J 
 
 
 )rO . 
 
 

 
 -*^ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 NIVERSITY OF 
 
 CMJfORNtA 
 
 SAN DIEGO 

 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS YEAR BOOK 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM THE WRITINGS 
 
 RT. REV. PHILLIPS BROOKS, D.D. 
 
 BY 
 
 H. L. S. AND L. H. S. 
 
 " The thought is stronger for us because he has thought it. The feeling is more 
 ivid because lie lias felt it. And always he leads us to God by a way along 
 vhich lie has gone himself." PREACHING, p. 119. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 31 WLST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 
 1894
 
 Copyright, 1893 
 BY E. P. DUTTOX & CO. 
 
 Press of J. .T. Little & To. 
 Astor Place, New York
 
 NOTE. - - References to the Works of Bishop 
 Brooks have been added, with the thought 
 that some might like to turn to the context. 
 They are respectively as follows : I., II., III., 
 IV., V., to Vols. one, two, three, four, and 
 five of the Sermons. "Influence" to "The 
 Influence of Jesus." "Preaching" to the 
 "Yale Lectures on Preaching." "Toler 
 ance " to "Tolerance."
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 ^TO the friends of Bishop Brooks this little 
 hook will come as no stranger. His ser 
 mons have had such living qualities in them, 
 that they are read and re-read by many a 
 one who never came under the influence of his 
 marvellous personality. Their quality will be 
 still farther tested, it seems to us, by this 
 separating process of presenting their thoughts 
 in fragments. If in this way the thoughts do 
 not lose in suggestiveness, in vividness, and 
 in strength, it will be a new testimony to the 
 fact that the sermons are among the immortal 
 few, which are for all time and not for one 
 special age alone. 
 
 The aim of the book is to group together 
 cognate thoughts in sequence of time, as well 
 as to represent fairly this man of large love 
 for humanity and of absolute surrender to his 
 Master. 
 
 That he found a place for such books is 
 sympathetically shown by his preface to a
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 volume of selections published some years 
 since. In this preface he says: "The most 
 notable quality of such books is their sugges- 
 tiveness. ... It is not the fulness of their 
 hands which makes them welcome. It is the 
 delicacy and discrimination of the finger which 
 they lay upon some spring in us and set some 
 of our nature free. . . . Some suggestive word 
 out of this book will fall upon a score of lives 
 some morning, and will touch the key of each. 
 Each will be better for it, but how differently ! 
 One will do better trading ; another will do 
 better teaching ; another s household life will 
 be more pure and lofty." 
 
 To those who have known Bishop Brooks in 
 the past, and looked to him for guidance in the 
 upward way, these daily thoughts from him 
 will surely come with the added joy of memo 
 ries which are very precious. "In the old 
 days it was strength to be with him ; in those 
 to come it will be strength to remember 
 
 him." 
 
 THE EDITORS.
 
 JANUARY i. 
 
 Brethren, the time is short. I. COR. vii. 29. 
 
 "THE shortness of life . . . spreads the feel- 
 ^ ing of criticalness all through life, and 
 makes each moment prepare for the next 
 makes life prepare for life. This is its power. 
 Blessed is he who feels it. Blessed is he in 
 whose experience each day and each hour has 
 all the happiness and all the solemnity of a 
 parent towards the day and the hour to which 
 it gives birth, stands sponsor for it, holds it for 
 baptism at the font of God. Such days are 
 sacred in each other s eyes. The life in which 
 such days succeed each other is a holy family, 
 with its moments "bound each to each by 
 natural piety." i. 328 . 
 
 Sail fast, sail fast, 
 
 Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams ; 
 Sweep lordly o er the drowned Past, 
 Fly glittering through the sun s strange beams ; 
 
 Sail fast, sail fast. 
 
 Breaths of new buds from off some drying lea, 
 With news about the Future scent the sea ; 
 My brain is beating like the heart of Haste, 
 I ll loose me a bird upon this Present waste ; 
 
 Go, trembling song, 
 And stay not long ; oh, stay not long : 
 Thou rt only a gray and sober dove, 
 But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love. 
 
 SIDNEY LANIER.
 
 JANUARY 2. 
 
 Ye have not passed this way heretofore. 
 
 JOSHUA iii. 4. 
 
 T T is good, then, for a man to come to a future 
 which he does not know. It is good for you 
 if God brings you to the borders of some 
 promised land. Do not hesitate at any experi 
 ence because of its novelty. Do not draw 
 back from any way because you never have 
 passed there before. The truth, the task, the 
 joy, the suffering, on whose border you are 
 standing, oh, my friend, to-day, go into it 
 without a fear ; only go into it with God - 
 the God who has been always with you. Let 
 the past give up to you all the assurance of 
 Him which it contains. Set that assurance 
 of Him before you. Follow that, and the new 
 life to which it leads you shall open its best 
 richness to you. v. 3 o 5 . 
 
 Grow old along with me ! 
 
 The best is yet to be, 
 
 The last of life, for which the first was made : 
 
 Our times are in His hand 
 
 Who saith, " A whole I planned, 
 
 Youth shows but half ; trust God ; see all, nor be 
 
 afraid." 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 JANUARY 3. 3 
 
 [77/6 1 shepherds\ made known abroad the saying 
 which was told them concerning this child. 
 
 LUKE ii. 17. 
 
 THE tale the shepherds tell fits the world we 
 know a world which has God in it, and 
 yet in which even God works under the limita 
 tions of humanity, and where the power which 
 is divine yet lingers and must slowly grow. 
 Surely this is our world to which the Incarnation 
 perfectly corresponds. 
 
 Sureness and patience sureness because it 
 is God ; patience because it is a child. Sure- 
 ness and patience ! Oh, my friends, if you and 
 I could catch them both from the shepherds 
 story, how clear this world would grow to us, 
 and with what calm and faithful energy we 
 should work away at it in these few years in 
 which God has appointed us to work ; . . . 
 satisfied, perfectly satisfied, if we can help 
 the new Incarnation of Christ (which is the 
 gradual embodiment of His divine soul in the 
 life of a regenerated world) toward its com 
 pletion, as Mary and Joseph tended and taught 
 the Divine Child who was in their humble 
 house. Can we picture a life more soberly 
 enthusiastic, more patiently devoted a life 
 more truly " without haste and without rest" 
 than that life must be ? 
 
 CHRISTMAS SERMON, p. 20, 21.
 
 4 JANUARY 4. 
 
 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it 
 doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know 
 that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; 
 for we shall see Him as He is. And every man 
 that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as 
 He is pure. I. JOHN iii. 2, 3. 
 
 JVIOT merely, I shall grow so that I shall be 
 able to understand vastly more of what 
 God is and of what He is doing. God also will 
 be ever doing new things. He is forever active. 
 He has purposes concerning me which He has 
 not yet unfolded. Therefore each year grows 
 sacred with wondering expectation. Therefore 
 1 and the world may go forth from each old 
 year into the new which follows it, certain 
 that in that new year God will have for us 
 some new treatment which will open for us 
 some novel life. iv. 3 6 3 . 
 
 For lo ! in hidden deep accord, 
 The servant may be like his Lord. 
 And Thy love, our love shining through, 
 May tell the world that Thou art true, 
 Till those who see us see Thee too. 
 
 A. L. WARING.
 
 JANUARY 5. 5 
 
 There were two thieves crucified with Him, 
 
 MATT, xxvii. 38. 
 
 "THE Saviour had left behind heaven ; He 
 had left behind even the little heavenli- 
 ness which He had found upon the earth. All 
 the disciples had forsaken Him and fled. The 
 little flicker of sympathy which He had seen 
 upon the face of Pilate He had lost now. He 
 had come to the company of robbers. There 
 were two thieves crucified with Him. 
 
 That is the sight which we behold as we 
 look at these three crosses standing out sharp 
 and terrible against the sky. Into the darkest 
 of earth s darkness, into the deepest conse 
 quences of sin where it was possible for inno 
 cence to go, the Incarnate One has gone. Our 
 Immanuel, our God with us, is with the worst 
 of us in His most awful misery. No child of 
 God shall know any suffering which this love 
 shall not fathom to its depths with him. 
 
 i. 197, 198. 
 
 Nay but thou knewest us, Lord Christ, thou knowest, 
 Well thou rememberest our feeble frame, 
 
 Thou canst conceive our highest and our lowest, 
 Pulses of nobleness and aches of shame. 
 
 Then tho our foul and limitless transgression 
 Grows with our growing, with our breath began, 
 
 Raise thou the arms of endless intercession, 
 Jesus, divinest when thou most art man ! 
 
 FREDERICK W. H. MYERS.
 
 JANUARY 6. 
 
 / am the Light of the ivorld. JOHN viii. 12. 
 
 CHRIST is unspeakably great and glorious 
 in Himself. The glory which He had 
 with His Father " before the world was," of 
 that we can only meditate and wonder ; but 
 the glory which He has had since the world 
 was, the glory which He has had in relation to 
 the world, is all bound up with the world s 
 possibilities, has all consisted in the utterance 
 and revelation and fulfilment of capacities 
 which were in the very nature of the world on 
 which His Light has shone. v . 4 , 5 . 
 
 Tell us, thou clear and heavenly tongue, 
 Where is the Babe but lately sprung? 
 Lies He the lily-banks among ? 
 Or say, if this new Birth of ours 
 Sleeps, laid within some ark of flowers 
 Spangled with dew-light ; thou canst clear 
 All doubts, and manifest the where. 
 Declare to us, bright star, if we shall seek 
 Him in the morning s blushing cheek, 
 Or search the bed of spices through 
 To find Him out. 
 
 Star. " No, this ye need not do ; 
 But only come, and see Him rest, 
 A princely Babe, in s mother s breast." 
 
 Come then, come then, and let us bring 
 Unto our pretty Twelfth-tide King 
 
 Each one his several offering. 
 
 HERRICK-
 
 JANUARY 7. 7 
 
 Wist ye not that I must be about my Father s 
 business? TAJKE ii. 49. 
 
 AS Mary went back with her Son, realizing 
 out of His own mouth that He was not only 
 her Son but God s ; as she settled down with 
 Him to their Nazareth life again, must not one 
 single strong question have been upon her 
 heart, " What does God want this Son of His 
 to be ? Oh, let me find that out, that I may 
 work with Him." And as you go into the house 
 where you are to train your soul, realizing, 
 through some revelation that has come to it, 
 that it is God s soul as well as yours, one strong 
 and single question must be pressing on you 
 too, "What does God want this soul of mine 
 to be ? Oh, let me find that out that I may 
 work for Him." . . . The Son of Mary was a 
 revelation to the mother in whose care He lived. 
 So a man s soul, his spiritual nature which is in 
 trusted to his care, is a perpetual revelation to 
 him. If you can only know that your soul is 
 God s child, that He is caring for it and training 
 it, then it may become to you the source of deep 
 divine communications. God will speak to you 
 through your own mysterious life. He will 
 show you His wisdom and goodness, not in the 
 heaven above you, but in the soul within you. 
 He will make you His fellow-worker in that 
 which is the most divine work of His of which 
 we can have any knowledge, the training and 
 perfecting of a soul. Iv . 40> 4I .
 
 JANUARY 8. 
 
 WHAT will God do this year ? How will 
 He come near to man ? It may be, oh, 
 that it might be ! that He will break up this 
 awful sluggishness of Christendom, this terri 
 ble torpidity of the Christian Church, and 
 give us a great, true revival of religion. It 
 may be that He will speak some great imperi 
 ous command to the brutal and terrible spirit 
 of war, and will open the gate upon a bright 
 period of peace throughout the world. It may 
 be that He will draw back the curtain and 
 throw some of His light upon the question of 
 how the poor and the rich may live together in 
 more cordial brotherhood. It may be that He 
 will lead up from the depths of their common 
 faith a power of unity into the sects of a 
 divided Christendom. Perhaps He will smite 
 this selfishness of fashionable life, and make it 
 earnest. Perhaps by some terrible catastrophe 
 He will teach the nation that corruption is ruin, 
 and that nothing but integrity can make any 
 nation strong. Perhaps this ! perhaps that ! 
 We make our guesses, and no man can truly 
 say. Only we know that with a world that 
 needs so much, and with a God who knows its 
 needs and who loves it and pities it so tenderly, 
 there must be in the long year some approach 
 of His life to its life, some coming of the Lord ! 
 
 IV. 364, 365- 
 
 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest 
 
 Joseph like a flock ; 
 
 Thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth. 
 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up 
 
 Thy strength, 
 And come for salvation to us. 
 
 Ps. LXXX. i, .
 
 JANUARY 9. 
 
 V\ 7"HAT bulwarks have you, rich, luxurious 
 men, built up between yourselves and 
 the poverty in which hosts of your brethren 
 are living ? What do you know, what do you 
 want to know, of the real life of Jesus, who 
 was so poor, so radical, so full of the sense of 
 everything just as it is in God ? You tremble 
 at the changes which are evidently coming. 
 You ask yourself, How many of these first 
 things, these fundamental things, are going 
 to be disturbed ? Are property and rank and 
 social precedence and the relation of class to 
 class going to be overturned? Oh, you have 
 got to learn that these are not the first things, 
 these are not the fundamental things ! Behind 
 these things stand justice and mercy. Behind 
 everything stands God. He must speak to 
 you. He will speak to you. Oh, do not try 
 to shut out His voice. Listen to Him, that 
 you may live. Be ready for any overturn- 
 ings, even of the things which have seemed 
 to you most eternal, if by them He can come 
 to be more the King of His own earth. v . s 7 . 
 
 Cry unto Jesus, our Brother born to save us : 
 
 O come, Son of Mary, 
 
 Jesu, our Redeemer, 
 
 O come, King triumphant, and reign on earth. 
 
 SELVVYN iMA
 
 io JANUARY 10. 
 
 / know how to be abased. PHIL. iv. 12. 
 
 DOVERTY seems to men to be like the old 
 fabled sphinx, a mysterious being who 
 has in herself the secrets of life, but who holds 
 them fast, and tells them only in riddles, and 
 devours the brave, unfortunate adventurers 
 who try to guess at the wisdom she conceals, 
 and fail. The result is that few men seek her 
 wisdom voluntarily. v. 160. 
 
 From street and square, from hill and glen, 
 Of this vast world beyond my door, 
 
 I hear the tread of marching men, 
 The patient armies of the poor. 
 
 Not ermine-clad or clothed in state, 
 Their title-deeds not yet made plain, 
 
 But waking early, toiling late, 
 The heirs of all the earth remain. 
 
 The peasant brain shall yet be wise, 
 The untamed pulse grow calm and still ; 
 
 The blind shall see, the lowly rise, 
 And work in peace Time s wondrous will. 
 
 Some day, without a trumpet s call, 
 This news will o er the world be blown : 
 
 " The heritage comes back to all ! 
 The myriad monarchs take their own ! " 
 
 T. w. HIGGINSON
 
 JANUARY ii. ii 
 
 If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed 
 your feet, ye ought also to wash one another s feet. 
 
 JOHN xiii. 14. 
 
 STRANGELY, on that solemn night the dis 
 ciples had fallen into an untimely quarrel 
 which of them should be the greatest, and 
 then the Lord Himself rose from the table and 
 tied the towel round His waist, and went from 
 one wondering disciple to another and washed 
 the feet of all. Did Jesus compare Himself 
 with each of those disciples, and own Himself 
 the inferior of each ? He only said by His 
 exquisite action that there was something in 
 every one of them, in serving which even His 
 divinity found no inappropriate employment. 
 It was the truth of His whole Incarnation 
 wrought into a homely picture. i. 346 . 
 
 I saw a Saint. How canst thou tell that he 
 
 Thou sawest was a Saint? 
 I saw one like to Christ so luminously 
 
 By patient deeds of love, his mortal taint 
 Seemed made his groundwork for humility. 
 
 And when he marked me downcast utterly, 
 
 Where foul I sat and faint, 
 Then more than ever Christ-like kindled he ; 
 
 And welcomed me as I had been a saint, 
 Tenderly stooping low to comfort me. 
 
 Christ bade him, " Do thou likewise." Wherefore he 
 
 Waxed zealous to acquaint 
 His soul with sin and sorrow, if so be 
 
 He might retrieve some latent saint : 
 " Lo, I, with the child God hath given to me! " 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 12 JANUARY 12. 
 
 "COR their sakes I sanctify Myself," said 
 1 Jesus ; and He hardly ever said words 
 more wonderful than those. There was the 
 power by which He was holy ; the world was 
 to be made holy, was to be sanctified through 
 Him. 1 am sure that you or 1 could indeed be 
 strengthened to meet some great experience of 
 pain if we really believed that by our suffering 
 we were to be made luminous with help to 
 other men. They are to get from us painlessly 
 what we have got most painfully from God. 
 There is the power of the bravest martyrdom 
 and the hardest work that the world has ever 
 seen. i. I7 , l8 . 
 
 Live thou deeply and wise ; 
 
 Suffer as never before ; 
 
 Know joy, till it cuts to the quick ; 
 
 Eat the apple, Life, to the core. 
 
 Be thou cursed 
 
 By them thou hast blessed, by the sick 
 
 Whom thou in thy weakness nursed. 
 
 With thy strength the weak endue ; 
 
 Be praised when twere better to blame ; 
 
 In the home of thy spirit be true, 
 
 Though the voice of the street cry shame. 
 
 Be silent till all is done, 
 
 Then return, in the light of the sun, 
 
 And once more sing. 
 
 Oh, then fling 
 
 Into music thy soul ! . . . 
 
 Tell the skies, 
 
 And the world, that shall listen at last. 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
 
 JANUARY 13. 13 
 
 Yc shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, 
 and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and tinto the 
 uttermost part of the earth. ACTS i. 8. 
 
 YOU know the venerable argument, which 
 was never very strong, and which halts 
 and stumbles now from age and long dis 
 honorable service : " The heathen in Boston ! " 
 we are told. "Look how poor a thing our 
 home religion is ! Shall we not make our own 
 religion strong, convert our own masses, con 
 quer our own sins, before we go around the 
 world to preach our yet unappropriated Gospel 
 to the heathen ? " It is not always those who 
 are most earnest or active to complete our 
 home religion who use such an argument. . . . 
 Probably it is not an argument with which 
 it is worth while to argue, but we cannot help 
 thinking where, with such an argument in 
 force, would have been the richness of 
 Christian history ! If every land must for 
 itself have made the very best and fullest use 
 of the Gospel before it could offer it to any 
 other land, how the great work would have 
 halted and stayed in its first littleness ! Still, 
 on the desolate fields of Galilee, or amid the 
 ruins of Jerusalem, a few disconsolate and 
 hopeless Jews would be telling to-day to one 
 another the unbelieved and unused story of the 
 cross. The earnest heart and manly intellect 
 of Paul, full of the spirit of his Master, soon 
 broke the spell of such a sophistry as that, and 
 Europe saw the light through the dim medium 
 of a Judaism which was itself still more than 
 half darkness. JV . ,87, isa.
 
 i 4 JANUARY 14. 
 
 The eartli is the Lonfs, and tJic fulness thereof ; 
 the world and they that dwell therein. 
 
 Ps. xxiv. i. 
 
 IT is not the desire to enforce the argument 
 of a Foreign Missionary sermon, it is the 
 sincere and deep conviction of my soul, when 
 1 declare that if the Christian faith does not 
 culminate and complete itself in the effort to 
 make Christ known to all the world, that faith 
 appears to me to be a thoroughly unreal and 
 insignificant thing, destitute of power for the 
 single life, and incapable of being convincingly 
 proved to be true. . . . The opened world 
 the simplified faith ! Surely this of all times 
 is not the time to disbelieve in Foreign Mis 
 sions ; surely he who despairs of the power 
 of the Gospel to convert the world to-day, 
 despairs of the noontide just when the sunrise 
 is breaking out of twilight on the earth. . . . 
 Distance has ceased to be a hindrance. 
 Language no longer makes men total strangers. 
 A universal commerce is creating common 
 bases and forms of thought. For the first time 
 in the history of the world there is a manifest, 
 almost an immediate, possibility of a universal 
 religion. No wonder that at such a time the 
 missionary spirit which had slumbered for 
 centuries should have sprung upon its feet, and 
 the last fifty years should have been one of 
 the very greatest epochs in missionary labor 
 in the whole history of the world. 
 
 IV. 166, 169, 190.
 
 JANUARY 15. 15 
 
 T CAN conceive that Joseph and Mary may 
 * have wondered why those Gentiles should 
 have come out of the East to worship their 
 Messiah. But very soon the enlargement of 
 their faith to be the world s heritage proved 
 its power by making their faith a far holier 
 thing for them than it could have been if it 
 had remained wholly their own. Christ was 
 more thoroughly theirs when through them 
 He had been manifested to the Gentiles. And 
 so always the enlargement of the faith brings 
 the endearment of the faith, and to give the 
 Saviour to others makes Him more thoroughly 
 our own. IL l64 . 
 
 Then 1 preached Christ : and when she heard the 
 story 
 
 Oh, is such triumph possible to men? 
 Hardly, my King, had I beheld Thy glory, 
 
 Hardly had known Thy excellence till then. 
 
 Oft when the Word is on me to deliver, 
 Opens the heaven and the Lord is there ; 
 
 Desert or throng, the city or the river, 
 Melt in a lucid Paradise of air, 
 
 Only like souls I see the folk thereunder, 
 Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be 
 kings ; 
 
 Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder, 
 Sadly contented in a show of things. 
 
 Then with a rush the intolerable craving 
 Shivers throughout me like a trumpet call, 
 
 Oh, to save these ! to perish for their saving, 
 Die for their life, be offered for them all ! 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS.
 
 i6 JANUARY 16. 
 
 R ordinary life with one another, what 
 in the language of the world we call 
 society, has so left and lost the spontaneous- 
 ness of natural impulse and so failed to attain 
 the highest conception of itself as the family 
 of God, it so hangs fast in the dull middle 
 regions of conventional propriety and selfish 
 expediency, that it becomes not the fountain, 
 but the grave, of individuality. INKLUENCF, ,,. 
 
 Duty tis to take on trust 
 What things are good, and right, and just ; 
 And whether indeed they be or be not, 
 Try not, test not, feel not, see not : 
 Tis walk and dance, sit down and rise 
 By leading, opening ne er your eyes ; 
 Stunt sturdy limbs that Nature gave, 
 And be drawn in a Bath chair along to the grave. 
 Tis the stern and prompt suppressing, 
 
 As an obvious and deadly sin, 
 All the questing and the guessing 
 Of the soul s own soul within : 
 Tis the coward acquiescence 
 
 In a destiny s behest, 
 To a shade by terror made, 
 Sacrificing, aye, the essence 
 
 Of all that s truest, noblest, best : 
 Tis the blind non-recognition 
 
 Or of goodness, truth, or beauty, 
 Save by precept and submission ; 
 Moral blank, and moral void, 
 Lite at very birth destroyed. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
 
 JANUARY 17. 17 
 
 Lo, a great multitude, which no man could 
 number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, 
 and tongues, stood before the throne, and before 
 the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in 
 their hands; and cried with a loud voice, saying, 
 Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne 
 and unto the Lamb. REV. vii. 9, 10. 
 
 To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the 
 hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, 
 and in the stone a new name written, which no 
 man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it. REV. 
 ii. 17. 
 
 1VJOWHERE do we find on earth that picture 
 I N of society reconstructed by the idea of 
 Jesus, society around the throne of God, 
 which shines out upon us from the mysteri 
 ous promises of the Apocalypse ; the glory of 
 which society is to be this that while the 
 souls stand in their vast choruses of hundreds 
 of thousands, and all chant the same anthems 
 and all work together in the same transcendent 
 duties, yet each bears the sacred name written 
 on the flesh of his own forehead, and carries 
 in his hand a white stone, on which is written 
 a new name which no man knoweth saving he 
 that receiveth it. It is individuality empha 
 sized by company, and not lost in it, because 
 the atmosphere in which the company is met 
 is the idea of Jesus, which is the fatherhood 
 
 Of OOu. INFLUENCE, gg, 100. 
 
 And thither thoii, beloved, and thither I 
 May set our heart and set our face, and go 
 Faint yet pursuing home on tireless feet. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 i8 JANUARY 18. 
 
 JESUS did not spend His life in trying not 
 to do wrong. He was too full of the ear 
 nest love and longing to do right to do His 
 Father s will. 
 
 And so we see, by contrast, how many of 
 our attempts at purity fail by their negative- 
 ness. ... I do think that we break almost 
 all our resolutions not to do wrong, while we 
 keep a large proportion of our resolutions that 
 we will do what is right. Habit, which is the 
 power by which evil rules us, is only strong 
 in a vacant life. It is the empty, swept, and 
 garnished house to which the devils come back 
 to hold still higher revel. L l83 
 
 Time was, 1 shrank from what was right 
 
 From fear of what was wrong ; 
 I would not brave the sacred tight, 
 
 Because the foe was strong. 
 
 But now I cast that finer sense 
 
 And sorer shame aside ; 
 Such dread of sin was indolence, 
 
 Such aim at heaven was pride. 
 
 So when my Saviour calls, I rise 
 
 And calmly do my best ; 
 Leaving to Him, with silent eyes 
 
 Of hope and fear, the rest. 
 
 1 step, I mount where He has led ; 
 
 Men count my haltings o er : 
 1 know them ; yet though self I dread, 
 
 I love His precept more. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NtwMAN
 
 JANUARY 19. 19 
 
 , the freedom with which the gates of the 
 divine forgiveness are thrown open ! 
 The Bible trembles and burns and overruns 
 with offers ! They crowd on one another. 
 Not waiting to be asked, not giving it re 
 luctantly, but following to tempt them with 
 it, in His open hands, the eager Saviour brings 
 His free forgiveness. The great wonder of 
 the Incarnation was the great miracle of that 
 free pardon. As if sin, with all its enormity, 
 had yet this accidental glory, almost trans 
 figuring it, that it gave a new license of utter 
 ance to the unutterable love. The Forgiver 
 stands upon the heights of the great human 
 tragedy and summons man to be forgiven. 
 
 Mss. 
 
 Even with so soft a surge and an increasing, 
 Drunk of the sand and thwarted of the clod, 
 
 Stilled and astir and checked and never-ceasing 
 Spreadeth the great wave of the grace of God. 
 
 Bears to the marishes and bitter places 
 Healing for hurt and for their poisons balm, 
 
 Isle after isle in infinite embraces 
 Floods and enfolds and fringes with the palm. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS
 
 20 JANUARY 20. 
 
 }\"e love Him because He first loved us. 
 
 I. JOHN iv. 19. 
 
 JOHN the Disciple had learned from Jesus, 
 his Master, the truth of the priority of 
 God the truth that before everything is 
 God. ... It is as when up the morning sky, 
 all coldly beautiful with ordered ranks of cloud 
 on cloud, is poured the glow of sunrise, and 
 every least cloud, still the same in place and 
 shape, burns with the transfiguring splendor 
 of the sun. So is it when the priority of exist 
 ence is seen to rest in a Person, and the 
 background of life is God. Then every new 
 arrival instantly reports itself to Him, and is 
 described in terms of its relationship to Him. 
 Every activity of ours answers to some pre 
 vious activity of His. Do we hope? It is 
 because we have caught the sound of some 
 promise of His. Do we fear ? It is because 
 we have had some glimpse of the dreadfulness 
 of getting out of harmony with Him. Are we 
 curious and inquiring ? It is that we may 
 learn some of His truth. Do we resist evil ? 
 We are fighting His enemies. Do we help 
 need ? We are relieving His children. Do we 
 love Him ? It is an answer of gratitude for 
 His love to us. Do we live ? It is a pro 
 jection and extension of His being. Do we 
 die ? It is the going home of our immortal 
 souls to Him. 
 
 Oh, the wonderful richness of life when it is 
 all thus backed with the priority of God! It 
 is the great illumination of all living. 
 
 V 41 4?-
 
 JANUARY 21. 21 
 
 I am He that liveth. REV. i. 18. 
 
 "THAT word, "liveth," is a word of con- 
 * tinuous, perpetual life. It describes the 
 eternal existence which has no beginning and 
 no end ; which, considered in its purity and 
 perfectness, has no present and no past, but 
 one eternal and unbroken present one eter 
 nal now. It is the " I Am " of the Jehovah 
 who spoke to Moses. " He that liveth " is the 
 Living One ; He whose life is The Life, com 
 plete in itself, and including all other 1 ves 
 within itself. My dear friends, if anything 
 has come to us to make us feel what a frag 
 mentary thing our human life is, I think there 
 is no greater knowledge for us to win than 
 that the life of one who loves us as Christ 
 loves us is an eternal life, with the continu 
 ance and the unchangeableness of eternity. 
 
 I. 212, 213. 
 
 Strong Son of God, Immortal Love, 
 Whom we that have not seen Thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, embrace, 
 
 Believing where we cannot prove ! 
 
 Thine are these orbs of light and shade ; 
 
 Thou madest Life in man and brute ; 
 
 Thou madest Death ; and lo ! Thy foot 
 Is on the skull which Thou hast made. 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us in the dust ; 
 
 Thou madest man, he knows not why ; 
 
 He thinks he was not made to die ; 
 And Thou hast made him : Thou art just. 
 
 TENNYSON.
 
 22 JANUARY 22. 
 
 Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
 minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? 
 
 HEB. i. 14. 
 
 TO him to whom life is but an episode, a 
 short stage in the existence of eternity, 
 who is always cognizant of the great surround 
 ing world of mystery, grief comes as angels 
 came to the tent of Abraham. Laughter is 
 hushed before them. The mere frolic of life 
 stands still, but the soul takes the grief in as 
 a guest, meets it at the door, kisses its hand, 
 washes its travel-stained feet, spreads its table 
 with the best food, gives it the seat by the fire 
 side, and listens reverently for what it has to 
 say about the God from whom it came. . . . 
 1 beg you, if God sends you grief, to take 
 it largely by letting it first of all show you 
 how short life is, and then prophesy eternity. 
 Such is the grief of which the poet sings so 
 nobly, 
 
 Grief should be 
 
 Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; 
 Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; 
 Strong to consume small troubles to commend 
 Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts lasting to 
 the end. 
 
 But grief, to be all that, must see the end ; 
 must bring and forever keep with its pain 
 such a sense of the shortness of life that the 
 pain shall seem but a temporary accident, and 
 that all that is to stay forever after the pain 
 has ceased, the exaltation, the unselfishness, 
 the mystery, the nearness to God, shall seem 
 to be the substance of the sorrow. i. 326 , 327 .
 
 JANUARY 23. 23 
 
 Phillips Brooks entered into Life, 1893. 
 
 Ye, like angels, appear 
 Radiant with ardor divine. 
 
 Ye alight in our van ! At your voice 
 Panic, despair, flee a\vay. 
 Ye move through the ranks, recall 
 The stragglers, refresh the outworn. 
 Praise, re-inspire the brave ! 
 Order, courage, return ; 
 Eyes rekindling, and prayers, 
 Follow your steps as ye go. 
 Ye fill up the gaps in our tiles, 
 Strengthen the wavering line, 
 Stablish, continue our march, 
 On to the bound of the waste, 
 On to the City of God ! 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 r ~FHE relation between preacher and congre- 
 1 gation is one of the very highest pictures 
 of human companionship that can be seen on 
 earth. Its constant presence has given Chris 
 tianity, much of its noblest and sweetest color 
 in all ages. It has much of the intimacy of the 
 family, with something of the breadth and 
 dignity that belongs to the State. It is too 
 sacred to be thought of as a contract. It is a 
 union which God joins together for purposes 
 worthy of His care. When it is worthily real 
 ized, who can say that it may not stretch 
 beyond the line of death, and they who have 
 been minister and people to each other here be 
 something holy and peculiar to each other in 
 the City of God forever? PREACHING. ? ,6.
 
 24 JANUARY 24. 
 
 Thy brother shall rise again. JOHN xi. 23. 
 
 JVAEN S souls leaped to that word because 
 *** they wanted to believe it, and had not 
 dared wholly to believe it till He showed them 
 that it was true. And now if we believe in 
 Him, we do believe it, and death is really 
 changed to us, and the dead are really living 
 by the assurance of the living Christ. In 
 those moments when Christ is most real to 
 me, when He lives in the centre of my desires 
 and I am resting most heavily upon His help, 
 in those moments I am surest that the dead 
 are not lost, that those whom this Christ, in 
 whom I trust, has taken He is keeping. The 
 more He lives to me, the more they live. 
 
 i. 225, 226. 
 
 Do we indeed desire the dead 
 
 Should still be near us at our side? 
 
 Is there no baseness we would hide? 
 No inner vileness that we dread ? 
 
 I wrong the grave with fears untrue : 
 Shall love be blamed for want of faith ? 
 There must be wisdom with great Death : 
 
 The dead shall look me through and through. 
 
 Be near us when we climb or fall : 
 Ye watch, like God, the rolling hours 
 With larger other eyes than ours, 
 
 To make allowance for us all. 
 
 TENNYSON
 
 JANUARY 25. 25 
 
 DO we not all feel the change that had 
 come between Paul crying submissively 
 " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " 
 looking to an outside Christ for commandment, 
 and the same Paul crying " Not I live, but 
 Christ liveth in me!" rejoicing in the inspi 
 ration of an inward Saviour ? This was the 
 perfect victory after which Paul was always 
 longing so intensely. It did not come per 
 fectly to him in this world. It cannot to any 
 of us. Dependent as it is upon the knowledge 
 of Christ by the soul, it cannot be perfect till 
 the soul s knowledge of Christ shall be perfect 
 in heaven. . . . The great privilege of the 
 Christian is deepening personal intimacy with 
 Him who is the Christian s life, the Lord Jesus 
 Christ. All comes to that at last. Christianity 
 begins with many motives. It all fastens itself 
 at last upon one motive, which does not ex 
 clude, but is large enough to comprehend, all 
 that is good in all the rest, " That I may know 
 Him." Those are Paul s words. How con 
 stantly we come back to his large, rounded 
 life, as the picture of what the Christian is 
 and becomes. n. 50 , 5 i. 
 
 Christ! I am Christ s! and let the name suffice you, 
 Ay, for me too He greatly hath sufficed : 
 
 Lo with no winning words I would entice you, 
 Paul had no honor and no friend but Christ. 
 
 Ay, for this Paul, a scorn and a reviling, 
 
 Weak as you know him and the wretch you see, 
 
 Even in these eyes shall ye behold His smiling, 
 Strength in infirmities and Christ in me. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS.
 
 26 JANUARY 26. 
 
 The things which are seen are temporal ; but 
 the things which are not seen are eternal. 
 
 II. COR. iv. 1 8. 
 
 THE Incarnation is the perpetual interpre 
 tation of our life. Jesus cries, "It is 
 finished," on His cross, and at once it is evi 
 dent that that finishing is but a beginning ; 
 that it is a breaking to pieces of the temporal, 
 that it may be lost in the eternal ! That cross 
 is the perpetual glorification of the shortness 
 of life. In its light we, too, can stand by the 
 departing form of our own life, or of some 
 brother s life, and say, " It is finished," and 
 know that the finishing is really a beginning. 
 The temporary is melting away like a cloud 
 in the sky, that the great total sky may all be 
 seen. The form in which the man has lived 
 is decaying, that the real life of the man may 
 be apparent. The fashion of this world is 
 passing away ; the episode, the accident of 
 earth is over, that the spiritual reality may be 
 clear. It is in the light of the cross that the 
 exquisite picture of Shelley, who tried so hard 
 to be heathen and would still be Christian in 
 his own despite, is really realized : 
 
 The one remains, the many change and pass ; 
 
 Heaven s light forever shines ; earth s shadows fly ; 
 Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity, 
 Until death tramples it to fragments. I. 331. 332.
 
 JANUARY 27. 27 
 
 Lord, for the erring thought 
 Not into evil wrought : 
 Lord, for the wicked will 
 Betrayed and baffled still : 
 For the heart from itself kept, 
 Our thanksgiving accept. 
 
 For ignorant hopes that were 
 Broken to our blind prayer : 
 For pain, death, sorrow, sent 
 Unto our chastisement: 
 For all loss of seeming good, 
 
 Quicken our gratitude. 
 
 w. D. HOWELLS. 
 
 OLORD, by all Thy dealings with us, 
 whether of joy or pain, of light or dark 
 ness, let us be brought to Thee. Let us value 
 no treatment of Thy grace simply because it 
 makes us happy or because it makes us sad, 
 because it gives us or denies us what we 
 want ; but may all that Thou sendest us bring 
 us to Thee, that knowing Thy perfectness, 
 we may be sure in every disappointment that 
 Thou art still loving us, and in every darkness 
 that Thou art still enlightening us, and in 
 every enforced idleness that Thou art still 
 using us ; yea, in every death that Thou art 
 giving us life, as in His death Thou didst give 
 life to Thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
 Amen. v. 323.
 
 28 JANUARY 28. 
 
 That light 
 
 Fringing the far hills, all so fair, so fair, 
 Is it not dawn ? I am dying, but tis dawn. 
 
 Upon the mountains I behold the feet 
 Of my Beloved : let us forth to meet 
 Death. 
 
 This is death. I see the light no more ; 
 1 sleep. 
 
 But like a morning bird my soul 
 Springs singing upward, into the deeps of heaven, 
 Through world on world to follow Infinite Day. 
 
 DINAH MULOCH CRAIK. 
 
 HOW shall 1 bind myself to eternity except 
 by giving myself to Him who is eternal 
 in obedient love ? Obedient love ! Loving 
 obedience i That is what binds the soul of 
 the less to the soul of the greater everywhere. 
 I give myself to the eternal Christ, and in His 
 eternity I find my own. In His service I am 
 bound to Him, and the shortness of that life, 
 whose limitations in any way shut me out 
 from Him, becomes an inspiration, not a bur 
 den to me. Oh, my dear friends, you who 
 with Christian faith have seen a Christian die, 
 tell me, was not this short life then revealed 
 to you in all its beauty ? Did you not see 
 completely that no life was too long which 
 Christ had filled with the gift and knowledge 
 of Himself ; no life was too short which de 
 parted from the earth only to go and be with 
 Him in Heaven forever ? L 332
 
 JANUARY 29. 29 
 
 OUR souls are sick with the sight of hunger 
 and nakedness and want. . . . Cannot 
 He who fed the hungry Jews feed these hungry 
 Americans ? We are ready to doubt the old 
 story of His mercy, or to think He has forgotten 
 to be gracious and ceased to care for these 
 modern nations whom He has not "chosen." 
 And then, just as we are ready to give up to 
 despair in one or other of these forms, we 
 catch a glimpse of something better, of some 
 thing which makes us see that the manna and 
 the miraculous loaves and fishes, made per 
 petual, would be demoralizing and degrading. 
 Some light comes on the necessity and nobility 
 of struggle. We see the greater glory of the 
 new miracle the miracle of the advancing 
 civilization, whose purpose is not to do away 
 with struggle, but to make the conditions of 
 struggle fair and the prospects of struggle 
 hopeful. Into the spirit of that miracle we 
 cast ourselves, not expecting to see the world s 
 misery suddenly removed, but sure that at last 
 the world, in and through its misery, will tri 
 umph over its misery by patience and diffused 
 intelligence and mutual respect and brotherly 
 kindness and the grace of God. v . 30, 31. 
 
 I have considered the days of old 
 
 The years of ancient times. 
 Will the Lord cast off forever? 
 
 Hath God forgotten to be gracious ? 
 
 Hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies? 
 
 And 1 said, This is my infirmity ; 
 But 1 will remember the years of 
 
 The right hand of the Most High. 
 
 PS. LXXVII. 5-10.
 
 30 JANUARY 30. 
 
 MEN say, " The world has been disturbed 
 before. Classes have clashed with one 
 another. Governed and governors, employed 
 and employers, rich and poor, have come to 
 blows in other days, but things have al 
 ways adjusted themselves again. The stronger 
 have grown kinder ; the weaker have grown 
 humbler ; the paternal governor has grown 
 more fatherly ; the obedient subject has 
 grown more filial, and things have gone on 
 again as smoothly as before." " So shall it be 
 again," men say. That is what they expect 
 as the outcome of all this conflict. But other 
 men see clearer. ... It is not going to be 
 enough that the strong should once more grow 
 kinder and the weak grow humbler. The bal 
 ance and distribution of strength and weak 
 ness is being altered, must be altered more 
 and more. The sources of artificial strength 
 and artificial weakness are being dried up. 
 Governors and governed, employers and em 
 ployed, are coming to be coworkers for the 
 same ends. Not the old mercies repeated, but 
 new mercies going vastly deeper than the old, 
 these are what men are beginning to see 
 that the world is needing and that God is giv 
 ing to the world He loves. v. 30. 
 
 Every man is his brother s bane, 
 Where sloth brings honor and labor scorn. 
 
 Of fellowship yet shall the earth be fain, 
 Hasten we, hasten the happy morn. 
 
 Life is hopeless in park and slum, 
 Where sloth brings honor and labor scorn. 
 
 P>\\ shall be well in the days to come, 
 Hasten we, hasten the happy morn ! 
 
 C. W. BECKETT.
 
 JANUARY 31. 31 
 
 BUT before I seriously undertake to make of 
 him [the poor man] an independent, in 
 telligent, struggling brother-man, to wake him 
 from his torpor, to set him on his feet, to kindle 
 in his soul that fire which keeps my own soul 
 full of light and warmth, I must have some 
 thing more than the impulse of a wise econ 
 omy. This needs a sympathy which makes 
 his life, with all its needs and miseries, my 
 own. It demands of me to wrestle with his 
 enemies, to undertake a fight for him which 
 he is not yet ready to undertake himself, to 
 sacrifice myself that I may make his true self 
 live. . 343 . 
 
 He stood upon the world s broad threshold ; wide 
 The din of battle and of slaughter rose ; 
 He saw God stand upon the weaker side, 
 That sank in seeming loss before its foes ; 
 Many there were who made great haste and sold 
 Unto the cunning enemy their swords ; 
 He scorned their gifts of fame, and power, and gold, 
 And, underneath their soft and flowery words, 
 Heard the cold serpent hiss ; therefore he went 
 And humbly joined him to the weaker part, 
 Fanatic named, and fool, yet well content 
 So he could be the nearer to God s heart, 
 And feels its solemn pulses sending blood 
 Through all the widespread veins of endless good. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
 
 32 FEBRUARY i. 
 
 T~"HERE are some things of the individual life 
 * which the individual cannot get save in 
 the company of fellow-men. There are some 
 parts of his own true life always in his 
 brethren s keeping, for which he must go to 
 them. That the individual may find and be 
 his own truest and fullest self, Jesus, his 
 Master, leads him to his fellows. The wed 
 ding guest at Cana, the Pharisee at Levi s 
 table, the sisters with their restored brother, 
 the brothers of the Lord in the house of the 
 carpenter, all, just as soon as Jesus sancti 
 fied and blessed the society in which they 
 lived, saw coming to them as it were out of 
 the heart of that society a selfhood which 
 no solitary contemplation could have gained. 
 Each of them found his Father among his 
 brethren reached God through the revela 
 tion Of Other human lives. INFLUEMCK.QT. 
 
 I tell you this for a wonder, that no man shall then be 
 
 glad 
 Of his fellow s fall and mishap to snatch at the work 
 
 he had. 
 
 Then all mine and all thine shall be ours, and no more 
 
 shall any man crave 
 For riches that serve for nothing but to fetter a friend 
 
 for a slave. 
 
 For all these shall be ours and all men s, nor shall any 
 
 lack a share 
 Of the toil and the gain of living in the days when the 
 
 world grows fair. 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS.
 
 FEBRUARY 2. 33 
 
 \_Simeon~\ said, Lord now lettest Thou Thy 
 servant depart in peace, according to Thy word : 
 For mine eyes have seen Thy salvation, which 
 Thou hast prepared before the face of all people ; 
 A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of 
 Thy people Israel. LUKE ii. 29-32. 
 
 THE waiting Jewish race the men and 
 women nay, the whole world which is 
 seen peering into the darkness, sure that some 
 light is coming Zacharias, Mary, Simeon, 
 Anna, Herod, Peter, and Andrew every man 
 and woman of whom we read, is ready for the 
 wonder of recognition, the wonder which comes 
 with the fulfilment of their dreams and hopes 
 and fears, . . . the long-imagined, long-ex 
 pected, half-despaired-of manifestation of God 
 
 in human life. CHRISTMAS SERMON, 7 , 8. 
 
 To every Christian there come times when 
 all the strangeness disappears from the divine 
 humanity which stands radiant at the centre 
 of his faith. He finds it hard to believe in him 
 self and in his brethren perhaps ; but that 
 Christ should be and should be Christ appears 
 the one reasonable, natural, certain thing in 
 all the universe. In Him all broken lines unite ; 
 in Him all scattered sounds are gathered into 
 harmony. . . . The day of our salvation has 
 not come till every voice brings us one mes 
 sage ; till Christ, the Light of the world, 
 everywhere reveals to us the divine secret of 
 our life ; till everything without joins with the 
 consciousness all alive within, and "the Spirit 
 itself beareth witness with our spirits that we 
 are the children of God." v. 15, 23 .
 
 34 FEBRUARY 3. 
 
 When He came near, He beheld the city, and 
 wept over it. LUKE xix. 41. 
 
 TELL me what becomes of the hard young 
 man, proud of his unsensitiveness, even 
 pretending to be more unsensitive than he is, 
 incapable of enthusiasm, incapable of tears ; 
 what becomes of him beside the knightliness 
 of a sorrow such as that ? The little child is 
 sensitive without a thought of effort. The old 
 man often feels the joy and pain of men as if 
 the long years had made it his own. But in 
 between, the young man is hardened by self- 
 absorption ; when all the time he ought 
 with his imagination, with his power to real 
 ize things he has not been nor seen ta 
 go responsive through the world, answering 
 quickly to every touch, knowing the burdened 
 man s burden just because of the unpressed 
 lightness of his own shoulders, feeling the sick 
 man s pain all the more because his own flesh 
 never knew an ache, buoyant through all with 
 his unconquerable hope, overcoming the world 
 with his exuberant faith, and farthest from 
 sentimentality by the abundance and freedom 
 of the sentiment which fills him. Be sure that 
 there is no true escape from softness in making 
 yourself hard. It is like freezing your arm to 
 keep it from decay. Only by filling it with 
 blood and giving it the true flexibility of health, 
 so only is it to be preserved from the corrup 
 tion which you fear. Be not afraid of senti 
 ment, but only of untruth. Trust your sen 
 timents, and so be a man. v . g s. 90.
 
 FEBRUARY 4. 35 
 
 Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him 
 only shalt tho u serve. MATT. iv. 10. 
 
 "\ \ 7OE to the man who loses the faculty of 
 worship, the faculty of honoring and 
 loving and fearing not merely something better 
 than himself, but something which is the 
 absolute best, the perfect good, his God ! 
 The life is gone out of his life when this is 
 gone. There is a cloud upon his thought, a 
 palsy on his action, a chill upon his love. 
 Because you must worship, therefore you must 
 have God. n. I03 . 
 
 Alone Lord God, in whom our trust and peace, 
 Our love and our desire, glow bright with hope ; 
 Lift us above this transitory scope 
 
 Of earth, these pleasures that begin and cease, 
 
 This moon which wanes, these seasons which decrease ; 
 We turn to Thee ; as on an eastern slope 
 Wheat feels the dawn beneath night s lingering cope, 
 
 Bending and stretching downward ere it sees. 
 
 Alone Lord God, we see not yet we know ; 
 
 By love we dwell with patience and desire, 
 And living so and so desiring pray : 
 Thy will be done in earth as heaven to-day ; 
 
 As yesterday it was, to-morrow so ; 
 
 Love offering love on love s self-feeding fire. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 36 FEBRUARY 5. 
 
 F)ICTURE Jesus of Nazareth set down in 
 * Rome with all the flashing splendor of 
 imperial power all around Him ; or in Athens, 
 with the wisdom of the philosophers on every 
 side. Would the young Jew have cast His 
 faith away? Too real for Him the visions that 
 had come to Him in Nazareth ! Too real for 
 Him the glory of His Father, which had filled 
 His Father s house ! He would have laid fresh 
 hold upon that truth and love which He had 
 never so needed until now. He would have 
 stood undazzled in the Roman glory, unpuzzled 
 in the Grecian wisdom, because He would have 
 known that in His heart He carried the light by 
 which they should give light to Him. It would 
 have been like David calmly saying in the 
 presence of the terrors of Goliath, " The Lord 
 that delivered me out of the paw of the lion and 
 out of the paw of the bear, He will deliver me 
 out of the hand of this Philistine." m. Io8 , Iog . 
 
 How amiable are Thy tabernacles, O Lord of Hosts ! 
 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of 
 the Lord. 
 
 For a day in Thy courts is better than a thousand. 
 I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, 
 
 than to d\vell in the tents of wickedness. 
 For the Lord God is a sun and shield : the Lord will 
 
 give grace and glory : 
 No good thing will He withhold from them that walk 
 
 uprightly. 
 O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth 
 
 in Thee. PS. LXXXIV.
 
 FEBRUARY 6. 37 
 
 Thou shalt hide than in the secret of Th v presence 
 from the pride of man. Thou shalt keep them 
 secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. 
 
 Ps. xxxi. 20. 
 
 This tract which the river of Time 
 
 Now flows through with us, is the plain. 
 
 Gone is the calm of its earlier shore. 
 
 Border J by cities, and hoarse 
 
 With a thousand cries, is its stream. 
 
 And we on its breast, our minds 
 
 Are confused as the cries which we hear, 
 
 Changing and shot as the sights which we see. 
 
 And we say that repose has fled 
 Forever the course of the river of Time. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 OF how much of our best society they seem 
 to be the exact description ; of how many 
 heartless houses filled with a poor pretence of 
 social life, David s words tell the whole story. 
 " The pride of man and the strife of tongues," 
 the lack of humility, the lack of love, the lack 
 of peace ! To live in such a world, and yet to 
 keep a soul in us at all, is very hard. We 
 must have something under and beyond such 
 a world to flee to to renew our life, to really 
 recreate ourselves. That security and recrea 
 tion of our life cannot come except in the source 
 from which our life first came. We must go 
 back to God. i
 
 38 FEBRUARY 7. 
 
 I will hear what the Lord God may say in me. 
 
 Blest is the soul that hears its Lord s voice speaking 
 
 within it, 
 
 And takes the word of comfort from His lips. 
 Blest are the ears that catch the throbbing whisper of 
 
 the Lord, 
 
 And turn not to the buzzings of the passing world ; 
 That listen not to voices from without, 
 But to the truth that teaches from within. 
 Blest are the eyes 
 That, shut to outer things, 
 Are busied with the inner life. 
 Blest are they who penetrate within, 
 And more and more by daily use 
 Strive to prepare themselves 
 To take the heavenly mysteries. 
 And blest are they who try to give their time to God, 
 And shake them free from all the burden of the world. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS. 
 
 T^O put aside everything that hinders the 
 highest from coming to us, and then to 
 call to us that highest which, nay, Who is 
 always waiting to come, fasting and prayer, 
 this, as the habit and tenor of a life, is 
 noble. As an occasional effort even, if it is 
 real and earnest, it makes the soul freer for the 
 future. A short special communion with the 
 unseen and eternal, prevents the soul from 
 ever being again so completely the slave of the 
 things of sense and time. n. 2I4 .
 
 FEBRUARY 8. 39 
 
 Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every 
 word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. 
 MATT. iv. 4. 
 
 EVERY word of God is both truth and duty, 
 revelation and commandment. He who 
 takes any new word of God completely gets 
 both a new truth and a new duty. He, then, 
 who lives by every word of God, is a man who 
 is continually seeing new truth and accepting 
 the duties that arise out of it. And it is for 
 this, for the pleasure of seeing truth and doing 
 its attendant duty, that he is willing to give up 
 the pleasures of sense, and even, if need be, 
 to give up the bodily life to which the pleas 
 ures of sense belong. i. 273 . 
 
 It is not happiness I seek, 
 Its name I hardly dare to speak : 
 It is not made for man on earth, 
 And Heaven alone can give it birth. 
 
 Fixed duty claiming every power, 
 And human love to charm each hour, 
 These, these, my soul, make Blessedness ; 
 I ask no more, I seek no less. 
 
 And yet I know these are too much ; 
 My very being s life they touch, 
 Without them all, oh ! let me still 
 Find Blessedness in God s dear will. 
 
 LOUISA J. HALL.
 
 40 FEBRUARY 9. 
 
 CHRIST entered into our shame. Deep 
 ^^ into its very heart He entered. The 
 blackness of its darkness was around Him. 
 But the purpose of His sacrifice was that we 
 might be brought to Him. We have not learnt 
 the whole if we have only felt His condescen 
 sion. Not till He who has stooped to us has 
 lifted us up to Him must we be satisfied. Not 
 till He who hangs upon the cross beside us has 
 said to us, " To-day thou shalt be with me in 
 Paradise." i. 20Q . 
 
 We know the way : thank God who hath showed us 
 
 the way ! 
 
 Jesus Christ our Way to beautiful Paradise, 
 Jesus Christ the Same for ever, the Same to-day. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 " Coelum patria, Christus via," says the old 
 motto: "Heaven the country, Christ the 
 way." But it is true that He who is the way 
 is also the life into which the way leads ; and 
 
 Christ must be country as well as path. 
 
 i. 306.
 
 FEBRUARY 10. 41 
 
 TO know first of all and deepest of all, that 
 that battle which goes on within us is 
 God s battle, is of supreme importance. What 
 are our sins ? What is your selfishness, your 
 untruthfulness, your cruelty ? Is it something 
 which hurts and hinders you? Indeed it is. 
 But beyond that it is something which usurps 
 a kingdom which belongs to God. It is His 
 enemy. And every movement of your con 
 science, every sense of usurpation and of 
 incongruity, is not merely the revolt of your 
 own outraged soul. It is also the claim of the 
 true King upon His Kingdom. It is the sound 
 of the monarch s trumpet summoning the re 
 bellious castle to surrender. Believe this, and 
 what a dignity enters into the moral struggle 
 of our life. It is no mere restless fermentation, 
 the disturbed nature out of harmony with itself. 
 It is God, with the great moral gravitation of 
 universal righteousness, dragging this stray 
 and wayward atom back into Himself. O deep 
 divine mysterious process, that goes on wher 
 ever in silent chamber or in crowded street the 
 humbled penitent lies prostrate in the dust, or 
 the resolute struggler stands wrestling with 
 his temptation ! iv. 27 6. 
 
 Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee? 
 
 And am not I grieved with those that rise up against 
 
 Thee? 
 I hate them with perfect hatred ; I count them mine 
 
 enemies. 
 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and 
 
 know my thoughts : 
 And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me 
 
 in the way everlasting. PS. cxxxix. 21-24.
 
 42 FEBRUARY n. 
 
 Then the devil leave th Him ; and, behold, angels 
 came and ministered unto Him. MATT. iv. 1 1. 
 
 JESUS had seen Satan. He had seen with 
 ^ what greedy and confident eyes Satan 
 looked at that humanity of His, as if it were 
 something that belonged to Him. Nay, in His 
 own humanity He had felt a treacherous some 
 thing, that was ready to respond to Satan and 
 to own his mastery. Strong and victorious He 
 came away. But was there no new solemn 
 insight into this humanity which He had taken? 
 Was not the Incarnation more than ever awful 
 to the Incarnate One ? He, the sinless, had 
 gone up and looked over the edge into the 
 deepest depths of sin. He needed the minis 
 try of angels, and He surely came down the 
 mountain serious and sad. And so it is with 
 you, when you follow your Lord into that ex 
 perience. It may be that you come out by 
 His grace pure and thankful, but you come out 
 "like Him, serious and sad, for you have looked 
 
 down as He looked into the possibility of sin. 
 
 i. 255, 256. 
 
 O Father, out of whose Hand none is able to pluck 
 
 Thine own, 
 
 Have pity on us, and be our defence against 
 The hosts that rise up against us. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE.
 
 FEBRUARY 12. 43 
 
 But often, in the world s most crowded streets, 
 
 But often, in the din of strife, 
 
 There rises an unspeakable desire 
 
 After the knowledge of our buried life, 
 
 A thirst to spend our fire and restless force 
 
 In tracking out our true, original course ; 
 
 A longing to inquire 
 
 Into the mystery of this heart which beats 
 
 So wild, so deep in us, to know 
 
 Whence our thoughts come and where they go. 
 
 And many a man in his own breast then delves, 
 
 But deep enough, alas, none ever mines ! 
 
 Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, 
 From the soul s subterranean depths upborne 
 As from an infinitely distant land, 
 Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey 
 A melancholy into all our day. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 T UST at the outset of our work, to try us 
 *-* whether we are good for our work, God s 
 Spirit takes us into some solitude, some expe 
 rience which, whether it be enacted far off in 
 the woods, or in the very centre of a crowded 
 street, makes us realize for the first time that 
 our deepest life is alone, is ours and no other 
 man s ; that we cannot live in our fathers and 
 our mothers ; that we must live for ourselves. 
 That is our wilderness, that first realization 
 of our individuality. i. 269
 
 44 FEBRUARY 13. 
 
 it is evident that in those terrible 
 hours (of the Temptation) the whole 
 nature of Jesus was submitted to a fearful 
 struggle, and that, as not the least among the 
 elements that made up the ordeal, His intel 
 lectual judgments were shaken, His knowledge 
 of truth was invaded by tumultuous doubt, 
 His sight of His Father was obscured, yet, 
 at the last, and as the sum of all, the question 
 was not one of intelligence but of will. It was 
 a choice of obediences that made the real crisis. 
 It was the rejection of Satan s " Fall down 
 and worship me," and the clear acceptance of 
 "Thou shalt serve the Lord thy God," that 
 marked the victory. " Then the Devil leaveth 
 Him, and behold angels came and ministered 
 unto Him." The moment that the obedience 
 of the life was established, the mental tumult 
 settled into peace within it. INFLUENCE, 229 . 
 
 I worship thee, sweet will of God ! 
 
 And all thy ways adore, 
 And every day 1 live I seem 
 
 To love thee more and more. 
 
 Thou wert the end, the blessed rule 
 Of our Saviour s toils and tears ; 
 
 Thou wert the passion of His Heart 
 Those three and thirty years. 
 
 F. W. FABER.
 
 FEBRUARY 14. 45 
 
 // is written, Man shall not live by bread alone. 
 
 MATT. iv. 4. 
 
 WHAT a man finds in his own conscious 
 ness, he is strengthened by being able 
 also to recognize in the whole history of his 
 race. " It is written " long ago, this which he 
 is doing now. He is only tracing over with 
 his blood the unfaded characters which other 
 men have written in theirs. It is not a mere 
 whim of his, this conviction that it is better to 
 serve God than to eat bread. It is the cor 
 porate conviction of mankind. That is a very 
 mysterious support, but it is a real one. It 
 plants the weak tree of your will or mine into 
 the rich soil of humanity. Do not lose that 
 strength. Do not so misread history that it 
 shall seem to you when you try to do right as 
 if you were the first man that ever tried it. 
 Put yourself with your weak little struggle 
 into the company of all the strugglers in all 
 time. Recognize in your little fight against 
 your avarice, or your untruthfulness, or your 
 laziness, only one skirmish in that battle whose 
 field covers the earth, and whose clamor rises 
 and falls from age to age, but never wholly 
 dies. See in the perpetual struggle of good 
 and evil that the impulse after good is eternal, 
 and the higher needs are always asserting 
 their necessity. In their persistent assertion 
 read the prophecy of their final success and 
 take courage. i. 277 .
 
 46 FEBRUARY 15. 
 
 is at once the inspiration of the 
 - > individual and also the assertion such 
 as the world has never heard before of the 
 identity of man. . . . Here are you, seemingly 
 insignificant, not making much of yourself, not 
 seeming to be worthy to be made much of. 
 Oh, if you could know two things about your 
 self : first, that you are a different creature 
 from any that the world has ever seen, and 
 second, that you are a true utterance of the 
 same spirit of life out of which sprang Isaiah 
 and Saint John. v. 66,6 7 . 
 
 Take the least man of all mankind, as 1 ; 
 Look at his head and heart, find how and why 
 He differs from his fellows utterly : 
 
 When you acknowledge that one world could do 
 All the diverse work, old yet ever new, 
 Divide us, each from other, me from you, 
 
 Wny where s the need of temple, when the walls 
 O the world are that ? What use of swells and falls 
 From Levites choir, Priests cries, and trumpet-calls ? 
 
 That one Face, far from vanish, rather grows, 
 
 Or decomposes but to recompose, 
 
 Become my universe that feels and knows ! 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 FEBRUARY 16. 47 
 
 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them ; for they 
 know not what they do. LUKE xxiii. 34. 
 
 CLOSE to His Father always, ... He was 
 hid in the secret of His Father s pres 
 ence. We cannot know His peace. It must 
 have been so absolute. There must have 
 been such a pity in His heart when they 
 tormented Him, when they tied Him to a 
 column and scourged Him, when they nailed 
 Him to the cross at last, and all the while were 
 looking to see Him give way and tremble, and 
 all the while the soul which they thought they 
 were reaching and torturing was far off, be 
 yond their reach, hid in the secret of God s 
 presence, hid in God. It was as if men flung 
 water at the stars and tried to put them out, 
 and the stars shone on calmly and safely and 
 took no notice of their persecutors, except to 
 give them light. L 96i 97 . 
 
 May forgiveness, O Lord, we beseech Thee, proceed 
 from the Most High. May it succour us in our misery ; 
 may it cleanse us from our offences ; may it be granted 
 to penitents ; may it plead for mourners ; may it bring 
 back those who wander from the faith ; may it raise up 
 those who are fallen into sins ; may it reconcile us to 
 the Father ; may it confirm us with the grace of Christ ; 
 may it conform us to the Holy Spirit. 
 
 BRIGHT S ANCIENT COLLECTS.
 
 48 FEBRUARY 17. 
 
 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O 
 woman, great is thy faith : be it unto thee even as 
 thou wilt. MATT. xv. 28. 
 
 THIS power of weakness over strength 
 comes to perfection in Jesus. . . . Every 
 beggar whom He met was a king to Him. . . . 
 When you and I are weak, Christ in a true 
 sense owns the claim of our weakness and 
 comes to serve us with His love. Behold, how 
 this transfigures life ! The times that make 
 us weakest and that force our weakness most 
 upon us, and make us most know how weak 
 we are, those are our coronation times, The 
 days of sickness, days of temptation, days of 
 doubt, days of discouragement, days of be 
 reavement and of the aching loneliness which 
 comes when the strong voice is silent and the 
 dear face is gone, these are the days when 
 Christ sees most clear the crown of our need 
 upon our foreheads, and comes to serve us 
 with His love. 
 
 Faith is the king s knowledge of his own 
 kingship. A weak man who has no faith in 
 Christ is a king who does not know his own roy 
 alty. But the soul which in its need cries out 
 and claims its need s dominion, . . . "Come 
 to me, O Christ, for I need Thee," finds itself 
 justified. Its bold and humble cry is honored 
 and answered instantly ; instantly by its side 
 the answer comes: "Great is thy faith : be 
 it unto thee even as thou wilt. What wilt thou 
 that I should do unto thee? " ni. i 75> i 77 . J7 s.
 
 FEBRUARY 18. 49 
 
 JVIOT only a Christ to stand outside and 
 * ^ support with the strong hands of His 
 forgiveness, but a Christ to come in and 
 strengthen by the power of His incorporated 
 life. Christ is the Staff we lean on, the Rock 
 we stand on, the Light that leads us, the Master 
 on whose breast we lie ; but He is also the 
 Bread of Life. He is many things outside of 
 us, Wisdom, Righteousness, Redemption. 
 He is also something inside of us, Sanctifica- 
 tion. He says, " Lean on Me, stand on Me, 
 take hold of Me and walk." But when He 
 takes up His deepest word it is this, "Feed 
 on Me; unless you feed on Me you have no 
 life in you." He says, " Look and see how 
 good God is ; touch Me and feel God s mercy ; 
 hear Me and I will tell you IIDW He loves you." 
 But at the last this comes as a commandment 
 of the deepest faith, the promise of the highest 
 mercy, " O taste and see that the Lord is 
 gracious." , 244i245 . 
 
 Him first to love great right and reason is, 
 Who first to us our life and being gave, 
 And after, when we fared had amiss, 
 Us wretches from the second death did save ; 
 And last, the food of life, which now we have, 
 Even He Himself, in His dear Sacrament, 
 To feed our hungry souls, unto us lent. 
 
 SPENSER.
 
 50 FEBRUARY 19. 
 
 My sword shall be bathed in heaven. Ps. xxxiv. 5. 
 
 OD is about to smite the wickedness of 
 the earth. His sword is in His hand. 
 And then, as a part of the terrible announce 
 ment, there come these words : " My sword 
 shall be bathed in heaven." What does that 
 mean ? It draws back the curtain which sep 
 arates the visible world from the invisible. It 
 reveals celestial regions in which there are 
 also great struggles going on. It lifts up our 
 eyes to the grander movements of the vast 
 world of spirits. And then it declares that the 
 sword which is to be used in fighting what 
 seems to be the petty wars of the Hebrews 
 and the Edomites, is the same sword which 
 has been used in these celestial conflicts ; that 
 the means and instruments of righteousness 
 upon the earth must be the same with the 
 means and instruments of righteousness in 
 the heavens. ... In no part of His universe 
 can God be passive. Everywhere He must be 
 the toe of the evil and the friend of the good. 
 Everywhere therefore throughout the great 
 perplexed tumultuous universe, we can see the 
 flashing of His sword. "His sword ! " we say, 
 and that must mean His nature uttering itself 
 in His own form of force. Nothing can be in 
 His sword which is not in His nature. And so 
 the sword of God in heavenly regions must 
 mean perfect thoroughness and perfect justice 
 contending against evil and self-will, and bring 
 ing about everywhere the ultimate victory of 
 righteousness and truth. Iv . 2 6 3 , 2 e 4 .
 
 FEBRUARY 20. 5 1 
 
 THAT every struggle of the people of God 
 against evil in this world must be fired 
 with eternal principles, must be instinct with 
 thoroughness and with justice ; that is the 
 plain prosaic meaning of the word of God to 
 Isaiah which declared, " My sword shall be 
 bathed in heaven." . . . 
 
 So it is possible for us to deal with every sin, 
 little or great, that we discover in our hearts. 
 To count it God s enemy and to fight it with all 
 His purity and strength ; that is what it means 
 for us that our sword should be bathed in 
 heaven ! Courage can only come with thor 
 oughness. But with absolute thoroughness, 
 courage must come. Resolve to-day that 
 every strength of God which it is your right 
 to invoke, because you are His child, and 
 which prayer and consecration can bring into 
 you from Him, shall be devoted to the over 
 coming of your sin, and then your sin shall 
 certainly be overcome. IV . 265 , 279 . 
 
 Was the trial sore? 
 
 Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time ! 
 Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
 And master, and make crouch beneath his foot, 
 And so be pedestalled in triumph ? Pray 
 " Lead us into no such temptations, Lord ! " 
 Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold, 
 Lead such temptations by the head and hair, 
 Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, 
 That so he may do battle and have praise. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 52 FEBRUARY 21. 
 
 Whatsoever is born of God overcometh thi 
 world : and this is the victory that overcometh the 
 world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh 
 the world, but he that believe th that Jesus is the 
 Son of God, I. JOHN v. 4, 5. 
 
 MAKE, then, this Incarnation the one per 
 vading power of a man s life. Let his 
 first feeling about this world always be, " God 
 has been here, and so God is here still," and 
 have you not made him strong to walk unpol 
 luted and unscorched through the furnace of 
 the world s most fiery corruptions ? It is the 
 low system, the constitution that is broken 
 down and depressed in tone, that takes the 
 contagion. . . . And a deep, living sense of 
 God is the true vitality of a human soul which 
 quenches the poisonous fires of corruption, as 
 powerless to be hurt by it as the cold, calm 
 sea is to be set on fire by the coals that you 
 may cast burning into its bosom. Think of 
 the day after Jesus had called John and Peter 
 and Nathanael to be His servants. They had 
 begun to hear His words of eternal life. They 
 had become dimly conscious of so much above 
 and beyond. Do you think it was as hard for 
 them to pass unspotted by the places of temp 
 tation in Chorazin and Capernaum ? They 
 had tasted the powers of the world to come. 
 And the true way, the only true way, to make 
 any man who is a slave to this world, catching 
 its corruption, free and pure, is to make him 
 see another world, the supernatural world, the 
 world of spiritual life above him and below him 
 and stretching out before him into eternity, 
 made visible by Christ s Incarnation. Ip , 87
 
 FEBRUARY 22. 53 
 
 Oft have I brooded on defeat and pain, 
 The pathos of the stupid stumbling throng. 
 These I ignore to-day and only long 
 To pour my soul forth in one trumpet strain, 
 One clear, grief-shattering, triumphant song, 
 For all the victories of man s high endeavor, 
 Palm-bearing, laurelled deeds that live forever, 
 The splendor clothing him whose will is strong. 
 Hast thou beheld the deep glad eyes of one 
 Who has persisted and achieved ? Rejoice ! 
 On naught diviner shines the all-seeing sun. 
 Salute him with free heart and choral voice, 
 Midst flippant, feeble crowds of spectres wan, 
 The bold, significant, successful man. 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS, 
 
 ALL history hears witness that when Goa 
 means to make a great man, He puts the 
 circumstances of the world and the lives of 
 lesser men under tribute. He does not fling 
 His hero like an aerolite out of the sky. He 
 bids him grow like an oak out of the earth. 
 All earnest, pure, unselfish, faithful men who 
 have lived their obscure lives well, have 
 helped to make him. God has let none of them 
 be wasted. A thousand unrecorded patriots 
 helped to make Washington ; a thousand 
 lovers of liberty contributed to Lincoln. . . . 
 And any man who in his small degree is living 
 like the child of God, has a right to all the 
 comfort of knowing that God will not let his 
 life be lost, but will use it in the making of 
 some great child of God, as He used centuries 
 of Jewish lives, prophets, priests, patriots, 
 kings, peasants, women, children, to make the 
 human life of His Incarnate Son. It . I33 , 134 .
 
 54 FEBRUARY 23. 
 
 Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His 
 Mother. JOHN xix. 25. 
 
 T UST as He was dying the Sufferer turned 
 and gave His Mother to the care of His 
 disciple. " Woman, behold thy son !" "Son, 
 behold thy mother!" It was a pang within 
 all the other pangs, a woe that perceptibly 
 added to their wretchedness, when among the 
 faces that pitied Him He saw her face who 
 bore Him, the face into which He had looked 
 up from His cradle. . . . The pain of any 
 human being touched Him, but in His Mother s 
 pain, humanity pressed itself closest to His 
 sensibility and gave Him a special distress, 
 proportioned to His special love. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 181, 182. 
 
 O Lord Jesus, who diist meet Thy Mother in her 
 sorrow, and yet, because of the love Thou bearest us, 
 wouldst not be turned aside from suffering, help us to 
 give up all things for Thy love ; going wherever Thou 
 shalt call us, and doing whatsoever Thou wouldst 
 have us do. 
 
 By Thy Cross and Passion, and Thy pity on Thy 
 Mother, Let us stand with her beneath Thy Cross, and 
 share the cup of her sorrows. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE.
 
 FEBRUARY 24. 55 
 
 IT is not, if we understand it rightly, a sign 
 of decreasing, but of increasing spiritu 
 ality, that miracles have ceased. And so it 
 is a truer discrimination that recognizes the 
 presences of God in men, the saints that are 
 in the world, not by the miracles they work 
 but by the miracles they are, by the way in 
 which they bring the grace of God to bear on 
 the simple duties of the household and the 
 street. The sainthoods of the fireside and of 
 the market-place they wear no glory round 
 their heads ; they do their duties in the 
 strength of God ; they have their martyrdoms 
 and win their palms, and though they get into 
 no calendars, they leave a benediction and a 
 force behind them on the earth when they go 
 up to heaven. i. I3I> I32 . 
 
 A SONG FOR THE LEAST OF ALL SAINTS. 
 
 Love is the key of life and death, 
 
 Of hidden heavenly mystery ; 
 Of all Christ is, of all He saith, 
 
 Love is the key. 
 
 As three times to His Saint He saith, 
 He saith to me, He saith to thee, 
 
 Breathing His Grace-conferring Breath : 
 "Lovestthou Me?" 
 
 Ah, Lord, I have such feeble faith, 
 Such feeble hope to comfort me : 
 
 But love it is, is strong as death, 
 And I love Thee. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI,
 
 56 FEBRUARY 25. 
 
 think it possible that God should fill 
 a humanity with Himself, once see 
 humanity capable of being filled with God, 
 and can you conceive of His not doing it ? 
 Must there not be an Incarnation ? Do you 
 not instantly begin to search earth for the holy 
 steps ? Once think it possible that Christ 
 can, and are you not sure that Christ must 
 give Himself for our Redemption ? So only, 
 when it seems inevitable and natural, does the 
 Christhood become our pattern. Then only 
 does it shine on the mountain-top up toward 
 which we can feel the low lines of our low life 
 aspiring. The Son of God is also the Son of 
 Man. Then in us, the sons of men, there is 
 the key to the secret of His being and His 
 work. Know Christ that you may know 
 yourself. But, oh ! also know yourself that 
 you may know Christ ! v. i 4 , 15. 
 
 " O Saul, it shall be 
 A Face like my face that receives thee ; a man like to 
 
 me, 
 Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever ! a hand like 
 
 this hand 
 Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee ! See 
 
 the Christ stand ! " 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 FEBRUARY 26. 57 
 
 THAT is the time in life when confirmation 
 ought to come. Not in mere childhood, 
 when the life is still wholly under other peo 
 ple s influence ; not, unless it has been put 
 off by neglect before, in those later years 
 when manhood is an old story, and the nature 
 is hard with long doubt and hesitation ; but it 
 ought to come just when the new freedom 
 is beginning to be felt, when obedience to 
 authority is opening into personal responsi 
 bility, when the implicit faith is just asking 
 for its soul of reason, and anticipating the 
 changes which shall make it the peculiar faith 
 of this peculiar life, then it is that con 
 firmation has its fullest meaning. It is the 
 gathering up of all the faith and dutiful impulse 
 of the past that it may go before the life into 
 the untried fields. v. 2 95> 29 6. 
 
 The shadow of the Almighty s cloud 
 
 Calm on the tents of Israel lay, 
 While drooping paused twelve banners proud, 
 
 Till He arise and lead the way. 
 
 Then to the desert breeze unrolled, 
 
 Cheerly the waving pennons fly, 
 Lion or eagle each bright fold 
 
 A lodestar to a warrior s eye. 
 
 So should Thy champions, ere the strife, 
 By holy hands o er-shadowed kneel, 
 
 So, fearless for their charmed life, 
 Bear, to the end, Thy Spirit s seal. 
 
 KEBLE.
 
 58 FEBRUARY 27. 
 
 IS there nothing that Christ as your Friend, 
 your Lord, your Saviour, wants you to do 
 that you are leaving undone to-day ? Do you 
 doubt one instant that with His high and deep 
 love for your soul, He wants you to pray ? 
 And do you pray ? Do you doubt one instant 
 that it is His will that you should honor and 
 help and bless all these men about you who are 
 His brethren ? And are you doing anything 
 like that ? Do you doubt one instant that His 
 will is that you should make life serious and 
 lofty ? And are you making it frivolous and 
 low? Do you doubt one instant that He wants 
 you to be pure in deed and word and thought ? 
 And are you pure ? Do you doubt one instant 
 that His command is for you openly to own 
 Him and declare that you are His servant be 
 fore all the world ? And have you done it ? 
 These are the questions which make the whole 
 matter clear. No, not in quiet lanes, nor in 
 bright temple-courts as once He spoke, and not 
 from blazing heavens as men seem sometimes 
 to expect, not so does Christ speak to us. 
 And yet He speaks ! I know what He, there 
 in His glory, He here in my heart, wants me 
 to do to-day, and I know that I am not mis 
 taken in my knowledge. It is no guess of 
 mine. It is His voice that tells me. 
 
 V. 356, 357- 
 
 " To-day is but a little holding, lent 
 To do a mighty labor. We are one 
 With heaven and the stars, when it is spent 
 To serve Go J s aim ; else, we die with the . un."
 
 FEBRUARY 28. 59 
 
 This is the will of God, even your sanciifica- 
 tion. I. THESS. iv. 3. 
 
 A S we stand before the font we solemnly 
 dedicate ourselves to a struggle with the 
 passion and inner power of sinfulness which 
 shall know no rest until it is completely 
 quenched and dead, until we love goodness 
 perfectly, and hate sin perfectly, even as God 
 does. . . . When one desires to be holy, and 
 knowing that it is God s will as well as his 
 that he should be, throws himself on that will 
 of God and clings to it with eager hands, cer 
 tain that it must carry him to success, for him 
 there is no fear. He is as sure to reach the 
 prize he seeks, as the patient stars are to be 
 led of God around their shining orbits. 
 
 BAPTISM AND CONFIRMATION, 12, 28. 
 
 We lift to Thee our failing eyes, 
 
 Our failing wills to Thee : 
 O Great Lord God of Battles, rise, 
 
 Till foes and shadows flee, 
 
 And death being swallowed up of life shall cease to be. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 6o FEBRUARY 29. 
 
 Behold, I set before you this day a blessing, . . . 
 if ye obey the commandments of the Lord your 
 God. Ex. xi. 26, 27. 
 
 THE setting of the less finite into the com 
 plete infinite nature Christ calls by 
 various names. Sometimes it \^ faith. You 
 must believe in God. Sometimes it is affection. 
 You must love God. Always what it means is 
 the same thing. You must belong to God. 
 Then His life shall be your life. 1 am come to 
 bring you to Him that so you may have life 
 and have it more abundantly. Sometimes He 
 seems to gather up His fullest declaration of 
 this vital connection of man with God and call 
 it in one mighty word, "Obedience." You 
 must obey God and so live by Him. . . . 
 When God says to His people, " Do This and 
 Live," He is not making a bargain. He is de 
 claring a necessary truth. He is pronouncing 
 a necessity. "He who does My Will, pos 
 sesses Me." For My Will is the broad ave 
 nue to the deepest chambers of My Life. There 
 is nothing in Me that he who obeys Me may 
 not reach according to his power. " Son, thou 
 art ever with me and all that 1 have is thine." 
 So speaks the Infinite God to the obedient 
 child. But to disobedience the door is closed. 
 Whatever wealth there may be is none of his. 
 Obedience means mastery and wealth. There 
 fore, let us glorify obedience, which is light 
 and life, and dread disobedience, which is 
 
 darkness and death. HARVARD MONTHLY, 180.
 
 MARCH i. 61 
 
 nearer and nearer to Christ," 
 ^ we say ; that does not mean creeping 
 into a refuge where we can be safe. It means 
 becoming better and better men ; repeating 
 His character more and more in ours. The 
 only true danger is sin, and so the only true 
 safety is holiness. What a sublime ambition ! 
 How it takes our vague, half-felt wishes and 
 fills them with reality and strength, when the 
 moral growth, which makes a man complete, 
 is put before us, not abstractly, but in this 
 picture of the dearest and noblest being that 
 our souls can dream of, standing before us 
 and saying to us, " Come unto me ; " standing 
 over us and praying for us, " Father, bring 
 them where I am." i. 3I3 . 
 
 But, all I felt there, right or wrong, 
 What is it to Thee, who curest sinning? 
 
 Am 1 not weak as Thou art strong ? 
 1 have looked to Thee from the beginning, 
 
 Straight up to Thee through all the world 
 
 Which, like an idle scroll, lay furled 
 
 To nothingness on either side : 
 
 And since the time Thou wast descried, 
 
 Spite of the weak heart, so have 1 
 
 Lived ever, and so fain would die, 
 
 Living and dying, Thee before ! 
 
 BROWNING
 
 62 MARCH 2. 
 
 My God ! my God ! why hast Thou forsaken Me. 
 
 MATT, xxvii. 46. 
 
 "THE joy of loving and the pain which 
 1 only love can bring beat tumultuously 
 together in this cry. But underneath them 
 both there is obedience, and the idea from 
 which obedience proceeds. Not for one mo 
 ment does He think of coming down from the 
 cross to find His Father. Whether He find 
 Him or lose Him, whether the issue of His 
 love be the perfect joy of union or the ex 
 quisite suffering that separation brings, He 
 must obey Him first. Even if His doing of 
 His Father s will seems to shut Him out of 
 His Father s presence, there cannot be a 
 question ; the will must be done. 
 
 INFLUKNC:E. -78. 
 
 It were not hard to suffer by His hand, 
 
 If thou couldst see His face ; but in the dark ! 
 
 That is the one last trial : be it so. 
 
 Christ was forsaken, so must thou be too ; 
 
 How couldst thou suffer but in seeming, else? 
 
 Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand. 
 
 Only the cruel crushing of the feet, 
 
 When through the bitter night the Lord comes down 
 
 To tread the wine-press. Not by sight, but faith, 
 
 Endure, endure, be faithful to the end. 
 
 UGO BASSI S SERMON IN THF HOSPITAL.
 
 MARCH 3. 63 
 
 Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet off e mi 
 in one point, /it is guilty of all. JAMES ii. 10. 
 
 WHY ? Because the consistent, habitual 
 breakage of one point proves that the 
 others were kept under the law of constraint, 
 not under the law of liberty. It proves that 
 the tendency of the nature s liberty, which 
 breaks forth in this one place, is a bad ten 
 dency and not a good one. ... It takes only 
 one volcano anywhere in the earth to show 
 that the heart of the earth is fire, and that 
 some day it may burst through the thickest 
 crust. . . . This is the tragedy of our single 
 sins, dear friends. . . . Down the crack which 
 some one transgression makes in the fair face 
 of a smooth and blooming life, we can see 
 waiting for God s judgment-word, the fire 
 before which that life shall be at last con 
 sumed with fervent heat. n. I93 , 194 . 
 
 I peered within, and saw a world of sin : 
 Upward, and saw a world of righteousness : 
 
 Downward, and saw darkness and flame begin 
 Which no man can express. 
 
 I girt me up, I gat me up to flee 
 
 From face of darkness and devouring flame : 
 And tied 1 had, but guilt is loading me 
 
 With dust of death and shame. 
 
 Yet still the light of righteousness beams pure, 
 Beams to me from the world of far-off day : 
 
 Lord who hast called them happy that endure, 
 Lord, make me such as they. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 64 MARCH 4. 
 
 Thou shaft fax the Lord thy God U ith all thy 
 heart, and with all thy soul, and H ith all thy mind. 
 . . . Thou shalt lore thy neighbor as thyself. 
 
 MATT. xxii. 57. 59. 
 
 THOU shalt love. The duty of loving. 
 there is nothing of that in the codes of 
 abstract duty. It is impossible to exclude that 
 from its fundamental place in the system of 
 duty whose constant spring is in the father 
 hood of God. ... Of this quality in duty it 
 is no Christian s place to be ashamed or afraid. 
 None of us may melt it a\vay or sink it out of 
 sight. In its prominence lies the soul of the 
 duty that we do. We may not try to make 
 that duty cold and soulless which has its true 
 being in the central commandment which is 
 its living soul. "Thou shalt love." 
 
 ISFLIENCE, 61. 6a. 
 
 Love is alone the worthy law of love : 
 All other laws have pre-supposed a taint : 
 Love is the law from kindled saint to saint, 
 
 From lamb to lamb, from tender dove to dove. 
 
 Love is the motive of all things that move 
 Harmonious by free will without constraint. 
 Love learns and teaches : love shall man acquaint 
 
 With all he lacks, which all his lack is love. 
 
 Because Love is the fountain. 1 discern 
 The stream as love : for what but love should flow 
 From fountain Love? not bitter from the sweet ! 
 1 ignorant have I laid claim to know? 
 Oh teach me. Love, such knowledge as is meet 
 
 For one to know who is fain to love and learn. 
 
 CHRISTINA RGSSETTI
 
 MARCH 5. 65 
 
 Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of 
 righteousness arise with healing in his wings. 
 
 MAL. iv. 2. 
 
 As a bird in meadows fair 
 
 Or in lonely forest sings 
 Till it fills the summer air, 
 
 And the greenwood sweetly rings, 
 So my heart to Thee would raise, 
 O my God, its song of praise 
 That the gloom of night is o er, 
 And I see the sun once more. 
 
 If Thou, Sun of Love, arise 
 
 All my heart with joy is stirred. 
 And to greet Thee upward flies, 
 
 Gladsome as yon little bird, 
 Shine Thou in me clear and bright 
 Till I learn to praise Thee right ; 
 Guide me in the narrow way, 
 Let me ne er in darkness stray. 
 
 FROM THE GERMAN, 1580. 
 
 HRIST, to the Christian growing older, 
 seems to be what the sun is to the de 
 veloping day, which it lightens from the morn 
 ing to the evening. When the sun is in the 
 zenith in the broad noon-day, men do their 
 various works by his light ; but they do not 
 so often look up to him. It is the sunlight 
 that they glory in, flooding a thousand tasks 
 with clearness, making a million things beau 
 tiful. But as the world rolls into the evening, 
 it is the sun itself at sunset that men gather 
 to look at and admire and love. n. I 2 .
 
 66 MARCH 6. 
 
 ROUTINE is a terrible master, but she is a 
 servant whom we can hardly do with 
 out. Routine as a law is deadly. Routine as 
 a. resource in the temporary exhaustion of im 
 pulse and suggestion is often our salvation. 
 Coleridge told the story when he sang 
 
 " There will come a \veary day 
 When, overtaxed at length, 
 Both hope and love beneath 
 The weight give way. 
 Then with a statue s smile, 
 A statue s strength, 
 Patience, nothing loth, 
 And uncomplaining, does 
 The work of both." 
 
 But patience, while a strong power, is not 
 quick-sighted, and works in ways and habits 
 which have been made before. 
 
 YALE LECTURES, 93. 
 
 Then with a ripple and a radiance thro me 
 Rise and be manifest, O Morning Star ! 
 
 Flow on my soul, thou Spirit, and renew me, 
 Fill with Thyself, and let the rest be far. 
 
 Safe to the hidden house of thine abiding 
 Carry the weak knees and the heart that faints, 
 
 Shield from the scorn and cover from the chiding, 
 Give the world joy, but patience to the saints. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS.
 
 MARCH 7. 67 
 
 C VERY now and then a conscience, among 
 I- the men and women who live easy, 
 thoughtless lives, is stirred, and some one 
 looks up anxiously, holding up some one of the 
 pretty idlenesses in which such people spend 
 their days and nights, and says "Is this 
 wrong? Is it wicked to do this?" And 
 when they get their answer, " No, certainly 
 not wicked," then they go back and give their 
 whole lives up to doing their innocent little 
 piece of uselessness again. Ah, the question 
 is not whether that is wicked, whether God 
 will punish you for doing that. The question 
 is whether that thing is keeping other better 
 things away from you ; whether behind its 
 little bulk the vast privilege and dignity of 
 duty is hid from you ; whether it stands be 
 tween God and your soul. If it does, then 
 it is an offence to you, and though it be your 
 right hand or your right eye, cut it off, pluck 
 it out, and cast it from you. The advantage 
 and joy will be not in its absence, for you will 
 miss it very sorely, but in what its loss re 
 veals, in the new life which lies beyond it, 
 which you will see stretching out and tempt 
 ing you as soon as it is gone. n. 2I3> 2I4 . 
 
 We sinners beseech thee to hear us, Good Lord, 
 
 That by Thy Love the world may be crucified to us and 
 
 we unto the world, 
 That we may crucify the flesh with its affections and 
 
 lusts, 
 
 That we may daily take up our cross and follow Thee ; 
 That we may live in Thee and die in Thee. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE
 
 68 MARCH 8. 
 
 And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and 
 satisfy the afflicted soul, then shall thy light rise in 
 obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noondav. 
 
 ISA. Iviii. 10. 
 
 f~^ O ; do your duty, giving to every task the 
 sublimest motive which you know and 
 which you can bring to bear upon it. Get at 
 the essence of goodness, which is not in its 
 enthusiasms or delights, but in its heart of 
 consecration. Sometimes the consecration 
 may be all the more thorough and complete 
 when the joy of consecration seems to be 
 farthest away. And yet every consecration 
 made in the darkness is reaching out toward 
 the light, and in the end must come out into 
 the light, strong in the strength which it won 
 in its life and struggle in the dark. 
 
 V. 175. 
 
 Through love to light ! Oh wonderful the way 
 
 That leads from darkness to the perfect day ! 
 
 From darkness and from sorrow of the night 
 
 To morning that comes singing o er the sea. 
 
 Through love to light ! Through light, O God, to Thee, 
 
 Who art the love of love, the eternal light of light! 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
 
 MARCH 9. 69 
 
 Jesus . . . saith, I thirst. JOHN xix. 28. 
 
 ""THE physical sensitiveness of Jesus no doubt 
 helped, as no other medium could have 
 helped, that deep, mysterious process, the de 
 velopment of the self-consciousness of Jesus. 
 Why should I not believe that out of the 
 physical difficulties which tore His hands He 
 plucked the full flower of His knowledge of His 
 own soul, and, wrapped up at the heart of that, 
 His knowledge of the soul of His Father? . . . 
 To Jesus, and to His disciples, and to all men 
 who know the bodily life as He knew it and 
 taught them to know it, the pain and happi 
 ness of which the human body is capable must 
 be very noble messages. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 170, 173- 
 
 I lift mine eyes, and see 
 
 Thee, tender Lord, in pain upon the tree, 
 
 Athirst for my sake and athirst for me. 
 
 Yea, look upon Me there 
 
 Compassed with thorns and bleeding everywhere, 
 
 For thy sake bearing all and glad to bear. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 70 MARCH 10. 
 
 a few weeks let these obtrusive world- 
 linesses which block the door of our hearts 
 stand back ; and let the way be clear that He 
 who longs to enter in and help us may come 
 and meet no obstacle. This is our lenten task. 
 " If any man will hear My voice and open unto 
 Me, I will come in and sup with him," says 
 Jesus. To still the clatter and tumult a little 
 so that we may hear His voice, and to open 
 the door by prayer, that is the privilege and 
 
 duty of these coming weeks. 
 
 ii. 215. 
 
 Tis "rue, we cannot reach Christ s fortieth day ; 
 Yet to go part of that religious way 
 
 Is better than to rest : 
 We cannot reach our Saviour s purity ; 
 Yet are we bid, " Be holy e en as He." 
 
 In both let s do our best. 
 
 Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone, 
 Is much more sure to meet with Him, than one 
 
 That travelleth by-ways. 
 Perhaps my God, though He be far before. 
 May turn, and take me by the hand, and more, 
 
 May strengthen my decays. 
 
 Yet, Lord, instruct us to improve our fast 
 By starving sin, and taking such repast 
 
 As may our faults control : 
 That every man may revel at his door, 
 Not in his parlour ; banqueting the poor, 
 
 And among those his soul. 
 
 GEORGK HERBERT.
 
 MARCH ii. 71 
 
 Within a cavern of man s trackless spirit 
 
 Is framed an Image so intensely fair, 
 That the adventurous thoughts that wander near it 
 
 Worship, and as they kneel tremble, and wear 
 The splendor of its Presence, and the light 
 
 Penetrates their dreamlike frame 
 Till they become charged with the strength of flame. 
 
 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY. 
 
 X/ OU have your good, your spirituality, your 
 1 better life ; something that bears witness 
 of God. In every man s heart there is a holy 
 city, a Jerusalem, where, loud or muffled, in 
 some voice from the altar or some light above 
 the mercy-seat, the Heavenly Father bears 
 testimony of His goodness and tempts us to 
 Himself. It may be very dim, but there it is 
 in all of us. } . 4S . 46 . 
 
 Lighten me, good Jesus, with the bright light within, 
 
 And from my heart s cell drive away all shadows. 
 
 Bridle my many wandering thoughts ; 
 
 Fight bravely for me, conquer the wild beasts 
 
 Enticing lusts, I mean, 
 
 That in Thy strength there may be peace, 
 
 And that Thy praise may evermore resound 
 
 Within Thy holy temple 
 
 A conscience that is pure. 
 
 Bless and sanctify my soul with blessing from above, 
 That it may be Thy holy dwelling place, the home of 
 
 Thine eternal glory, 
 And that nothing may be found within the temple of 
 
 Thy condescension 
 
 Offending Thy majestic gaze. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS
 
 72 MARCH 12. 
 
 And Edom came out against \_the children of 
 fsrael~\ with much people and with a strong 
 hand. NUM. xx. 20. 
 
 IT is there in some shape always : this good 
 among the evil, this power of God among 
 the forces of men, this Judah in the midst of 
 Asia. But always right on its border lies the 
 hostile Edom, watchful, indefatigable, inex 
 orable as the redoubtable old foe of the Jews. 
 If progress falters a moment, the whole mass 
 of obstructive ignorance is rolled upon it. If 
 faith leaves a loop-hole undefended, the quick 
 eye of Atheism sees it from its watch-tower 
 and hurls its quick strength there. If goodness 
 goes to sleep upon its arms, sleepless wicked 
 ness is across the valley, and the fields which 
 it has taken months of toil to sow and ripen 
 are swept off in a night. Tell me, is not this 
 the impression of the world, of human life, 
 that you get, whether you open the history of 
 any century or unfold your morning news 
 paper ? The record of a struggling charity is 
 crowded by the story of the prison and the 
 court. The world waits at the church door to 
 catch the worshipper as he comes out. The 
 good work of one century relaxes a moment 
 for a breathing spell, and the next century 
 comes in with its licentiousness or its supersti 
 tion. Always it is the higher life pressed, 
 watched, haunted by the lower ; always it is 
 Judah with Edom at its gates. No one great 
 battle comes to settle it forever : it is an end 
 less fight with an undying enemy.
 
 MARCH 13. 73 
 
 YOU mean to be true ; but once your truth 
 sleeps on its guard, and the Edomite is 
 over the valley, and the lie is right in the very 
 midst of your well-guarded truthfulness. You 
 love humility ; but some day your humility 
 keeps a careless feast of self-confidence, and 
 before you know it the shout of the invader 
 pride is in your ears. How evil crowds you. 
 You cannot fight it out at once and have it 
 done. You go on quietly for days and think 
 the enemy is dead. Just when you are safest 
 there he is again, more alive than ever. . It is 
 the Saviour s word, " Behold, I send you forth 
 as sheep among wolves ; " only the sheep and 
 the wolf are both within us : Judah, with 
 Edom forever at its gate. ,. 46i 47 . 
 
 Looking within myself, I note how thin 
 
 A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate, 
 Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin ; 
 In my own heart I find the worst man s mate, 
 And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate 
 
 That opes to those abysses 
 Where ye grope darkly, -ye who never knew 
 On your young hearts love s consecrating dew 
 
 Or felt a mother s kisses, 
 
 Or home s restraining tendrils round you curled ; 
 Ah, side by side with heart s-ease in this world 
 The fatal night-shade grows and bitter rue ! 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 74 MARCH 14. 
 
 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with 
 dyed garments from Bozrah ? . . . I that speak 
 in righteousness, mighty to save. ISA. Ixiii. i . 
 
 IT is time for the Saviour when the world 
 and the soul have learnt their helplessness 
 and sin. ... Is it possible that this one 
 that we see coming, this one on whose step, as 
 He moves through history, the eyes of all the 
 ages are fastened, is it possible that He is 
 the conqueror of the enemy and the Deliverer 
 of the Soul ? He comes out of the enemy s 
 direction. The whole work of the Saviour 
 has relation to and issues from the fact of 
 sin. If there had been no sin there would 
 have been no Saviour. "He came not to call 
 the righteous, but sinners to repentance." He 
 comes from the right direction, and He has an 
 attractive majesty of movement as He first 
 appears. . . . The Saviour comes in the 
 strength of righteousness. Righteousness is 
 at the bottom of all things. Righteousness 
 is thorough. It is the very spirit of unsparing 
 truth. Any reform or salvation of which the 
 power is righteousness must go down to the 
 very root of the trouble, must extenuate and 
 cover over nothing ; must expose and convict 
 completely, in order that it may completely 
 heal. And this is the power of the salvation 
 of Christ. It makes no compromise between 
 the good and the evil, between Judah and 
 Edom. Edom must be destroyed, not parleyed 
 with ; sin must be beaten down and not con 
 ciliated ; good must thrive by the defeat and 
 not merely by the tolerance of evil. 
 
 I. 5. Si-
 
 MARCH 15. 75 
 
 "THE Saviour Himself, surely He is never so 
 * dear, never wins so utter and so tender a 
 love, as when we see what it has cost Him to 
 save us. . . . Not merely He has conquered 
 completely and conquered in suffering ; He has 
 conquered alone. As any one reads through 
 the Gospels he feels how hopeless the attempt 
 would be to tell of the loneliness of that life 
 which Jesus lived. "I have trodden the wine 
 press alone, and of the people there was none 
 with me. I looked and there was none to 
 help. Therefore mine own arm brought 
 salvation." He had friends, but we always 
 feel how far off they stood from the deepest 
 centre of His heart. He had disciples, but 
 they never came into the inner circles of His 
 self-knowledge. He had fellow-workers, but 
 they only handed round the broken bread and 
 fishes in the miracle, or ordered the guest 
 chamber on the Passover night. They never 
 came into the deepest work of His life. With 
 the mysterious suffering that saved the world 
 they had nothing to do. L 5J> S4 . 
 
 Wanderers in far countrie 
 
 O think of Him who came, forgot, 
 
 To His own, and they received Him not 
 
 Jesus of Galilee. 
 
 O all ye who have trod 
 
 The wine-press of affliction, lay 
 
 Your hearts before His heart this day 
 
 Behold the Christ of God. 
 
 DINAH MUIOCH CRAIK.
 
 76 MARCH 16. 
 
 / have trodden the wine-press ; I will tread 
 them in mine anger and trample them in m\ fury, 
 and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, 
 and I will stain all my raiment. Isa. Ixiii. 3. 
 
 BEHOLD, it is no holiday monarch coming 
 with a bloodless triumph. It has been no 
 pageant of a day, this strife with sin. The 
 robes have trailed in the blood. . . . The 
 power of God had struggled with the enemy 
 and subdued him only in the agony of strife. 
 My friends, far be it from me to undertake to 
 read all the deep mystery that is in this picture. 
 Only this I know is the burden and soul of it 
 all, this truth, that sin is a horrible, strong, 
 positive thing, and that not even divinity- 
 grapples with him and subdues him except in 
 strife and pain. . . . This symbol of the blood 
 bears this great truth, which has been the 
 power of salvation to millions of hearts, and 
 which must make this conqueror the Saviour 
 of your heart too, the truth that only in self- 
 sacrifice and suffering could even God conquer 
 sin. Sin is never so dreadful as when we see 
 the Saviour with that blood upon His garments. 
 . . . The Lord Himself conquers sin. He 
 brings out victory in His open hand. From 
 His hand we take it by the power of prayer, 
 and to Him alone we render thanks here and 
 forever. 1,52-53.5?. 
 
 Once o er this painful earth a man did move, 
 The Man of griefs, because the Man of Love. 
 
 The wine of Love can be obtained of none, 
 Save Him who trod the wine-press all alone. 
 
 R. C. TREM.H.
 
 MARCH 17. 77 
 
 THIS conqueror who comes, comes strong, 
 "travelling in the greatness of His 
 strength." He has not left His might behind 
 Him in the struggle. He is all ready, with the 
 same strength with which He conquered, to 
 enter in and rule and educate the nation He 
 has saved. And so the Saviour has not done 
 all when He has forgiven you. By the same 
 strength of love and patience which saved you 
 upon Calvary, He will come in, if you will let 
 Him, and train your saved life into perfectness 
 of grace and glory. He has conquered sin, so 
 that you need not be its servant any longer. 
 Now let Him conquer you by His great love, 
 and so let His victory be complete. j. 55 , s6 . 
 
 Surely He coineth, and a thousand voices 
 Shout to the saints and to the deaf are dumb ; 
 
 Surely He cometh, and the earth rejoices 
 Glad in His coming who hath sworn, I come. 
 
 This hath He done and shall we not adore Him ? 
 
 This shall He do and can we still despair? 
 Come let us quickly fling ourselves before Him, 
 
 Cast at His feet the burden of our care, 
 
 Flash from our eyes the glow of our thanksgiving, 
 Glad and regretful, confident and calm, 
 
 Then thro all life and what is after living 
 Thrill to the tireless music of a psalm. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS.
 
 78 MARCH 18. 
 
 \J7HEN we think how imperfectly Christ has 
 * been welcomed and adopted here how 
 only to the outside of our life He has pene 
 trated, then there opens before us a glorious 
 vision of what the city might be in which He 
 should be totally received, where He should be 
 wholly King. m. , 8 . 
 
 The earth is the Lord s, the nations are His children, 
 Yea, though their birthright they know not, or deny ; 
 Rending asunder what God hath willed united. 
 
 O come, Son of Mary, 
 
 Jesu, our Redeemer, 
 O come, King triumphant, and reign on earth ! 
 
 Even by the meek, who pray for His appearing, 
 Even by the strong, who gird them to the fight, 
 The kingdoms of this world shall be made our Christ s 
 dominion. 
 
 O come, Son of Mary, 
 
 Jesu, our Redeemer, 
 O come, King triumphant, and reign on earth ! 
 
 Then rise Lord, we pray Thee, and heal the nations 
 
 sickness ! 
 
 Rise Thou, for Whom amid the night we wait ! 
 Our eyes are dim with vigils, our hearts with hope are 
 aching. 
 
 O come, Son of Mary, 
 Jesu, our Redeemer, 
 O come, King triumphant, and reign on earth ! 
 
 SKLWYN IMAOK.
 
 MARCH 19. 79 
 
 Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things 
 that are written concerning the Son of man shall be 
 accomplished. LUKE xviii. 30. 
 
 THINK how the life of Jesus gets its glory 
 and beauty from the way in which it is 
 always, from the very first, tending on to the 
 thing which it was at last to reach. That 
 tendency began at His birth, and it never 
 ceased until He was hanging on the cross out 
 side the city gate. Then He had come to 
 Jerusalem and it was finished. The angels 
 sang about Jerusalem when the shepherds 
 heard them. The boy s thoughts were full of 
 Jerusalem as He worked in the carpenter s 
 shop. Egypt, where they carried the babe to 
 get Him out of danger, was on the way to 
 Jerusalem, where He was finally to be killed. 
 The visit to the temple when He was twelve 
 years old, was a nearer glimpse of the Jerusa 
 lem to which He did not then really come, 
 though His feet trod its streets, but which He 
 then accepted as the only sufficient issue of His 
 life. He was baptized in consecration to the 
 life-long journey to Jerusalem. " For this 
 cause was I born. For this cause came I into 
 the world." " My time is not yet come." 
 Those words, and words like those, dropped 
 here and there, along His path, are like foot 
 prints in the road He walked, all pointing to 
 Jerusalem. At last He came there. . . . The 
 most intense, persistent purpose that the world 
 had ever seen, had reached its completion. He 
 had come to the Jerusalem of His intention, and 
 mankind was saved. iv 3 ,s.
 
 8o MARCH 20. 
 
 T N all of Christ s associations the same inevi 
 table mingling of the sad and glad appears. 
 There was a little family at Bethany in which 
 He often made His home, and the last time He 
 left the hospitable door He carried out with 
 Him two memories, the memory of how the 
 eyes of Mary had looked up into His face, 
 eager with the desire to understand all His 
 sacred truth, and the memory of how the same 
 eyes had streamed with tears beside her 
 brother s tomb. The same voices of the pop 
 ulace at Jerusalem which cried " Hosanna ! " 
 cried "Crucify him!" before the week was 
 done. One day He saw a poor widow in the 
 Temple give a true charity ; but the same 
 sensitiveness of soul which made Him find 
 pleasure in her simple act laid Him open to the 
 distress which only such a soul could feel at 
 the ostentatious hypocrisy of the Pharisees. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 189, 190. 
 
 Think you to escape 
 
 What mortal man can never be without? 
 
 What saint upon the earth has ever lived apart from 
 
 cross and care ? 
 Why, even Jesus Christ our Lord was not even for 
 
 one hour free from His passion s pain. 
 " Christ," says He, " needs must suffer, 
 Rising from the dead, 
 And enter thus upon His glory." 
 And how do you ask for another road 
 Than this the Royal Pathway of the Holy Cross? 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 MARCH 21. 81 
 
 JESUS had a disciple whom He saw slipping 
 more and more away from Him, who He 
 saw would some day betray Him with the 
 worst ingratitude. And yet 1 think that every 
 man whose sad and anxious office it has ever 
 been to try to lift a soul which in spite of all 
 his struggles has been always sinking deeper 
 and deeper into the depths, will bear me 
 witness that in the patience and wisdom and 
 faithfulness which his Master lavished upon 
 Judas Iscariot for years there must have been 
 a pathetic pleasure, peculiar and subtle be 
 cause of the growing hopelessness of results 
 which compelled each effort to find its satis 
 faction in its own essential nature. . . . And 
 both in Peter and in Judas . . . the truth 
 appears that it was not for the joy or for the 
 sorrow that their society would bring that 
 Jesus sought them. Peter and Judas alike 
 He sought because they were the sons of 
 God ; the pain or pleasure they would give 
 Him came afterwards and as an accident. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 189. 
 
 A beneficent power, if we obey it, blesses 
 and helps us ; but the same power, if we dis 
 obey it, curses and ruins us. That law runs 
 everywhere. . . . Was not Judas cursed by 
 the same friendship with Jesus that perfected 
 John ? 1V . 302> 305 . 
 
 Judas, dost thou betray Me with a kiss? 
 Canst thou find hell about My lips? and miss 
 Of life, just at the gates of life and bliss ? 
 IV as ever grief like Mine ? 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT.
 
 82 MARCH 22. 
 
 r ~PHE great Christian sacrament, which em- 
 * bodies this idea of which we have been 
 treating, the idea of the feeding of the soul 
 upon the flesh of Christ, is all filled full of 
 memories of the agony in which the flesh was 
 offered. What does this mean ? Does it not 
 mean this, that however man longs for his 
 God ; however man sees that in the incarnate 
 Christ there is the God he needs and whom 
 his nature was made to receive ; it is only 
 when man sees that Divine Being suffering for 
 him, only when he stands by the cross and 
 beholds the love in the agony, that his hungry 
 nature is able to take the food it needs, that 
 is so freely offered ? The flesh must be broken 
 before we can take it. This is what Christ 
 says, and the histories of thousands of souls 
 have borne their witness to it, that it is the 
 suffering Saviour, the Saviour in His suffering, 
 that saves the soul. n. 250. 
 
 Would 1 suffer for him that 1 love? So wilt Thou --- so 
 
 wilt Thou ! 
 So shall crown Thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost 
 
 Crown 
 And Thy love till infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor 
 
 down 
 
 One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath, 
 Turn of eye, wave of hand, that Salvation joins issue 
 
 with death ! 
 
 As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved 
 Thy power, that exists with and for it, of Being beloved ! 
 
 BROWNJNG.
 
 MARCH 23. 83 
 
 R Lord s death . . . was the gathering up 
 of the mighty love of God in all its mass 
 behind the barrier that separated the Father s 
 soul from the child s soul, until the barrier 
 gave way, and the confined and hampered 
 love poured in and flooded the hungry soul of 
 "whosoever believeth." It was not done 
 without a struggle. The agony, the strong 
 cryings and tears, the blood and insult of 
 Gethsemane and Calvary, are everlasting 
 pictures of what it cost. But it was done. I 
 hear the breaking and tearing of the obstacle 
 of sin, and the rush of great love set free 
 to find the soul, when with the thin voice of 
 the dying Conqueror that cry of victory, that 
 "It is finished " was spoken so loud that it has 
 pierced through history and rung round the 
 world. It was the deepest and most original 
 and spiritual nature of God, that " love," 
 which "God is" breaking through every 
 encumbrance, and declaring itself supreme. 
 This is the triumph of the Christhood. 
 
 OXFORD REVIEW. 
 
 Thou Who wast Centre of the whole earth on Calvary 
 Reign over north and south, east and west. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 84 MARCH 24. 
 
 These things hare I spoken unto you, that in Me 
 \e misfit hare peace. In the world \e shall hare 
 tribulation ; but be of good cheer; I hare orer- 
 come the world. JOHN* xvi. 33. 
 
 IT is as if Jesus walked under a cloud, and 
 yet felt always that in the very substance 
 of cloud there was suffused and softened light. 
 The cloud had light in its darkness, and dark 
 ness in its light ; and so the explanation of it 
 all was clear. A sunlight through the cloud 
 He felt, and behind the sunlight there must be 
 a sun. Behind the bitter circumstances lay a 
 law, the blessed law of obedience, which was 
 fellowship with God ; and behind the law a 
 truth, which was God Himself. 
 
 Under that same cloud of circumstances we 
 must walk ; but if there is behind it for us, 
 too, that law and that truth which really made 
 the life of Jesus, the law of obedience and 
 the truth of sonship, then for us too, light 
 shall come through the cloud, and mingling 
 with its darkness, make that new condition in 
 which it is best for a man s soul to live, that 
 sweet and strong condition in which both joy 
 and sorrow may have place, but which is 
 greater than either of them, the condition 
 which He called peace. INFLUENCE, 204 , 205. 
 
 There is no calm like that when storm is done ; 
 There is no pleasure keen as pain s release : 
 There is no joy that lies so deep as peace, 
 
 No peace so deep as that by struggle won. 
 
 HELEN GRAY CONK.
 
 MARCH 25. 85 
 
 Behold I am alire for evermore. REV. I. 18. 
 
 T""HIS new life, the life that has conquered 
 death by tasting it, which has enriched 
 itself with a before unknown sympathy with 
 men whose lives are forever tending towards, 
 and at last all going down into the darkness of 
 the grave, this life stretches on and out for 
 ever. It is to know no ending. So long as 
 there are men living and dying, so long above 
 them and around them there shall be the 
 Christ, the God-man, who liveth, and was 
 dead, and is aHve for evermore. i. 2I5 . 
 
 . . . ay, that Life and Death 
 Of which I wrote " it was " to me, it is ; 
 Is, here and now : I apprehend naught else. 
 Is not God now i the world His power first made? 
 Is not His love at issue still with sin, 
 Closed with and cast and conquered, crucified 
 Visibly when a wrong is done on earth ? 
 Love, wrong, and pain, what see I else around? 
 Yea, and the Resurrection and Uprise 
 To the right hand of the throne what is it beside, 
 When such truth, breaking bounds, o erfloods my soul, 
 And, as I saw the sin and death, even so 
 See I the need yet transiency of both, 
 The good and glory consummated thence ? 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 86 MARCH 26. 
 
 A S you sit thinking of man s fragmentari- 
 <* ness, his certainty of death, his doubt 
 about a future, let this voice come to you, a 
 voice clear with personality, and sweet and 
 strong with love: "I am He that liveth, and 
 was dead ; and am alive for evermore." " He 
 that liveth! " And at once your fragment of 
 life falls into its place in the eternity of life 
 that is bridged by His being. He that was 
 dead ! " And at once death changes from the 
 terrible end of life into a most mysterious but 
 no longer terrible experience of life. " He 
 that is alive for evermore ! " And not merely 
 there is a future beyond the grave, but it is 
 inhabited by One who speaks to us, who went 
 there by the way that we must go, who sees 
 us and can help us as we make our way along, 
 and will receive us when we come there. 
 
 I. ;i6. 
 
 EMMAUSWARD. 
 
 Lord Christ, if Thou art with us and these eyes 
 Are holden, while we go sadly and say 
 " We hoped it had been He, and now to-day 
 Is the third day, and hope within us dies," 
 Bear with us, oh our Master, Thou art wise 
 And knowest our foolishness ; we do not pray 
 " Declare Thyself, since weary grows the way 
 And faith s new burden hard upon us lies." 
 Nay, choose Thy time ; but ah ! Whoe er Thou art 
 Leave us not ; where have we heard any voice 
 Like Thine? Our hearts burn in us as we go ; 
 Stay with us ; break our bread ; so, for our part 
 Ere darkness falls haply we may rejoice, 
 Haply when day has been far spent may know. 
 
 EDWARD DOWDEN
 
 MARCH 27. 87 
 
 Peace 1 leave with you. JOHN xiv. 27. 
 
 IF we are really Christ s, then back into the 
 very bosom of His Father where Christ is 
 hid, there He will carry us. We too shall look 
 out and be as calm and as independent as He 
 is. The needs of men shall touch us just as 
 keenly as they touch Him, but the sneers and 
 strifes of men shall pass us by as they pass by 
 Him and leave no mark on His unruffled life. 
 . . . For us, just as for Him, this will not 
 mean a cold and selfish separation from our 
 brethren. We shall be infinitely closer to 
 their real life when we separate ourself from 
 their outside strifes and superficial pride, and 
 know and love them truly by knowing and 
 loving them in God. 
 
 This is the power and progress of true 
 Christianity. It leads us into, it abounds in 
 peace. It is a brave, vigorous peace, full of 
 life, full of interest and work. It is a peace 
 that means thoroughness, that refuses to waste 
 its force and time in little superficial tumults 
 which come to nothing, while there is so much 
 real work to be done, so much real help to be 
 given, and such a real life to be lived with 
 God. That peace, His peace, may Jesus 
 give to us all. \, 97 . 
 
 Grant us Thy peace, that like a deepening river 
 Swells ever outward to a sea of praise. 
 
 O Thou, of peace the only Lord and Giver, 
 Grant us Thy peace, O Saviour, all our days ! 
 
 ELIZA SCUDDER.
 
 MARCH 28. 
 
 We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than 
 the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with 
 glorv and honor ; that He by the grace of God, 
 should taste death for every man. 
 
 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of 
 flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part 
 of the same ; that through death He might destroy 
 him who had the power of death, that is, the devil; 
 and deliver them who through fear of death were 
 all their lifetime subject to bondage. 
 
 HEB. ii. 9, 14, 15. 
 
 A S Christ drew near to death, He Himself 
 -** trembled. It was an experience of all His 
 creation, but He had never felt it. To His 
 humanity, His assumed flesh, it seemed terri 
 ble. Gethsemane bears witness how terrible 
 it seemed. But He passed into it for love of us. 
 And as He came out from it He declared its 
 nature. " It is an experience of life, not an 
 end of life. Life goes on through it and comes 
 out unharmed. Look at me. 1 am He that 
 liveth, and was dead! " 1.214,215. 
 
 By Thy joy when Thy blessed Humanity was glorified 
 by God the Father in Thy Resurrection, 
 
 Good Lord deliver us. 
 
 By Thy joy, when the Love which on the Cross filled 
 Thee with intolerable anguish, in the Resurrection 
 filled Thee with incomparable honour and Glory, 
 
 Good Lord deliver us. 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE.
 
 MARCH 29. 89 
 
 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. 
 
 1AM sure that in the Bible something is prom 
 ised, some close, perpetual association of 
 the souls of Christ s redeemed to Him, which, 
 over and above the likeness which is to come 
 between their souls and His, shall correspond 
 in some celestial way to that close, visible, 
 tangible propinquity with which they sat by 
 one another at the table in the upper chamber. 
 The "seeing His face," the "walking with 
 Him in white," in heaven, are not wholly fig 
 ures. What they mean those know to-day 
 who through the lapsing years have gone from 
 us one by one to be with Christ. 
 
 Take me away, and in the lowest deep 
 
 There let me be, 
 And there in hope the lone night-watches keep, 
 
 Told out for me. 
 There, motionless and happy in my pain, 
 
 Lone, not forlorn, 
 There will 1 sing my sad perpetual strain 
 
 Until the morn. 
 There will I sing, and soothe my stricken breast, 
 
 Which ne er can cease 
 To throb and pine and languish, till possest 
 
 Of its Sole Peace. 
 There will I sing my absent Lord and Love : 
 
 Take me away, 
 
 That sooner 1 may rise, and go above, 
 And see Him in the truth of everlasting day. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN,
 
 90 MARCH 30. 
 
 As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the 
 Father. JOHN x. 15. 
 
 " "THE Father knoweth me." That means, 
 1 "God has a will for every act of 
 mine." What then can " I know the Father," 
 mean, except " In every act of mine 1 do the 
 Father s will." Obedience becomes the organ 
 and utterance, nay becomes the substance and 
 reality of knowledge on the side of him who is 
 aware that in this more special sense God 
 knows him. 1 think of Jesus on that day 
 when He called Lazarus back from the dead 
 to life. He travels all the way from Galilee 
 to Bethany. At last He stands beside the 
 tomb. His soul is full of sympathy. The 
 dreadfulness of death oppresses Him. Then 
 He becomes aware of a will of God. . . . 
 Behold ! He lifts His head. His face shines 
 like the sun ! The gloom is gone ! He 
 stretches out His hand! He opens His lips 
 with the cry of life ! " Lazarus, come forth ! " 
 "And he that was dead came forth, bound 
 hand and foot with grave clothes ! " 
 
 God s will and Christ s obedience! Here 
 then there is the perfect mutualness, the abso 
 lute understanding and harmony of the Father 
 and the Son. If it were not the morning of 
 the miracle at Bethany, but the awful morning 
 of the cross, it would be still the same. 
 "Father, into Thy hands I commend My 
 spirit." There, in those words of completed 
 obedience, the mutual knowledge of Father and 
 Son is perfect, and being blends with being ; 
 the veil and barrier of the human flesh no 
 longer hangs between. iv. 290,291.
 
 MARCH 31. 9l 
 
 ^FHERE is a class of passages in the Bible 
 which to me seem mysteriously beauti 
 ful, and which appear to rest the peace of 
 the human soul upon the mere fact of the 
 existence of the larger life of God. Such is 
 that verse of the forty-sixth Psalm, "Be still, 
 and know that I am God." " Thou shalt 
 know that I, the Lord, am," is the noble 
 promise that comes again and again, full of 
 reassurance. And when God s people, tram 
 pled, bruised, broken, trodden in the dust in 
 Egypt, asked by Moses for the name of the 
 God who had promised them His deliverance, 
 it was a mere assertion of the awful and 
 supreme existence that was given in reply : 
 " I AM hath sent me." It is because God is, 
 that man is bidden to be at peace. 1. 103 , 104 . 
 
 It fortifies my soul to know 
 That, though I perish, Truth is so : 
 That, howsoe er I stray and range, 
 Whate er I do, Thou dost not change. 
 I steadier step when I recall 
 That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. 
 
 ARTHUR HL GH CLOUGH.
 
 92 APRIL i. 
 
 JUST as the children s lives set themselves 
 into the life of their father which sc-ems 
 to them really eternal; just as the leaves 
 coming and going, growing and dropping, find 
 their reason and consistency in the long, un 
 changing life of the tree on which they grow ; 
 so our lives find their place in this long, un 
 changing life of Christ, and lose the vexa 
 tion of their own ever-shifting pasts and 
 futures in the perpetual present of His being. 
 It is the thought of an eternal God that really 
 gives consistency to the fragmentary lives of 
 men, the fragmentary history of the world. 
 A Christ that liveth redeems and rescues into 
 His eternity the broken, temporary lives and 
 works of His disciples. i. 2I3 . 
 
 Hearken ! Hearken ! 
 
 God speaketh in thy soul, 
 
 Saying, O thou that movest 
 
 With feeble steps across this earth of mine, 
 
 To break beside the fount thy golden bowl, 
 
 And spill its purple wine, 
 
 Look up to heaven and see how like a scroll 
 
 My right hand hath thy immortality 
 
 In an eternal grasping. 
 
 ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
 
 APRIL 2. 93 
 
 The tasks, the joys of earth the same in heaven will be ; 
 Only the little brook has widened to a sea. 
 
 R. C. TRENCH. 
 
 LET this be the glory that gathers around 
 your daily experiences, my Christian 
 friend s. Poor, weak, homely, commonplace 
 as they may be, they are preparing you for 
 something far greater and more perfect than 
 themselves. Be true in them, learn them down 
 to their depths and they shall open heaven to 
 you some day. The powers and affection 
 which are training in your family, your busi 
 ness, and your church are to find their eternal 
 occupation along the streets of -gold. "Well 
 done, good and faithful servant, thou hast been 
 faithful over a few things. I will make thee 
 ruler over many things. Enter thou into the 
 glory of thy Lord." And so the long life of 
 heaven shall be bound to the short life of earth 
 forever. v. 3 4, 305. 
 
 Courage in all the worlds is the same cour 
 age. Truth before the throne of God is the 
 same thing as when neighbor talks with neigh 
 bor on the street. Mercy will grow tenderer 
 and finer, but will be the old blessed balm of 
 life in the fields of eternity that it was in your 
 workshop and your home. Unselfishness will 
 expand and richen till it enfolds the life like 
 sunshine, but it will be the same self-denial, 
 opening into a richer self-indulgence, which 
 it was when it first stole in with one thin 
 sunbeam on the startled soul. There is no 
 new world of virtues in any heaven or in any 
 heavenly experience of life. v. 13.
 
 94 APRIL 3. 
 
 T~\ROP the old remnants of a past life into 
 *-s the ever-fruitful soil, and all the possi 
 bilities of new life open. The spring-time 
 finds last summer s roots still remaining in the 
 ground, and quickens them to life again, and 
 multiplies them into a richer summer still. In 
 genious Nature finds a germ wherever it is 
 dropped ; but without the germ she will do 
 nothing. Mere spontaneity she disowns and 
 disproves more and more. Think what a place 
 the world would be to live in if this were not 
 so, if nature were a wizard, fitful and whim 
 sical, doing her wonders in no sequel or con 
 nection with each other, with her pets and 
 favorites, instead of being, as she is, a mother 
 with her great, wise, reasonable laws of the 
 house which press alike on all her children, 
 which no one of the children thinks of seeing 
 changed or violated. That is what makes the 
 world such a good home for man to dwell in, 
 his school-room and his home at once. 
 
 April cold with dropping rain, 
 Willows and lilacs brings again 
 The whistle of returning birds, 
 And trumpet-lowing of the herds ; 
 The scarlet maple-keys betray 
 What potent blood hath modest May ; 
 What fiery force the earth renews, 
 The wealth of forms, the flush of hues ; 
 What Joy in rosy waves outpoured, 
 Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord. 
 
 EMERSON.
 
 APRIL 4. 95 
 
 Choose you this day whom ye will serve. 
 The Lord our God will we serve and His voice 
 will we obey. JOSH. xxiv. 15, 24. 
 
 ""THERE is a noble economy of the deepest 
 1 life. There is a watchful reserve which 
 keeps guard over the powers of profound anx 
 iety and devoted work, and refuses to give 
 them away to any first applicant who comes 
 and asks. Wealth rolls up to the door and 
 says, "Give me your great anxiety;" and 
 you look up and answer, "No, not for you; 
 here is a little half-indifferent desire which is 
 all that you deserve." Popularity comes and 
 says, "Work with all your might for me;" 
 and you reply, "No; you are not of conse 
 quence enough for that. Here is a small 
 fragment of energy which you may have, if 
 you want it; but that is all." Even knowl 
 edge comes and says, " Give your whole soul 
 to me;" and you must answer once more, 
 "No; great, good, beautiful as you are, you 
 are not worthy of a man s whole soul." . . . 
 But then at last comes One greater than them 
 all, God comes with His supreme demand 
 for goodness and for character, and then you 
 open the doors of your whole nature and bid 
 your holiest and profoundest devotion to come 
 trooping forth. Now you rejoice that you kept 
 something which you would not give to any 
 lesser lord. v. 248,249.
 
 96 APRIL 5. 
 
 TF we can live in Christ and have His life in 
 1 us, shall not the spiritual balance and pro 
 portion which were His become ours too ? If 
 He were really our Master and our Saviour, 
 could it be that we could get so eager and 
 excited over little things ? If we were His, 
 could we possibly be wretched over the losing 
 of a little money which we do not need, or be 
 exalted at the sound of a little praise which 
 we know that we only half deserve and that 
 the praisers only half intend ? A moment s 
 disappointment, a moment s gratification, and 
 then the ocean would be calm again and quite 
 forgetful of the ripple which disturbed its 
 bosom. v. 251. 
 
 He who loves Jesus and loves truth, 
 
 The man of really inner life, 
 
 From unchecked passions free, 
 
 Can turn himself with ease to God, 
 
 And lift himself above himself in thought, 
 
 And rest in peace, enjoying Him. 
 
 The man who tastes life as it really is, 
 Not as men talk of it, 
 Not as men value it, 
 He is the true philosopher, 
 Taught of God, and not of men. 
 The man who learns to walk the inward road, 
 Weighing outward life as little. 
 Asking for no set places, wanting no fixed times 
 To pray his holy prayers, 
 He soon collects his thoughts, 
 Because he never dissipates his life 
 Upon the outward world. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS
 
 APRIL 6. 97 
 
 The joy of the Lord is your strength. 
 
 NEH. viii. 10. 
 
 T^HE denial, the trial, the scourging, the 
 crucifixion, follow fast. Yet even in the 
 midst of their horror there is room for some 
 momentary gleams of joy. The wavering 
 of Pilate ; the cries of a few sympathetic 
 voices among the hooting mobs as He passed 
 through the street ; the group of friends at the 
 foot of the cross ; and then that great joy 
 which must have fallen into His spirit when 
 from the other cross there came a cry of faith 
 and hope ; at last the utter satisfaction which 
 fills His soul as He exclaims, " It is finished," 
 all of these come in to show that the very 
 agony of agonies was charged with the divine 
 
 Capacity of joy. INFLUENCE, 204 . 
 
 In the Cross is safety, 
 In the Cross is life, 
 In the Cross protection from our foes, 
 In the Cross is sweetness 
 Poured on us from above ; 
 In the Cross is spiritual joy, 
 In the Cross the sum of virtues ; 
 In the Cross is holiness in perfect beauty. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 98 APRIL 7. 
 
 The sower soweth the word . . . and these are 
 they which are sown on good ground ; such as hear 
 the word, and receive it, and bring forth fruit, 
 some thirty fold, some sixty, and some an hundred. 
 
 MARK iv. 14, 20. 
 
 TF one gives me a diamond to carry across 
 * the sea, I may estimate its value and 
 know just how much poorer I shall be and the 
 world will be if 1 let it drop into the water 
 and it sinks to the bottom. But if one gives 
 me a seed of some new fruit to bring to 
 this new land, 1 look at it with awe. It is 
 mysteriously valuable. 1 cannot tell what 
 preciousness is in it. Harvests on harvests, 
 food for whole generations, are shut up in its 
 little bulk. There always must be a differ 
 ence as to the essential value set on truth, 
 between him who thinks that truth is final 
 and him who thinks that truth is germinal, 
 between him who thinks it a diamond and him 
 who thinks it a seed. ... In the name of all 
 you hope to know, cling close to what you 
 know already. ... It is not good for any 
 man to let the vastness of unknown truth 
 make him disparage the little that he knows. 
 It is good for him to count his little precious 
 because it is of the same kind with, and may 
 introduce him to, the greater after which he 
 aspires. n. , 39 .
 
 APRIL 8. 99 
 
 "THE devils of discontent, despair, selfish- 
 * ness, sensuality, how they are scattered 
 before that voice, really heard, of the risen 
 and everlasting Christ ! He stands before the 
 door of His tomb and speaks, and these dark 
 forms that have enchained the souls and fet 
 tered the activities of men fall on their faces, 
 like the Roman soldiers, who in the gray dawn 
 of the morning saw Him come forth from the 
 tomb of the Arimathean, and trembled with 
 fright, and knew that their day was over, and 
 that the prisoner they thought was dead was 
 indeed too strong for them to keep. i. 2l6 , 2I7 . 
 
 Good, to forgive Wander at will, 
 Best, to forget ! Day after day, 
 
 Living, we fret, Wander away, 
 
 Dying we live. Wandering still. 
 
 Fretless and free, Soul that canst soar ! 
 Soul, clap thy pinion ! Body may slumber : 
 
 Earth have dominion Body shall cumber 
 
 Body, o er thee ! Soul-flight no more. 
 
 Waft of soul s wing ! 
 
 What lies above? 
 
 Sunshine and Love, 
 Sky-blue and Spring! 
 Body hides where? 
 
 Ferns of all feather, 
 
 Mosses and heather, 
 Yours be the care ! 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 ioo APRIL 9. 
 
 "THE whole position of duty is elevated by 
 * the thought, the knowledge of immor 
 tality. Duty is a vast power, and needs a 
 vast world to work in. . . . Duty is the one 
 thing on earth that is so vital that it can go 
 through death and come to glory. Duty is the 
 one seed that has such life in it that it can 
 lie as long as God will in the mummy hand of 
 death, and yet be ready any moment to start 
 into new growth in the new soil where He 
 shall set it. . . 
 
 Stern Daughter of the Voice of God ! 
 
 O Duty ! it that name thou love 
 
 Who art a light to guide, a rod 
 
 To check the erring, and reprove ; 
 
 Thou, who art victory and law 
 
 When empty terrors overawe ; 
 
 From vain temptations dost set free ; 
 
 And calm st the weary strife of frail humanity ! 
 
 Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear 
 The Godhead s most benignant grace ; 
 Nor know we anything so fair 
 As is the smile upon thy face : 
 Flowers laugh before thee on their beds 
 And fragrance in thy footing treads ; 
 Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong ; 
 And the most ancient Heavens, through Thee, are 
 fresh and strong. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 APRIL 10. ioi 
 
 / will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh my help. Ps. cxxi. i. 
 
 THE fear of pain, the fear of disgrace, the fear 
 of discomfort, and the shame that comes 
 with the loftiest companionship, we may 
 have to appeal to them all for support in the 
 hours, which come so often in our lives, when 
 we are very weak. But, after all, the appeal 
 to these helpers is not the final cry of the soul. 
 They are like the bits of wood that the drown 
 ing sailor clutches when he must have some 
 thing at the instant or he perishes. They are 
 not the solid shore on which at last he drops 
 his tired feet and knows that he is safe. Or 
 rather, perhaps, the man who trusts them is 
 like a dweller in some valley down which a 
 freshet pours, who drives the stakes of his 
 imperilled tent deeper into the ground ; not 
 like one who leaves the valley altogether and 
 escapes to the mountain where the freshet 
 never comes. . . . Not until a man has laid 
 hold "behind and above everything else" 
 upon the absolute assurance that the right is 
 right and that the God of righteousness will 
 give His strength to any feeblest will in all His 
 universe which tries to do the right in simple 
 unquestioning consecration ; not until he has 
 thus appealed to duty and to the dear God of 
 whose voice she is the " stern daughter ;" not 
 till then has he summoned to his aid the final 
 perfect help ; only then has he really looked 
 up to the hills. n. 275 , 276 .
 
 102 APRIL ii. 
 
 God dwelleth in a light far out of human ken 
 Become thyself that light and thou shalt see Him then. 
 
 ANGELUS SILESIUS. 
 
 IT is a blessed thing that in all times, and 
 never more richly than in the Reformation 
 days, there have always been other men to 
 whom religion has not presented itself as a 
 system of doctrine, but as an elemental life in 
 which the soul of man came into very direct 
 and close communion with the soul of God. It 
 is the mystics of every age who have done 
 most to blend the love of truth and the love of 
 man within the love of God, and so to keep 
 alive or to restore a healthy tolerance. In 
 deed, the mystic spirit has been almost like a 
 deep and quiet pool in which tolerance, when 
 it has been growing old and weak, has been 
 again and again sent back to bathe itself and 
 to renew its youth and vigor. The German 
 mystics of the fourteenth century made ready 
 for the great enfranchisement of the fifteenth. 
 The English Platonists, who had the mystic 
 spirit very strongly, became almost the re- 
 creators of tolerance in the English Church. 
 The mysticism of to-day gives great hope for 
 the earnest freedom of the future. 
 
 TOLERANCE, 35, 56.
 
 APRIL 12. 103 
 
 THE little lives which do in little ways that 
 which the life of Jesus does completely 
 the noble characters of which we think we 
 have the right to say that they are the lights 
 of human history, . . . they reveal and they 
 inspire. . . . They faintly catch the feeble 
 reflection of His life who is the true Light of 
 the World, the real illumination and inspira 
 tion of humanity. v. 5 , 6. 
 
 " Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge, 
 Streaming on the weary road, toward the awful 
 
 steep, 
 Whence your glow and glory, as ye set to that sharp 
 
 verge, 
 Faces lit as sunlit stars, shining as ye sweep? " 
 
 Lo, the Light ! (they answer) O the pure, the pulsing 
 
 Light, 
 
 Treating like a heart of life, like a heart of love, 
 Soaring, searching, filling all the breadth and depth and 
 
 height, 
 Welling, whelming with its peace worlds below, above. 
 
 " O my soul, how artthou to that living Splendor blind, 
 
 Sick with thy desire to see even as these men see ! 
 
 Yet to look upon them is to know that God hath 
 
 shined : 
 
 Faces lit as sunlit stars, be all my light to me ! " 
 
 HELEN GRAY CONE.
 
 104 APRIL 13. 
 
 TJERE is the power of true self-sacrifice; 
 here is the secret which takes out of it 
 all the bitterness and brutality. Always it is 
 the giving up of a symbol that you may have 
 the reality. In the great sacrifice of all, Christ 
 lays down His life, but it is that He may take 
 it again. Do you think that Christ did not 
 care for life and all that makes life beautiful to 
 us ? Surely He did, but He cared more for that 
 which they represent, the living purely, the 
 doing of His Father s will, and the serving of 
 His brethren. That was why He was able to 
 do without the things which seem to be abso 
 lutely essential to our lives; because He was 
 so much more full than we are of the beauty 
 and glory of the life with God. i. 2go , 2gi , 
 
 Could we but crush that ever-craving lust 
 For bliss, which kills all bliss, and live our life, 
 Our barren unit life, to find again 
 A thousand lives in those for whom we die ! 
 So were we men and women, and should hold 
 Our rightful rank in God s great universe, 
 Wherein, in heaven and earth, by will or nature, 
 
 Naught lives for self. 
 
 CHARLES
 
 APRIL 14. 105 
 
 THE onward reach, the struggle to an ap 
 prehended purpose, the straight clear 
 line right from His own self-knowledge to His 
 work, was perfect in the Lord. " For this 
 cause was 1 born," He cried. His life pierced 
 like an arrow through the cloud of aimless 
 lives, never for a moment losing its direction, 
 hurrying on with a haste and assurance which 
 were divine. . . . We revel in the making 
 of specialists. Perhaps we overdo it, but no 
 thinking man dreams of saying that the thing 
 itself is wrong. This movement of a man s 
 whole life along some clearly apprehended line 
 of self-development and self-accomplishment, 
 this reaching of a life out forward to its own 
 best attainment, no man can live as a man 
 ought to live without it. The men who have 
 no purpose are good for nothing. They lie in 
 the world like mere pulpy masses, giving it no 
 strength or interest or character. n. 
 
 Cleave thou the waves that weltering to and fro 
 Surge multitudinous. The eternal Powers 
 Of sun, moon, stars, the air, the hurrying hours, 
 
 The winged winds, the still dissolving show 
 
 Of clouds in calm or storm, forever flow 
 Above thee ; while the abysmal sea devours 
 The untold dead insatiate, where it lowers 
 
 O er glooms unfathom d, limitless, below. 
 
 No longer on the golden-fretted sands, 
 Where many a shallow tide abortive chafes, 
 
 Mayst thou delay ; life onward sweeping blends 
 With far-off heaven : the dauntless one who braves 
 
 The perilous flood with calm unswerving hands, 
 The elements sustain : cleave thou the waves. 
 
 MATHILDE BLIND.
 
 io6 APRIL 15. 
 
 T ET us stand in the country he has saved 
 and which is to be his grave and monu 
 ment, and say of Abraham Lincoln what he 
 said of the soldiers who had died at Gettys 
 burg. He stood there with their graves before 
 him, and these are the words he said : 
 
 " We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we can 
 not hallow this ground. The brave men who struggled 
 here have consecrated it far beyond our power to add or 
 detract. The world will little note, nor long remember 
 what we say here, but it can never forget what they 
 did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
 to the unfinished work which they who fought here 
 have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us 
 to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before 
 us, that from these honored dead we take increased de 
 votion to that cause for which they gave the last full 
 measure of devotion ; that we here highly resolve that 
 these dead shall not have died in vain ; and this nation, 
 under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that 
 government of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people shall not perish from the earth." 
 
 May God make us worthy of the memory of 
 
 Abraham Lincoln. SERMON ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
 
 APRIL 10. 107 
 
 IT seems to me that this sight of the super- 
 ficialness of our own judgments of others, 
 the way in which we have often pronounced 
 solemn-sounding verdicts which really meant 
 nothing, and uttered cheap ridicule which we 
 should have despised the man if he had minded, 
 gives us very often a startling sense of what a 
 superficial thing this criticism is that comes to 
 us from our brethren of which we make so 
 much and to which we are always trimming 
 our action. 
 
 O Lord of bliss, 
 
 Remember this : 
 
 How man s mind is like the moon ; 
 Is variable, 
 Frail and unstable, 
 At morning, night, and noon. 
 Though he, unkind, 
 Have not in mind 
 What Ye for him have done, 
 Yet have compassion, 
 For our salvation 
 Forsake not man so soon. 
 A while him spare, 
 He shall prepare 
 Himself to You anon ; 
 With heart and mind, 
 Loving and kind, 
 To serve but You alone !
 
 io8 APRIL 17. 
 
 "THE great impression of the life of Jesus, as 
 1 it seems to me, must always be of the 
 subordinate importance of those things in 
 which only the aesthetic nature finds its pleas 
 ure. There is no condemnation of them in 
 that wise deep life. But the fact always must 
 remain that the wisest deepest life that was 
 ever lived left them on one side, was satisfied 
 without them. And His religion, while it has 
 developed and delighted in their culture, has 
 always kept two strong habits with reference to 
 art which showed that in it was still the spirit 
 of its Master. It has always been restless 
 under the sway of any art that did not breathe 
 with spiritual and moral purpose. Never has 
 Christian art reached the pure aestheticism of 
 the classics. And in its more earnest moods, 
 in its reformations, in its puritanisms, it has 
 always stood ready to sacrifice the choicest 
 works of artistic beauty for the restoration or 
 preservation of the simple majesty of right 
 eousness, the purity of truth, or the glory of 
 
 v-*0d. INFLUENCE, 200, 201. 
 
 If Greece must be 
 
 A wreck, yet shall its fragments reassemble, 
 And build themselves again impregnably 
 
 In a diviner clime, 
 
 To Amphionic music, on some Cape sublime, 
 Which frowns above the idle foam of Time. 
 
 SHELLEY.
 
 APRIL 18. 109 
 
 UNDER one fatherhood the whole world 
 becomes sacred. The old distinctions 
 of useful and useless knowledge will not hold. 
 The responsibility of each man for the work 
 ing of his intellect must be acknowledged. 
 The sin of mental carelessness or wilfulness 
 must take its place among the sins against 
 which men struggle and for which they re 
 pent. The application of moral standards to 
 history, to art, and to pure letters must be 
 learned and taught. The isolation of the artis 
 tic impulse from all moral judgments and pur 
 poses must be restrained and remedied. The 
 whole thought of art must be enlarged and 
 mellowed till it develops a relation to the spir 
 itual and moral natures as well as to the 
 senses of mankind. It will lose, perhaps, the 
 purity and simplicity which has belonged to 
 the idea of art in classic and unchristian times, 
 but it will become more and more a part of the 
 general culture of human life. That is the 
 change which has come between the Venus of 
 Milo and the Moses of Michael Angelo ; be 
 tween the Iliad and Paradise Lost ; between 
 the Idyls of Theocritus and the best modern 
 novel. Mere simplicity of method and effect 
 has given place to harmony of method and 
 effect, littleness to largeness, fastidiousness 
 to sympathy, and the Christian world has 
 really learned more and more to believe what 
 the Christian poet sang, that 
 
 He who feels contempt 
 For any living thing, hath faculties 
 That he hath never used : and Thought with him 
 Is in its infancy. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 267, 268.
 
 no APRIL 19. 
 
 Paul said, I would to God that not only thoit, 
 but also all that hear me this day, were both almost 
 and altogether such as I ant, except these bonds. 
 
 ACTS xxvi. 29. 
 
 T^HIS must always be the first joy of any 
 really good life, its first joy and its first 
 anxiety at once, the desire that others 
 should enter into it. Indeed here is the test 
 of a man s life. Can you say, " I wish you 
 were like me " ? Can you take your pur 
 poses and standards of living, and quietly, 
 deliberately wish for all those who are dearest 
 to you that they should be their purposes and 
 standards too ? If you are a true Christian 
 you can. If you are trying to serve Christ, 
 however imperfect be your service, still you 
 can say to your child, your friend, "I wish 
 that you were with me where I am, on this 
 good road of serving Christ, though far be 
 yond me in it." . . . It is not good for a man 
 to be living any life which he would not desire 
 to see made perfect and universal through the 
 world. Paul says, "Be what I am;" but 
 Dives cries out of the fire where he lies, 
 " Oh, send and warn my seven brethren lest 
 they come where I am ! " . . . Oh, test your 
 lives thus ! Do not consent to be anything 
 which you would not ask the soul that is 
 dearest to you to be. Be nothing which you 
 would not wish all the world to be ! 
 
 i. 304, 305-
 
 APRIL 20. in 
 
 F^EATH did not close Christ s being, but it 
 *- was only an experience which that being 
 underwent. That spiritual existence which 
 had been going on forever, on which the short 
 existences of men had been strung into con 
 sistency, now came and submitted itself to 
 that which men had always been submitting 
 to. And lo ! instead of being what men had 
 feared it was, what men had hardly dared to 
 hope that it was not, the putting out of life, it 
 was seen to be only the changing of the cir 
 cumstances of life without any real power 
 over the real principle of life ; any more 
 power than the cloud has over the sun that 
 it obscures. . . . That was the wonder of 
 Christ s death. i. 2I4 . 
 
 I lift mine eyes to see : earth vanisheth. 
 
 1 lift up wistful eyes and bow my knee : 
 Trembling, bowed down, and face to face with Death, 
 
 I lift mine eyes to see. 
 
 Lo, what I see is Death that shadows me : 
 Yet, while I, seeing, draw a shuddering breath, 
 Death like a mist grows rare perceptibly. 
 
 Beyond the darkness, light, beyond the scathe 
 Healing, beyond the Cross, a palm-branch tree, 
 
 Beyond Death Life, on evidence of faith : 
 1 lift mine eyes to see. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 ii2 APRIL 21. 
 
 WHAT shall we make of some man rich in 
 attainments and in generous desires, 
 well educated, well behaved, who has trained 
 himself to be a light and help to other men, 
 and who, now that his training is complete, 
 stands in the midst of his fellow-men com 
 pletely dark and helpless ? . . . These men 
 are unlighted candles; they are the spirit of 
 man, elaborated, cultivated, finished to its very 
 finest, but lacking the last touch of God. As 
 dark as a row of silver lamps, all chased and 
 wrought with wondrous skill, all filled with 
 rarest oil, but all untouched with fire, so 
 dark in this world is a long row of cultivated 
 men, set up along the corridors of some age of 
 history, around the halls of some wise univer 
 sity, or in the pulpits of some stately church, 
 to whom there has come no fire of devotion, 
 who stand in awe and reverence before no 
 wisdom greater than their own. n. Q , I0 . 
 
 The world s philosophers and they that taste the tlesh 
 
 fail in Thy philosophy. 
 There is many a vanity ; 
 There men find death. 
 
 Wide, wide apart the savour of Creator and created, 
 
 As of eternity and time, 
 
 A candle and the uncreated beam. 
 
 O blaze that shines forever, 
 
 High above all the fires of the earth, 
 
 Lighten in flashes from above, 
 
 Finding a way into the secret chambers of my heart. 
 
 Make pure, 
 
 Make glad, 
 
 Make clear, make quick my spirit and its powers. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 APRIL 22. 113 
 
 TO him (who believes in immortality) death 
 is a jar, a break, a deep mysterious 
 change, but not the end of life. . , . See how 
 free it makes him. How it breaks his tyran 
 nies ! He can undertake works of self-culture, 
 or the development of truth, far, far too vast 
 for the earthly life of any Methuselah to finish, 
 and yet smile calmly and work on when men 
 tell him that he will die before his work is 
 done. Die ! Shall not the sculptor sleep a 
 hundred times before the statue he begins to 
 day is finished, and wake a hundred times 
 more ready for his work, bringing with a hun 
 dred new mornings to his work the strength 
 and the visions that have come to him in his 
 slumber ? i. 22I . 
 
 That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 Sees it and does it : 
 This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 Dies ere he knows it. 
 That low man goes on adding one to one, 
 
 His hundred s soon hit : 
 This high man, aiming at a million, 
 
 Misses an unit. 
 That, has the world here should he need the next, 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This, throws himself on God, and unperplext, 
 
 Seeking, shall find Him. 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING.
 
 ii4 APRIL 23. 
 
 / will bring the third part through the fire, and 
 will refine them as silver is refined, and will try 
 them as gold is tried ; they s)iall call on My Name, 
 and I will hear them : I will sa\ t It is My people : 
 and they shall say, The Lord is my God. ZECH. 
 xiii. 9. 
 
 T T E has had little experience of God who has 
 not often felt how sometimes, with a 
 question still unanswered, a deep doubt in 
 the soul unsolved, the Father will fold about 
 His doubting child a sense of Himself so deep, 
 so true, so self-witnessing, that the child is 
 content to carry his unanswered question be 
 cause of the unanswerable assurance of His 
 Father which he has received. i I0 . 
 
 We are led to believe a lie 
 
 When we see with not through the eye, 
 
 Which was born in a night to perish in a night 
 
 When the soul slept in beams of light. 
 
 God appears and God is light 
 
 To those poor souls who dwell in night : 
 
 But doth a human form display 
 
 To those who dwell in realms of day. 
 
 WILLIAM BLAKE.
 
 APRIL 24. 115 
 
 Great is our Lord, and of great power : His 
 understanding is infinite. Ps. cxlvii. 5. 
 
 When Thy word goeth forth, it giveth light and 
 understanding. Ps. cxix. 2. 
 
 THERE are some men whose minds are 
 wholly sceptical of Christian truth, who 
 yet allow themselves a sort of religion on the 
 weaker skle. They let their emotions be re 
 ligious, while they keep their minds in the 
 hard clear air of disbelief ; the heart may wor 
 ship, while the brain denies. I will not stop 
 to ask the meaning of this last strange condi 
 tion, interesting as the study might be made. I 
 only want you all to feel how thoroughly Chris 
 tianity is bound to reject indignantly this whole 
 treatment of itself. Just think how the great 
 masters of religion would receive it ! Think 
 of David and his cry "Thy testimonies are 
 wonderful. 1 have more understanding than 
 my teachers, for Thy testimonies are my 
 study." Think of Paul " O the depth of 
 the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge 
 of God." Think of Augustine, Luther, Cal 
 vin, Milton, Edwards, and a hundred more, the 
 men whose minds have found their loftiest 
 inspiration in religion, how would they have 
 received this quiet and contemptuous relega 
 tion of the most stupendous subjects of human 
 thought to the region of silly sentiment ? 
 They were men who loved the Lord their 
 God with all their minds. ni. 3 8, 39 .
 
 ii6 APRIL 25. 
 
 T WOULD present true sainthood to you as 
 the strong chain of God s presence in 
 humanity running down through all history, 
 and making of it a unity, giving it a large and 
 massive strength able to bear great things and 
 to do great things too. This unity which the 
 line of sainthood gives to history is the great 
 point that shows its strength. i. I22 . 
 
 Thy saints, O Lord, who now rejoice with Thee, high 
 in the kingdom of the sky, 
 
 Waited the coming of Thy glory all their lives, trust 
 fully, very patiently. 
 
 That they believed in, 1 believe in too ; 
 
 That they hoped for, I hope too ; 
 
 Whither they came, 
 
 Thither I trust that through thy grace I shall come too. 
 
 Till then I walk in faith, strengthened by the pattern 
 set by them. 
 
 Rejoice, ye humble, 
 And exult, ye poor ; 
 God s kingdom yours, 
 If ye but walk in truth. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 APRIL 26. 117 
 
 \ \ TE have full tolerance for the Buddhist and 
 ^" the Mohammedan ; less for the Quaker 
 and the Congregationalist ; least of all for the 
 man of our own Church, but of another 
 "school of thought" from ours. 
 
 So far from earnest personal conviction and 
 generous tolerance being incompatible with one 
 another, the two are necessary each to each. 
 " It is the natural feeling of all of us," said 
 Frederick Maurice in one of those utterances 
 of his which at first sound like paradoxes, and 
 by and by seem to be axioms, " it is the 
 natural feeling of all of us that charity is 
 founded upon the uncertainty of truth. I be 
 lieve it is founded on the certainty of truth." 
 
 TOLERANCE, 27, 9. 
 
 To veer, how vain ! On, onward strain, 
 Brave barks ! In light, in darkness too, 
 
 Through winds and tides one compass guides 
 To that, and your own selves, be true. 
 
 But O blithe breeze ! and O great seas, 
 Though ne er, that earliest parting past, 
 
 On your wide plain they join again, 
 Together lead them home at last. 
 
 One port, methought, alike they sought, 
 One purpose hold where er they fare, 
 
 O bounding breeze, O rushing seas ! 
 At last, at last, unite them there. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
 
 ii8 APRIL 27. 
 
 If we be dead with Him, we shall also live with 
 Him : if we suffer, we shall alse reign with Him. 
 
 II. TIM. ii. n, 12. 
 
 CHRIST was humiliated into our condition 
 that we might be exalted unto His. 
 Christ was crucified with man that man might 
 rejoice in being crucified with Christ. Both 
 the depth to which He went to seek man and 
 the height up to which He would carry man, 
 were set forth in the cross. Alas for him who, 
 . . . looking at the crucifixion, does not see 
 both of these, does not learn at once how low 
 his Saviour went to find him, and how high he 
 may go if he will make his Saviour s life his 
 own ! ,. J95 . 
 
 O mine enemy, 
 Rejoice not over me ! 
 
 Jesus waiteth to be gracious : 
 
 I will yet arise, 
 Mounting free and far 
 Past sun and star, 
 
 To a house prepared and spaciou? 
 In the skies. 
 
 Lord, for Thine own sake 
 Kindle my heart and break ; 
 
 Make mine anguish efficacious 
 
 Wedded to Thine own : 
 Be not Thy dear pain, 
 Thy love in vain, 
 
 Thou who waitest to be gracious 
 On Thy Throne. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 APRIL 28 119 
 
 TT seems to me a wonderful thing that the 
 1 supremely rich human nature of Jesus 
 never for an instant turned with self-indul 
 gence in on its own richness, or was beguiled by 
 that besetting danger of all opulent souls, the 
 wish, in the deepest sense, just to enjoy him 
 self. How fascinating that desire is. How it 
 keeps many and many of the most abundant 
 natures in the world from usefulness. Just 
 to handle over and over their hidden treasures, 
 and with a spiritual miserliness to think their 
 thought for the pure joy of thinking, and turn 
 emotion into the soft atmosphere of a life of 
 gardened selfishness. Not one instant of that 
 in Jesus. All the vast richness of His human 
 nature only meant for Him more power to 
 utter God to man. n. l6 . 
 
 I built my soul a lordly pleasure-house, 
 
 Wherein at ease for aye to dwell. 
 I said, " O Soul, make merry and carouse, 
 
 Dear soul, for all is well." 
 
 Full oft the riddle of the painful earth 
 Flashed through her as she sat alone, 
 
 Yet not the less held she her solemn mirth, 
 And intellectual throne. 
 
 And so she throve and prospered : so three years 
 She prospered : on the fourth she fell, 
 
 Like Herod, when the shout was in his ears, 
 Struck through with pangs of hell. 
 
 TENNYSON.
 
 120 APRIL 29. 
 
 THE NEW BIRTH. 
 
 Tis a new life ; thoughts move not as they did, 
 With slow uncertain steps across my mind ; 
 In thronging haste fast pressing on they bid 
 The portals open to the viewless wind, 
 That comes not save when in the dust is laid 
 The crown of pride that gilds each mortal brow, 
 And from before man s vision melting fade 
 The heavens and earth ; their walls are falling now. 
 Fast crowding on, each thought asks utterance strong ; 
 Storm-lifted waves swift rushing to the shore, 
 On from the sea they send their shouts along, 
 Back through the cave-worn rocks their thunders roar ; 
 And 1, a child of God, by Christ made free, 
 Start from death s slumbers to eternity. 
 
 JONES VKRY. 
 
 \\ 7HEN a man, strong in the conviction of 
 * * immortality, really counts himself a 
 stranger and a pilgrim among the multitudes 
 who know no home, no world but this, then 
 he is free among them ; free from the worldly 
 tyrannies that hind them ; free from their 
 temptations to be cowardly and mean. The 
 wall of death, beyond which they never look, 
 is to him only a mountain that can be crossed, 
 from whose top he shall see eternity, where 
 he belongs. . . . What is there in scorn or 
 criticism, that dies the day it is born, that can 
 terrify, however it may pain, the man who is 
 to live forever ? He is free. He has entered 
 into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
 
 I. 222, 223.
 
 APRIL 30. 121 
 
 We do not present our supplications before Thee 
 for our righteousness, but for Thv great mercies. 
 O Lord, hear ; O Lord, forgive ; O Lord, hearken 
 and do. DAN. ix. 18, 19. 
 
 "C VERY true prayer has its background and 
 -* its foreground. The foreground of prayer 
 is the intense, immediate desire for a certain 
 blessing which seems to be absolutely neces 
 sary for the soul to have ; the background 
 of prayer is the quiet, earnest desire that the 
 will of God, whatever it may be, should be 
 done. What a picture is the perfect prayer 
 of Jesus in Gethsemane ! In front burns 
 the strong desire to escape death and to live ; 
 but, behind, there stands, calm and strong, 
 the craving of the whole life for the doing of 
 the will of God. . . . Leave out the fore 
 ground let there be no expression of the wish 
 of him who prays and there is left a pure 
 submission which is almost fatalism. Leave 
 out the background let there be no accept 
 ance of the will of God and the prayer is 
 only an expression of self-will, a petulant 
 claiming of the uncorrected choice of him who 
 prays. Only when the two, foreground and 
 background, are there together, the special 
 desire resting on the universal submission, the 
 universal submission opening into the special 
 desire, only then is the picture perfect and 
 the prayer complete i v. 120, J2 i.
 
 122 MAY i. 
 
 HEN the sun rose this morning it found 
 this great sleeping world and woke 
 it. It bade it be itself. It quickened every 
 slow and sluggish faculty. It called to the 
 dull streams, and said, "Be quick;" to the 
 dull birds and bade them sing ; to the dull 
 fields and bade them grow ; to the dull men 
 and bade them talk and think and work. It 
 flashed electric invitation to the whole mass 
 of sleeping power which really was the world, 
 and summoned it to action. It did not make 
 the world. It did not sweep a dead world off 
 and set a live world in its place. It did not start 
 another set of processes unlike those which 
 had been sluggishly moving in the darkness. 
 It poured strength into the essential processes 
 which belonged to the very nature of the 
 earth which it illuminated. It glorified, in 
 tensified, fulfilled the earth. v . 3 , 4 . 
 
 Through wood and stream and field and hill and ocean, 
 A quickening life from the earth has burst, 
 
 As it has ever done, with change and motion, 
 From the great morning of the world when first 
 
 God dawned on chaos ; in its stream immersed, 
 The lamps of heaven flash with a softer light ; 
 
 All baser things pant with life s sacred thirst ; 
 Diffuse themselves ; and spend in love s delight, 
 The beauty and the joy of their renewed might. 
 
 SHE! LEV.
 
 MAY 2. 
 
 1HEAR men praying everywhere for more 
 faith, but when 1 listen to them carefully 
 and get at the real heart of their prayers, very 
 often it is not more faith at all that they are 
 wanting, but a change from faith to sight. 
 . . . Faith says not, "I see that it is good for 
 me, and so God must have sent it," but 
 " God sent it, and so it must be good for me." 
 Faith walking in the dark with God only prays 
 Him to clasp its hand more closely, does not 
 even ask Him for the lifting of the darkness 
 so that the man may find the way himself. 
 
 V. 35 . 352- 
 
 Oh that the soul might be at rest ; 
 
 Might yield her quest, 
 With the sole thought of God possessed ! 
 
 That she might close her wearied eyes 
 
 And blindfold-wise 
 Walk on as under shining skies ; 
 
 As seeing Him who is unseen ; 
 
 And wait serene 
 Though twofold night should intervene ! 
 
 O touch of God, O miracle 
 
 That none may tell ! 
 Her eyes are closed, and all Is well. 
 
 Though twofold night doth round her press 
 
 She knows no less 
 He will not leave her comfortless. 
 
 The desolate Cry on Calvary s height, 
 
 Its mid-day night, 
 Her pledges are of coming light. 
 
 HARRIET MCEWEN KIMBALL.
 
 124 MAY 3. 
 
 When He ascended up on high, He led captivity 
 captive, and gave gifts unto men. EPH. iv. 8. 
 
 O sing praises, sing praises unto our God. Alleluia. 
 O sing praises, sing praises unto our King. Alleluia. 
 
 CHRIST was not primarily the Deed-Doer 
 ^-^ or the Word-Sayer. He was the Life- 
 Giver. He made men live. Wherever He 
 went He brought vitality. Both in the days 
 of His Incarnation and in the long years of His 
 power which have followed since He vanished 
 from men s sight, His work has been to create 
 the conditions in which all sorts of men should 
 
 IW6. HARVARD MONTHLY. 
 
 Thrice for us the Word Incarnate high on holy hills 
 
 was set, 
 
 Once on Tabor, once on Calvary, and again on Olivet ; 
 Once to shine and once to suffer, and once more as 
 
 King of kings, 
 With a merry noise ascending borne by Cherubs on 
 
 their wings, 
 Till the glad Angelic voices hail the wardens of the 
 
 Gate, 
 " Lift ye up the doors, ye princes, for the Victor comes 
 
 in state." 
 
 And the guards celestial answer from within to that 
 
 strange cry, 
 " Who is He the mighty Victor Who claims entrance 
 
 to the sky?" 
 Back from His triumphant legions comes reply in 
 
 joyous swell, 
 " It is He, the King of Glory, Who hath vanquished 
 
 death and hell : 
 Lord of Hosts and strong in battle, Who upon this 
 
 holy tide, 
 Leads captivity in fetters, and hath trampled Satan s 
 
 pride." R. F. LITTLEDALE.
 
 MAY 4. 125 
 
 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. 
 
 T LOOK at Jesus on the cross. I see Him 
 there convicting sin by the sight of its 
 terrific consequence. 1 see Him also drawing 
 men s souls up, away from the earth and 
 from themselves, up to God, by that amaz 
 ing sign of how God loved them. And when 
 1 turn from looking at the Sufferer and look 
 into the faces of those men and women to 
 whom His suffering has brought its power, 
 I see how, in the struggle against sin under 
 the power of the love of God, to which the 
 cross has summoned them, they are know 
 ing God ; how, in St. Paul s great words, 
 " the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father 
 of Glory, is giving unto them the spirit of wis 
 dom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, 
 the eyes of their understanding being enlight 
 ened." ,,.89,90. 
 
 O Light of Souls, 
 
 Let us not walk in darkness. 
 
 By the Love whereby Thou didst cause the blind to see : 
 Enlighten our minds with the Spirit of truth. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE.
 
 126 MAY 5. 
 
 December days were brief and chill, 
 
 The winds of March were wild and drear, 
 And nearing and receding still, 
 
 Spring never would, we thought, be here. 
 The leaves that burst, the suns that shine, 
 
 Had, not the less, their certain date : 
 And thou, O human heart of mine, 
 
 Be still, refrain thyself and wait. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 
 
 TT will be good for us to see how widely 
 * prevalent the principle is which comes to 
 its consummation in the giving of Himself by 
 Christ to men. Everywhere faith, or the 
 capacity of receiving, has a power to claim 
 and command the thing which it needs. Nature 
 would furnish us many an exhibition of the 
 principle. You plant a healthy seed into the 
 ground. The seed s health consists simply in 
 this, that it has the power of true relations to 
 the soil you plant it in. And how these 
 spring-days bear us witness that the soil 
 acknowledges this power : no sooner does it 
 feel the seed than it replies ; it unlocks all its 
 treasures of force ; the little hungry black ker 
 nel is its master. "O seed, great is thy 
 faith ! " the ground seems to say ; " be it unto 
 thee even as thou wilt ; " and so the miracle 
 of growth begins. m. lC3 .
 
 MAY 6. 127 
 
 Little Lamb, who lost thee? 
 
 I, myself, none other. 
 Little Lamb, who found thee ? 
 
 Jesus, Shepherd, Brother. 
 Ah, Lord, what I cost Thee ! 
 
 Canst Thou still desire? 
 Still mine arms surround Thee, 
 
 Still 1 lift Thee higher, 
 
 Draw Thee nigher. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. 
 
 Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast 
 given me, be with me where I am, 
 
 JOHN xvii. 24. 
 
 T F certainly would make it harder for us to do 
 wrong this coming week, easier to do what 
 is right, harder to be selfish, easier to be 
 Christ-like, if this week we could constantly 
 hear Christ praying for us that we might be 
 with Him where He is. That prayer would 
 draw us to Him, into His life, into His charac 
 ter, and make this week a foretaste of that 
 eternity whose promised glory is that there we 
 are to be v< forever with the Lord." i. I .
 
 128 MAY 7. 
 
 He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things. 
 
 ACTS xvii. 25. 
 
 WHEN the spring comes, the oak-tree with 
 its thousands upon thousands of leaves 
 blossoms all over. The great heart of the 
 oak-tree remembers every remotest tip of 
 every farthest branch, and sends to each the 
 message and the power of new life. And yet 
 we do not think of the heart of the oak-tree as 
 if it were burdened with such multitudinous 
 remembrance. It is simply the thrill of the 
 common life translated into these million forms. 
 . . . Somewhat in that way it seems to me 
 that we may think of God s remembrance of 
 His million children. . . . That patient suf 
 ferer, that toilsome worker, are far-off leaves 
 on the great tree of His life ; far-off, and yet 
 as near to the beating of His heart as any leaf 
 on all the tree. He remembers them as the 
 heart remembers the finger-tips to which it 
 sends the blood. . . . If any doubt about Him, 
 issuing from them, stops up the channel so 
 that He cannot get to them, He waits behind 
 the hindrance, behind the doubt, and tries to 
 get it away, and feels the withering of the 
 unbelieving, unfed leaf as if a true part of 
 Himself were dying. And when the obstacle 
 gives way, and the doubt is broken and the 
 path is once more open, it is almost with a 
 shout which we can hear that the life-blood 
 leaps to its work again. \\\, 172 , I73 , I74 .
 
 MAY 8. 129 
 
 The graves were opened ; and many bodies of 
 the saints which slept, arose, and came out of the 
 graves after His resurrection, and went into the 
 holy city, and appeared unto many. 
 
 MATT, xxvii. 52, 53. 
 
 IF the city of our heart is holy with the pres 
 ence of a living Christ, then the dear dead 
 will come to us and we shall know they are 
 not dead but living, and bless Him who has 
 been their Redeemer, and rejoice in the work 
 that they are doing for Him in His perfect 
 world, and press on joyously towards our own 
 redemption, not fearing even the grave, since 
 by its side stands He whom we know and 
 love, who has the keys of death and hell. 
 
 i- 227. 
 
 Dear dead ! they have become 
 
 Like guardian angels to us ; 
 
 And distant heaven like home, 
 
 Through them begins to woo us ; 
 Love that was earthly wings 
 
 Its flight to holier places ; 
 
 The dead are sacred things 
 
 That multiply our graces. 
 
 They whom we loved on earth 
 
 Attract us now to heaven ; 
 Who shared our grief and mirth 
 
 Back to us now are given. 
 They move with noiseless foot 
 
 Gravely and sweetly round us, 
 And their soft touch hath cut 
 
 Full many a chain that bound us. 
 
 F. W. FABER.
 
 130 MAY 9. 
 
 Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord, 
 Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof ; because 
 they came not to tlie help of the Lord, to tlie help of 
 the Lord against the mighty. JUDGES v. 23. 
 
 THE curse of Meroz is the curse of useless- 
 ness ; and these are the sources out of 
 which it comes cowardice and false humility 
 and indolence. They are the stones piled upon 
 the sepulchres of vigor and energy and work 
 for God, whose crushing weight cannot be 
 computed. Who shall roll us away those 
 stones ? Nothing can do it but the power of 
 Christ. The manhood that is touched by Him 
 rises into life. ... To be working with God, 
 however humbly ; to have part of that service 
 which suns and stars, which angels and arch 
 angels, which strong and patient and holy men 
 and women in all times have done ; to be, in 
 some small corner of the field, stout and brave 
 and at last triumphant in our fight with lust 
 and cruelty and falsehood, with want or woe 
 or ignorance, with unbelief and scorn, with 
 any of the enemies of God . . . what a 
 change it is when a poor, selfish, cowardly, 
 fastidious, idle human creature comes to this ! 
 Blessed is he that cometh to the help of the 
 Lord, to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty. There is no curse for him. No 
 wounds that he can receive while he is fighting 
 on that side can harm him. To fight there is 
 itself to conquer, even though the victory 
 comes through pain and death, as it came to 
 Him under whom we fight, the Captain of our 
 Salvation, Jesus Christ. n . 303 , 304
 
 MAY 10. 131 
 
 "THERE is a wonderful power in sympathy 
 * to open and display the hidden richness 
 of a man s own seemingly narrow life. . . . 
 The holiest soul, pitying the brother-soul 
 which has fallen into vilest vice, gains, while 
 it keeps its own purity unsoiled, something of 
 the sight of that other side of God, the side 
 where justice and forgiveness blend in the opal 
 mystery of grace, which it would seem as if 
 only the soul that looked up out of the depths 
 of guilt could see. n. I20 , I2I . 
 
 Not wrath, dear Lord, Thy mercy seals- 
 
 Our own unrighteous hands 
 Hold back Thy shining chariot-wheels, 
 
 And rob the wistful lands. 
 
 For none shall walk in perfect white 
 
 Till every soul be clean ; 
 So close for sorrow and delight 
 
 These human spirits lean. 
 
 But thou go forth and do thy deed, 
 
 In forest and in town, 
 Nor sigh for ease, while pain and need 
 
 Are plucking at thy gown. 
 
 And thus, when bitter turneth sweet, 
 
 And every heart is blest, 
 Perchance to thee God s hand shall mete 
 
 His unimagined rest. 
 
 KATHERINE LEE BATES
 
 132 MAY 11. 
 
 When He the Spirit of truth is come, He will 
 guide you into all truth . . . He shall glorify Me: 
 for He shall receive of mine, and shall show it 
 unto you. JOHN xvi. 13, 14. 
 
 absorption of every struggle between 
 the good and the evil that is going on in 
 the world into the one great struggle of the life 
 and death of Jesus Christ . . . follows neces 
 sarily from any such full idea as we Christians 
 hold of what Jesus Christ is and of what brought 
 Him to this world. If He be really the Son of 
 God, bringing in an utterly new way the power 
 of God to bear on human life ; if He be the 
 natural creator-king of humanity, come for the 
 salvation of humanity ; then it would seem to 
 follow that the work of salvation must be His 
 and His alone ; and if we see the process of 
 salvation, the struggle of the good against the 
 evil, going on all over the world, we shall be 
 ready still to feel that it is all under His aus 
 pices and guidance. . . . 
 
 Once accept what is the central truth of 
 operative Christianity, the power of an ever- 
 present unseen Spirit, always manifesting 
 Christ and making Him influential, and then 
 it is not hard to see that, men being the same, 
 open to the same influence everywhere, they 
 may be and they are turned to the one same 
 goodness by the power of the one same spirit 
 of Christ. ,. 40 , 42 .
 
 MAY 12. 133 
 
 THE power of the Holy Spirit! an ever 
 lasting spiritual presence among men. 
 What but that is the thing we want ? That 
 is what the old oracles were dreaming of, what 
 the modern spiritualists to-night are fumbling 
 after. The power of the Holy Ghost by which 
 every man who is in doubt may know what is 
 right, every man whose soul is sick may be 
 made spiritually whole, every weak man may 
 be made a strong man, that is God s one 
 sufficient answer to the endless appeal of man s 
 spiritual life ; that is God s one great response 
 to the unconscious need of spiritual guidance, 
 which He hears crying out of the deep heart 
 of every man. n. 106, I07 . 
 
 Wilt Thou not visit me? 
 The plant beside me feels Thy gentle dew, 
 
 And every blade of grass I see 
 From Thy deep earth its quickening moisture drew. 
 
 Come, for 1 need Thy love, 
 More than the flower the dew or grass the rain ; 
 
 Come, gently as Thy holy dove ; 
 And let me in Thy sight rejoice to live again. 
 
 Yes, Thou wilt visit me : 
 Nor plant nor tree Thine eye delights so well, 
 
 As, when from sin set free, 
 My spirit loves with Thine in peace to dwell. 
 
 JONES VERY.
 
 134 13 
 
 "THAT is a noble time, a bewildering and 
 1 exalting time in any of our- lives, when 
 into everything that we are doing enters the 
 Spirit of God, and thenceforth moving ever 
 up toward the God to whom it belongs, that 
 Spirit, dwelling in our life, carries our life up 
 with it ; not separating our life from the earth, 
 but making every part of it, while it still keeps 
 its hold on earth, soar up and have to do with 
 heaven ; so completing life in its height, by 
 making it divine. n. 12J . 
 
 O God the Holy Ghost Who art Light unto Thine 
 elect, 
 
 Evermore enlighten us. 
 Thou Who art Fire of Love 
 
 Evermore enkindle us. 
 Thou who art Lord and Giver of Life, 
 
 Evermore live in us. 
 Thou Who art Holiness, 
 
 Evermore sanctify us. 
 Thou Who bestowest Sevenfold Grace, 
 
 Evermore replenish us. 
 As the Wind is Thy symbol, 
 
 So forward our goings. 
 As the Dove, 
 
 So launch us heavenwards. 
 As Water, 
 
 So purify our spirits. 
 As a Cloud, 
 
 So abate our temptations. 
 As Dew, 
 
 So revive our languor. 
 As Fire, 
 
 So purge out our dross. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 MAY 14. 135 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me ; 
 
 Because the Lord hath anointed me to preach 
 good tidings unto the meek ; 
 
 He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, 
 
 To proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
 opening of the prison to them that are bound. 
 
 ISA. Ixi. i. 
 
 DOTH in belief and in duty, this is the work 
 *- of the Holy Spirit ; to make belief pro 
 found by showing us the hearts of the things 
 that we believe in ; and to make duty delight 
 ful by setting us to doing it for Christ. O, in 
 this world of shallow believers and weary, 
 dreary workers, how we need that Holy Spirit! 
 Remember, we may go our way, ignoring all 
 the time the very forces that we need to help 
 us do our work. The forces still may help us. 
 The Holy Spirit may help us, will surely help 
 us, just as far as He can, even if we do not 
 know His name or ever call upon Him. But 
 there is so much more that He might do for us 
 if we would only open our hearts and ask 
 Him to come into them. n. 230 . 
 
 Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us, and the bright 
 ness of Thy Spirit illumine our inward souls ; that He 
 may kindle our cold hearts and light up our dark 
 minds, Who abideth evermore with Thee in glory. 
 ANCIENT COLLECTS. BRIGHT.
 
 136 MAY 15. 
 
 / will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh ; and 
 your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your 
 old men shall dream dreams, your young men 
 shall see visions ; and also upon the servants and 
 upon the handmaids in those days will I pour 
 out my Spirit, the spirit of wisdom and under 
 standing, the spirit of counsel and might, the 
 spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. 
 JOEL ii. 28, 29. ISA. xi. 2. 
 
 THE intellectual life of Christendom tends 
 to democracy. Less and less will it con 
 sent to be the privilege of the selected few. 
 ... It is impossible to keep the bounds of 
 mental life shut against any man when the 
 source of all men s knowledge is in God, who 
 is the Father of us all, and when the faculty 
 of knowledge is closely connected with the 
 faculty of moral obedience, which is the right 
 and duty of mankind. Instantly this began 
 when Christianity was once a living fact. 
 Peter stepped out of the chamber of the Pen 
 tecost and spoke to the great multitude in 
 words which assumed in them the power of 
 understanding, of judging, of deciding ques 
 tions which up to that time had been the 
 sacred possession of the scribes and doctors. 
 There was nothing like that speech before that 
 day. The germs of the modern sermon, the 
 modern lecture, and the modern school were in 
 it. Thenceforth men s intellects might differ, 
 but the intellectual chance was open to every 
 man. To the dullest child belonged the right 
 to learn all that he could learn, all that was in 
 him to learn, of his Father. INFLUENCE, 2 6 9 , 2 70 .
 
 MAY 16. 137 
 
 , my dear friends, do not let your religion 
 satisfy itself with anything less than 
 God. Insist on having your soul get at Him 
 and hear His voice. Never, because of the 
 mystery, the awe, perhaps the perplexity and 
 doubt which come with the great experiences, 
 let yourself take refuge in the superficial things 
 of faith. It is better to be lost on the ocean 
 than to be tied to the shore. It is better to be 
 overwhelmed with the greatness of hearing the 
 awful voice of God than to become satisfied 
 with the piping of mechanical ceremonies or 
 the lullabies of traditional creeds. Therefore 
 seek great experiences of the soul, and never 
 turn your back on them when God sends 
 them, as He surely will. v. 7 s, 79 . 
 
 I am borne out to Thee upon the wave, 
 And the land lessens ; cry nor speech I hear, 
 
 Nought but the leaping waters and the brave 
 Pure winds commingling. O the joy, the fear ! 
 
 Alone with Thee ; sky s rim and ocean s rim 
 
 Touch, overhead the clear immensity 
 Is merely God ; no eyes of seraphim 
 
 Gaze in ... O God, Thou also art the sea ! 
 
 EDWARD DOWDEN
 
 138 MAY 17. 
 
 T ET the life be filled with the spirit of the 
 springtime. Let the voice in its heart 
 always keep saying to it, " You are to go on 
 filling yourself with vitality and joy, day after 
 day, month after month, and then cometh the 
 end, then cometh the end ; " and then it is not 
 a cessation of life, but fuller life which the 
 heart expects. The end which comes to 
 the promise of springtime shall be the luxuri 
 ance of summer ! v. 3 6 4 . 
 
 Under gentle types, my Spring 
 Masks the might of Nature s king, 
 An energy that searches thorough 
 From Chaos to the dawning morrow ; 
 Into all our human plight, 
 The soul s pilgrimage and flight ; 
 In city or in solitude, 
 Step by step, lifts bad to good, 
 Without halting, without rest, 
 Lifting Better up to Best ; 
 Planting seeds of knowledge pure, 
 Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure. 
 
 EMERSON.
 
 MAY 1 8. 139 
 
 Death ! since thy darksome mist 
 Encircled the all-glorious head of Christ 
 Thou now dost shine 
 
 A halo all divine. 
 
 ANNA E HAMILTON. 
 
 T^HE crucifixion of Jesus has been illumi 
 nated by the resurrection, the ascension, 
 and the Pentecost. . . . Behind its shame 
 and pain it has opened a heart of love and 
 glory, and St. Paul, summing up his life in its 
 best privileges and holiest purposes, says, 
 " I am crucified with Christ." ... As Christ, 
 by his self-sacrifice, entered into the company 
 of man, so there is a self-surrender by which 
 man enters into the company of Christ. He 
 came down to us, and tasted on our cross the 
 misery of sin. We may go up to His cross, 
 and taste, with Him, the glory and peace of 
 perfect obedience and communion with God. 
 
 i. 203. 
 
 O Love, Who once in time wast slain, 
 
 Pierced through and through with bitter woe : 
 
 O Love, Who wrestling thus didst gain 
 That we eternal joy might know 
 
 O Love, 1 give myself to Thee, 
 Thine ever, only Thine to be. 
 
 J. SCHEFFLER. Tr. by C. WlNKWORTH.
 
 140 MAY 19. 
 
 REVELATION is not the unveiling of God, 
 but a changing of the veil that covers 
 Him ; not the dissipation of mystery, but the 
 transformation of the mystery of darkness 
 into the mystery of light. To the Pagan, God 
 is mysterious because He is hidden in clouds, 
 mysterious like the storm. To the Christian, 
 God is mysterious because He is radiant with 
 infinite truth, mysterious like the sun. n. 3II . 
 
 My sight, becoming purified, 
 Was entering more and more into the ray 
 Of the High Light which of itself is true. 
 
 grace abundant, by which I presumed 
 To fix my sight upon the Light Eternal, 
 So that the seeing 1 consumed therein ! 
 
 1 saw that in its depth far down is lying 
 
 Bound up with love together in one volume, 
 What through the universe in leaves is scattered 
 Substance, and accident, and their operations, 
 All interfused together in such wise 
 That what 1 speak of is one simple light. 
 
 O how all speech is feeble and falls short 
 Of my conceit, and this to what I saw 
 Is such, tis not enough to call it little! 
 
 O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest, 
 Sole knowest thyself, and, known unto thyself 
 And knowing, lovest and smilest on thyself! 
 
 DANTE
 
 MAY 20. 141 
 
 T AM sure that the divine nature is three per- 
 1 sons, but one God ; but how much more 
 than that I cannot know. That deep law 
 which runs through all life, by which the 
 higher any nature is, the more manifold and 
 simple at once, the more full of complexity 
 and unity at once, it grows, is easily accepted 
 as applicable to the highest of all natures, 
 God. In the manifoldness of His being these 
 three personal existences, Creator, Redeemer, 
 Sanctifier, easily make themselves known to 
 the human life. I tell the story of them, and 
 that is my doctrine of the Trinity. But let 
 me not say that that is all. To other worlds 
 of other needs, and so of other understandings 
 (for our needs are always the avenues for our 
 intelligence), other sides of the personal force 
 of the divine life must have issued. It is not 
 for us to catalogue and inventory Deity ; only 
 in humble gratitude and reverence to bear our 
 witness of the manifestation of God to us for 
 our salvation. And so our doctrine of the 
 Trinity is our account of what we know of 
 God. ,. 230 . 
 
 The holy Church throughout all the world doth 
 
 acknowledge Thee ; 
 The Father : of an infinite Majesty ; 
 Thine adorable, true and only Son ; 
 Also the Holy Ghost : the Comforter.
 
 142 MAY 21. 
 
 Who coverest Thyself with light as with a gar 
 ment. Ps. civ. 2. 
 
 NOT as the answer to a riddle, which leaves 
 all things clear, but as the deeper sight 
 of God, prolific with a thousand novel ques 
 tions which were never known before, clothed 
 in a wonder which only in that larger light dis 
 played itself, offering new worlds for faith and 
 reverence to wander in, so must the New 
 Testament revelation, the truth of Father, Son, 
 and Spirit, one perfect God, offer itself to man. 
 
 ii. 3.4. 
 
 If it be so, as we believe it is, that in the 
 constitution of humanity we have the fairest 
 written analogue and picture of the Divine 
 existence, then shall we not say that the 
 human Christ gave us, in the value which He 
 set on human relationships, in His social 
 thought of man, an insight into the essential- 
 ness and value of that social thought of God 
 which we call the doctrine of the Trinity ? 
 May it not be that only by multiplicity and 
 interior self-relationship can Divinity have the 
 completest self-consciousness and energy ? 
 Surely, the reverent and thoughtful eye must 
 see some such meaning when Jesus Himself 
 makes the eternal companionship of the life of 
 Deity the pattern and picture of the best 
 society of the souls of earth, and breathes out 
 to His Father these deep and wondrous words, 
 "As thou Father art in Me and I in Thee, that 
 they all may be one in Us/ INH.UKNCE, s 5 .
 
 MAY 22. 143 
 
 E divinity of the Father needs assertion 
 first of all. Let men once feel it, and 
 then nature and their own hearts will come in 
 with their sweet and solemn confirmations of 
 it. But nature and the human heart do not 
 teach it of themselves. The truest teaching of 
 it must come from souls that are always going 
 in and out before the divine Fatherhood them 
 selves. By the sight of such souls others must 
 come to seek the satisfaction that comes only 
 from a divine end of life, must come to crave 
 access to the Father. So we believe and so 
 we tempt other men to believe in God the 
 Father. i. 2j6 . 
 
 All the earth doth worship Thee : the Father ever 
 lasting. 
 
 We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, 
 we glorify Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great 
 glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father 
 Almighty.
 
 144 MAY 23. 
 
 JV/1 Y friend says God sends Christ into the 
 world and therefore Christ is not God. 
 I cannot see it so. It seems to me just other 
 wise. God sends Christ just because Christ 
 is God. He sends Himself. His sending is a 
 coming. ... He [our Master] is the Son of 
 God. Think of it. Does not "Son" mean 
 just this which the church s faith, with the 
 best words that it could find, has labored to 
 express, "Two persons and one substance." 
 That is the Father and the Child. Separate 
 personality but one nature. Unfty and dis 
 tinctness both, but the unity as true a fact as 
 the distinctness. Nay, the unity the fact 
 which made the essence of His mission, the 
 fact which made Him the true, fit, only perfect 
 messenger of God and Saviour of the world. 
 
 i. 239. 
 
 Thou art the King of Glory : O Christ. Thou art 
 the everlasting Son of the Father. 
 
 O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ ; O 
 Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, that 
 takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us.
 
 MAY 24. 145 
 
 DECEMBER, the Holy Spirit is God, and 
 f\ God is love. And no man ever asks 
 God to come into his heart and holds his heart 
 open to God, without God s entering. Chil 
 dren, pray the dear God, the blessed Holy 
 Spirit, to come and live in your heart and show 
 you Jesus, and make you love to do what is 
 right for His sake. Old men, aspire to taste 
 already here what is to be the life and joy of 
 your eternity. Men and women in the thick 
 of life, do not go helpless when there is such 
 help at hand ; do not go on by yourselves, 
 struggling for truth and toiling at your work, 
 when the Holy Spirit is waiting to show you 
 Christ, and to give you in Him the profound 
 ness of faith and the delightfulness of duty. 
 
 n. 230, 231. 
 
 Come, Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, 
 
 And lighten with celestial fire. 
 
 Thou the anointing Spirit art, 
 
 Who dost Thy seven-fold gifts impart. 
 
 Thy blessed unction from above, 
 
 Is comfort, life, and fire of love. 
 
 Enable with perpetual light 
 
 The dulness of our blinded sight. 
 
 Anoint and cheer our spiled face 
 
 With the abundance of Thy grace. 
 
 Keep far our foes, give peace at home ; 
 
 Where Thou art guide, no ill can come. 
 
 Teach us to know the Father, Son, 
 
 And Thee, of Both, to be but One ; 
 
 That, through the ages all along, 
 
 This may be our endless song : 
 Praise to Thy eternal merit, 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
 
 146 MAY 25. 
 
 Through Him u>e both hare access by one Spirit 
 unto the Father. EPH. ii. 18. 
 
 TF it be not to the Father, the Son s redemp 
 tion is in vain. If it be not through the 
 Son, the Father waits and the Spirit moves for 
 naught. If it be not by the Spirit, the Father s 
 heart stands open and the method of grace is 
 perfect, but the unmoved soul stands inactive 
 and unsaved. The Scripture revelation comes 
 to tell us that end, method, and power, all are 
 perfect, and each must thus be worthy of the 
 rest. The three are one. Each is eternal, 
 and yet as the old creed cries, " There are not 
 three Eternals, but one Eternal." Each is 
 God, and yet "there are not three Gods, but 
 one God," - not three salvations, but one 
 salvation, with its equal end and method and 
 power, and so by the Trinity in Unity the soul 
 is saved. i. 233 . 
 
 Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the 
 Holy Ghost; 
 
 As it was in the beginning, is no\v, and ever shall 
 be: world without end. Amen.
 
 MAY 26. 147 
 
 "THE partialness which we see in man, and 
 1 which lets us easily divide our fellow- 
 men into classes and label them the men of 
 intellect or the men of action, passes away as 
 we mount to any thought of God which is at 
 all worthy of Him. What God knows is one 
 and the same with the love with which He 
 loves and the resolve with which He wills. 
 You cannot draw a fence through the great 
 ocean of infinity. Mythology dreams of its 
 many gods with many functions. The mo 
 ment that one God stands forth above all gods, 
 the many things which the partial deities do 
 lose themselves in the one perfect thing which 
 the one only Deity is. And all wisdom unites 
 with all power and all love no less in the guid 
 ing of a little child along the slippery path 
 which leads to manhood, than in the vast con 
 duct of the destinies of the colossal man who 
 lives through all the generations of the race. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 221. 
 
 I saw the Power ; I see the Love, once weak, 
 Resume the Power; and in this word, " I see," 
 Lo, there is recognized the Spirit of both 
 That, moving o er the spirit of man, unblinds 
 His eye, and bids him look. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 148 MAY 27. 
 
 / believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of 
 heaven and earth : 
 
 And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord : 
 
 I believe in the Holy Ghost. 
 OOMETIMES, when vitality grows feeble, 
 O when disappointments and, shall I not say 
 still more, success makes the whole business 
 of existence seem tawdry, or not worth the 
 pains it costs when the morning brings no 
 stimulus and the evening no satisfaction 
 ... in all that ebbing and flagging of the 
 tide of life, do you know what it is to find 
 strength and healthiness, again, in believing 
 in God, in believing in the Trinity? Does 
 that sound strange ? What ! shall belief in 
 a doctrine quicken the feeble pulse and fill 
 again the empty channels of a worn and 
 weary life ? But, unless it can do this, what 
 is the use of your belief ? Nay, shall we not 
 have such faith in our great doctrine that we 
 shall confidently say that if it does not do that 
 for a man, the man who says that he believes 
 it does not truly believe it. David said 
 "My heart and my flesh fail, but God is the 
 strength of my heart and my portion for 
 ever." And how much more we know of God 
 than David knew ? All that the life of Jesus 
 told, all that the Christian centuries have told 
 the eternally Living One, the great I Am, 
 who is both Creator and Father ; the Son, in 
 whom was life, which was the light of the 
 world : the Spirit, who is the Lord and Giver 
 of life not many gods, but one God not 
 many partial springs, but one great sea of life 
 heard behind all. OXFORD REVIEW.
 
 MAY 28. 149 
 
 NOTHING can really haunt us except what 
 we have the beginning of, the native 
 capacity for, however hindered, in ourselves. 
 The highest angel does not tempt us because 
 he is of another race from us ; but God is our 
 continual incitement because we are His 
 children. So the ideal life is in our blood, and 
 never will be still. We feel the thing we 
 ought to be beating beneath the thing we are. 
 Every time we see a man who has attained our 
 human idea a little more fully than we have, 
 it wakens our languid blood and fills us with 
 new longings. When we see Christ, it is as 
 if a new live plant out of the southern soil 
 were brought suddenly in among its poor 
 stunted, transplanted brethren, and, blossom 
 ing in their sight, interpreted to each of them 
 the restlessness and discontent which was in 
 each of their poor hearts. . . . And when we 
 die and go to God, it is as if at last the poor 
 shrub were plucked up out of its exile and 
 taken back and set where it belonged, in the 
 rich soil, under the warm sun, where the 
 patience which it had learned in its long wait 
 ing should make all the deeper and richer the 
 flower into which its experience was set free to 
 find its utterance. i. 35 , 36 . 
 
 See, love, afar, the heavenly man 
 The Will of God would make, 
 
 The thing I must be when I can 
 Love now, for faith s dear sake. 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD
 
 ISO MAY 29. 
 
 Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born ! 
 
 before the sun, 
 
 Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice 
 Of God, as with a mantle did st invest 
 The rising world of waters dark and deep, 
 Won from the void and formless infinite. 
 
 MILTON. 
 
 WITH the mystery of darkness we are 
 familiar. Of the mystery of light we 
 have not thought, perhaps, so much. . . . Sup 
 posing that . . something really rich and pro 
 found, were brought out of the darkness into n 
 sudden flood of sunlight, would it grow less or 
 more mysterious ? Suppose it is a jewel, and 
 instead of having to strain your eyes to make 
 out the outline of its shape, you can look now 
 deep into its heart ; see depth opening beyond 
 depth, until it looks as if there were no end to 
 the chambers of splendor that are shut up in that 
 little stone ; see flake after flake of luminous 
 color floating up out of the unseen fountain 
 which lies somewhere in the jewel s heart. 
 Is the jewel less or more mysterious than it was 
 when your sight had to struggle to see whether 
 it was a topaz or an emerald? Suppose it is a 
 landscape. One hour all its features are vague 
 and dim in twilight; hill, field, and stream in 
 almost indistinguishable confusion. Six hours 
 later the whole is glowing in the noonday sun, 
 the streams burning with silvery light, the 
 colors of the fresh spring hillsides striking far 
 away upon the senses, filling them with de 
 light and wonder. Everything is thrilling anc 1 
 bursting with manifest life. Has not the mys 
 tery increased with the ascending sun?
 
 MAY 30. 151 
 
 T T was to the American nature, long kept by 
 God in His own intentions, till His time 
 should come, at last emerging into sight and 
 power, and bound up and embodied in this best 
 and most American of all Americans, Abraham 
 Lincoln, to whom we and those poor frightened 
 slaves at last might look up together and love 
 to call him, with one voice, our Father. . . . 
 
 The American nature, the American truths, 
 of which our President was the anointed and 
 supreme embodiment, have been embodied in 
 multitudes of heroes who marched unknown 
 and fell unnoticed in our ranks. For them, 
 just as for him, character decreed a life and a 
 
 death. SERMON ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Blow, trumpets, all your exultations blow ! 
 For never shall their aureoled presence lack : 
 I see them muster in a gleaming row, 
 With ever youthful brows that nobler show ; 
 We find in our dull road their shining track ; 
 
 In every nobler mood 
 We feel the orient of their spirit glow, 
 Part of our life s unalterable good, 
 Of all our saintlier aspiration ; 
 
 They come transfigured back, 
 Secure from change in their high-hearted ways, 
 Beautiful evermore, and with the rays 
 Of morn on their white Shields of Expectation. 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 152 MAY 31. 
 
 Phillips Brooks ordained Priest, 1860. 
 
 THIS seems to me to be the ever-increasing 
 joy of the minister s life, if one may vent 
 ure for once to speak of his own work. A 
 man becomes a minister because God says, 
 "Go speak in the temple the words of this 
 life." He begins the service of his fellow-men 
 in pure obedience to God s command, but the 
 joy and ever-richening delight of the minister s 
 work is in finding how deep this human soul 
 to which his Lord has sent him really is. The 
 nature to which he ministers, as he meets its 
 exhibitions here and there, is always amazing 
 him with its spiritual capacity, is always 
 proving itself capable and worthy of so much 
 better and higher ministry than he can give 
 it. So the minister of the Gospel finds his 
 own humility and the delightfulness of his work 
 ever increasing together. i. 349 . 
 
 THE WORK OF PHILLIPS BROOKS. 
 
 Yet each itiill have one anguish his o~vn soul 
 Which perishes of cold. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 We know this anguish. By the closed door 
 
 Of their o\vn lives men listen for the slow 
 
 And fluttering breath of souls by doubt laid low, 
 
 Which freeze in darkness, now they hope no more. 
 
 The door of thy great life stood wide, and o er 
 
 The threshold leaned thy eager soul, aglow 
 
 With that warm hope the apostles used to know. 
 
 With that strong faith the prophets preached of yore. 
 
 O glorious soul ! How many lips shall bless 
 
 That faithfulness, that wealth of hopefulness 
 
 That like God s sun persisted in its cheer ! 
 
 Forged at such heat thy swift word struck the ear 
 
 To pierce men s souls which, finding day still shine, 
 
 Rose and unbarred their lives to life divine. 
 
 HANNAH PARKER KIMBALL.
 
 JUNE i. 153 
 
 "THE rich atmosphere and rich earth surround 
 the stone just as they surround the rose. 
 They are as free to one as to the other. But 
 the rose grows red and soft and fragrant, and 
 the stone lies cold and hard and gray. The 
 same rich humanity, the same culture, the 
 same heauty lies about two men, as free to 
 one as to the other, and one grows harder and 
 more brutal and more insensible day by day, 
 and the other grows kindlier, truer, and more 
 sensitive. MSS. 
 
 " God s spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose 
 If 1 but like a rose my heart to Him unclose." 
 
 " In all eternity no tone can be so sweet 
 As where man s heart with God in unison doth beat." 
 
 " Whatever thou lovest, man, that too become thou must. 
 God if thou lovest God ; dust if thou lovest dust." 
 
 " Immeasurable is the Highest; who but knows it? 
 And yet a human heart can perfectly enclose It."
 
 I 5 4 JUNE 2. 
 
 VERY healthy growth creates the condi- 
 tions of new growth, makes new growth 
 possible. The illustrations are numberless 
 everywhere. Every ray of sunlight that gives 
 ripeness to an apple makes the apple opener 
 to more sunlight, which shall ripen it still more. 
 . . . Every summer is also a spring-time . 
 Indeed we may make this a test of growth. 
 Every ray of sun which does not open the 
 ground to new sunlight, is not feeding it but 
 baking it. This is the true test of growing 
 force. It opens the beautiful reactions between 
 itself and the growing thing, and creates an 
 openness for yet more of itself. n. 4 ,, 42 . 
 
 The twig sprouteth, 
 
 The moth outeth, 
 
 The plant springeth, 
 
 The bird singeth : 
 
 Tho little we sing to-day, 
 
 Yet are we better than they ; 
 
 Tho growing with scarce a showing, 
 
 Yet, please God, we are growing. 
 
 The twig teacheth, 
 The moth preacheth, 
 The plant vaunteth, 
 The bird chanteth, 
 God s mercy overflowing 
 Merciful past man s knowing. 
 Please God to keep us growing 
 Till the awful day of mowing. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 JUNE: 3, 155 
 
 Christ in you, the hope <>f glfliy. COL. i. 27. 
 
 GREAT is the work that Christ does for us. 
 Greater, deeper still, because without it 
 all the other would be purposeless and useless, 
 is the work that Christ does in us. How 
 wonderful it is. The world glows with the 
 assurance of redemption. Heaven opens, and 
 there the saints and elders are prostrate before 
 the throne. The whole spiritual universe 
 trembles with the new spiritual life which has 
 come to it out of the marvellous death. In the 
 midst of it all lies one soul, dead and incapable 
 of action, though intensely alive with desire 
 for a share in all this glorious vitality. . . . 
 The world about it is strong with the promise 
 and temptation of holy things. The soul itself 
 is weak with its own unholiness. Then comes 
 the better, perfect, completing promise of a 
 change of soul. The Christ who has done all 
 this offers to do one thing more, to make the 
 dead soul alive and able to enjoy and use it all. 
 He will come into us, not merely stand without 
 us. He will come in and be Himself the power 
 which lays hold of His own invitations. We 
 may feed on Him. Nay, let us take His own 
 strong word and say, "He that eateth Me, the 
 same shall live by Me." That is the inner 
 life, Christ in the soul rising up and laying 
 hold of the infinite possibilities which redemp 
 tion has prepared. n. 245 , 246 .
 
 156 JUNE 4. 
 
 If any man offend not in word, the same is a 
 perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body. 
 
 JAMKS iii. 2. 
 
 OH profoundly honest. Never dare to say, 
 *-* ... through ardent excitement or con 
 formity to what you know you are expected to 
 say, one word which at the moment when you 
 say it, you do not believe. It would cut down 
 the range of what you say, perhaps, but it 
 would endow every word that was left with 
 
 the force Of ten. PREACHING. ,07. 
 
 But why are we so glad to talk and take our turns to 
 
 prattle, 
 When so rarely we get back to the stronghold of our 
 
 silence 
 
 With an unwounded conscience? 
 Our talk is often empty, often vain. 
 This comfort from without 
 Is no small enemy to that from God which speaks to 
 
 us within. 
 
 So we must watch and pray, 
 For fear our days go idly by. 
 If you may talk and it be best for you, 
 Talk and build up the soul ; 
 But evil habit, and carelessness about our prattle, 
 Make us neglect the doorway of our mouth. 
 Yet holy communing about the things of God leads us 
 
 no little way along the spiritual road, 
 And most of all when man meets man 
 Like to himself in heart and mind, like to himself-- in 
 
 God. 
 
 THOMAS A Kt.vuMS.
 
 JUNE 5. 157 
 
 /\ A Y dear friends, never let the seeming worth- 
 * * * lessness of sympathy make you keep 
 back that sympathy of which, when men are 
 suffering around you, your heart is full. Go 
 and give it without asking yourself whether it is 
 worth the while to give it. It is too sacred a 
 thing for you to tell what it is worth. God, 
 from whom it comes, sends it through you to 
 His needy child. Do not ever let any low skep 
 ticism make you distrust it, but speak out what 
 God has put it in your heart to speak to any 
 sufferer. The sympathy of God for man has 
 just this same difficulty about it, if we try to 
 analyze it. We cannot say that He has done 
 anything for us. We cannot tell even of any 
 thought that He has put into our minds. Merely 
 He has been near us. He has known that we 
 were in trouble and He has been sorry for us. 
 
 I. 108, 109. 
 
 For I, a man, with men am linked, 
 And not a brick with bricks ; no gain 
 That I experience must remain 
 Unshared ; but should my best endeavor 
 To share it, fail subsisteth ever 
 God s care above, and 1 exult 
 That God by God s own ways occult 
 May doth I will believe bring back 
 All wanderers to a single track. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 158 JUNE 6. 
 
 See that thou make all things according to the 
 pattern shewed to thee in the mount. HEB. viii. 5. 
 
 FOR man to accept the pattern of his living 
 absolutely from any other being besides 
 God in all the universe would be for him to 
 sacrifice his self and to lose his originality. But 
 for man to find and simply reproduce the pict 
 ure of his life which is in God is for him not 
 to sacrifice but to find his self. For the man 
 is in God. The ideal, the possible perfection 
 of everything that he can do or be, is there in 
 God ; and to be original for any man is not to 
 start aside with headlong recklessness and do 
 what neither brother-man nor God dreamed of 
 our doing ; but it is to do with filial loyalty 
 the act which, because God is God, a being 
 such as we are ought to do under the circum 
 stances, in the conditions in which we stand. 
 Because no other being ever was or ever will be 
 just the same as you, and because precisely the 
 same conditions never before have been and 
 never will be grouped about any other mortal 
 life as are grouped around yours, therefore for 
 you to do and be what you, with your own 
 nature in your own circumstances, ought in the 
 judgment of the perfect mind to do and be, that 
 is originality for you. m I2 , I3 .
 
 JUNE 7. 159 
 
 TS not Christ the mountain up into which the 
 believer goes, and in which he finds the di 
 vine idea of himself ? As a mountain seems to 
 he the meeting-place of earth and heaven, the 
 place where the bending skies meet the aspiring 
 planet, the place where the sunshine and the 
 cloud keep closest company with the granite 
 and the grass : so Christ is the meeting-place 
 of divinity and humanity ; He is at once the 
 condescension of divinity and the exaltation of 
 humanity ; and man wanting to know God s 
 idea of man, any man wanting to know God s 
 idea of him, must go up into Christ, and he will 
 find it there. m . l6 . 
 
 There littleness was not ; the least of things 
 
 Seemed infinite ; and there his spirit shaped 
 
 Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw. 
 
 What wonder if his being thus became 
 
 Sublime and comprehensive ! Low desires, 
 
 Low thoughts, had there no place ; yet was his heart 
 
 Lowly ; for he was meek in gratitude, 
 
 Oft as he called those ecstasies to mind, 
 
 And whence they flowed ; and from them he acquired 
 
 Wisdom, which works through patience ; thence he 
 
 learned 
 
 In oft recurring hours of sober thought 
 To look on Nature with a humble heart, 
 Self-questioned where it did not understand, 
 And with a superstitious eye of love. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 160 JUNE 8. 
 
 And He laid His right hand upon rue, saying 
 unto me, Fear not; I am the first and tlie last : 
 I am He that live th, and was dead ; and, behold I 
 am alive for evermore, Amen. REV. i. 17, 18. 
 
 " T AM He that liveth, and was dead." We 
 do not begin to know how wonderful that 
 is. Remember the eternally living, the very life 
 of all lives. And yet into that life of lives death 
 has come, as an episode, an incident. I do 
 not speak now of the immense provocation, the 
 immense love that brought so strange a tiling 
 as the submission to death on the part of the 
 Ever-living One. I speak only of this, that 
 when death came to Him it was seen to be not 
 
 the end of life, but only an event in life. 
 
 i. 214. 
 
 " Thou knowest not now ; for here \ve see but darkly 
 
 The outlines of His Grace ; 
 The rest is learned in Heaven s eternal glory, 
 And face to face. 
 
 " Then thou shalt know ; that passionless hereafter 
 
 Shall solve all mystery : 
 
 Dream not that life can hold the tide of wonder 
 In store for thee."
 
 JUNE 9. 161 
 
 "THE disciples began as fishermen who could 
 1 not do without their nets and boats and 
 houses and fishing friends and sports and gains 
 and gossipings. Jesus carried them up till they 
 were crying, " Lord, show us the Father, and it 
 surficeth us." That wonderful change how 
 wonderful it was we forget, because the story 
 is so familiar He brought about by showing 
 them His salvation. When, living with Him, 
 they saw the glory of forgiveness and regenera 
 tion, saw the new life that opened before those 
 who really knew His grace, everything changed 
 to them. It was not so important how they 
 fared, what food they ate, what they wore, how 
 many fish they caught. " All these things do 
 the nations of the earth seek after." To them 
 the questions shifted. The tests of life swept 
 higher up. Were they indeed His ? Had they 
 caught His spirit ? Were they living His life ? 
 Had they part in His eternity ? And so when 
 you and I really desire the salvation of Christ, 
 He will do for us all that He did for them. Our 
 tests of life, too, shall sweep up. 1.297,298. 
 
 How inexhaustibly the spirit grows ! 
 One object she seemed erewhile born to reach 
 With her whole energies, and die content, 
 So like a wall at the world s end it stood, 
 With naught beyond to live for is it reached? 
 Already are new undreamed energies 
 Out-growing under, and extending further 
 To a new object ; there s another world ! 
 
 B3OWNING.
 
 162 JUNE 10. 
 
 JESUS spends the night in prayer and med- 
 itation. Out of this solitude, out of this 
 mysterious communion with His Father, in 
 which He has, as it were, refilled Himself with 
 the assurance that the human is son to the 
 Divine, He comes when morning breaks, and 
 gathering His disciples around Him, He speaks 
 to them, and the multitude who have thronged 
 about Him, the Sermon on the Mount. . . . 
 
 Neander calls the Sermon on the Mount " the 
 Magna Charta of the kingdom of God." It is 
 a fine phrase, and in one sense it is completely 
 true. But really the idea of God which fills the 
 great discourse is not the idea of king, but the 
 idea of father. . . . What gives it its great, 
 everlasting value, is the passing over of king 
 ship into fatherhood ; or, if you please to put it 
 so, the opening and deepening of kingship till it 
 reveals the fatherhood which lies folded at the 
 
 heart Of it. INFLUENCE, 25. 26, 27, 
 
 Thou Who wast Centre of all Heights on the Mount of 
 
 Beatitudes 
 Grant us to sit with Thee in heavenly places. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 JUNE ii. 163 
 
 WHAT do you know about the uses of the 
 Lord, of this great work which the 
 Lord has to do ; what do you know of it that 
 gives you the right to say that your power is 
 little ? God may have some most critical use 
 to put you to as soon as you declare yourself 
 His servant. Men judge by the size of things; 
 God judges by their fitness. . . . Fitness is 
 more than size. You can see something of 
 your size ; but you can see almost nothing of 
 your fitness until you understand all the won 
 derful manifold work that God has to do. It 
 is a most wanton presumption and pride for 
 any man to dare to be sure that there is not 
 some very important and critical place which 
 just he and no one else is made to fill. It is 
 almost as presumptuous to think you can do 
 nothing as to think you can do everything. 
 The latter folly supposes that God exhausted 
 Himself when He made you ; but the former 
 supposes that God made a hopeless blunder 
 when he made you, which it is quite as impi 
 ous for you to think. n. 2g8 , 2gg . 
 
 Lord, teach me how to do Thy will, i 
 
 And to walk worthily and humbly before Thee. 
 Thou art my wisdom ; Thou dost really know me, 
 Thou knewest me before the world was made, or ever 
 
 I was born in it. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 1 64 JUNE 12. 
 
 / saw flic dead, small and great, stand before 
 God. REV. xx. 12. 
 
 TAKE these three ideas, and I think that we 
 can see something of what it must have heen 
 for souls to stand, as John the Evangelist in his 
 great vision saw them standing before God. 
 They had gone up above all the small and tem 
 porary standards, and laid their lives close upon 
 the one perfect and eternal standard by which 
 men must be judged. No longer did it matter 
 to them whether they were rich or poor, whether 
 men praised them, or abused them, or pitied 
 them. The one question about themselves, into 
 which all other questions gathered and were 
 lost, was whether they were good, whether they 
 were obedient to God. 
 
 And then, along with this, there had come to 
 them a true and cordial meeting with their breth 
 ren. No child of their Father was too lofty or 
 too low for them to be truly his brethren, when 
 they stood, small and great, together before 
 God. 
 
 And yet, again, in presence of the Infinite, 
 they had comprehended their immortality. They 
 had seen how, within that life to which their 
 lives belonged, there was room for a growth 
 which might go on to all eternity. 
 
 No wonder that as St. John looked upon that 
 vision it filled all his soul with joy. iv. 
 
 . 70, 71.
 
 JUNE 13. 165 
 
 P) EMEMBER that there is an atheism which 
 *\ still repeats the creed. There is a belief 
 in God which does not bring Him, nay, rather 
 say which does not let Him come, into close 
 contact with our daily life. The very reverence 
 with which we honor God may make us shut 
 Him out from the hard tasks and puzzling prob 
 lems with which we have to do. Many of 
 us who call ourselves theists are like the savages 
 who, in the desire to honor the wonderful sun 
 dial which had been given them, built a roof 
 over it. Break down the roof ; let God in on 
 your life. H . l6o . 
 
 The thought of God, the thought of Thee, 
 
 Who liest in my heart, 
 And yet beyond imagined space 
 
 Outstretched and present art, 
 
 The thought of God is like the tree 
 
 Beneath whose shade I lie, 
 And watch the fleets of snowy clouds 
 
 Sail o er the silent sky. 
 
 Tis like that soft invading light, 
 
 Which in all darkness shines, 
 The thread that through life s sombre \veb 
 
 In golden pattern twines. 
 
 The wild flower on the mossy ground 
 
 Scarce bends its pliant form, 
 When overhead the autumnal wood 
 
 Is thundering like a storm. 
 
 So is it with our humbled souls 
 
 Down in the thought of God, 
 Scarce conscious in their sober peace 
 
 Of the wild storms abroad. 
 
 F. W. FABER
 
 1 66 JUNE 14. 
 
 Kilter into thy closet, an if when thou hast shut 
 thy door, pra\ to th\ Father which is in secret. 
 
 M.vrr. ii. 6. 
 
 I need not leave the jostling world, 
 
 Or wait till daily tasks are o er, 
 To fold my palms in secret prayer 
 
 Within the close-shut closet door. 
 
 There is a viewless cloistered room 
 As high as heaven, as fair as day, 
 
 Where, though my feet may join the throng, 
 My soul can enter in and pray. 
 
 No human step approaching breaks 
 
 The blissful silence of tiie place ; 
 No shadow steals across the light 
 
 That falls from my Redeemer s face. 
 
 One hearkening even cannot know 
 When 1 have crossed the threshold o er; 
 
 For He alone who hears my prayer 
 Has heard the shutting of the door. 
 
 HARRIET MCEWEN KI.WBALL. 
 
 TESUS never did a deed, He never thought a 
 J thought, that He did not carry it back with 
 His soul before it took its final shape and get 
 His Father s judgment on it. He lifted His eyes 
 at any instant and talked through the open sky, 
 and on the winds came back to Him the answer. 
 He talked with Pilate and with Peter, with Herod 
 and with John ; and yet His talk with them was 
 silence ; it did not begin to make His life, to 
 be His life, compared with that perpetual com 
 munion with His Father which made the funda 
 mental consciousness as it made the unbroken 
 habit of His life. v. s,.
 
 JUNE 15. 167 
 
 When the burnt offering began, the song of the 
 Lord began with the trumpets. 
 
 II. CHRON. xxix. 27. 
 
 An offering of a free heart will I give Thee, and 
 praise Thy name, O Lord. Ps. liv. 6. 
 
 NOT in a gloomy silence, as if the people 
 were doing a hard duty which they would 
 not do if they could help it, did the smoke of 
 their offering ascend to God ; but with a burst 
 of jubilant music and with a song of triumphant 
 joy, which rang down through the crowded 
 courts, the host of the Jews claimed for them 
 selves anew their place in the obedience of God. 
 The act of sacrifice was done amid a chorus of 
 delight. . 22 . 
 
 Nothing more grateful can I offer Him, 
 
 Than wholly to give up my heart to God, joining it 
 
 closely unto His. 
 
 Then all my inward self shall leap for joy, 
 When my soul shall wholly be at one with God. 
 Then shall He say to me, 
 "Wiltthou be with Me? 
 1 will be with thee." 
 And I shall answer, 
 
 " O Lord, bow down and stay with me, 
 And I shall love to be with Thee ; 
 This is the end of my desire, 
 A heart made one with Thee." 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS.
 
 168 JUNE 16. 
 
 No chastening for the present seemeth to be jo\- 
 ous, but grievous : nevertheless afterward it yieldeth 
 
 the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which 
 are exercised thereby. HKH. xii. 1 1 . 
 
 \I7HEN a man conquers his adversaries and 
 * * his difficulties, it is not as if he never had 
 encountered them. Their power, still kept, is 
 in all his future life. They are not only events 
 in his past history, they are elements in all his 
 present character. His victory is colored with 
 the hard struggle that won it. His sea of glass 
 is always mingled with fire, just as this peaceful 
 crust of the earth on which we live, with its 
 wheat fields, and vineyards, and orchards, and 
 flower-beds, is full still of the power of the con 
 vulsion that wrought it into its present shape, 
 of the floods and volcanoes and glaciers which 
 have rent it, or drowned it, or tortured it. Just 
 as the whole fruitful earth, deep in its heart, is 
 still mingled with the ever-burning fire that is 
 working out its chemical fitness for its work, 
 just so the life that has been overturned and 
 overturned by the strong hand of God, filled 
 with the deep revolutionary forces of suffering, 
 purified by the strong fires of temptation, keeps 
 its long discipline forever, roots in that discipline 
 the deepest growths of the most sunny and lux 
 uriant spiritual life that it is ever able to attain. 
 
 IV. 113.
 
 JUNE 17. 169 
 
 THE NEW COLOSSUS. 
 
 \_The Barlholdi Statue of Liberty. } 
 
 Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, 
 
 With conquering iimbs astride, from land to land ; 
 
 Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand 
 
 A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 
 
 Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 
 
 Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 
 
 Glows world-wide welcome ; her mild eyes command 
 
 The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. 
 
 " Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp ! " cries she 
 
 With silent lips. " Give me your tired, your poor, 
 
 Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
 
 The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
 
 Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, 
 
 I lift my lamp beside the golden door ! " 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS. 
 
 MY patriotism lives and flutters as a senti 
 ment unless I know that the land I love 
 is really making, by its constant life, a contribu 
 tion to the righteousness and progress of the 
 world. When I know that, then 1 set my pa 
 triotic impulse free to act. My land becomes to 
 me merely the special spot where I am placed 
 to labor for the universal spiritual benefit of 
 man. Then the old Psalmist s words become 
 real to me ; and as I live my life of citizen or 
 public officer, as I take my office or cast my 
 vote or pay my tax, I say with David, "Be 
 cause of the house of the Lord our God, I will 
 seek to do thee good." Such was the perpet 
 ual, self-limited character of the love of Jesus 
 for His native land. INFLUENCE, I33
 
 170 JUNR 18. 
 
 V/"OU remember, perhaps, in Tennyson s 
 1 "Enoch Arden " how, when Enoch has 
 made his resolution and deliberately determined 
 that he will not claim the home to which he has 
 a right, and has settled down to his solitary life, 
 these lines describe his condition : 
 
 " He was not all unhappy. His resolve 
 Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore 
 Prayer from a living source within the will, 
 And beating up thro all the bitter world, 
 Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, 
 Kept him a living soul." 
 
 What are such words as these but an echo of 
 the strong words of Jesus, which declared that 
 if a man lost his life for the highest purposes, 
 "for my sake and the gospel s," he should find 
 it. Indeed there are various half-mystic words 
 of Christ which explain and illuminate this truth, 
 of which our own experience bears witness, that 
 when a man voluntarily surrenders that which 
 is legitimately his for some sublimer claim, he 
 does not really lose it; its spiritual essence, 
 its precious soul, remains with him, and is still 
 his. . . . Shall we not think that Christ spoke 
 all His deep words out of His own experience ? 
 He himself had known what it was to gain the 
 life He lost, to have the thing that He surren 
 dered. When He gave up the home of the 
 foxes and the birds, it was to find a home all 
 the more deeply in His Father s love. 
 
 in. 238-240.
 
 JUNE 19. 171 
 
 Finally, bretJiren, whatsoever things are true, 
 whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are 
 just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things 
 are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ; if 
 there be any virtue and if there be any praise, think 
 on these things . PHIL. iv. 8. 
 
 SOME people seem to be here in the world 
 just on their guard all the while, always so 
 afraid of doing wrong that they never do any 
 thing really right. They do not add to the 
 world s moral force ; as the man, who, by con 
 stant watchfulness over his own health, just 
 keeps himself from dying, contributes nothing 
 to the world s vitality. All merely negative 
 purity has something of the taint of the im 
 purity that it resists. The effort not to be friv 
 olous is frivolous itself. The effort not to be 
 selfish is very apt to be only another form of 
 selfishness. i. Ig3 , Ig4 . 
 
 Is it then true that none of us can keep him 
 self unspotted from the world unless his life be 
 full of reverence for God and trust in Christ and 
 tender pity for his fellow-men ? What is that 
 but to say, that " Except a man be born again 
 he cannot enter into the kingdom of God " ? 
 Oh, what poor makeshifts all our laws and de 
 cencies and proprieties appear beside the live 
 power of the new manhood of grace. Oh, how 
 hard and hopeless seems the prudent, watchful, 
 timid man, who is trying to save himself by 
 constant self-denials, beside the new freeman of 
 the Lord Jesus Christ, full of the high ambitions 
 and sure hopes of the heavenly life. i. I9I .
 
 i;2 JUNE 20. 
 
 DUT your, hand in Christ s, that as He leads 
 you other men, who have turned away 
 from Him, may look and see you walking with 
 Him, learn to love Him through your love. 1 
 do not believe any man ever yet genuinely, 
 humbly, thoroughly gave himself to Christ with 
 out some other finding Christ through him. 1 
 wish it might tempt some of your souls to the 
 higher life. I hope it may. At least I am sure 
 that it may add a new sweetness and nobleness 
 to the consecration which some young heart is 
 making of itself to-day, if it can hear, down the 
 new path on which it is entering, not merely the 
 great triumphant chant of personal salvation, 
 " unto Him that loved us and washed us from 
 our sins be glory and dominion;" but also 
 the calmer, deeper thanksgiving for usefulness, 
 " Blessed be the God of comfort, who comfort - 
 eth us that we may be able to comfort them that 
 are in tribulation." i. ,e, J7 . 
 
 If there be some weaker one, 
 
 Give me strength to help him on ; 
 
 If a blinder soul there be, 
 
 Let me guide him nearer Thee. 
 
 Make my mortal dreams come true 
 
 With the work I fain would do ; 
 
 Clothe with life the weak intent, 
 
 Let me be the thing I meant ; 
 
 Let me find in thy employ 
 
 Peace that dearer is than joy ; 
 
 Out of self to love be led 
 
 And to heaven acclimated, 
 
 Until all things sweet and good 
 
 Seem my natural habitude. WHITTIER
 
 JUNE 21. 173 
 
 ^THINK what the study of nature might be- 
 * come, if, keeping every accurate and care 
 ful method of investigation of the way in which 
 the universe is governed and arranged, it yet 
 was always hearing, always rejoicing to hear, 
 behind all methods and governments and machin 
 eries, the sacred movement of the personal will 
 and nature which is the soul of all. Whether 
 we call such hearing science or poetry, it matters 
 not. If we call it poetry, we are only assert 
 ing the poetic issue of all science. If we call it 
 science, we are only declaring that poetry is not 
 fiction but the completest truth. The two unite 
 in religion, which, when it has its full chance to 
 do all its work, shall bring poetry and science 
 together in the presence of a recognized God, 
 whom the student then shall not shrink from, 
 but delight to know, and find in Him the illumi 
 nation and the harmony of all his knowledge. 
 
 V. 79, 80. 
 
 Bat we, fraile wights ! whose sight cannot sustaine 
 
 The sun s bright beames when he on us doth shyne, 
 
 But that their points rebutted back againe 
 
 Are duld, how can we see with feeble eyne 
 
 The glory of that Majestic Divine 
 
 In sight of whom both Sun and Moone are dark 
 
 Compared to His least resplendent sparke. 
 
 The meanes, therefore, which unto us is lent 
 
 Him to behold, is on his workes to looke 
 
 Which He hath made in beauty excellent 
 
 And in the same as in a brasen book 
 
 To reade enregistred in every nooke 
 
 His goodnesse, which his beautie doth declare, 
 
 For all that s good is beautiful and fair. 
 
 SPENSER.
 
 174 JUNE 22. 
 
 THE unconscious needs of the world are all 
 appeals and cries to God. He does not 
 wait to hear the voice of conscious want. The 
 mere vacancy is a begging after fulness ; the 
 mere poverty is a supplication for wealth ; the 
 mere darkness cries for light. Think then a 
 moment of God s infinite view of the capacities 
 of His universe, and consider what a great cry 
 must be forever going up into His ears to which 
 His soul longs and endeavors to respond. . . . 
 " He first loved us ! " Our hope is in the ear 
 which God has for simple need ; so that mere 
 emptiness cries out to Him for filling, mere 
 poverty for wealth. n . 95i 96 . 
 
 If there had anywhere appeared in space 
 
 Another place of refuge, where to flee, 
 Our hearts had taken refuge in that place, 
 
 And not with Thee. 
 
 For we against creation s bars had beat 
 
 Like prisoned eagles, through great worlds had sought 
 Though but a foot of ground to plant our fer t, 
 
 Where Thou wert not. 
 
 And only when we found in earth and air, 
 
 In heaven or hell that such might nowhere be 
 That we could not flee from Thee anywhere, 
 
 We fled to Thee. 
 
 R. C. TKKNCH.
 
 JUNE 23.. 175 
 
 God, iu/10 at sundry times and in diverse man 
 ners spake in time past unto the fathers by the 
 prophets, hath in these last days spoken to us by 
 His Son. HF.I:. i. i, 2. 
 
 NO one can read the Gospel of St. John and 
 then turn to what is left us of the life 
 of Socrates, without being struck and almost 
 startled with the suggested comparison between 
 the account of Christ s last talk with His disci 
 ples before His crucifixion, which is given in five 
 chapters of that Gospel, and the beautiful story 
 of what Socrates said to Simmias and Cebes 
 and his other friends in the prison at Athens 
 just before he drank the hemlock, the story 
 which Plato has written for us in the Phaedo. 
 And nowhere could the essential difference as 
 well as the likeness of the two great teachers 
 become more apparent. ... I can almost dream 
 what Socrates would say to any man who said 
 there was no difference between Jesus and him. 
 But how shall we state the difference ? One is 
 divine and human ; the other is human only. 
 One is Redeemer ; the other is philosopher. 
 One is inspired, and the other questions. One 
 reveals, and the other argues. These state 
 ments, doubtless, are all true. And in them all 
 there is wrapped up this, which is the truth of 
 all the influence of Jesus over men s minds, 
 that where Socrates brings an argument to meet 
 an objection, Jesus always brings a nature to 
 meet a nature, a whole being which the truth 
 has filled with strength, to meet another whole 
 being which error has filled with feebleness. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 235, 245.
 
 176 JUNE 24. 
 
 [ Ye~\ are built upon the foundation of (Jie apostles 
 and prophets, Jesus Christ Jlimsclf being //if chief 
 corner-stone ; in whom all the building fitly framed 
 together groweth up into an holy temple in the Lord. 
 
 Kl H. 11. 20, 21. 
 
 T HERE are the multitudes who go in and 
 * out, who count the church as theirs, who 
 gather from her thought, knowledge, the com 
 fort of good company, the sense of safety ; and 
 then there are others who think they truly, as 
 the light phrase so deeply means, "belong to 
 the church." They are given to it, and no com 
 pulsion could separate them from it. They are 
 part of its structure. They are its pillars. Here 
 and hereafter they can never go out of it. Life 
 would mean nothing to them outside the church 
 of Christ. n . eg. 6g . 
 
 Behold, O Lord, how thy faithful Jerusalem rejoices 
 in the triumph of the Cross and the power of the 
 Saviour ; grant, therefore, that those who love her 
 may abide in her peace, and those who depart from her 
 may one day come back to her embrace ; that when all 
 sorrows are taken away, we may be refreshed with the 
 joys of an eternal resurrection, and be made partakers 
 of her peace, through Thy mercy, O our God, Who art 
 blessed, and dost live, and govern all things, world 
 
 without end. 
 
 ANCIENT COLLECTS, BRIGHT.
 
 JUNE 25. 177 
 
 "THERE is some duty which God has made 
 * ready for you to do to-morrow ; nay, to 
 day ! He has built it like a house for you to 
 occupy. You have not to build it. He has 
 built it, and He will lead you up to its door 
 and set you with your feet upon its threshold. 
 Will you go in and occupy it ? Will you do 
 the duty which He has made ready ? Perhaps 
 it is the great comprehensive duty of the con 
 secration of yourself to Him. Perhaps it is 
 some special task. Whatever it is, may He 
 who anticipated your love by His own in giv 
 ing you the task, now help you to fulfil His 
 love with yours by doing it. Amen. y. 56. 
 
 If to-day you are not ready, 
 
 Will you be to-morrow? 
 
 And to-morrow is a day you must not count on ; 
 
 How do you know that you will have the morrow for 
 
 your own ? 
 
 Lord, 
 
 All is Thine 
 In heaven and earth. 
 
 I long to give myself to Thee, a free-will offering, 
 And be forever Thine. 
 Lord, in my simple heart I give myself to-day to be 
 
 Thy servant ever, 
 To listen unto Thee, and be a sacrifice of everlasting 
 
 praise. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 178 JUNE 26. 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time s waste: 
 Then can 1 drown an eye, unused to flow, 
 For precious friends hid in death s dateless night, 
 And weep afresh love s long since cancell d woe, 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish d sight: 
 Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
 And heavily from woe to woe tell o er 
 The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
 Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
 But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, 
 All losses are restored and sorrows end. 
 
 SHAKESPEARE. 
 
 OURELY there is no more beautiful sight 
 to see in all this world, full as it is 
 of beautiful adjustments and mutual minis 
 trations, than the growth of two friends 
 natures who, as they grow old together, are 
 always fathoming, with newer needs, deeper 
 depths of each other s life, and opening richer 
 veins of one another s helpfulness. And this 
 best culture of personal friendship is taken up 
 and made, in its infinite completion, the gospel 
 method of the progressive saving of the soul 
 by Christ. n. 54 .
 
 JUNE 27. 179 
 
 How many loan s have yc ? MATT. xv. 34. 
 
 IT is the completeness of the nature of Jesus, 
 the way in which it is all one, and works 
 and lives as one, that makes Him often so very 
 different from us. Our lives are disjointed. 
 One part of us works at a time. It is hard for 
 us to be brave and prudent together ; hard for 
 us to be liberal and just at the same time. . . . 
 Now in this miracle of Jesus which I have 
 recalled to you there is a meeting of generosity 
 and frugality which is striking and suggestive. 
 These two things do meet indeed with us. We 
 try to be generous and frugal at the same time, 
 but the result in us is mean. We try to give 
 and yet to save. We try to satisfy the in 
 stinct which makes us want to aid our breth 
 ren, and at the same time not to disappoint 
 the instinct which makes us want to save and 
 spare the things we have. But the result in 
 us is mean. When Christ unites generosity 
 and frugality the result in Him is noble. We 
 feel His pity and care for the poor people a 
 great deal more when we see Him take the 
 wretched little stock of food which they pos 
 sessed into His hands and make that the basis 
 of His bounty, than if with an easy sweep of 
 His hand He had bid the skies open and rain 
 manna and quails once more upon the hungry 
 host. His generosity is emphasized for us by 
 its frugal methods, and His frugality is digni 
 fied by its generous purpose. n . 128, 129.
 
 1 8o JUNE 28. 
 
 A MAN comes up to our life, and looking 
 round upon the crowd of our fellow-men, 
 he says, "See, I will strike the life of this 
 brother of ours and you shall hear how true 
 it rings." He does strike it, and it does seem 
 to them to ring true, and they shout their ap 
 plause ; hut we whose life is struck feel run 
 ning all through us at the stroke the sense of 
 hollowness. Our soul sinks as we hear the 
 praises. They start desire but they reveal 
 weakness. No true man is ever so humble 
 and so afraid of himself as when other men are 
 praising him most loudly. L 254 . 
 
 Or what if Heaven for once its searching light 
 Lent to some partial eye, disclosing all 
 
 The rude bad thoughts that in our bosom s night 
 Wander at large, nor heed Love s gentle thrall? 
 
 Thou know st our bitterness our joys are Thine; 
 
 No stranger Thou to all our wanderings wild : 
 Nor could we bear to think how every line 
 
 Of us, Thy darkened likeness and defiled, 
 
 Stands in full sunshine of Thy piercing eye, 
 But that Thou call st us Brethren : sweet repose 
 
 Is in that word ! the Lord who dwells on high 
 Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows. 
 
 JOHN KEBLE.
 
 JUNE 2Q. 181 
 
 "THIS church of all the saints is a great power 
 1 in the world. Every true servant of God 
 must belong with this mighty service of God ; 
 must get his strength through it, and contribute 
 his strength into it. Ever from out the past, 
 from the old saints who lived in other times, 
 from Enoch, David, Paul, and John, Augustine, 
 Jerome, Luther, Leighton, there comes down the 
 power of God to us. Because they were full of 
 it, we, by association with them, grow fuller 
 of it than we could be by ourselves. . . . Our 
 faith mounts up with their exultant prayers. 
 Our weak devotion, tired and drooping, rests 
 against the strong pillars of their certain trust. 
 Their quick sight teaches our half-opened eyes 
 the way to look toward the light that shall 
 unseal them wholly. L I2J . 
 
 I think of the saints I have known, and lift up mine 
 
 eyes 
 
 To the far away home of beautiful Paradise, 
 Where the song of saints gives voice to an undividing 
 
 sea 
 On whose plain their feet stand firm while they keep 
 
 their jubilee. 
 As the sound of waters their voice, as the sound of thun- 
 
 derings, 
 While they all at once rejoice, while all sing and while 
 
 each one sings ; 
 Where more saints flock in, and more, and yet more, 
 
 and again yet more, 
 
 And not one turns back to depart thro the open en 
 trance door. 
 O sights of our lovely earth, O sound of our earthly 
 
 sea, 
 
 Speak to me of Paradise, of all blessed saints to me ; 
 Or keep silence touching them, and speak to my heart 
 
 alone 
 Of the Saint of saints, the King of kings, the Lamb on 
 
 the Throne. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 182 JUNE 30. 
 
 THE child [Jesus] clasped His tiny arms about 
 His mother s neck, or laid His little hand 
 into the strong hand of Joseph, as they walked 
 on the long road to Egypt, with the same sim 
 ple desire to utter love and to find love which is 
 the first sign of Life akin to their own that mil 
 lions of parents hearts have leaped to recognize 
 in their first-born. Nay, he but little understands 
 the dignity and unity of all God s vast creation 
 who is offended or distressed when he is told that 
 in the Lord of Life these primal affections were of 
 the same sort with those which make the beauty 
 of the life of the beings which are less than man. 
 Even the dog, the bird, the lion, know these 
 first instincts of companionship which found their 
 consummate exhibition upon earth when the Son 
 of Mary clung to a human mother with a human 
 
 lOVe. INFLUENCE, 79. 80. 
 
 . . . Whate er be the fate that has hurt us or joyed, 
 Whatever the face that is turned to us out of the void ; 
 Be it cursing or blessing ; or night, or the light of the 
 
 sun ; 
 Be it ill, be it good ; be it life, be it death, it is One ; 
 
 One thought, and one law, and one awful and infinite 
 power ; 
 
 In atom and world ; in the bursting of fruit and of 
 flower ; 
 
 The laughter of children, and the roar of the lion un 
 tamed ; 
 
 And the stars in their courses one name that can 
 never be named. 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
 
 JULY i. 183 
 
 Phillips Brooks ordained Deacon, 1859. 
 
 He preached Christ . . . that He is the Son of 
 God. ACTS xx. 20. 
 
 ONLY he who consents to enlarge his own 
 conception of the possibilities of faith 
 with God s can calmly watch the everlasting 
 growth of revelation, see the old open into the 
 new, and yet know that the truth of Christ is 
 the truth of eternity, and that when the soul 
 of God claimed the soul of man in the Incar 
 nation, it took possession of it forever ; and 
 so Christian faith can never die. There have 
 been no nobler servants of God and of hu 
 manity than they whose special mission it has 
 been to teach this truth to men. . . . 
 
 To discriminate between the eternal sub 
 stance of Christianity and its temporary forms, 
 to bid men see how often forms had perished 
 and the substance still survived, to make men 
 know the danger of imperfect and false tests 
 of faith, to encourage them to be not merely 
 resigned but glad as they beheld the one faith 
 ever casting its old forms away, and by its un 
 dying vitality creating for itself new this was 
 the noble work which Dean Stanley did for 
 multitudes of grateful souls all over Chris 
 tendom. He led countless hearts out of the 
 surprise and fear of their own day into the un 
 surprised and fearless peace of faith in God. 
 Thus it was that he opened wide the great 
 gates of the Divine Life, and made the way 
 more clear for the children to their Father. 
 
 III. 81, Sz.
 
 1 84 JULY 2. 
 
 LOVING obedience, loving obedience is the 
 only atmosphere in which the vision of 
 the general purpose and the faithfulness in 
 special work grow in their true proportion and 
 relation to each other. The distant hills with 
 the glory on their summits, and the close 
 meadow where the grass waits for the scythe, 
 they meet completely in the broad kingdom 
 of a loved and obeyed Lord. And who is Lord 
 but Christ ? And where but in the soul of him 
 who finds in Christ the worthy revealer of the 
 life s purpose and the sufficient master of every 
 deed shall the great ideals of life and the petty 
 details of life come harmoniously together ? 
 Obey Him, love Him, and nothing is too great, 
 nothing is too little ; for love knows no struggle 
 of great or little. No impulse is too splendid 
 for the simplest task ; no task is too simple for 
 the most splendid impulse. v. n 9 , J2 o. 
 
 1 love thy men and women, Lord, 
 
 The children round thy door ; 
 Calm thoughts that inward strength afford--- 
 
 Thy will, O Lord, is more. 
 
 But when thy will my life shall hold, 
 
 Thine to the very core, 
 The world which that same will did mould, 
 
 I shall love ten times more. 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD.
 
 JULY 3. 185 
 
 \\ 7HILE the union of duty and joy is nat 
 ural it is not essential and unbreakable. 
 The plant ought to come to flower, but if the 
 plant fails of its flower it is still a plant. The 
 duty should open into joy, but it may fail of 
 joy and still be duty. If the joy is not there, 
 still hold the duty, and be sure that you have 
 the real thing while you are holding that. Be 
 all the more dutiful, though it be in the dark. 
 Do righteousness and forget happiness, and so 
 it is most likely that happiness will come. 
 
 1.29. 
 
 Do only Thou, in that dim shrine, 
 Unknown or known, remain, divine; 
 There, or if not, at least in eyes 
 That scan the fact that round them lies, 
 The hand to sway, the judgment guide, 
 In sight and sense, Thyself divide : 
 Be Thou but there, in soul and heart, 
 ! will not ask to feel Thou art. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
 
 1 86 JULY 4. 
 
 Land of the willful gospel, thou worst and thou best ; 
 Tall Adam of lands, new-made of the dust of the West ; 
 Thou wroughtest alone in the Garden of God, unblest 
 Till He fashioned lithe Freedom to lie for thine Eve on 
 thy breast. 
 
 Knowledge of Good and of 111, O Land, she hath given 
 
 thee ; 
 Perilous godhoods of choosing have rent thee and riven 
 
 thee ; 
 Will s high adoring to Ill s low exploring hath driven 
 
 thee- 
 Freedom, thy Wife, hath uplifted thy life and clean 
 
 shriven thee. 
 
 SiDNtv LAMKH. 
 
 ON my country s birthday ... 1 may ask 
 you for your prayer in her behalf. That 
 on the manifold and wondrous chance which 
 God is giving her, on her freedom (for she is 
 free, since the old stain of slavery was washed 
 out in blood) ; on her unconstrained religious 
 life ; on her passion for education, and her 
 eager search for truth ; on her jealous care for 
 the poor man s rights and opportunities ; on 
 her countless quiet homes where the future 
 generations of her men are growing ; on her 
 manufactures and her commerce ; on her wide 
 gates open to the east and to the west ; on her 
 strange meetings of the races out of which a 
 new race is slowly being born ; on her vast 
 enterprise and her illimitable hopefulness, 
 on all these materials and machineries of man 
 hood, on all that the life of my country must 
 mean for humanity, I may ask you to pray 
 that the blessing of God the Father of man, 
 and Christ the Son of man, may rest forever. 
 
 II. 21.
 
 JULY 5. 187 
 
 I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
 MATT. v. 17. 
 
 TEAR your sins away. Starve your tumul 
 tuous passions. Resist temptations. Aye, 
 if you will, punish yourself with stripes for your 
 iniquities. Cry out to yourself and to your 
 brethren, with every voice that you can raise, 
 "Cease to do evil ; " but all the time, down be 
 low, as the deepest cry of your life, let there 
 be this other, " Learn to do well." If you can 
 indeed grow vigorously brave and true and 
 pure, then cowardice and falsehood and licen 
 tiousness must perish in you. O wondrous 
 silent slaughter of our enemies ! O wondrous 
 casting out of fear as love grows perfect ! O 
 death to sin, which comes by the new birth to 
 righteousness ! O destruction, which is but 
 the utterance of fulfilment on the othei side ! 
 O everlasting assurance, that evil has of right 
 no place in the world : and that if good would 
 only lift itself up to its completeness, it might 
 claim the whole world and all of manhood for 
 itself! iv. 218, 213.
 
 1 88 JULY 6. 
 
 Into the woods my Master went, 
 
 Clean forspent, forspent. 
 
 Into the woods my Master came, 
 
 Forspent with love and shame. 
 
 But the olives they were not blind to Him, 
 
 The little gray leaves were kind to Him : 
 
 The thorn-tree had a mind to Him 
 
 When into the woods He came. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master went, 
 
 And He was well content. 
 
 Out of the woods my Master came, 
 
 Content with death and shame. 
 
 When Death and Shame would woo Him last, 
 
 From under the trees they drew Him last : 
 
 Twas on a tree they slew Him last 
 
 When out of the woods He came. 
 
 SIDNEY LAMER. 
 
 TN the garden of Gethsemane reason seemed 
 * to totter on her throne. For the last time 
 the desperate hands had to cling to the truth in 
 instant fear. But there, too, it is not by the di 
 rect conviction of the reason ; it is by the adjust 
 ment of the whole life in obedience to which, 
 no doubt, the reason gave its assent, but which 
 was a transaction far beyond the reason s lim 
 its that tile trembling reason finds composure. 
 When He said, "Thy will be done," all the 
 obscurity began to scatter, and those words 
 which He said four days later, after He had 
 risen, to His disciples, "Ought not Christ to 
 have suffered these things ?" . . . words full 
 of the peace of satisfied intelligence, began 
 
 tO take Shape upon His lips. INFLUENCE, 230.
 
 JULY 7. 189 
 
 SOME of you may remember how our New 
 England poets poet sings to the farmer 
 over whose fields he has been wandering : 
 
 " One harvest from thy field 
 
 Homeward brought the oxen strong ; 
 A second crop thine acres yield, 
 Which I gather in a song." 
 
 This is what makes the everlasting interest of 
 nature ; her capacity of endless association with 
 man, from whom all real interest in the world 
 must radiate, and to whom it always must re 
 turn. As Emerson sings again of those whom 
 he had loved, and who made the landscape in 
 the midst of which he had loved them for ever 
 dear : 
 
 " They took this valley for their toy, 
 
 They played with it in every mood ; 
 A cell for prayer, a hall for iov - 
 They treated nature as cney would. 
 
 "They coloured the horizon round ; 
 
 Stars flamed and faded as they bade ; 
 All echoes hearkened for their sound, 
 They made the woodlands glad or mad." 
 
 " They treated nature as they would." So 
 all men, all races, treat nature according to 
 their wills, whether their wills be the deep 
 utterances of their characters or only the light 
 and fickle impulses of self-indulgence. And 
 what they are to nature, nature is to them 
 to one man the siren, who fascinates him to 
 drunkenness and death ; to another, the wise 
 friend, who teaches him all lessons of self- 
 restraint and sobriety and patient hope and 
 work. m . 270 , 272 .
 
 190 JULY 8. 
 
 Years of the modern ! years of the unperfonn d ! 
 
 Your horizon rises, I see it parting away for more au 
 gust dramas, 
 
 I see not America only, not only Liberty s nation, but 
 other nations preparing, 
 
 I see tremendous entrances and exits, new combina 
 tions, the solidarity of races, 
 
 I see that force advancing with irresistible power on 
 the world s stage. 
 
 Your dreams, O years, how they penetrate through me ! 
 
 (I know not whether I sleep or wake :) 
 The perform d America and Europe grow dim, retiring 
 
 in shadow behind me, 
 The unperform d, more gigantic than ever, advance, 
 
 advance upon me. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN. 
 
 WE must never lose out of our sight the vi 
 sion, never lose out of our ears the music 
 of the real Church and the real world strug 
 gling each into perfection for itself, and so both 
 into unity and identity with one another. 
 
 Very interesting have been in history the 
 pulsations, the brightening and fading, the com 
 ing and going of this great truth of the Church 
 and the world ideally identical. That truth is 
 always present in the words of Jt-sus. . . . 
 The ideal Church, which was the real Church 
 in his eyes, knew no limit but humanity. . . . 
 The relation of the Church to the active world, 
 the conflict and the possible harmony between 
 them, the message of the Church to the world, 
 the turning of the world into the Church, these 
 are the problems and the visions which are 
 more and more occupying the minds of thought 
 ful vision-seeing men. iv. 52, 33 , 54 .
 
 JULY 9. 191 
 
 OBEYING Christ," we say ; and what is 
 Christ ? I think over all that 1 know 
 of Him, and this is what He is: first, He is 
 the utterance of the eternal righteousness, the 
 setting forth before men of th at supreme nat 
 ure in which there is the source and pattern 
 of all goodness, God; second, He is a man 
 of clear, sharp, definite character, who lived a 
 life in Palestine which still shines with a dis 
 tinctness that no other human life can rival ; 
 third, by His spirit He is a perpetual presence, 
 a constant standard and inspiration in the 
 heart of every man who loves and trusts 
 Him. All those things come up to me when 
 1 say " Christ." And now can such a Christ 
 speak to me ? . . . 
 
 There is some act that you are questioning, 
 about to-morrow or to-day. If Jesus were at 
 hand, you would go out and ask Him, "Is it 
 Thy will that I should do it, oh, my Lord ? " 
 Can you not ask Him now ? Is the act right ? 
 Would He do it ? Will it help your soul ? 
 . . . And if the answer to them all is "yes! " 
 then it is just as truly His command that you 
 should do that act as if His gracious figure 
 stood before your sight and His finger visibly 
 pointed to the task. v. 355 , 35 6. 
 
 And the Christ who came of old to His own 
 
 As truly comes to them now, 
 Where the faithful before His altar throne 
 
 With hearts believing bow, 
 
 EMAVANUEL, then and now. 
 
 HARIET McEwtN KLWBALL.
 
 192 JULY 10. 
 
 NOT merely to make men love you and 
 honor you, hut to know how to be loved 
 and honored without losing yourself and grow 
 ing weak, that is the problem of many of the 
 sweetest, richest, most attractive lives. . . . 
 
 If the much-beloved man can look up and 
 demand the love of God ; if, catching sight of 
 that, he can crave it and covet it infinitely 
 above all other love; if, laying hold of its 
 great freedom, he can make it his, and know 
 that he loves God, and know that God loves 
 him, then he is free. Then let him come 
 back and take into a glowing heart the warmest 
 admiration and affection of his brethren ; let 
 him walk the earth with hosts of friends, the 
 heaven that he carries in his heart preserves 
 him. They cannot make him conceited, for he 
 who lives with God must be humble. They 
 cannot drown his selfhood, for the God he 
 loves and serves is always laying upon him 
 his own personal duties, and bringing the soul 
 before its own judgment-seat every day. 
 
 V. .54. 
 
 To pass through life beloved as few are loved, 
 To prove the joys of earth as few have proved, 
 And still to keep the soul s white robe unstained, 
 Such is the victory thou hast gained. 
 
 And Love, that guards where wintry tempests beat, 
 To thee was shelter from the summer heat. 
 What need for grief to blight or cares annoy 
 The heart whose God was her exceeding joy? 
 
 ELIZA SCUDDER.
 
 JULY n. 193 
 
 "THE same light which showed you the 
 heaven that you were made for has al 
 ways showed you the rock that you were 
 chained to ; as the same word of Jesus which 
 showed the young nobleman the treasures in 
 heaven brought back before his mind the treas 
 ures on earth from which he could not tear 
 himself away. This makes the sacredness 
 and awfulness of life when we come to know 
 it, that we are never so near our highest as 
 when we are most sensible of the danger of 
 our lowest, and the danger of the lowest is 
 never so real to us as when the splendor of the 
 highest stands wide open. L 344 . 
 
 O Lord, how wonderful in depth and height, 
 But most in man, how wonderful Thou art ! 
 
 With what a love, what soft persuasive might 
 Victorious o er the stubborn fleshly heart, 
 
 Thy tale complete of saints Thou dost provide, 
 
 To fill the thrones which angels lost through pride ! 
 
 O what a shifting parti-colo.ed scene 
 Of hope and fear, of triumph and dismay, 
 
 Of recklessness and penitence, has been 
 The history of that dreary, lifelong fray ! 
 
 And O the grace to nerve him and to lead, 
 
 How patient, prompt, and lavish at his need ! 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
 
 194 JULY 12. 
 
 Aaron said, Tlion knowcst tlie people, t)iat thcv 
 are set on mischief. For thc\ said unto me, ^[ake 
 us gods, which shall go before us. . . . An if I said 
 unto them, Whosoerer hath any gold, let them break 
 it off. So they gave it me: then I cast it into t/ie 
 fire and there came out t/iis calf. 
 
 Ex. xxxii. 22, 23, 24. 
 
 "THE father says of his profligate son whom 
 * he has never done one wise or vigorous 
 thing to make a noble and pure-minded man : 
 " I cannot tell how it has come. It has not 
 been my fault. I put him into the world and 
 this came out." The father whose faith has 
 been mean and selfish says the same of his 
 boy who is a sceptic. Everywhere there is 
 this cowardly casting off of responsibilities 
 upon the dead circumstances around us. It 
 is a very hard treatment of the poor, dumb, 
 helpless world which cannot answer to defend 
 itself. It takes us as we give ourselves to it, 
 It is our minister fulfilling our commissions 
 for us upon our own souls. If we say to it, 
 " Make us noble," it does make us noble. If 
 we say to it, " Make us mean," it does make 
 us mean. And then we take the nobility and 
 say, "Behold, how noble I have made my 
 self." And we take the meanness and say, 
 "See how mean the world has made me." 
 
 in. 43, 49.
 
 JULY 13. 195 
 
 ALL the separation from sin, all the self- 
 sacrifice by which alone you could pre 
 serve your o\vn purity and help your brethren, 
 has been in you the renewal, the echo, of that 
 terrible giving of Himself for truth and man 
 which Christ accomplished. But if, as you 
 have sacrificed yourself in any way, there has 
 come into you the rich divine assurance of 
 God s love, the deep and peaceful joy in obey 
 ing God, and far bright hopes for your human 
 ity, broken but glorious prospects of what an 
 obedience, perfect where yours is stumbling, 
 complete where yours is partial, shall some day 
 make this world to be ; if all this has come to 
 you upon your cross, as it came to the Lord on 
 His, then the glory as well as the grief of the 
 crucifixion is renewed in you, and the satis 
 faction as well as the pain of your new life is 
 uttered when you say, in soft and solemn 
 words, "I, too, am crucified with Christ." 
 
 But if, impatient, thou let slip thy cross, 
 
 Thou wilt not find it in this world again, 
 
 Nor in another; here, and here alone 
 
 Is given thee to suffer for God s sake. 
 
 In other worlds we shall more perfectly 
 
 Serve Him and love Him, praise Him, work for Him, 
 
 Grow near and nearer Him with all delight ; 
 
 But then we shall not any more be called 
 
 To suffer, which is our appointment here. 
 
 And while we suffer, let us set our souls 
 
 To suffer perfectly : since this alone, 
 
 The suffering, which is this world s special grace, 
 
 May here be perfected and left behind. 
 
 UGO BASSI S SERMON IN THE HOSPITAL.
 
 196 JULY 14. 
 
 Plainness and clearness without shadow of stain ! 
 
 Clearness divine ! 
 
 Ye heavens, whose pure dark regions have no sign 
 
 Of languor, though so calm, and though so great 
 
 Are yet untroubled and unpassionate ! 
 
 Who, though so noble, share in the world s toil, 
 
 And, though so task d, keep free from dust and soil ! 
 
 I will not say that your mild deeps retain 
 
 A tinge, it may be, of their silent pain 
 
 Who have long d deeply once, and long d in vain ; 
 
 But I will rather say that you remain 
 
 A world above man s head, to let him see 
 
 How boundless might his soul s hori/ons be, 
 
 How vast, yet of what clear transparency ! 
 
 How it were good to live there, and breathe free ! 
 
 How fair a lot to fill 
 
 Is left to each man still ! 
 
 MATTHKW ARNOLD. 
 
 \ \ 7E have all taken a sorrow or a perplexity 
 ^" out into the noontide or the midnight 
 and felt its morbid bitterness drawn out of it, 
 and a great peace descend and fill it from the 
 depth of the majesty under whose arch we 
 stood. . . . The sweet and solemn influence 
 which comes to you out of the noontide or the 
 midnight sky does not take away your pain, 
 but it takes out of it its bitterness. It lifts it 
 to a higher peace. It says, "Be still and wait." 
 It gives the reason power and leave and time 
 to work. It gathers the partial into the em 
 brace of the universal. v. 235 .
 
 JULY 15. 197 
 
 IT is not as the present possessor of all truth 
 that (the church) invites men to her house 
 hold. She must not claim that. Men will 
 discover that her claim is false if she does. But 
 it is as the possessor of truth out of which God 
 will call, nay is forever calling new truth, that 
 she summons men not merely to a present 
 which she offers, but to a future in which she 
 believes. The church is progressive by her 
 very essence. The church is man occupied by 
 Christ. And since Christ cannot at once occupy 
 man completely, and cannot be satisfied until 
 He has occupied man completely, the church 
 must make progress. If she ceases to advance 
 she dies. Only in all her progress she believes 
 in the continuity and economy of God. She 
 looks for the truth which she is to know to 
 come out of the truth which she knows al 
 ready ; and she is sure that no duty done or 
 light attained in any most obscure corner of 
 her life is wasted, but helps to the perfect duty 
 and the perfect light that are to be. That is 
 why in her is the true home for the man who 
 most hopes and prays for the progress of man 
 kind. . I37 . 
 
 Past and Future are the wings 
 On whose support harmoniously conjoined 
 Moves the great spirit of human knowledge. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 198 JULY 16. 
 
 A I 7 HO of us has not bowed his will to some 
 * * supreme law, accepted some obedience 
 as the atmosphere in which his life must live, 
 and found at once that his mind s darkness 
 turned to light, and that many a hard question 
 found its answer ? Who lias not sometimes 
 seemed to see it all as clear as daylight, that 
 not by the sharpening of the intellect to super 
 natural acuteness, but by the submission of 
 the nature to its true authority, man was at 
 last to conquer truth ; that not by agonizing 
 struggles over contradictory evidence, but by 
 the harmony with Him in whom the answers 
 to all our doubts are folded, a harmony with 
 Him brought by obedience to Him, our doubts 
 must be enlightened ? INFLUENCE, 23 i. 
 
 O Thou who makest both light and darkness, 
 
 Thine is also the light invisible, the revelation of God 
 to our souls. 
 
 God is the Eternal, who shows us light ; bind the sacri 
 fice of our hearts, with the cords of good-will. 
 
 If we have lost Thee, O Lord, show Thyself to us again ! 
 let us seek Thee chiefly in well-doing. 
 
 O Thou that alone makest all contradictions clear, in 
 Thy light let us see light. 
 
 Illuminate our minds with practice of humility, and 
 confirm them with growth of faith. 
 
 Make our thoughts the lively echoes of Thy command 
 ments ; and take our hearts for Thy kingdom. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. ROWLAND WILLIAMS.
 
 JULY 17. 199 
 
 TV A AN is made so that some sense of critical- 
 ness is necessary to the most vigorous 
 and best life always. Let me feel that noth 
 ing but this moment depends upon this mo 
 ment s action, and I am very apt to let this 
 moment act pretty much as it will. Let me 
 see the spirits of the moments yet unborn 
 standing and watching it anxiously and I must 
 watch it also for their sakes. ,. 327> 328 . 
 
 Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, 
 
 Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 
 
 And marching single in an endless file, 
 
 Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
 
 To each they offer gifts after his will, 
 
 Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. 
 
 1, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, 
 
 Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 
 
 Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 
 
 Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 
 
 Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. 
 
 EMERSON.
 
 200 JULY 1 8. 
 
 "TO open the eyes and find a Christ beside 
 1 us, not to go long journeys to discover 
 a Christ with whom before we have had noth 
 ing to do, this is the Christian conversion. 
 . . . How did the Saviour first prove Himself 
 to you ? Was it not by the past which sud 
 denly or gradually became full of Him, so that 
 you recognized that He had been busy on you 
 when you did not know it, that He had been 
 leading you when you thought you had been 
 wandering, so that you saw your past thoughts 
 grow luminous as His inspirations, your past 
 dreams as the contagions of His presence and 
 the prophecies of His touch ? Was not this 
 His answer when you called Him? Not, " 1 
 am coming," away off in the distance, but 
 " Here I am," spoken right out of the very 
 soul and centre of your life. v . 2I2 . 
 
 Thou Life within my life, than self more near ! 
 Thou veiled Presence infinitely clear ! 
 From all illusive shows of sense I flee, 
 To find my centre and my rest in Thee. 
 
 Take part with me against these doubts that rise 
 And seek to throne Thee far in distant skies ! 
 Take part with me against this self that dares 
 Assume the burden of these sins and cares ! 
 
 How shall I call Thee who art always here, 
 How shall I praise Thee who art still most dear, 
 What may I give Thee save what Thou hast given, 
 And whom but Thee have I in earth or heaven ? 
 
 ELIZA SCUDDKR.
 
 JULY 19. 201 
 
 And the ransomed of tlie Lord shall return, 
 
 And come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy 
 
 upon their heads : 
 They shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 
 and sighing shall flee away, Ps. xxxv. 10. 
 
 TOY and pain, so far from being inconsistent 
 ^ with and contradictory to one another, 
 are, in some true sense, each other s compli 
 ments, and neither alone, but both together, 
 make the true sum of human life. There is a 
 conceivable world where pure, unclouded joy 
 can come, just as there are countries where 
 the mountains are very lofty and all nature 
 is on so grand a scale that it can bear a pure, 
 unclouded sky, and in its unveiled splendor, per 
 fectly satisfy the eye. But there are other 
 lands whose inferior grandeur needs for its 
 perfect beauty the effects of mist and cloud 
 that give its lower mountains the mystery and 
 poetry which they could not have in them 
 selves. So one may compare the Swiss and 
 the Scotch landscapes. And something of the 
 same sort is true about this world and marks 
 its inferiority, proves that it is not yet the 
 perfect state of being. It needs the pain of 
 life to emphasize its joy. Its joy is not high 
 or perfect enough to do without the emphasis 
 of pain. ,,. 30 .
 
 202 JULY 20. 
 
 ONCE in the hours while He hung there, a 
 cry of desolation, abandonment, and dis 
 grace, burst from the Sufferer s lips. "My 
 God ! My God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? " 
 He cries, making His own the words of an old 
 psalm of woe. When I read what men have 
 written to explain the meaning of Jesus in 
 that cry, I always feel anew how much deeper 
 than our comprehension went his identification 
 with humanity when He plunged into the dark 
 ness of its sin. " He was made flesh ! " Into 
 what mysterious contact with the sinfulness 
 to which the flesh of man had given itself that 
 being made flesh brought him, I know no man 
 has ever fathomed. . . . Christ, who, in His 
 love, had gone down to the deepest and most 
 terrible depths of humanity, even to being cru 
 cified between two thieves, seemed for a mo 
 ment to have lost himself, and cried out to the 
 Father, with whom He was eternally and in 
 separably one, "Oh, why hast Thou forsaken 
 Me ? " If the cry bewilders as we try to com 
 prehend the deity to which it appeals, it may 
 at least reveal to us something of the depth 
 out of which it ascends. ,. igg( IQ9 , 200 . 
 
 He who did most shall bear most: the strongest shall 
 
 stand the most weak. 
 Tis the weakness in strength that I cry for: my flesh 
 
 that I seek 
 In the Godhead. I seek and I find it. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 JULY 21. 203 
 
 \ \ JE cannot attain to all abundance in this 
 ** one short life which is our only one, 
 but if we can come to God and be His ser 
 vants, the knowledge of how to be things 
 which we shall never be may enter into us. In 
 poverty we may have the blessing of riches ; 
 in enforced ignorance the blessing of knowl 
 edge ; in loneliness the blessing of friendship ; 
 and in suspense and doubt the blessing of 
 peace and rest. v. i 57 . 
 
 I wept, I prayed 
 
 A solemn prayer, conceived in agony, 
 Blessed with response instant, miraculous ; 
 For in that hour my spirit was at one 
 With Him who knows and satisfies her needs ; 
 The supplication and the blessing sprang 
 From the same source, inspired divinely both. 
 I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, 
 And these like heavenly manna were rained down 
 To feed my hungered soul. 
 
 Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each 
 Must feel himself in all, must know where er 
 The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys, 
 His proper soul in kinship there is bound, 
 Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind, 
 Encouraging as morning. 
 
 EMMA LAZARUS.
 
 204 JULY 22. 
 
 Whosoever hath, to him shall he given, and iic 
 shall have more abundance. MATT. xiii. 12. 
 
 ""THIS has been always true, that the new 
 idea has always been born of the old, 
 that when men have advanced to higher truth 
 it has been from the basis of the truth which 
 they have held already. It has been not by 
 flinging their net out into the heavens in hopes 
 to catch a star, but by digging deeper into the 
 substance of the earth on which they stood, 
 and finding there a root. And that is what we 
 have to look for in the future. You and I cling 
 to the old historic statements of our faith. We 
 hold fast by the old historic Church as it ap 
 pears to-day. What is our feeling as we hold 
 fast there ? . . . We stand expecting change 
 and progress, new truth, new light. But we 
 stand here in the historic Church, in the his 
 toric truth, because we believe that the new 
 truth must come out of this old truth, the per 
 fect truth out of this partial truth, some day. 
 We keep close to the seven loaves because we 
 believe that when the multitude is fed it will 
 be with an abundance blessed by God out of 
 this, which, however meagre, is still real. 
 
 n. 136.
 
 JULY 23. 205 
 
 |\TOT by mere moods, not by how I feel to 
 day or how 1 felt yesterday, may I know 
 whether I am indeed living the life of God, but 
 only by knowing that God is using me to help 
 others. No mood is so bright that it can do 
 without that warrant. No mood is so dark 
 that, if it has that, it need despair. It is good 
 for us to think no grace or blessing truly ours 
 till we are aware that God has blessed some 
 one else with it through us. L lg 
 
 We cannot kindle when \ve will 
 The fire which in the heart resides, 
 
 The spirit bloweth and is still, 
 
 In mystery our soul abides ; 
 But tasks in hours of insight will d 
 Can be through hours of gloom fuliill d. 
 
 With aching hands and bleeding feet 
 
 We dig and heap, lay stone on stone ; 
 We bear the burden and the heat 
 Of the long day and wish twere done. 
 Not till the hours of light return 
 All we have built do we discern. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 206 JULY 24. 
 
 Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, 
 which are God s. I. COR. vi. 20. 
 
 "THERE is no true care for the body which 
 1 forgets the soul. There is no true care 
 for the soul which is not mindful of the body. 
 The pressure of psychology on physiology, the 
 wise and learned, also the unwise and igno 
 rant, methods of reaching physical conditions 
 through the change of mental states which are 
 so prominent in the medical practice of to-day, 
 bear witness to the first fact. All the kind of 
 teaching which a few years ago went by the 
 name of muscular Christianity gives testimony 
 to the second. 
 
 . . . The duty of physical health and the 
 duty of spiritual purity and loftiness are not 
 two duties ; they are two parts of one duty, 
 which is the living of the completest life which 
 it is possible for man to live. And the two 
 parts minister to one another. Be good that 
 you may be well ; be well that you may be 
 good. Both of those two injunctions are rea 
 sonable, and both are binding on us all. 
 
 V. 229, 230. 
 
 As the bird wings and sings 
 Let us cry : all good things 
 Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more now than flesh 
 
 helps soul. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 JULY 25. 207 
 
 TO how many a saint the day and place 
 where he first heard God s voice will be 
 earth s one sacred memory, even long after 
 earth s life is over. Do you think that Moses 
 will not speak of the bush, and Samuel of the 
 little temple-chamber, and Peter and John of 
 their boats on the still lake, and Paul of the 
 Damascus road, and Matthew of his tax-table, 
 and the poor woman of the wayside well, when 
 they are met above ? Only the last day shall 
 tell how much of earth is hallowed ground. . . . 
 It is indeed a goodly spirit that treasures its 
 past miracles, that goes down the gracious 
 avenues of life to find the bushes out of which 
 it first heard God s voice. n 55> 56 . 
 
 Magnificent 
 
 The morning rose, in memorable pomp, 
 Glorious as e er I had beheld, in front, 
 The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near, 
 The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, 
 Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light; 
 And in the meadows and the lower grounds 
 Was all the sweetness of a common dawn, 
 Dews, vapors, and the melody of birds, 
 And laborers going forth to till the fields. 
 Ah ! need I say, dear Friend ! that to the brim 
 My heart was full ? I made no vows, but vows 
 Were made for me ; bond unknown to me 
 Was given, that 1 should be, else sinning greatly, 
 A dedicated Spirit. On I walked 
 In thankful blessedness, which yet survives. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 208 JULY 26. 
 
 Y\7"HEN Christ showed us God, then man 
 * * had only to stand at his highest and look 
 up to the Infinite above him to see how small 
 he was. And, always, the true way to be 
 humble is not to stoop till you are smaller than 
 yourself, but to stand at your real height 
 against some higher nature that shall show you 
 what the real smallness of your greatest great 
 ness is. The first is the unreal humility that 
 always goes about depreciating human nature ; 
 the second is the genuine humility that always 
 
 stands in love and adoration, glorifying God. 
 
 i. 340, 341. 
 
 1 have gone the whole round of Creation : 1 saw and I 
 
 spoke ! 
 I, a work of God s hand for that purpose, received in 
 
 my brain 
 And pronounced on the rest of His handwork returned 
 
 Him again 
 
 His creation s approval or censure : I spoke as I saw. 
 I report, as a man may of God s work all s love yet 
 
 all s law! 
 
 And thus looking within and around me, 1 ever renew 
 
 (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises 
 it too) 
 
 The submission of Man s nothing-perfect to God s All- 
 Complete, 
 
 As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to His feet ! 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 JULY 27. 209 
 
 O wretched man that I am f who shall deliver 
 me from the body of this death ? I thank God 
 through Jesus Christ our Lord. The laiu of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
 from the law of sin and death. 
 
 ROM. vii. 24, 25 ; viii. 2. 
 
 I HAVE no patience with the foolish talk which 
 would make sin nothing but imperfection, 
 and would preach that man needs nothing but 
 to have his deficiencies supplied, to have his 
 native goodness educated and brought out, in 
 order to be all that God would have him be. 
 The horrible incompetency of that doctrine 
 must be manifest enough to any man who knows 
 his own heart, or who listens to the tumult of 
 wickedness which rises up from all the dark 
 places of the earth. Sin is a dreadful, positive, 
 malignant thing. What the world in its worse 
 part needs is, not to be developed, but to be de 
 stroyed. Any other talk about it is shallow and 
 mischievous folly. The only question is about 
 the best method and means of destruction. Let 
 the sharp surgeon s knife do its terrible work. 
 Let it cut deep and separate as well and thor 
 oughly as it can, the false from the true, the 
 corrupt from the uncorrupt : it never can dissect 
 away the very principle of corruption which is 
 in the substance of the blood itself. Nothing 
 but a new reinforcement of health can accom 
 plish that, iv. 217,218.
 
 210 JULY 28. 
 
 r "THE power of mere activity is often over- 
 * rated. It is not what the best men do, 
 but what they are, that constitutes their truest 
 benefaction to their fellow-men. The things that 
 men do get their chief value, after all, from the 
 way in which they are able to show the exist 
 ence of character which can comfort and help 
 mankind. ... It seems to me that there is re 
 assurance here for many of us who seem to 
 have no chance for active usefulness. We can 
 do nothing for our fellow-men. But still it is 
 good to know that we can be something for 
 them ; to know (and this we may know surely) 
 that no man or woman of the humblest sort 
 can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, 
 without the world being better for it, without 
 somebody being helped and comforted by the 
 very existence of that goodness. j. I05 . 
 
 Our destiny, our being s heart and home, 
 Is with infinitude, and only there ; 
 Witli hope it is, hope that can never die, 
 Effort, and expectation, and desire, 
 And something evermore about to be. 
 Under such banners militant the soul 
 Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils 
 That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts 
 That are their own perfection and reward, 
 Strong in herself and in beatitude 
 That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile 
 Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds 
 To fertili/e the whole Egyptian plain. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 JULY 29. 211 
 
 And He sail?, \\~hcreunto shall we liken the king 
 dom of God ? or with what comparison shall we 
 compare it ? 
 
 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which when 
 it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds 
 that be in the earth : 
 
 But wJicn it is sown, it groiveth up, and be- 
 coincth greater tJian all herbs, and shooteth out 
 great branches ; so that fhe fowls of the air may 
 lodge under the shadow of it. MARK iv. 30-32. 
 
 OH, wondrous tree, whose seed came surely 
 from the hand of God, whose growth 
 has never passed out of His watchful care, 
 which He has set here in this rich, wayward, 
 tumultuous soil of human life, how hast thou 
 wrestled for existence with this hounteous yet 
 reluctant ground, how hast thou sent thy roots 
 into the pierced heart of man s affections ! 
 Through what dark stormy nights hast thou 
 struggled with the winds, and grown strong in 
 wrestling ! How hast thou drawn up into thy 
 self what is eternal and spiritual in man and 
 made it claim its kinship to divinity ! Oh, 
 wondrous tree ! oh, Christian faith ! oh, Chris 
 tian Church ! so small, so strong! what would 
 the world be without thee ? What wouldst 
 thou he without the world ? Grow on till in 
 thy life the perfect union of the earth and 
 heaven, of God and man, shall he complete ! 
 
 V. 278.
 
 212 JULY 30. 
 
 T"HERE is as yet no culture, no method of 
 1 progress known to men, that is so rich 
 and complete as that which is ministered by a 
 truly great friendship. No natural appetite, 
 no artificial taste, no rivalry of competition, 
 no contagion of social activity, calls out such a 
 large, healthy, symmetrical working of a human 
 nature, as the constant, half-unconscious power 
 of a friend s presence whom we thoroughly re 
 spect and love. In a true friendship there 
 is emulation without its jealousy ; there is imi 
 tation without its servility. When one friend 
 teaches another by his present life, there is 
 none of that divorce of truth from feeling, and 
 of feeling from truth, which in so many of the 
 world s teachings makes truth hard, and feel 
 ing weak; but truth is taught, and feeling is 
 inspired, by the same action of one nature on 
 the other, and they keep each other true and 
 warm. n . 54 . 
 
 My careful heart \vas free again, 
 
 O friend, my bosom said, 
 
 Through thee alone the sky is arched, 
 
 Through thee the rose is red ; 
 
 All things through thee take nobler form, 
 
 And look beyond the earth, 
 
 The mill-round of our fate appears 
 
 A sun-path in thy worth. 
 
 Me too thy nobleness has taught 
 
 To master my despair ; 
 
 The fountains of my hidden life 
 
 Are through thy friendship fair. 
 
 EMERSON.
 
 JULY 31. 213 
 
 " T JE who does not lose his reason in certain 
 11 things," says Lessing, "has none to 
 lose." But the reason is lost, not by any palsy 
 or death that falls on it, hut by the vehement life 
 of will and affections, among which the life of 
 the reason takes its true place as but one mem- 
 her of the perfect whole. 
 
 There is a noble passage of Wordsworth 
 which tells this same story, and shows how 
 under the greatest influences of nature the same 
 rich blending of the life takes place. He is 
 describing the consecrating effects of early 
 dawn : 
 
 " What soul was his when from the naked top 
 Of some bold headland he beheld the sun 
 Rise up and bathe the world in light. He looked 
 Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth 
 And ocean s liquid mass, beneath him lay 
 In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touched 
 And in their silent faces did he read 
 Unutterable love. Sound needed not 
 Nor any voice of joy ; his spirit drank 
 The spectacle ; sensation, soul, and form 
 All melted into him. They swallowed up 
 His animal being ; in them did he live 
 And by them did he live. They were his life. 
 In such access of mind, in such high hour 
 Of visitation from the Living God, 
 Thought was not ; in enjoyment it expired. 
 No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request ; 
 Rapt into still communion that transcends 
 The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, 
 His mind was a thanksgiving to the Power 
 That made him ; it was blessedness and love ! " 
 
 INFLUENCE, 225,230.
 
 214 AUGUST i. 
 
 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, 
 and the little hills, by righteousness. Ps. Ixxii. 3. 
 
 f~^ HR1ST set men close to God, to their true 
 selves, to the souls of their brethren, to 
 the immensity of duty ; and He said to them 
 there, what there they understood, "Be 
 humble! " 
 
 It was as if He took a proud, fretful man out 
 of the worrying life of the selfish city and set 
 him among the solemn mountains, and the 
 mountains brought to him the blessed peace of 
 humility and the sense of his own insignifi 
 cance. L 3SI . 
 
 RETURN TO THE HILLS. 
 
 Ah ! with boldness of lovers who wed 
 
 I make haste to your feet, 
 And as constant as lovers who die, 
 
 My surrender repeat ; 
 And I take as the right of my love, 
 
 And I keep as its sign, 
 An ineffable joy in each sense 
 
 And new strength as from wine, 
 A seal for all purpose and hope, 
 
 And a pledge of full light, 
 Like a pillar of cloud for my day, 
 
 And of fire for my night. 
 
 HELJ;N HUNT JACKSON.
 
 AUGUST 2. 215 
 
 Him that overcometh nnll I make a pillar in the 
 temple of my God: and he shall go no more out. 
 
 REV. iii. 12. 
 
 SLOWLY, through all the universe, that 
 temple of God is being built. Wherever, 
 in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, 
 catches the fire of God s likeness, it is set into 
 the growing walls, a living stone .... In 
 what strange quarries and stone-yards the 
 stones for that celestial wall are being hewn ! 
 Out of the hillsides of humiliated pride ; deep 
 in the darkness of crushed despair ; in the 
 fretting and dusty atmosphere of little cares ; 
 in the hard, cruel contacts that man has with 
 man ; wherever souls are being tried and ri 
 pened, in whatever commonplace and homely 
 ways; there God is hewing out the pillars 
 for His temple. O, if the stone can only have 
 some vision of the temple of which it is to lie 
 a part forever, what patience must fill it as it 
 feels the blows of the hammer, and knows that 
 success for it is simply to let itself be wrought 
 into what shape the Master wills. n . 71 , 72 . 
 
 Whereas on earth 
 
 Temples and palaces are formed of parts 
 Costly and rare, but all material, 
 So in the world of spirits nought is found, 
 To mould withal and form into a whole, 
 But what is immaterial ; and thus 
 The smallest portions of this edifice, 
 Cornice, or frieze, or balustrade, or stair, 
 The very pavement is made up of life 
 Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings, 
 Who hymn their Maker s praise continually. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
 
 2i6 AUGUST 3. 
 
 Thou art a gentle and most loving Lamb, 
 
 Wounded to give us balm ; 
 And still, wherever sin doth reign, 
 
 Thou day by day art slain. 
 When will man cease to give Thee pain? 
 
 ANNA E. HAMILTON. 
 
 WE come to the profoundest knowledge and 
 the profoundest hatred of sin when we 
 come to this, that it crucified the Son of God 
 with wicked men, it made Jesus the sharer of 
 our human woe. Sin did this. Whose sin ? 
 What sin? Then it is that the terrible identity 
 of sin comes out. Here in the presence of 
 God s suffering and dying Son the oneness of 
 God s family is clear. All that we have ever 
 done that has helped to make the world a dif 
 ferent place from that holy ground on which 
 the Holy God might have walked in perfect 
 sympathy with His obedient children, all our 
 wilfulness, all our disobedience, all our un 
 truth, all our passion, all our lust, all our self 
 ishness, all our wickednesses which we call 
 little wickednesses at home or in the street, 
 they all take their place in, they all declare 
 their oneness with, that sin which brought 
 Christ to the cro^s. i. 20I , K2 . 
 
 Lord, if Thy wounds have filled the world with peace, 
 What shall Thy joy do, when all sin shall cease, 
 And the new earth shall yield her full increase ! 
 
 CAROLINE M. NOEL
 
 AUGUST 4. 217 
 
 / will see you again, and your lieart shall rejoice, 
 and your joy no man taketh from you. 
 
 JOHN xvi. 22. 
 
 IT was a special joy, the inmost, the most 
 secret and sacred of all joys which their 
 Master promised. Not for those disciples more 
 than for other men was nature to be changed, 
 or their relations with their fellow-men to be 
 robbed of the power of painfulness. . . . Still, 
 just as before Christ gave them His promise, 
 their reverence was shocked, their love was 
 wounded, their trust was betrayed, their mo 
 tives were misjudged by fellow-men. But 
 behind all this His words revealed to them a 
 self out of men s power, something which no 
 fellow-man could touch. . . . There is noth 
 ing at all of self-sufficiency in what is prom 
 ised. It is not that these men are to develop 
 some interior strength, or to drift into some 
 region of calm indifference where the influ 
 ences of their fellow-men shall not touch them 
 any longer. It is that they are to come to a 
 new life with Him. The new joy which is to 
 enter into them, which they are to enter into, 
 is to be distinctly a joy of relationship and not 
 of self-containment, a joy which is to escape 
 the invasion of the men who disturb all other 
 joys by being held in the hand of a stronger 
 being out of which no earthly power shall be 
 able to pluck it away. 111.229,294.
 
 218 AUGUST 5. 
 
 How can this man give us His flcsli to cat? 
 
 JOHN vi. 52. 
 
 HOW can He ? Certainly He can if you 
 will go to Him and pray to Him and love 
 Him and obey Him and receive Him. And 
 what a strength comes of that holy feeding ! 
 Where is the task that terrifies the man who 
 lives by Christ ? Where is the discourage 
 ment over which he will not walk to go to 
 the right which he must reach ? You may 
 starve him, but he has this inner food. You 
 may darken his life, but he has this inner 
 light. You may make war about him, but he 
 has this peace within. You may turn the world 
 into a hell, but he carries his inner heaven 
 safely through its fiercest fires. He is like 
 Christ Himself. He has meat to eat that we 
 know not of, and in the strength of it he over 
 comes at last and is conqueror through his 
 Lord. 11.251,252. 
 
 Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead 
 Smote on the squalid streets of Bethnal Green, 
 And the pale weaver, through his windows seen 
 In Spitalfields, look d thrice dispirited. 
 
 I met a preacher there I knew, and said : 
 
 III and o erwork d, how fare you in this scene? 
 
 Bravely ! said he ; for I of late have been 
 
 Much cheer d with thoughts of Christ, the living bread. 1 
 
 O human soul ! as long as thou canst so 
 Set up a mark of everlasting light, 
 Above the howling senses ebb and flow, 
 
 To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam 
 Not with lost toil thou laborest through the night ! 
 Thou mak st the heaven thou hop st indeed thy home. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 AUGUST 6. 219 
 
 M e were eve-witnesses of His majesty. 
 
 II. PET. "i. 1 6. 
 
 IN many respects this story (of the Trans 
 figuration) belongs beside the story of the 
 Temptation. The two mountains are the com 
 plements of one another. As the Temptation 
 was the typical utterance of the perplexed 
 conditions of human living, so the Transfigu 
 ration was the irrepressible utterance of the 
 essential glory of human nature filled with 
 divinity, reclaimed and openly asserted to be 
 the Son of God. And in the Transfiguration, 
 as in the Temptation, the body has its share. 
 Not merely does the soul enjoy sublime con 
 verse with God and with the past. A sweet 
 and awful gladness shines out from the face 
 and hands, and even pierces from the hidden 
 limbs through the coarse garments which 
 shine "white as the light." I do not know 
 the meaning of it all, but 1 know that what 
 came to the spiritual came in some echo to the 
 physical, and the body shared the gladness 
 
 of the SOul. INFLUENCE, 160. 
 
 O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen 
 witnesses thine only-begotten Son wonderfully trans 
 figured, in raiment white and glistering ; Mercifully 
 grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude of 
 this world, may be permitted to behold the King in his 
 beauty, who with thee, O Father, and thee, O Holy 
 Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world without 
 end. BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
 
 220 AUGUST 7. 
 
 I know how to abound. PHIL. iv. 12. 
 
 TIMES (of great spiritual abundance) have 
 their very deep and subtle dangers. . . . 
 Many a Christian has failed just there. Soon 
 the great light, unused, has faded away and 
 left the soul in darkness. Soon peace which 
 was not vitalized to power has decayed to 
 pride. Something of this kind has come, 1 
 think, to whole generations, to whole periods 
 of Christianity. But see ! If you lift up your 
 head, if you put out your hand and take your 
 task, which certainly is waiting for you, then 
 instantly your high emotions know their place. 
 They turn themselves to motives. They be 
 come the necessary habits of the life. They 
 prove "their reality by what they can make 
 you strong to do. . . . Let no spiritual exal 
 tation come to you without your lifting your 
 self up in its present power, and doing some 
 work for God which in your weaker moments 
 and lower moods has scared you with its diffi 
 culty. For duty is the only tabernacle within 
 which a man can always make his home upon 
 the transfiguration mountain. v. ]5 6. 
 
 Hark, hark, a voice amid the quiet intense! 
 It is thy Duty waiting thee without. 
 Rise from thy knees, in hope, the half of doubt ; 
 A hand doth pull thee it is Providence ; 
 Open thy door straightway and get thee hence ; 
 Go forth into the tumult and the shout ; 
 Work, love, with workers, lovers, all about : 
 Of noise alone is born the inward sense 
 Of silence ; and from action springs alone 
 The inward knowledge of true love and faith. 
 
 GEORGE MACDGNALD.
 
 AUGUST 8. 221 
 
 "TOO often have the minds both of religious 
 * and of irreligious men conceived of God 
 as the great hinderer of human knowledge. 
 Even those men who thought they honored 
 Him supremely have talked about Him as if 
 He loved the darkness ; they have dwelt upon 
 mystery as if it were something which God 
 treasured, and which His children were to 
 treasure for itself, as if they did not wish it 
 cleared up and made light. They have imag 
 ined Him almost standing guard over whole 
 regions of knowledge and forbidding them to 
 the impatient intellect of man. That is not 
 the idea of David ; that is not the idea of the 
 Bible anywhere. Against all the folly of the 
 Church, and all the ignorance of unbelief 
 which declares that God is darkness, stands 
 up the protest of John, who cries, "God is 
 light, and in Him is no darkness at all ; " and 
 the glowing ascription of the light-loving David, 
 who declares, " In thy light, O Lord, we shall 
 see light." 111.94,95. 
 
 O Thou, who by the light of nature dost enkindle in 
 us a desire after the light of grace, that by this Thou 
 inayest translate us into the light of glory, I give 
 Thee thanks, O Lord and Creator, that Thou hast 
 gladdened me by Thy creation when I was enraptured 
 by the work of Thy hands. 
 
 JOHN KEPLER-
 
 222 AUGUST 9. 
 
 THE vital principle is too spiritual to be 
 confined to one form. It passes from 
 one form into another which is wholly differ 
 ent, and yet it remains essentially the same. 
 The buried seed and the wheat waving in the 
 sunshine are the same, and yet how differ 
 ent they are ! . . . There is a power of life 
 which pervades the universe. Everywhere it 
 is identical ; everywhere it is glorious. It 
 shines in everything. By it sun, moon, and 
 stars are clothed with radiance. But how 
 different is the splendor which it gives to 
 each ! . . . Shall not then this human life, 
 still keeping itself the same human life, be 
 able to go up to heaven and stand in the light 
 of God ? v. 5 8 
 
 1 was only then 
 
 Contented, when with bliss ineffable 
 I felt the sentiment of Being spread 
 O er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; 
 O er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought 
 And human knowledge, to the human eye 
 Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; 
 O er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings, 
 Or beats the gladsome air ; o er all that glides 
 Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself, 
 And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not 
 If high the transport, great the joy 1 felt 
 Communing in this sort through earth and heaven 
 With every form of creature, as it looked 
 Towards the Uncreated with a countenance 
 Of adoration, with an eye of love. 
 
 WORDSWORTH
 
 AUGUST 10. 223 
 
 ]\JOW under all outward rebellion and wick- 
 * ^ edness, there is in every man who ought 
 to be a friend of God, and that means every 
 man whom God has made, a need of reconcili 
 ation. To get back to God, that is the strug 
 gle. The soul is Godlike and seeks its own. 
 It wants its Father. There is an orphanage, a 
 homesickness of the heart which has gone up 
 into the ear of God, and called the Saviour, the 
 Reconciler, to meet it by His wondrous life and 
 death. I, for my part, love to see in every 
 restlessness of man s moral life everywhere, 
 whatever forms it takes, the struggles of this 
 imprisoned desire. The reason may be rebel 
 lious, and vehemently cast aside the whole 
 story of the New Testament, but the soul is 
 never wholly at its rest away from God. 
 
 None other Lamb, none other Name, 
 None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea, 
 
 None other Hiding-place from guilt and shame, 
 None beside Thee. 
 
 My faith burns low, my hope burns low, 
 Only my heart s desire cries out in me ; 
 
 By the deep thunder of its want and woe, 
 Cries out to Thee. 
 
 Lord, Thou art Life, tho I be dead, 
 Love s Fire Thou art however cold I be : 
 
 Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head, 
 Nor home, but Thee. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI,
 
 224 AUGUST ii. 
 
 / therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech von, 
 that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye 
 are called. 
 
 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of 
 the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect 
 man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness 
 of Christ. KPH. iv. i, 13. 
 
 JV/l HAN to be something with all your might. 
 * * * Do not add act to act and day to day in 
 perfect thoughtlessness, never asking yourself 
 whither the growing line is leading. But at 
 the same time do not dare to be so absorbed in 
 your own life, so wrapped up in listening to 
 the sound of your own hurrying wheels, that 
 all this vast pathetic music, made up of the 
 mingled juy and sorrow of your fellow-men, 
 shall not find out your heart and claim it and 
 make you rejoice to give yourself for them. 
 And yet, all the while, keep the upward win 
 dows open. Do not dare to think that a child 
 of God can worthily work out his career or 
 worthily serve God s other children unless he 
 does both in the love and fear of God their 
 Father. Be sure that ambition and charity 
 will both grow mean unless they are both 
 inspired and exalted by religion. Energy, 
 
 love, and faith, those make the perfect man. 
 
 ii. 126.
 
 AUGUST 12. 225 
 
 Great Universe what dost thou with thy dead ! 
 Now thinking on the myriads that have gone 
 Into a seeming blank oblivion, 
 With here and there a most resplendent head, 
 
 Eyes of such trancing sweetness, or so dread, 
 That made the soul to quake who looked thereon, - 
 All utterly wiped out, dismissed and done : 
 Lost, speechless, viewless, and forever tied ! 
 
 Myriad on myriad, past the power to count, 
 Where are they, thou dumb Nature? Do they shine, 
 Released from separate life, in summer airs, 
 
 On moony seas, in dawns ; or up the stairs 
 Of spiritual being slowly mount 
 And by degrees grow more and more divine? 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER. 
 
 THERE are so many souls. What world 
 can hold them all ? What care can rec 
 ognize, and cover, and embrace them all ? If 
 there only were not so many of us ! The 
 thought of one s own immortality sinks 
 like a tired soldier on a battle-field, over 
 whelmed and buried under the multitude of 
 the dead. Have not many of you felt this 
 bewilderment ? . . . What can we say to 
 it ? How can we grasp and believe in this 
 countless army of immortals who come swarm 
 ing up out of all the lands and all the ages ? 
 There is only one way. Multiply numbers as 
 enormously as you will, and the result is finite 
 still. Then set the finite, however large, 
 into the presence of the infinite, and it is 
 small. Its limitations show. There is no 
 finite, however vast, that can overcrowd the 
 infinite ; none that the infinite cannot most 
 easily grasp and hold. . . . Here must be 
 the real solution of our difficulty, in the infinity 
 f God. .
 
 226 AUGUST 13. 
 
 Deep calleth unto deep. Ps. xlii. 17. 
 
 "THE words of David suggest to me also that 
 * there is such a thing as deep calling unto 
 shallow, by which 1 mean, of course, the pro 
 found and sacred interests of life crying out and 
 finding nothing but the slight and foolish and 
 selfish parts of a man ready to reply. There are 
 a host of men who . . . have perception enough 
 to hear the great questions and see the great 
 tasks ; but they have not earnestness and self- 
 control enough to answer them with serious 
 thought and strong endeavor ; so they sing their 
 answer to the thunder, which is not satisfied or 
 answered. That is what 1 mean by deep calling 
 unto shallow. v. 243. 
 
 But ye who have seemed to know us, have seen and 
 
 heard ; 
 Who have set us at feasts and have crowned with 
 
 the costly rose ; 
 Who have spread us the purple of praises beneath 
 
 our feet ; 
 Yet guessed not the word that we spake was a living 
 
 word, 
 Applauding the sound, \ve account you as worse 
 
 than foes ! 
 
 We sobbed you our message; ye said, " It is song 
 and sweet " ! 
 
 HELEN GRAY CONE.
 
 AUGUST 14. 227 
 
 Gird up the loins of your i/iintf, be sober. 
 
 I. PET. i. 13. 
 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine. 
 
 PROV. xvii. 22. 
 
 C^ RAVITY ... I mean simply that grave 
 v-I and serious way of looking at life which, 
 while it never repels the true lightheartedness 
 of pure and trustful hearts, welcomes into a 
 manifest sympathy, the souls of men who are 
 oppressed and burdened, anxious and full of 
 questions which for the time at least have 
 banished all laughter from their faces. . . . 
 Gravity has a delicate power of discrimination. 
 It attracts all that it can help and it repels all 
 that could harm it or be harmed by it. It 
 admits the earnest and simple with a cordial 
 welcome. It shuts out the impertinent and 
 insincere inexorably. 
 
 The gravity of which 1 speak is not incon 
 sistent with the keenest perception of the 
 ludicrous side of things. It is more than con 
 sistent with it is even necessary to humor. 
 Humor involves the perception of the true 
 proportions of life. ... It has softened the 
 bitterness of controversy a thousand times. 
 You cannot encourage it too much. You can 
 not grow too familiar with the books of all 
 ages which have in them the truest humor, for 
 the truest humor is the bloom of the highest 
 life. Read George Eliot and Thackeray, and, 
 above all, Shakespeare. They will help you 
 to keep from extravagances without fading 
 into insipidity. They will preserve your 
 gravity while they save you from pompous 
 
 solemnity. PREACHING, 54-58.
 
 228 AUGUST 15. 
 
 THE mountains to the Hebrew were always 
 full of mystery and awe. They stood 
 around the sunlit level of his daily life robed in 
 deep clouds, the home of wandering winds, 
 flowing down with waters, trembling, as it 
 seemed, with the awful footsteps of God. 
 
 They made indeed for him the background 
 of all life, as they make the background of 
 every landscape in which they stand. . . . The 
 foreground of the plain-land rests upon the 
 background of the hills. From them it gains 
 its lights and shadows. The two depend on 
 one another. ... To most men the actual 
 immediate circumstances of life are so pressing 
 that they forget the everlasting truths and 
 forces by which those circumstances must be 
 made dignified and strong. Then must come 
 something like the cry of Amos the Prophet, 
 " Lo, He that formeth the mountains, and 
 createth the wind, and declareth unto man 
 what is His Thought, that maketh the morn 
 ing darkness and treadeth upon the high places 
 of the earth." Is there not in these words, 
 dimly but very grandly and majestically set 
 forth, the great suggestion of the divine back 
 ground of all life ? It is the same which Ten 
 nyson has pictured in the Vision of Sin : 
 
 " At last I heard a voice upon the slope 
 Cry to the summit, Is there any hope? 
 To which an answer pealed from that high land, 
 But in a tongue no man could understand ; 
 And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn 
 God made Himself an awful rose of Dawn." 
 
 V. 106, 108-
 
 AUGUST 16. 229 
 
 "THINK, of sin as a mistake, or as an incon- 
 1 venience, and you stand in great danger, 
 first, of compromising with it, and second, of 
 using low and even sinful methods of opposing 
 it. But think of sin as a frightful wrong in 
 itself, a blot and curse in the universe of God, 
 and you grow at once absolutely intolerant of 
 it, and at the same time watchfully anxious 
 about the nature of the weapons which you 
 shall use to fight it with. . . . Only when 
 pity for it joins with horror at it in our hearts, 
 as they join in the heart of God, each keeping 
 the other strong and pure, only then can we 
 go out to meet it with a perfect determination, 
 bound never to lay down our arms so long as 
 there is any sin left in the world ; and at the 
 same time, with an absolute conviction that no 
 impatience to rid the world of sin must tempt 
 us for a moment to use any means for its de 
 struction which are not pure and just ; an 
 absolute conviction that it is better that sin 
 should be left master of the field, than that it 
 should be fought with sin. iv. 27 i, 272 . 
 
 But if \ve strove to stand in battle line like soldiers 
 
 true, 
 Above us we should see God s help descending from 
 
 the sky. 
 
 Ready is He to help all those that fight, 
 And build their hopes upon His kindliness. 
 He makes for us chances to fight that we may win. 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS.
 
 230 AUGUST 17. 
 
 JVTEVER, no matter how long exclusion from 
 the presence of God may seem to last, 
 though it go on year after year and you are 
 growing old in your seeming orphanhood ; 
 never accept it, never make up your mind to 
 it that it is right ; never cease to expect that 
 the doors will fly open and you will be admitted 
 to all the joy of your Father s felt love and of 
 unhindered communion with Him. Never lose 
 out of your soul s sight the seat which is set 
 for you in the very sanctuary of divine love. 
 And what beside ? Seek even more deeply 
 the satisfaction which is in your consecration 
 itself; and that you may find it, consecrate 
 yourself more and more completely, i. 30> 3 i. 
 
 And should the twilight darken into night, 
 
 And sorrow grow to anguish, be thou strong ; 
 
 Thou art in God, and nothing can go wrong 
 Which a fresh life-pulse cannot set aright. 
 That thou dost know the darkness, proves the light. 
 
 Weep if thou wilt, but weep not all too long ; 
 
 Or weep and work, for work will lead to song. 
 
 GKORUE MACDONALU.
 
 AUGUST 18. 231 
 
 IT is a strange perplexing fact of life, this 
 fact that as a being or a work, which has 
 seemed perfect in some lower region, goes up 
 to some higher region, it seems to grow imper 
 fect ; at least it manifests its imperfection. We 
 can see at once what a temptation it must 
 offer to the human powers to linger in some 
 lower sphere, in which they seem to be equal 
 to their work, instead of going freely up into a 
 loftier world where they shall learn their lim 
 itations and their feebleness. There is reason 
 enough to fear that man s power of thought, 
 revelling to-day in the clearness with which it 
 seems to see the lower world of physical exist 
 ence, will refuse some of the higher duties 
 which belong to it, the duties which most tax 
 its capacity and show its feebleness, the duties 
 of understanding the soul of man and reaching 
 after the comprehension of God. Sad will it 
 be if it is so ; if studious humanity, delighted 
 with its achievements in the mere region of 
 physical research, shall turn its back on the 
 lofty tasks in which man s intellect finds its 
 greatest glory as well as its most complete 
 
 humility the struggle to know God. 
 
 in. 206, 207. 
 
 Thou art so great, that the greatest powers and 
 minds, which Thou couldest create, would all together 
 contain but a little of Thee. And yet Thou wiliest that 
 such as 1 should adore Thee and know Thee, and in all 
 eternity love Thee. PUSEY.
 
 232 AUGUST 19. 
 
 " Because we are sons, God has sent the spirit <>/ 
 His Son into our hearts." 
 
 DECAUSE we are sons, His Son Himself 
 *-* could take our nature upon Him. The 
 more truly we believe in the Incarnate Deity, 
 the more devoutly we must believe in the es 
 sential glory of humanity, the more earnestly 
 we must struggle to keep the purity and integ 
 rity and largeness of our own human life, and 
 to help our brethren to keep theirs. It is be 
 cause the divine can dwell in us that we may 
 have access to divinity. i. 240 , 24I . 
 
 Lord, carry me. Nay, but 1 grant thee strength 
 To walk and work thy way to Heaven at length. - 
 
 Lord, why then am I weak? .Because I give 
 Power to the weak, and bid the dying live. 
 
 Lord, I am tired. He hath not much desired 
 The goal, who at the starting-point is tired. 
 
 Lord, dost thou know? I know what is in man ; 
 What the flesh can, and what the spirit can. 
 
 Lord, dost thou care ? Yea, for thy gain or loss 
 So much 1 cared, it brought me to the Cross. 
 
 Lord, I believe ; help Thou mine unbelief. 
 Good is the word ; but rise, for life is brief. 
 The follower is not greater than the Chief : 
 Follow thou Me along My way of grief. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 AUGUST 20. 
 
 REST in expectation we may all have now 
 if we believe in God and know we are 
 His children. Every taste of Him that we 
 have ever had becomes a prophecy of His 
 perfect giving of Himself to us. It is as when 
 a pool lies far up in the dry rocks, and hears 
 the tide and knows that her refreshment and 
 replenishing is coming. How patient she is. 
 The other pools nearer the shore catch the sea 
 first, and she hears them leaping and laughing, 
 but she waits patiently. She knows the tide 
 will not turn back till it has reached her. And 
 by and by the blessed moment comes. The 
 last ridge of rock is over washed. The stream 
 pours in ; at first a trickling thread sent only at 
 the supreme effort of the largest wave ; but by 
 and by the great sea in its fulness. It gives 
 the waiting pool itself and she is satisfied. So 
 it will certainly be with us if we wait for the 
 Lord, however He delays, and refuse to let 
 ourselves be satisfied with any supply but 
 Him. n. 286 . 
 
 As torrents in summer, 
 Half dried in their channels, 
 Suddenly rise, though the 
 Sky is still cloudless, 
 For rain has been falling 
 Far off at their fountains ; 
 
 So hearts that are fainting 
 Grow full to o erflowing, 
 And they that behold it 
 Marvel, and know not 
 That God at their fountains 
 Far off has been raining ! 
 
 LONGFELLOW.
 
 234 AUGUST 21. 
 
 "T O, I am with you alway," Christ de- 
 * clares. And souls to-day, many and 
 many of your souls, my friends, have found 
 the rich fulfilment of His promise. Sometimes 
 it comes to us with a strange surprise When 
 we are living on as if we lived alone, when we 
 are sitting working silently in some still room 
 which we think is empty but for our own 
 presence, when we are busy in some work 
 which seems as if it were our work, to be done 
 as we should please ; slowly, sweetly, surely 
 we become aware of a richer presence which 
 is truly with us, of a love which enfolds us, 
 and an authority which controls us. We are 
 not alone. The work is not our work but His. 
 The strength to do it with is not to be called 
 up out of the depths of ourselves, but taken 
 down from the heights of Him. The room is 
 full, the world is full of Jesus. He is doing 
 what He said He would do. He is with us as 
 He said He would be. IH . 297 . 
 
 Thy calmness bends serene above, 
 
 My restlessness to still ; 
 Around me flows Thy quickening life 
 
 To nerve my faltering will ; 
 Thy presence fills my solitude : 
 Thy providence turns all to good. 
 
 SAMUEL LONGFELLOW.
 
 AUGUST 22. 235 
 
 IF you must pass through what is even a desert 
 to get to fertile, smiling lands beyond, still 
 it is not good to count even the desert a mere 
 necessary evil to be got through and forgotten 
 as soon as possible. It is good as you plod 
 through the sand to feed your eyes with the 
 vastness and simplicity of the world which the 
 monotony of sky and sand can most impressively 
 display to you. So if God has appointed to any 
 of us times of solitude and friendlessness, 
 perhaps times of unpopularity and neglect, 
 let us pray that we may not pass through them, 
 however dreary they may be, without bringing 
 out from them greater conceptions of Him and 
 of our fellow-men and of ourselves, y. 172, i 73 . 
 
 A dreary desert dost thou trace, 
 
 And quaff a bitter bowl ? 
 The desert make thy Holy Place ; 
 
 Sing as thou drinkest, Soul ! 
 Or walkest thou neath shining skies, 
 
 A garden all the road ? 
 Sing, Soul, and make thy paradise 
 
 The Paradise of God ! 
 
 T. H. GILL. 
 
 Oh, my young friends, prosperous and happy, 
 with life all full of hope and chance and light, 
 . . . no lot is too rich for a soul that enters into 
 it full of humility before God, and love for 
 fellow-men, and a deep desire for holiness. 
 
 V. 156.
 
 236 AUGUST 23. 
 
 Ami I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled 
 with fire, and them that had gotten the victory over 
 the beast . . . stand on the sea of glass, having 
 the harps of God. REV. xv. 2. 
 
 " ""THEY who have gotten the victory over 
 * the Beast" are they who have come 
 out of sin holy, and out of trial pure, and out 
 of much tribulation have entered into the king 
 dom of heaven. 
 
 These are to walk upon " a sea of glass, 
 mingled with fire." What does that imagery 
 mean? The sea of glass, the glassy sea, with 
 its smooth transparency settled into solid still 
 ness without a ripple or the possibility of a 
 storm, calm, clear, placid evidently that is 
 the type of repose, of rest, of peace. And 
 fire, with its quick, eager, searching nature, 
 testing all things, consuming what is evil, puri 
 fying what is good, never resting a moment, 
 never sparing pain ; fire, all through the Bible, 
 is the type of active trial of every sort, of 
 struggle. "The fire shall try every man s 
 work of what sort it is." " The sea of glass," 
 then, " mingled with fire," is repose mingled 
 with struggle. It is peace and rest and achieve 
 ment, with the power of trial and suffering 
 yet alive and working within it. It is calm 
 ness still pervaded by the discipline through 
 which it has been reached. iv. 
 
 112.
 
 AUGUST 24. 237 
 
 7^hough He slay me, yet will I trust Him. 
 
 JOB xiii. 16. 
 
 nrO stand with the good things of life all 
 stripped away, to stand beaten and buf 
 feted by storms of disaster and disappointment, 
 to stand with all our brethren saying, "Behold, 
 how God hates him," and yet to know as 
 suredly in our own hearts that God loves us, 
 to know it so assuredly, with the intercourse 
 that lies between our heart and His, that we 
 can freely let go the outward tokens of His love, 
 as the most true and trusty friends do not need 
 to take gifts from one another for assurance of 
 their affection, this surely is the perfection of 
 a faithful life. It is the gathering up of all hap 
 pinesses into one happiness which is so rich that 
 it can live without them all, and yet regally 
 receives them into itself as the ocean receives 
 the rivers. 
 
 V. 320. 
 
 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. 
 
 MADAMK GUYON.
 
 238 AUGUST 25. 
 
 With brain o erworn, with heart a summer clod, 
 With eye so practised in each form around,- 
 And all forms mean, to glance above the ground 
 Irks it, each day of many days we plod, 
 Tongue-tied and deaf, along life s common road. 
 But suddenly, we know not how, a sound 
 Of living streams, an odour, a flower crowned 
 With dew, a lark upspringing from the sod, 
 And we awake. O joy and deep amaze ! 
 Beneath the everlasting hills we stand, 
 We hear the voices of the morning seas, 
 And earnest prophesyings in the land, 
 While from the open heaven leans forth at ga/e 
 The encompassing great cloud of witnesses. 
 
 EDWARD DOWDEN. 
 
 T IFE is always opening new and unexpected 
 things to us. There is no monotony in 
 living to him who walks even the quietest and 
 tamest paths with open and perceptive eyes. 
 The monotony of life, if life is monotonous to 
 you, is in you, not in the world. ... It is 
 God, and the discovery of Him in life, and the 
 certainty that He has plans for our lives and is 
 doing something with them, that gives us a 
 true, deep sense of movement, and lets us al 
 ways feel the power and delight of unknown 
 coming things. v, 288 , 28g>
 
 AUGUST 26. 239 
 
 T^HH Church has in herself the very doctrine 
 of tradition. She teaches the child a faith 
 that has the warrant of the ages, full of devotion 
 and of love. She calls on him to believe doc 
 trines of which he cannot be convinced as yet. 
 The tradition, the hereditation of belief, the 
 unity of the human history, are ideas very 
 familiar to her, of which she constantly and 
 beautifully makes use. And yet she does not 
 disown her work of teaching and arguing and 
 convincing. She cannot, and yet be true to her 
 mission. She teaches the young with the voice 
 of authority ; she addresses the mature with the 
 voice of reason. Let her give up the first func 
 tion, and her assemblies would turn into mere 
 societies of debate. Let her abandon the second, 
 and they must be blighted with some doctrine of 
 infallibility. i. 6? . 
 
 We beseech Thine Omnipotence, Holy God, Father 
 Almighty, that Thou wouldst fill us with the gift of 
 Thine Only-begotten Son, and the ineffable blessing, 
 visitation, and life-giving power of Thine and His Holy 
 Spirit, whereby Thy Church, enkindled with His fire, 
 may hold the true faith in Him from Whom she receives 
 
 all truth. 
 
 ANCIENT COLLECTS. BRIGHT.
 
 240 AUGUST 27. 
 
 HTHE world does say to us, " Enjoy; " and 
 1 it is good for us to hear her invitation. 
 But for the world to say, and for us to hear, 
 nothing better or deeper than " Enjoy " is to 
 turn the relation between the world and man 
 into something hardly better than that which 
 exists between the corn-field and the crows. It 
 is clothing one s self with cobwebs. Only when 
 the deeper communion, rich and full and strong, 
 is going on below, between the depths of life 
 and the depths of man, only then is the sur 
 face communion healthy and natural and good. 
 He who is always hearing and answering the 
 call of life to be thoughtful and brave and self- 
 sacrificing, he alone can safely hear the other 
 cry of life, tempting him to be happy and enjoy. 
 
 V. 242. 
 
 And the dreamer saw the sorrow and he heard the 
 
 bitter cries, 
 And he left his dreams of morning, and his Earthly 
 
 Paradise ; 
 
 And he changed his lyre of music for the bugle of the 
 
 fight, 
 And he sounded forth his challenge to the myrmidons 
 
 of Night, 
 
 To the tyrant and oppressor who had done the people 
 
 wrong, 
 While he led the marching millions with the summons 
 
 of his song. 
 
 ALLEN EASTMAN CROSS.
 
 AUGUST 28. 241 
 
 A17ITH our modern, half-personal, unlocal- 
 * ized ideas of Jesus, it must always 
 be striking sometimes it is startling to 
 remember that there was one little district 
 of a few miles square upon the surface of 
 this earth, which was known as " His own 
 country." That little group of hills with the 
 quiet valleys among them which lies between 
 Nazareth and the Sea of Tiberias, He loved 
 as we love the streets or farms where we 
 were born. And not very far off to the south 
 ward lay the great city of His race, where His 
 feet neve r seemed to enter except solemnly. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 130. 
 
 This is the earth he walked on ; not alone 
 That Asian country keeps the sacred stain ; 
 Tis not alone the far Judaean plain, 
 Mountain and river ! Lo, the sun that shone 
 
 On him shines now on us ; when day is gone 
 The moon of Galilee comes forth again 
 And lights our path as his : an endless chain 
 Of years and sorrows makes the round world one. 
 
 The air we breathe, he breathed, the very air 
 That took the mold and music of his high 
 And godlike speech. Since then shall mortal dare 
 
 With base thought front the ever-sacred sky, 
 Soil with foul deed the ground whereon he laid 
 In holy death his pale, immortal head. 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
 
 242 AUGUST 29. 
 
 " \A/ HY cannot I tull w thee now? Why 
 * * this delay of the divinest life ? 
 Why so much duty with so little strength ? 
 Why only the journey and the hunger and 
 the thirst, without the brook of refreshment 
 by the way ?" No man can wholly answer 
 these questions, but multitudes of saints, if 
 they could speak, would tell you how in their 
 hindered lives God kept them true to such 
 experience as they had attained ; and so it 
 was that, by and by, either before or after the 
 great enlightenment of death, the hindrance 
 melted away, and they who had been crying 
 for years, " Lord, why cannot we follow thee 
 now?" passed forth into the multitude of 
 those who "follow the Lamb whithersoever 
 He goeth." i. 3I , 32 . 
 
 For who that leans on His right arm 
 Was ever yet forsaken ? 
 What righteous cause can suffer harm 
 If He its part has taken ? 
 
 Though wild and loud 
 
 And dark the cloud 
 
 Behind its folds 
 
 His hand upholds 
 The calm sky of to-morrow. 
 
 God give us grace 
 Each in his place 
 To bear his lot, 
 And murmuring not 
 Endure and wait and labor. 
 
 LUTHER.
 
 AUGUST 30. 243 
 
 Gamaliel said unto them . . . Refrain from 
 these men and let them alone : for if this counsel or 
 this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if 
 it be of God, yc cannot overthrow it. ACTS v. 38. 
 
 HTHERE are some men whose whole influence 
 is to keep history open, so that whatever 
 good thing is trying to get done in the world 
 can get done ; not the doers of great things, but 
 the men who help to keep the world so truly 
 poised that good forces shall have a chance to 
 work. These words of Gamaliel seem to point 
 him out as being such a man. . . . Such 
 men in our community, in our family circles, in 
 our own little groups, whatever they are, any of 
 us may be men who shall do something to 
 hold the soul of our little group in such ex 
 pectancy and readiness, in such unwillingness 
 to settle down upon the imperfect present as a 
 finality, that when the inspired word or deed 
 shall come, as it is sure to come some time, it 
 shall find the atmosphere ready to receive it and 
 transmit it. We cannot make the wind to blow 
 it bloweth where it listeth; but we can keep 
 the windows open, so that when it blows the 
 chambered life about us shall not fail to receive 
 its freshness. m. 253,255.
 
 244 AUGUST 31. 
 
 \/OU have your cross, my friend. You do 
 1 not serve your Lord without surrender. 
 There is pain in the duty which you do. But 
 if in all your pain you know that God s love is 
 becoming a dearer and plainer truth to you, 
 and that you are finding the pleasure of obey 
 ing God ; and that the vision of the world s 
 redemption is growing more certain and bright, 
 then you can be more than brave ; you can 
 triumph in every task, in every sacrifice. 
 Your cross has won something of the beauty 
 and glory of your Lord s. Rejoice and be glad, 
 for you are crucified with Christ. \. 2o8 . 
 
 As flames that consume the mountains, as winds that 
 coerce the sea, 
 
 Thy men of renown show forth Thy might in the 
 clutch of death : 
 
 Down they go into silence, yet the Trump of the Jubi 
 lee 
 
 Swells not Thy praise as swells it the breathless pause 
 of their breath. 
 
 What is the flame of their fire, if so I may catch the 
 
 flame ; 
 What is- the strength of their strength, if also I may 
 
 wax strong ? 
 The flaming fire of their strength is the love of Jesu s 
 
 Name, 
 
 In Whom their death is life, their silence utters a song. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 SHPTRMRHR i. 245 
 
 look forward into the opening months 
 and ... if we have no religion (or do 
 not use the religion which we have, as many 
 religious men do not) we think of what will 
 happen as the falling of accidents or as the ma 
 turing of self-ripening processes. If we think 
 of it at all religiously, we talk about God send 
 ing messages to us. If our religion is a real live 
 thing, we feel God actually coming to us Him 
 self, in all the unknown things which are to 
 happen. . . . Ah, after all, that is every 
 thing. To know that there is no accident. To 
 know that indeed there is no such thing as a 
 mere message of God. To know that He is 
 always coming to us, to know that there is 
 nothing happening to us which is not His com 
 ing. To know all that, is to find the most trivial 
 life made solemn, the most cruel life made kind, 
 the most sad and gloomy life made rich and 
 beautiful. iv. 3 6 5 , 3 66. 
 
 From East to West, the God unshrined 
 
 Is still discovering me. 
 
 EDWARD DOWDBN.
 
 246 SEPTEMBER 2. 
 
 Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. 
 
 JOHX vi. 31. 
 
 THE Lord s Supper, the right and need of 
 every man to feed on God, the bread of 
 divine sustenance, the wine of divine inspira 
 tion offered to every man, and turned by every 
 man into what form of spiritual force the duty 
 and the nature of each man required, how 
 grand and glorious its mission might become ! 
 No longer the mystic source of unintelligible 
 influence ; no longer certainly the test of ar 
 bitrary orthodoxy ; no longer the initiation rite 
 of a selected brotherhood ; but the great sacra 
 ment of man ! . . . There is no other rallying- 
 place for all the good activity and worthy hopes 
 of man. It is in the power of the great Chris 
 tian Sacrament, the great human sacrament, 
 to become that rallying-place. Think how it 
 would be, if some morning all the men, women, 
 and children in this city who mean well, from 
 the reformer meaning to meet some giant evil 
 at the peril of his life to the school boy mean 
 ing to learn his day s lesson with all his 
 strength, were to meet in a great host at the 
 table of the Lord, and own themselves His 
 children, and claim the strength of His bread 
 and wine, and then go out with calm, strong, 
 earnest faces to their work. How the com 
 munion service would lift up its voice and sing 
 itself in triumph, the great anthem of dedicated 
 human life ! Ah, my friends, that, nothing less 
 than that, is the real Holy Communion of the 
 Church of the living God. iv. 46,47,48.
 
 SEPTEMBER 3. 247 
 
 IT seems very certain that the world is to grow 
 better and richer in the future, however it 
 has been in the past, not by the magnificent 
 achievements of the highly-gifted few, but by 
 the patient faithfulness of the one-talented many. 
 If we could draw back the curtains of the mil 
 lennium and look in, we should see not a 
 Hercules here and there standing on the world- 
 wasting monsters he had killed ; but a world 
 full of men each with an arm of moderate 
 muscle, but each triumphant over his own little 
 piece of the obstinacy of earth or the ferocity of 
 the brutes. It seems as if the heroes had done 
 almost all for the world that they can do, and 
 not much more can come till common men 
 awake and take their common tasks. I do 
 believe the common man s task is the hardest. 
 The hero has the hero s aspiration that lifts him 
 to his labor. All great duties are easier than the 
 little ones, though they cost far more blood and 
 agony. !. 14I . 
 
 Is Heroism dead in this our day? 
 
 No more rides forth in shining" mail the knight, 
 
 To do brave deeds in battle for the right, 
 
 Or glitter in the tournament s array ; 
 
 But has the noble heart burned out for aye 
 
 Which kindled in those breasts such living fire? 
 
 Nay, Virtue s flame may but more straight aspire 
 
 With every breath of glory shut away. 
 
 Who keep, mid bosom foes, their souls alive, 
 
 Who furnish other s need at cost untold, 
 
 With young hopes wounded, unapplauded strive, 
 
 Are they no knights? A Master said of old 
 
 That Honor but from Service doth derive ; 
 
 From Him their title comes, their rank they hold. 
 
 HARRIET WARE HALL.
 
 248 SEPTEMBER 4. 
 
 Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the 
 name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and 
 the Father by Him. Knowing that of the Lord ye 
 shall receive the reward of the inheritance : for ye 
 serve the Lord Christ. COL. iii. 17, 24. 
 
 MAKE your business the centre and fountain 
 of your joy, and then life will be healthy 
 and strong. Then you will not be running 
 everywhere to find some outside pleasure 
 which shall make up to you for your self-sacri 
 ficing toil ; but the scenes of your self-sacrific 
 ing toil itself, your store or your office or your 
 work-bench, shall be bright with associations 
 of delight, and vocal with your thankfulness 
 to the God who has given you, in them, the 
 most radiant revelations of Himself. This is 
 the only true transfiguration and success of 
 labor and of life. n. . 
 
 The mountain that the morn doth kiss 
 Glad greets its shining neighbor ; 
 
 Lord, heed the homage of our bliss, 
 The incense of our labor. 
 
 Now the long shadows eastward creep, 
 
 The golden sun is setting ; 
 Take, Lord ! the worship of our sleep, 
 
 The praise of our forgetting. 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
 
 SEPTEMBER 5. 249 
 
 BE interested in some pursuit which will 
 take you into quite unfamiliar fields. 
 Make yourself at home in the Public Library, . 
 that great organ-forest of sweet and solemn 
 and inspiring sounds, which will speak to us 
 if we come and sit and are hungry for its 
 music. Let the country, when you can, scat 
 ter the cobwebs of the city out of your brain 
 and send you back to its richer life refreshed 
 and simplified. Above all, let the peace of 
 God, the peace of trust and love, the peace 
 of religion, flow in upon your consciousness 
 the moment that business care gives it a mo 
 ment s freedom. ^Whenever necessary thought 
 of self, gives way for an hour, O how good it 
 is if the thought of the Father instantly, with 
 out waiting to be summoned, takes possession 
 of the child. iv. 235 . 
 
 Calm soul of all things ! make it mine 
 To feel, amid the city s jar, 
 That there abides a peace of thine, 
 Man did not make, and cannot mar ! 
 
 The will to neither strive nor cry, 
 The power to feel with others give ! 
 Calm, calm me more ! nor let me die 
 Before 1 have begun to live. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 250 SEPTEMBER 6. 
 
 All things arc yours ; whether Paul, or Apollos, 
 or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or 
 tilings present, or tilings to come; all are \onrs ; 
 and ye are Chris fs ; and Christ is God s. In 
 Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and 
 knowledge. I. COR. iii. 22, 23. COL. ii. 3. 
 
 "THE man who has gone on his way, as most 
 * of us have to do, with little learning, but 
 has also gone on his way doing duty faithfully, 
 developing all the practical skill that is in him. 
 and sometimes, just because their details are so 
 dark to him, getting rich visions of the general 
 light and glory of the great sciences, seen afar 
 off, seen as great wholes, which often seem to 
 be denied to the plodders who spend their lives 
 in the close study of those sciences, he is the 
 man who knows how to be unlearned. It is a 
 blessed thing that there is such a knowledge 
 possible for overworked, practical men. The 
 man who has that knowledge may be self-re 
 spectful in the face of all the colleges. He may 
 ;tand before the kings of learning and not be 
 ashamed ; for his lot is as true a part of life as 
 theirs, and he is bravely holding up his side of 
 that great earth over which the plans of God 
 are moving on to their completeness. v . i6 9 .
 
 SEPTEMBER 7. 251 
 
 My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken 
 Me ? MATT, xxvii. 46. 
 
 "THOUGH I do not understand this c;y fully, 
 I know that I come nearest to its mean 
 ing when its meaning seems to me most 
 simple. It is pure love, love thwarted, 
 hindered, and perplexed, but yet pure love, 
 with that triumph which love always carries 
 in its very existence whether it reach its 
 object and call back response or not. Jesus 
 does not beg for release. He does not even 
 ask for vindication. He only -utters love. 
 
 And that cry after His Father lets us look 
 down into His heart and see that in loving 
 His Father and being loved by Him was His 
 
 perpetual joy. INFLUENCE, i 77 . 
 
 O Lord Jesus Christ, Who didst cry from the Cross 
 to Thy Father, My God, My God, why hast Thou 
 forsaken Me? and Who didst say to Thine Apostles, 
 It is expedient for you that I go away : grant that, 
 when we are forsaken for a while by Thee, we may 
 not despair ; vouchsafe that, when we cannot see Thee 
 to be with us, we may not utterly faint ; but possessing 
 our souls in patience, may follow Thee in the night of 
 Thy tribulation, till at length we behold the day of 
 Thy glory, BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE,
 
 252 SEPTEMBER 8. 
 
 TT may be that God used to give you plentiful 
 chance to work for Him. Your days went 
 singing by, each winged with some enthusiastic 
 duty for the Master whom you loved. . . . 
 You can be idle for Him, if so He wills, with 
 the same joy with which you once labored for 
 Him. The sick-bed or the prison is as welcome 
 as the harvest-field or the battle-field, when 
 once your soul has come to value as the end of 
 life the privilege of seeking and of finding Him 
 
 V. 321, 322. 
 
 O Lord, fulfil Thy Will 
 
 Be the days few or many, good or ill : 
 
 Prolong them, to suffice 
 
 For offering up ourselves Thy sacrifice ; 
 
 Shorten them if Thou wilt, 
 
 To make in righteousness an end of guilt. 
 
 Yea, they will not be long 
 
 To souls who learn to sing a patient song : 
 
 Yea, short they will not be 
 
 To souls on tiptoe to flee home to Thee. 
 
 O Lord, fulfil Thy Will : 
 
 Make Thy Will ours, and keep us patient still 
 
 Be the days few or many, good or ill. 
 
 CHRISTINA RosbErn.
 
 SEPTEMBER 9. 253 
 
 The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. 
 
 JOHN i. 14. 
 
 "THEN were the capacities of our human 
 * flesh declared. Then in the strong and 
 healthy life of Jesus it was made known to 
 what divine uses a strong body might be 
 given. And since everything in this world 
 properly belongs to the highest uses to which 
 it may possibly be put, the strong human body 
 was there declared to belong to righteousness 
 and God. Thenceforward after Jesus and His 
 life, wherever human flesh appeared at its 
 best, wherever a human body stood forth 
 specially strong, specially perfect and beauti 
 ful, it had the mark and memory of the Incar 
 nation on it. It might be totally perverted. 
 It might be given to the Devil. But, since the 
 work that Jesus did, the life that Jesus lived 
 in a human body, the human body in its full 
 est vigor has belonged to the high work which 
 He did in it, the service of God and help of 
 fellow-man. Its vigor is His mark upon it. 
 Feel this, and then how sacred becomes the 
 body s health and strength. It is no chance, 
 no luxury. God means that in it you should 
 do work for Him. By it He claims you for 
 His own. He to whom God has given it, is 
 bound to have strong convictions, a live con 
 science, and intense earnest purposes of work. 
 
 n. 366, 36?
 
 254 SEPTEMBER 10. 
 
 Far better never to have heard the name 
 Of zeal and just ambition, than to live 
 Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour 
 Turns recreant to her task ; takes heart again, 
 Then feels immediately some hollow thought 
 Hang like an interdict upon her hopes. 
 This is my lot ; for either still I find 
 Some imperfection in the chosen theme, 
 Or see of absolute accomplishment 
 Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself, 
 That 1 recoil and droop, and seek repose 
 In listlessness from vain perplexity, 
 Unprofitably travelling toward the grave, 
 Like a false steward who hath much received 
 
 And renders nothing back. 
 
 WORDSWORTH, 
 
 A NY man who is good for anything, if he is 
 "^ always thinking about himself, will come 
 to think himself good for nothing very soon. 
 It is only a fop or a fool who can bear to look 
 at himself all day long, without disgust. And 
 so the first thing for a man to do, who wants 
 to use his best powers at their best, is to get 
 rid of self-consciousness, to stop thinking 
 about himself and how he is working, alto 
 gether, i. 
 
 142-
 
 SEPTEMBER 11. 255 
 
 Do you dare to be 
 
 Of the great majority? 
 
 To be only as the rest, 
 
 With Heaven s common comforts blessed ; 
 
 To accept, in humble part, 
 
 Truth that shines on every heart ; 
 
 Never to be set on high, 
 
 Where the envious curses fly ; 
 
 Never name or fame to find, 
 
 Still outstripped in soul and mind ; 
 
 To be hid, unless to God, 
 
 As one grass-blade in the sod, 
 
 Under foot with millions trod? 
 
 If you dare, come, with us be 
 
 Lost in Love s great unity ? E. R. SILL. 
 
 If I feel God behind all existence, then there 
 is a great identity established between all the 
 utterances of Him throughout the length and 
 breadth of human life. The volcanoes know 
 each other, Etna crying out to Vesuvius 
 across the sea, because of the oneness of the 
 central fire from which they all proceed. Let 
 me know God, the source of all that man does 
 anywhere, and then, O poet, sing your song ! 
 O sculptor, carve your statue ! O builder, build 
 your house ! O engineer, roll out your railroad 
 on the plain ! O sailor, sail your ship across the 
 sea ! They are all mine. I am glad ; I am proud 
 of them all. Is it not what Paul wrote so 
 triumphantly to his disciples, " All things are 
 yours, and you are Christ s, and Christ is 
 God s"? v . 70,71.
 
 256 SEPTEMBER 12. 
 
 Jesus said, Make the men sit down. 
 
 JOHN vi. 10. 
 
 HTHE disciples as well as the stragglers from 
 * Capernaum perhaps the busy disciples 
 more than anybody else in all the crowd 
 must have needed Christ s call to sit down 
 and be fed. The more earnestly you are at 
 work for Jesus, the more you need times when 
 what you are doing for Him passes totally out 
 of your mind, and the only thing worth think 
 ing of seems to be what He is doing for you. 
 That is the real meaning of the days of dis 
 couragement and self-contempt which come to 
 all of us, O fellow laborers for the Lord. 
 
 God of all love and pity, 
 
 Thy children gently guide ; 
 With heavenly food supply us, 
 
 All needful good provide. 
 
 By waters still, refresh us ; 
 
 As patiently we wait, 
 Till Thou, the Fount of brightness, 
 
 Our souls illuminate. 
 
 Our wishes and affections, 
 
 Our impulses and powers, 
 We yield unto Thy guidance ; 
 
 For they are Thine, not ours. 
 
 With strong attraction draw us 
 
 Unto Thyself alone, 
 O King of Saints, and bring us 
 
 Unto Thy sapphire throne. 
 
 CAROLINE M. NUKL
 
 SEPTEMBER 13. 257 
 
 MAKE your most simple act complete ; do 
 your most common daily duty from its 
 divinest motive, and what a change will come ! 
 Still your life will need days of retirement, 
 when it will shut the gates upon the noisy 
 whirl of action and be alone with God. But 
 it will not be upon them that it will mostly 
 depend for spiritual nourishment. They will 
 be like great exceptional banquets and ex 
 traordinary feasts of grace. The daily bread 
 of spiritual life, the ordinary feeding of the 
 soul on God, which really makes its sustenance, 
 will be in the perpetual doing of the works of 
 life for Him. The real sitting down to be fed 
 will be mysteriously identical with the most 
 eager and energetic standing on the feet to do 
 His will! 
 
 IV, 238. 
 
 Nothing remains to say to Thee, O Lord, 
 
 1 am confessed, 
 All my lips empty crying Thou hast heard, 
 
 My unrest, my rest. 
 
 Why wait I any longer? Thou dost stay, 
 And therefore, Lord, 1 would not go away. 
 
 Then when Thou seekest Thy way, and 1, mine, 
 
 Let the World be 
 Not wide and cold after this cherishing shrine 
 
 lllum d by Thee, 
 
 Nay, but worth worship, fair, a radiant star, 
 Tender and strong as Thy chief angels are. 
 
 EDWARD DOWDEN.
 
 258 SEPTEMBER 14. 
 
 Father, I will that they also, wliom Thou hast 
 given me, be with me where I am. JOHN xvii. 24. 
 
 THAT was Christ s prayer. He prayed it 
 at the Passover table. The next day 
 He prayed it in all the silent appeal of His 
 suffering upon the Cross. " I, if I be lifted 
 up, will draw all men unto me." The cross 
 was Christ s supreme utterance of His longing 
 that all men might be rescued out of sin and 
 brought to holiness. As we stand and see 
 Him suffer, one thought, one cry alone arises 
 in our hearts. Oh, how He must have wanted 
 to save us ! How terrible sin must have 
 seemed to Him ! How glorious holiness must 
 have seemed, that such a prayer as this sacri 
 fice of Himself should thus have gone up to 
 God for our salvation ! L 3 , 3 , V4 . 
 
 Be merciful, be gracious ; spare him, Lord. 
 Be merciful, be gracious ; Lord, deliver him. 
 
 From all that is evil ; 
 From power of the devil ; 
 Thy servant deliver, 
 For once and forever. 
 
 By Thy birth, and by Thy Cross, 
 
 Rescue him from endless loss ; 
 
 By Thy death and burial, 
 
 Save him from a final fall ; 
 
 By Thy rising from the tomb, 
 By Thy mounting up above, 
 By the Spirit s gracious love, 
 
 Save him in the day of doom. 
 
 JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.
 
 SEPTEMBER 15. 259 
 
 J TNDER every discouragement, untouched by 
 O any scepticism or contempt of scornful 
 friend or foe, there has lain at the bottom of the 
 soul a conviction too deep for reason to give an 
 account of, that this which seemed so impossible 
 could be done. The soul could break through 
 its selfishness, could despise danger and pain, 
 could enter into communion with God. . . . 
 But now what happened one of the things 
 which happened at the Incarnation was that 
 this assurance, which had lain at the bottom of 
 the human heart, came forth and was a living, 
 manifest Being. It put on human flesh. It 
 spoke with human lips. It worked with human 
 hands. Christ was what man had felt in his 
 soul that he might be. Christ did what man s 
 heart had always told him that it was in his hu 
 manity to do. The new man which the old 
 manhood had always felt struggling within itself 
 came forth, and men knew themselves, their 
 true selves, for the first time manifest in Him. 
 This was what made man s hope thenceforth 
 another thing. The stars at which men had 
 guessed, knowing with what they called cer 
 tainty that they were there, lo ! in the Incarna 
 tion they burned out visibly. iv. 281,282. 
 
 Shine, my only Day-star, shine: 
 So mine eyes shall wake by Thine ; 
 So the dreams I grope-in now 
 To clear visions all shall grow ; 
 So my day shall measured be 
 By Thy Grace s clarity ; 
 So shall I discern the Path 
 Thy sweet Law prescribed hath ; 
 For Thy ways cannot be shown 
 By any light but by Thine own. 
 
 JOSEPH BEAUMONT.
 
 2<5o SEPTEMBER 16. 
 
 TTOW every truth attains to its enlargement 
 1 * and reality in this great truth, that 
 the soul of man carries the highest possibilities 
 within itself, and that what Christ does for it 
 is to kindle and call forth these possibilities to 
 actual existence. We do not understand the 
 Church until we understand this truth. Seen 
 in its light the Christian Church is nothing in 
 the world except the promise and prophecy 
 and picture of what the world in its idea is and 
 always has been, and in its completion must 
 visibly become. It is the primary crystalliza 
 tion of humanity. It is no favored, elect body 
 caught from the ruin, given a salvation in 
 which the rest can have no part. It is an at 
 tempt to realize the universal possibility. All 
 men are its potential members. The strange 
 thing for any man is not that he should be 
 within it, but that he should be without it. 
 Every good movement of any most secular 
 sort is a struggle toward it, a part of its ac 
 tivity. All the world s history is ecclesiastical 
 history, is the story of the success and failure, 
 the advance and hindrance of the ideal human 
 ity, the Church of the living God. Well may 
 the prophet poet greet it, 
 
 " O heart of mine, keep patience ; looking forth 
 
 As from the Mount of Vision I behold 
 Pure, just, and free the Church of Christ on earth, 
 The martyr s dream, the golden age foretold." 
 
 V. 15. 16.
 
 SEPTEMBER 17. 261 
 
 J IDLENESS standing in the midst of unat- 
 tempted tasks is always proud. Work is 
 always tending to humility. Work touches 
 the keys of endless activity, opens the infinite, 
 and stands awe-struck before the immensity 
 of what there is to do. Work brings a man 
 into the good realm of facts. Work takes the 
 dreamy youth who is growing proud in his 
 closet over one or two sprouting powers which 
 he has discovered in himself, and sets him out 
 among the gigantic needs and the vast pro 
 cesses of the world, and makes him feel his 
 littleness. Work opens the measureless fields 
 of knowledge and skill that reach far out of 
 sight. I am sure we all know the fine, calm, 
 sober humbleness of men who have really 
 tried themselves against the great tasks of life. 
 It was great in Paul, and in Luther, and in 
 Cromwell. It is something that never comes 
 into the character, never shows in the face of 
 a man who has never worked. i. 34Q , 350 . 
 
 No man is born into the world, whose work 
 
 Is not born with him ; there is always work, 
 
 And tools to work withal, for those who will ; 
 
 And blessed are the horny hands of toil ! 
 
 The busy world shoves angrily aside 
 
 The man who stands with arms akimbo set, 
 
 Until occasion tells him what to do ; 
 
 And he who waits to have his task marked out 
 
 Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 262 SEPTEMBER 18. 
 
 OHGIN with largeness of thought, and with 
 J-* positiveness of thought. The way in 
 which a man begins to think influences all his 
 thinking to the end of his life. Begin by seek 
 ing for what is true, not for what is false, in the 
 thought and belief which you find about you. 
 Be as critical as you will, search as severely as 
 you want to into the belief which offers itself 
 for your acceptance, but let your search and 
 criticism always have for its purpose that you 
 may find what you may believe, not that you 
 may find what you need not believe. Some 
 things which your first thinking accepts, your 
 riper thought may feel compelled to lay aside ; 
 but the habit of believing once established will 
 not be lost out of your life, and the young 
 man s time is the time to make that habit. 
 Scepticism is not merely the disbelief of some 
 propositions. If it were that, there is not one 
 of us but would be a sceptic. It is the habit 
 and the preference of disbelieving. God save 
 us all from that scepticism ! v. 101. 
 
 Read much, learn much, 
 
 Yet you must always come to one beginning 
 I am He 
 
 That teaches man knowledge. 
 I give a clearer understanding to the little ones 
 Than can be given by man. 
 I. even I, lift even in a flash the simple mind 
 To understand more ways of the eternal truth 
 Than if a man had studied in the schools ten years. 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS.
 
 SEPTEMBER 19. 263 
 
 The length and the breadth and the height of 
 it are equal. REV. xxi. 16. 
 
 THE life which to its length and breadth 
 adds height, which to its personal ambi 
 tion and sympathy with man adds the love 
 and obedience of God, completes itself into the 
 cube of the eternal city and is the life com 
 plete. Think for a moment of the life of the 
 great apostle, the manly, many-sided Paul. " I 
 press toward the mark for the prize of my high 
 calling; " he writes to the Philippians. That 
 is the length of life for him. "I will gladly 
 spend and be spent for you ; " he writes to 
 the Corinthians. There is the breadth of life 
 for him. " God hath raised us up and made 
 us sit together in heavenly places in Christ 
 Jesus;" he writes to the Ephesians. There 
 is the height of life for him. You can add 
 nothing to these three dimensions when you 
 try to account to yourself for the impression of 
 completeness which comes to you out of his 
 simple, lofty story. 
 
 Look at the Lord of Paul. See how in Christ 
 the same symmetrical manhood shines yet more 
 complete. See what intense ambition to com 
 plete His work, what tender sympathy with 
 every struggling brother by His side, and at the 
 same time what a perpetual dependence on His 
 Father is in Him. "For this cause came I 
 into the world." " For their sakes I sanctify 
 myself." "Now, O Father, glorify Thou 
 me." Leave either of these out, and you 
 have not the perfect Christ, not the entire 
 symmetry of manhood. n. I24 , 125 .
 
 264 SEPTEMBER 20. 
 
 "THERE is a science of knowledge, as well as 
 a science of fossils, and a science of 
 stars. The sacredness of all knowledge as the 
 gift of God ; the unity of all knowledge as the 
 utterance of God ; the purpose of all knowledge 
 as the food of character in the knower and the 
 helper of humanity through Him these are 
 the great departments of that science. . . . 
 
 Oh, my friends, boys studying at college, 
 men and women reading hooks and struggling 
 so restlessly for culture, there is no way to 
 win this highest knowledge, the knowledge 
 of how to know, hut in the service of the 
 God of Light, who is also the God of Love, 
 the God of Character, the God of Man. Any 
 industrious man with a good brain and a good 
 memory can know things if he will ; only the 
 reverent and devoted man can know how to 
 knaw. v. i 52 . i 53 . 
 
 Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail 
 
 Against her beauty? . . . 
 
 But she is earthly, of the mind, 
 And Wisdom heavenly, of the soul. 
 
 TENNYSON
 
 SEPTEMBER 21. 265 
 
 Whether we be afflicted, it is for your consola 
 tion and salvation : . . . or whether we be com 
 forted, it is for your consolation and salvation. 
 
 II. COR. i. 6. 
 
 TO be a true minister to men is always to 
 accept new happiness and new distress, 
 both of them forever deepening and entering 
 into closer and more inseparable union with 
 each other the more profound and spiritual the 
 ministry becomes. The man who gives him 
 self to other men can never be a wholly sad 
 man ; but no more can he be a man of 
 unclouded gladness. To him shall come with 
 every deeper consecration a before untasted 
 joy, but in the same cup shall be mixed a 
 sorrow that it was beyond his power to feel 
 before. They who long to sit with Jesus on 
 His throne may sit there if the Father sees 
 them pure and worthy, but they must be 
 baptized with the baptism that He is baptized 
 with. All truly consecrated men learn little 
 by little that what they are consecrated to is 
 not joy or sorrow, but a divine idea and a 
 profound obedience, which can find their full 
 outward expression not in joy, and not in 
 sorrow, but in the mysterious and inseparable 
 
 mingling of the two. INFLUENCE, .91. iQ2.
 
 266 SEPTEMBER 22. 
 
 TO believe, to believe alone is to live. Scep 
 ticism as a habit, as a condition, is a sign 
 of deficient vitality. It is a vastly nobler fear 
 which dreads lest it should lose some truth than 
 that which trembles lest it should believe some 
 thing which is not wholly true. " Seek Truth 
 and pursue it." Of course seeking the Truth, 
 you will hate and avoid the lie, that goes 
 without saying, but not to avoid the lie, but 
 to find the Truth. Scepticism only for the sake 
 of Faith, that is Christ s brave and healthy 
 
 law Of life. HARVARD MONTHLY, 182. 
 
 From doubt, where all is double ; 
 Where wise men are not strong, 
 Where comfort turns to trouble, 
 Where just men suffer wrong ; 
 Where sorrow treads on joy, 
 Where sweet things soonest cloy, 
 Where faiths are built on dust, 
 Where love is half mistrust, 
 Hungry, and barren, and sharp as the sea 
 
 Oh ! set us free. 
 O let the false dream fly, 
 Where our sick souls do lie 
 Tossing continually ! 
 O where thy voice doth come 
 Let all doubts be dunb, 
 Let all words be mild. 
 All strifes be reconciled, 
 All pains beguiled ! 
 Light bring no blindness, 
 Love no unkindness, 
 Knowledge no ruin, 
 Fear no undoing ! 
 From the cradle to the grave 
 Save, oh ! save. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 SEPTEMBER 23. 267 
 
 "THERE is in you a power of loving awe 
 which needs infinite perfection and mercy 
 to call it out and satisfy it. There is an affec 
 tion which you cannot exercise towards any 
 imperfect being. It is that mixture of admira 
 tion and reverence and fear and love, which 
 we call worship. ... If this power is not 
 utterly to die within you, do you not need 
 God ? If you are not to lose that highest 
 reach of love and fear where, uniting, they 
 make worship, must you not have God ? Lo ! 
 before this expiring faculty the personal God 
 comes and stands, and it lifts up its dying 
 hands to reach after Him ; it opens its dying 
 eyes to look upon Him ; as when a man is 
 perishing of starvation, the sight of bread 
 summons him back to life. He need not die, 
 but live, for here is his own life-food come to 
 him. ii I02> I03 . 
 
 Trembling before Thee we fall down to adore Thee, 
 
 Shamefaced and trembling we lift our eyes to Thee : 
 O First and with the last ! annul our ruined past, 
 Rebuild us to Thy glory, set us free 
 From sin and from sorrow to fall down and worship 
 
 Thee. 
 Full of pity, view us, stretch Thy sceptre to us, 
 
 Bid us live that we may give ourselves to Thee : 
 O Faithful Lord and true ! stand up for us and do, 
 
 Make us lovely, make us new, set us free, 
 Heart and soul and spirit to bring all and worship 
 Thee. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 268 SEPTEMBER 24. 
 
 JOY or delight in what we are doing is not a 
 mere luxury ; it is a means, a help for the 
 more perfect doing of our work. Indeed it may 
 be truly said that no man does any work per 
 fectly who does not enjoy his work. Joy in 
 one s work is the consummate tool without 
 which the work may be done indeed, but with 
 out which the work will always be done slowly, 
 clumsily, and without its finest perfectness. 
 Men who do their work without enjoying it are 
 like men carving statues with hatchets. The 
 statue gets carved perhaps, and is a monument 
 forever of the dogged perseverance of the artist ; 
 but there is a perpetual waste of toil, and there 
 is no fine result in the end. H 3I 
 
 A man s joy in what he has to do is the heart 
 and soul of his relation to it ; or rather it is the 
 relation of his heart and soul to it. Faithfulness 
 to one s work may be only an outside bondage, 
 but joy in it is a relationship of heart to heart, 
 of the heart of the man to the heart of his 
 task. v . 325 . 
 
 Then a voice that came not from moon or star, 
 From the sun, or the wind roving afar, 
 Said, " Man, I am with thee hear my voice." 
 And man said, " I rejoice." 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD.
 
 SEPTEMBER 25. 269 
 
 IT is in the silences of Nature that we are 
 often sensible of being most near to Nat 
 ure s heart. Not when the thunder is roar 
 ing, nor when the winds are sighing, but in 
 some hour of the morning or the evening when 
 even the distant song of a bird seems an intru 
 sion, when the silence of Nature grows a trans 
 parent veil which reveals and does not hide 
 her loveliness, then is the time when you 
 know how lovely Nature is ! v. 137. 139. 
 
 Love, now an universal birth, 
 From heart to heart is stealing, 
 From earth to man, from man to earth, 
 It is the hour of feeling. 
 
 One moment now may give us more 
 Than fifty years of reason : 
 Our minds shall drink at every pore 
 The spirit of the season. 
 
 Some silent laws our hearts will make, 
 Which they shall long obey : 
 We for the year to come may take 
 Our temper from to-day. 
 
 And from the blessed power that rolls 
 About, below, above, 
 We ll frame the measure of our souls : 
 They shall be tuned to Love. 
 
 WORDSWUUTH
 
 2/o SEPTEMBER 26. 
 
 O1LENCE has as various moods as speech, 
 and its moods are far more subtle. . . . 
 The completest joy and the profoundest sorrow, 
 both are silent. It is as different in men as it is 
 in Nature. There is the silence of sunrise, all 
 tremulous with hope, and the silence of sunset, 
 wrapped in the stillness of its memories. There- 
 is the stillness of the snake slipping unseen 
 through the grass, the silence of the war-horse 
 waiting for the signal of the battle. How dif 
 ferent they are from one another, yet all alike 
 are silent. v. 125 
 
 What is the saddest, sweetest, lowest sound 
 Nearest akin to perfect silence? Not 
 The delicate whisper sometimes in the hot 
 
 Autumnal morning heard the cornfields round ; 
 
 Nor yet to lonely man, now almost bound 
 By slumber, near his house a murmuring river 
 Buz/ing and droning o er the shores for ever. 
 
 Not such faint voice of Autumn oat-en crowned, 
 
 And not such liquid murmur, O my heart ! 
 But tears that drop o er graves, and sins, and fears, 
 A sound the very weeper scarcely hears, 
 
 A music in which silence hath some part. 
 
 O Thou, all gentle, Who all-hearing art, 
 
 Hold not Thy peace, sweet Saviour, at my tears ! 
 
 WILLIAM ALEXANDER.
 
 SEPTEMBER 27. 271 
 
 T NEVER think of the silences of God with 
 out thinking how great is the delight 
 which comes when any man discovers that 
 God re-ally has been answering him all the 
 time when he thought that his prayers were 
 all unheard. That must be one of the most 
 exquisite joys of heaven. Among the vials 
 which in the Book of Revelation held the 
 prayers of saints, there must be some which, 
 when the saints who prayed them find them 
 in their vision-time, shine with a brilliancy 
 supremely precious. They are the prayers 
 which seemed as if they were not answered, 
 but which really did bring down their blessing. 
 
 V. 132. 
 
 Wilt thou not ope the heart to know 
 
 What rainbows teach, and sunsets show? 
 
 Verdict which accumulates 
 
 From lengthening scroll of human fates, 
 
 Voice of earth to earth returned, 
 
 Prayers of saints that inly burned, - 
 
 Saying : What is excellent, 
 
 As God lives is permanent ; 
 
 Hearts are dust, hearts loves remain. 
 
 Heart s love will meet thee again. 
 
 KMERSON.
 
 272 SEPTEMBER 28. 
 
 T HE suffering Saviour inly known, and 
 
 * through His wounds letting out His life 
 into the starved lives of those who hold Him 
 fast, that is the Gospel. It is not what church 
 you belong to or what work you do, but what 
 you know of, how deeply you are fed by Him 
 
 - the suffering Saviour. That is the question 
 for the soul. 
 
 Before His cross the lesson must be learned. 
 Stand there until you are grateful through and 
 through for such a love so marvellously shown. 
 Let gratitude open your life to receive His 
 Spirit ; let it make you long and try to be like 
 Him ; let love bring Him into you so that you 
 shall do His will because you have His heart. 
 That entrance of His life into you shall give 
 you strength and nourishment you never knew 
 before. n 25I . 
 
 When temptation sore is rife, 
 When we faint amidst the strife, 
 Thou, whose death hath been our life, 
 Save us, Holy Jesu. 
 
 While on stormy seas we toss, 
 Let us count all things but loss, 
 But Thee only on Thy Cross : 
 
 Save us, Holy Jesu. 
 
 So, with hope in Thee made fast, 
 When death s bitterness is past 
 We may see Thy Face at last : 
 
 Save us, Holy Jesu. 
 
 LITANY OF THE PASSION.
 
 SEPTEMBER 29. 273 
 
 Seraphic intellect and force 
 
 To seize and throw the doubts of man ; 
 
 Impassion d logic, which outran 
 The hearer in its fiery course ; 
 
 High nature amorous of the good, 
 But touch d with no ascetic gloom ; 
 And passion pure in snowy bloom 
 
 Thro all the years of April blood ; 
 
 And manhood fused with female grace 
 In such a sort, the child would twine 
 A trustful hand, unask d, in thine, 
 
 And find his comfort in thy face ; 
 
 All these have been, and tliee mine eyes 
 Have look d on : if they look d in vain, 
 My shame is greater who remain, 
 
 Nor let thy wisdom make me wise. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 THESE are the qualities which we have seen 
 in the choice young man, purity of 
 body, mind, and soul ; simple integrity, and a 
 dignity which will not have what is not his, no 
 matter under what specious form of game or 
 wager it has come into his hands ; tenderness, 
 sympathy, sentiment, call it what name you 
 will, a soul that is not cynical, or cruel ; and 
 positive, broad thought and conviction. . . . 
 It is always sad not to feel the choiceness of 
 anything which has in it wonderful and fine 
 capacities, to be content with the ordinari 
 ness and coarseness of that which is capable 
 of being exquisite and great. Oh, that there 
 could thrill through the being of our young 
 men some electrical sense that they are God s 
 sons, that so they might make themselves the 
 servants of His Christ, and live the life and 
 attain the nature which are rightly theirs. 
 
 V. IO2, ID;.
 
 274 SEPTEMBER 30. 
 
 Give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to 
 doctrine. . . . Take heed unto thyself , and unto the 
 doctrine ; continue in them : for in doing this thou 
 shalt both save thyself, and them tliat hear thee. 
 
 I. TIM. iv. 13, 16. 
 
 ""THE truth is, no preaching ever had any 
 * strong power that was not the preaching 
 of doctrine. The preachers that have moved 
 and held men have always preached doctrine. 
 No exhortation to a good life that does not put 
 behind it some truth as deep as eternity can 
 seize and hold the conscience. Preach doc 
 trine, preach all the doctrine that you know, 
 and learn forever more and more ; but preach 
 it always, not that men may believe it, but 
 that men may be saved by believing it. So it 
 shall be live, not dead. So men shall rejoice 
 in it and not decry it. So they shall feed on it 
 at your hands as on the bread of life, solid and 
 sweet, and claiming for itself the appetite of 
 man which God made for it. PREACHING,^. 
 
 To decry dogma in the interest of character, 
 is like despising food as if it interfered with 
 health. Food is not health. The human body 
 is built just so as to turn food into health and 
 strength. And truth is not holiness. The 
 human soul is made to turn, by the subtle 
 chemistry of its digestive experience, truth 
 into goodness. And this, I think, is just what 
 the Christian, as he goes on, finds himself do 
 ing under God s grace. n. 45 .
 
 OCTOBER i. 275 
 
 T S it success in the struggle of life simply to get 
 1 through with decency and die without dis 
 grace or shame ? Is it success in the struggle of 
 life just to have so laid hold on God s mercy, 
 to have so made our peace with Him, that we 
 know we shall not he punished for our sins ? Is 
 it success in the struggle of life even to have so 
 lived in His presence that every day has been 
 bright with the sense that He was taking care of 
 us ? These things are very good ; but if the 
 purpose of God s government of the world and 
 of us is what I said, then the real victory in the 
 struggle can be nothing less than the accom 
 plishment in us of that which it is the object of 
 all His government to accomplish in the world. 
 When, truly obedient, we have been made like 
 Him whom we obey, then, only then, we have 
 overcome in the struggle of life. n. 70( 7I- 
 
 And will not, then, the immortal armies scorn 
 The world s poor, routed leavings? or will they, 
 Who fail d under the heat of this life s day, 
 Support the fervors of the heavenly morn ? 
 No, no ! the energy of life may be 
 Kept on after the grave, but not begun ! 
 And he who flagg d not in the earthly strife, 
 From strength to strength advancing only he, 
 His soul well-knit, and all his battles won, 
 Mounts, and that hardly, to eternal life. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 276 OCTOBER 2. 
 
 The light will never open sightless eyes, 
 
 It comes to those who willingly would see : 
 
 And every object hill, and stream, and skies 
 
 Rejoice within th encircling line to be. 
 
 Tis day the field is tilled with busy hands, 
 
 The shop resounds with noisy workmen s din, 
 
 The traveler with his staff already stands 
 
 His yet unmeasured journey to begin ; 
 
 The light breaks gently, too, within the breast, 
 
 Yet there no eye awaits the crimson morn, 
 
 The forge and noisy anvil are at rest, 
 
 Nor men nor oxen tread the fields of corn, 
 
 Nor pilgrim lifts his staff, it is no day 
 
 To those who find on earth their place to stay. 
 
 JONES VERY. 
 
 THE spiritual nature of the world ; that all 
 this mass of things and events is fitted for 
 and naturally struggles towards the education 
 of character ; the spiritual nature of man ; . . . 
 and God ; . . . these are the before un 
 seen realities which come pressing into your 
 intelligence, tempting, demanding your recog 
 nition when your conscience is once open, when 
 you have once begun to live in the desire and 
 struggle to do right. Do you not see then what 
 1 mean when 1 say that the conscience stands 
 between man s power of knowledge and the 
 spiritual world, just as the eye stands between 
 man s power of knowledge and the world of 
 visible nature. It is the opened or unopened 
 window through which flows the glorious 
 knowledge of God and heaven ; or outside of 
 which that knowledge waits, as the sun with 
 its glory or the flower with its beauty waits 
 outside the closed eye of a blind or sleeping 
 man. n. so. 8i.
 
 OCTOBER 3. 277 
 
 THE things that are spiritual bring their own 
 sidelong testimonies of themselves. They 
 touch my sense of beauty. They make me 
 feel how good it would be for the world if they 
 were true. I hear their movement in the 
 depths of history. . . . Yet there stands the 
 separate glory of the revelation of that day 
 when to me, at last beginning to try to do 
 right, the God whose faint reports have come 
 to me pours in upon my opened soul the glori 
 ous conviction of His righteousness and love; 
 and my soul, in which I have half believed, 
 becomes the centre of my life ; becomes my 
 life, that for which all the other parts of me are 
 made. Then, in the knowledge which pours 
 through my opened conscience, then I know 
 with an assurance which makes all the knowl 
 edge that I had before seem but a guess and 
 dim suspicion. n. g 2 . 
 
 Ah, there is something here 
 Unfathomed by the cynic s sneer. 
 Something that gives our feeble light 
 A high immunity from Night, 
 Something that leaps life s narrow bars 
 To claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven ; 
 
 A conscience more divine than we, 
 A gladness fed with secret teats, 
 A vexing, forward-reaching sense 
 Of some more noble permanence ; 
 
 A light across the sea, 
 
 Which haunts the soul and will not let it be, 
 Still glimmering from the heights of undegenerate 
 years. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 278 OCTOBER 4. 
 
 Mine eves hare seen tlie A i/ig, the f.t>n/<>f Jlosts. 
 
 Is. vi. 5. 
 
 WHEN one declares that through the con 
 science man arrives at the knowledge 
 of unseen things, and conceptions of God and 
 spiritual force and immortality reveal themselves 
 to the intelligence, at once the suggestion conies 
 from some one who is listening, " Can we be 
 sure of the reality of what thus seems to 
 he made known ? How can we he sure that 
 what the conscience sends in to the understand 
 ing are not mere creations of its own ; things 
 which it thinks exist because it seems to need 
 them ; mere forms in which it has been led to 
 clothe with outward and substantial life its own 
 emotions?" . . . Are not then the questions 
 which haunt the conscience the same as those 
 which haunt the eye ? And as the eye deals 
 with its questions, so will the conscience always 
 deal with its. A conviction of the reality of 
 what it sees, which is a part of its consciousness 
 that no suspicion can disturb ; a use of its 
 knowledge, which brings ever a more and more 
 complete assurance of its trustworthiness, - 
 these are the practical issue of every such 
 question with regard to what the brain sees 
 through the eye ; and the same will be the 
 practical issue of every question with regard to 
 what the soul sees through the conscience. At 
 least we may say this, that it would be a very 
 deep confidence indeed if the soul felt as sure of 
 God as the mind feels of nature. n . s 2> &*.
 
 OCTOBER 5. 279 
 
 Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of 
 our faith ; who, for the joy that was set before 
 Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and 
 is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. 
 
 HEB. xii. 2. 
 
 A S Jesus was, so may we be, seeking an end 
 so great, so constant, so eternal that 
 every change may come to us and be our 
 minister and not our conqueror ; that even our 
 cross may come as His came, and men may 
 gather round it and say, " Alas, then this is 
 all ! Alas, that finally it should all come to 
 this! " While we who hang upon the cross 
 cry, " It is finished," with a shout of triumph, 
 counting the finishing but a new beginning, 
 and looking out beyond the cross to richer 
 growth in character, and braver and more 
 fruitful service of our Lord ! v. 37 2, 373. 
 
 Was it not great? did he not throw on God, 
 
 (He loves the burthen) 
 God s task to make the heavenly period 
 
 Perfect the earthen ? 
 
 He ventured neck or nothing heaven s success 
 
 Found, or earth s failure : 
 ! Wilt thou trust death or not ? " He answered, " Yes. 
 
 Hence with life s pale lure."
 
 28o OCTOBER 6. 
 
 EVERY emotion has its higher and its lower 
 forms. It means but little to me if I know 
 only that a man is happy or unhappy, if I do 
 not know of what sort his joy or sorrow is. 
 But all the emotions are certainly tempted to 
 larger action if it is realized that the world in 
 which they take their birth is but for a little 
 time, that its fashion passes away, that the cir 
 cumstances of an experience are very transitory. 
 That must drive me down into the essence of 
 every experience, and make me realize it in the 
 prof oundest and the largest way. . . . (Our grief 
 exalted to its largest form) grows unselfish. It is 
 perfectly consistent with a triumphant thankful 
 ness for the dear soul that has entered into rest 
 and glory. It dwells not on the circumstances 
 of bereavement, but upon that mysterious strain 
 in which love has been stretched from this world 
 to the other, and, amid all the pain that the ten 
 sion brings, is still aware of joy at the new 
 knowledge of its own capacities which has been 
 given it. i. 325, 32 e. 
 
 My love involves the love before ; 
 
 My love is vaster passion now ; 
 
 Tho mixed with God and Nature thou, 
 1 seem to love thee more and more. 
 
 Far off thou art, but ever nigh ; 
 
 I have thee still, and I rejoice ; 
 
 I prosper, circled with thy voice ; 
 I shall not lose thee tho r I die. 
 
 TENNYSON.
 
 OCTOBER 7. 281 
 
 CHRIST comes and puts His essential life into 
 our human form. In that form He claims 
 the truest brotherhood with us. He shares our 
 lot. He binds His life with ours so that they 
 never can be separated. What He is we must 
 be ; what we are, He must be forever. Finally 
 by the cross of love, He entering into our death 
 takes us completely into His life. And when 
 He had done all this He rose. Out of His tomb, 
 standing there among human tombs, He comes, 
 and lo, before Him there rolls on the unbroken 
 endlessness of Being. And not before Him 
 alone, before those also whom He had taken 
 so completely to Himself. His resurrection 
 makes our resurrection sure. Our earthly life, 
 like His, becomes an episode, a short, special, 
 temporary thing, when it is seen like His against 
 an immortality. i. 33I 
 
 Earth breaks up, time drops away, 
 
 In flows Heaven, with its new day 
 
 Of endless life, when He who trod, 
 
 Very Man and very God, 
 
 This earth in weakness, shame and pain, 
 
 Dying the death whose signs remain, 
 
 Up yonder on the accursed tree, 
 
 Shall come again, no more to be 
 
 Of captivity the thrall, 
 
 But the one God, All in all, 
 
 King of kings, Lord of lords, 
 
 As His servant John received the words, 
 
 " I died, and live forevermore ! " 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 282 OCTOBER 8 
 
 "THERE is somewhere in the human mind an 
 * image of human character in which all 
 wayward impulses are restrained, not by out 
 side compulsion, but by the firm grasp of a 
 power which holds everything into obedience 
 from within by the central purpose of the life. 
 This character dreads fury and excitement as 
 signs of feebleness. It shrinks from self-dis 
 play just in proportion as it accepts the re 
 sponsibilities of selfhood. It is patient because 
 it is powerful. It is tolerant because it is sure. 
 It is this character, I think, which St. Paul 
 calls by his great word moderation. It is self- 
 possession. It is the self found and possessed 
 in God. It is the sweet reasonableness which 
 was in Jesus. lv . 367 , 3 6s. 
 
 Whose high endeavors are an inward light 
 That makes the path before him always bright : 
 
 More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure, 
 As tempted more ; more able to endure, 
 As more exposed to suffering and distress ; 
 Thence, also, more alive to tenderness. 
 
 But who, if lie be called upon to face 
 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 
 Great issues, good or bad for human kind, 
 
 Is happy as a lover; and attired 
 
 With sudden brightness, like a man inspired ; 
 
 And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law 
 
 In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; 
 
 Or if an unexpected call succeed, 
 
 Come when it will, is equal to the need. 
 
 WORDSWORTH
 
 OCTOBER 9. 283 
 
 T N our own little sphere, it is not the most 
 * active people to whom we owe the most. 
 Among the common people whom we know 
 it is not necessarily those who are busiest, not 
 those who, meteor-like, are ever on the rush 
 after some visible change and work. It is the 
 lives, like the stars, which simply pour down 
 on us the calm light of their bright and faithful 
 being, up to which we look and out of which 
 we gnther the deepest calm and courage. 
 
 1. 105 
 
 QUIET WORK. 
 
 One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, 
 One lesson, which in every wind is blown, 
 One lesson of two duties kept at one, 
 Though the loud \vorld proclaim their enmity 
 
 Of toil unsever d from tranquillity ! 
 Of labor, that in lasting fruit outgrows 
 Far noisier schemes, accomplish d in repose 
 Too great for haste, too high for rivalry ! 
 
 Yes, while on earth a thousand discords ring, 
 Man s senseless uproar mingling with his toil, 
 Still do thy quiet ministers move on, 
 
 Their glorious tasks in silence perfecting ! 
 Still working, blaming still our vain turmoil, 
 Laborers tnat shall not fail, when man is gone. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD.
 
 284 OCTOBER 10. 
 
 OOLITUDE makes the consciousness ; so- 
 ^ ciety develops, multiplies, and confirms 
 it. That which would have remained only 
 a quality in Jesus, if He had stayed in the 
 desert, becomes" a life when He goes forth into 
 the world. What Goethe wisely says of all 
 men does not lose its truth when we are think 
 ing of the Son of Man : "A talent shapes itself 
 in stillness, but a character in the tumult of 
 the world." This is Christ s balance between 
 solitude and society. Each makes the other 
 necessary. With us they often lose this 
 value, because they are not set in any relation 
 to each other. Solitude is barren, and so so 
 ciety is frivolous. Solitude creates no con 
 sciousness for society to ripen. Solitude is 
 like an unfertile seed, and society is like an 
 
 implanted ground. INFLUENCE. ,05, ,06. 
 
 By all means use sometimes to be alone. 
 
 Salute thyself: see what thy soul doth wear. 
 
 Dare to look in thy chest ; for tis thine own : 
 
 And tumble up and down what thou find st there. 
 Who cannot rest till he good fellows find, 
 He breaks up house, turns out of doors his mind. 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT. 
 
 Open innumerable doors 
 To heaven where unveiled Allah pours 
 The flood of truth, the flood of good, 
 The Seraph s and the Cherub s food. 
 Those doors are men : the Pariah hind 
 Admits thee to the perfect Mind. 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
 
 OCTOBER ii. 285 
 
 Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 
 
 JOHN i. 17. 
 
 IF you look back to the men who have taught 
 you most, and in the fuller light where you 
 now stand, study their character, you will 
 surely find that the real secret of their power 
 lay here, in the harmonious blending of the 
 knowing and the loving powers in their nature ; 
 in the opening of their nature on both sides, 
 so that truth entered in freely here and you 
 entered in freely there, and you and truth 
 met, as it were, familiarly in the hospitality 
 of their great characters. The man who has 
 only the knowing power active, lets truth in, 
 but it finds no man to feed. The man who 
 has only the loving power active, lets man in, 
 but he finds no truth to feed on. The real 
 teacher welcomes both. . . Grace and Truth ! 
 These are exactly the two elements of which 
 we have been speaking, and it must have been 
 in the perfect meeting of those two elements 
 in Jesus that His mediatorship, His power to 
 transmute the everlasting truths of God into 
 the immediate help of needy men consisted. 
 He was no rapt self-centred student of the 
 abstract truth ; nor was he the merely ready 
 sentimental pitier of the woes of men. But in 
 His whole nature there was finely wrought 
 and combined the union of the abstract and 
 eternal with the special and the personal. 
 
 IV. 10, 12.
 
 286 OCTOBER 12. 
 
 One poor day! 
 
 Remember whose and not how short it is ! 
 It is God s day, it is Columbus s. 
 A lavish day ! One day, with life and heart, 
 
 Is more than time enough to find a world. 
 
 JAMES RUSSKLL LOWELL. 
 
 E year God lifted the curtain from a hidden 
 continent, and gave His children a whole 
 new world in which to carry out His purposes. 
 Another year He revealed to them a strange, 
 simple little invention which made the treasured 
 knowledge of the few to be the free heritage of 
 all. Another year He touched the solid frame 
 of a great spiritual despotism, and it trembled 
 and quaked, and thousands of its slaves came 
 forth free men. Another year, in our own time, 
 in our own land, He sent the message of liberty 
 to a nation of bondmen, and the fetters fell off 
 from their limbs. We call these events of his 
 tory. They have a right to be called the com 
 ings of the Lord. They all are echoes and 
 illustrations of that great coming of the Lord 
 from which they who have known of it agree 
 by instinctive consent to date their history, the 
 birth of the child of Bethlehem, the Man of 
 Nazareth and Calvary into the world. 
 
 IV. 363, 364-
 
 OCTOBER 13. 287 
 
 " DRETHREN, the time is short." There 
 D is the fact, then, forever pressing on 
 us, and these are the consequences which it 
 ought to bring to those who feel its pressure. 
 Behold, it is no dreary shadow hanging above 
 our heads and shutting out the sunshine. It 
 is an everlasting inspiration. It makes a man 
 know himself and his career. It makes him 
 put his heart into the heart of the career 
 which he knows to be his. It makes the 
 emotions and experiences of life great and 
 not petty to him. It makes life solemn and 
 interesting with criticalness ; and it makes 
 friendship magnanimous, and the desire to 
 help our fellow-men real and energetic. It 
 concentrates and invigorates our lives. In the 
 brightest, freshest, clearest mornings, it comes 
 to us not as a cloud, not as a paralysis, but 
 as a new brightness in the sunshine and a 
 new vigor in the arm. " Brethren, the time 
 is short." Only remember the shortness of 
 life is not a reality to us, except as it shows 
 itself against a true realization of eternity. 
 
 i. 330. 
 
 Up, my drowsing eyes ! 
 
 Up, my sinking heart ! 
 Up to Jesus Christ arise ! 
 
 Claim your part 
 In all rapture of the skies. 
 
 Yet a little while, 
 
 Yet a little way, 
 Saints shall reap and rest and smile 
 
 All the day : 
 Up! let s trudge another mile. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 288 OCTOBER 14. 
 
 Phillips Brooks consecrated Bishop, i8gi . 
 
 "THE SHEPHERD OF THE PEOPLE ! He fed 
 * us faithfully and truly. He fed us with 
 counsel when we were in doubt, with inspira 
 tion when we sometimes faltered, with caution 
 when we would be rash, with calm, clear, 
 trustful cheerfulness through many an hour 
 when our hearts were dark. He fed hungry 
 souls all over the country with sympathy and 
 consolation. He spread before the whole land 
 feasts of great duty and devotion and patriot 
 ism, on which the land grew strong. He fed 
 us with solemn, solid truths. ... He made 
 our souls glad and vigorous with the love of 
 liberty that was in his. He showed us how to 
 love truth and yet be charitable how to hate 
 wrong and all oppression, and yet not treasure 
 one personal injury or insult. ... He spread 
 before us the love and fear of God just in that 
 shape in which we need them most, and out of 
 his faithful service of a higher Master who of 
 us has not taken and eaten and grown strong ? 
 
 SERMON ON ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 Therefore to thee it was given 
 Many to save with thyself ; 
 And, at the end of thy day, 
 O faithful shepherd ! to come, 
 Bringing thy sheep in thy hand. 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD
 
 OCTOBER 15. 289 
 
 /CHRISTIANITY, or the change of man s life 
 by Christ, has three different aspects in 
 which it appears three ways in which it makes 
 its power known. It appears either as Truth, 
 as Righteousness, or as Love. Every soul 
 which is really redeemed by Christ will enter 
 into new beliefs, higher ways of action, and 
 deeper affections towards fellow-men. . . . 
 All spiritual character must reside ultimately in 
 single souls ; but still I think that it is mani 
 festly true that an aggregate of individuals may 
 possess in its own peculiar way the spiritual 
 character which the individual possesses, and a 
 city, like a man, have and exhibit Christian 
 faith and Christian righteousness and Christian 
 love. 1U . 139> 140 . 
 
 I dream d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the at 
 tacks of the whole of the rest of the earth, 
 
 I dream d that was the new city of Friends, 
 
 Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust 
 love, it led the rest, 
 
 It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that 
 city, 
 
 And in all their looks and words. 
 
 WALT WHITMAN
 
 290 OCTOBER 16. 
 
 You re ray friend 
 
 What a thing friendship is, world without end ! 
 
 How it gives the heart and soul a stir-up, 
 
 As if somebody broached you a glorious runlet ! 
 
 BROWNING. 
 
 HTHERE is nothing so bad for man or woman 
 1 as to live always with their inferiors. It is 
 a truth so important, that one might well wish 
 to turn aside a moment and urge it, even in its 
 lower aspects, upon the young people who are 
 just making their associations and friendships. 
 Many a temptation of laziness or pride induces 
 us to draw towards those who do not know as 
 much or are not in some way as strong as we 
 are. It is a smaller tax upon our powers to be 
 in their society. But it is bad for us. 1 am 
 sure that 1 have known men, intellectually 
 and morally very strong, the whole develop 
 ment of whose intellectual and moral life has 
 suffered and been dwarfed, because they have 
 only accompanied with their inferiors, because 
 they have not lived with men greater than 
 themselves. Whatever else they lose, they 
 surely must lose some culture of humility. If 
 I could choose a young man s companions, 
 some should be weaker than himself, that he 
 might learn patience and charity ; many should 
 be as nearly as possible his equals, that he 
 might have the full freedom of friendship ; but 
 most should be stronger than he was, that he 
 might forever be thinking humbly of himself 
 and be tempted to higher things. i. 339> 34( ,.
 
 OCTOBER 17. 291 
 
 IF in doing (your work), the principal bless 
 ing of it all was that it permitted you to 
 look into God s soul and see how self-complete 
 and perfect and supreme He was ; how, after 
 all His workings, it was not in His works but in 
 His nature, not in His doing but in His being, 
 that God s true glory lay ; if as you worked 
 with Him, you really looked into His nature 
 and discerned all this, then when He takes 
 your work away and bids you no longer to do 
 good and obedient things but only to be good 
 and obedient, surely that is not the death of 
 faith. That may be faith s transfiguration. 
 
 V. 322. 
 
 Lord, I had planned to do Thee service true, 
 To be more humbly watchful unto prayer, 
 More faithful in obedience to Thy Word, 
 More bent to put away all earthly care. 
 
 I thought of sad hearts comforted and healed, 
 Of wanderers turned into the pleasant way, 
 Of little ones preserved from sinful snare, 
 Of dark homes brightened with a heavenly ray ; 
 
 Of time all consecrated to Thy Will, 
 Of strength spent gladly for Thee, day by day, 
 When suddenly the heavenly mandate came, 
 That 1 should give it all, at once, away. 
 
 And was it loss, to have indulged such hopes? 
 Nay, they were gifts, from out the Inner Shrine, 
 Garlands, that I might hang about Thy Cross, 
 Gems, to surrender at the call Divine. 
 
 CAROLINE M. NOEL.
 
 292 OCTOBER 18. 
 
 Luke the beloved physician. Cor,, iv. 14. 
 
 MAY we not say this of the two works 
 (theology and medicine), that, first, 
 they above all others demand, as of funda 
 mental importance, character in the men who 
 do them ; and that, second, the element of 
 merciful feeling and readiness for self-sacrifice 
 which are incidental to most other occupations 
 are essential and indispensable in these two ? 
 These are what really mark how divine they 
 are, and how they belong together. . . . 
 1 add to this that both live constantly in the 
 immediate presence of awful and mysterious 
 forces ; that both are always, while they see 
 before them human need, feeling behind them 
 that which, call it by what name they will, 
 is Divine Power is God ; and so are always 
 pressed on by the demand for reverence and 
 piety. 
 
 1 add again that while each has its imme 
 diate appeal to make to terror and the fear of 
 pain, the ultimate address of each must be 
 to ardent courage and enthusiastic hope. I 
 put all these together and then the figures 
 of Paul and Luke walking together through 
 history as the ministers of Christ, the 
 images of theology and medicine laboring in 
 harmony for the redemption of man, for the 
 saving of body, soul, and spirit, become 
 very sacred and impressive. May their 
 fellowship become more generous and hearty 
 as the years go on ! May each gain greater 
 honor for the other, and both become more 
 humbly and transparently the ministers of 
 Christ! v. 2,2,233.
 
 OCTOBER 19. 293 
 
 AS you grow better . . . you sweep up out 
 of the grasp of money, praise, ease, dis 
 tinction. You sweep up into the necessity of 
 truth, courage, virtue, love, and God. The 
 gravitation of the earth grows weaker, the 
 gravitation of the stars takes stronger and 
 stronger hold upon you. And on the other 
 hand, as .you grow worse, as you go down, the 
 terrible opposite of all this comes to pass. The 
 highest necessities let you go, and the lowest 
 necessities take tighter hold of you. Still, as 
 you go down, you are judged by what you can 
 do without and what you cannot do without. 
 You come down at last where you cannot do 
 without a comfortable dinner and an easy bed, 
 but you can do without an act of charity or a 
 thought of God. Ig 2gj . 
 
 Oh, good, gigantic smile o the brown old earth, 
 This autumn morning ! How he sets his bones 
 
 To bask i the sun, and thrusts out knees and feet 
 
 For the ripple to run over in its mirth ; 
 Listening the while, where on the heap of stones 
 
 The white breast of the sea-lark twitters sweet. 
 
 That is the doctrine, simple, ancient, true ; 
 
 Such is life s trial, as old earth smiles and knows. 
 If you loved only what were worth your love, 
 Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you : 
 
 Make the low nature better by your throes ! 
 Give earth yourself, go up for gain above ! 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 294 OCTOBER 20. 
 
 The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord. 
 
 PROV. xx. 27. 
 
 T_J E who comes into the presence of any pow 
 erful nature, whose power is at all of a 
 spiritual sort, feels sure that in some Vay he is 
 coming into the presence of God. But it would 
 be melancholy if only the great men could give 
 us this conviction. The world would he darker 
 than it is if every human spirit, so soon as it 
 became obedient, did not become the Lord s 
 candle. . . . There is no life so humble 
 that, if it be true and genuinely human and 
 obedient to God, it may not hope to shed some 
 of His light. There is no life so meagre that 
 the greatest and wisest of us can afford to de 
 spise it. We cannot know at all at what sudden 
 
 moment it may flash forth with the life of God. 
 
 n. 8, 9 . 
 
 Our little systems have their day ; 
 They have their day and cease to be : 
 They are but broken lights of Thee, 
 
 And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 
 
 TtNNYSON-
 
 OCTOBER 21. 295 
 
 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
 God . . . with all thy mind. MATT. xxii. 37. 
 
 , the Father of men, is not satisfied if 
 His children give Him simply gratitude for 
 His mercies or the most loyal obedience to His 
 will ; He wants also, as the fulfilment of their 
 love to Him, the enthusiastic use of their intel 
 lects, intent to know everything that it is pos 
 sible for men to know about their Father and 
 His ways. That is what is meant by loving 
 God with the mind. And is there not some 
 thing sublimely beautiful and touching in this 
 demand of God that the noblest part of His 
 children s nature should come to Him ? " Un 
 derstand me! understand me!" He seems to 
 cry; "1 am not wholly loved by you unless 
 your understanding is reaching out after my 
 truth, and with all your powers of thoughtfulness 
 and study you are trying to find out all that you 
 can about my nature and my ways." m. 32 . 
 
 Vouchsafe then, O Thou most Almightie Spright ! 
 From whom all gifts of wit and knowledge flow, 
 To shed into my breast some sparkling light 
 Of Thine eternall Truth, that I may show 
 Some litle beames to mortall eyes below 
 Of that immortall beautie, there with Thee, 
 Which in my \veake distraughted mynd I see. 
 
 SPENSER.
 
 296 OCTOBER 22. 
 
 IT is the continuity of life, the continuity of 
 nature, that is our salvation . Nothing from 
 nothing" is the first law of her household, and 
 her dullest children must learn it, for it is written 
 on the walls that shelter them, on the ground 
 they tread, on the table from which they eat, 
 and on the tools with which they work. 
 
 And her law of economy is just as clear. Pro 
 fusion, but no waste ; this is the lesson that 
 Nature reads us everywhere. The dead leaves 
 of this autumn are worked into next year s soil. 
 The little stream that has watered the greenness 
 of many meadows goes afterwards to do duty in 
 the great sea. The vast surrounding atmos 
 phere is made efficient over and over again for 
 the breath of living men. Everywhere pro 
 fusion, but no waste. For men who need to be 
 trained to reasonableness and care, God has 
 built just the home they needed for their train 
 ing, and sent us to live in this star which shines 
 among His other stars steadily and soberly with 
 
 its double light of continuity and economy. 
 
 n. 132, 133. 
 
 Mother she is and cradle of pur race, 
 
 A depth where treasures lie, 
 The broad foundation of a holy place, 
 
 Man s step to scale the sky. 
 
 Earth may not pass till heaven shall pass away, 
 
 Nor heaven may be renewed 
 Except with earth ; and once more in that day 
 
 Earth shall be very good. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 OCTOBER 23. 297 
 
 CONTINUITY and economy ; these are the 
 ^^ laws of Him who is leading us, the Cap 
 tain of our salvation. He always binds the 
 future to the past, and He wastes nothing. 
 O, there are some here who want to get away 
 from all their past ; who, if they could, would 
 fain begin all over again. Their life with 
 Christ seems one long failure. But you must 
 learn, you must let God teach you, that the 
 only way to get rid of your past is to get a 
 future out of it. God will waste nothing. 
 Th^re is something in your past, something, 
 even if it only be the sin of which you have 
 repented, which, if you can put it into the 
 Saviour s hands, will be a new life for you. 
 
 ii. 145. 
 
 Forsake the Christ thou sawest transfigured, Him 
 
 Who trod the sea and brought the dead to life? 
 
 What should wring this from thee ? ye laugh and 
 
 ask. 
 
 What wrung it? Even a torchlight and a noise, 
 The sudden Roman faces, violent hands, 
 And fear of what the Jews might do ! Just that, 
 And, it is written, I forsook and fled : 
 There was my trial and it ended thus. 
 Ay, but my soul had gained its truth, could grow. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 298 OCTOBER 24. 
 
 YOU are a star and not a sun. Your place 
 in life is not in the forefront of things ; it 
 is subordinate and secondary. What then ? 
 Can you learn this truth, that if you do 
 your work with complete faithfulness and with 
 the most absolute perfectness with which it is 
 capable of being done, you are making just 
 as genuine a contribution to the substance of 
 the universal good as is the most brilliant 
 worker whom the world contains ? You are 
 setting as true a fact here between the 
 eternities as he. You are doing what he 
 cannot do. It is Emerson s fable of the 
 Mountain and the Squirrel, 
 
 " If I cannot carry forests on my back, 
 Neither can you crack a nut." 
 
 " There is one glory of the sun, and another 
 glory of the stars." 
 
 All our works, even the greatest, are so 
 little in relation to the world s need ; all our 
 works, even the least, are so great in relation 
 to the doer s faithfulness. There is the secret 
 of self-respect. Oh, go take up your work 
 and do it. Do it with cheerfulness and love. 
 So shall you shine with a glory which is all 
 your own, a glory which the great heaven 
 of universal life would be poorer for missing. 
 
 V. 68, 6g 
 
 " Like as a star, 
 That maketh not haste, 
 That taketh not rest, 
 Be each one fulfilling 
 His God-given best.
 
 OCTOBER 25. 299 
 
 A bruised reed shall lie not break, 
 
 And the smoking flax shall He not quench : 
 
 He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. 
 
 Is. xlii. 3. 
 
 "TO say "well-done" to any bit of work 
 that has embodied good effort, is to take 
 hold of the powers which have made the effort 
 and confirm and strengthen them. But if you 
 have nothing to say to your child or to your 
 scholar except (what may be perfectly true) 
 that much of his work is badly done, that he is 
 wasting opportunities and losing the value of his 
 life, then you are coming to him not to fulfil 
 but to destroy. 
 
 I beg you to think of this, you who are set 
 in positions of superintendence and authority. 
 Make a great deal more of your right to praise 
 the good than of your right to blame the bad. 
 Never let a brave and serious struggle after 
 truth and goodness, however weak it may be, 
 pass unrecognized. Do not be chary of appre 
 ciation. Hearts are unconsciously hungry for 
 it. There is little danger, especially with us in 
 this cold New England region, that appreciation 
 shall be given too abundantly. Iv . 2I4 , 2I5 .
 
 300 OCTOBER 26. 
 
 And lie said unto J>"iiis, Lord, remember me 
 when Thou earnest into Thy kingdom. And Jesus 
 said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt 
 thou be with Me in Paradise. 
 
 LUKK xxiii. 42, 43. 
 
 \1 7TTH silent, soft, and mighty pressure, the 
 * * sight of the Sufferer s holiness, and the 
 gratitude for the Sufferer s pity, as one complete 
 power, one perfect love, has drawn the depths 
 of men s lives on to the nature of the Sufferer, 
 and there their oneness to Him has become 
 known to them, and they, in and through Him, 
 have been renewed into the image of their 
 Father, and His Father. The robber who was 
 crucified with Him felt that power first. It was 
 a baptism of blood, and the power which our 
 baptisms re-echo found its first utterance in 
 Him. " Being by nature, born in sin and the 
 child of wrath," there by the fellowship of 
 suffering, there by the power of love, in which 
 admiration and gratitude met, he was made the 
 " Child of grace." INFLUENCE, 53. 
 
 O Jesus, Who lovest us all, stoop low from Thy 
 
 Glory above : 
 Where sin hath abounded make grace to abound and 
 
 superabound, 
 
 Till we gaze on Thee face unto Face, and respond to 
 Thee love unto Love. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 OCTOBER 27. 301 
 
 / have, finished my course, I have kept the faith. 
 
 II. TIM. iv. 7. 
 
 /\A EN lose their love and trust and hope, as 
 they grow old. Here was a man [St. 
 Paul] who kept them all fresh to the last. 
 Men cease to have strong convictions, and 
 grow cynical or careless. Here was a man 
 who believed more, and not less, as he knew 
 more of God, and of himself, and of the world. 
 His old age did not come creeping into port, a 
 wreck, with broken masts and rudder gone, 
 but full-sailed still, and strong for other voyages 
 in other seas. We are sure that his was the 
 old age God loves to see; that the careless 
 and the hopeless and the faithless are the 
 failures. To such men as Paul alone is God s 
 promise to David fulfilled: "With long life 
 will I satisfy him and show him my salva 
 tion." . . 
 
 Youth ended, I shall try 
 My gain or loss thereby ; 
 Be the fire ashes, what survives is gold : 
 And I shall weigh the same, 
 Give life its praise or blame : 
 Young, all lay in dispute ; 1 shall know being old. 
 
 BROWNING
 
 302 OCTOBER 28. 
 
 R creed, our credo, anything which we 
 call by such a sacred name, is not what 
 we have thought, but what our Lord has told 
 us. The true creed must come down from 
 above and not out from within. Have your 
 opinions always, but do not bind yourself to 
 them. Call your opinions your creed, and 
 you will change it every week. Make your 
 creed simply and broadly out of the revelation 
 of God, and you may keep it to the end. This 
 is the difference between the hundreds of long, 
 detailed confessions of many differing sects, 
 overloaded with the minute speculations of 
 good men, which take in and dismiss their 
 believers like the nightly lodgers of an eastern 
 caravansary, and the short scriptural creed of 
 the church universal, into which souls come 
 seeking rest and strength, and live in it as in a 
 home, and go no more out forever. j. 71r 72 . 
 
 O Almighty God, who hast built Thy Church upon 
 the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus 
 Christ Himself being the head corner-stone ; Grant us 
 so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their doc 
 trine, that we may be made an holy temple acceptable 
 unto Thee ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 BOOK OK COMMON PRAYER.
 
 OCTOBER 29. 303 
 
 \Vhile. Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit 
 said unto him, .Behold, three men seek //ice. 
 
 ACTS x. 19. 
 
 "C VERY man has visions, glimpses clearer or 
 * duller, now bright and beautiful, now 
 clouded and obscure, of what is absolutely and 
 abstractly true ; and every man also has press 
 ing on him the warm, clear lives of fellow-men. 
 There is the world of truths on one side, and 
 there is the world of men upon the other. Be 
 tween the two stands man ; and these two 
 worlds, if man is what he ought to be, meet 
 through his nature. 
 
 Truth is vague and helpless until men believe 
 it. Men are weak and frivolous till they believe 
 in truth. To furnish truth to the believing 
 heart, and to furnish believing hearts to truth, 
 certainly there is no nobler office for a human 
 life than that. . . . How can we better tell the 
 story of you who first believe in God yourself 
 and then are drawn out to make your fellow-men 
 believe in Him, and in making them believe in 
 Him find your own belief grow steadier and 
 clearer how shall we better depict this human 
 life which never learns anything without hear 
 ing other human lives clamoring to share the 
 blessings of its knowledge than by recurring to 
 the story of Peter, to whom, " as he thought on 
 the vision, the Spirit said, Behold, three men 
 seek thee." j . 2 .
 
 304 OCTOBER 30. 
 
 I am tlie . . . Truth. JOHN xiv. 6. 
 
 "THE great fact concerning (the intellectual 
 1 life of Jesus) is this, that in Him the in 
 tellect never works alone. You never can 
 separate its workings from the complete opera 
 tion of the whole nature. He never simply 
 knows, but always loves and resolves at the 
 same time. Truth which the mind discovers 
 becomes immediately the possession of the af 
 fections and the will. It cannot remain in the 
 condition of mere knowledge. Indeed, knowl 
 edge is no word of Jesus. Solomon in the Book 
 of Proverbs is always talking about knowledge. 
 Jesus, in the Gospel of John, is always talking 
 about truth. So genuine is the unity of His 
 being, that what comes to Him as knowledge 
 is pressed and gathered into every part of Him, 
 and fills His entire nature as truth. The rays 
 of intellectual light are absorbed into the whole 
 substance of the spontaneous affections and the 
 unerring will. The right and the true, the 
 wrong and the false, are not separable from one 
 another. The life is simple because of its com 
 pleteness. It is the true unity of a man. 
 
 INFLUENCE, 219. 
 
 O Father of Truth, 
 
 Have mercy upon us. 
 O Express Image of the Father, 
 
 Change us into Thy likeness. 
 O Ineffable Truth, 
 
 Guide us into all truth. 
 
 BOOK OK LITANIES. NEALE
 
 OCTOBER 31. 305 
 
 If any man will do His will, he shall knoiu of 
 the doctrine. JOHN vii. 17. 
 
 If a man love me, he will keep my words : and 
 my Father will love him, and we will come unto 
 him, and make our abode with him. 
 
 JOHN xiv. 23. 
 
 "THOSE, I think, are the two critical passages 
 * in which Jesus gives us His doctrine of the 
 intellectual life. They are as clear and definite 
 as if they were written in a book of science. 
 They both declare that in the highest things 
 the intellect can never work alone for the dis 
 covery of truth. Truth, when it is won, is the 
 possession of the whole nature. By the action 
 of the whole nature only can it be gained. The 
 king must go with his counsellors at his side and 
 his army at his back, or he makes no conquest. 
 The intellect must be surrounded by the rich 
 ness of the affections and backed by the power 
 of the will, or it attains no perfect truth. 
 
 INFLUENCE. 247. 
 
 Happy the man taught by the truth itself ; 
 
 Not by the shapes and sounds that pass across his life 
 
 But by the very truth. 
 
 Our thoughts and senses often lead us wrong ; 
 
 They see one side alone. 
 
 O God of truth 
 
 Make me one with Thee in eternal love. 
 Oft am I weary, reading, listening, 
 But all I wish and long for is in Thee. 
 Then silent be all teachers, hushed be all creation at the 
 
 sight of Thee : 
 Speak Thou to me alone. 
 
 THOMAS A KFMPIS.
 
 306 NOVEMBER i. 
 
 YOU go to your saint and find God working 
 and manifest in him. He got near to 
 God by some saint of his that went before him, 
 or that stood beside him, in whom he saw the 
 Divine presence. That saint again lighted his 
 fire at some flame before him ; and so the power 
 of the sainthoods animates and fills the world. 
 So holiness and purity, and truth and patience, 
 daring and tenderness, hope and faith, are kept 
 constant and pervading things in our humanity. 
 Each man has not to begin and work them out 
 from the beginning for himself. So there is a 
 church of God as well as souls of God in the 
 earth. This is the truth of All Saints. 
 
 I. 122, 123. 
 
 Then sudden silence made a little space 
 
 For the One Voice that fills the universe, 
 
 And Christ s own roll-call swept the white camp 
 
 through. 
 
 And lo ! the faithful noiseless moved as thought 
 Responsive, yet unconscious of response, 
 Their rapt eyes lifted to the shining morn, 
 As seeing Him who is invisible. 
 He named them, clan by clan, His chosen ones : 
 The poor in spirit, and the souls that mourn, 
 The meek, and those for righteousness athirst, 
 The merciful, the pure in heart, the just, 
 The valiant, the forbearing, named He thus. 
 For every clan a benediction sweet, 
 And sweeter promises of victory. 
 
 HARRIET McEwtN KIMBALL.
 
 NOVEMBER 2. 307 
 
 THE Church is the union of believers, out 
 wardly manifested by the sacraments, but 
 having its essence in the personal union of each 
 believer s soul with Christ. . . . This Jesus 
 must be a true Lord of men. This power which 
 draws His disciples to each other must be a 
 genuine power. These sacraments must be in 
 trinsically natural utterances of what they try 
 to express ; for, lo, everywhere the Church has 
 built itself ! In every age, in every land she 
 stands, her single life pulsating with the multi 
 tudinous life of which she is composed, the ul 
 timate pulsation coming from the living life of 
 her Master, to which every particle of her being 
 immediately responds ; the two jewels on her 
 breast-plate burning with ever-deepening and 
 accumulating richness, and making together the 
 clasp which holds about her essential nature the 
 robe of her outward form. v. i8o. 
 
 Lord, grant us eyes to see and ears to hear 
 And souls to love and minds to understand, 
 And steadfast faces toward the Holy Land, 
 
 And confidence of hope, and filial fear, 
 
 And citizenship where Thy saints appear 
 Before Thee heart in heart and hand in hand, 
 And Alleluias where their chanting band 
 
 As waters and as thunders fill the sphere. 
 
 Lord, grant us what Thou wilt, and what Thou wilt 
 Deny, and fold us in Thy peaceful fold : 
 Not as the world gives, give to us Thine own : 
 
 Inbuild us where Jerusalem is built 
 
 With walls of jasper and with streets of gold, 
 And Thou Thyself, Lord Christ, for Corner-Stone. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 308 NOVEMBER 3. 
 
 E have sometimes known some men or 
 women, helpless so that their lives 
 seemed to be all dependent, who yet, through 
 their sickness, had so mounted to a higher life 
 and so identified themselves with Christ that 
 those on whom they rested found the Christ 
 in them and rested upon it. Their sick-rooms 
 became churches. Their weak voices spoke 
 gospels. The hands they seemed to clasp 
 were really clasping theirs. They were de 
 pended on while they seemed to be most de 
 pendent. And when they died, when the faint 
 flicker of their life went out, strong men whose 
 light seemed radiant, found themselves walk 
 ing in the darkness ; and stout hearts, on 
 which theirs used to lean, trembled as if the 
 staff and substance of their strength was gone. 
 
 ii. 365- 
 
 What is this psalm from pitiable places 
 Glad where the messengers of peace have trod 
 
 Whose are these beautiful and holy faces 
 Lit with their loving and aflame with God ? 
 
 Eager and faint, empassionate and lonely, 
 These in their hour shall prophesy again : 
 
 This is His will who hath endured, and only 
 Sendeth the promise where He sends the pain. 
 
 Ay unto these distributeth the Giver 
 Sorrow and sanctity, and loves them well, 
 
 Grants them a power and passion to deliver 
 Hearts from the prison-house and souls from hell. 
 
 F. W. H. MYERS.
 
 NOVEMBER 4. 309 
 
 "THE Holy Catholic Church, the Communion 
 of Saints! Wherever men are praying, 
 loving, trusting, seeking, and finding God, it is 
 a true body with all its ministries of part to 
 part. Nay, shall we stop at that poor line, 
 the grave, which all our Christianity is always 
 trying to wipe out and make nothing of, and 
 which we always insist on widening into a 
 great gulf? Shall we not stretch our thought 
 beyond, and feel the life-blood of this holy 
 church, this living body of Christ, pulsing out 
 into the saints who are living there, and com 
 ing back throbbing with tidings of their glori 
 ous and sympathetic life. It is the very power 
 of this truth of ours to-day, that it lays hold 
 on immortality. 1. 133 . 
 
 Light is our sorrow for it ends to-morrow, 
 Light is our death which cannot hold us fast ; 
 So brief a sorrow can be scarcely sorrow, 
 Or death be death so quickly past. 
 
 One night, no more, of pain that turns to pleasure, 
 One night, no more, of weeping, weeping sore; 
 And then the heaped-up measure beyond measure, 
 In quietness forevermore. 
 
 Our sails are set to cross the tossing river, 
 Our face is set to reach Jerusalem ; 
 We toil awhile, but then we rest forever, 
 Sing with all Saints and rest with them above. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 3io NOVEMBER 5. 
 
 CORRUPTION in political life is really 
 V-> scepticism. It is a distrust, a disuse 
 which has lasted so long that it has grown 
 into disbelief of political principles, of the 
 first fundamental truths of the sacredness of 
 government and the necessity of righteous 
 ness. And where has such a disbelief come 
 from ? We all know well enough. It is 
 from the narrow view which has looked at 
 machineries, and magnified them till they 
 have hid from view the great purposes for 
 which all machineries exist. If a man tells 
 me that it is absolutely necessary that such 
 or such a political party should be maintained 
 whether its acts and its men are righteous or 
 unrighteous, or else the government will fall, 
 that man is an unbeliever. He has lost his 
 faith in the first principles of government, 
 and he has lost it by persistently tying 
 down his study and his soul to second causes, 
 to the mere machinery of party. j. l6l . 
 
 Our fathers to their graves have gone ; 
 Their strife is past their triumph won ; 
 But sterner trials wait the race 
 Which rises in their honored place 
 A moral warfare with the crime 
 And folly of an evil time. 
 
 So let it be. In God s own might 
 
 We gird us for the coming fight, 
 
 And, strong in Him whose cause is ours 
 
 In conflict with unholy powers, 
 
 We grasp the weapons He has given, 
 
 The Light, and Truth, and Love of Heaven. 
 
 WHITTIER.
 
 (NOVEMBER 6. 311 
 
 T S there a greater call than that which comes 
 * out of the depths of a nation s needs? 
 "Tell me what this means, and that, in my 
 experience. Tell me how I shall get rid of this 
 corruption and that danger. Tell me how I can 
 best be governed. Help me to self-control." 
 These are the appeals which come out of the 
 nation s heart of hearts. And what is it that 
 they find to cry to ? In part, at least, are they 
 not answered back by personal ambitions, by 
 party spirit, by the trickery of selfishness, and 
 by the base love of management ? This is the 
 misery of politics, the disproportion between 
 the interests which are at stake and the men 
 and machineries which deal with them. Those 
 interests need the profoundest thought and the 
 most absolute devotion. In some degree they 
 get it ; but how often what they get is only 
 prejudice and passion, the lightest, least rea 
 sonable, most superficial action of our human 
 nature. v. 2 43 , 244 . 
 
 Life or death then, who shall heed it, what we gain or 
 
 what we lose ? 
 Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each 
 
 shall choose. 
 
 Hear a word, a word in season, for the day is drawing 
 
 nigh, 
 When the Cause shall call upon us, some to live and 
 
 some to die ! 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS.
 
 312 NOVEMBER 7. 
 
 He that s owe th to his flesh shall of the flesh reap 
 corruption ; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall 
 of the Spirit reap life everlasting. GAL. vi. 8. 
 
 ALL prohibitory measures are negative. That 
 they have their use no one can doubt. 
 That they have their limits is just as clear. He 
 who thinks that nothing but the moral methods 
 for the prevention of intemperance and crime 
 can do the work is a mere theorist of the closet 
 and knows very little about the actual state of 
 human nature. But, on the other hand, the 
 man who thinks that any strictest system of 
 prohibition, most strictly kept in force, could 
 permanently keep men from drink, or any other 
 vice, knows little of human nature either. That 
 nature is too active and too live to be kept right 
 by mere negations. You cannot kill any one 
 of its appetites by merely starving it. You 
 must give it its true food, and so only can you 
 draw it off from the poison that it covets. Here 
 comes in the absolute necessity of providing 
 rational and cheap amusements for the people 
 whom our philanthropists are trying to draw 
 off from the tavern and the gambling-house. 
 Pictures, parks, museums, libraries, music, a 
 healthier and happier religion, a brighter, sun 
 nier tone to all our life, these are the positive 
 powers which must come in with every form 
 of prohibition and restraint before our poorer 
 people can be brought to live a sensible and 
 sober life. ,. 356> 357 .
 
 NOVEMBER 8. 313 
 
 \\ 7HAT is more dreadful than irreverent art 
 * ^ which paints all that it sees, because it sees 
 almost nothing, and yet does not dream that 
 there is more to see ; which suggests nothing 
 because it suspects nothing profounder than the 
 flimsy tale it tells, and would fain make us all 
 believe that there is no sacredness in woman, 
 nor nobleness in man, nor secret in Nature, nor 
 dignity in life? Irreverence everywhere is blind 
 ness and not sight. It is the stare which is bold 
 because it believes in its heart that there is 
 nothing which its insolent intelligence may not 
 fathom, and so which finds only what it looks 
 for, and makes the world as shallow as it ig- 
 norantly dreams the world to be. v . 25 o. 
 
 In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder, 
 
 The poet s song with blood-warm truth was rife ; 
 He saw the mysteries which circle under 
 
 The outward shell and skin of daily life. 
 Nothing to him were fleeting time and fashion, 
 
 His soul was led by the eternal law ; 
 There was in him no hope of fame, no passion, 
 
 But with calm, godlike eyes he only saw. 
 
 Awake, then, thou ! we pine for thy great presence 
 To make us feel the soul once more sublime, 
 
 We are of far too infinite an essence 
 To rest contented with the lies of Time. 
 
 JAA\ES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 314 NOVEMBER 9. 
 
 THE higher, soberer, spiritual optimism to 
 which they come who are able to believe 
 that all things work together for good to the 
 man or the people that serve Him. . . . 
 That was the optimism of Jesus. There was 
 no blindness in His eyes, no foolish indis 
 criminate praise of humanity upon His lips. 
 He saw the sin of that first century and of 
 Jerusalem a thousand times more keenly than 
 you see the sins of this nineteenth century 
 and of America. But He believed in God. 
 Therefore He saw beyond the sin, salvation. 
 He never upbraided the sin except to save 
 men from it. He never beat the chains 
 except to set the captive free ; never, as our 
 cynics do, for the mere pleasure of their 
 clanking. "Not to condemn the world, but 
 to save the world," was His story of His 
 mission. And at His cross the shame and 
 hope of humankind joined hands. n. l6l . 
 
 Grant us hope from earth to rise, 
 And to strain with eager eyes 
 Towards the promised heavenly pri/e : 
 We beseech Thee, hear us. 
 
 Grant us love Thy love to own, 
 Love to live for Thee alone, 
 And the power of grace make known : 
 We beseech Thee, hear us. 
 
 Lead us daily nearer Thee 
 Till at last Thy face we see, 
 Crowned with Thine own purity. 
 We beseech Thee, hear us. 
 
 LITANY oi ; PENITENCE
 
 NOVEMBER 10. 315 
 
 \\/E can, and I think we ought to, earnestly 
 W assert, when men praise it most loudly, 
 that secularism, however we may accept it 
 cheerfully, as the only expedient for the present 
 time, is not the highest nor the eternal type of 
 government. We may strive, by that devotion 
 to the spiritual element in national life which 
 even pure secularity of public methods still 
 leaves possible, to hasten the day, which must 
 come if Christ be what we know He is, when 
 the idea of Jesus shall be the shaping and mov 
 ing power of the Christian State; and among 
 the happy sons of God the Son of God shall 
 evidently reign, as the old phrase describes, 
 " King of nations as King of saints." 
 
 INFLUENCE, 136, 137. 
 
 Thy kingdom come, O God ! 
 
 Thy rule, O Christ, begin ! 
 Break with Thine iron rod 
 
 The tyrannies of sin ! 
 
 Where is Thy reign of peace, 
 
 And purity, and love? 
 When shall all hatred cease, 
 
 As in the realms above ? 
 
 We pray Thee, Lord, arise, 
 And come in Thy great might ; 
 
 Revive our longing eyes, 
 Which languish for Thy sight. 
 
 LEWIS HENSLEY
 
 316 NOVEMBER 11. 
 
 The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. 
 
 II. COR. iii. 6. 
 
 THE Christian Church has her symbols 
 and her ordinances, and she has her 
 true and inner life. Her outward ways of 
 living really belong with her inward power. 
 In a perfectly harmonious world there never 
 could be any conflict. In Heaven the outward 
 and the inward church shall absolutely corre 
 spond ; but here and now the church may be 
 so set upon her symbols and her regularities 
 that she shall fail of doing her most perfect 
 work and living her most perfect life. The 
 Christian may be so bound to rites and cere 
 monies that he loses the God to whom they 
 ought to bring him near. The congregation 
 may be so jealous for its liturgy that it loses 
 the power of prayer. The church at large may 
 make so much of its apostolic ministry that it 
 loses the present ministry of Christ Himself. 
 Here it certainly is true that no symbol is 
 doing its true work unless it is educating those 
 who use it to do without itself if need be. The 
 Christian is misusing his rites and ceremonies, 
 unless they are bringing him more personally 
 and immediately near to God. The congre 
 gation is not using its liturgy aright if it is 
 getting more and more unable to worship ex 
 cept in just that form and order; and the 
 church is suffering and not thriving by her 
 ancient ministry if she is making it exclusive 
 and mechanical, and calling none the ministers 
 of Christ who have not that ordination.
 
 NOVEMBER 12. 317 
 
 \1 7 HEN Jesus met the woman of Samaria at 
 the well He honored her ; He valued and 
 reverenced her soul. When He met Pontius 
 Pilate, He honored him. When He dealt day 
 after day with the ripening treachery of Judas 
 Iscariot, He honored him. When He found 
 John the Baptist making the door ready through 
 which He was to enter on His work, He honored 
 him. The spiritual nature, the special humanity, 
 of each of them seemed to Him, not in any mere 
 fiction but in simple truth, to he a beautiful and 
 precious thing. His honor for that was the soul 
 of His courteousness. And then the special 
 words He said, whether of sympathy or of re 
 buke, might be just what the special occasion 
 bade them be. Different as they were, they 
 were all courteous alike because of this personal 
 honor and value that filled them all. There is 
 no complete courtesy that lias not such a soul 
 and such a body, a soul of honor for the in 
 dividual, living in and uttering itself through the 
 intelligent recognition of the class condition. 
 
 INFLUENCE, n6, 117. 
 
 Man he loved 
 
 As man ; and to the mean and the obscure, 
 And all the homely in their homely works, 
 Transferred a courtesy which had no air 
 Of condescension. WORDSWOKTH.
 
 318 NOVEMBER 13. 
 
 "THERE is something so sublimely positive in 
 Nature. She never kills for the mere sake 
 of killing ; but every death is but one step in 
 the vast weaving of the web of life. She has 
 no process of destruction which, as you turn it 
 to the other side and look at it in what you 
 know to be its truer light, you do not see to be 
 a process of construction. She gets rid of her 
 wastes by ever new plans of nutrition. This is 
 what gives her such a courageous, hopeful, and 
 enthusiastic look, and makes men love her as a 
 mother and not fear her as a tyrant. They see 
 by small signs, and dimly feel, this positiveness 
 of her workings which it is the glory of natural 
 science to reveal more and more. i. 359 . 
 
 Verily now is our season of seed, 
 
 Now in our Autumn ; and Earth discerns 
 
 Them that have served her, in them that can read, 
 
 Glassing where under the surface she burns 
 
 Quick at her wheel, while the fuel, decay, 
 
 Brightens the fire of renewal ; and we? 
 
 Death is the word of a bovine day 
 
 Know you the heart of the springing To-be. 
 
 GEORGE MEREDITH.
 
 NOVEMBER 14. 319 
 
 GOD is infinitely various. His great arms can 
 hold the infant like a mother, and build 
 a strong wall about the mature man who is 
 fighting the noonday fight of life, and lay the 
 bridge of sunset over which the old man s feet 
 may walk serenely into the eternal day. . . . 
 How shall the soul carry with it the sense of 
 safety and assurance in God, which it has won 
 within His earthly care, forth into this unknown, 
 untrodden vastness whither it now must go ? 
 Only in one way ; only by deepening as deeply 
 as possible its assurance that it is God not ac 
 cident, not its own ingenuity, not its brethren s 
 kindness that it is God who made this earthly 
 life so rich and happy. God is too vast, too in 
 finite for earth. He is too vast for time, and 
 needs eternity. Wrapped into Him the soul 
 may be not merely resigned ; it may be even 
 impatient to explore those larger regions where 
 the power which has made itself known to it 
 here shall be able to display to it all the com 
 pleteness of its nature and its love. . . . The 
 child of God may wish for eternity, sure that 
 there upon the vaster fields he shall see vaster 
 exhibitions of that power and grace which he 
 has learned completely to believe in here. 
 
 n. 326, 327. 
 
 A little longer still patience, beloved : 
 A little longer still, ere heaven unroll 
 
 The glory, and the brightness, and the wonder, 
 Eternal and divine, that waits thy soul. 
 
 A little longer, and thy heart, beloved, 
 Shall beat forever with a love divine ; 
 
 And joy so pure, so mighty, so eternal, 
 No mortal knows, and lives, shall then be thine. 
 HYMNS OF THE AGES.
 
 320 NOVEMBER 15. 
 
 enthusiasm, hope, content, - 
 these are the true conditions of a Chris 
 tian life, just as song is the true condition of 
 the bird, or color of the rose. But just as the 
 bird is still a bird although it cannot sing, and 
 the rose is still a rose although its red grows 
 dull and faded in some dark, close room where 
 it is compelled to grow, so the Christian is a 
 Christian still, even although his soul is dark 
 with doubt, and he goes staggering on, fearing 
 every moment that he will fall, never daring 
 to look up and hope. v. 173. 
 
 Shadows to-day, while shadows show God s Will. 
 
 Light were not good except He sent us light. 
 
 Shadows to-day, because this day is night 
 Whose marvels and whose mysteries fulfil 
 Their course and deep in darkness serve Him still. 
 
 Thou dim aurora, on the extremes! height 
 
 Of airy summits wax not over bright ; 
 Refrain thy rose, refrain thy daffodil. 
 Until God s Word go forth to kindle thee 
 
 And garland thee and bid thee stoop to us, 
 Blush in the heavenly choirs and glance not down : 
 To-day we race in darkness for a crown, 
 In darkness for beatitude to be, 
 
 In darkness for the city luminous. 
 
 CHKISTI.NA ROSSETTI
 
 NOVEMBER 16. 321 
 
 Behold, God liiinself is with us for our captain. 
 
 II. CHRON. xiii. 12. 
 
 ST. PAUL has a noble verse which says 
 that "experience worketh hope." It 
 must, if it is full of Christ. The soul that 
 is getting deeper and deeper into the certain 
 knowledge of Him must be learning that it has 
 no right to fear ; that however hopeless things 
 look there can be nothing but success for 
 every good cause in the hand of Christ. It is 
 a noble process for a man s life that gradually 
 changes the cold dogma that "truth is strong 
 and must prevail " into a warm enthusiastic 
 certainty that "my Christ must conquer." 
 It is terrible to see a man calling himself a 
 Christian who despairs more of the world the 
 longer he lives in it. It shows that he is 
 letting the world s darkness come between 
 him and his Lord s light. It shows that he 
 is not near enough to Christ. 
 
 And with the growing hopefulness there 
 comes a growing courage. How timid we are 
 at first ! 1 become a Christian, and it seems 
 as if just to get this soul of mine saved were 
 all that 1 could dare to try ; but as the 
 Saviour s strength becomes more manifest to 
 me, as I know Him more, I see that He is 
 able to do much more than that. I begin 
 to aspire to have a little part in the great 
 conquest of the world in which He is en 
 gaged. And so the Soldier of the Cross at 
 last is out in the very thick of the battle, 
 striking at all his Master s enemies in the 
 perfect assurance of his Master s strength. 
 
 II. 57.
 
 322 NOVEMBER 17. 
 
 T HOPE that many of you have read the in- 
 1 teresting hook which gives an account of 
 the Personal Life of David Livingstone. It is a 
 noble record of a nohle history. But the great 
 beauty of his life as it comes out there is in the 
 centralness of his religion. Two of the greatest 
 interests of the human mind and soul were al 
 ways with him science and philanthropy. He 
 opened the desert and traced the mysterious 
 rivers, and watched the wanderings of the stars. 
 He trampled out the slave trade in whole regions 
 of its worst brutality ; but, at the heart of them, 
 the man s science and philanthropy both got 
 their light from his religion. He was first, last, 
 and always and above all things the Christian 
 and the Christian Missionary, carrying the glo 
 rious Gospel of the grace of God to the most 
 miserably benighted of His children. He refuses 
 to be called the mere scientist or the mere phi 
 lanthropist. In the light of God he sees light, 
 and he makes light in the mystery and sin of 
 the Dark Continent. Therefore his fame has 
 among the scientists and the philanthropists its 
 own peculiar beauty. m. I09 , II0 . 
 
 My times are in Thy Hand, O Lord ! Go Thou 
 with me and I am safe. And above all make me 
 useful in promoting Thy cause of peace and good 
 will among men. 
 
 DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
 
 NOVEMBER 18. 323 
 
 THE missionary idea that man is God s child 
 gives birth to two enthusiasms : one for 
 the Father, one for the child ; one for God, one 
 for man. . . . Who can tell, as the missionary 
 stands there preaching the salvation to his dusky 
 congregation, which fire burns the warmest in his 
 heart ? Is it the love for God or for his brethren ? 
 Is it the Master who died for him, or these men 
 for whom also He died, from whom his strongest 
 inspiration comes ? No one can tell. He can 
 not tell himself. The Lord Himself in His own 
 parable foretold the noble, sweet, inextricable 
 confusion. " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
 one of these ye have done it unto Me." But 
 surely in the blended power of the two enthusi 
 asms there is the strongest power of magna 
 nimity. All that the mystic feels of personal 
 love of God, all that the philanthropist knows 
 of love for man, these two, each purifying and 
 deepening and heightening the other, unite in 
 the soul of him who goes to tell the men whom 
 he loves as his brethren, about God whom he 
 loves as his Father. n. I79 , l8o . 
 
 Why they have never known the way before 
 Why hundreds stand outside Thy mercy s door- 
 I know not : but I ask, dear Lord, that Thou 
 Wouldst lead them now ! 
 
 Why in the hard and thorny way they press 
 Unloved, uncomforted, with none to bless, 
 In living death, I know not : but spare Thou, 
 And lead them on. 
 
 C. C. FRASER TYTLER,
 
 324 NOVEMBER 19. 
 
 If we believe that Jesus died and rose again, 
 even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God 
 bring with Him. I. THK.SS. iv. 14. 
 
 TT is a beautiful connection, one whose mys 
 terious beauty we are always learning more 
 and more, that the deeper our spiritual experi 
 ence of Christ becomes, the more our soul s 
 life really hangs on His life as its Saviour and 
 continual Friend, the more- real becomes to us 
 the unquenched life of those who have gone 
 from us to be with Him. i. 226 . 
 
 Lord, make me one with Thine o\vn faithful ones, 
 
 Thy saints who love Thee and are loved by Thee ; 
 
 Till the day break and till the shadows flee 
 At one with them in alms and orisons : 
 At one with him who toils and him who runs, 
 
 And him who yearns for union yet to be ; 
 
 At one with all who throng the crystal sea 
 And wait the setting of our moons and suns. 
 Ah, my beloved ones gone on before, 
 
 Who looked not back with hand upon the plough ! 
 If beautiful to me while still in sight, 
 
 How beautiful must be your aspects now ; 
 
 Your unknown, well-known aspects in that light 
 Which clouds shall never cloud forevermore. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSKTTI.
 
 NOVEMBER 20. 325 
 
 NOWHERE is it more necessary that the 
 Church should realize the largeness of 
 her life, should know that she is not the Clergy 
 only but the total people, than where she hears 
 herself called upon to take interest in, and give 
 her help for, the solution of the pressing social 
 and economical problems of the day. Those 
 calls are growing constant and urgent. To 
 these calls she must not close her ears. The 
 Church of Christ must be a leader in the ad 
 justment of the relations of mankind and the 
 building of the better society which is to come. 
 Only, what is the Church, and how shall she 
 do this work ? Not merely by Ministers study 
 ing in their libraries and preaching from their 
 pulpits though the earnest thought and help 
 ful word must not be lacking, but by Chris 
 tian men and women in their shops and homes, 
 growing more rich in sympathy, and dealing in 
 larger daily justice with their fellow-men. The 
 great questions which are bewildering us are to 
 find their solution quite as largely in the fields 
 of active work as in the laboratories of the 
 scholars. The Church is dealing with these 
 questions wherever Churchmen are trying to do 
 their duty with the fullest light. There is much 
 hope in the Christian Social Union, which has 
 been organized for the study of the theory of 
 social questions. I invite to it your attention 
 and regard. There is still more hope in the 
 growing desire of all men to be just and fair, 
 and to live with their fellow-men as brethren in 
 
 the family of God. CONVENTION ADDRESS.
 
 326 NOVEMBER 21. 
 
 And there came a traveller unto tlic rich man, 
 and he spared to take of his own flock, and of his 
 own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that 
 was come unto him. II. SAM. xii. 4. 
 
 X/"OU cannot do your duty to the poor by ;i 
 I society. Your life must touch their life. 
 You try to work solely by a society, and what 
 does it come to ? Is it not the old story of the 
 book of Samuel ? The traveller appeals to 
 you, and you spare to take of your own 
 thought and time and sympathy to give to the 
 wayfaring man that is come to you. They 
 are too precious. You say : " There is 
 thought, time, sympathy, down at the charity 
 bureau to which I have a right by virtue of the 
 contribution 1 have made. Go down and get 
 a ticket s worth of that." n. 354 . 
 
 My brother, I am hungry : give me food 
 Such as my Father gives me at his board ; 
 He has for many years been to thee good, 
 Thou canst a morsel, then, to me afford. 
 I do not ask of thee a grain of that 
 Thou offerest when I call on thee for bread ; 
 This is not of the wine nor olive fat, 
 But those who eat of this like thee are dead. 
 I ask the love the Father has for thee, 
 That thou should st give it back to me again ; 
 This shall my soul from pangs of hunger free, 
 And on my parched spirit fall like rain ; 
 Then thou wilt prove a brother to my need, 
 For in the Cross of Christ thou, too, canst bleed. 
 
 JONES VERY.
 
 NOVEMBER 22. 327 
 
 Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He 
 laid down His life for us : and we ought to lay 
 down our lives for the brethren. 
 
 1. JOHN iii. 16. 
 
 THE wayfarers come to us continually, and 
 they do not come by chance. God sends 
 them. And as they come, with their white faces 
 and their poor scuffling feet, they are our judges. 
 Not merely by whether we give, but by how 
 we give and by what we give, they judge us. 
 One man sends them entirely away. Another 
 drops a little easy, careless, unconscientious 
 money into their hands. Another man washes 
 and clothes them. Another man teaches them 
 lessons. Thank God there are some men and 
 women here and there, full of the power of the 
 Gospel, who cannot rest satisfied till they have 
 opened their very hearts and given the poor 
 wayfaring men the only thing which really is 
 their own, themselves, their faith, their energy, 
 their hope in God. Of such true charity-givers 
 may He who gave Himself for us increase the 
 multitude among us every day ! n. 354 . 
 
 And the voice that was calmer than silence said, 
 " Lo it is I, be not afraid ! 
 
 The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, 
 
 In whatso we share with another s need ; 
 
 Not what we give, but what we share, 
 
 For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
 
 Who gives himself with his alms feeds three, 
 
 Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me." 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 328 NOVEMBER 23. 
 
 WHEN I suffer or when I enjoy, when 
 down these nerves the quick agony 
 shoots and leaves me trembling like a poor 
 tree which the blast has shivered, or when 
 through the healthy blood peace runs like the 
 sunlight on a flowing river, when, in the 
 aggregate of life, beneath affections, thoughts, 
 dreams, memories, desires, there is always 
 felt this human body with its pangs and 
 blisses, what a noble meaning there is in it 
 all as it lies open to the influence of Jesus ! 
 "Lo, I am human!" And all the dignity 
 and pathos of humanity surrounds me. 
 "Behold in what a disturbed and struggling 
 world I live!" And hope and fear, twin 
 captains of the soul, patience and expecta 
 tion spring to life. "See here, touching this 
 very flesh of mine, the fingers of the hand 
 whose heart is my Father s," and through 
 the passions which the body feels opens a 
 way into the deepest woes and loftiest 
 pleasures, which can belong only to the 
 
 Sons Of God. INFLUENCE, 173. 174. 
 
 But when the sharp strokes flesh and heart run through, 
 
 For thee and not another ; only known, 
 
 In all the universe, through sense of thine ; 
 
 Not caught by eye or ear, not felt by touch, 
 
 Nor apprehended by the spirit s sight, 
 
 But only by the hidden, tortured nerves, 
 
 In all their incommunicable pain, 
 
 God speaks Himself to us, as mothers speak 
 
 To their own babes, upon the tender flesh 
 
 With fond familiar touches close and dear ; 
 
 Because He cannot choose a softer way 
 
 To make us feel that He Himself is near, 
 
 And each apart His own beloved and known. 
 
 UGO BASSI. SERMON IN THE HOSPITAL.
 
 NOVEMBER 24. 329 
 
 HTHH construction of life is everywhere the 
 * same. Wherever the background is lost, 
 the foreground grows false and thin. What is 
 this foolish realism in our literature but the loss 
 of the background of the ideal, without which 
 every real is base and sordid ? In how many 
 bright books there is no God treading on the 
 high places of the earth ; nay, there are no high 
 places of the earth for God to tread upon. What 
 is the practical man s contempt for theory ? 
 What is the modern man s contempt for his 
 tory ? What is the ethical man s contempt for 
 religion ? All of them are the denials of the 
 background of life. All of them therefore are 
 thin and weak. v. i 22 . 
 
 Yet is it just 
 
 That here, in memory of all books which lay 
 Their sure foundations in the heart of man, 
 Whether by native prose, or numerous verse ; 
 
 Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, 
 And of the men that framed them, whether known, 
 Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, 
 That I should here assert their rights, attest 
 Their honors, and should, once for all, pronounce 
 Their benediction ; speak of them as Powers 
 For ever to be hallowed ; only less, 
 For what we are and what we may become, 
 Than Nature s self, which is the breath of God, 
 Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 330 NOVEMBER 25. 
 
 "THE great procession of the year, sacred to 
 our best human instincts with the accumu 
 lated reverence of ages, Advent, Christmas, 
 Epiphany, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, 
 Whitsunday, leads those who walk in it, at 
 least once every year, past all the great Chris 
 tian facts, and, however careless and selfish be 
 the preacher, will not leave it in his power to 
 keep them from his people. The Church year, 
 too, preserves the personality of our religion. It 
 is concrete and picturesque. The historical 
 Jesus is forever there. It lays each life con 
 tinually down beside the perfect life, that it 
 may see at once its imperfection and its hope. 
 
 PREACHING, 91. 
 
 O God, of unchangeable power and eternal light, 
 look favorably on Thy whole Church, that wonderful 
 and sacred mystery ; and, by the tranquil operation of 
 Thy perpetual Providence, carry out the work of man s 
 salvation ; and let the whole world feel and see that 
 things which were cast down are being raised up, and 
 things which had grown old are being made new, and 
 all things are returning to perfection through Him from 
 whom they took their origin, even through our Lord 
 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 ANCIENT COLLECTS. BRIGHT.
 
 NOVEMBER 26. 331 
 
 / take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, 
 in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for 
 Chris fs sake : for when I am weak, then am 1 
 strong. II. COR. xii. 10. 
 
 T^MERE is a noble dignity about those words. 
 They are not the words of one who is 
 merely trying to console himself for the lack 
 of comfort, and to hold out till comfort shall 
 bestow itself upon him. They are the words 
 of a man whom circumstances, which he 
 knows to be the hands of God, have led into a 
 certain life. He has not led himself there ; he 
 has not chosen poverty ; he has not tried to be 
 poor ; but being in that land of poverty, he 
 looks about, and lo ! it is not barren. It has 
 pleasures, revelations, cultivations of its own. 
 It has its own peculiar relationships to God. 
 It is not necessary to say whether it is poorer 
 or richer than the other land, the land of pro 
 fusion and abundance. It is a true land by it 
 self ; and Paul, who lives there, honors and 
 respects it, and so it honors him and gives him 
 freely its own peculiar strength ; and he 
 stands in the midst of it and cries, "When I 
 am weak, then am I strong." v. 162.
 
 332 NOVEMBER 27. 
 
 cannot see the distant heaven. You 
 cannot hear the songs of angels. You 
 cannot even say assuredly that you know the 
 love of God, but you do know that to be 
 brave and true and pure is better than to be 
 cowardly and false and foul. You do know 
 that there are men and women all about you 
 suffering, some of them dying, for sympathy 
 and help. You do know that whether God 
 loves you or not, right is right ! Oh, how 
 these great simple assurances come out when 
 the higher lights of the loftier experiences grow 
 dark ! I will not say, 1 dare not say, that God 
 lets the heavenly light be darkened in order 
 that these earthly duties may appear. 1 only 
 say that when the cloud stretches itself across 
 the heavens, then, underneath the cloud and 
 shut out from the sunshine, the imprisoned 
 soul still finds for itself a rich life of duty, a 
 life of self-control, a life of charity, a life of 
 growth. v . ,74, 175 . 
 
 Who knows ? God knows : and what He knows 
 
 Is well and best. 
 
 The darkness hideth not from Him, but glows 
 Clear as the morning or the evening rose 
 
 Of east or west. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 NOVEMBER 28. 333 
 
 A MAN has no right to give to the tint on his 
 parlor walls that anxiety of thought which 
 belongs only to the justification of the ways of 
 God to man. And why ? Mainly, I suppose, 
 because the man who has expended his highest 
 powers upon the lightest themes has no new, 
 greater seriousness to give to the great problems 
 when they come, and so either avoids them al 
 together or else, by a strange perversion, turns 
 back and gives them the light consideration 
 which was what he ought to have given to his 
 headache or the color of his walls. y. 2 47 , 24 8. 
 
 High above these things that change is the wise man 
 
 with spirit well taught, 
 Who cares not what he feels, 
 Nor from what quarter blows the shifting breeze, 
 If but the holy motive of his mind go onward to the 
 
 due and longed-for end. 
 
 For thus will he be able to remain the same, unshaken, 
 Pointing the simple eye of motive 
 Through many changing chances straight at Me. 
 The purer that his eye of motive is, 
 The straighter sails the vessel through the many 
 
 storms. 
 
 By two wings man is lifted from the things of earth 
 
 Simplicity and purity. 
 
 Simplicity must be the keynote to his motive ; 
 
 Purity the keynote to his love. 
 
 His motive aims at God ; 
 
 His love embraces and enjoys Him. 
 
 THOMAS A KEMPIS
 
 334 NOVEMBER 29. 
 
 T ET us give thanks to God upon Thanks- 
 giving Day. Nature is beautiful, and 
 fellow-men are dear, and duty is close 
 beside us, and He is over us and in us. 
 What more do we want, except to be more 
 thankful and more faithful, less complaining 
 of our trials and our time, and more worthy 
 of the tasks and privileges He has given us. 
 We want to trust Him with a fuller trust, 
 and so at last to come to that high life 
 where we shall "Be careful for nothing, 
 but in everything, by prayer and supplica 
 tion, with thanksgiving, let our request be 
 made known unto God," for that and that 
 alone is peace. 1. 173 
 
 For flowers unsought, in desert places 
 Flashing enchantment on the sight; 
 For radiance on familiar faces 
 As they passed upward into light , 
 
 For blessings of the fruitful season, 
 For work and rest, for friends and home, 
 For the great gifts of thought and reason, 
 To praise and bless Thee, Lord, we come. 
 
 And when we gather up the story 
 Of all Thy mercies flowing free, 
 Crown of them all, that hope of glory, 
 Of growing ever nearer Thee. 
 
 ELIZA SCUDDE*.
 
 NOVEMBER 30. 335 
 
 T BELIEVE so fully that the Christian min 
 istry in the next fifty years is to have a 
 nobler opportunity of usefulness and power 
 than it has ever had in the past, that I would 
 gladly call, if 1 could, with the voice of a 
 trumpet to the brave, earnest, cultivated 
 young men who are to live in the next fifty 
 years to enter into it, and share the privilege 
 of that work together. 
 
 And the word with which I would summon 
 them should be that great word " service." 
 " Whosoever will be chief among you, let him 
 be your servant," Jesus said. . . . And then 
 He stretched out His arms, and with that self- 
 assertion which no other son of man has ever 
 dared to make, He bade them see the illustra 
 tion of what He had just told them in Himself. 
 " Even as the Son of Man came not to be min 
 istered unto but to minister," He said. v . iss. 
 
 Almighty God, who didst give such grace unto Thy 
 holy Apostle Saint Andrew, that he readily obeyed the 
 calling of Thy Son Jesus Christ, and followed Him 
 without delay ; Grant unto us all, that we, being called 
 by Thy holy Word, may forthwith give up ourselves 
 obediently to fulfil Thy holy commandments ; through 
 the same Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.
 
 336 DECEMBER i. 
 
 "THE man is weak and useless who, however 
 devoutly, looks only for the repetition of 
 past miracles, good and great as those miracles 
 were in their own time. Solemnly and surely 
 to some men terribly and awfully, to other 
 men joyously and enthusiastically it is becom 
 ing clear to men that the future cannot be what 
 the past has been. The world of the days to 
 come is to be different from the world that has 
 been. Every interest of life is altered ; govern 
 ment, society, business, education, all is altered, 
 all is destined to alter more and more. Only 
 these two elements remain the same, God 
 and man ! What then shall we expect ? That 
 God will guide man and supply him as He has 
 in all the times which are past and gone, but 
 that the new government and guidance will be 
 different for the new days. He who believes 
 that, looks forward to changes of faith and 
 changes of life without a fear, for underneath 
 all the changes is the unchangeableness of God. 
 
 V. 31, 32- 
 
 For Destiny is but the breath of God 
 Still moving in us, the last fragment left 
 Of our unfallen nature, waking oft 
 Within our thought, to beckon us beyond 
 The narrow circle of the seen and known, 
 And always tending to a noble end. 
 
 All things are fitly cared for, and the Lord 
 Will watch as kindly o er the exodus 
 Of us His servants now, as in old time. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 DECEMBER 2. 337 
 
 WHAT tender charity and what unsparing 
 scrutiny there must be all over a world 
 that is waiting for the Judgment Day. At last 
 He comes ! Where has He been ? Not far 
 away. The absence of the Parable is but a 
 figure for the suspended judgment, the holding 
 back of consequences till probation is com 
 plete. The king s coming in, what is that then 
 but just the letting loose of consequences that 
 have been held back in His hand, to fly to their 
 causes. Everywhere the reward seeks the 
 goodness, and the misery seeks the sin, and so 
 the world is judged. 
 
 Where the good man stands with his eye on 
 God is Heaven. Where the wicked man 
 cowers, is Hell. No longer joy gilds the guilt, 
 and misery no longer vexes the goodness. The 
 setting free of joy and sorrow from their long 
 unnatural attachments to seek their fitness of 
 character, that is the coming in of the King, 
 that is the Judgment Day. Mss . 
 
 Gather you, gather you, angels of God 
 
 Freedom, and Mercy, and Truth ; 
 Come ! for the Earth is grown coward and old, 
 
 Come down and renew us her youth, 
 Wisdom, Self-Sacrifice, Daring and Love, 
 Haste to the battle-field, stoop from above, 
 
 To the Day of the Lord at hand. 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY.
 
 338 DECEMBER 3. 
 
 Above it stood tlie seraphim : eac)i one Jiail six 
 wings ; with twain he covered his face, and with 
 twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did 
 fly. Is. vi. 2. 
 
 ISAIAH says of the seraphim not merely that 
 their eyes were covered, but that they were 
 covered with their wings. Now the wings rep 
 resent the active powers. It is with them that 
 movement is accomplished and change achieved 
 and obedience rendered ; so that it seems to me 
 that what the whole image means is this, that 
 it is with the powers of action and obedience 
 that the powers of insight and knowledge are 
 veiled. . . . The mystery and awfulness of God 
 is a conviction reached through serving Him. . . . 
 Behold, what a lofty idea of reverence is 
 here ! It is no palsied idleness. The figure 
 which we see is not flung down upon the 
 ground, despairing and dismayed. It stands upon 
 its feet ; it is alert and watchful ; it is waiting 
 for commandments ; it is eager for work ; but 
 all the time its work makes it more beautifully, 
 completely, devoutly reverent of Him for whom 
 the work is done. The more work the more 
 reverence. So man grows more mysterious and 
 great to you, oh, servant of mankind, the longer 
 that you work for him. Is it not so ? So Nature 
 grows more mysterious to you, oh, naturalist, 
 the longer that you serve her. Is it not so ? So 
 God grows more sublime and awful as we labor 
 for Him in the tasks which He has set us. 
 Would you grow rich in reverence ? Go work, 
 work, work with all your strength ; so let life 
 deepen around you and display its greatness. 
 
 V. 259, 260.
 
 DECEMBER 4. 339 
 
 Ye know neither ttic day nor the hour wherein 
 the Son of Man coineth. MATT. xxv. 13. 
 
 T ET us do what we ought and what we can 
 for our own souls at once. For the judg 
 ment is coming not only at the last day, but 
 all the time. Every day the power that we 
 will not use is failing from us. Every day the 
 God whose voice speaks through all the inevi 
 table necessities of our moral life is saying of 
 the men who keep their talents wrapped in 
 napkins, "Take the talent from him;" and 
 since he will not enter into the perfect light 
 
 he must be "cast into the outer darkness." 
 
 i. 156. 
 
 Why do we heap huge mounds of years 
 
 Before us and behind, 
 And scorn the little days that pass 
 
 Like angels on the wind? 
 
 Each turning round a small sweet face 
 
 As beautiful as near; 
 Because it is so small a face 
 
 We will not see it clear: 
 
 And so it turns from us, and goes 
 
 Away in sad disdain : 
 Though we would give our lives foi it, 
 
 It never comes again. 
 
 DINAH MULOCH CRAIK.
 
 340 DECEMBER 5. 
 
 ""FHE real question everywhere is whether 
 1 the world, distracted and confused as 
 everybody sees that it is, is going to he 
 patched up and restored to what it used to 
 be, or whether it is going forward into a 
 quite new and different kind of life, whose 
 exact nature nobody can pretend to foretell, 
 but which is to be distinctly new, unlike 
 the life of any age which the world has 
 seen already. ... It is impossible that 
 the old conditions, so shaken and broken, 
 can ever be repaired and stand just as they 
 stood before. The time has come when 
 something more than mere repair and resto 
 ration of the old is necessary. The old must 
 die and a new must come forth out of its 
 tomb. v. 30, i,. 
 
 What is this, the sound and rumor? What is this 
 
 that all men hear, 
 Like the wind in hollow valleys, when the storm is 
 
 drawing near, 
 
 Like the rolling on of ocean in the eventide of fear? 
 Tis the people marching on. 
 
 " On we inarch then, we, the workers, and the rumor 
 
 that ye hear 
 Is the blended sound of battle and deliv rance drawing 
 
 near ; 
 
 For the hope of every creature, is the banner that \ve 
 bear." 
 
 And the world is marching on. 
 
 WILLIAM MORRIS.
 
 DECEMBER 6. 341 
 
 For we must all appear before the judgment seat 
 of Christ ; that every one may receive the things 
 done in his body, according to that he hath done, 
 whether it be good or bad. II. COR. v. 10. 
 
 T of all the lower presences with which 
 they have made themselves contented ; 
 out of all the chambers where the little easy 
 judges sit with their compromising codes of 
 conduct, with .their ideas worked over and 
 worked down to suit the conditions of this 
 earthly life ; out of all these partial and imper 
 fect judgment chambers, when men die they 
 are all carried up into the presence of the per 
 fect righteousness, and are judged by that. All 
 previous judgments go for nothing unless they 
 find their confirmation there. i v . 6 3> 6 4 . 
 
 O God the Son, Redeemer of the world, 
 
 Have mercy upon us. 
 O our One Salvation, 
 
 Save us. 
 O Perfect Holiness, 
 
 Sanctify us. 
 
 By Thy sitting on the right hand of the Father, 
 where Thou ever makest intercession for us : 
 Let Thy servants serve Thee, O Lord, and let 
 them see Thy face. 
 
 BOOK OF LITANIES. NEALE.
 
 342 DECEMBER 7. 
 
 TT is our punishment that Jesus shares. It 
 is our woe down into which His love 
 has brought Him. We hang upon our cross 
 and He hangs on His beside us. For our cross 
 we can blame none but ourselves. Our sin has 
 brought us what we suffer, but His cross no sin 
 of His has built. It is the wickedness in which 
 we have so deep a part, which decrees that it 
 shall be a cross and not a throne. There comes, 
 as the result of all, just exactly what is ex 
 pressed in the strange deep words of the peni 
 tent thief to his mocking comrade, words 
 which the soul may turn and address to itself, 
 invoking from itself a solemn repentance and 
 hate of sin as it sees its Saviour a sharer in the 
 suffering which its sin brings : " Dost not thou 
 fear God, seeing thou art in the same con 
 demnation ? And we indeed justly, for we 
 receive the due reward of our deeds ; but this 
 man hath done nothing amiss." j. 202 . 
 
 Beside Thy Cross I hang on my Cross in shame, 
 My wounds, weakness, extremity cry to Thee: 
 Bid me also to Paradise, also me 
 
 For the glory of Thy Name. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 DECEMBER 8. 343 
 
 "FHE ship looks forward fearlessly to the new 
 ocean with its new stars and new winds, 
 for the same captain will sail her there who 
 has sailed her here, and the fact that he will 
 sail her there otherwise than he sails her here 
 will be only the sign of how sleepless and 
 watchful is his care. v. 32 . 
 
 i. 
 
 " Friend, why goest thou forth 
 When ice-hills drift from the north 
 And crush together? " 
 
 " The Voice that me doth call 
 Heeds not the ice-hill s fall, 
 
 Nor wind, nor weather. 
 
 II. 
 
 " But friend, the night is black ; 
 Behold the driving wrack 
 
 And wild seas under!" 
 
 " My straight and narrow bark 
 
 Fears not the threatening dark, 
 
 Nor storm, nor thunder. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Hark ! Who is he that knocks 
 With slow and dreadful shocks 
 The walls to sever? " 
 
 " It is my Master s call, 
 1 go, whate er befall ; 
 
 Farewell forever." 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GII.DER,
 
 344 DECEMBER 9. 
 
 A S the spiritual life with which the Bible deals 
 is the flower of human life, so the Book 
 which deals with it is the flower of human books. 
 But it is not thereby an unhuman book. It is 
 the most human of all books. In it is seen the 
 everlasting struggle of the man-life to fulfil it 
 self in God. All books in which that univer 
 sal struggle of humanity is told are younger 
 brothers, less clear and realized and developed 
 utterances of that which is so vivid in the his 
 tory of the sacred people and is perfect in the 
 picture of the divine Man. 1 will not be puzzled, 
 but rejoice when I find in all the sacred books, 
 in all deep, serious books of every sort, fore- 
 gleams and adumbrations of the lights and 
 shadows which lie distinct upon the Bible page. 
 I will seek and find the assurance that my Bible 
 is inspired of God not in virtue of its distance 
 from, but in virtue of its nearness to, the human 
 experience and heart. It is in that experience 
 and heart that the real inspiration of God is 
 given, and thence it issues into the written 
 
 book : 
 
 " Out of the heart of Nature rolled 
 The Burdens of the Bible old. 
 The Litanies of nations came 
 Like the volcano s tongue of flame ; 
 Up from the burning core beloxv 
 The Canticles of love and woe." 
 
 That book is most inspired which most worthily 
 and deeply tells the story of the most inspired 
 life. v. , 7 .
 
 DECEMBER 10. 345 
 
 V/"OU are in God s world; you are God s 
 child. Those things you cannot change ; 
 the only peace and rest and happiness for you is 
 to accept them and rejoice in them. When God 
 speaks to you, you must not make believe to 
 yourself that it is the wind blowing or the tor 
 rent falling from the hill. You must know that 
 it is God. You must gather up the whole power 
 of meeting Him. You must be thankful that 
 life is great and not little. You must listen as 
 if listening were your life. And then, then only 
 can come peace. All other sounds will be caught 
 up into the prevailing richness of that voice of 
 God. The lost proportions will be perfectly re 
 stored. Discord will cease ; harmony will be 
 complete. v. ss. 
 
 Long and dark the nights, dim and short the days, 
 Mounting weary heights on our weary ways, 
 
 Thee our God we praise. 
 Scaling heavenly heights by unearthly ways, 
 Thee our God we praise all our nights and days, 
 
 Thee our God we praise. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
 
 346 DECEMBER 11. 
 
 "T HE rich men of our community must be 
 truly rich themselves, or they can have 
 nothing worth giving to the poor ; nothing 
 with which they can permanently help their 
 poorer brethren. Only a class of men inde 
 pendent, intelligent, and glorying in struggle 
 themselves, can really send independence, in 
 telligence, and the dignity of struggle, down 
 through a whole city s life. This is the reason 
 why your selfish and idle rich man, who has 
 neither of these great human properties, does 
 nothing for the permanent help of poverty. 
 The money which he gives is no symbol. It 
 means nothing. O let us be sure that the 
 first necessity for giving the poor man charac 
 ter is that the rich man should have character 
 to give him. n. 3 , v 
 
 Our gaieties, our luxuries, 
 
 Our pleasures and our glee, 
 Mere insolence and wantonness, 
 
 Alas ! they feel to me. 
 
 The joy that does not spring from joy 
 
 Which 1 in others see, 
 How can 1 venture to employ, 
 
 Or find it joy for me? 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
 
 DECEMBER 12. 347 
 
 7\ A EN are coming more and more to feel that 
 the rich man does not do his duty by the 
 poor man, the rich class does not really take of 
 its own and give it to the poor class, unless by 
 some outflow of itself it ... sends a perpet 
 ual stream of independence, intelligence, and 
 struggle, down through the social mass, making 
 the spiritual privileges of those who are living 
 on the heights of life the possession and inspira 
 tion of the waiting, unsuccessful, discouraged 
 souls that lie below. n. 342. 
 
 " Lazarus, come forth ! " Out from the gloom, 
 
 Haggard and gaunt and dazed, there came 
 He who had lain within the tomb 
 
 Until the Blessed One called his name; 
 But, in death s night, he heard the sound ; 
 
 Forth to the shuddering gazer s sight 
 He staggered, in foul grave-clothes bound, 
 
 And breathed at last in life and light. 
 
 " Lazarus, come forth ! " The people lies 
 
 With mind in bonds, with soul all dead ; 
 Shall not Christ, through us, bid it rise? 
 
 Through us, shall not His words be said ? 
 Strong in His love strong with the strength 
 
 He gives, shall we not, in His might, 
 Call forth our Lazarus at length 
 
 From its dark gloom to life and light? 
 
 W. C. BENNET-
 
 348 DECEMBER 13. 
 
 Phillips Brooks born, 1835. 
 
 We, we have chosen our path 
 Path to a clear-purposed goal, 
 Path of advance ! but it leads 
 A long steep journey, through sunk 
 Gorges, o er mountains in snow ! 
 
 MATTHEW ARNOLD. 
 
 T T OW large a part of our godward life is trav 
 elled not by clear landmarks seen far off 
 in the promised land, but as travellers climb a 
 mountain peak, by putting footstep after foot 
 step slowly and patiently into the prints which 
 someone going before us, with keener sight, with 
 stronger nerves, tied to us by the cord of saintly 
 sympathy, has planted deep into the pathless 
 snow of the bleak distance that stretches up be 
 tween humanity and God. i. I23 . 
 
 am He that made all saints ; 
 
 gave them My good influence, 
 
 showed them glory. 
 
 called them by My favour, 
 
 drew them by My pity, 
 
 led them on through many a temptation, 
 
 poured upon them wondrous consolations, 
 
 gave them strength unto the end, 
 
 crowned their suffering, 
 
 know them first and last, 
 
 throw My arms, with love past telling, round them, 
 
 must be praised in all My saints. 
 
 THOMAS X KEMPIS.
 
 DECEMBER 14. 349 
 
 CHRIST S powerful death is the great re 
 newing spectacle of human life. When 
 men look at it, there comes up out of their 
 hearts the pattern of divinity which is there, 
 their sonship to the Holy One ; and to attain 
 that holiness, to realize it perfectly, becomes 
 the passion of their lives. And it is love for 
 the Sufferer which makes that passion, love 
 with its two perfect elements perfectly com 
 bined. It is admiration for what He is doing, 
 the unselfishness, the heroism, the godlike 
 patience. And it is gratitude because He is 
 doing it for us. It is these two which blend 
 into the passionate devotion with which a man, 
 in the great phrase of the Gospels, "follows 
 after Christ," seeks, that is, with his own 
 essential sonship, to realize in himself, the 
 
 SOnship of the Son Of God. INFLUENCE, 52. 
 
 THE SONG OF A HEATHEN. 
 {Sojourning in Galilee, A.D.ji.) 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a man, 
 
 And only a man, I say 
 That of all mankind 1 cleave to him, 
 
 And to him will 1 cleave alway. 
 
 If Jesus Christ is a God, 
 
 And the only God, I swear 
 I will follow Him through Heaven and hell, 
 
 The earth, the sea, and the air ! 
 
 RICHARD WATSON GILDER
 
 350 DECEMBER 15. 
 
 ST. PAUL would have men live here on earth, 
 yet conscious of their capacity of Heaven. 
 He would have earth real, clear, definite, dis 
 tinct, shining with its own color, holding us 
 with its own grasp ; and yet he would have 
 man so conscious of his larger self that the very 
 defmiteness of what he is to-day makes real to 
 him the greater thing that he will be in the vast 
 world beyond. 
 
 Is not that what we want ? The life of earth 
 now, the life of heaven by and by, each clear 
 with its own glory ! And our humanity capable 
 of both, capable of sharp thinking, timely hard 
 work here and now, capable also of the super 
 nal, the transcendent splendor there when the 
 time shall come ! The glory of the star, the 
 glory of the sun ! We must not lose either in 
 the other ; we must not be so full of the hope 
 of heaven that we cannot do our work on earth ; 
 we must not be so lost in the work of earth that 
 we shall not be inspired by the hope of heaven. 
 God grant us all the contentment and the hope 
 which come to those who live in Him who 
 covers all yesterday, to-day, and forever with 
 Himself. iv. 72 . 
 
 The earth may gain by one man the more, 
 
 And the gain of earth shall be heaven s gain too. 
 
 BROWNING.
 
 DECEMBER 16. 351 
 
 Now it is higli time to awake out of sleep : 
 for now is our salvation nearer than when we 
 believed. ROMANS xiii. 1 1 . 
 
 THOSE words which once came from the 
 apostle s lips, expressed the feeling and 
 the power which was always in all the 
 apostles hearts. 
 
 And it has been this expectation of the 
 coming of the Lord which, ever since the 
 time of the apostles, has always been 
 the inspiration of the Christian world. The 
 noblest souls always have believed that 
 humanity was capable of containing, and was 
 sure sooner or later to receive, a larger and 
 deeper infusion of divinity. The promise of 
 Christianity is as yet but half fulfilled. All 
 that has been done yet in all the Christian 
 centuries is only the sketch and prelude of 
 what is yet to be done. . . . And as the 
 noblest souls have thought of the world s 
 history, so the most earnest men and women 
 have always thought of their own lives. The 
 power of any life lies in its expectancy. 
 "What do you hope for? What do you 
 expect?" The answer to these questions 
 is the measure of the degree in which a man 
 is living. He who can answer these questions 
 by the declaration, " The Lord is at hand : 
 I am expecting a higher, deeper, more per 
 vading mastery of Christ" we know that 
 he is thoroughly alive. iv. ^, 355 .
 
 352 DECEMBER 17. 
 
 \Visdom crietfi aloud . . . J iie f.ord possessed 
 /ne in the beginning of His way, before His works 
 of oht. I was set up from everlasting, . . . or 
 ever the cartli was. . . . fief ore the mountains 
 were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. 
 PROV. viii. 22, 23, 25. 
 
 WHEN the Hebrew used the word " wisdom " 
 of man, it covered the whole range of 
 spiritual life, either in its moral or its mental 
 aspects. . . . There are two layers of power 
 in life ; the one that lies upon the top is carnal. 
 It is material, inert. It has no power to shape 
 itself. The other that lies below is spiritual. 
 It is full of force and movement. Skill, judg 
 ment, affection, duty, knowledge, these are its 
 elements. Out of it force comes to move the 
 dead mass that cannot move itself. The world 
 of things is moved by the world of character. 
 Perhaps this word, "character," in its spir 
 ituality, and comprehensiveness, and variety, 
 most nearly expresses the idea of the old 
 " wisdom." . . . 
 
 It shines in many a work of man. Wherever 
 it appears it is excellent and beautiful. But its 
 true glory is seen back where the thought of 
 God first touches the gross chaos with intention 
 and a world is born. Its Epic is that first chap 
 ter of Genesis. There where the Spirit of God 
 moves upon the face of the lifeless waters and a 
 divine voice summons the light and creates 
 order, there is Creation, there is the Eternal 
 Wisdom moving into visibility. ... All the 
 wisdom and skill that is in the world is to be 
 traced home to one devising and ordering mind 
 that sits above and issued into all our life. 
 
 OXFORD REVIEW.
 
 DECEMBER 18. 353 
 
 Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wis 
 dom and righteousness and sanctification and re 
 demption. I. COR. i. 30. 
 
 DEMEMBER what Christ is called in St. 
 F\ John s Gospel, " The Word." A word 
 is wisdom in utterance. Remember what St. 
 Paul calls Christ, " The power of God and the 
 wisdom of God." Remember what is said of 
 the Word in that first chapter of St. John, 
 "In the beginning was the Word. He was 
 with God and He was God." " He was in the 
 beginning with God." "All things were 
 made by Him." " In Him was life, and the 
 life was the light of men." It is just exactly 
 what is said of Wisdom in ... Proverbs. 
 " The Lord possessed me in the beginning of 
 His way." "When He prepared the Heavens, 
 I was there." "Whoso fmdeth Me, findeth 
 Life." See how the Word was just the Wis 
 dom at last uttering Itself to a needy world. 
 This divine love and grace and truth which 
 we have been tracing in Creation and in Provi 
 dence, at last coming, that men might know 
 them perfectly, and putting on humanity and 
 becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. 
 
 OXFORD REVIEW. 
 
 O Wisdom, Which earnest forth out of the Mouth of 
 the Most High, and readiest from one end to the other, 
 mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and 
 teach us the way of prudence. WISDOM, vm. z , 7 .
 
 354 DECEMBER 19. 
 
 SURELY this is the most terrible and ghastly 
 thing about all sorrow, the sense that it 
 must have been prepared for us in all the un 
 conscious days when we never thought of it. 
 This is the thought of fate which takes the pang 
 of suffering and presses it home into the very 
 soul. How old, how everlasting our suffering 
 is ! And just then to many a soul Wisdom 
 opens her voice and cries. Wisdom, the divine 
 mind, the divine intention, will, love, she has 
 something to say. " Before the mountains 
 were settled, before the hills was 1 brought 
 forth." Yes, the sorrow is old, it says, but the 
 plan of God, instinct with love, that made the 
 sorrow possible, is older. . . . More eternal, 
 more fundamental than your suffering is the 
 love, the justice, the thoughtfulness of God. 
 Let your soul rest on them and be at peace. 
 
 OXFORD REVIEW 
 
 Amid the awe 
 
 Of unintelligible chastisement, 
 Not only acquiescences of faith 
 Survived, but daring sympathies with power, 
 Motions not treacherous or profane, else why 
 Within the folds of no ungentle breast 
 Their dread vibration to this hour prolonged ? 
 Wild blasts of music thus could find their way 
 Into the midst of turbulent events ; 
 So that worst tempests might be listened to. 
 Then was the truth received into my heart, 
 That, under heaviest sorrow earth can bring, 
 If from the affliction somewhere do not grow 
 Honor which could not else have been, a faith, 
 An elevation, and a sanctity, 
 If new strength be not given, nor old restored, 
 The blame is ours, not Nature s. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 DECEMBER 20. 355 
 
 Christ . . . the wisdom of God. I. COR. i. 24. 
 
 ITH this identification in our minds, how 
 clear becomes all that we said before 
 about the wisdom of God being the soul s 
 refuge in affliction and temptation. . . . But 
 now it is not the voice of any abstraction, no 
 merely celestial wisdom that cries out to him 
 and offers to help him, and assures him of its 
 own eternity. But it is the dearer, and closer, 
 and tenderer voice of a man, of a friend, of 
 Christ the Consoler and the Strengthener. 
 He speaks, He assures the soul that He is 
 older than its sorrow, older than its trial, that 
 He has had purposes concerning it that go 
 back behind its birth. He was there when the 
 arrow was launched, and knows what it was 
 sent for. Mounting back along the continuous 
 eternity of Christ, the soul outgoes its sorrow, 
 and gets back to the purpose of its sorrow 
 which it finds folded safe and warm in the 
 hand of the eternal Christ s wise love. The 
 soul s Christ, with His eternity, dwarfs the 
 puny ages of its calamities and makes them 
 seem temporary and insignificant. 
 
 OXFORD REVIEW 
 
 In Him again 
 
 We see the same first, starry attribute, 
 " Perfect through suffering," our salvation s seal 
 Set in the front of His Humanity. 
 For God has other Words for other worlds, 
 But for this world the Word of God is Christ. 
 
 UGO BASSI. SERMON IN THE HOSPITAL.
 
 356 DECEMBER 21. 
 
 TT is especially in the great mysterious 
 * work of the atonement that Christ is seen 
 to be the wisdom, the conquering spiritual 
 element in the world. . . . When Jesus 
 died, it was as if He lifted up His voice 
 and said: "Sin is old, but I am older than 
 sin ; sin is strong, but I am stronger than sin ; 
 punishment is necessary, but mercy, the 
 forgiveness of the penitent, is a necessity 
 far back behind that, deeper in the Eternal 
 Divinity. The law began its vengeance 
 when man broke it, but 1 was set up from 
 everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the 
 earth was. Know, O my brethren, that 
 even more original and certain than the truth 
 that God must punish you if you do wrong, 
 is the higher truth that God will forgive you, 
 
 if you repent." OXFORD REVIEW. 
 
 Blessed be Thou, O Lord, 
 
 So good unto Thy servant, according to the great 
 ness of Thy pity. 
 
 What can I say more in Thy presence, 
 But humbly lay myself before Thee, 
 Mindful of my iniquity and worthlessness? 
 For there is none like Thee 
 Mid all the wonders of the heaven and earth. 
 Thy works are very good, 
 Thy judgments true, 
 And by. Thy foresight all is ruled. 
 Praise then to Thee and glory, 
 O Wisdom of the Father ; 
 Bless and praise Him, O my lips, 
 My soul and all things that are made. 
 
 THOMAS A KKMPIS.
 
 DECEMBER 22. 357 
 
 THREE things concerning (the Puritans) are 
 worthy of our notice, first, that the 
 Puritans, who came direct from England, are 
 always to be distinguished from the Pilgrims, 
 who came by way of Holland and caught some 
 of the broader spirit of that " nursery of freedom 
 and good-will ; " second, that the noblest utter 
 ance of hopeful tolerance in all that noble cen 
 tury was in the famous speech in which John 
 Robinson, their minister, bade loving farewell to 
 his departing flock at Leyden, in which occur 
 those memorable words: "I am verily per 
 suaded, I am very confident, that the Lord has 
 more truth yet to break out of His holy Word ; " 
 and thirdly, that somewhere in the bitter heart 
 of Puritanism was hidden the power which, 
 partly by development, and partly by reaction, 
 was to produce the freedom of these modern 
 
 days. TOLERANCE, 36, 37- 
 
 God of our fathers, Thou who wast, 
 
 Art, and shalt be when those eye-wise who flout 
 
 Thy secret presence shall be lost 
 
 In the great light that dazzles them to doubt, 
 
 We, sprung from loins of stalwart men 
 
 Whose strength was in their trust, 
 
 That Thou wouldst make Thy dwelling in their dust, 
 
 And walk with them, a fellow-citizen, 
 
 Who build a city of the just, 
 
 We, who believe Life s bases rest 
 
 Beyond the probe of chemic test, 
 
 Still, like our fathers, feel Thee near, 
 
 Sure that, while lasts the immutable decree, 
 
 The land to Human Nature dear 
 
 Shall not be unbeloved of Thee. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
 
 358 DECEMBER 23. 
 
 DEATH is so old in the world. It lies so 
 thick and heavy upon all we do and are. 
 But " Life is older than Death," Christ said, and 
 so, when He, the Master, came, the intrude* 
 yielded before Him. He rose from the grave, 
 "because it was not possible that He should 
 beholden of it." And so all that He tells us 
 of our resurrection, all that St. Paul expounds 
 so fully of the power of the spirit, that that 
 which is sown a natural body shall be raised a 
 spiritual body, what is it all, but an assertion 
 that in us, too, the spiritual life is stronger than 
 any law of physical decay, and must come up 
 through them all to meet the issues of the spirit 
 ual world ? This is the last triumph of that 
 spiritual nature which is older and more funda 
 mental than the mountains and the streams, 
 when the earth and the sea shall give up their 
 dead, because it is not possible that they shall 
 
 be holden Of them. OXFORD REVIEW. 
 
 O quickly come, true Life of all ; 
 
 For Death is mighty all around ; 
 On every home his shadows fall, 
 
 On every heart his mark is found ; 
 O quickly come ; for grief and pain 
 Can never cloud Thy glorious reign. 
 
 LAWRENCE TUTTIETT.
 
 DECEMBER 24. 359 
 
 EVERYWHERE the nature that is conscious 
 of the infiniteness of life longs to believe 
 in a manifested God. Its whole disposition is 
 toward faith ; and then if any glimpse is 
 offered of a Son of God, a manifestation of 
 the Invisible Deity who sends happiness 
 and sorrow and who can forgive sin, there 
 is no tendency to disbelieve, there is the 
 hunger of the heart leaping with fearful 
 hope. ... To one who finds the forces of 
 this life sufficient, an incarnation, a super 
 natural salvation is incredible. To one who, 
 looking deeper, knows there must be some 
 infinite force which it has not found yet, 
 some loving, living force of Emmanuel, of 
 God with man, the Son of God is waiting 
 on the threshold and will immediately come. 
 Christ supposes an element of incompleteness 
 everywhere, making a hungry world, pre 
 paring the whole man not to reject as 
 useless and incredible, but to accept as just 
 what it needs and expects, a mysterious, a 
 supernatural, divine Redemption, preparing 
 the mental nature for faith, and the moral 
 nature for repentance, and the spiritual 
 nature for guidance. To this readiness alone 
 can Christ come. v. 20 s, 209. 
 
 O little town of Bethlehem ! 
 
 How still we see thee lie ; 
 Above thy deep and dreamless sleep 
 
 The silent stars go by ; 
 Yet in thy dark streets shineth 
 
 The everlasting Light ; 
 The hopes and fears of all the years 
 
 Are met in thee to-night. 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS
 
 360 DECEMBER 25. 
 
 Unto us a Child is born. Is. ix. 6. 
 They shall call His Name Emmanuel . . . God 
 with its. MATT. i. 23. 
 
 How silently, how silently, 
 
 The wondrous gift is given ! 
 So God imparts to human hearts 
 
 The blessings of His heaven. 
 No ear may hear His coming, 
 
 But in this world of sin, 
 Where meek souls will receive Him still, 
 
 The dear Christ enters in. 
 
 O holy child of Bethlehem ! 
 
 Descend to us we pray ; 
 Cast out our sin, and enter in, 
 
 Be born in us to-day. 
 We hear the Christmas angels 
 
 The great glad tidings tell ; 
 Oh come to us, abide with us, 
 
 Our Lord Emmanuel! 
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS. 
 
 AND now once more comes Christmas Day. 
 Once more, borne abroad on the words 
 of simple-minded shepherds, runs the story. 
 God and man have met, in visible, actual 
 union, in a life which is both human and 
 divine. . . . Lift up yourselves to the great 
 meaning of the Day, and dare to think of 
 your Humanity as something so sublimely 
 precious that it is worthy of being made an 
 offering to God. Count it a privilege to make 
 that offering as complete as possible, keeping 
 nothing back, and then go out to the pleasures 
 and duties of your life, having been truly bom 
 anew into His Divinity, as He was born into 
 our Humanity, on Christmas Day. 
 
 CHRISTMAS SERMON.
 
 DECEMBER 26. 361 
 
 THE Incarnation opened the spiritual, the 
 supernatural, the eternal. It was as if the 
 clouds were broken above this human valley 
 that we live in, and men saw the Alps above 
 them, and took courage. For, remember, it 
 was a true Incarnation. It was a real bringing 
 of God in the flesh. It was a real assertion of 
 the possible union of humanity and divinity ; 
 and by all its tender and familiar incidents, by 
 the babyhood and home life, the hungerings 
 and thirstings of the incarnate Christ, it 
 brought the divinity that it intended to reveal 
 close into the hearts and houses of mankind. 
 It made the supernatural possible as a motive 
 in the smallest acts of men. ... It brought 
 God so near that no slightest action could hide 
 away from Him ; that every least activity of 
 life should feel His presence, and men should 
 not only lead their armies and make their laws, 
 but rise up and go to sleep, walk in the street, 
 play with their children, work in their shops, 
 talk with their neighbors, all in the fear and 
 love of the Lord. \. l86 . 
 
 {Steplien*) said, Behold I see the heavens opened, 
 and tJie Son of Man on the right hand of God. 
 
 ACTS vii. 56. 
 
 It is not death, O Christ, to die for Thee : 
 
 Nor is that silence of a silent land 
 
 Which speaks Thy praise so all may understand : 
 Darkness of death makes Thy dear lovers see 
 Thyself Who Wast and Art and Art to Be ; 
 
 Thyself, more lovely than the lovely band 
 
 Of saints who worship Thee on either hand 
 Loving and loved through all eternity. 
 
 CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.
 
 362 DECEMBER 2; 
 
 AS we watch Jesus [on the night of 
 the Passover] sitting there and telling 
 the disciples truth after truth about Himself, 
 what words like the old words of the Psalmist 
 describe the scene, He is "clothing Himself 
 with light as with a garment." We can 
 seem to see the lustrous raiment of truth 
 gathered about His familiar form, at once 
 revealing it to, and hiding it from, His 
 amazed disciples ; revealing it to their love, 
 hiding it from their understanding, . . . 
 until at last the John who had once ques 
 tioned Jesus as if he were a scribe or 
 teacher, "Master, where dwellest thou ? " 
 is seen writing his reminiscence of it all in 
 words that burn with mysterious reverence, 
 words that make us think he wrote them on 
 his knees. " The Word was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, 
 the glory as of the only begotten of the 
 Father." 11.315.3.6. 
 
 All at once I looked up with terror. 
 He was there. 
 
 He Himself with His human air, 
 On the narrow pathway, just before. 
 I saw the back of Him, no more- 
 
 No face : only the sight 
 
 Of a sweepy garment, vast and white, 
 
 With a hem that 1 could recognize. 
 
 Soul of mine, hadst thou caught and held 
 By the hem of the vesture ! And 1 caught 
 At the flying robe, and unrepelled 
 Was lapped again in its folds full-fraught 
 With warmth and wonder and delight, 
 God s mercy being infinite. 
 
 BROWNING
 
 DECEMBER 28. 363 
 
 T KNOW that the death of the beggar, the 
 * death of the baby, has in it a mystery of 
 force which no wisest man can comprehend. 
 I know that He whose life was one with the 
 baby s and the beggar s, and yet infinitely 
 deeper, vaster, must have had a mystery in 
 His death over which eternity shall keep 
 guard, husbanding its treasures, and giving 
 them forth to the eternally ripening soul as it 
 shall need and shall be able to receive them. 
 He who tells me that he will read to me now 
 the mystery of the death of Jesus, shuts my 
 ears with his very offer. I will not let him tear 
 for me the mystery of the dawn which no 
 hand can hasten as it slowly brightens to the 
 
 full morning. INFLUENCE. 5 .. 
 
 [Ifoly Innocents Day.] 
 
 Oh weep not o er thy children s tomb, 
 
 Oh Rachel, weep not so ! 
 The bud is cropt by martyrdom, 
 
 The flower in Heaven shall blow ! 
 
 Firstlings of faith ! the murderer s knife 
 
 Has miss d its deadliest aim : 
 The God for whom they gave their life, 
 
 For them to suffer came. 
 
 Though feeble were their days and few, 
 
 Baptized in blood and pain, 
 He knows them, whom they never knew, 
 
 And they shall live again. 
 
 REGINALD HEBER.
 
 364 DECEMBER 29. 
 
 The foundations of the wall of ///< city were 
 garnished with all manner of precious stones. . . . 
 The glory of God did lighten it. RF.V. xxi. 1 9, 23. 
 
 EVERY new experience is a new opportunity 
 of knowing God. Every new experience 
 is like a jewel set into the texture of our life, 
 on which God shines and makes interpretation 
 and revelation of Himself. You hang a great 
 rich dark cloth up into the sunlight, and the sun 
 shines on it and shows the broad general color 
 that is there. Then one by one you sew great 
 precious stones upon the cloth, and each one, 
 as you set it there, catches the sunlight and 
 pours it forth in a flood of peculiar glory. A 
 diamond here, an emerald there, an opal there, 
 the sun seems to rejoice as he finds each 
 moment a new interpreter of his splendor, 
 until at last the whole jewelled cloth is burn 
 ing and blazing with the gorgeous revelation. 
 Now a much-living life, a life of manifold 
 experiences, is like a robe which bursts forth 
 of itself to jewels. They are not sewn on 
 from the outside. They burn out of its sub 
 stance as the stars burn out of the heart of the 
 night.. And God shines with new revelation 
 upon every one. And the man who feels 
 himself going out of a dying year with these 
 jewels of experience which have burned forth 
 from his life during its months, and knowing 
 that God in the New Year will shine upon 
 them and reveal Himself by them, may well 
 go full of expectation, saying, " The Lord is 
 at hand." IV 359 .
 
 DECEMBER 30. 365 
 
 Brethren, the time is short. I. COR. vii. 29. 
 
 T 1FE as a part, life set upon the background 
 of eternity, life recognized as the temporary 
 form of that whose substance is everlasting, that 
 is short; we wait for, we expect its end. And 
 remember that to the Christian the interpreta 
 tion of all this is in the Incarnation of Jesus 
 Christ. "I am He that liveth, and was dead ; 
 and behold, 1 am alive for evermore." The 
 earthly life set against the eternal life, the in 
 corporate earthly form uttering here for a time 
 the everlasting and essential being, those years 
 shut in out of the eternities between the 
 birth and the ascension, that resurrection open 
 ing the prospect of the life that never was to 
 end, these are the never failing interpretation 
 to the man who believes in them of the tem 
 poral and eternal in his own experience. 
 
 i. 330, 331. 
 
 Does the precept run " Believe in Good, 
 In Justice, Truth, now understood 
 For the first time "? or, " Believe in Me, 
 Who lived and died, yet essentially 
 
 Am Lord of Life"? 
 
 BROWNING
 
 3 66 DECEMBER 31. 
 
 OH friends, the old year is fast slipping back 
 behind us. We cannot stay in it if we 
 would. We must go forth and leave our past. 
 Let us go forth nobly. Let us go as those 
 whom greater thoughts and greater deeds 
 await beyond. Let us go humbly, solemnly, 
 bravely, as those must go who go to meet the 
 Lord. With firm, quiet, serious steps, full of 
 faith, full of hope, let us go to meet Him who 
 will certainly judge us when we meet Him, 
 but who loves us while He judges us, and who, 
 if we are only obedient, will make us, by the 
 discipline of all the years, fit for the everlast 
 ing world, where life shall count itself by 
 years no longer. iv. 3 6 9 . 
 
 Time s waters will not ebb, nor stay, 
 Power cannot change them, but Love may; 
 
 What cannot be, Love counts it done. 
 Deep in the heart, her searching view 
 Can read where Faith is fix d and true, 
 Through shades of setting life can see Heaven s 
 work begun. 
 
 O Thou, who keep st the Key of Love, 
 Open Thy fount, eternal Dove, 
 
 And overflow this heart of mine, 
 Enlarging as it fills with Thee, 
 Till in one blaze of charity 
 Care and remorse are lost, like motes in light divine; 
 
 Till as each moment wafts us higher, 
 By every gush of pure desire, 
 
 And high-breathed hope of joy above, 
 By every secret sigh we heave, 
 Whole years of folly we outlive, 
 In His unerring sight, who measures Life by Love.
 
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