December 19

_And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in Thee_.--PS. x.x.xix. 7.

_O Lord, be gracious unto us; we have waited for Thee_.--ISA. x.x.xiii. 2.

He never comes too late; He knoweth what is best; Vex not thyself in vain; Until He cometh, rest.

B. T.

We make mistakes, or what we call such. The nature that could fall into such mistake exactly needs, and in the goodness of the dear G.o.d is given, the living of it out, And beyond this, I believe more. That in the pure and patient living of it out we come to find that we have fallen, not into hopeless confusion of our own wild, ignorant making; but that the finger of G.o.d has been at work among our lines, and that the emerging is into His blessed order; that He is forever making up for us our own undoings; that He makes them up beforehand; that He evermore restoreth our souls.

A. D. T. WHITNEY.

THE Lord knows how to make stepping-stones for us of our defects, even; it is what He lets them be for. He remembereth--He remembered in the making--that we are but dust; the dust of earth, that He _chose_ to make something little lower than the angels out of.

A. D. T. WHITNEY.

December 20

_Take no thought how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak_.--MATT. x. 19.

Just to follow hour by hour As He leadeth; Just to draw the moment's power As it needeth.

F. R. HAVERGAL.

You have a disagreeable duty to do at twelve o'clock. Do not blacken nine, and ten, and eleven, and all between, with the color of twelve. Do the work of each, and reap your reward in peace. So when the dreaded moment in the future becomes the present, you shall meet it walking in the light, and that light will overcome its darkness. The best preparation is the present well seen to, the last duty done. For this will keep the eye so clear and the body so full of light that the right action will be perceived at once, the right words will rush from the heart to the lips, and the man, full of the Spirit of G.o.d because he cares for nothing but the will of G.o.d, will trample on the evil thing in love, and be sent, it may be, in a chariot of fire to the presence of his Father, or stand unmoved amid the cruel mockings of the men he loves.

G. MACDONALD.

December 21

_Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting G.o.d, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary?

He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength_.--ISA. xl. 28, 29.

Workman of G.o.d! oh, lose not heart, But learn what G.o.d is like; And in the darkest battle-field Thou shall know where to strike.

F. W. FABER.

For the rest, let that vain struggle to read the mystery of the Infinite cease to hara.s.s us. It is a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only read here a line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that the name of the Infinite is GOOD, is G.o.d? Here on earth we are as soldiers, fighting in a foreign land, that understand not the plan of the campaign, and have no need to understand it; seeing well what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it like soldiers, with submission, with courage, with a heroic joy. Behind us, behind each one of us, lie six thousand years of human, effort, human conquest: before us is the boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered continents and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and from the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars.

T. CARLYLE.

December 22

_I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him_.--ISA. viii. 17.

What heart can comprehend Thy name, Or, searching, find Thee out?

Who art within, a quickening flame, A presence round about.

Yet though I know Thee but in part, I ask not, Lord, for more: Enough for me to know Thou art, To love Thee and adore.

F. L. HOSMER.

Stand up, O heart! and yield not one inch of thy rightful territory to the usurping intellect. Hold fast to G.o.d in spite of logic, and yet not quite blindly. Be not torn from thy grasp upon the skirts of His garments by any wrench of atheistic hypothesis that seeks only to hurl thee into utter darkness; but refuse not to let thy hands be gently unclasped by that loving and pious philosophy that seeks to draw thee from the feet of G.o.d only to place thee in His bosom. Trustfully, though tremblingly, let go the robe, and thou shalt rest upon the heart and clasp the very living soul of G.o.d.

JAMES HINTON.

December 23

_Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ_.--2 TIM. ii. 3.

Where our Captain bids us go, 'T is not ours to murmur, "No,"

He that gives the sword and shield, Chooses too the battle-field On which we are to fight the foe.

ANON.

Of nothing may we be more sure than this; that, if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other. Our heaven and our Almighty Father are there or nowhere. The obstructions of that lot are given for us to heave away by the concurrent touch of a holy spirit, and labor of strenuous will; its gloom, for us to tint with some celestial light; its mysteries are for our worship; its sorrows for our trust; its perils for our courage; its temptations for our faith. Soldiers of the cross, it is not for us, but for our Leader and our Lord, to choose the field; it is ours, taking the station which He a.s.signs, to make it the field of truth and honor, though it be the field of death.

J. MARTINEAU.

December 24

_Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light_.--COL. i. 12.

The souls most precious to us here May from this home have fled; But still we make one household dear; One Lord is still our head.

Midst cherubim and seraphim They mind their Lord's affairs; Oh! if we bring our work to Him Our work is one with theirs.

T. H. GILL.

We are apt to feel as if nothing we could do on earth bears a relation to what the good are doing in a higher world; but it is not so. Heaven and earth are not so far apart. Every disinterested act, every sacrifice to duty, every exertion for the good of "one of the least of Christ's brethren," every new insight into G.o.d's works, every new impulse given to the love of truth and goodness, a.s.sociates us with the departed, brings us nearer to them, and is as truly heavenly as if we were acting, not on earth, but in heaven. The spiritual tie between us and the departed is not felt as it should be. Our union with them daily grows stronger, if we daily make progress in what they are growing in.

WM. E. CHANNING.