ligion, all truths, which are outside of us, are neither known nor enjoyed. To enjoy them, and even to know them thoroughly, they must become one with ourselves; otherwise we remain satisfied with the buzzing of a truth around us, but the truth itself is still a stranger to us.

(Vinet.)

[It seems one of our special infirmities to be so easily satisfied with the "buzzings" about our ears, made by many a truth of deep importance. "Let all flesh be silent," says Madame Guyon, "and we shall then hear the voice of God." Our flesh is rarely silent; hence, I suppose, the buzzing, and our stupid satisfaction at its empty noise.] (P. M.)

February 4.

LUKE XXIV. 29.

Abide with me! fast falls the eventide ;
The darkness deepens: Lord, with me abide!
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, O abide with me!

Swift to its close, ebbs out life's little day;
Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see ;—
O Thou who changest not, abide with me!

Thou on my head in early youth didst smile,
And though rebellious and perverse meanwhile,
Thou hast not left me, oft as I left Thee;
On to the close, O Lord, abide with me!

I need Thy presence every passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's power,

Who like Thyself, my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me!

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes— Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies:

Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee!

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me!

February 5.

JOHN XI. 32.

(Lyte.)

How apt we are in seasons of affliction to waste our time and our thoughts in dwelling on second causes,-on that fruitful, and yet most

unfruitful monosyllable "if." How much better would our time and thoughts have been employed in meditating on Holy Scripture; and especially in remembering for our comfort, that when we are found in the path of duty, however dark or crooked that path may be, we can never with any truth complain,-"If Thou hadst

been here."

(Ford.)

February 6.

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF THE GOSPELS.

The Gospels have risen in esteem in proportion as they have been longer the subject of examination, meditation, and commentary. Learning has not found them too simple, nor simplicity too learned. Those who have studied them longest, derive fresh interest from the perusal. The critical and historical investigation of the last two centuries, in the only countries in the world which are capable of such researches, have left no subject unfathomed; philosophy has been busily employed; inquiry has been free, unlimited, and bold; yet the work of men, confessedly unlearned, has not shrunk from philosophical scrutiny: and a composition, which must

be a composition of falsehood if it is not of Divine authority, has stood the severest test of critical investigation. (Sumner.)

[Most people, now-a-days, grant a kind of vague belief to the Divine authority of the Gospels; but somehow they ever make reservations of their own, and put aside, as not Divine, such particular passages as jar on their feelings.] (P. M.)

February 7.

TRIALS AND TROUBLES.

I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year, to a great bundle of fagots, far too large for us to lift. But God does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us first, one stick, which we are to carry to-day, and then another, which we are to carry to-morrow, and so on. This we might easily manage, if we would only take the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles by carrying yesterday's stick over again to-day, and adding to-morrow's burden to our load before we are required to bear it. (John Newton.)

February 8.

GENESIS V.

There is something to me very impressive in this antediluvian record of death; the long periods of life only make it all the more so. It tells me more forcibly of there being no escape from this law. The cadence of "and he died," recurs with the effect of a tolling bell upon my imagination; and the length of interval between them adds to the solemnity of the lesson so given forth. The great practical truths of a religion are not educed by an ingenious process of inference, but lie before us on the surface of the Bible,-on the surface of observation. We know them, but the thing wanted is, that we should consider them; and this unvarying register of a mortality, which no strength of endurance in the vital principle could exempt from, should speak powerfully home to the fears and urgent interests of the men who now live in this era of puny and ephemeral generations. (Chalmers)

February 9.

"GOD WITH US."

God has revealed Himself. He has stooped to our nature; and in the person of His incar

D