January 20.

How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! Ps. cxxxix. 17.

TH HERE are seasons, when, for the moment, at least, the power of the world seems to drop. A strange and awful sense of responsibility comes upon us. Aspirations rise up out of the soul like the morning mist kindling in the sun as it rises from the mountain top towards heaven. We long for a higher and holier life. The vanity of the world, the worth of virtue, the goodness of God, and the peace of a trusting and devout heart are revealed to us. It is a heavenly vision open before the soul. These hours, when the soul is freed from its bonds, and holds communion with truth and God, and sees revealed the realities of its existence, are blessed hours hours of heaven - hours, which if obeyed, shall raise the soul upward to heaven. EPHRAIM PEABODY.

MY SPIRIT TURNS TO THEE.

THOUGHTS of my soul! how swift ye go-
Swift as the eagle's glance of fire,
Or arrows from the archer's bow-
To the far aim of your desire !

Thought after thought, ye thronging rise,
Like spring-doves from the startled wood,
Bearing like them your sacrifice

Of music unto God!

And shall these thoughts of joy and love
Come back again no more to me,
Returning, like the Patriarch's dove,
Wing-weary, from the eternal sea,
To bear within my longing arms
The promise-bough of kindlier skies,
Plucked from the green, immortal palms
Which shadow Paradise?

All-moving Spirit! freely forth,

At Thy command, the strong wind goes
Its errand to the passive earth;

Nor art can stay, nor strength oppose,

Until it folds its weary wing

Once more within the hand divine;
So, weary of each earthly thing,
My spirit turns to Thine!

LAMARTINE.

January 21.

They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.-Ps. lxxxiv. 7.

BE

E always displeased at what thou art, if thou desirest to attain to what thou art not; for where thou hast pleased thyself, there thou abidest.

SAINT AUGUSTINE.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,

Before thee lies revealed,

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step the shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathèd horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

OLIVER WEndell Holmes.

January 22.

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. –

HOSEA vi. 3.

Lord, increase our faith.

LUKE xvii. 5.

THERE is many a crisis in life when we need a faith like the martyr's to support us. There are hours in life like martyrdom, as full of bitter anguish, as full of utter earthly desolation; in which life itself loses its value, and we ask to die; in whose dread struggle and agony, life might drop from us and not be minded. Oh, then must our cry, like that of Jesus, go up to the pitying heavens for help, and nothing but the infinite and immortal can help us. Then, when the world is sinking beneath us, must we seek the everlasting arms to bear us up, to bear us up to heaven. Thus was it with our great example, and so must it be with us. “In Him was life; the life of self-renunciation, the life of love, the life of spiritual and all-conquering faith; and that life is the light of men. Oh, blessed light! come to our darkness; for our soul is dark, our way is dark, for want of thee; come to our darkness and turn it into day; and let it shine brighter and brighter, till it mingles with the light of the all-perfect and everlasting day!

FAITH AND SIGHT.

THOU Sayst, “Take up thy cross
O man, and follow me;
The night is black, the feet are slack,
Yet we would follow Thee.

But O dear Lord, we cry,

That we Thy face could see!

Thy blessed face one moment's space

Then might we follow Thee!

Dim tracts of time divide

Those golden days from me;

Thy voice comes strange o'er years of change, How can I follow Thee?

Within our heart of hearts,

In nearest nearness be;

Set up Thy throne within Thine own,
Go, Lord; we follow Thee.

FRANCIS TURNER PALGRAVE.

January 23.

And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. — 2 COR. iii. 17.

THE

CHE sweetest word in the language, next to love, is liberty. God and His angels alone respect the perfect freedom of man. It is the continual effort of the Lord to deliver us from ourselves, our enemies, and our friends; and to bring us into a simple, frank, and voluntary relation to Himself alone. This is the glorious liberty wherewith Christ maketh free. To shake off the yoke of sin, to put our own evil passions and falsities under foot; to receive from others and to give to them nothing but the reflected love and wisdom of the Lord; to identify cordially our own wills and lives with His will and life and with no others, - this is to know and love the true God "whose service is perfect freedom."

LIBERTY.

WHEN linnet-like confinèd, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarged winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

RICHARD LOVELACE, 1618.