January 4.

Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for the end of that man is peace. Ps. xxxvii. 37.

SHALL

HALL we make no account of the slackened but surer pace, the dignity, the calm, which make old age what God intended it should be, a sublime halt

between a conquered world and eternity?

I collect myself, O my God! at the close of life, as at the close of day, and bring to Thee my thoughts and my love. The last thoughts of a heart that loves Thee are like those last, deepest, ruddiest rays of the setting sun. Thou hast willed, Ō my God! that life should be beautiful even to the end. Make me to grow and keep my green, and climb like the plant which lifts its head to Thee for the last time before it drops its seed and dies. MADAME SWETCHINE.

We bless Thee, gracious God, for birth,
By which we hither come;

We bless Thee for the gate of death, -
The good man's passage home.

We bless Thee for the heart to feel,

And for the eye to see;

For faith that reaches over time,
And grasps eternity.

Oh, softly fades this life of ours,
Through age's silver bars,
A tender flush on hill and sky,
And lo, the world of stars!

FROM THE ROUND TABLE.

January 5.

In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. ISA. liv. 8.

TRANGELY do some people talk of " getting over

STRAN

" a great sorrow,overleaping it, passing it by, thrusting it into oblivion. Not so. No one ever does that, at least no nature which can be touched by the feeling of grief at all. The only way is to pass through the ocean of affliction solemnly, slowly, with humility and faith, as the Israelites passed through the sea. Then its very waves of misery will divide and become to us a wall on the right side and on the left, until the gulf narrows and narrows before our eyes, and we land safe on the opposite shore. DINAH MULOCH CRAIK.

SORROW PAST.

THE shadow has gone by;
A peace fills all the sky;

My days are warm with quiet, sunny life,
My nights are full of rest;

Thy love is manifest;

I thank Thee Thou hast led me from the strife.

I know that toil and pain
Will come to me again;

That many shadows on my life must fall ;
I know by long years past

Such quiet cannot last;

And yet I thank Thee it has come at all.

When darkness falls at length,

I shall have gathered strength

From these sweet days of pleasantness and calm;
And with sincerest heart,

When sweetest lights depart,

I may, through all, lift up my voice in psalm.

Now, with no care or fear,
Because I feel Thee near,

Because my hands were not reached out in vain,

May I from out my calm

Reach humbly out some balm,

Some peace, some light, to others in their pain.

And when at last I sleep,

May others come and reap

The harvest planted here by these weak hands;
A harvest white for Thee

I pray it thus may be.

Show me my field; I wait for Thy commands.

January 6.

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.- JOHN xiv. 27.

Now

OW I want you to think that in life troubles will come, which seem as if they never would pass away. The night and the storm look as if they would last forever, but the calm and the morning cannot be stayed; the storm in its very nature is transient. The effort of nature, as that of the human heart, ever is to return to its repose, for God is Peace.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

THE PEACE OF GOD.

WE ask for peace, O Lord!

Thy children ask Thy peace;

Not what the world calls rest,

That toil and care should cease,

That through bright, sunny hours
Calm life should fleet away,

And tranquil night should fade

In smiling day,

It is not for such peace that we would pray.

We ask for peace, O Lord!

Yet not to stand secure,

Girt round with iron pride,
Contented to endure ;

Crushing the gentle strings

That human hearts should know,

Untouched by others' joy

Or others' woe;

Thou, O dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.

We ask Thy peace, O Lord!

Through storm and fear and strife,

To light and guide us on,

Through a long, struggling life;

To lean on Thee entranced,

In calm and perfect rest;

Give us that peace, O Lord,

Divine and blest,

Thou keepest for those hearts who love Thee best.

ADELAIDE A. PROCTER.

January 7.

Thou wilt show me the path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Ps. xvi. 11.

HERE is an eventide in the day, an the

THE

hour when sun retires and the shadows fall, and when Nature

assumes the appearance of soberness and silence. It is an hour from which everywhere the thoughtless fly, as peopled only in their imaginations with images of gloom; it is the hour, on the other hand, which in every age the wise have loved, as bringing with it sentiments and affections more valuable than all the splendors of the day. Its first impression is to still all the turbulence of thought or passion which the day may have brought forth. We follow with our eye the descending sun; we listen to the decaying sounds of labor and of toil; and when all the fields are silent around us, we feel a kindred stillness to breathe upon our souls, and to calm them from the agitations of society. From this first impression there is a second which naturally follows it: in the day we are living with men; in the eventide we begin to live with Nature; we see the world withdrawn from us, the shades of night

darken over the habitations of men, and we feel ourselves alone. It is an hour fitted, as it would seem, by Him who made us, to still, but with gentle hand, the throb of every unruly passion, and, while it veils for a time the world that misleads us, to awaken in our hearts those legitimate affections which the heat of the day may have dissolved. In the moments when earth is overshadowed, heaven opens to our eyes the radiance of a sublimer being; our hearts follow the successive splendors of the scene; and while we forget for a time the obscurity of earthly concerns, we feel that there are "yet greater things than these." A. ALISON, 1757-1839.

BETWEEN THE LIGHTS.

A LITTLE pause in life, while daylight lingers
Between the sunset and the pale moonrise,
When daily labor slips from weary fingers,

And soft gray shadows veil the aching eyes.

Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover
Seen in the light of suns that long have set;
Beloved ones, whose earthly toil is over,

Draw near, as if they lived among us yet.

Old voices call me, through the dusk returning;
I hear the echoes of departed feet;

And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning,
What is the charm that makes old things so sweet?

Must the old joys be evermore withholden?

Even their memory keeps me pure and true;

And yet, from out Jerusalem the Golden

God speaketh, saying, "I make all things new."

"Father," I cry, "the old must still be nearer,

Stifle my love, or give me back the past!
Give me the fair old earth, whose paths are dearer
Than all Thy shining streets and mansions vast."

Peace, peace! the Lord of earth and heaven knoweth
The human soul in all its heat and strife;

Out of His throne no stream of Lethe floweth,
But the clear river of eternal life.