duly ward, 
 And their bright squadrons round about us plant, 
 
 And all for love, and nothing for reward : 
 
 Oh, why should heavenly God to men have such 
 regard ? 
 
 SPENSER.
 
 68 APRIL. 
 
 6. For the Lamb which is in the 
 midst of the throne shall feed 
 them, and shall lead them unto 
 living fountains of waters: 
 and God shall wipe away all 
 tears from their eves. 
 
 Rev. vii. 17. 
 
 If it be a worthy object of ambition to be loved 
 by the good and the great on earth, what must it 
 be to have an eye of love ever beaming upon us 
 from the Throne ? 
 
 His own soft hand shall wipe the tears 
 
 From every weeping eye, 
 And pains and groans and griefs and fears, 
 
 And death itself, shall die. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 7. They cry unto the Lord in their 
 trouble, and he saveth them 
 out of their distresses. 
 
 Psalm cvii. 19. 
 
 Trouble is the engine in God's hands to lift us 
 up to heaven. ADAM.
 
 APRIL. 69 
 
 Though earth-born shadows now may shroud 
 
 Thy thorny path a while, 
 God's blessed word can part each cloud 
 
 And bid the sunshine smile. 
 
 BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 8. And the ransomed of the Lord 
 shall return, and come to 
 Zion, with songs and ever- 
 lasting joy upon their heads. 
 
 Isaiah xxxv. 10. 
 
 A being already invested with a deathless life, 
 already adopted into the immediate family of God, 
 already enrolled in the brotherhood of angels, yea, 
 of the Lord of angels, a being who, amid all the 
 revolutions of earth and skies, feels and knows him- 
 self indestructible, capacitated to outlast the universe, 
 a sharer in the immortality of God : what is there 
 that can be said of such a one which falls not below 
 the awful glory of his position ? 
 
 ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 Through thee, who all our sins hast borne, 
 
 Freely and graciously forgiven, 
 With songs to Zion we return, 
 
 Contending for our native heaven : 
 That palace of our glorious King, 
 We find it nearer while we sing. 
 
 CHARLES WBBLBT.
 
 70 A P E I L. 
 
 9. A book of remembrance was 
 
 written. Mai. m. 16. 
 
 The air is one vast library, on whose pages are 
 forever written all that man has ever said or woman 
 whispered. BABBAGE. 
 
 Almighty Judge ! how shall poor wretches brook 
 
 Thy dreadful look 
 Able an heart of iron to appall 
 
 When thou shalt call 
 For every man's peculiar book ? 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 10. But it shall come to pass that at 
 
 evening time it shall be light. 
 
 Zech. xiv. 7. 
 
 I am come to the eve of a great and eternal day : 
 I have learned more divinity in ten days than in 
 fifty years before. Dying words of RIVET. 
 
 Hold on thy way, with hope unchill'd, 
 
 By faith, and not by sight, 
 And thou shalt own his word fulfill'd: 
 
 At eve it shall be light. 
 
 BARTON. 
 
 11. That mortality might be swal- 
 
 lowed Up Of life. 2 Cor. v. 4.
 
 APRIL. 71 
 
 Our future existence will be the same kind of life or 
 state of being continued which we are fixed in here. 
 Death makes no alteration in our condition : it only 
 clears up our mistakes about it. ADAM. 
 
 This is the bad of being, the dim dawn, 
 The twilight of our day, the vestibule. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 12. For I know the thoughts that I 
 think toward you, saith the 
 Lord, thoughts^of peace and 
 
 not Of evil. Jer. xxix. 11. 
 
 We looked for a judge, and behold a Saviour; we 
 feared an accuser, and behold an advocate ; we sat 
 down in sorrow, and rise in joy; we leaned upon 
 rhubarb and aloes, and our aprons were made of the 
 sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees, and so we fed 
 and so were clothed; but the rhubarb proved 
 medicinal, and the rough leaf of the tree brought 
 its fruit wrapped up in its foldings ; and round 
 about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thorns 
 and bundles of thistles, the aconite and the 
 bryony, the night-shade and the poppy ; and at the 
 root of these grew the healing plantain, which,
 
 7Z APRIL. 
 
 rising up into a tallness by the friendly invitation 
 of heavenly influence, turned about the tree of the 
 cross, and cured the wounds of the thorns, and the 
 curse of the thistles, and the malediction of man, 
 and the wrath of God. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Each evening shows thy tender love, 
 Each rising morn thy plenteous grace : 
 
 Thy waken'd wrath doth slowly move ; 
 Thy willing mercy flies apace. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 13. Again, the kingdom of heaven is 
 like unto'a merchantman seek- 
 ing goodly pearls, who, when 
 he had found one pearl of great 
 price, went and sold all that 
 he had, and bought it. 
 
 Matt. xiii. 45, 56. 
 
 The pleasure of the religious man is an easy and 
 a portable pleasure, such an one as he carries about 
 in his bosom, without alarming either the eye or the 
 envy of the world. A man putting all his pleasure 
 into this one is like a traveller putting all his 
 goods into one jewel : the value is the same, and 
 the convenience greater. SOUTH.
 
 APRIL. 73 
 
 Who is as the Christian wise ? 
 
 He his nought for all has given, 
 Bought the pearl of greatest price, 
 
 Nobly barter'd earth for heaven. 
 
 14. See, I have set before thee this 
 day life and good, and death 
 and evil. Deut. xxx. 15. 
 
 Each day is a new life and an abridgment of the 
 whole. I will so live as if I counted every day my 
 first and my last, as if I began to live but then and 
 should live no more afterwards. HALL. 
 
 The present we should now redeem ; 
 
 This only is our own : 
 The past, alas ! is all a dream ; 
 
 The future is unknown. 
 
 15. Light affliction, which is but for 
 a moment. 2 GOT. iv. 17. 
 
 One thought of eternity drowns the whole time 
 of the world's duration, which is but as one instant, 
 or twinkling of an eye, between eternity before and 
 eternity after. How much less is my short life ! yea, 
 what is it though it were all sufferings without in-
 
 74 A P B I L. 
 
 terruption, which yet it is not ! When I look for- 
 ward to the crown, all vanishes, and I think it less 
 than nothing. LEIGHTON. 
 
 What if the bread 
 
 Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod, 
 To meet the flints ? At least it may be said, 
 " Because the way is short, I thank thee, God! " 
 MRS. BROWNING. 
 
 16. It shall come to pass, [saith the 
 Lord,] that before they call I 
 will answer, and while they 
 are yet speaking I will hear. 
 
 Isaiah Ixv. 24. 
 
 A quicker communion with God have we than 
 even that suggested by the wondrous electric tele- 
 graph ; for God hears us while we speak, answers us 
 before we ask, and in every case exceeding abun- 
 dantly above all that we can ask or think. 
 
 GUMMING. 
 
 Prayer the Church's banquet ; angels' age ; 
 
 God's breath in man returning to his .birth; 
 The soul in paraphrase ; heart in pilgrimage ; 
 
 The Christian plummet, sounding heaven and earth. 
 
 HERBERT.
 
 APRIL. 75 
 
 17. Therefore they shall come and 
 sing in the height of Zion, and 
 shall flow together to the good- 
 ness of the Lord, for wheat, 
 and for wine, and for oil ; . . . and 
 their soul shall be as a watered 
 garden, and they shall not 
 sorrow any more at all. 
 
 Jer. xxxi. 12. 
 
 We are called into the family of God; we are 
 placed as guests at the banquet of heaven; the 
 treasure-cities of eternity are exhausted of their 
 wealth to adorn and enrich us. 
 
 ARCHER BUTLER. 
 
 When music and devotion join, 
 
 The way to Canaan pleasant is ; 
 We travel on with songs divine, 
 
 Ravish'd with sacred ecstasies : 
 No longer do we pass 
 Through a dry, barren wilderness, 
 But through a land where milk and honey flow : 
 The path to heaven above leads through a heaven below.
 
 76 APRIL. 
 
 18. That ye may be mindful of the 
 words which were spoken be- 
 fore by the holy prophets, and 
 of the commandment of us 
 the apostles of the Lord and 
 Saviour. 2 Pet. iii. 2. 
 
 The Bible claims to be divine. It contains im- 
 portant statements on subjects of vast magnitude. 
 It presents itself to our notice under the highest of 
 all authority. It declares that on its reception or 
 rejection depend our greatest interests in time and 
 eternity. And in support of all these claims and 
 assertions it exhibits an amount of evidence which, 
 for weight and clearness, can be produced by no 
 other book in the world. PEARSON. 
 
 'Tis a broad land of wealth unknown, 
 
 Where springs of life arise, 
 Seeds of immortal bliss are sown, 
 
 And hidden glory lies. 
 
 19. I will praise thee, for I am fear- 
 fully and wonderfully made. 
 
 Psalm cxxxix. 14.
 
 APRIL. 77 
 
 Did we but seriously consider by what small pins 
 this frame of man is held together, it would appear 
 no less than a miracle to us that we live one day or 
 hour to an end. HOPKINS. 
 
 Thou know'st the texture of my heart, 
 My reins, and every vital part : 
 I'll praise thee, from whose hands I came 
 A work of such a wondrous frame. 
 
 20. And his feet like unto fine brass, 
 
 as if they burned in a furnace. 
 
 Rev. i. 15. 
 
 We took a view of the brass-works at North 
 Common; and one thing I learned here, the pro- 
 priety of that expression, " His feet were as fine 
 brass burning in the furnace." The brightness of 
 this cannot easily be conceived. I have seen nothing 
 like it but clear, white lightning. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 Thou shin'st with everlasting rays : 
 
 Before the insufferable blaze 
 
 Angels with both wings veil their eyes. 
 
 21. Their inward thought is, that 
 
 their houses shall continue 
 
 r
 
 78 APRIL. 
 
 forever, and their dwelling- 
 places to all generations : they 
 call their lands after their 
 own names. Nevertheless man 
 being in honour abideth not : he 
 is like the beasts that perish. 
 
 Psalm xlix. 11, 12. 
 
 An old woman who showed the house and pictures 
 at Towcester expressed herself in these remarkable 
 words : " That is Sir Eobert Farmer : he lived in 
 the country, took care of his estate, built this house 
 and paid for it, managed well, saved money, and 
 died rich. That is his son : he was made a lord, 
 took a place at court, spent his estate and died a 
 beggar." 
 
 Why all this toil for triumphs of an hour ? 
 What though we wade in wealth or soar in fame ? 
 Earth's highest station ends in, " Here he lies," 
 And "Dust to dust" concludes her noblest song. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 22. But go ye rather to them that 
 sell, and buy for yourselves. 
 
 Matt. xxv. 9.
 
 APRIL. 79 
 
 Who are they ? None has this oil but Christ ; 
 and he does not sell, but give. The price, if any, is 
 self-emptiness and sense of misery. G-o to him in- 
 stantly. It may be too late to-morrow. 
 
 THOMAS ADAM. 
 
 See from the Bock a fountain rise : 
 For you in healing streams it rolls : 
 
 Money ye need not bring, nor price, 
 Ye labouring, burden'd, sin-sick souls. 
 
 J. WESLEY. 
 
 23. And now, Lord, what wait I 
 
 for? my hope is in thee. 
 
 Psalm xxxix. 7. 
 
 A lowly supplicant to God never rose up from 
 his knees without some stirrings of gracious ex- 
 pectation, nor without a prophetical instinct that 
 the mercy of the Lord was nigh at hand. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Then once more pray : 
 
 Down with thy knees, up with thy voice : 
 Seek pardon first, and God will say, 
 
 " Glad heart, rejoice." 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 24. I thank God, through Jesus 
 
 Christ our Lord. Rom. vii. 25.
 
 80 APRIL. 
 
 I owe it to Jesus that I have a moment's quiet. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Whether I fly wih angels, fall with dust, 
 Thy hands made both, and I am there : 
 
 Thy power and love, my love and trust 
 Make one place everywhere. 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 25. Thou heardest the voice of my 
 supplications when I cried 
 
 UntO thee. .. Psalm xxxi. 22. 
 
 The voice of prayer is not like other voices : the 
 farther they reach the weaker they grow. No : that 
 voice which is so weak that it cannot be heard be- 
 yond the compass of this closet, yet, when it is put 
 forth in prayer, fills all heaven with its sound. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Of what an easy, quick access, 
 
 My blessed Lord, art thou ! How suddenly 
 
 May our requests thine ear invade ! 
 To show that state dislikes not easiness. 
 
 If I but lift mine eyes, my suit is made: 
 Thou canst no more not hear than thou canst die. 
 
 HERBERT.
 
 APRIL. 81 
 
 26. Unto thee will 1 cry, Lord 
 my rock ; be not silent to me : 
 lest, if thou be silent to me, I 
 become like them that go down 
 into the pit. Psalm xxviu. i. 
 
 The highest object of man's existence is un- 
 doubtedly to hold communion with his God. For 
 this his nature was originally framed, and in this 
 alone will his nature ever find contentment and 
 repose. God is as it were the counterpart of his 
 being : the divine and human elements are fitted 
 to each other; and humanity without the corre- 
 sponding principle of Deity is a thing imperfect, 
 insufficient, incomplete. This it is that makes 
 human life such an enigma. The vital tie that con- 
 nected us with heaven is broken : we are as a limb 
 of the body separated from the general circulation. 
 God is the heart of this universal frame. We have 
 deadened the nerve that conducted his influences. 
 
 Whence came I ? Memory cannot say ; 
 
 What am I? Knowledge will not show; 
 Bound whither? Ah! away, away, 
 
 Far as eternity can go : 
 Thy love to win, thy wrath to flee, 
 God ! thyself my helper be ! 
 F
 
 82 APRIL. 
 
 27. Make thy face to shine upon thy 
 servant. Psalm cxk. 135. 
 
 Give me a firm and tangible hold of spiritual 
 things. Let me know what it is to realize experi- 
 mental religion. Oh may it be my daily task, my 
 hourly exercise, my perennial enjoyment! 
 
 CHALMERS. 
 
 Eternal Sun of Righteousness, 
 
 Display thy beams divine, 
 And cause the glories of thy face 
 
 Upon my heart to shine. 
 
 28. He will not suffer me to take 
 my breath, but filleth me with 
 bitterness. Job ix. 18. 
 
 But hath God dealt so with thee? Hast thou not 
 had a morning as well as an evening to make up thy 
 day. HOPKINS. 
 
 Send kindly light amid the encircling gloom, 
 
 And lead me on ! 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home : 
 
 Lead thou me on ! 
 
 Keep thou my feet : I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene : one step's enough for me.
 
 APRIL. 83 
 
 29. Te are the light of the world. 
 
 Matt. v. 14. 
 
 The way to Christ and heaven is dark or luminous 
 just in proportion as the Church gives forth a clear 
 or a doubtful light. OLIN. 
 
 Jesus, let all thy servants shine 
 
 Illustrious as the sun, 
 And bright with borrow'd rays divine 
 
 Their glorious circuit run. 
 
 30. That in the ages to come he 
 might show the exceeding 
 riches of his grace. 
 
 Ephesians ii. 7. 
 
 Interesting as has been the past history of our 
 race, engrossing as must ever be the present, the 
 future, more exciting still, mingles itself with every 
 thought and sentiment, and casts its beams of hope, 
 or its shadows of fear, over the stage both of active 
 and contemplative life. SIR DAVID BREW^TER. 
 
 Immortal ! what can strike the sense so strong 
 As this the soul? It thunders to the thought, 
 Quick kindles all that is divine within us, 
 Nor leaves one loitering thought beneath the stars. 
 
 YOUNG.
 
 MAY. 
 
 1. AND if I go and prepare a place 
 
 for you, I will come again and 
 receive you unto myself; that 
 where I am, there ye may be 
 
 also. John xiv. 3. 
 
 t 
 
 In the journey of life, as in other journeys, it is 
 a pleasing reflection, that we have friends who are 
 thinking of us at home and who will receive us 
 with joy when our journey is at an end. 
 
 HORNE, 
 
 He lives, my mansion to prepare ; 
 He lives, to bring me safely there. 
 
 MEDLEY. 
 
 2. And at midnight there was a cry 
 
 made, Behold the bridegroom 
 
 COmeth. Matt. xxv. 6. 
 
 84
 
 MAT. 85 
 
 The cry which is to awaken us all out of our 
 sleep ! Hear it now in the depths of your souls. He 
 will, he will come. ADAM. 
 
 To damp our earthly joys, 
 
 To increase our gracious fears, 
 Forever let the archangel's voice 
 
 Be sounding in our ears 
 The solemn midnight cry, 
 
 Ye dead, the Judge is come ; 
 Arise, and meet him in the sky, 
 
 And meet your instant doom. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 3. One thing have I desired of the 
 Lord, that will I seek after. 
 
 Psalm xxvii. 4. 
 
 A heavenly mind gathers itself up into one wish 
 and no more : Grant me thyself, Lord, and I will 
 ask no more. I will part with all to buy that one 
 pearl, the riches* of heavenly grace. TAYLOR. 
 
 Thou, Lord, alone, art all thy children need, 
 
 And there is none beside ; 
 From thee the streams of blessedness proceed ; 
 
 In thee the blest abide. 
 Fountain of life and all-abounding grace, 
 Our source, our centre and our dwelling-place. 
 
 MADAME GUYON. 
 8
 
 86 MAY. 
 
 4. But I trusted in thee, Lord : I 
 said, Thou art my God. 
 
 Psalm xxxi. 14. 
 
 Love brings a glowing heart to God. Courage 
 brings an heroic heart to God. Obedience brings a 
 quick foot and a working hand. But faith brings 
 nothing to God but an empty heart, an empty mind, 
 empty hopes and empty merits, and seeks to him 
 for all, that it may have all the good and he may 
 have all the glory. GUMMING. 
 
 Just as I am, thou wilt receive, 
 Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, 
 Because thy promise I believe, 
 Lamb of God, I come. 
 
 5. Let us hold fast the profession 
 of our faith without wavering; 
 for he is faithful that promised. 
 
 Heb. x. 23. 
 
 Faith is trust in the promises of God for eternity. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 I rest upon thy word : 
 
 The promise is for me : 
 My succour and salvation, Lord, 
 
 Shall surely come from thee.
 
 MAY. 87 
 
 6. For the invisible things of him 
 from the creation of the world 
 are clearly seen, being under- 
 stood by the things that are 
 made, even his eternal power 
 and Godhead ; so that they are 
 without excuse. Rom. \. 20. 
 
 The heathen, then, were responsible; but the 
 measure of our responsibility is vastly greater than 
 their's. We walk amid a clearer light than what is 
 emitted from those resplendent heavens; we hear 
 louder, fuller, and more impressive voices than any 
 which proceed from the hills and the valleys, the 
 woods and the waters. The revelation which has 
 come to us direct from the throne of the Eternal 
 places us on a ground of responsibility higher far 
 than that occupied by the most gifted sage of the 
 Grecian schools, who had no .other light but the 
 glimmering light of nature. PEARSON. 
 
 Divine Instructor ! Thy first volume, this, 
 
 For man's perusal ; all in capitals, 
 
 In moon and stars (Heaven's golden alphabet) 
 
 Emblazed to seize the sight, who runs may read, 
 
 Who reads may understand. "Tis unconfined 
 
 To Christian land or Jewry, fairly writ 
 
 In language universal to mankind. YOUNQ.
 
 88 MAY. 
 
 7. He leadeth princes away spoiled, 
 and overthroweth the mighty. 
 
 Job xii. 19. 
 
 Such men, methinks, may be well compared to 
 sumpter-horses : they are laden with a rich treasure 
 and attended with a numerous train of servants; 
 but at night, when their load is taken off, what 
 remains to them of all their carriage but only the 
 stripes and weariness of the day ? 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 What pain to quit the world, just made their own, 
 Their nest so deeply down'd, and built so high ! 
 Too low they build, who build beneath the stars. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 8. Whom having not seen, ye love; 
 in whom, though now ye see 
 him not, yet believing, ye re- 
 joice with joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory. 1 Pet. i. 8. 
 
 Strong love is a bias upon the thoughts ; and for 
 a man to love earnestly and not to think almost 
 continually of what he loves is as impossible as for 
 him to live and not to breathe. SOUTH.
 
 MAY. 89 
 
 Though unseen, I love the Saviour : 
 
 He hath brought salvation near, 
 Manifests his pardoning favour, 
 And, when Jesus doth appear, 
 
 Soul and body 
 Shall his glorious image bear. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 9. Who his own self bare our sins 
 in his own body on the tree, 
 that we, being dead to sins, 
 should live unto righteousness. 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 24. 
 
 Oh, the lifting of that desperate sinking burthen, 
 our sins, and taking them upon himself for us ! How 
 far do all words, and, what is larger, all thoughts, fall 
 short of the height of that love ! LEIGHTON. 
 
 I was a stricken deer, that left the herd 
 Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd 
 My panting side was charged, when I withdrew 
 To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. 
 There was I found by one who had himself 
 Been hunted by the archers. In his side he bore, 
 And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars. 
 With gentle force soliciting the darts, 
 He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. 
 
 COWPKE. 
 8*
 
 90 MAY. 
 
 10. Cast thy burden upon the Lord, 
 and he shall sustain thee. 
 
 Psalm Iv. 22. 
 
 He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads 
 himself in vain with an uneasy burden. The fear 
 of what may come, expectation of what will come, 
 desire of what will not come, and inability of re- 
 dressing all these, must needs breed in him continual 
 torment. I will cast my cares upon God : he hath 
 bidden me : they cannot harm him ; he can redress 
 them. 
 
 Still on the Lord thy burden roll, 
 
 Nor let a care remain, 
 His mighty arm shall bear thy soul 
 
 And all thy griefs sustain. 
 
 11. And I will pray the Father, and 
 .he shall give you another 
 Comforter, that he may abide 
 with you forever. John xiv. 16. 
 
 What a word for a sorrowing world ! The Church 
 militant has its tent pitched in a " valley of tears/' 
 The name of the divine visitant who comes to her 
 and ministers to her wants is Comforter.
 
 M A Y. 91 
 
 Our blest Redeemer, ere he breathed 
 
 His last farewell, 
 A guide a comforter bequeathed 
 
 With us to dwell. 
 
 He comes, his graces to impart, 
 
 A willing guest, 
 While he can find one humble heart 
 
 Wherein to rest. 
 
 LTTE. 
 
 12. A partaker of the glory that shall 
 be revealed. 1 Pet. v. i. 
 
 It gives an edge and a sweetness to Christian 
 conference to be speaking of Jesus Christ not only 
 as a King and a Redeemer, but as their King and 
 their Redeemer; in David's style, my King, and 
 my God, to be speaking of the glory to come as 
 their inheritance, that of which they are partakers, 
 their home; as strangers meeting together abroad 
 in some foreign country delight to speak of their 
 own land, their parentage and friends, and the rich 
 patrimony there abiding them. LEIGHTON. 
 
 E'en now by faith, we join our hands, 
 
 With those that went before, 
 And greet the blood-besprinkled bands 
 
 On the eternal shore.
 
 92 MAY. 
 
 Our spirits, too, shall quickly join, 
 Like their's with glory crown' d, 
 
 And shout to see our Captain's sign, 
 To hear his trumpet sound. 
 
 CHAKLES WESLEY. 
 
 13. Ye will not come to me, that ye 
 
 might have life. John v. 40. 
 
 The gospel seems like a palace full of opened 
 windows, from each of which he issues an invitation 
 declaring that he has no pleasure in our death, 
 but rather that we would turn and live. 
 
 Come, for all else must fail and die ; 
 
 Earth is no resting-place for thee; 
 Heavenward direct thy weeping eye : 
 
 I am thy portion: "Come to me." 
 
 14. Sufficient unto the day is the 
 
 evil thereof. Matt. vi. 34. 
 
 Grief for things past that cannot be remedied, 
 and care for things to come that cannot be pre- 
 vented, may easily hurt, can never benefit me. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 No profit canst thou gain 
 
 By self-consuming care : 
 To him commend thy cause ; his ear 
 
 Attends the softest prayer.
 
 MAY. 93 
 
 15. His salvation is nigh them that 
 
 fear him. Psalm ixxxv. 9. 
 
 Your pardon is not a thing far away, to be ob- 
 tained only by hard work and after many years. 
 It is nigh at hand. It is close to you, within your 
 reach all ready to be bestowed, Believe, and that 
 very moment it is your own. RYLE. 
 
 Christ is ready to impart 
 Life to all for life who sigh : 
 
 In thy mouth and in thy heart 
 The word is ever nigh. 
 
 16. Thou hast magnified thy word 
 
 above all thy name. 
 
 Psalm cxxxviii. 2. 
 
 The Bible comes to us claiming to have been 
 given by miraculous inspiration of God. There is 
 an impregnable external testimony encircling it, " as 
 the mountains are round about Jerusalem ;" and on 
 its pages the finger of God is not less clearly mani- 
 fested than on the starry heavens. PEARSON. 
 
 In vain thy creatures testify of thee, 
 Till thou proclaim thyself. Their's is indeed 
 A teaching voice ; but 'tis the praise of thine 
 That whom it teaches it makes prompt to learn, 
 And, with the boon, gives talents for its use. 
 
 COWPBE.
 
 94 MAY. 
 
 17. She shall give to thine head an 
 ornament of grace: a crown 
 of glory shall she deliver to 
 
 Prov. iv. 9. 
 
 Grace is glory in the seed; glory is but grace full- 
 blown. HOPKINS. 
 
 The men of grace have found 
 
 Glory begun below ; 
 Celestial fruit on earthly ground 
 
 From faith and hope may grow. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 18. What meanest thou, sleeper? 
 Arise, call upon thy God. 
 
 Jonah i. 6. 
 
 How can a Christian sleep in such an age as 
 our's, when life grows grander every year by the 
 increasing knowledge and extended facilities for 
 achieving great results for God and humanity? 
 Truly" is it a sin against Heaven to have no pulse 
 that beats in the palpitations of an age that tremble 1 ' 
 with the footsteps of an advancing God. 
 
 Gracious Redeemer, shake 
 
 This slumber from my soul ! 
 Say to me now, Awake, awake ! 
 
 And Christ shall make thee whole.
 
 MAY. 95 
 
 Say to thy mighty hand, 
 
 Alarm me in this hour, 
 And make me fully understand 
 
 The thunder of thy power. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 19. Fret not thyself because of evil- 
 doers, neither be thou envious 
 against the workers of iniquity. 
 For they shall soon be cut 
 down like the grass. 
 
 Psalm xxxvii. 1, 2. 
 
 Who could envy a flower, though ever so gay and 
 beautiful in its colours, when he saw that the next 
 stroke of the mower would sweep it away forever ? 
 
 . HOENE. 
 
 They flourish like the morning flower 
 
 In beauty's pride array'd, 
 But long ere night cut down it lies, 
 
 All wither'd and decay'd. 
 
 BURNS. 
 
 20. Buy the truth, and sell it not. 
 
 Prov. xxiii. 23.
 
 96 MAY. 
 
 Truth now must be sought, and that with care 
 and diligence before we find it. Jewels do not use 
 to lie upon the surface of the earth ; highways are 
 seldom paved with gold : what is most worth our 
 finding calls for the greatest search. 
 
 STILLINQFLEET. 
 
 No man e'er found a happy life by chance, 
 Or yawn'd it into being with a wish. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 21. Have the gates of death been 
 opened unto thee? Or hast 
 thou seen the doors of the 
 shadow of death ? 
 
 Job xxxviii. 17. 
 
 A peregrination is this life ; and what passenger 
 is so besotted with the pleasures of the way that he 
 forgets the place whither he is to go ? How earnest 
 thou, then, to forget death, whither thou travellest 
 with speed, and canst not, though thou desirest, rest 
 one small minute by the way ? 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Death is the crown of life : 
 
 Were death denied, poor man would live in rain ; 
 Were death denied, to live would not be life ; 
 Were death denied, e'en fools would wish to die. 
 
 YOUNG.
 
 MAY. 97 
 
 22. The joy of the Lord is your 
 strength. JNeh. viii. 10. 
 
 If God gives internal comfort, it is not that we 
 may live upon it, but to support and animate us to 
 some further end. ADAM. 
 
 My feet shall travel all the length 
 
 Of the celestial road, 
 And march with courage in thy strength 
 
 To see my Father, God. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 23. Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
 Except a man be born again, 
 he cannot see the kingdom of 
 
 John iii. 3. 
 
 Surely they that are not born again shall one 
 day wish they had never been born. 
 
 LEIQHTON. 
 
 Oh, change these wretched hearts of our's, 
 
 And give them life divine: 
 Then shall our passions and our powers, 
 Almighty Lord, be thine. 
 
 STKKLK. 
 G 9
 
 98 MAY. 
 
 24. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, 
 because I said, I go unto the 
 Father. John xiv. 28. 
 
 God's house is an hospital at one end and a 
 palace at the other. In the hospital-end are Christ's 
 members upon earth, conflicting with various dis- 
 eases and confined to a strict regimen of his ap- 
 pointing. What sort of a patient must he be who 
 would be sorry to be told that the hour is come for 
 his dismission from the hospital, and to see the 
 doors thrown wide open for his admission into the 
 presence ? ADAM. 
 
 Enthroned is Jesus now 
 
 Upon his heavenly seat, 
 The kingly crown is on his brow, 
 
 The saints are at his feet. 
 
 JUDKIN. 
 
 25. It is expedient for you that I 
 go away : for if I go not away, 
 the Comforter will not come 
 unto you; but if I depart, I 
 will send him unto you. 
 
 John xvi. 7.
 
 MAY. 99 
 
 " It is expedient for you that I go away." How 
 could it be expedient ? Would they not be losers 
 to an extent which no man could reckon ? The 
 light of his countenance, the blessing of his words, 
 the purity of his presence, the influence of his ex- 
 ample, all to be removed; and this expedient for 
 them ! ' 
 
 Enthroned on high, Almighty Lord, 
 
 The Holy Ghost send down : 
 Fulfil in us thy faithful word 
 
 And all thy mercies crown. 
 
 HTTMPHBIBS. 
 
 26. Praise the Lord from the earth, 
 ye dragons, and all deeps, . . . 
 mountains, and all hills. 
 
 Psalm cxlviii. 7, 9. 
 
 The strength and glory of God's mountains, with 
 their soaring and radiant pinnacles and surging 
 sweeps of measureless distance, kingdoms in their 
 valleys and climates upon their crests. 
 
 ye deep waters, cataract and flood, 
 
 What worldless triumph did your voices render ! 
 mountain-summits, where the angels stood 
 
 And shook from head and wing thick dews of 
 splendour ! 
 
 MBS. BROWNING.
 
 100 MAY. 
 
 27. Beautiful for situation, the joy 
 of the whole earth, is mount 
 Zion, on the sides of the north, 
 the city of the great King. 
 
 Psalm xlviii. 2. 
 
 Jerusalem, which, in the history of the past, 
 towers above Greece and Rome, because of that 
 single figure, whose beauty it is the highest type 
 of art to realize, whose career the sublimest strains 
 of literature but prophesy and record; and whose 
 doctrine it is the noblest strugggle of society to 
 realize. 
 
 Thy strength, Jerusalem, is o'er, 
 
 And broken are thy walls ; 
 The harp of Israel sounds no more 
 
 In thy deserted halls : 
 But where thy kings and prophets stood, 
 
 Triumphant over death, 
 Behold the living soul of God, 
 
 The Christ of Nazareth ! 
 
 28. Having a desire to depart, and 
 to be with Christ, which is far 
 better. PHU. i. 23.
 
 MAY. 101 
 
 I have a good hope and a great desire to see 
 what they are doing on the other side ; for of this 
 world I am heartily weary. LEIGHTON. 
 
 I long to behold him array'd 
 
 With glory and light from above, 
 The King in his beauty display'd, 
 
 His beauty of holiest love : 
 I languish and sigh to be there, 
 
 Where Jesus hath fix'd his abode : 
 Oh, when shall we meet in the air 
 
 And fly to the mountain of God ! 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 29. For they have healed the hurt 
 of the daughter of my people 
 slightly, saying, Peace, peace; 
 when there is no peace. 
 
 Jer. viii. 11. 
 
 Now, a false tranquillity is more terrible than the 
 storms of a troubled spirit ; for those who hope upon 
 deceitful grounds are in the most hopeless state, 
 neglecting what is requisite in order to salvation. 
 Thus innumerable souls pass, in a cloud of delusion, 
 to the kingdom of darkness. BATES. 
 
 9*
 
 102 MAY. 
 
 In Gilead there is balm, 
 
 A kind Physician there, 
 My fever'd mind to calm 
 
 And bid me not despair : 
 Aid me, dear Saviour ! set me free : 
 My all I would resign to thee. 
 
 30. Forasmuch as ye are manifestly 
 declared to be the epistle of 
 Christ ministered by us, writ- 
 ten not with ink, but with the 
 Spirit of the living God; not 
 in tables of stone, but in 
 fleshy tables of the heart. 
 
 2 dor. iii. 3. 
 
 Let the savour of your religion, like Mary's 
 precious ointment, fill all the houses where you 
 dwell. Be an epistle of Christ, so clearly written, 
 penned in such large, bold characters, that he who 
 runs may read it. RYLE. 
 
 Oh, let our love and faith abound ! 
 Oh, let our lives to all around 
 
 With purest lustre shine ! 
 That all around our works may see, 
 And give the glory, Lord, to thee, 
 
 The heavenly light divine.
 
 MAY. 103 
 
 31. What man knoweth the things 
 of a man, save the spirit of 
 man which is in him ? 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 11. 
 
 How much of our life passes in our walks, in our 
 journeyings, in our labours, in our rest, and all in 
 the depths of unbroken silence 1 The whole of no 
 human being's life is known to another, possessed 
 by another, though that other be in the closest and 
 most constant communion with his life. And then 
 Death ! Death, always in shadow, always in silence, 
 always absolute in isolation ! GILES. 
 
 Alone with thee in that dread strife, 
 Uphold me through mine agony, 
 
 And gently be this dying life 
 Exchanged for immortality. 
 
 MONTGOMERY.
 
 JUNE. 
 
 1. PARTAKERS of the inheritance of 
 the saints in light, cw.- i. 12. 
 
 There is a saying recorded in Plutarch of a rich 
 Roman; Croesus, that he did not think that man 
 rich that knew all that he had. Truly, in this man's 
 account, a Christian is truly rich : he hath laid up 
 more treasure than himself knows of. But though 
 a Christian knows not how much he hath, yet he 
 shall lose none : it is safe, being laid up in heaven ; 
 every star is -as a seal set upon the treasure-door, 
 that none may break in and violate it. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 There is my house and portion fair ; 
 My treasure and my heart are there, 
 
 And my abiding home : 
 For me my elder brethren stay, 
 And angels beckon me away, 
 And Jesus bids me come. 
 
 JOHN WESLKT. 
 104
 
 JUNE. 105 
 
 2. If thou be the Christ, tell us 
 
 plainly. Jesus answered them, 
 I told you, and ye believed 
 not: the works that I do in 
 my Father's name, they bear 
 witness of me. John x. 24, 25. 
 
 I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is not a 
 man. The religion of Christ is a mystery, which 
 subsists by its own force, and proceeds from a mind 
 which is not a human mind. Jesus is not a philo- 
 sopher; for his proofs are miracles, and from the 
 first his disciples adored him. Alexander, Caesar, 
 Charlemagne, and myself founded empires ; but on 
 what foundations did we rest the creations of our 
 genius ? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded an em- 
 pire upon love; and at this hour millions of men 
 would die for him. NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE. 
 
 The Christ by raptured seers foretold, 
 Fill'd with the Holy Spirit's power, 
 
 Prophet and priest and king behold, 
 And Lord of all the world adore. 
 
 3. They regard not the works of the 
 
 Lord, nor the operation of his 
 
 hands. Psalm xxviii. 5.
 
 106 JUNE. 
 
 It is unfortunate, I have thought within these 
 few minutes, while looking out on one of the most 
 enchanting nights of the most interesting season of 
 the year, and hearing the voices of a company of 
 persons, to whom I can perceive that this soft and 
 solemn shade over the earth, the calm sky, the 
 beautiful stripes of cloud, the stars, and the waning 
 moon just risen, are things not in the least more 
 interesting than the walls, ceiling and candlelight 
 of a room. JOHN FOSTER. 
 
 Acquaint thyself with God, if thou wouldst taste 
 Hia works. Admitted once to his embrace, 
 Thou shalt perceive that thon wast blind before, 
 Thine eye shall be instructed, and thine heart, 
 Made pure, shall relish with divine delight, 
 Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought. 
 
 COWPKE. 
 
 4. Are not my days few ? 
 
 Job x. 20. 
 
 Remembrance can with one glance review what 
 is past ; and why should hope and expectation look 
 upon what is to come as boundless and infinite? 
 Surely both hemispheres of our lives have equal 
 horizons ; and we shall find that our past and future 
 years have but just the same measure. 
 
 HOPKINS.
 
 JUNE. 107 
 
 Our days run thoughtlessly along, 
 
 Without a moment's stay : 
 Just like a story or a song 
 
 We pass our lives away. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 5. Behold, them hast made my days 
 as a handbreadth. 
 
 Psalm xxxix. 5. 
 
 Consider that thy life takes up a very small and 
 inconsiderable part of time. It is but a little pattern 
 cut thee off from the great piece. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 That solar shadow, as it measures life, 
 
 It life resembles too. Life speeds away 
 
 From point to point, though seeming to stand still. 
 
 'Tis later with the wise than he's aware: 
 
 Fresh hopes are hourly sown 
 
 In furrow'd brows. To gentle life's descent 
 We shut our eyes, and think it is a plain. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 6. Forgetting those things which 
 are behind. pMUppwns Hi. is. 
 
 Forget mistakes ; organize victory out of mistakes. 
 Do not stop too long to weep over spilt water. For-
 
 108 JUNE. 
 
 get your guilt (but not your Saviour,) and wait to 
 see what eternity has to say to it. You have other 
 work to do now. 
 
 Not backward are our glances bent, 
 But onward to our Father's home. 
 
 7. But the day of the Lord will 
 come as a thief in the night ; 
 in the which the heavens shall 
 pass away with a great noise, 
 and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat: the earth 
 also and the works that are 
 therein shall be burned up. 
 
 2 Peter iii. 10. 
 
 By God's word the world is doomed. There are 
 no signs of ruin yet. We tread upon it like a solid 
 thing fortified by its adamantine hills forever. 
 There is nothing against that but a few words in a 
 printed book. But the world is mined; and just at 
 the moment when serenity is at its height, the 
 heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the 
 elements melt with fervent heat, and the feet of the 
 Avenger shall stand upon the earth. 
 
 ROBERTSON.
 
 JUNE. 109 
 
 All things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, 
 Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye ; 
 And the great globe itself, (so the Holy Scriptures tell,) 
 With the rolling firmament where the starry armies dwell, 
 Shall melt with fervent heat : they all shall pass away, 
 Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. 
 
 BRYANT. 
 
 8. Now, faith is the substance of 
 
 things hoped for, the evidence 
 of things not seen. ffei. xi. i. 
 
 A strong faith can recall things that are long 
 passed, and make them exist again : sa that time 
 devours nothing, but to an ignorant person or an 
 unbeliever. And truly, unless faith do thus recall 
 the sufferings of Christ, not to our memories only, 
 but to our hearts and affections, they will all appear to 
 us but as a story of somewhat done long ago, and as 
 an outworn, antiquated thing. HOPKINS. 
 
 Faith builds a hedge from this world to the next, 
 O'er death's dark gulf, and all its horror hides. 
 
 YOCNQ. 
 
 9. Through faith we understand 
 
 that the worlds were framed 
 by the word of God. ffeb. xi. 3. 
 
 10
 
 110 JUNE. 
 
 Scripture has not spoken with an articulate voice 
 of the future locality of the blest; but Reason has 
 combined the scattered utterances of inspiration, 
 and, with a voice almost oracular, has declared that 
 He who made the worlds will, in the worlds which 
 he has made, place the beings of his choice. 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTER. 
 
 What arm almighty put these wheeling globes 
 
 In motion, and wound up the vast machine ? 
 
 Who rounded in his palm these spacious orbs ? 
 
 Who bowled them flaming through the dark profound, 
 
 Numerous as glittering gems of morning dew? 
 
 Who marshals this bright host, enrolls their names, 
 
 Appoints their post, their marches and returns 
 
 Punctual at stated periods ? He whose word 
 
 Like the loud trumpet levied first their powers 
 
 In night's inglorious empire, where they slept 
 
 In beds of darkness, arm'd them with fierce flames, 
 
 Arranged, and disciplined, and clothed in gold. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 10. Before I was afflicted, I went 
 astray: but now have I kept 
 
 thy WOrd. Psalm cxix. 67. 
 
 Christians are like clocks: the more weight is 
 hung upon them, the faster they go. 
 
 HOPKINS.
 
 JUNE. Ill 
 
 Then, with my waking thoughts 
 
 Bright with thy praise, 
 Out of my stormy griefs 
 
 Bethel I'll raise, 
 So by my woes to be 
 Nearer, my God, to thee, 
 
 Nearer to thee! 
 
 ADAMS. 
 
 11. Provide yourselves bags which 
 wax not old, a treasure in the 
 heavens that faileth not. 
 
 Luke xii. 33. 
 
 This is to lay up treasure in heaven, to remit thy 
 moneys to the other world, where they shall be 
 truly paid thee with abundant interest. This is to 
 lay up a stock for hereafter, that thou mayest have 
 whereon to live splendidly and gloriously to all 
 eternity. 
 
 Go, clothe the naked, lead the blind, 
 
 Give to the weary rest, 
 For sorrow's children comfort find 
 
 And help for all distress'd ; 
 But give to Christ alone thy heart, 
 
 Thy faith, thy love, supreme : 
 Then for his sake thine alms impart, 
 
 And, so, give all to him.
 
 112 JUNE. 
 
 12. To-day shalt thou be with me 
 in Paradise. Luke xxm. 43. 
 
 In whatever soil this word [Paradise] struck root, 
 it always had a sound of encouragement and delight. 
 Flowers and fresh airs breathe in it. It occurs three 
 times in the New Testament, in our Lord's promise 
 to the robber, in St. Paul's vision, and in St. John's 
 Revelation ; and in each case it evidently represents 
 a place beyond the stir and the troubles of the 
 world, sheltered by God's particular love and in- 
 habited by beings who enjoy his favour. 
 
 WILMOTT. 
 
 An Eden this ! a Paradise unlost ! 
 Oh that I could but reach the tree of life ! 
 For here it grows unguarded from our taste : 
 No flaming sword denies our entrance here. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 13. Exceeding great and precious 
 
 promises. 2 Peter i. 4. 
 
 Every promise is a ticket given us by God to 
 take up mansions of treasure in heaven ; it is vocal 
 glory j it is happiness in words and syllables ; it is 
 eternity couched in a sentence.
 
 JUNE. 113 
 
 I 
 
 Still sure to me thy promise stands, 
 
 And ever must abide : 
 Behold it written on thy hands 
 
 And graven in thy side. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 14. That ye may know what is the 
 hope of his calling, and what 
 the riches of the glory of his 
 inheritance in the saints. 
 
 Eph. i. 18. 
 
 The long-wished-for day has come at last, when 
 I shall see that glory in another manner than I 
 have ever done, or was capable of doing, in this 
 world. OWEN. 
 
 How welcome those untrodden spheres ! 
 
 How sweet this very hour to die, 
 To soar from earth and find all fears 
 
 Lost in thy light, Eternity ! 
 
 Oh, in that future let us think 
 
 To hold each heart the heart that shares, 
 
 With them the immortal waters drink, 
 
 And soul in soul grow deathless theirs ! 
 H 10
 
 114 JUNE. 
 
 15. Now, no chastening for the pre- 
 
 sent seemeth to be joyous, but 
 grievous: nevertheless, after- 
 ward it yieldeth the peaceable 
 fruit of righteousness unto them 
 which are exercised thereby. 
 
 Heb. xii. 11. 
 
 As spices send forth their most fragrant scents 
 when they are most bruised, so are the graces of 
 God's people more sweet and redolent when they 
 are crushed and bruised under the pressure of heavy 
 affliction. HOPKINS. 
 
 So will I bless the hour that sent 
 
 The mercy of the rod, 
 And build an altar by the tent 
 
 Where I have met with God. 
 
 J. B. 
 
 16. The Lord shall count when he 
 
 writeth up the people, that 
 this man was born there. 
 
 Psalm Ixxxvii. 6. 
 
 God's hand is continually turning over our days 
 and years, like the leaves of a book : there is some-
 
 JUNE. 115 
 
 thing written in every one of them : the last is 
 coming ; and that, like the index or table, must give 
 account of all the rest. HOPKINS. 
 
 On human hearts he bends a jealous eye, 
 And marks and in heaven's register enrolls 
 The rise and progress of each option there, 
 Sacred to doomsday ! That the page unfolds 
 And spreads as to the gaze of gods and men. 
 
 YOUNO. 
 
 17. Job sent and sanctified them, 
 and rose up early in the morn- 
 ing, and offered burnt-offerings 
 according to the number of 
 them all. Job \. 5. 
 
 The new immortal that has fallen down into the 
 midst of the Christian family is to be taken into the 
 soul of its piety, to be sanctified by its prayer and 
 faith, and to form a part of that reasonable and 
 acceptable offering in which, morning and evening, 
 the godly parents lay all that they are, and all that 
 they have, on the altar of sacrifice. 
 
 Jesus the ancient faith confirms, 
 
 To our great father given : 
 He takes our children in his arms 
 
 And calls them heirs of heaven. 
 
 WATTS.
 
 116 JUNE. 
 
 18. Others were tortured, not ac- 
 cepting deliverance: that they 
 might obtain a better resur- 
 rection. Heb. xi. 35. 
 
 A Christian, being injured and tormented by the 
 heathens and afterwards cast into prison, being 
 asked by some one what miracles Christ had ever 
 wrought, answered him, " The same that you now 
 see, that, though I have been thus ill handled by 
 you, I am not moved with it." 
 
 How beautiful falls 
 
 From human lips that blessed word, forgive ! 
 Thrice happy he whose heart has been so school'd 
 In the meek lessons of humanity 
 That he can give it utterance : it imparts 
 Celestial grandeur to the human soul 
 And maketh man an angel. 
 
 19. Turn ye, turn ye from your evil 
 ways ; for why will ye die, 
 house of Israel ? Ezek. xxxiu. 11. 
 
 Vain men ! death is at your heels, and at its heels 
 are judgment and eternity. Is it time for you to mind 
 every trifle of this life how to make a compliment
 
 JUNE. 117 
 
 or a visit when you are just splitting against the 
 Rock of ages and plunging into the lake of fire ? 
 
 Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites, 
 
 Hell threatens : all exerts, in effort all ; 
 
 Man sleeps, and man alone ; and man, whose fate, 
 
 Fate irreversible, entire, extreme, 
 
 Endless, hair-hung, breeze-shaken, o'er the gulf 
 
 A moment trembles, drops ! 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 20. And thou shalt make a plate of 
 pure gold, and grave upon it, 
 like the engravings of a signet, 
 HOLINESS TO THE LORD. 
 
 Exodus xxviii. 36. 
 
 Morning has risen into day. Are we children of 
 that day ? For form we have spirit ; for Gerizim 
 and Zion, our common scenery. The ministry of 
 Aaron is ended. His ephod, with its gold and blue 
 and scarlet and fine twined linen and cunning 
 work, has faded and dropped. The breastplate of 
 judgment has been crushed and lost. The pome- 
 granates are cast aside like untimely fruit. The 
 golden bells are silent. Even the mitre, with its
 
 118 JUNE. 
 
 sacred signet, and the grace of the fashion of it, has 
 perished. All the outward glory and beauty of 
 that Hebrew worship has vanished into the eternal 
 splendours of the gospel and been fulfilled in 
 Christ. HUNTINGTON. 
 
 "Tig finish'd ! Aaron now no more 
 Must stain his robes with purple gore ; 
 The sacred veil is rent in twain, 
 And Jewish rites no more remain. 
 
 21. To him that knoweth to do 
 good and doeth it not, to him 
 
 it is Sin. James iv. 17. 
 
 It was a first command and counsel of my earliest 
 youth always to do what my conscience told me to 
 be a duty, and to leave the consequence to God. I 
 shall carry with me the memory and, I trust, the 
 practice of this paternal lesson to the grave. 
 
 LORD ERSKINE. 
 
 Ready for all thy perfect will, 
 My acts of faith and love repeat, 
 
 Till death thy endless mercies seal 
 And make the sacrifice complete. 
 
 CHAKLES WESLEY.
 
 JUNE. 119 
 
 22. We brought nothing into this 
 world, and it is certain we 
 can carry nothing out. 
 
 1 Tim. vi. 7. 
 
 Truly it is a long journey into the other world; 
 and gold and silver and earthly treasure are too 
 heavy a portage to be carried with you thither. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Vain his ambition, noise and show; 
 
 Vain are the cares which rack his mind: 
 He heaps up treasures mixed with woe, 
 
 And dies, and leaves them all behind. 
 
 STEELE. 
 
 23. For I determined not to know 
 any thing among you save 
 Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
 fied. 1 Cor. ii. 2. 
 
 Over the wide field of divine truth it behooves 
 the Christian teacher to conduct his disciples and 
 to make them acquainted with every flower and tree 
 that grows on its surface : but all his lessons should 
 be given from under the shadow of the cross ; and,
 
 120 JUNE. 
 
 on whatever subject he touches, there should be a 
 constant reference to this as the tree of life, whose 
 leaves are for the healing of the nations. 
 
 THOMAS PEARSON. 
 
 One Spirit His 
 
 Who wore the plaited thorns with bleeding brow 
 Rules universal nature. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 24. Sow to yourselves in righteous- 
 
 ness. Hosea x. 12. 
 
 The seeds of those spiritual joys and raptures 
 which are to rise up and flourish in the soul to all 
 eternity must be planted in her during this her 
 present state of probation. Heaven is not to be 
 looked upon only as the reward, but as the natural 
 effect, of a religious life. ADDISON. 
 
 Thou canst not toil in vain : 
 Cold, heat, and moist and dry, 
 
 Shall foster and mature the grain 
 For garners in the sky. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 25. Kighteousness and peace have 
 
 kissed each other. 
 
 Psalm Ixxxv. 10.
 
 JUNE. 121 
 
 The very name of peace is sweet and lovely : it is 
 the calm of the world, the smile of nature, the 
 harmony of all things, a gentle and melodious air 
 struck from well-tuned affairs, a blessing so excel- 
 lent and amiable that in this world there is but one 
 preferable before it, and that is holiness. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Might but a little part, 
 
 A wandering breath, of that high melody 
 Descend into my heart 
 
 And change it till it be 
 Transform'd and swallow'd up of lore in thee ! 
 
 Ah, then my soul should know, 
 
 Beloved, where thou liest at noon of day, 
 And, from this place of woe 
 
 Released, should take its way 
 To mingle with thy flock, and never stray. 
 
 Luis DK LEON. 
 
 26. It is required in stewards that 
 a man be found faithful. 
 
 1 Cor. iv. 2. 
 
 It is a most responsible function, that of acting as 
 God's almoner in this populous, perishing, poverty- 
 stricken world. OWN. 
 11
 
 122 JUNE. 
 
 Father, into thy hands alone 
 I have my all restored : 
 
 My all thy property I own, 
 The steward of the Lord. 
 
 27. The just shall live by faith. 
 
 Hebrews x. 38. 
 
 The heart's matchless telescope is simple, child- 
 like faith; and every spot of common life where 
 Providence plants our feet is an observatory if we 
 will but stand on it looking upward, devoutly up- 
 ward lofty enough for the whole sweep of that 
 commanding heaven. HUNTINGDON. 
 
 The want of sight she well supplies ; 
 
 She makes the pearly gates appear; 
 Far into distant worlds she pries 
 
 And brings eternal glories near. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 28. Gather up the fragments that 
 remain, that nothing be lost. 
 
 John vi. 12. 
 
 You have heard of the Turkish piety that will 
 carefully put aside all fragments of paper, lest the 
 name of God written on them by chance should be
 
 JUNE. 123 
 
 trodden on and profaned. Christian reverence will 
 gather up the scraps of time and opportunity, be- 
 cause on them all is certainly stamped the law of 
 religious accountability. HUNTINGDON. 
 
 What moment's granted man without account ? 
 
 Moments seize: 
 
 Heaven's on their wing : a moment we may wish 
 When worlds want wealth to buy. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 29. And all the people said, Amen, 
 
 and praised the Lord. 
 
 1 Chron. xvi. 36. 
 
 Saint Jerome tells us it was the custom in his 
 days to close up every prayer with such an unani- 
 mous consent that their Amens rung and echoed in 
 the church, and sounded like the fall of waters, or 
 the noise of thunder. 
 
 There is a joy which angels well may prize, 
 To see and hear and aid God's worship when 
 Unnumber'd tongues, a host of Christian men, 
 
 Youths, maidens, matrons, join. Their sounds arise, 
 
 "Like many waters," now glad symphonies 
 Of thanks and glory to our God, and then 
 Seal of the social prayer the loud Amen, 
 
 Faith's common pledge, contrition's mingled cries. 
 
 MANT. 
 
 30. Whoso is wise, and will observe
 
 124 JUNE. 
 
 these things, even they shall 
 understand the loving-kind- 
 ness Of the Lord. Psalm cvii. 43. 
 
 Thus familiar with the great works of creation, 
 thus seeing them through the heart as well as 
 through the eye, the young will look to the future 
 with a keener glance and with brighter hopes; 
 the weary and heavy-laden will rejoice in the vision 
 of their place of rest; the philosopher will scan with 
 a new sense the lofty spheres in which he is to 
 study; and the Christian will recognise in the 
 eternal abodes the joyous temples in which he is to 
 offer his sacrifices of praise. 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTEB. 
 
 To these the Sire Omnipotent unfolds 
 The world's harmonious volume, there to read 
 The transcript of himself. On every part 
 They trace the bright impressions of his hand. 
 
 The high-born soul 
 
 Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing 
 Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth 
 And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft 
 Through fields of air. Now, amazed, she views 
 The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold, 
 Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode ; 
 And fields of radiance, whose unfading light 
 Has travell'd the profound six thousand years 
 Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things. 
 
 AKEUSIDK.
 
 JULY. 
 
 1. ENTER not into the path of the 
 wicked, and go not in the way 
 of evil men. Prov. iv. 14. 
 
 Sir Peter Lely made it a rule never to look at a 
 bad picture, having found by experience that, when- 
 ever he did so, his pencil took a tint from it. Apply 
 this to bad books and bad company. HORNE. 
 
 That man, in life wherever placed, 
 
 Has happiness in store, 
 Who walks not in the wicked's way 
 
 Nor learns their guilty lore. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 'I. And the Lord God planted a 
 garden eastward, in Eden; 
 and there he put the man 
 whom he had formed. 
 
 Gen. ii. 8. 
 11* 125
 
 126 JULY. 
 
 There was not then so vast a difference between 
 the angelical and human life : the angels and men 
 both fed on the same dainties : all the difference 
 was, they were in the upper room, in heaven, and 
 man in the summer parlour, in paradise. 
 
 STILLINGFLEET. 
 
 Are ye forever to your skies departed ? 
 
 Oh, will ye visit this dim world no more, 
 Ye, whose bright wings a solemn splendour darted 
 
 Through Eden's fresh and flowering shades of yore ? 
 
 But may ye not, unseen, around us hover, 
 
 With gentle promptings and sweet influence, yet, 
 
 Though the fresh glory of those days be over 
 When, midst the palm-trees, man your footsteps met? 
 
 MRS. HKMANS. 
 
 And the door was shut. 
 
 Matt. xxv. 10. 
 Never to be opened ! ADAM. 
 
 The day of wrath, that dreadful day, 
 When heaven and earth shall pass away ! 
 What power shall be the sinner's stay ? 
 How shall he meet that dreadful day ?
 
 JULY. 127 
 
 4. Sing praises unto our God; for 
 it is pleasant, and praise is 
 
 COmely. Psalm cxlvii. 1. 
 
 Every furrow in the book of Psalms is sown with 
 such seeds. I know nothing more certain," more 
 constant to expel the sadness of the world, than to 
 sound out the praises of the Lord as with a trumpet; 
 and, when the heart is cast down, it will make it 
 rebound from earth to heaven. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Oh, may I breathe no longer than I breathe 
 My soul in praise to Him who gave my soul 
 And all her infinite of prospect fair. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 5. A prudent man foreseeth the evil, 
 and hideth himself; but the 
 simple pass on, and are pun- 
 ished. Prov. xxii. 3. 
 
 Hell is truth seen too late. ADAM. 
 
 The keen vibration of bright truth is Hell ; 
 Men may live fools, but fools they cannot die. 
 
 YOUNG.
 
 128 JULY. 
 
 6. The wind bloweth where it list- 
 eth, and thou hearest the 
 sound thereof, but canst not 
 tell whence it cometh, and 
 whither it goeth : so is every 
 one that is born of the Spirit. 
 
 John iii. 8. 
 
 He can stretch and expand thy straitened 
 heart, can hoist and spread the sails within thee, 
 and then carry thee on swiftly, filling them, not 
 with the vain air of man's applause, which readily 
 runs a soul upon rocks and splits it, but with the 
 sweet breathings and soft gales of his own Spirit, 
 which carry it straight to the desired haven. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 If eyery one that asks may find, 
 If still thou dost on sinners fall, 
 
 Come, as a mighty, rushing wind ; 
 Great grace be now upon us all ! 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 7. Is this your joyous city, whose 
 antiquity is of ancient days ? 
 
 Isaiah xxiii. 7.
 
 JULY. 129 
 
 Pyramids, arches, obelisks, were but the irregu- 
 larities of vain-glory and wild enormities of ancient 
 magnanimity. But the most magnanimous resolu 
 tion rests in the Christian religion, which trampleth 
 upon pride, and sits on the neck of ambition, humbly 
 pursuing that infallible perpetuity unto which all 
 others must diminish their diameters and be poorly 
 seen in angles of contingency. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 Empires die : Where now 
 
 The Roman ? Greek ? They stalk, an empty name ! 
 Death ! I stretch my view : what visions rise ! 
 What triumphs ! toils imperial ! arts divine ! 
 In wither d laurels glide before my sight! 
 What lengths of far-famed ages, billow'd high 
 With human agitation, roll along 
 In unsubstantial images of air ! 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 8. Her ways are ways of pleasant- 
 ness, and all her paths are 
 
 peace. Prov. iii. 17. 
 
 Keligion gives birth to hope, it cherishes joy, it 
 nourishes great thoughts, it produces enchanting 
 desires, it colours the earth over with the gay light 
 of heaven, and makes the ways of every man the 
 
 I
 
 130 JULY. 
 
 ways of pleasantness, and his paths the paths of 
 peace. SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Though nature shakes, how soft to lean on heaven, 
 To lean on Him on whom archangels lean ! 
 With inward eyes, and silent as the grave, 
 They stand, collecting every beam of thought, 
 Till their hearts kindle with divine delight ; 
 For all their thoughts, like angels seen of old 
 In Israel's dream, come from and go to heaven. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 9. Thy will be done in earth, as it 
 
 is in heaven. Matt. vi. 10. 
 
 Man (a minister of Christ, in particular) should 
 resemble angels in reconciling duty with devotion. 
 They minister to the heirs of salvation, yet always 
 behold the face of their Father in heaven. 
 
 HORNE. 
 I ask in confidence the grace 
 
 That I may do thy will, 
 As angels who behold thy face, 
 And all thy words fulfil. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 10. God hath made man upright; 
 
 but they have sought ou 
 many inventions. Ecd. vii. 29.
 
 
 JULY. 131 
 
 God created the soul of man not only capable of 
 finding out the truth of things, but furnished him 
 with a sufficient touchstone to discover truth from 
 falsehood, by a light set up in his understanding, 
 which if he had attended to he might have secured 
 himself from all impostures and deceits. 
 
 STILLINGFLEET. 
 
 In early days the conscience has in most 
 
 A quickness, which in later life is lost, 
 
 Preserved from guilt by salutary fears, 
 
 Or, guilty, soon relenting into tears, 
 
 That, taught of God, they may indeed be wise, 
 
 Nor, ignorantly wandering, miss the skies. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 11. What man is he that liveth, and 
 shall not see death ? 
 
 Psalm Ixxxix. 48. 
 
 The way of this life is not voluntary, like that of 
 travellers, but necessary, like that of condemned 
 persons from the prison unto the place of execu- 
 tion. To death thou standest condemned, whither 
 thou art now going : how canst thou laugh ? 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR.
 
 132 JULY. 
 
 Oh, then, ere the turf or tomb 
 
 Cover us from every eye, 
 Spirit of instruction, come, 
 
 Make us learn that we must die ! 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 12. And who is he that will harm 
 
 you, if ye be followers of that 
 
 Which is gOOd ? 1 Peter in. 13. 
 
 If we were at peace within, external things would 
 have but little power to hurt us. ADAM. 
 
 His hand the good man fastens on the skies, 
 And bids earth roll, nor feels her idle whirl. 
 
 YOUNO. 
 
 13. For they have refreshed my 
 
 spirit and your's. 1 GOT. xvi. 18. 
 
 The unconscious influence of a Christian man is 
 the power that shapes society most rapidly, and tella 
 most powerfully, and leaves behind it the most 
 enduring, beneficent impressions. GUMMING. 
 
 Though time will wear us, and we must grow old, 
 Such men are not forgot as soon as cold: 
 Their fragrant memory will outlast their tomb, 
 Embalm' d forever in its own perfume. 
 
 COWPEB.
 
 JULY. 133 
 
 14. Who is this that cometh out of 
 the wilderness like pillars of 
 smoke, perfumed with myrrh 
 and frankincense, with all 
 powders of the merchant ? 
 
 Cant. \i\. 6. 
 
 This would refresh us in the hardest labour, as 
 they that carry the spices from Arabia are re- 
 freshed with the smell of them in their journey, 
 and some observe that it keeps their strength and 
 frees them from fainting. LEIGHTON. 
 
 How sweetly doth My Master sound ; My Master ! 
 As ambergris leaves a rich scent 
 
 Unto the taste, 
 
 So do those words a sweet content, 
 An Oriental fragrancy: My Master! 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 15. Those that be planted in the 
 house of the Lord shall flourish 
 in the courts of our God. They 
 shall still bring forth fruit in 
 
 Old age. Psalm xcii. 13, 14. 
 
 12
 
 134 JULY. 
 
 There is nothing more odious than fruitless old 
 age. Now, for that no tree bears fruit in autumn 
 unless it blossom in the spring, to the end that my 
 age may be profitable and laden with ripe fruit, I 
 will endeavour that my youth may be studious and 
 flowered with the blossoms. of learning and observa- 
 tion. BISHOP HALL. 
 
 These, planted in the house of God, 
 Within his courts shall thrive : 
 
 Their vigour and their lustre both 
 Shall in old age revive. 
 
 16. I will not leave you comfortless : 
 I will come to you. 
 
 John xiv. 18. 
 
 How often has that voice broken with its silvery 
 accents the muffled stillness of the sick-chamber or 
 death-chamber ! " / will not leave you comfortless :" 
 the world may, friends may, the desolations of 
 bereavement and death may; lout I will not: you 
 will be alone, yet not alone; for I, your Saviour 
 and your God, will be with you. 
 
 I need thy presence every passing hour : 
 What but thy grace can foil the tempest's power ? 
 Who like thyself my guide and stay can be ? 
 On to the close, Lord, abide with me ! 
 
 LTTB.
 
 JULY. 135 
 
 17. Speak unto the children of Israel 
 
 that they go forward. 
 
 Exodus xiv. 15. 
 
 Oh, as ever you would be useful and happy in 
 religion, let your motto be, " Forward ! forward I" to 
 your very last day. RYLE. 
 
 Saviour, where'er thy steps I see, 
 Dauntless, untired, I follow thee : 
 Oh, let thy hand support me still, 
 And lead me to thy holy hill. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 18. He raiseth up the poor out of 
 
 the dust, and lifteth up the 
 beggar from the dunghill, to 
 set them among princes, and 
 to make them inherit the 
 throne of glory. 1 Sam. u. 8. 
 
 Providence often sets the grandest spirits in the 
 lowest places, and gives to many a man a soul far 
 better than his birth. 
 
 Upwards tending, 
 
 Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, 
 But dream of him and guess where he may be, 
 They do their best to climb, and get to him. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 136 JULY. 
 
 19. So am I made to possess months 
 of vanity, and wearisome 
 nights are appointed to me. 
 
 Job vii. 3. 
 
 The greatest vanity of this world is remarkable 
 in this, that all its joys summed up together are not 
 big enough to counterpoise the evil of one sharp 
 disease or to allay a sorrow. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Resolve me why the cottager and king, 
 He whom sea-sever'd realms obey, and he 
 Who steals his whole dominion from the waste, 
 Repelling winter-blasts with mud and straw, 
 Disquieted alike, draw sigh for sigh, 
 In fate so distant, in complaint so near? 
 His grief is but his grandeur in disguise, 
 And discontent is immortality. 
 
 YOUNO. 
 
 20. Where is the house of the 
 prince? and where are the 
 dwelling-places of the wicked ? 
 
 Job xxi. 28. 
 
 The sun shines in his full brightness but the 
 very moment before he passes under a cloud. He 
 who builds upon the present builds upon the narrow
 
 JULY. 137 
 
 compass of a point; and where the foundation is so 
 narrow the superstructure cannot be high and 
 strong too. SOUTH. 
 
 Too low they build, who build beneath the stars ! 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 21. Follow peace with all men, and 
 
 holiness, without which no 
 man shall see the Lord. 
 
 Heb. xii. 14. 
 
 The highest beauty of the soul, the very image 
 of God upon it, is holiness. He that is aspiring to 
 it himself is upon a most excellent design ; and, if 
 he can do any thing to excite and call up others to 
 it, he performs a work of the greatest charity. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 'Tis Love unites what Sin divides, 
 The centre where all bliss resides, 
 
 To which the soul, once brought, 
 Reclining on the First Great Cause, 
 From his abounding sweetness draws 
 
 Peace passing human thought. 
 
 MADAME GUYOW. 
 
 22. Hold up my goings in thy paths, 
 
 that my footsteps slip not. 
 
 Psalm xvii. 5.
 
 138 JULY. 
 
 It is upon the smooth ice we slip : the rough path 
 is safest for the feet. EVANS. 
 
 My spirit labours up the hill, 
 And climbs the heavenly road ; 
 
 But thy right hand upholds me still, 
 While I pursue my God. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 23. And white robes were given 
 unto every one of them. 
 
 Rev. vi. 11. 
 
 We must here have our loins girt; but when come 
 there we may wear our long white robes at their full 
 length without disturbance, for there is nothing 
 there but peace, and without danger of defile- 
 ment, for no unclean thing is there; yea, the 
 streets of that new Jerusalem are paved with gold. 
 
 LEIQHTON. 
 
 In shining white they stand, 
 A great and countless throng, 
 
 A palmy sceptre in each hand, 
 On every lip a song. 
 
 JUDKIN. 
 
 24. Is any among you afflicted ? let 
 him pray. James v. 13.
 
 JULY. 
 
 Prayer turns our thoughts from men to angels, 
 from frailty to perfection, from a few evil days to 
 a happy eterniiy, from a jumble of sighs and joys 
 to a gladness that endureth forever. 
 
 My God, Jehovah, I have trusted in thee ; 
 
 Jesus, my Saviour, now rescue thou me : 
 
 Like fetters in iron, deep griefs me environ. Thy smile 
 
 let me see ! 
 With sighing and crying, at thy feet lowly lying, 
 
 1 adore thee, implore thee, now rescue thou me ! 
 
 MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS. 
 
 25. He shall enter into peace : they 
 shall rest in their beds, each 
 one walking in his upright- 
 ness. Isaiah Ivii. 2. 
 
 Some have died with more joy than they lived, 
 and triumphed over the last enemy with the vocal 
 praises of Godj others, with silent affections, have 
 quietly commended their spirits into his hand. 
 Some have inward refreshings and support ; others, 
 exuberant joys and ravishments, as if the light of 
 glory shined into them, or the veil of flesh were 
 drawn and their spirits were present with the in- 
 visible world. BATES.
 
 140 JULY. 
 
 'Tis but the falling of a wither'd leaf, 
 
 The breaking of a shell, 
 
 The rending of a veil ! 
 Oh, when that leaf shall fall, 
 That shell be burst, that veil be rent, may then 
 
 My spirit be with thine ! 
 
 SOUTHKY. 
 
 26. Tour life is hid with Christ in 
 
 God. Col iii. 3. 
 
 There is no true life but the life of faith. Lord, 
 let me live out of the world with thee, if thou wilt > 
 but let me not live in the world without thee. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 Thou hidden love of God, whose height, 
 Whose depths unfathom'd, no man knows, 
 
 I see from far thy beauteous light ; 
 Inly I sigh for thy repose : 
 
 My heart is pain'd, nor can it be 
 
 At rest till it finds rest in thee. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 27. For the wages of sin is death: 
 but the gift of God is eternal 
 life through Jesus Christ our 
 
 Lord. Rom. vi. 23.
 
 JULY. 141 
 
 In heaven sin known and pardoned is the song of 
 praise ; sin known and unpardoned is hell. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Eternal life to all mankind 
 
 Thou hast in Jesus given ; 
 And all who seek in him shall find 
 
 The happiness of heaven. 
 
 28. I die daily. i Oor. xv. si. 
 
 While we think a thought, we die, and the clock 
 strikes, and reckons on a portion of our eternity : we 
 form our words with the breath of our nostrils; we 
 have the less to live upon for every word we speak. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Our wasting lives grow shorter still 
 
 As days and months increase, 
 And every beating pulse we tell 
 
 Leaves but the number less. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 29. Followers of them who through 
 faith and patience inherit the 
 promises. Heb. vi. 12. 
 
 God appoints to every one of his creatures a 
 separate mission ; and if they discharge it honourably,
 
 142 JULY. 
 
 if they quit themselves like men, and faithfully 
 follow that light which is in them, withdrawing 
 from it all cold and quenching influence, there will 
 assuredly come of it such burning as, in its appointed 
 mode and measure, shall shine before men and be 
 of service constant and holy. Degrees infinite of 
 lustre there must always be ; but the weakest among 
 us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is 
 peculiar to him, and which, worthily used, will be a 
 gift also to his race forever. 
 
 And often from that other world or this 
 
 Some gleams from great souls gone before may shine, 
 To shed on struggling hearts a clearer bliss 
 
 And clothe the truth with lustre more divine. 
 
 30. death, where is thy sting? 
 
 1 Cor. xv. 55. 
 
 Tell those (children of Grod) that are drawing 
 down to the bed of death, from my experience, that 
 it has no terrors, that in the hour when it is most 
 wanted there is mercy with the Most High, and that 
 some change takes place which fits the soul to meet 
 its God. SIR WILLIAM FORBES. 
 
 Thus ! oh, not thus ! No type of earth 
 
 Could image that awaking, 
 Wherein he scarcely heard the chants 
 
 Of seraphs round him breaking,
 
 JULY. 143 
 
 
 
 Or felt the new immortal throb 
 
 Of soul from body parted, 
 But felt those eyes alone, and knew 
 
 My Saviour ! not deserted ! 
 
 MES. BROWNING. 
 
 31. For Christ is not entered into 
 the holy places made with 
 hands; . . . but into heaven 
 itself, now to appear in the pre- 
 sence Of God for US. Seb. ix. 24. 
 
 No music like Aaron's bells. Mercy and pro- 
 pitiation through our great High-Priest sound 
 sweetly to our purged ear. ADAM. 
 
 See where our great High-Priest 
 
 Before the Lord appears, 
 And on his loving breast 
 
 The tribes of Israel bears : 
 Never without his people seen, 
 The head of all believing men. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY.
 
 AUGUST. 
 
 1. THE eyes of the Lord are in every 
 
 place. Prov. xv. 3. 
 
 God's omniscience is a light shining into every 
 dark corner, ripping up all secrets and steadfastly 
 grasping the greatest and most slippery uncertain- 
 ties. As when we see the sun shine upon a river^ 
 though the waves of it move and roll this way and 
 that way by the wind, yet, for all their unsettled- 
 ness, the sun strikes them with a direct and certain 
 beam. SOUTH. 
 
 What our dim eye could never see 
 
 Is plain and naked to thy sight ; 
 What thickest darkness veils, to thee 
 
 Shines clearly as the morning light. 
 In light thou dwell'st, light that no shade, 
 
 No variation, ever knew : 
 Heaven, earth and hell stand all display'd 
 
 And open to thy piercing view. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 144
 
 AUGUST. 145 
 
 2. For I reckon that the sufferings 
 of this present time are not 
 worthy to be compared with 
 the glory which shall be re- 
 vealed in US. Rom. viii. 18. 
 
 Were the heart much upon the thoughts of that 
 glory, what thing is there in this perishing world 
 which could either lift it up or cast it down ? 
 
 LEKJHTON. 
 
 Mourner, joy ! an angel's pathway 
 
 Brightens with thy treasured flower, 
 Wings unseen its perfume bear thee, 
 
 Sweetest in life's darkest hour. 
 Christian, joy ! no tie is broken; 
 
 All love's strength thou may'st retain : 
 God removes ; but faith has spoken, 
 
 Heaven shall yield thee all again ! 
 
 3. Glorify God in your body, and 
 in your spirit, which are God's. 
 
 1 Cor. vi. 20. 
 
 God is Lord of my body also, and therefore 
 challengeth as well reverent gesture as inward de- 
 votion. I will ever, in my prayer, either stand, as 
 K IS
 
 146 AUGUST. 
 
 a servant, before my Master, or kneel, as a subject, 
 to my Prince. HALL. 
 
 When once thy foot enters the church, be bare : 
 God is there more than thou ; for thou art there 
 
 Only by his permission. Then beware, 
 And make thyself all reverence and fear, 
 
 Kneeling, nice spoiled silk-stocking. Quit thy state : 
 
 All equal are within the church's gate. 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 4. For we which have believed do 
 
 enter into rest. Heb. iv. 3. 
 
 A present rest, the rest of grace, as well as the 
 rest of glory. Not only are there signals of peace 
 hung out from the walls of heaven, the lights of 
 home glimmering in the distance to cheer our foot- 
 steps, but we have the " shadow" of this " great 
 Rock" in a present " weary land." 
 
 Oh that I now the rest might know, 
 
 Believe, and enter in ! 
 Now, Saviour, now the power bestow, 
 
 And let me cease from sin. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 5. And Enoch walked with God: 
 
 and he was not ; for God took 
 
 him. Genesis v. 24.
 
 AUGUST. 147 
 
 Solemn, affectionate and frequent converse with 
 G-od in religious duties will render death not fearful 
 to us. A Christian that walks with God here, 
 when he leaves the world changes his room, but 
 not his company. God was always with him on 
 earth, and he shall be ever with God in heaven. 
 
 BATES. 
 
 Walk in the light : thy path shall be 
 
 Peaceful, serene, and bright ; 
 For God, by grace, shall dwell in thee ; 
 
 And God himself is light. 
 
 BERNARD BARTON. 
 
 6. Godliness is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the 
 life that now is, and of that 
 which is to come, i Tim. iv. 8. 
 
 The things of God and of religion are easy and 
 sweet; they bear entertainment in their hand and 
 reward at their back ; their good is certain and per- 
 petual, and they make us cheerful to-day and plea- 
 sant to-morrow. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Still, still with thee, as to each new-born morning 
 A fresh and solemn splendour still is given, 
 
 So doth this blessed consciousness, awaking, 
 
 Breathe each day nearness unto thee and heaven.
 
 148 AUGUST. 
 
 When sinks the soul, subdued by toil, to slumber 
 Its closing eye looks up to thee in prayer ; 
 
 Sweet the repose beneath thy wings o'ershading, 
 But sweeter still to wake and find thee there. 
 
 MRS. STOWB. 
 
 7. Sorrow is better than laughter; 
 for by the sadness of the 
 countenance the heart is made 
 better. EccUs. vii. 3. 
 
 There is a sorrow the end whereof is joy; and 
 eternal laughter leadeth to destruction. It is better 
 sometimes to steal from the gladness of the feast, 
 to stop the joy of the harp, to quench the splendour 
 of the lamp, to put off the wedding-garment, and 
 to speak of the wretchedness of the grave. I must 
 lie on my last bed. The day must come, but I know 
 not when : the feet of them which have buried my 
 kindred are at the door; it may be that they shall 
 carry me out. 
 
 Count each affliction, whether light or grave, 
 God's messenger sent down to thee. Do thou 
 With courtesy receive him ; rise, and bow ; 
 And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave 
 Permission first his heavenly feet to lave. 
 
 AOBBEY DE VEBE.
 
 AUGUST. 149 
 
 8. And the work of righteousness 
 shall be peace ; and the effect 
 of righteousness, quietness 
 and assurance forever. 
 
 Isaiah xxxii. 17. 
 
 It is peace the soul wants. Existence is one long- 
 drawn sigh after repose. 
 
 So to the heart that knows thy love, Purest ! 
 
 There is a temple sacred evermore, 
 And all the babble of life's angry voices 
 
 Dies in hush'd stillness at its peaceful door. 
 
 Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth, 
 And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully ; 
 
 And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er it flieth, 
 Disturbs the soul that dwells, Lord, in thee. 
 
 9. As for God, his way is perfect. 
 
 Psalm xviii. 30. 
 
 God's hand is as steady as his eye ; and certainly 
 thus to reduce contingency to method, instability 
 and chance itself to an unfailing rule and order, 
 argues such a mind as is fit to govern the world; 
 and I am sure nothing less than such a one can. 
 
 SOUTH. 
 13*
 
 150 AUGUST. 
 
 Those mighty orbs proclaim thy power ; 
 
 Their motions speak thy skill ; 
 And on the wings of every hour 
 
 We read thy patience still. 
 
 10. Happy is that people that is in 
 
 such a case; yea, happy is that 
 people whose God is the Lord. 
 
 Psalm cxliv. 15. 
 
 Oh, how happy are they whose hearts are not 
 here, trading with vanity and gathering vexation, 
 but whose thoughts are on that blessed life above 
 trouble ! LEIGHTON. 
 
 Round each habitation hovering, 
 
 See the cloud and fire appear, 
 For a glory and a covering, 
 
 Showing that the Lord is near. 
 He who gives us daily manna, 
 
 He who listens when we cry, 
 Let him hear the loud Hosanna 
 
 Rising to his throne on high. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 11. What I do, thou knowest not 
 
 now; but thou shalt know 
 hereafter. John xiii. 7.
 
 AUGUST. 151 
 
 An earthly child takes on trust what his father 
 tells him : when he reaches maturity, much that 
 was baffling to his infant comprehension is explained. 
 Thou art in this world in the nonage of thy being. 
 Eternity is the soul's immortal manhood. 
 
 Can loving children e'er reprove 
 
 With murmurs whom they trust and love ? 
 
 Creator, I would ever be 
 
 A trusting, loving child to thee : 
 
 As comes to me or cloud or sun, 
 
 Father, thy will not mine be done. 
 
 ADAMS. 
 
 12. There be many that say, Who 
 will show us any good? Lord, 
 lift thou up the light of thy 
 countenance upon us. 
 
 Psalm iv. 6. 
 
 Riches, or beauty, or whatever worldly good hath 
 been, doth but grieve us : that which is doth not 
 satisfy us ; that which shall be is uncertain. What, 
 folly is it to trust to any of them ! HALL. 
 
 Lift up thy countenance serene, 
 
 And let thy happy child 
 Behold, without a cloud between, 
 
 The Godhead reconciled. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY.
 
 152 AUGUST. 
 
 13. Unite my heart to fear thy 
 name. Psalm ixxxvi. 11. 
 
 Then all our love, that is now scattered and par- 
 celled out upon the vanities among which we are 
 here, shall be united and gathered into one and 
 fixed upon God, and the soul filled with the delight 
 of his presence. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Take my poor heart, and let it be 
 Forever closed to all but thee ; 
 Seal thou my heart, and let me wear 
 That pledge of love forever there. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 14. Oh that they were wise, that they 
 understood this, that they 
 would consider their latter 
 end ! Deut. xxxii. 29. 
 
 To watch over the gradual waste of life, to 
 minister to the last sickness, to mourn over friends 
 that perish and children that are snatched away, 
 these things teach us all to repent : they are lessons 
 to which every ear is open and by which all hearts 
 are impressed.
 
 AUGUST. 153 
 
 Smitten friends 
 
 Are angels sent on errands full of love : 
 For us they languish, and for us they die. 
 And shall they languish, shall they die, in vain ? 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 15. Oh, give thanks unto the God of 
 
 heaven : for his mercy endureth 
 
 forever. Psalm cxxxvi. 26 
 
 Though angels were objects of God's bounty, yet 
 man only is the object of his mercy; and the mercy 
 which dwelt in an infinite circle became confined to 
 a little ring, and dwelt here below, and here shall 
 dwell below till it hath carried all God's portion up 
 to heaven, where it shall reign and glory upon our 
 crowned heads for ever and ever. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Thank and praise Jehovah's name ; 
 
 For his mercies firm and sure 
 From eternity the same 
 
 To eternity endure. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 16. As for man, his days are as 
 
 grass : as a flower of the field, 
 so he flourisheth. For the
 
 154 AUGUST. 
 
 wind passeth over it, and it is 
 gone; and the place thereof 
 shall know it no more. 
 
 Psalm ciii. 15, 16. 
 
 If I die, the world shall miss me but a little j I 
 shall miss it less. Not it me, because it hath such 
 store of better men; not I it, because it hath so 
 much ill and I shall have so much happiness. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 Thus still, whene'er the good and just 
 Close the dim eye on life and pain, 
 
 Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust 
 Till the pure spirit comes again. 
 
 Though harmless, trampled, unforgot, 
 
 His servant's humble ashes lie, 
 Yet God has mark'd and seal'd the spot, 
 
 To call its inmate to the sky. 
 
 BETANT. 
 
 17. Thy will be done. Matt. xxvi. 42. 
 
 We must suffer if he will ; but if we will what he 
 wills, even in suffering, that makes it sweet and 
 easy, when our mind goes along with his, and 
 we willingly move with that stream of providence,
 
 AUGUST. 155 
 
 which will carry us with it even though we row 
 against it, in which case we still have nothing but 
 toil and weariness for our pains. LEIGHTON. 
 
 I know that trial is his love 
 
 With but a graver face, 
 That veil'd in sorrow earthward move 
 
 The ministries of grace. 
 May none depart till I have gain'd 
 
 The blessing which it bears, 
 And learn, though late, I entertain'd 
 
 An angel unawares ! 
 
 18. But man dieth, and wasteth 
 away: yea, man giveth up 
 the ghost, and where is he ? 
 
 Job xiv. 10. 
 
 Oblivion is not to be hired : the greater part 
 must be content to be as though they had not been, 
 to be found in the register of God, not in the record 
 of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first 
 story; and the recorded names ever since contain not 
 one living century. The number of the dead long 
 exceedeth all that shall live. Every hour adds unto 
 that current arithmetic which scarce stands one 
 moment. SIR THOMAS BROWNE.
 
 156 AUGUST. 
 
 O'er them, and o'er their names, the billows close : 
 
 To-morrow knows not they were ever born. 
 
 Others a short memorial leave behind : 
 
 Like a flag floating, when the bark's engulf d, 
 
 It floats a moment, and is seen no more. 
 
 One Csesar lives ; a thousand are forgot. 
 
 YOUHO. 
 
 19. Can thine heart endure, or can 
 thine hands be strong, in the 
 days that I shall deal with 
 
 EzeJc. xxii. 14. 
 
 Are heaven and hell such trivial things as to be 
 left to an uncertainty ? BATES. 
 
 How will my heart endure 
 
 The terrors of that day, 
 When earth and heaven before his face, 
 
 Astonish'd, shrink away ? 
 
 DODDRIDOB. 
 
 20. And the King shall answer and 
 say unto them, Yerily I say 
 unto you, inasmuch as ye have 
 done it unto one of the least 
 of these my brethren, ye have 
 done it unto me. Matt. xxv. 40.
 
 AUGUST. 157 
 
 The poor man's hand is the treasury of Christ. 
 All my superfluity shall be there hoarded up, where 
 I know it shall be safely kept and surely returned 
 me. HALL. 
 
 Then in a moment to my view 
 
 The stranger darted from disguise : 
 The tokens in his hands I knew ; 
 
 My Saviour stood before mine eyes. 
 He spake; and my poor name he named: 
 " Of me thou hast not been ashamed : 
 These deeds shall thy memorial be : 
 Fear not, thou didst them unto me." 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 21. The sons of God, without rebuke, 
 in the midst of a crooked and 
 perverse nation. Phil. \\. 15. 
 
 I believe that far more is done for Christ's king- 
 dom by the holy living of believers than we are at 
 all aware. There is a reality about such living 
 which makes men feel and obliges them to think. 
 It makes religion beautiful, and draws men to con- 
 sider it, like a light-house seen afar off. RYLE. 
 
 That wisdom, Lord, on us bestow, 
 
 From every evil to depart, 
 To stop the mouth of every foe, 
 
 While, upright both in life and heart, 
 14
 
 158 AUGUST. 
 
 The proofs of godly fear we give, 
 
 And show them how the Christians live. 
 
 22. Go work to-day in my vine- 
 yard. Matt. xxi. 28. 
 
 This work has no measure but that of our sphere 
 and that of our power: it begins with capability, 
 and only with capability it concludes. When we 
 walk forth on earth, then begins our labour; and 
 our toil is not over until that warning comes which 
 tells the strong equally with the feeble that their 
 day is closed. 
 
 Up to thy Master's work ! for thou art call'd 
 To do his bidding till the hand of death 
 Strike oif thine armour. 
 
 23. While I was musing the fire 
 burned : then spake I with my 
 
 ie. Psalm xxxix. 3. 
 
 Bossuet, before he sat down to compose a sermon, 
 read a chapter in the prophet Isaiah, and another 
 in Rodriguez's tract on Christian Perfection. The 
 former fired his genius; the latter filled his heart.
 
 AUGUST. 159 
 
 Dominichino never offered to touch his pencil till 
 he found a kind of enthusiasm or inspiration upon 
 him. HORNE. 
 
 My heart grows warm with holy fire 
 And kindles with a pure desire : 
 Come, blessed Jesus, from above, 
 And fill my soul with heavenly love. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 24. Lord, Lord, open to us. But he 
 answered and said, Verily I 
 say unto you, I know you not. 
 
 Matt. xxv. 11, 12. 
 
 Because they knew him not. " Lord, Lord" is 
 nothing to him, without a faith to prize his benefits, 
 a heart to love him, and a will to be governed by 
 him. ADAM. 
 
 Vain, alas, will be their plea, 
 Workers of iniquity : 
 Sad their everlasting lot : 
 Christ will say, "I know you not." 
 
 25. Thanks be unto God for his un- 
 speakable gift. 2 Cor. ix. 15.
 
 160 AUGUST. 
 
 Do you call it nothing to look forward to death 
 without fear, and to judgment without doubtings, 
 and to eternity without a sinking heart ? Do you 
 call it nothing to feel the world slipping from your 
 grasp, and to see the grave getting ready for you 
 and the valley of the shadow of death opening be- 
 fore your eyes, and yet not be afraid ? Do you call 
 it nothing to be able to think of the great day of 
 account, the throne, the books, the Judge, the 
 assembled worlds, the revealing of secrets, the final 
 sentence, and yet to feel, " I am safe" ? This is the 
 portion, and this the privilege, of a forgiven soul. 
 
 KYLE. 
 
 The gift unspeakable 
 
 We thankfully receive, 
 And to the world thy goodness tell 
 
 And to thy glory live. 
 
 C. WESLEY. 
 
 26. But God forbid that I should 
 glory, save in the cross of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ. Gal. \\. 14. 
 
 Christian childhood, the Sunday-school, ministry 
 to the poor, numberless other phases of life, have 
 relation to a cross which eighteen hundred years 
 ago was raised on Calvary, in the remote province 
 of Judea.
 
 AUGUST. 161 
 
 In the cross of Christ I glory : 
 Towering o'er the wrecks of time, 
 
 All the light of sacred story 
 Gathers round its head sublime. 
 
 BOWKINO. 
 
 27. Eedeeming the time. Col. iv. 5. 
 
 Bishop Andrews, when a lad at the university, 
 used every year to visit his friends in London and 
 to stay a month with them. During that month he 
 constantly made it a rule to learn, by the help of a 
 master, some language or art to which he was be- 
 fore a stranger. No time was lost. HORNE. 
 
 Redeem we time ? Its loss we dearly buy. 
 
 'Tis the good heart's prerogative to raise 
 A royal tribute from the poorest hours : 
 
 Immense revenue ! every moment pays. 
 
 YOUNQ. 
 
 28. Praying always with all prayer 
 
 and supplication in the Spirit. 
 
 Ephesians vi. 18. 
 
 Prayer is the very breath by which a regenerate 
 man lives : the pulse of his heart beats strong with 
 it, and it conveys health and nourishment to his 
 soul. ADAM. 
 
 L 14
 
 162 AUGUST. 
 
 Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, 
 
 The Christian's native air ; 
 His watchword at the gate of death : 
 
 He enters heaven with prayer. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 29. For the arrows of the Almighty 
 are within me, the poison 
 whereof drinketh up my spirit: 
 the terrors of G-od do set them- 
 selves in array against me. 
 
 Job vi. 4. 
 
 Kemorse is man's dread prerogative, and is the 
 natural accompaniment of his constitution, as a 
 knowing, voluntary agent left in trust with his own 
 welfare and that of others. Remorse, if we exclude 
 the notion of responsibility, is an enigma in human 
 nature, never to be explained. ISAAC TAYLOR. 
 
 Is conscience, then, 
 
 No part of nature ? Is she not supreme ? 
 Virtue's foundations with the world were laid ; 
 Heaven mixed her with our make, and twisted close 
 Her sacred interests with the strings of life. 
 Who breaks her awful mandate shocks himself, 
 His better self. 
 
 YOUNG.
 
 AUGUST. 163 
 
 30. Whether life, or death, or things 
 
 present, or things to come, all 
 are your's. 1 Cor. m. 22. 
 
 When the apostle is drawing up a Christian's 
 inventory, he reckons death as part of his goods. 
 And well may a Christian count death among his 
 gains, since it is the hand of death which draws 
 the curtain of the great tabernacle and lets us in to 
 see God face to face in that palace of inestimable 
 majesty, where we shall see the strong rays of his 
 glory beat full upon us and be ourselves made 
 strong enough to bear them. HOPKINS. 
 
 And life is your's, to give it all 
 
 To works of faith and love ; 
 And death is your's, a welcome call 
 
 To higher joys above. 
 
 31. [His mercies] are new every 
 
 morning. Lamentations iii. 23. 
 
 Every life is a new life. Every day is a new 
 day, like nothing that ever went before or can 
 ever follow after. ROBERTSON. 
 
 New time, new favours and new joys 
 
 Do a new song require : 
 Till we shall praise thee as we would, 
 
 Accept our heart's desire. MASOK.
 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 1. AMONG whom ye shine as lights 
 in the world. PUI. u. 15. 
 
 As those that we call falling stars dart from 
 heaven and draw after them long trains of light, 
 so God would have us to shoot up to heaven, but 
 yet to leave a train of light behind us. Our graces 
 must shine always : we must go on in good works. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; 
 Not light them for themselves : for if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not. 
 
 SHAKSPKAEE. 
 
 2. Train up a child in the way he 
 should go, and when he is old 
 he will not depart from it. 
 
 Prov. xxii. 6. 
 164
 
 SEPTEMBER. 165 
 
 Training involves the idea of patient, protracted, 
 incessant effort; of earnest, trustful prayer; of effect- 
 ive, intelligible, appropriating faith; of a holy, em- 
 phatic example; of a gentle, winning, loving spirit; 
 of an obedient, all-embracing and intense piety, 
 which should transform our homes into Bethels, 
 and our hearths into holy consecrated altars, upon 
 which incense and peace-offerings shall blaze ever- 
 more. OLIN. 
 
 God gave a gift to earth : a child, 
 
 Weak, docile, and not yet denied, 
 
 Open'd its ignorant eyes and smiled. 
 
 Earth bent her utmost art and skill 
 
 To train the supple mind and will 
 
 And guard it from a breath of ill. 
 
 She shed in rainbow hues of light 
 A halo round the Good and Right, 
 To tempt and charm the baby's sight. 
 And every step of work or play 
 Was lit by some such dazzling ray, 
 Till morning brighten'd into day. 
 
 3. Walk in wisdom toward them 
 that are without, redeeming 
 
 the time. Colossians iv. 5. 
 
 Small portions of time, linked together by con- 
 stancy of return and closeness of succession, will
 
 166 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 form in mouths and years a noble amount of im- 
 provement. JOHN PYE SMITH. 
 
 Every hour that fleets so slowly 
 
 Has its task to do or bear : 
 Luminous the crown, and holy, 
 
 If thou set each gem with care. 
 
 4. Tea, saith the Spirit, that they 
 may rest from their labours. 
 
 Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
 Christians ! think but seriously with yourselves, 
 that though your way be rugged and tiresome, yet 
 it is a way that leads unto your Father's house : 
 and though you come there all wet and weary, wet 
 with your tears and wearied with your burdens, 
 yet there you shall be surely welcome, and enjoy an 
 eternity of rest : there you shall sit down, and, with 
 everlasting joy, account to your brethren a whole 
 circle of surrounding saints all the wonderful 
 methods of divine Providence which brought you 
 thither. HOPKINS. 
 
 But love, whose speechless ecstasy 
 
 Had overborne the finite, now 
 Throbs through thy being pure and free 
 
 And burns upon thy radiant brow
 
 SEPTEMBER. 167 
 
 For thou those hands' dear touch hast felt, 
 Where still the nail-prints are display'd, 
 
 And thou before that face hast knelt 
 
 Which wears the scars the thorns have made ! 
 
 5. For a day in thy courts is better 
 than a thousand. I had rather 
 be a door-keeper in the house 
 of my God, than to dwell in 
 the tents of wickedness. 
 
 Psalm Ixxxiv. 10. 
 
 I have lived to see five princes, and have been 
 privy-counsellor to four of them. I have seen the 
 most remarkable things in foreign parts, and have 
 been present at most State transactions for thirty 
 years together. Were I to live again, I would ex- 
 change this court for a cloister, my privy-counsel- 
 lor's bustle for a hermit's retirement, and the whole 
 life I have lived in the palace for an hour's enjoy- 
 ment of God in this chapel. 
 
 SIR JOHN MASON. 
 
 Go, man of pleasure, strike the lyre : 
 Of Sabbaths broken sing the charms : 
 
 Ours are the prophet's car of fire 
 Which bear us to a Father's arms. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM.
 
 168 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 6. For so he giveth his beloved 
 
 Sleep. Psalm csxvii. 2. 
 
 The Rev. Robert Anderson, shortly before his 
 death, dwelt much upon the delicious dreams he 
 had, saying, " How good it is of God to send them ! 
 They are such as I used to have as a child : I have 
 been walking through green meadows, by fresh 
 streams, and under the shade of lovely green trees." 
 
 "Sleep soft, beloved!" we sometimes say, 
 But have no tune to charm away 
 
 Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep ; 
 But never doleful dream again 
 Shall break the happy slumber, when 
 
 " He giveth his belove'd sleep." 
 
 BROWNINQ. 
 
 7. The hope of glory. Coiossians i. 27. 
 
 Heavenly hope gives real contentment and satis- 
 faction : it antedates our glory, and puts us into the 
 possession of our inheritance whilst we are yet in 
 our nonage. HOPKINS. 
 
 One sweetly solemn thought 
 
 Comes to me o'er and o'er : 
 I'm nearer home to-day 
 
 Than I've ever been before ;
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 Nearer my Father's house, 
 Where the many mansions be ; 
 
 Nearer the great white throne, 
 Nearer the jasper sea. 
 
 8. Charge them that are rich in this 
 
 world, . . . that they do good, 
 that they be rich in good works, 
 ready to distribute, willing to 
 communicate. 1 Tim. vi. 17, is. 
 
 The claims of charity are laid even now, and 
 under the divinest sanctions, not literally at the 
 rich man's gate, but at the door of his conscience. 
 There are few who can always pass by on the other 
 side. 
 
 If I have turn'd away 
 
 From grief or sufferings which I might relieve, 
 Careless " the cup of water" e'en to give, 
 
 Forgive me, Lord, I pray. 
 
 E. L. E. 
 
 9. They took knowledge of them, 
 
 that they had been with Jesus. 
 
 Acts iv. 13. 
 16
 
 170 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 The best way, after all, of making the world fed 
 more of our religion is to have more of it. 
 
 ARNOTT. 
 
 Strive we in affection, strive ; 
 Let the purer flame revive, 
 Such as in the martyrs glow'd, 
 Dying champions for their God : 
 We for Christ, our Master, stand, 
 Lights in a benighted land ; 
 We our dying Lord confess ; 
 We are Jesus' witnesses. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 10. Tribulation worketh patience. 
 
 Rom. v. 3. 
 
 All birds, when they are first caught and put into 
 their cage, fly wildly up and down and beat them- 
 selves against their little prison, but within two or 
 three days sit quietly upon their pjerch and sing 
 t^eir usual notes, with their usual melody. So it 
 fares with us : when God first brings us into straits, 
 we wildly flutter up and down and beat and tire 
 ourselves with striving to get free; but at length 
 custom and experience will make our narrow con- 
 finement spacious enough for us, and though our 
 feet should be in the stocks, yet shall we, with the 
 apostles, be able even there to sing praises to our 
 God.
 
 SBPTEMBEK. 171 
 
 The rack, the cross, life's weary wrench of woe, 
 The world sees not, as slow, from day to day, 
 
 In calm, unspoken patience, sadly still, 
 The loving spirit bleeds itself away. 
 
 But there are hours when from the heavens unfolding 
 Come down the angels with the glad release, 
 
 And we look upward to behold in glory 
 Our suffering loved ones borne away in peace. 
 
 11. Walk worthy of the vocation 
 wherewith ye are called. 
 
 Eph. iv. 1. 
 
 What a calming, elevating, solemnizing view of 
 the tasks which we find ourselves set in this world 
 to do, this word [vocation] would give us, if we did 
 but realize it to the full. We did not come to our 
 work by accident; we did not choose it for our- 
 selves; but, under much which may wear the ap- 
 pearance of accident and self-choosing, came to it 
 by God's leading and appointment. TRENCH. 
 
 What matter what the path shall be ? 
 
 The end is clear and bright to view : 
 We know that we a strength shall see, 
 
 Whate'er the day may bring to do ; 
 We see 'he end, the house of God, 
 But not the path to that abode ; 
 For God through ways they have not known 
 Will lead his own
 
 172 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 12. Ye shall receive a crown of 
 
 glory that fadeth not away. 
 
 1 Pet. v. 4. 
 
 It shall be forever as glorious, orient and flourish- 
 ing as it was at its first putting on. Indeed, eternity 
 will be the perpetual beginning of thy happiness. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 See there the starry crown 
 
 That glitters through the skies ; 
 
 Stan, the world, and sin tread down, 
 And take the glorious prize. 
 
 GHAELES WESLEY. 
 
 13. Lord, how manifold are thy 
 
 works! in wisdom hast thou 
 made them all: the earth is 
 full of thy riches. 
 
 Psalm civ. 24. 
 
 If the God of love is most appropriately wor- 
 shipped in the Christian temple, the God of nature 
 may be equally honoured in the temple of science. 
 Even from its lofty minarets the philosopher may 
 summon the faithful to prayer, and the priest and 
 the sage may exchange altars without the compromise 
 of faith or of knowledge. 
 
 SIR DAVID BREWSTER.
 
 SEPTEMBER. 173 
 
 Philosophy baptized . 
 In the pure fountain of eternal love 
 Has eyes indeed ; 
 
 Piety has found 
 
 Friends in the friends of science ; and true prayer 
 Has flow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 14. The lips of the wise disperse 
 knowledge. Prov. xv. 7. 
 
 Language is the amber in which a thousand pre- 
 cious and subtle thoughts have been safely imbedded 
 and preserved. It has arrested ten thousand light- 
 ning flashes of genius, which, unless thus fixed and 
 arrested, might have been as bright, but would have 
 also been as quickly passing and perishing, as the 
 lightning. TRENCH. 
 
 Thoughts disentangle passing o'er the lip : 
 Clean runs the thread ; if not, 'tis thrown away. 
 Speech, thought's canal! speech, thought's criterion too! 
 Thought in the mine may come forth gold or dross ; 
 When coin'd in words, we know its real worth: 
 If sterling, store it for thy future use ; 
 'Twill buy thee benefit, perhaps renown. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 15*
 
 174 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 15. The Lord hath made all things 
 
 for himself; yea, even the 
 wicked for the day of evil. 
 
 Prov. xvi. 4. 
 
 To the man who looks unbelievingly upon Divine 
 Providence, the world's history is a problem that 
 can never be solved. MORELL. 
 
 'Tis immortality your nature solves ; 
 'Tis immortality deciphers man 
 And opens all the mysteries of his make. 
 Without it, half his instincts are a riddle ; 
 Without it, all his virtues are a dream. 
 
 YOUNG. 
 
 16. Pray without ceasing. 
 
 1 Thess. v. 17. 
 
 If your hearts and affections be heavenly, your 
 thoughts will force out a passage, through the crowd 
 and tumult of worldly businesses, to heaven. Ejacu- 
 lations are swift messengers, which require not much 
 time to perform their errands in. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 Pray without ceasing, pray, 
 (Your Captain gives the word;) 
 
 His summons cheerfully obey, 
 And call upon the Lord:
 
 SEPTEMBER. 175 
 
 To God your every want 
 
 In instant prayer display : 
 Pray always ; pray, and never faint ; 
 
 Pray, without ceasing pray. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 17. In the fear of the Lord is strong 
 confidence: and his children 
 shall have a place of refuge. 
 
 Prov. xiv. 26. 
 
 Indisputably, the firm believers in the gospel have 
 a great advantage over all others, for this simple 
 reason : that if true, they will have their reward 
 hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can 
 be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having 
 had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, 
 without subsequent disappointment. 
 
 Father, perfect my trust ; 
 
 Strengthen the might of my faith ; 
 Let me feel as I would when I stand 
 
 On the rock of the shore of death. 
 
 18. So shall we ever be with the 
 
 Lord. 1 Then, iv. 17.
 
 176 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 God shall be eternally there, and thou shalt be 
 eternally there ; he will be eternally glancing and 
 smiling on thee, and thou shalt be eternally warming 
 and cheering thyself in that sunshine. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 Knowing as I am known, 
 
 How shall I love that word, 
 And oft repeat, before the throne, 
 " Forever with the Lord !" 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 19. Out of the abundance of the 
 heart the mouth speaketh. 
 
 Matt. xii. 34. 
 
 The secret or mystery of God's mercy through 
 Christ is too great to be confined within our own 
 bosom : we should in vain strive to hide it : it would 
 force its way to our lips, because it is always in our 
 hearts. It is the most natural subject on which our 
 tongues can be employed : we believe, and we can- 
 not help speaking of it. ARNOLD. 
 
 We'll talk of all he did and said 
 And suffer'd for us here below, 
 
 The path he mark'd for us to tread, 
 And what he's doing for us now. 
 
 NEWTON.
 
 SEPTEMBER. 177 
 
 20. Mine eyes prevent the night- 
 watches, that I might medi- 
 tate in thy word. 
 
 Psalm cxix. 148. 
 
 In a starry night, if you cast your eyes upon 
 many spaces of the heavens, at the first glance 
 perhaps you shall discover no stars there; yet, if 
 you continue to look earnestly and fixedly, some 
 will emerge to your view that were before hidden 
 and concealed. So is it with the Holy Scriptures : 
 if we only glance curiously upon them, no wonder 
 we discover no more stars, no more glorious truths 
 beaming out their light to our understanding. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 What glory gilds the sacred page ! 
 
 Majestic like the sun, 
 It gives a light to every age ; 
 
 It gives, but borrows none. 
 
 COWPEE. 
 
 21. And without controversy great 
 is the mystery of godliness. 
 
 1 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
 A religion without its mysteries is like a temple 
 without its God. ROBERT HALL. 
 
 M
 
 178 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 'Tis mystery all : the Immortal dies ! 
 
 Who can explore his strange design? 
 In vain the first-born seraph tries 
 
 To sound the depths of love divine : 
 'Tis mercy all ! let earth adore ; 
 Let angel minds inquire no more. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 22. For thy mercy is great above 
 
 the heavens: and thy truth 
 reacheth unto the clouds. 
 
 Psalm cviii. 4. 
 
 Our prayers and God's mercy are like two buckets 
 in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends: 
 so while our prayers ascend to God in heaven, his 
 mercies and blessings descend down upon us. 
 
 For his truth and mercy stand, 
 
 Past and present and to be, 
 Like the years of his right hand, 
 
 Like his own eternity. 
 
 MONTGOMEET. 
 
 23. All flesh is grass, and all the good- 
 
 liness thereof is as the flower 
 of the field. The grass wither- 
 eth, the flower fadeth. 
 
 Isa. xl. 6, 7.
 
 SEPTEMBER. 179 
 
 How sad, yet how expressive, is the scriptural 
 phrase for indicating death ! " He shall return to his 
 house no more." And this is what all our houses are 
 coming to : our buying, our planting, our building, 
 our marrying and giving in marriage, our genial 
 firesides and joyous children, are all like so many 
 figures passing through the magic-lantern, to be put 
 out at last in death. 
 
 Ah, Rose, that dost sweet odours give, 
 
 Whose bloom is fair to see, 
 How short a life hast thou to live ! 
 
 But mine more brief may be. 
 
 Death may make me at once his prey, 
 
 Ere time shall farther fly : 
 Thou, Rose, wilt fade within a day, 
 
 I may this moment die. 
 
 DE LA CHASSAGNE. 
 
 24. Blessed be the Lord God of 
 Israel from everlasting to e\ 7 er- 
 lasting: and let all the people 
 say, Amen. Psalm cvi. 48. 
 
 Amen is a wing to our prayers ; it is the bow that 
 shoots them up to heaven.
 
 180 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 And dear to me the loud Amen 
 
 Which echoes through the blest abode, 
 
 Which swells, and sinks, and swells again, 
 Dies on the walls, but lives to God. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 25. In the way of righteousness is 
 life; and in the pathway 
 thereof there is no death. 
 
 Prov. xii. 28. 
 
 A conviction that I have, that, when we appear 
 to die, we only change one life for another. 
 
 Who knows if that call'd death be not our life, 
 And this our life be death ? 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 26. Knowing, brethren beloved, your 
 election of God. i Thess. i. 4. 
 
 Labour for an assured hope of glory. This will 
 make thy passage into eternity lightsome and joyful. 
 When thou and all things in the world must take 
 leave and. part forever, then to have the sense of 
 the love of God and our interest in Christ and our 
 title to eternal life will sweetly bear up our hearts
 
 SEPTEMBER. 181 
 
 in a dying hour. These are things which are as 
 immortal as thy soul is, and will enter heaven with 
 thee and abide with thee to all eternity. 
 
 Espoused Lord of the pure saints in glory, 
 To whom all faithful souls affianced are, 
 
 Breathe down thy peace into our restless spirits, 
 And make a lasting heavenly vision there. 
 
 So the bright gates no more on us shall close ; 
 
 No more the cloud of angels fade away, 
 And we shall walk amid life's weary strife 
 
 In the calm light of thine eternal day. 
 
 27. Those that seek me early shall 
 find me. Prov. viu. 17. 
 
 Happy are they who rise early in the morning of 
 their youth ; for the day of life is very short and 
 the art of Christianity long and difficult. 
 
 LEIQHTON. 
 
 By cool Siloam's shady rill 
 
 How sweet the lily grows ! 
 How sweet the breath, beneath the hill, 
 
 Of Sharon's dewy rose ! 
 
 Lo ! such the child whose early feet 
 
 The paths of peace have trod, 
 Whose secret heart, with influence sweet, 
 Is upward drawn to God. 
 
 HEBKR. 
 16
 
 182 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 28. Eye hath not seen, nor ear 
 heard, neither have entered 
 into the heart of man, the 
 things which God hath pre- 
 pared for them that love him, 
 but God hath revealed them 
 unto us by his Spirit. 
 
 1 Cor. ii. 9, 10. 
 
 If earth, that is provided for mortality and is pos- 
 sessed by the Maker's enemies, have so much plea- 
 sure in it that worldlings think it worth the account 
 of their heaven, what must heaven needs be, that 
 is provided for God himself and his friends ! How 
 can it be less in worth than God is above his crea- 
 tures and God's friends better than his enemies ? I 
 will not only be content, but desirous, to be dis- 
 solved. HALL. 
 
 He keeps his own secure ; 
 
 He guards them by his side, 
 Arrays in garments white and pure 
 
 His spotless bride ; 
 "With groves of living joys, 
 
 With streams of sacred bliss, 
 With all the fruits of Paradise, 
 
 He still supplies.
 
 SEPTEMBER. 183 
 
 29. I am the good Shepherd. 
 
 John x. 14. 
 
 Still that tender eye of watchfulness following the 
 guilty wanderers, the glories of heaven and the 
 songs of angels unable to dim or alter his affection, 
 the music of the words at this moment coming as 
 sweetly from his lips as when first he uttered them, 
 " I know my sheep." 
 
 Thou Shepherd of Israel and mine, 
 The joy and desire of my heart, 
 For closer communion I pine: 
 
 I long to reside where thou art. 
 'Tis there, with the lambs of thy flock, 
 
 There only, I covet to rest, 
 To lie at the foot of the rock, 
 Or rise to be hid in thy breast. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 30. And I will very gladly spend 
 
 and be spent for you. 
 
 2 Cor. xii. 15. 
 
 If the sculptor spends years in toil to shape hard 
 marble into grace, and then dies contented, what 
 should not a man be willing to bear and do when it 
 is a deathless spirit he forms to immortal loveliness ! 
 
 They watch for souls, for which the Lord 
 
 Did heavenly bliss forego,. 
 For souls, which must forever live 
 
 In raptures or in woe. DODDBIDGE.
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 1. THIS one thing I do. PMI. iii. 13. 
 
 Every man might be more useful and happy than 
 he is, if he would be contented to be about one 
 thing. ADAM. 
 
 Whate'er pursuits my time employ, 
 One thought shall fill my soul with joy : 
 That silent, secret thought shall be 
 That all my thoughts are fix'd on thee. 
 
 OBERLIN. 
 
 2. I hid my face from thee for a 
 moment; but with everlasting 
 kindness will I have mercy on 
 thee, saith the Lord thy Re- 
 deemer. Isaiah liv. 8. 
 
 So much as moments are exceeded by eternity, 
 and the sighing of a man by the joys of an angel, 
 and a salutary frown by the light of God's counte- 
 nance, a few groans by the infinite and eternal 
 184
 
 OCTOBER. 185 
 
 hallelujahs, so much are the sorrows of the godly 
 to be undervalued in respect of what is deposited 
 for them in the treasures of eternity. Their sorrows 
 can die; but so cannot their joys. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Thy sky is overcast ; 
 Yet stars shall rise at last, 
 Brighter for darkness past, 
 And angels' silver voices stir the air. 
 
 3. The unfeigned faith that is in 
 thee, which dwelt first in thy 
 grandmother Lois, and thy 
 mother Eunice. 2 Km. i. 5. 
 
 How often in old age have I valued those divine 
 passages of experimental divinity that I heard from 
 the lips of a mother ! HALL. 
 
 Blest mother ! who in wisdom's path, 
 
 By her own parent trod, 
 Thus taught her son to flee the wrath 
 
 And know the fear of (Jod : 
 Ah ! youth, like him enjoy your prime ; 
 Begin eternity in time, 
 
 Taught by that mother's love. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 16*
 
 186 OCTOBER. 
 
 4. There is ... another glory of the 
 stars; for one star diflereth 
 from another star in glory. 
 So also is the resurrection of 
 the dead. i GOT. xv. 41, 42. 
 
 Mrs. East, with " a look of dazzling and indescri- 
 bable lustre," said, at midnight, " He made the stars 
 also," sank into sleep, and never awoke again ! 
 
 BURGESS. 
 
 Our Christ hath reach' d his heayenly seat, 
 Through sorrows and through scars ; 
 
 The golden lamps are at his feet, 
 And in his hand the stars. 
 
 5. Tour heart shall live that seek 
 
 God. Psalm Ixix. 32. 
 
 All our life is a search : we are a race of seekers. 
 With some of us the aim is consciously taken, is 
 dear, is fixed, and embraces in one the perfecting 
 of character and the glory of God. These call 
 them by whatever name, of whatever sect, of what- 
 ever nation or rank are the men that God loves and 
 honours. They are the saints, modern or ancient,
 
 OCTOBER. 187 
 
 as good, if they walk our streets to-day, as if they 
 held sweet counsel with F6ne"lon in Cambray, or 
 knelt with St. Cecilia, or wept with Paul on the 
 shores of Melitus. 
 
 That path wilh humble speed I'll seek 
 In which my Saviour's footsteps shine, 
 
 Nor will I hear, nor will I speak, 
 Of any other love but thine. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 6. Rejoice, young man, in thy 
 youth ; and let thy heart cheer 
 thee in the days of thy youth, 
 and walk in the ways of thine 
 heart, and in the sight of thine 
 eyes: but know thou that for 
 all these things God will 
 bring thee into judgment. 
 
 Eccles. xi. 9. 
 
 Youth is a dream of gladness which comes but to 
 vanish : it is sweet as a smile that perishes : it is 
 bright and rapid as the arrows of God when he 
 shooteth his lightning in the heavens.
 
 188 OCTOBER. 
 
 Father, guide 
 
 The youthful traveller in the dangerous hour ; 
 Save him from evil and temptation's power, 
 And keep him near thy side. 
 
 7. And they sung a new song, say- 
 ing, Thou art worthy to take 
 the book, and to open the 
 seals thereof: for thou wast 
 slain, and hast redeemed us to 
 God by thy blood out of every 
 kindred and tongue and people 
 and nation. Rev. v. 9. 
 
 This very humiliation will give to our happiness 
 in heaven a tone that will elevate us above the 
 highest archangel there. The angels can sing the 
 air, but cannot from their own experience send 
 forth the deep notes which will soften and enlarge 
 and complete our songs. In fact, they can only add 
 an Amen to the song which we sing. SIMEON. 
 
 Sing we the song of those who stand 
 
 Before the eternal throne, 
 Of every kindred, clime and land, 
 
 A multitude unknown. 
 
 MONTGOMERY.
 
 OCTOBER. 189 
 
 8. But now being made free from 
 sin, and become servants to 
 God, ye have your fruit unto 
 holiness, and the end ever- 
 lasting life. Romans vi. 22. 
 
 Christ comes with a blessing in each hand, for- 
 giveness in one and holiness in the other; and 
 never gives either to any one who will not take 
 both. 
 
 Fully in my life express 
 All the heights of holiness ; 
 Sweetly let my spirit prove 
 All the depths of humble love. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 9. Mine hand also hath laid the 
 foundation of the earth, and 
 my right hajid hath spanned 
 the heavens: when I call unto 
 them, they stand up together. 
 
 Isaiah xlviii. 13. 
 
 He that created something out of nothing surely 
 can raise great things out of small, and bring
 
 190 C T B E K. 
 
 all the scattered and disordered passages of affairs 
 into a great, beautiful and exact frame. SOUTH. 
 
 With glory clad, with strength array'd, 
 The Lord that o'er all nature reigns 
 
 The world's foundations strongly laid, 
 And the vast fabric still sustains. 
 
 TATE AND BRADY. 
 
 10. Let your loins be girded about. 
 
 Luke xii. 35. 
 
 Let us, then, remember our way, and where Ve 
 are, and keep our garments girt up; for we walk amid 
 thorns and briers, which, if we let them down, will 
 entangle and stop us and possibly tear our gar- 
 ments. LEIGHTON. 
 
 May our light be always burning 
 And our loins be girded round, 
 
 Waiting for our Lord's returning, 
 Longing for the welcome sound. 
 
 FORD. 
 
 11. Cast not away therefore yonr 
 confidence, which hath great 
 recompense of reward. 
 
 ffeb. x. 35.
 
 OCTOBER. 191 
 
 In the contemplation of eternity, that which is 
 broken is bound up, that which is lost is restored, 
 that which is quenched is lighted again j the 
 parent looks for his lost child across the great gulf; 
 the soul, filled with holy wishes, lifts itself up to the 
 Great Author of our being, who has sanctified and 
 redeemed us by the blood of Christ, who has given 
 cheerfulness and dignity to our existence and made 
 the short agonies of death a sure prelude to im- 
 mortal life. 
 
 And he will come in his own time and power, 
 To set his earnest-hearted children free : 
 
 Watch only through this dark and painful hour, 
 And the bright morning yet shall break for thee. 
 
 12. Having a desire to depart, and 
 to be with Christ; which is far 
 better. Phil. \. 23. 
 
 How joyful should death be to a saint, that comes 
 like the dove in the evening, to assure him the 
 deluge of misery is ceased and the time is come of 
 his enlargement from the body, his deliverance from 
 the wretched sinful society here, and his possessing 
 the divine world ! BATES.
 
 192 OCTOBER. 
 
 'Tis good at thy word to be here ; 
 
 "Pis better in thee to be gone 
 And see thee in glory appear, 
 
 And rise to a share in thy throne. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 13. The effectual fervent prayer of a 
 
 righteous man availeth much. 
 
 James v. 16. 
 
 Every good prayer knocketh at heaven for a 
 blessing; but an importunate prayer pierceth it, 
 though as hard as brass, and makes way for itself 
 into the ears of the Almighty. And as it ascends 
 lightly up, carried with the wings of faith, so it 
 comes ever laden down again upon our heads. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 Prayer makes the darken'd cloud withdraw ; 
 Prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw, 
 Gives exercise to faith and love, 
 Brings every blessing from above. 
 
 COWPER. 
 
 14. I will run the way of thy com- 
 
 mandments, when thou shalt 
 enlarge my heart. 
 
 Psalm cxix. 32.
 
 OCTOBER. 193 
 
 All love of other things doth pinch and contract 
 the heart ; for they are all narrower than itself. It 
 is framed to that wideness in its first creation, 
 capable of enjoying God, though not of a full com- 
 prehending of him. Therefore all other things 
 gather it in and straiten it from its natural size ; 
 only the love of God stretches and dilates it. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Patient th' appointed race to run, 
 This weary world we cast behind ; 
 
 From strength to strength we travel on, 
 The new Jerusalem to find. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 15. Be not afraid, only believe. 
 
 Mark v. 36. 
 
 In the dark river a sustaining arm will be under- 
 neath you, deeper than the deepest and darkest 
 wave. Ere you know it, the darkness will be past, 
 the true light shining, the whisper of faith in the 
 nether valley, " Believe ! Believe !" exchanged for 
 angel-voices, exclaiming, as you enter the portals of 
 glory, " No longer through a glass darkly, but now 
 face to face !" 
 
 Prisoners of hope, be strong, be bold ; 
 
 Cast off jour doubts, disdain to fear ; 
 N 17
 
 194 OCTOBER. 
 
 Dare to believe ; on Christ lay hold ; 
 
 Wrestle with Christ in mighty prayer ; 
 Tell him, We will not let thee go 
 Till we thy name, thy nature, know. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 16. He that soweth to the Spirit 
 shall of the Spirit reap life 
 everlasting. Gal. vi. 8. 
 
 Good deeds are very fruitful. Out of one good 
 action of ours God produceth a thousand, the 
 harvest whereof is perpetual. My principal care 
 shall be, that while my soul lives in glory in heaven 
 my good actions may live upon earth ; and that they 
 might be put into the bank and multiply while my 
 body lies in the grave and consumeth. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 The harvest-dawn is near, 
 
 The year delays not long, 
 And he who sows with many a tear 
 
 Shall reap with many a song. 
 Sad to his toil he goes, 
 
 His seed with weeping leaves ; 
 But he shall come at twilight's close 
 
 And bring his golden sheaves. 
 
 BURGESS.
 
 OCTOBER. 195 
 
 17. And ye know that he was mani- 
 
 fested to take away our sins. 
 
 1 John iii. 5. 
 
 The longer thou dost live without Christ, the 
 more grains dost thou collect to make the mountain 
 of thy sins higher. LUTHER. 
 
 Our sins on Christ were laid ; 
 
 He bore the mighty load ; 
 Our ransom-price he fully paid 
 
 In groans and tears and blood. 
 
 FAWCETT. 
 
 18. Thou shalt make them drink 
 
 of the river of thy pleasures. 
 
 Psalm xxxvi. 8. 
 
 A pleasure how rational and angelical ! A plea- 
 sure made for the soul, and the soul for that, suit- 
 able to its. spirituality and equal to all its capacities. 
 A pleasure that a man may call as properly his own 
 as his soul and his conscience, neither liable to acci- 
 dent nor exposed to injury. It is the foretaste of 
 heaven and the earnest of eternity. SOUTH. 
 
 There is a stream whose gentle flow 
 
 Supplies the city of our God, 
 Life, love and joy still gliding through 
 
 And watering our divine abode.
 
 196 OCTOBER. 
 
 That sacred stream thy holy word 
 Our grief allays, our fear controls ; 
 
 Sweet peace thy promises afford 
 And give new strength to fainting souls. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 19. And the Lord said, If I find in 
 Sodom fifty righteous within 
 the city, then I will spare all 
 the place for their sakes. 
 
 Gen. xviii. 26. 
 
 The saints are usually the scorn and contempt of 
 others ; yet are they, by that love the Lord carries 
 towards them, the very arches and pillars of State, 
 yea, of the world, the frame whereof is continued 
 mainly in regard to them. LEIQHTON. 
 
 Perhaps the self-approving, haughty world 
 That, as she sweeps him with her whistling silks, 
 Scarce deigns to notice him, or, if she see, 
 Deems him a cipher in the works of God 
 Receives advantage from his noiseless hours 
 Of what she little dreams. Perhaps she owes 
 Her sunshine and her rain, her blooming spring 
 And plenteous harvest, to the prayer he makes 
 When, Isaac-like, the solitary saint 
 Walks forth to meditate at even-tide 
 And think on her who thinks not for herself. 
 
 COWPKR.
 
 GOTO BEE. 197 
 
 20. Charge them that are rich in 
 
 this world . . . that they do 
 good, that they be rich in good 
 works, ready to distribute, 
 willing to communicate ; lay- 
 ing up in store for themselves 
 a good foundation against the 
 time to come. 
 
 1 Tim. vi. 17-19. 
 
 Riches are an excellent instrument in doing good. 
 Grold is the most precious and extensive metal, and 
 by a marvellous art an ounce may be beaten out into 
 some hundred leaves ; but it is a more happy art by 
 giving it to enrich our souls and supply the neces- 
 sities of many others. BATES. 
 
 Upon your bounty's willing wings 
 Swift let the great salvation fly ; 
 
 The hungry feed, the naked clothe, 
 To pain and sickness help apply. 
 
 RIPPON. 
 
 21. I am a stranger in the earth: 
 
 hide not thy commandments 
 
 from me. Psalm cxix. 19. 
 
 17*
 
 198 OCTOBER. 
 
 I am a stranger even at home : therefore if the 
 of the world bark at me I neither care nor 
 wonder. HALL. 
 
 I'm but a stranger here ; 
 
 Heaven is my home : 
 Earth is a desert drear ; 
 
 Heaven is my home : 
 Danger and sorrow stand 
 Round me on every hand ; 
 Heaven is my father-land, 
 
 Heaven is my home. 
 
 22. What shall the end be of them 
 that obey not the gospel of 
 
 God? I Peter \v. 17. 
 
 There is no speaking of it : a curtain is drawn : 
 silent wonder expresses it best, telling that it cannot 
 be expressed. How, then, shall it be endured ? It 
 is true that there be resemblances used in Scripture 
 giving us some glance of it. We hear of a burning 
 lake, a fire that is not quenched and a worm that 
 dies not. But these are but shadows to the real 
 misery of them that obey not the gospel. Oh, to 
 be filled with the wrath of God the ever-living God 
 forever ! What words or thoughts can reach it ? 
 Oh, eternity, eternity ! Oh that we did believe it ! 
 
 LEIQHTON.
 
 OCTOBER. 199 
 
 Ah, that day ! that day of weeping, 
 When, in dust no longer sleeping, 
 Man to God in guilt is going : 
 Lord, be then thy mercy showing. 
 
 23. So he bringeth them unto their 
 
 desired haven. Psalm cvii. so. 
 
 It might have been with thee the meanings of an 
 eternal night-blast, no lull or pause in the storm ; 
 but soon the darkness will be past and the hues of 
 mom be tipping the shores of glory. 
 
 Our Father, we look up to thee 
 As on toward the haven we roll, 
 
 And faith in our Pilot shall be 
 An anchor to steady the soul. 
 
 H. F. GOULD. 
 
 24. Man is born unto trouble, as 
 
 the sparks fly upward. 
 
 Job v. 7. 
 
 Every man hath his turn of sorrow, whereby 
 gome more, some less all men are in their times 
 miserable. Before sorrow comes I will prepare for 
 it : when it is come, I will welcome it : when it goes, 
 I will take but half a farewell of it, as still ex- 
 pecting his return. HALL.
 
 200 OCTOBER. 
 
 The springs have gone by in sorrow, 
 
 The summers were grieved away, 
 And ever we fear'd to-morrow 
 
 And ever we blamed to-day. 
 In depths which the searcher sounded, 
 
 On hills which the high heart clomb, 
 Have toil and trouble abounded : 
 
 But, friends, we are going home ! 
 
 FRANCES BROWN. 
 
 25. But we all, with open face be- 
 holding as in a glass the glory 
 of the Lord, are changed into 
 the same image from glory to 
 
 glory. 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
 Let the image of your Lord, wherein you are 
 renewed, grow clearer and sharper every month. 
 Let it not be like the image and superscription on a 
 coin, more indistinct and defaced the longer it is 
 used. Let it rather become more plain the older it 
 is, and the likeness of your King stand out more 
 fully. KYLE. 
 
 Father of eternal grace, 
 Glorify thyself in me ; 
 Sweetly beaming in my face 
 May the world thine image see ! 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY.
 
 OCTOBER. 201 
 
 26. Riches and honour are with me ; 
 yea, durable riches and right- 
 eousness. Prov. viii. 18. 
 
 He that is much in prayer shall grow rich in 
 grace. He shall thrive and increase most who is 
 busiest in this, which is our very traffic with heaven, 
 and fetches the most precious commodities thence. 
 He who sends oftenest out these ships of desire, who 
 makes the most voyages to that land of spices and 
 pearls, shall be sure to improve his stock most and 
 have most of heaven on earth. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Wisdom divine ! who tells the price 
 Of wisdom's costly merchandise ! 
 Wisdom to silver we prefer, 
 And gold is dross, compared to her. 
 
 CHAELBS WESLEY. 
 
 27. For I know that thou wilt bring 
 me to death, and to the house 
 appointed for all living. 
 
 Job xxx. 23. 
 
 On the Sabbath every man ought to think of 
 death, not to think of death languidly, but to bring 
 it in bold relief before his eyes ; to gaze at it as if 
 he were hereafter to meet it, and to learn from that
 
 202 OCTOBER. 
 
 effort of his mind the most difficult and the most 
 sublime of all lessons. This is the season in which 
 we are called on to fling off the drapery of the world, 
 to forget we are powerful, to forget we are young, 
 to forget we are rich, to pass over all the scenes of 
 life till we get at the last, and to remember only 
 that we must die and be judged by the Son of God. 
 
 SYDNEY SMITH. 
 
 Oh, ne'er will I at life repine : 
 Enough that thou hast made it mine. 
 When falls the shadow cold of death, 
 I yet will sing, with parting breath, 
 As comes to me or shade or sun, 
 "Father! thy will, not mine, be done." 
 
 ADAMS. 
 
 28. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 
 and thou shalt be saved. 
 
 Acts xvi. 31. 
 
 Man's idea is to amend and turn over a new leaf, 
 and so work his way up to reconciliation and friend- 
 ship with God : the gospel way is first to be friends 
 with God through Christ, and then to work. Man's 
 idea is to toil up the hill and find life at the top: 
 the gospel way is first to live by faith in Christ, and 
 then to do his will. KYLE.
 
 OCTOBEE. 203 
 
 Believe on Him who died for thee; 
 
 And, sure as he hath died, 
 Thy debt is paid, thy soul is free 
 
 And thou art justified. 
 
 29. Enter thou into the joy of thy 
 
 Lord. Matt. xxv. 21. 
 
 It is but little we can receive here, some drops 
 of joy that enter into us; but in heaven we shall 
 enter into joy as vessels put into a sea of happiness. 
 
 Out of my lost home, dark and cold, 
 
 I shall pass to the city whose streets are gold, 
 
 From the silence that falls upon sin and pain, 
 
 To the deathless joy of the angels' strain ; 
 
 Well shall be ended that ill begun, 
 
 Out of the shadow into the sun. 
 
 30. Beloved, let us love one another: 
 for love is of God ; and every 
 one that loveth is born of God, 
 and knoweth God. 1 John iv. 7. 
 
 Love is the great wheel of the soul, that sets all 
 the rest moving, and makes it, like the chariots of 
 Amminadib, to run swiftly towards its desired objects. 
 
 HOPKINS.
 
 204 OCTOBER. 
 
 God only knows the love of God : 
 Oh that it now were shed abroad 
 
 In this poor, stony heart ! 
 For love I sigh, for love I pine : 
 This only portion, Lord, be mine, 
 
 Be mine this better part. 
 
 31. For I reckon that the sufferings 
 of this present time are not 
 worthy to be compared with 
 the glory which shall be re- 
 vealed in US. Rom. viii. 18. 
 
 It is the high privilege of every good man to go 
 forth under this inspiring and assured conviction ; 
 and that if he is led on by an invisible hand through 
 the deepest waters and the hottest fires, it only be- 
 tokens a more splendid triumph and a higher destiny, 
 and should admonish him to lift up from depths that 
 have come over his soul a louder cry unto God, and 
 to urge through the thick clouds beyond which the 
 divine presence dwells, the acclamations of a braver 
 faith. 
 
 By the thorn-road, and none other, 
 
 Is the mount of vision won : 
 Tread it without shrinking, brother ! 
 
 Jesus trod it. Press thou on !
 
 NOVEMBER. 
 
 1. GIVE us day by day our daily 
 
 bread. Luke xi. 3. 
 
 This is the desire of simple, necessary want; 
 and, so far as it is such, it is the universal prayer of 
 living nature. It goes up forever, from all regions 
 of earth's animate existence ; it is a grand perpetual 
 supplication, sounding through land, through ocean 
 and through air. What a mighty conjugation is 
 that which calls on God for supply, in which supply 
 their life consists ! 
 
 All his creatures God doth feed ; 
 His full hand supplies their need : 
 Let us therefore warble forth 
 His high magistry and worth. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 2. And he called unto him the 
 
 twelve, and began to send 
 them forth by two and two. 
 
 Mark vi. 7. 
 18 205
 
 206 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Bees never work singly, but always in companies, 
 that they may assist each other. A useful hint 
 to scholars and Christians. 
 
 Help us to help each other, Lord, 
 
 Each other's cross to bear ; 
 Let each his friendly aid afford 
 
 And feel his brother's care. 
 
 3. Even so it is not the will of your 
 Father which is in heaven, 
 that one of these little ones 
 should perish. Matt, xviii. 14. 
 
 It is so facile a part of religion as he that hath a 
 tongue can scarce miss it. It is as easy to say, 
 " Our Father which art in heaven," as to see heaven, 
 which is always in our eye. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 To thee, Lord, my tender years 
 
 A trembling duty paid, 
 "With glimpses of the mighty God 
 
 Delighted and afraid. 
 
 From parent's eye and paths of men 
 
 Thy touch I ran to meet; 
 It swell'd the hymn and seal'd the prayer : 
 
 'Twas calm and strange and sweet ! 
 
 C. WESLEY.
 
 NOVEMBER. 207 
 
 4. Behold, I stand at the door and 
 knock: if any man hear my 
 voice, and open the door, I 
 will come in to him, and will 
 sup with him, and he with me. 
 
 Rev. iii. 20. 
 
 Christ never comes into the soul unattended. He 
 brings the Holy Spirit with him, and the Spirit hk 
 train of gifts and graces. Lay the foundation in 
 him, and leave it to him to raise God's building. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Welcome, bright guest of heaven ! 
 Lo, at the outward threshold of my door 
 I kneel to thee with grace unknown before : 
 
 Thy knock my heart hath riven ! 
 
 I know thee who thou art ! 
 
 Spirit of my ascended Lord and Ring I 
 Enter, possess, and rule ! let me thee bring 
 
 Within my heart of hearts ! 
 
 5. And I heard a voice from heaven, 
 as the voice of many waters, 
 and as the voice of a great
 
 208 NOVEMBER. 
 
 thunder: and I heard the voice 
 of harpers harping with their 
 harps: and they sung as it 
 were a new song before the 
 throne. Rev. xiv. 2, 3. 
 
 It may be boldly assumed that nothing in the 
 whole compass of nature bears so near a resemblance 
 as music to the celestial mode of thanksgiving. 
 
 Sounds of sweet melody fall on my ear ; 
 Harps of the blessed, your voices I hear ! 
 Rings with the harmony heaven's high dome ; 
 Joyfully, joyfully, haste to thy home ! 
 
 6. If I regard iniquity in my heart, 
 the Lord will not hear me. 
 
 Psalm Ixvi. 18. 
 
 What more need be said of prayer, than that it 
 brings God into the heart and keeps sin out ? 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 One thing, dear Lord, I dread, 
 
 To have a secret spot, 
 That separates my soul from thee, 
 
 And yet to know it not. 
 
 FABEB.
 
 NOVEMBER. 209 
 
 7. Strengthened with all might, ac- 
 
 cording to his glorious power, 
 unto all patience and long- 
 suffering with joyfulness. 
 
 Col. i. 11. 
 
 (rod, who in mercy and wisdom governs the 
 world, would never have suffered so many sadnesses 
 and have sent them especially to the most virtuous 
 and the wisest men, but that he intends they should 
 be the seminary of comfort, the nursery of virtue, 
 the exercise of wisdom, the trial of patience, the 
 venturing for a crown and the gate of glory. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Patience, poor soul ! the Saviour's feet were worn, 
 The Saviour's heart and hands were weary too, 
 
 His garments stain'd and travel-worn and old, 
 His vision blinded with a pitying dew. 
 
 Love thou the path of sorrow that he trod ; 
 
 Toil on, and wait in patience for thy rest : 
 city of our God ! we soon shall see 
 
 Thy glorious walls, home of the loved and blest ! 
 
 8. Delight thyself also in the Lord; 
 
 and he shall give thee the de- 
 sires of thine heart. 
 
 Psalm xxxvii. 4. 
 18*
 
 210 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Heaven is wherever God is, in my heart if I de- 
 sire it and delight in his presence. ADAM. 
 
 Rest of rests ! Peace serene, eternal ! 
 
 Thou ever livest, and thou changest never, 
 And in the secret of thy presence dwelleth 
 
 Fulness of joy forever and forever. 
 
 9. And this is the condemnation, 
 
 that light is come into the 
 world, and men loved dark- 
 ness rather than light, because 
 their deeds were evil. 
 
 John iii. 19. 
 
 There is light enough for those who sincerely 
 wish to see, and darkness enough for those of an 
 opposite description. PASCAL. 
 
 Stay with us, Lord, and with thy light 
 
 Illume the soul's abyss ; 
 Scatter the darkness of our night 
 
 And fill the world with bliss. 
 
 LYEA CATHOLICA. 
 
 10. Then shall ye call upon me, and 
 
 ye shall go and pray unto me, 
 and I will hearken unto you. 
 
 Jer. xxix. 12.
 
 NOVEMBER. 211 
 
 When we wait upon God, we are still mounting 
 up higher ai:d higher as with eagles' wings : we 
 walk first without fainting, and then run without 
 wearying; at last we fly as an eagle and make 
 haste to the fuller possession of our God. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 Thyself amid the silence clear, 
 
 The world far off and dim, 
 Thy vision free, the Bright One near, 
 
 Thyself alone with him. 
 
 The silence thronged gloriously 
 
 With business how divine ! 
 God's glory passing unto thee, 
 
 All heaven becoming thine. GILL. 
 
 11. Into thine hand I commit my 
 Spirit: thou hast redeemed 
 me, Lord God of truth. 
 
 Psalm xxxi. 5. 
 
 There was a grand thought in that saying of a 
 believer of the primitive stamp : " I do not want to 
 possess a faith : I want a faith that shall possess me." 
 The safest strength of the heart is the feeling of 
 complete dependence. HUNTINGTON. 
 
 Into His hands commit thy trembling spirit 
 Who gave his life for thine,
 
 212 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Guilty, fix all thy trust upon his merit ; 
 
 To him thy heart resign : 
 Oh, give him love for love, and sweetly fall 
 Into His hands who is thy all. 
 
 JOSIAH CONDEE. 
 
 12. And, beginning to sink, he cried, 
 saying, Lord, save rne. 
 
 Matt. xiv. 30. 
 
 The journey through life is as Peter's walking on 
 the water; and, if Christ does not reach out his 
 hand, we are every moment in danger of sinking. 
 
 ADAM. 
 
 Thy way is in the deep, Lord ! 
 
 E'en there we'll go with thee : 
 We'll meet the tempest at thy word 
 
 And walk upon the sea ! 
 
 A moment may his hand be lost, 
 
 Dear moment of delay ! 
 We cry, " Lord, help the tempest-tost," 
 
 And safe we're borne away. 
 
 13. Boast not thyself of to-morrow ; 
 for thou knowest not what a 
 day may bring forth. 
 
 Prov. xxvii. 1.
 
 NOVEMBER. 213 
 
 This day is mine and your'sj but ye know not 
 what shall be on the morrow; and every morning 
 creeps out of a dark cloud, leaving behind it an 
 ignorance and silence deep as midnight. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 To-morrow, Lord, is thine, 
 
 Lodged in thy sovereign hand ; 
 And if its sun arise and shine, 
 
 It shines by thy command. 
 The present moment flies, 
 
 And bears our life away : 
 Oh, make thy servants truly wise, 
 
 That they may live to-day. 
 
 14. And both Jesus was called, and 
 his disciples, to the marriage. 
 
 John ii. 2. 
 
 We need not wonder to find the Lord'of life at 
 that festival j for he came to sanctify all life, its 
 times of joy as its times of sorrow ; and all expe- 
 rience tells us that it is times of gladness which 
 especially need such a sanctifying power, such a 
 presence of the Lord. FRENCH. 
 
 Come, visit us I and when dull work 
 
 Grows weary, line on line, 
 Revive our souls, and let us see 
 
 Life's water turn'd to wine.
 
 214 NOVEMBEK. 
 
 Gay mirth shall deepen into joy, 
 Earth's hopes grow half divine, 
 
 When Jesus visits us, to make 
 Life's water glow as wine. 
 
 The social talk, the evening fire, 
 The homely household shrine, 
 
 Grow bright with angel-visits when 
 The Lord pours out the wine. 
 
 15. Then shall thy light break forth 
 
 as the morning. Isaiah MIL 8. 
 
 Light breaks in ! Light breaks in ! Hallelujah ! 
 Last words O/BLUMHARDT of Basle. 
 
 Christian, see ! the orient morning 
 Breaks along the heathen sky : 
 
 Lo ! the expected day is dawning, 
 Glorious day-spring from on high. 
 
 Hallelujah ! 
 Hail the day-spring from on high ! 
 
 16. And this is the confidence that 
 
 we have in him, that, if we ask 
 any thing according to his will, 
 he heareth us. 1 John v. 14. 
 
 In a full prayer for full deliverance there is hope. 
 
 ADAM.
 
 NOVEMBER. 215 
 
 Oh, move us thou hast power to move 
 
 One in the One Beloved to be ; 
 Teach us the heights and depths of love ; 
 
 Give thine, that we may love like thee. 
 
 E. B. BROWNING. 
 
 17. Comfort the feeble-minded, sup- 
 port the weak, be patient to- 
 ward all men. i Tkess. \. u. 
 
 Silently, affliction is in the shadows of life ; with- 
 out noise is death pacing the chambers of the merry 
 world ; without any visible consternation, humanity 
 is swept from the surface of the earth. Why should 
 we then wrangle? Why should not our solemn 
 duties and our hastening end render us so united 
 that personal contention would be impossible in a 
 general sympathy quickened by the breath of for- 
 bearing and pitying charity ? GILES. 
 
 Patiently enduring, ever 
 
 Let thy spirit be 
 Bound, by links that cannot sever, 
 
 To humanity. 
 Fear not, shrink not, though the burden 
 
 Heavy to thee prove : 
 God shall fill thy mouth with gladness 
 
 And thy heart with love. 
 
 BAILEY.
 
 216 NOVEMBER. 
 
 18. My son, forget not my law Let 
 
 not mercy and truth forsake 
 thee: bind them about thy 
 neck; write them upon the 
 table of thine heart. 
 
 Prov. iii. 1, 3. 
 
 Children should be inured as early as possible 
 to acts of charity and mercy. Constantino, as soon 
 as his son could write, employed his hand in signing 
 pardons, and delighted in conveying through his 
 mouth all the favours that he granted. HORNE, 
 
 Scorn not the slightest word or deed, 
 
 Nor deem it void of power : 
 There's fruit in each wind-wafted seed 
 
 That waits its natal hour. 
 
 A whisper'd word may touch the heart 
 ' And call it back to life, 
 A look of love bid sin depart 
 And still unholy strife. 
 
 19. Wheresoever this gospel shall 
 be preached in the whole 
 world, there shall also this,
 
 NOVEMBER. 217 
 
 that this woman hath done, 
 be told for a memorial of her. 
 
 Matt. xxvi. 13. 
 
 Great was her faith and love ; and Christ would 
 have the memory of the action preserved for our 
 sakes and to show how well pleased he is with the 
 open expression of our love to him. Thou wilt not 
 grudge to be at some cost for him, if thou hast 
 ability. Thy heart may be this box of precious 
 ointment, if thou hast no more. ADAM. 
 
 She loved her Saviour, and to him 
 
 Her costliest present brought : 
 To crown his head, or grace his name, 
 
 No gift too rare she thought. 
 So let the Saviour be adored, 
 
 And not the poor despised, 
 Give to the hungry from your hoard, 
 
 But all, give all, to Christ. 
 
 20. Verily, verily, I say unto you, 
 Whatsoever ye shall ask the 
 Father in my name, he will 
 
 give it yOU. John xvi. 23. 
 
 If our prayers be made in this name, God opens 
 the windows of heaven and rains down benediction. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 19
 
 218 NOVEMBER. 
 
 How high thou art ! Our songs can own 
 No music thou couldst stoop to hear ; 
 
 But still the Son's expiring groan 
 Is vocal in the Father's ear. 
 
 Mas. BROWNING. 
 
 21. The desire of our soul is to thy 
 name, and to the remembrance 
 
 Of thee. Isaiah xxvi. 8. 
 
 One glance of God, a touch of his love, will free 
 and enlarge the heart, so that it can deny all, and 
 part with all, and make an entire renouncing of all, 
 to follow him. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Let every step, let every thought, 
 Sweet memories bear of thee ! 
 
 And hear the soul thy love hath bought, 
 Whose every cry shall be, 
 " Nearer to thee!" " Nearer to thee !" 
 
 22. And many bodies of the saints 
 which slept arose, and came out 
 of the graves after his resur- 
 rection, and went into the 
 holy city, and appeared unto 
 many. Matt, xxvii. 52, 53.
 
 NOVEMBEK. 219 
 
 It is recorded, to confirm our hopes, how early his 
 power was displayed in forcing the grave to release 
 its chained captives. What better earnest can we 
 have that the strength of death is broken ? From 
 what he has done, to what he is able to do, the con- 
 sequence is clear. BATES. 
 
 Then they who live shall changed be, 
 
 And they who sleep shall wake, 
 The graves shall yield their ancient charge, 
 
 While earth's foundations shake. 
 
 23. We are made a spectacle unto 
 the world, and to angels, and 
 to men. 1 Cor. i\. 9. 
 
 I can do nothing without a million of witnesses : 
 the conscience is as a thousand witnesses; and God 
 is as a thousand consciences: I will therefore so 
 deal with men as knowing that God sees me, and 
 so with God as if the world saw me; so with my- 
 self and both of them as knowing that my conscience 
 seeth me; and so with them all as knowing that I 
 am overlooked by my accuser, by my judge. 
 
 HALL. 
 
 Beneath the star-lit arch, 
 
 Along the hallow'd ground, 
 I see cherubic armies march, 
 
 A camp of fire around.
 
 220 NOVEMBER. 
 
 All that I am, have been, 
 
 All that I yet may be, 
 He sees as he hath ever seen 
 
 And shall forever see. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 24. Ask for the old paths, where is 
 the good way, and walk there- 
 in, and ye shall find rest for 
 
 SOUls. Jer. vi. 16. 
 
 It is an old path. It is a path worn by the feet 
 of many pilgrims, and a path in which the footsteps 
 are all one way. The treasury of Christ's mercies 
 has never been found empty. The well of living 
 waters has never proved dry. RYLE. 
 
 This pilgrim-path by thee was trod, 
 Jesus ! my King ! by thee ! 
 
 Traced by thy feet, thy tears, thy blood, 
 In love, in death, for me ! 
 Oh, bring my soul nearer to thee ! 
 
 25. Is not niy word like as a fire ? 
 saith the Lord; and like a 
 hammer that breaketh the 
 rock in pieces? Jer. xxiii. 29.
 
 NOVEMBER. 221 
 
 Scripture truths, when they do not enrich the 
 memory, yet may purify the heart. . . . Lightning, 
 than which nothing sooner vanisheth away, yet often 
 breaks and melts the hardest and most firm bodies 
 in its sudden passage. Such is the irresistible force 
 of the word. The Spirit often darts it through us. 
 It seems but like a flash and gone; and yet it may 
 break and melt down our hard hearts before it, 
 when it leaves no impression at all upon our memo- 
 ries. BISHOP HOPKINS. 
 
 Gome, thou all-victorious Lord, 
 Thy power to us make known ; 
 
 Strike with the hammer of thy word 
 And break these hearts of stone. 
 
 CHARLES WESLBT. 
 
 26. In the night his song shall be 
 with me, and my prayer unto 
 the God of my life. 
 
 Psalm xlii. 8. 
 
 There are souls like the " alabaster vase of oint- 
 ment, very precious," which shed no perfume of de- 
 votion, because a great sorrow has never broken 
 them. Could Scott have been given back to the 
 world again after the heavy discipline of life had 
 passed over him, he would have spoken otherwise 
 19*
 
 222 NOVEMBER. 
 
 of many things. What he vainly struggled to say 
 to Lockhart on his death-bed would have been a 
 new revelation of his soul to the world, could he 
 have lived to unfold it in literature. But so it is : 
 when we have learned to live, life's purpose is 
 answered, and we die. 
 
 Sweetest by night, like blessed truths 
 
 That grace the sacred page, 
 But freeliest pour their kindliest store 
 
 O'er sickness, grief and age. 
 
 Seen most by ruins, like th love 
 
 That gave itself for all, 
 But closest clings to guiltiest things, 
 
 Like Magdalen or Saul. 
 
 27. Until the day break, and the 
 shadows flee away, I will get 
 me to the mountain of myrrh, 
 and to the hill of frankincense. 
 
 Cant. iv. 6. 
 
 I am grown exceeding uneasy in writing and 
 speaking, yea, almost in thinking, when I reflect 
 how cloudy our clearest thoughts are. But I think 
 again, what other can we do, till the day break and
 
 NOVEMBER 223 
 
 the shadows flee away ? As one that lieth awake in 
 the night must be thinking, and one thought that 
 will likely oftenest return, when by all other 
 thoughts he finds little relief, is, When will it be 
 day ? LEIGHTON. 
 
 So shall it be at last, in that bright morning 
 When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee : 
 
 Oh, in that hour, fairer than daylight dawning, 
 Shall rise the glorious thought, I am with thee ! 
 
 28. Now my days are swifter than 
 a post: they flee away, they 
 see no good. They are passed 
 away as the swift ships. 
 
 Job ix. 25, 26. 
 
 We are dying, we are changing, every hour; and 
 yet we live as if we were immortal. The very time 
 which it takes to pen these lines must be retrenched 
 from my days. We often write to one another; our 
 letters traverse the seas, and as the ship scuds along 
 so life flies : a moment of it passes with every wave. 
 
 ST. JEROME. 
 
 Swift as the arrow cuts its way 
 Through the soft, yielding air, 
 
 Or as the sun's more subtle ray, 
 Or lightning's sudden glare.
 
 224 NOVEMBER. 
 
 Or as an eagle to the prey, 
 Or shuttle through the loom, 
 
 So haste our fleeting lives away ; 
 So pass we to the tomb. 
 
 29. [I will] make them joyful in my 
 house of prayer. Isaiah ivi. 7. 
 
 How can we come to the house of prayer, and not 
 be moved with the very glory of the place itself, 
 so to frame our affections praying as doth best beseem 
 them whose suits the Almighty doth there sit to 
 hear and his angels attend to further? 
 
 HOOKER. 
 
 And dear to me the winged hour 
 
 Spent in thy hallow'd courts, Lord, 
 
 To feel devotion's soothing power, 
 And catch the manna of thy word. 
 
 CUNNINGHAM. 
 
 30. The night is far spent, the day 
 is at hand: let. us therefore 
 cast off the works of darkness, 
 and let us put on the armour 
 
 Of light. Rom. xiii. 12.
 
 NOVEMBER. 225 
 
 These words are as an alarm or morning watch- 
 bell of singular use, not only awaking a Christian to 
 his day's work, but withal reminding him what it is. 
 
 LEIGHTON. 
 
 Hark, how the watchmen cry ! 
 
 Attend the trumpet's sound ; 
 Stand to your arms ! the foe is nigh, 
 
 The powers of hell surround. 
 
 C. WESLEY.
 
 DECEMBER 
 
 1. I AM the resurrection and the 
 
 life : he that believeth in me, 
 though he were dead, yet shall 
 he live, John xi. 25. 
 
 What a voice is this, breaking over a world which 
 for six thousand years has been a dormitory of sin 
 and death ! 
 
 Morning breaks upon the tomb ; 
 Jesus scatters all its gloom ; 
 Day of triumph through the skies, 
 See the glorious Saviour rise ! 
 
 COLLYER. 
 
 2. And in this mountain shall the 
 
 Lord of hosts make unto all 
 people a feast of fat things, 
 a feast of wines on the lees, of 
 fat things full of marrow, of 
 wines on the lees well refined. 
 
 Isaiah xxv. 6. 
 226
 
 DECEMBER. 227 
 
 As those that have tasted of some delicate dish 
 find other plain dishes but unpleasant, so it fareth 
 with those which have once tasted of heavenly 
 things: they cannot but contemn the best worldly 
 pleasures. As, therefore, some dainty guest, know- 
 ing there is so pleasant fare to come, I will reserve 
 my appetite for it, and not suffer myself to be cloyed 
 with the coarse diet of the world. HALL. 
 
 Eternal Wisdom hath prepared 
 
 A soul-reviving feast, 
 And bid your longing appetites 
 
 The rich provision taste. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 3. "When a few years are come, then 
 I shall go the way whence I 
 shall not return. Job xvi. 22. 
 
 The day of grace is slipping away; the day of 
 judgment is drawing near; the thread of life is 
 winding up. A few more short years, and every 
 soul of us will have gone to his own place: we 
 shall each of us be in heaven or hell. RYLE. 
 
 My Father's house on high ! 
 
 Home of my soul ! how near 
 At times, to faith's foreseeing eye, 
 
 Thy golden gates appear ! 
 
 MONTGOMERY.
 
 228 DECEMBER. 
 
 4. Those that walk in pride he is 
 able to abase. Dan. iv. 37. 
 
 After all, take some quiet, sober moment of life 
 and add together the two ideas of pride and of man. 
 Behold him, a creature of a span high, stalking 
 through infinite space in all the grandeur of little- 
 ness. Perched on a little speck of the universe, 
 every wind of heaven strikes into his Wood the cold- 
 ness of death; his soul fleets from his body like 
 melody from the string; day and night, as dust on 
 the wheel, he is rolled along the heavens, through a 
 labyrinth of worlds, and all the systems and creations 
 of God are flaming above and beneath. 
 
 Lord, forever at thy side 
 
 Let my place and portion be : 
 
 Strip me of the robe of pride ; 
 Clothe me with humility. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 5. Take heed that ye do not your 
 alms before men, to be seen of 
 them : otherwise ye have no 
 reward of your Father which 
 is in heaven. Matt. vi. i.
 
 DECEMBER. 229 
 
 In no wise does religion so commend herself as 
 in the embodied charity which glides noiselessly 
 upon her errands with the softness of an angel's 
 foot. 
 
 Make channels for the streams of love, 
 
 Where they may broadly run, 
 And love has overflowing streams 
 
 To fill them every one. 
 
 For we must share, if we would keep, 
 
 That blessing from above : 
 Ceasing to give, we cease to have : 
 
 Such is the law of love. 
 
 FRENCH. 
 
 6. What is a man profited if he 
 shall gain the whole world 
 and lose his own soul? 
 
 Matthew xvi. 26. 
 
 To lose a soul which is designed to be an immense 
 sea of pleasure, even in its natural capacities, is to 
 lose all that whereby a man can possibly be, or be 
 supposed, happy. JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Are there on earth (let me not call them men) 
 Who lodge a soul immortal in their breasts, 
 Unconscious as the mountain of its ore, 
 20
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 Or rock of its inestimable gem ? 
 When rocks shall melt and mountains vanish, these 
 Shall know their treasure, treasure then no more. 
 
 YOUNQ. 
 
 7. Though the Lord be high, yet 
 hath he respect unto the 
 
 lowly. Psalm cxxxviii. 6. 
 
 Some flowers and herbs, that grow very low, are 
 of a very fragrant smell and healthful use. 
 
 LEIQHTON. 
 
 The bird that soars on highest wing 
 Builds on the ground her lowly nest ; 
 
 And she that does most sweetly sing 
 Sings in the shade when all things rest : 
 
 In lark and nightingale we see 
 
 What honour hath humility. 
 
 8. Lord, to whom shall we go? thou 
 hast the words of eternal life. 
 
 John vi. 68. 
 
 Religion is natural and necessary to the heart of 
 man. Where else can that being seek for succour 
 who is in death in the midst of life ? What other 
 hope in the perils of land or water, on the bed of
 
 DECEMBER. 231 
 
 sickness, in the hour of death, in the day of judg- 
 ment? 
 
 Ah ! what avails my strife, 
 
 My wanderings to and fro ? 
 Thou hast the words of endless life : 
 
 Ah, whither should I go ? 
 
 C. WESLEY. 
 
 9. It is appointed unto men once to 
 
 die. Heb. ix. 27. 
 
 Some walk on the golden sands, others in the 
 mire; but the same uncontrollable necessity of dying 
 involves all. And whatever the way be, whether 
 pleasant or doleful, yet every one passes with equal 
 steps, measured by the same invariable spaces of 
 hours and days, and arrives at the same common 
 end of life. BATES. 
 
 Into the silent land ! 
 
 Ah ! who shall lead us thither ? 
 
 Clouds in the evening sky more darkly gather, 
 And shatter'd wrecks lie thicker on the strand ; 
 
 Who leads us with a gentle hand, 
 Whither, oh, whither, 
 
 Into the silent land ? 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 10. Thy mercy, Lord, is in the 
 
 heavens. Psalm xxxvi. 5.
 
 232 DECEMBER. 
 
 Let us take heed; for mercy is like a rainbow, 
 which God set in the clouds to remember mankind : 
 it shines here as long as it is not hindered ; but we 
 must never look for it after it is night; and it shines 
 not in the other world. If we refuse mercy here, 
 we shall have justice to eternity. 
 
 JEREMY TAYLOR. 
 
 Yea, Truth and Justice then 
 Will down return to men, 
 
 Orb'd in a rainbow ; and, like glories wearing, 
 Mercy will sit between, 
 Throned in celestial sheen, 
 
 With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; 
 And heaven, as at some festival, 
 Will open wide the gates of her high palace-hall. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 11. The tree is known by his fruit. 
 
 Matt. xii. 33. 
 
 In prayer the seeds of action are sown ; but, let us 
 remember, we shall be judged by the fruit. 
 
 Dear Comforter ! Eternal Love ! 
 
 If thou wilt stay with me, 
 Of lowly thoughts and simple ways 
 
 I'll build a house for thee.
 
 DECEMBER. 233 
 
 Who made this beating heart of mine 
 
 But thou, my heavenly Guest ? 
 Let no one have it, then, but thee, 
 
 And let it be thy rest. 
 
 LYRA CATHOLICA. 
 
 12. We brought nothing into this 
 world, and it is certain we 
 can carry nothing out. 
 
 1 Tim. vi. 7. 
 
 As it is with those that are invited to feast in 
 some noble family, the furniture is rich, the enter- 
 tainment splendid and magnificent, but when they 
 depart they cannot, of all that pomp and bravery, 
 carry any thing away with them, so is it here. The 
 world is God's great house, richly furnished, and we 
 well entertained in it; we have all things liberally 
 afforded us for our use, but nothing of all is our's. 
 And therefore God hath set that grim porter, Death, 
 at his gate, to see that, as we brought nothing into 
 it, so we carry nothing out of it. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 The glories of our birth and state 
 
 Are shadows, not substantial things : 
 There is no armour against fate ; 
 Death lays his icy hand on kings. 
 
 SHIRLEY. 
 20*
 
 234 DECEMBER. 
 
 13. Not slothful in business; fervent 
 in spirit; serving the Lord. 
 
 Rom. xii. 11. 
 
 Religion is intended for the world. The world 
 has need of it. Your weary, weary, clanking ma- 
 chinery, ever going, never resting, the hard edges 
 of that huge, complex, money-making machine are 
 sawing into your very flesh and bones. If the name 
 and Spirit of Christ were poured upon your business, 
 your business would not rack you so sore nor waste 
 you so soon. ARNOLD. 
 
 Though careful, without care I am, 
 
 Nor feel my happy toil ; 
 Preserved in peace by Jesus' name, 
 
 Supported by his smile, 
 Rejoicing thus my faith to show, 
 
 His service my reward, 
 While every work I do below, 
 
 I do it to the Lord. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 14. Who mind earthly things* 
 
 Philippians iii. 19. 
 
 When the Duke d'Alva was asked whether he 
 observed a comet that had lately appeared, " No/' 
 said he : " I have so much to do on earth that I can-
 
 DECEMBER. 235 
 
 not spare time to mind heaven :" so it is with many : 
 they are overwhelmed with worldly employments, 
 and have no spare time to think of heaven. 
 
 HOPKINS. 
 
 How vain nre all things here below ! 
 
 How fal.ic, and yet how fair ! 
 Each pleasure hath its poison too, 
 
 And every sweet its snare. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 15. Love ye your enemies. 
 
 Luke vi. 35. 
 
 Michael de Molinos was tried, condemned, and 
 shut up in the dungeons of the Inquisition, where, 
 after the expiration of twelve years, he closed his 
 life. But he uttered no cry, made no resistance, 
 poured forth no denunciations. It is affecting to 
 see with what calmness and entire faith in God he 
 entered that dungeon-door from which he knew that 
 there was no return. Taking by the hand the friar 
 who attended him, and who was one of his opposers, 
 he merely said, " Farewell. At the day of judgment 
 we shall see each other again ; and then it will ap- 
 pear on which side truth is, whether on your's, 
 or on mine." UPHAM.
 
 236 DECEMBER. 
 
 Forgive thy foes ; nor that alone : 
 Their evil deeds with good repay ; 
 
 Fill those with joy who leave thee none, 
 And kiss the hand upraised to slay. 
 
 So does the fragrant sandal bow 
 In meek forgiveness to its doom, 
 
 And o'er the axe at every blow 
 Shed in abundance rich perfume. 
 
 HERBERT KNOWLBS. 
 
 16. In the world ye shall have tribu- 
 
 lation : but be of good cheer ; 
 I have overcome the world. 
 
 John xvi. 33. 
 
 Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament : 
 adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth 
 the greater benediction and the clearer revelation 
 of God's favour. BACON. 
 
 Abide with me ! Fast falls the eventide, 
 The darkness deepens. Lord, with me abide ! 
 When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
 Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me ! 
 
 LYTK. 
 
 17. He that is of a merrv heart 
 hath a continual feast. 
 
 Prov. zv. 15.
 
 DECEMBER. 237 
 
 All the trouble that befalls the children of God 
 is but as the rattling of hail upon the tiles of the 
 house to a man who is sitting within a warm room 
 at a rich banquet ; and such is a good conscience, 
 a feast, yea, a continual feast. LEIGHTON. 
 
 Thy happy ones a strain begin : 
 Dost thou not, Lord, glad souls possess ? 
 
 Thy cheerful Spirit dwells within: 
 We feel thee in our joyfulness. 
 
 Our mirth is not afraid of thee ; 
 
 Our life rejoices to be bright ; 
 We would not from our gladness flee, 
 
 But give full welcome to delight. 
 
 J. H. GILL. 
 
 18. And whither I go ye know, and 
 the way ye know. John xiv. 4. 
 
 We are conteat to endure slight temporary incon- 
 veniences that we may secure great and durable 
 benefits. We make toilsome journeys to visit be- 
 loved relations or friends. We gladly cross stormy 
 seas, that we may see magnificent or historical 
 structures, or renowned cities, or beautiful land- 
 scapes, or celebrated statues and paintings. Often 
 shorter and easier is the passage to heaven, " the 
 city that hath foundations." OLIN.
 
 238 DECEMBER. 
 
 happy harbour of God's saints! 
 
 sweet and pleasant soil ! 
 In thee no sorrow can be found, 
 
 Nor grief, nor care, nor toil. 
 
 Thy walls are made of precious stone, 
 
 Thy bulwarks diamond-square, 
 Thy gates are all of orient pearl : 
 
 Oh God! if I were there ! 
 
 Q0ARLB8. 
 
 19. I said of laughter, It is mad: 
 and of mirth, What doeth it ? 
 
 Eccles. ii. 2. 
 
 If our condition were really happy, there would 
 be no need to divert us from thinking of it. 
 
 PASCAL. 
 
 Their fancied joys, how fast they flee ! 
 
 Just like a dream when man awakes : 
 Their songs of softest harmony 
 
 Are but a prelude to their plagues. 
 
 WATTS. 
 
 20. Can I bring him back again? I 
 shall go to him, but he shall not 
 return to me. 2 Samuel xii. 23.
 
 DECEMBER. 239 
 
 " There is healing in the bitter cup." God takes 
 from us those we love as hostages for our faith ; and 
 to those who look to a reunion in a better world, 
 where there shall . be no separation, and no mu- 
 tability except that which results from perpetual 
 progressiveness, the evening becomes more delight- 
 ful than the morning, and the sunset offers brighter 
 and lovelier visions than those which we build up in 
 the morning clouds and which disappear before the 
 strength of the day. SOUTHEY. 
 
 They who die in Christ are blest ; 
 
 Our's, then, be no thought of grieving : 
 Sweetly with their God they rest, 
 
 All their toils and troubles leaving. 
 So be our's the faith that saveth, 
 Hope that every trial braveth, 
 Love that to the end endureth 
 And, through Christ, the crown secureth. 
 
 21. When thou wast young, thou 
 girdedst thyself and walkedst 
 whither thou wouldest; but 
 when thou shalt be old, thou 
 shalt stretch forth thy hands, 
 and another shall gird thee,
 
 240 DECEMBER. 
 
 and carry thee whither thou 
 
 WOllldest not. John xxi. 18. 
 
 Such is the history of the Christian life, not in 
 Peter's case only : but this is the very course and 
 order of it in almost all of God's servants : it is 
 hegun in action, it is perfected in suffering. In the 
 last, lessons are learned which the first could never 
 teach. TRENCH. 
 
 I hoped that with the brave and strong 
 
 My portion'd task might be, 
 To toil amid the busy throng, 
 
 With purpose pure and high. 
 But God has fix'd another part, 
 
 And he has fix'd it well : 
 I said so, with my bleeding heart, 
 
 When first the anguish fell. 
 
 ANNE BRONTE 
 
 22. The glory of Lebanon shall be 
 given unto it, the excellency 
 of Carmel and Sharon; they 
 shall see the glory of the Lord 
 and the excellency of our God. 
 
 Isaiah xxxv. 2.
 
 DECEMBER. 241 
 
 The beauty of Carmel is celebrated in Scripture ; 
 and even in this day of desolation it sustains its 
 ancient praise. The enlivening atmosphere, the 
 sides covered with perpetual verdure, the brow 
 dark with woods, and the wide prospects around, 
 combine to form a scene which he who has once be- 
 held forgets no more. KITTO. 
 
 Thou, who didst lighten Zion's hill, 
 
 On Carmel who didst shine, 
 Our deserts let thy glory fill, 
 
 Thy excellence divine. 
 
 Like Lebanon, in towering pride 
 
 May all our forests smile ; 
 And may our borders blossom wide, 
 
 Like Sharon's fruitful soil. 
 
 23. "Which hope we have as an 
 anchor of the soul, both sure 
 and steadfast, and which en- 
 tereth into that within the 
 
 Vail. Heb. vi. 19. 
 
 This is the anchor fixed within the vail, which 
 keeps the soul firm against all the tossings on these 
 swelling seas and the winds and tempests that 
 arise upon them. The firmest thing in this inferior 
 world is a believing soul. LEIOHTON. 
 
 Q 21
 
 242 DECEMBER. 
 
 Now I have found the ground wherein 
 Sure my soul's anchor may remain, 
 
 The wounds of Jesus for my sin, 
 Before the world's foundation slain; 
 
 Whose mercy shall unshaken stay 
 
 When earth and heaven are fled away. 
 
 JOHN WESLEY. 
 
 24. I trust to see you in my journey, 
 and to be brought on my way 
 thitherward by you, if first I 
 be somewhat filled with your 
 company. Rom. xv. 24. 
 
 Love is the law of that kingdom, and perfectly 
 obeyed there. Now, how charming is the conversa- 
 tion of one that is wise and holy, especially if the 
 sweetness of affability be in his temper! How 
 pleasantly does time slide away in the company of 
 our beloved friends ! We are not sensible of its 
 flight. But what dear satisfaction is it to be united 
 to that chosen, consecrated society above, who love 
 one another as themselves ! Though the angels 
 and saints have different degrees of glory, yet every 
 one is perfectly happy and pleased. BATES. 
 
 May He, by whose kind care we meet, 
 Send his good Spirit from above,
 
 DECEMBER. 243 
 
 Make our communications sweet 
 And cause our hearts to burn with love. 
 
 Forgotten be each worldly theme 
 When Christians meet together thus : 
 
 We only wish to speak of Him 
 
 Who lived and died and reign' d for us. 
 
 NEWTON. 
 
 25. Te shall have a song, as in the 
 night when a holy solemnity 
 
 is kept. Isaiah xxx. 29. 
 
 How sweetly doth this music sound in this dead 
 season ! In the day-time it would not, it could not, 
 so much affect the ear. All harmonious sounds are 
 advanced by a silent darkness. Thus it is with the 
 glad tidings of salvation. The gospel never sounds 
 so sweet as in the night of persecution or of and 
 own private affliction. HALL. 
 
 When Jordan hush'd his waters still 
 
 And silence slept on Zion's hill, 
 
 When Bethlehem's shepherds through the night 
 
 Watch'd o'er their flocks by starry light, 
 
 Hark ! from the midnight hills around 
 A voice of more than mortal sound 
 In distant hallelujahs stole, 
 Wild murmuring, o'er the raptured soul.
 
 244 DECEMBER. 
 
 On wheels of light, on wings of flame, 
 The glorious hosts of Zion came ; 
 High heaven with songs of triumph rung 
 While thus they struck their harps and sung. 
 
 CAMPBELL. 
 
 26. For we are saved by hope. 
 
 Rom. viii. 24. 
 
 Hope is a beautiful meteor ; but nevertheless this 
 meteor, like the rainbow, is not only lovely because 
 of its seven rich and radiant stripes : it is the 
 memorial of a covenant between man and his Maker, 
 telling us that we were born for immortality, des- 
 tined, unless we sepulchre our greatness, to the 
 highest honour and noblest happiness. Hope proves 
 man deathless. It is the struggle of the soul break- 
 ing loose from what is perishable and attesting her 
 eternity. MELVILLE. 
 
 The rainbow passes with the storm, 
 And hope with sorrow's fading form. 
 
 MONTGOMERY. 
 
 27. For we know that if our earthly 
 house of this tabernacle were 
 dissolved, we have a building
 
 DECEMBER. 245 
 
 of God, a house not made 
 with hands, eternal in the 
 heavens. 2 Cor. v. i. 
 
 Mine is taking down piece by piece. By-and-by 
 I shall find a chink large enough to get out of; like 
 a bird confined in a cage and fluttering about to 
 extricate itself in vain, till at last, the door being 
 open, the happy prisoner wings its flight towards 
 heaven. M. J. GRAHAME. 
 
 We know, by faith we know, 
 
 If this frail house of clay, 
 This tabernacle, sink below 
 
 In ruinous decay, 
 We have a house above, 
 
 Not made with mortal hands ; 
 And firm as our Redeemer's love 
 
 That heavenly fabric stands. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 28. I will say of the Lord, he is my 
 refuge and my fortress: my 
 God ; in him will I trust. 
 
 Ps. xci. 2. 
 
 It is no news to you that I am a prisoner and 
 always kept under lock and key. I am afflicted, 
 21*
 
 DECEMBER. 
 
 although I have firm trust and rest in God. Oh, 
 what a happiness it is to be thoroughly resigned to 
 Providence! a resignation which constitutes the 
 true repose of life. MADAME GUYON. 
 
 God is their rock, their fortress of defence, 
 In time of trouble a defence most holy : 
 
 For them the wrath of man is impotence, 
 His pride a bubble, and his wisdom folly. 
 
 That peace have they unspeakable, intense 
 Which passeth understanding ! Melancholy 
 
 Life's gauds to them : the unseen they explore : 
 
 Rooted in heaven, to live is to adore ! 
 
 CHARLES LLOYD. 
 
 29. It is good that a man should 
 both hope and quietly wait 
 for the salvation of the Lord. 
 
 Lam. iii. 26. 
 
 Is it not good that I hope and wait, when each 
 moment may add a jewel to the crown, a plume to 
 the wing, a city to the sceptre? Is it not good 
 when each second effort may lift me a step higher 
 in the scale of triumph and majesty ? 
 
 MELVILLE.
 
 DECEMBER. 247 
 
 Here, in thine own appointed ways, 
 
 I wait to learn thy will ; 
 Silent, I stand before thy face, 
 
 And hear thee say, Be still ! 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
 30. For the Lord himself shall de- 
 scend from heaven with a 
 shout, with the voice of the 
 archangel, and with the trump 
 of God : and the dead in Christ 
 shall rise first : then we which 
 are alive and remain shall be 
 caught up together with them 
 in the clouds, to meet the Lord 
 in the air: and so shall we 
 ever be with the Lord. 
 
 1 Thess. iv. 16, 17. 
 
 One grave shall cleave in twain and its buried 
 tenantry shall rise and meet the Lord, and the other 
 grave, that looks equally green beside it, shall fail 
 to be pierced by that sound or its dead dust to be 
 moved. Nor less startling will be the scenes among 
 the living : some families shall be met together
 
 248 DECEMBER. 
 
 speaking of the things of this world; in an instant, 
 and without warning, one shall hear a sound sig- 
 nificant to his heart of glory, and rise as upon the 
 lightning's wing and with its splendour, and leave 
 without a farewell the rest, that know not Christ 
 and remain astonished behind. GUMMING. 
 
 Great God ! what do I see and hear ? 
 
 The end of things created : 
 The Judge of mankind doth appear, 
 
 On clouds of glory seated ; 
 The trumpet sounds ; the graves restore 
 The dead which they contain'd before. 
 
 Prepare, my soul, to meet him ! 
 
 The dead in Christ shall first arise 
 
 At the last trumpet's sounding, 
 Caught up to meet him in the skies, 
 
 With joy their Lord surrounding : 
 No gloomy fears their souls dismay : 
 His presence sheds eternal day 
 
 On those prepared to meet him. 
 
 LUTHER. 
 
 31. Perfecting holiness in the fear 
 
 Of God. 2 Cor. vii. 1. 
 
 Holiness presents that side of us which joins on 
 upon eternity, opens into heaven and makes us
 
 DECEMBER. 249 
 
 kindred to God. It is not to be had without an 
 aim, a purpose, a steady looking and striving to that 
 end. It must be treated like an interest, a pursuit, 
 a profession. It is the great livelihood of your 
 heart. It is the vocation of your soul. It is the 
 practical handicraft of your inner man. It must 
 be begun, followed and never ended. Kesolve, 
 deliberation, continuous effort, are its motive powers. 
 All your members are its flexile instruments. The 
 Bible is its text-book. Morning, evening, noon, all 
 the circling hours, are its periods of exercise. Prayer 
 is its rehearsal. God answering is its teacher. 
 Christ is its pattern. HUNTINGTON. 
 
 This, this is our high calling's prize : 
 
 Thine image in thy Son I claim, 
 And still to higher glories rise, 
 
 Till, all transform'd, I know thy name, 
 And glide to all my heaven above, 
 My highest heaven, in Jesus' love. 
 
 CHARLES WESLEY. 
 
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