Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? saith the Lord God, and not that he should return from his ways and live?-Ezekiel xviii. 23.

WHAT can there be in our reconciliation to God that is so hard that it requires, if I may use the expression, such a complicated apparatus of dogma and ceremonial? Why, the desire, if real, is half of the fulfillment; God is not a God of conditions and stipulations; else were he no God of mercy at all. He would, in levying a tax, merely grant what is the penitent's due. Who will gainsay Shakespeare when he declares:

The quality of mercy is not strained:

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest-
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown.

In the mouth of the prophets no cry is heard oftener than the call: Return, return; repent and live! Can such an invitation come from one who makes the road of the sinner hardest when he is inclined to be reconciled and accepted again? No, it is not so difficult to be reconciled to God! not half as difficult as to man, and it is here where we need much training, much discipline, much practice, much self-conquest; ay, and the strength of a deeper faith than is required for being reconciled to God. G. G.

HY faithful servant, Lord, doth yearn

For Thy consoling grace;

Spread over him its healing wing,

His guilt do Thou efface.

XV.

Festivals of Rejoicing.

Thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou and thy son, and thy daughter, thy man-servant and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow that are within thy gates. Deuteronomy xvi. 14.

O not go back to monkish days and take on ascetic ideas of religion. If you will go back, go to Jewish times, where men worshipped largely in festivities; where, when they came to the temple, they came with such outbursts of pleasure, such uproarious rejoicings, that the writers, who described the tumult which prevailed on such occasions, spoke of it as the sounds of mighty thunderings and the voice of many waters. The Jews were cheerful. They had not much mirth, but they had great hilarity. The Old Testament is full of cheerfulness, of buoyancy and commands to it.

HENRY W. BEECHER.

All godlike things are joyous. They inherit joy by their own right. They sing songs in the soul even amidst the agonies of nature. There is no making them otherwise than joyous. They have touched God, and so they carry with them an irresistible gladness

everywhere. They have an unquenchable sunshine of their own, which the surrounding darkness only makes more startlingly bright. F. W. FABer.

And he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of Cherubim and palm-trees and open flowers, within and without.-I. Kings vi.

29.

LMIGHTY God! when round Thy shrine

The palm-tree's waving branch we twine,
(Emblem of life's eternal ray
And love that fadeth not away);
We bless the flowers, adorned all,
We bless the leaves that never fall,
And hopeful say: In Eden thus
The tree of life may flower for us.

The joy in God is your strength.-Nehemiah.

Give not thy soul over to sorrow and afflict not thyself in thine own counsel. Gladness of heart is the

life of man, and the joyfulness of a man is his length of days. Care bringeth on old age before the time.

The soul of man should be as a glittering mirror; when there is rust on the mirror the face is not reflected by it. So when there is sin in the man he cannot see God. WISDOM OF SOLOMON.

TAKE Joy home,

And make a place in thine own heart for her,
And give her time to grow, and cherish her!
Then will she come and often sing to thee
When thou art working in the furrows! ay,
Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.
It is a comely fashion to be glad—
Joy is the grace we say to God.

XVII.

Continuation.
II.

Make us rejoice according to the days wherein we have been afflicted and the years wherein we have seen trouble.-Psalms xc. 15.

T is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world-it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose toward His creatures, of His parental goodness even in suffering; still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace; still to be true to conscience; still to do our work, to resist temptation, to be useful, though with diminished

energy, to give up our wills when we cannot rejoice under God's mysterious providence. In this patient, though uncheered, obedience, we become prepared for light. The soul gathers force.

WILLIAM E. CHANNING.

For the wise, the remedy for their errors is reparation, not regret. Regret consumes the heart, but the effort to make good an error fills it with a noble pride. In ancient Egypt regret was numbered among the fortytwo deadly sins. One of the principal Commandments is: Thou shalt not consume thy heart.

ANON.

The human heart is like a millstone in a mill; when you put wheat under it, it turns and grinds and bruises the wheat to flour; if you put no wheat, it still grinds on, but then 'tis itself it grinds and wears away.

MARTIN LUTHER.

XVIII.

Continuation.
III.

I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart;

I will show forth all Thy marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in Thee, I will sing praise to Thy O Thou most high.-Psalms ix. 1, 2.

name,

HE Divine Law, perfect in every respect, is to lead us to perfection, as one who knew testifies.