Part 19

March 10

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.--ISA. xliii. 2.

I am with thee to deliver thee.--JER. i. 8.

When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not overflow; For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless, And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

ANON.

Turn it as thou wilt, thou must give thyself to suffer what is appointed thee. But if we did that, God would bear us up at all times in all our sorrows and troubles, and God would lay His shoulder under our burdens, and help us to bear them. For if, with a cheerful courage, we submitted ourselves to God, no suffering would be unbearable.

J. TAULER.

Learn to be as the angel, who could descend among the miseries of Bethesda without losing his heavenly purity or his perfect happiness. Gain healing from troubled waters. Make up your mind to the prospect of sustaining a certain measure of pain and trouble in your passage through life. By the blessing of God this will prepare you for it; it will make you thoughtful and resigned without interfering with your cheerfulness.

J. H. NEWMAN.

March 11

Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee: He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.--PS. lv. 22.

Now our wants and burdens leaving To His care who cares for all, Cease we fearing, cease we grieving, At His touch our burdens fall.

S. LONGFELLOW.

The circumstances of her life she could not alter, but she took them to the Lord, and handed them over into His management; and then she believed that He took it, and she left all the responsibility and the worry and anxiety with Him. As often as the anxieties returned she took them back; and the result was that, although the circumstances remained unchanged, her soul was kept in perfect peace in the midst of them. And the secret she found so effectual in her outward affairs, she found to be still more effectual in her inward ones, which were in truth even more utterly unmanageable. She abandoned her whole self to the Lord, with all that she was and all that she had; and, believing that He took that which she had committed to Him, she ceased to fret and worry, and her life became all sunshine in the gladness of belonging to Him. H. W. SMITH.

March 12

The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: the Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.--NUM. vi. 24-26.

O Love, how cheering is Thy ray! All pain before Thy presence flies; Care, anguish, sorrow, melt away, Where'er Thy healing beams arise. O Father, nothing may I see, Nothing desire, or seek, but Thee.

P. GERHARDT.

There is a faith in God, and a clear perception of His will and designs, and providence, and glory, which gives to its possessor a confidence and patience and sweet composure, under every varied and troubling aspect of events, such as no man can realize who has not felt its influences in his own heart. There is a communion with God, in which the soul feels the presence of the unseen One, in the profound depths of its being, with a vivid distinctness and a holy reverence, such as no words can describe. There is a state of union with God, I do not say often reached, yet it has been attained in this world, in which all the past and present and future seem reconciled, and eternity is won and enjoyed; and God and man, earth and heaven, with all their mysteries, are apprehended in truth as they lie in the mind of the Infinite.

SAMUEL D. ROBBINS.

March 13

He that abideth in me, and I in him, bringeth forth much fruit.--JOHN xv. 5.

Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.--PS. xc. 17.

As some rare perfume in a vase of clay Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul, All Heaven's own sweetness seems around it thrown.

H. B. STOWE.

Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces, who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which Divine love gives utterance, and some appearance of right order in their temper and conduct whose passions are regulated.

JOHN WOOLMAN.

I believe that no Divine truth can truly dwell in any heart, without an external testimony in manner, bearing, and appearance, that must reach the witness within the heart of the beholder, and bear an unmistakable, though silent, evidence to the eternal principle from which it emanates.