January 5.

In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. ISA. liv. 8.

STRANGELY

TRANGELY do some people talk of "getting over " a great sorrow,overleaping it, passing it by, thrusting it into oblivion. Not so. No one ever does that, at least no nature which can be touched by the feeling of grief at all. The only way is to pass through the ocean of affliction solemnly, slowly, with humility and faith, as the Israelites passed through the sea. Then its very waves of misery will divide and become to us a wall on the right side and on the left, until the gulf narrows and narrows before our eyes, and we land safe on the opposite shore. DINAH MULOCH CRAIK.

SORROW PAST.

THE shadow has gone by;
A peace fills all the sky;

My days are warm with quiet, sunny life,
My nights are full of rest;

Thy love is manifest;

I thank Thee Thou hast led me from the strife.

I know that toil and pain
Will come to me again;

That many shadows on my life must fall;
I know by long years past

Such quiet cannot last;

And yet I thank Thee it has come at all.

When darkness falls at length,

I shall have gathered strength

From these sweet days of pleasantness and calm;
And with sincerest heart,

When sweetest lights depart,

I may, through all, lift up my voice in psalm.

Now, with no care or fear,
Because I feel Thee near,

Because my hands were not reached out in vain,

May I from out my calm

Reach humbly out some balm,

Some peace, some light, to others in their pain.

And when at last I sleep,

May others come and reap

The harvest planted here by these weak hands;

A harvest white for Thee

I

pray it thus may be.

Show me my field; I wait for Thy commands.

January 6.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. — JOHN xiv. 27.

NOW I want you to think that in life troubles will come,

which seem as if they never would pass away. The night and the storm look as if they would last forever, but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed; the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is Peace.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

THE PEACE OF GOD.

We ask for peace, O Lord!

Thy children ask Thy peace;

Not what the world calls rest,

That toil and care should cease,

That through bright, sunny hours
Calm life should fleet away,

And tranquil night should fade
In smiling day,-

It is not for such peace that we would pray.

We ask for peace, O Lord!

Yet not to stand secure,

Girt round with iron pride,
Contented to endure;

Crushing the gentle strings

That human hearts should know,

Untouched by others' joy

Or others' woe;

Thou, O dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.

We ask Thy peace, O Lord!

Through storm and fear and strife,

To light and guide us on,

Through a long, struggling life;

To lean on Thee entranced,

In calm and perfect rest;

Give us that peace, O Lord,

Divine and blest,

Thou keepest for those hearts who love Thee best.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.

January 7.

Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Ps. xvi. II.

HERE is an eventide in the day,

THERE is an even the

an hour when the sun retires and the shadows fall, and when Nature assumes the appearance of soberness and silence. It is an hour from which everywhere the thoughtless fly, as peopled only in their imaginations with images of gloom; it is the hour, on the other hand, which in every age the wise have loved, as bringing with it sentiments and affections more valuable than all the splendors of the day. Its first impression is to still all the turbulence of thought or passion which the day may have brought forth. We follow with our eye the descending sun; we listen to the decaying sounds of labor and of toil; and when all the fields are silent around us, we feel a kindred stillness to breathe upon our souls, and to calm them from the agitations of society. From this first impression there is a second which naturally follows it in the day we are living with men; in the eventide we begin to live with Nature; we see the world withdrawn from us, the shades of night

darken over the habitations of men, and we feel ourselves alone. It is an hour fitted, as it would seem, by Him who made us, to still, but with gentle hand, the throb of every unruly passion, and, while it veils for a time the world that misleads us, to awaken in our hearts those legitimate affections which the heat of the day may have dissolved. In the moments when earth is overshadowed, heaven opens to our eyes the radiance of a sublimer being; our hearts follow the successive splendors of the scene; and while we forget for a time the obscurity of earthly concerns, we feel that there are "yet greater things than these." A. ALISON, 1757-1839.

BETWEEN THE LIGHTS.

A LITTLE pause in life, while daylight lingers
Between the sunset and the pale moonrise,
When daily labor slips from weary fingers,

And soft gray shadows veil the aching eyes.

Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover
Seen in the light of suns that long have set;
Beloved ones, whose earthly toil is over,

Draw near, as if they lived among us yet.

Old voices call me, through the dusk returning;
I hear the echoes of departed feet;

And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning,
What is the charm that makes old things so sweet?

Must the old joys be evermore withholden?

Even their memory keeps me pure and true;

And yet, from out Jerusalem the Golden

God speaketh, saying, “I make all things new."

"Father," I cry, "the old must still be nearer,
Stifle my love, or give me back the past!
Give me the fair old earth, whose paths are dearer
Than all Thy shining streets and mansions vast."

Peace, peace! the Lord of earth and heaven knoweth
The human soul in all its heat and strife;
Out of His throne no stream of Lethe floweth,
But the clear river of eternal life.

He giveth life, aye, life in all its sweetness;
Old loves, old sunny scenes will He restore;
Only the curse of sin and incompleteness

Shall taint thine earth and vex thine heart no more.

Serve Him in daily work and earnest living,
And faith shall lift thee to His sunlit heights;
Then shall a psalm of gladness and thanksgiving
Fill the calm hour that comes between the lights.

SARAH DOUDNEY.

January 8.

Are they not all ministering spirits?-HEB. i. 14.
It doth not yet appear what we shall be.

NOT

I JOHN iii. 2.

OT until we know all that God knows can we estiImate to the full the power and the sacredness of some one life which may seem the humblest in the world.

There is no action so slight nor so mean but it may be done to a great purpose, and ennobled therefor; nor is any purpose so great but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as to help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing of God. We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our thoughts, not by referring to His will on slight occasions. His is not the finite authority of intelligence which cannot be troubled with small things.

THE CELESTIAL ARMY.

I STOOD by an open casement,
And looked upon the night,
And saw the eastward-going stars
Pass slowly out of sight.

Slowly the bright procession
Went down the gleaming arch,
And my soul discerned the music
Of their long triumphal march;

JOHN RUSKIN.