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our thoughts should conform to our doctrine of the Unity of God; how to trace the goodness of His Providence; how to fulfill the duty of His service, how to prove our trust in Him; how to make the glory of His name the chief motive of our actions; how to keep our souls humble and meek before Him; how to repent for our sins so as to find forgiveness from Him; how to practice continual self-examination; how to find the true limits of our separation from the world; and how to reach the highest of all duties-Love of God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our might.-From the Preface to the work: On the Duties of the Heart, by Bechay ben Joseph ib'n Pakuda. XII. Century.

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But Elisha went a day's journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he prayed for himself that he might die, and said: It is enough! Now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers.-I. Kings xix. 4.

JT

T is true that many pious men in ages gone by have broken the universal rule, to select the just mean in all the actions of life; at times they went to extremes. Thus they fasted often, watched through the nights,

abstained from flesh and wine, wore sackcloth, lived among the rocks, and wandered in the deserts. They did this, however, only when they considered it necessary to restore their disturbed moral equipoise, or to avoid, in the midst of men, temptations which, at times, were too strong for them. These abnegations were for them means to an end; and they forsook them as soon as that end was attained. Thoughtless men, however, regarded castigations as holy in themselves, and imitated them without thinking of the intentions of their examples. They thought thereby to reach perfection and to approach to God. The fools! as if God hated the body, and took pleasure in its destruction. They did not consider how many sicknesses of soul their actions caused. They are to be compared to such as take dangerous medicines, because they have seen that experienced physicians have saved many a one from death with them; so they ruin themselves. This is the meaning of the cry of the Prophet Jeremiah: "Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men, that I might leave my people and go from them."

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ATH my heart been wavering long?

Have I dallied oft with wrong?

Now, at last, I firmly say:

All my will to Thee I give,

Only to my God to live,

And to serve Him night and day.

MOSES MAIMONIDES.

III.

The Unfailing Reward.

In all labor there is profit; but the mere talk of the lips tendeth to penury.-Proverbs xiv. 23.

The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.-Proverbs iv. 18.

'LL labor in the pursuit of that which is perfectly good, even if it fail to reach the goal, is sufficient of itself to benefit the laborer. The impulses towards excellence, though they fail to attain their end, give joy to those who have them.

But the disciples of the true Word must be true men, lovers of temperance and order and reverence, who have laid the foundations of their lives in self-restraint and endurance and contentment, as the safe harborage of their souls where they can lie at anchor without risk or harm.

PHILO JUDEUS.

OD of the earnest heart,

The trust assured and still,
Thou who our strength for ever art,
We come to do Thy wlll,

'Gainst doubt and shame and fear
In human hearts to strive,
That all may learn to love and bear,
To conquer self and live.

IV.

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The Kingdom of Man is Within.

What profit hath a man of all his labors which he taketh under the sun? . . . All things are full of wearisome labor; man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

. . I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit . . . yet I saw that wisdom excelleth folly as far as light excelleth darkness.-Ecclesiastes i. 3, 8, ii. 13.

ET another mistake thrives under the otherwise wholesome demand for a religion of life and truth. It is this, that man is mostly, if not altogether, treated, in his outward relation to society, as a wheel in a machine; the whole purpose of his existence is: to help the machine do its work; in himself he is nothing, less and worse than nothing, since he is a nothing that suffers so many pangs and shocks, and sheds such bitter tears-a nothing, yet bold enough to think that it ought to be something, and not to be crushed before the moth, or shrivelled up into a grain of dust like a midge. There was something in the idea worth suffering for, that man is crowned with glory and honor, formed in the image of God, however faint and dim the outline, and that he is worth a thought and a care of that God. But his crown is now cast in the no better than the falling leaf. vast, has yet no room for his soul. for it? Why keep it pure? Why cultivate its facul

dust.

His soul is The Universe, so Why shall he care

ties? Why tame its passion and listen to the music of reason or the thunder of conscience? This is not life, but living death.

The accident of an accident need be no wiser than its origin, certainly no better than the heartless cruelty that flung him upon earth a helpless creature. The highest life of man is within, and this is exactly the thing about which the wisdom of to-day is dumb.

ND is this all that man can claim?

Is this our longing's final aim?
To be like all things round, no more
· Than pebbles cast on time's gray shore?

Not this our doom, Thou God benign!
Whose rays on us unclouded shine;
Thy breath sustains yon fiery dome;
But man is most Thy favored home.

V.

Resignation-The Greatest Power
of the mind.

G. G.

And David said, Behold, here I am; let the Lord do unto me as seemeth good unto Him.II. Samuel xv. 26.

THE mind never puts forth greater power over itself

than when, in great trials, it yields up calmly its desires, affections, interests to God. There are seasons when to be still demands immeasurably higher strength than to act. Composure is often the highest result of power. Think you it demands no power to calm the

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