7779

Choose you this day whom ye will serve. JOSHUA xxiv. 15.

As

S with doubtful hands we push away the shades and take our first steps in the opening year, the thought cannot fail to come to us all of how little we know what is before us. Living, but living an uncertain life, let the season utter its warnings. One thing is certain, that if you desire improvement in anything, it will never come to you accidentally. It must begin in a distinct, resolved. purpose to make a change for the better. I call on you to give this day to a serious review of your life, of what you have been living for, and of what you purpose henceforth to live for. Give one day to this, and let it be this first day of the year: at least begin the year aright. Here you stand at the parting of the ways: some road you are to take; and as you stand here, consider and know how it is that you intend to live. Carry no bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities and strifes, into this new year. Leave these behind, and let the dead Past bury its dead; leave them behind, and thank God that you are able to leave them.

EPHRAIM PEABODY.

NEW-YEAR THOUGHTS.

FAREWELL, Old Year, the rustle of whose garment,
Fragrant with memory, I still can hear;

For all thy tender kindness and thy bounty
I drop my thankful tribute on thy bier.

What is in store for me, brave New Year, hidden
Beneath thy glistening robe of ice and snows?
Are there sweet songs of birds, and breath of lilacs,
And blushing blooms of June's scent-laden rose?

Are there cold winds and dropping leaves of autumn,

Heart-searching frosts, and storm-clouds black and drear? Is there a rainbow spanning the dark heaven?

Wilt thou not speak and tell me, glad New Year?

As silent art thou of the unknown future

As if thy days were numbered with the dead; Yet as I enter thy wide-open portal,

I cross thy threshold with glad hope, not dread.

To me no pain or fear or crushing sorrow
Hast thou the power without His will to bring;
And so I fear thee not, O untried morrow!
For well I know my Father is thy King.

If joy thou bringest, straight to God, the giver,
My gratitude shall rise, for 't is His gift;
If sorrow, still, 'mid waves of Grief's deep river,
My trembling heart I 'll to my Father lift.

If life's full cup shall be my happy portion,
With thankful joy I'll drink the precious draught;
If death, my waiting soul across life's ocean
But little sooner to my home 't will waft.

So, hope-lit New Year, with thy joys uncertain,
Whose unsolved mystery none may foretell,
I calmly trust my God to lift thy curtain;
Safe in His love, for me 't will all be well.

January 2.

JULIA B. CADY.

With my whole heart have I sought Thee: O let me not wander from Thy commandments.

Ps. cxix. 10.

NOW, O man, cease for a little from thy work, with

draw thyself for a while from thy stormy thoughts, forget thy weary and burdensome struggling, give thyself for a time to God, and rest calmly in Him. Leave all around thee where God is not, and where thou wilt find no help from Him; go into the inner chamber of thine heart, and shut the door behind thee. Say then with thy whole heart: "I seek Thy face, O Lord; teach Thou me how and where I should seek Thee, and where and how I shall find Thee." SAINT ANSELM.

WITHIN AND WITHOUT.

OUT! out! away!

Soul, in this alien house thou hast no stay!
Seek thou thy dwelling in Eternity;
'Tis there shall be

Thy hiding-place, thy nest,

Where nor the world nor self can break thy rest.
Within the heart of God,

There is thy still abode;

There mayst thou dwell at rest and be at home,
Howe'er the body here may toil and roam.

Within! within, oh, turn

Thy spirit's eyes, and learn

Thy wandering senses gently to control!
Thy dearest Friend dwells deep within thy soul,
And asks thyself of thee

That heart and mind and sense He may make whole
In perfect harmony.

Doth not thy inmost spirit yield

And sink where Love stands thus revealed?
Be still and veil thy face;

The Lord is here, this is His holy place!

Then back to earth; and 'mid its toil and throng,
One glance within will keep thee calm and strong.
And when the toil is o'er, how sweet, O God, to flee
Within, to Thee!

GERHARD TERSTEEGEN.

Tr. by CATHERINE WINKWORTH.

January 3.

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. 2 COR. iv. 18.

WE

E speak of the snow as of an image of death. It may be that; but it hides the everlasting life. always under its robe, the life to be revealed in due time, when all cold shadows shall melt away before the ascending sun, and we shall be, not unclothed, but clothed upon, and mortality shall be swallowed up of life.

ROBERT COLLYER.

UNDER THE SNOW.

It is pleasant to think, just under the snow,
That stretches so bleak and blank and cold,
Are beauty and warmth that we cannot know,
Green fields and leaves and blossoms of gold.

Yes, under this frozen and dumb expanse,
Ungladdened by bee or bird or flower,
A world where the leaping fountains glance,
And the buds expand, is waiting its hour.

It is hidden now; not a glimmer breaks

Through the hard blue ice and the sparkling drift. The world shrinks back from the downy flakes Which out of the folds of the night-cloud sift.

But as fair and real a world it is

As any that rolls in the upper blue;
If you wait, you will hear its melodies,
And see the sparkle of fount and dew.

And often now when the skies are wild,
And hoarse and sullen the night winds blow,
And lanes and hollows with drifts are piled,
I think of the violets under the snow;

I look in the wild-flower's tremulous eye,

I hear the chirp of the ground bird brown;
A breath from the budding grove steals by,
And the swallows are dipping above the town.

So there, from the outer sense concealed,
It lies, shut in by a veil of snow;

But there, to the inward eye revealed,

Are boughs that blossom, and flowers that glow.

The lily shines on its bending stem,

The crocus opens its April gold,

And the rose up-tosses its diadem

Against the floor of the winter's cold.

And that other world, to my soul I say,

That veiled and mystic world of the dead,

Is no farther away on any day

Than the lilies just under the snow we tread.

T. HEMPSTEAD.