E must learn to suffer what we cannot evade. Our life, like the harmony of the world, is composed of contrary things, of several notes, sweet and harsh, sharp and flat, sprightly and solemn, and the musician who should only affect one of these, what would he be able to do? He must know how to make use of them all and to mix them; and we, likewise, the goods and evils which are consubstantial with life; our being cannot subsist without this mixture, and the one are not less necessary to it than the other. against natural necessity is to Chisiphon who undertook to kick with his mule.

EARS wash away the atoms in the eye

That smarted for a day:

To attempt to kick repeat the folly of

Rain-clouds that spoiled the splendors of the sky
The fields with flowers array.

No chamber of pain but has some hidden door

That promises release:

No solitude so drear but yields its store

Of thought and inward peace.

MONTAIGNE.

XII.

The Allurements of Heroism.

JT

Though a host should encamp against me, I shall .-Psalms xxvii. 3.

not fear.

T is not to taste sweet things, but to do noble things and vindicate himself under God's heaven as a Godmade man, that the poorest son of Adam dimly longs.

Show him the way of doing that, the dullest day-drudge kindles into a hero. They wrong man greatly who say, he is seduced by ease; difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the allurements that act on the heart of Kindle the inner genial life of him, you have a flame that burns up all lower considerations.

man.

Not by flattering our appetites-no, by awakening the heroic in every heart, can any religion gain followers. THOMAS CARLYLE.

XIII.

Morning Offering.

My voice shalt Thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto Thee and will look up.-Psalms v. 3.

WHY "look up"? Is it expectancy-the lifting of

the eyes in the hope of an answer? I do not think so. I think it is the looking up, not in expectation, but in pride, that noble pride which a holy man may feel.

The Psalmist says that when he prays he can pray with unabashed countenance-with eyes looking right into the face of God. He has nothing to be ashamed of. He may not gain his desire, but he need not blush for it. And why has he no cause to blush? Because his prayer is offered "in the morning." It is not wrung. out by the exigencies of the day. It does not come from the burden and the heat. It is not wakened by cares of the world. It is not a cry called forth by personal pain. It comes from the heart as yet unburdened, from the spirit as yet free. It mounts by the wings of praise; it soars in the flight of song. It has not been taught to fly; it flies by instinct. It turns to the Father as the magnet turns to the pole-not by compulsion. but by attraction. GEORGE MATHESON.

XIV. "This Day the Lord Hath Made.”

Show me Thy ways, O Lord, teach me Thy paths. lead me in Thy truth and guide me; for Thou art the God of my salvation; on Thee do I wait every day.-Psalms xxv. 4, 5.

ONE of the illusions is: that the present hour is not

the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is Doomsday. . He only can enrich me who can recommend me the space between sun and sun. 'Tis the measure of a man-his apprehension of a day. R. W. EMERSON.

So here has been dawning another blue day,
Think! Wilt thou let it slip useless away?
Out of eternity this new day is born;
Into eternity at night will return.

Behold it aforetime no eye ever did;

So soon it for ever from all eyes is hid.
Here has been dawning another blue day,
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?

THOMAS CARLYLE.

XV.

SOM

Victorious from the Fight.

Blessed is he whose conscience has not condemned him and who is not fallen from his hope in the Lord. -Ecclesiasticus,

OME calm and holy souls, unruffled by doubt and passion, serene in their trust and perfect in their devotion, seem, indeed, never to have known that intermediate state of difficulty and contest. Most fair and

beautiful these souls are; and loveliest, perhaps, among them are those whose knowledge is small, whose religious vocabulary is limited, and whose beliefs are childlike and crude, but whose humility and ardour, whose loyal trust and faithful service stamp them as worthy children of the heavenly Father. And scarcely less to be reverenced than they by us who, let us hope, are struggling to be free-are those in whose faces is written the record of the fight from which they have come out victorious. They are wise with the wisdom of experience; they are merciful in judgment, for they, too, erewhile have been in bondage.

OVE virtue; she alone is free;
She will teach you how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,
Heaven itself should stoop to her.

CLAUDE G. MONTIFIORE.

Midnight Hymn.

And in the nighttime His song is with me.-Psalms xlii. 8.

MIDST the silence of the voiceless night,

When, chased by airy dreams, the slumbers flee, Whom in the darkness doth my spirit seek,

O God, but Thee?