Part 42

Whoso trusteth in the Lord, happy is he.--PROV. xvi. 20.

The heart that trusts forever sings, And feels as light as it had wings, A well of peace within it springs,-- Come good or ill, Whatever to-day, to-morrow brings, It is His will.

I. WILLIAMS.

He will weave no longer a spotted life of shreds and patches, but he will live with a divine unity. He will cease from what is base and frivolous in his life, and be content with all places, and with any service he can render. He will calmly front the morrow, in the negligency of that trust which carries God with it, and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart.

R. W. EMERSON.

He who believes in God is not careful for the morrow, but labors joyfully and with a great heart. "For He giveth His beloved, as in sleep." They must work and watch, yet never be careful or anxious, but commit all to Him, and live in serene tranquillity; with a quiet heart, as one who sleeps safely and quietly.

MARTIN LUTHER.

June 4

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.--I COR. xv. 58.

Say not, 'Twas all in vain, The anguish and the darkness and the strife; Love thrown upon the waters comes again In quenchless yearnings for a nobler life.

ANNA SHIPTON.

Did you ever hear of a man who had striven all his life faithfully and singly toward an object and in no measure obtained it? If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated? Did ever a man try heroism, magnanimity, truth, sincerity, and find that there was no advantage in them,--that it was a vain endeavor?

H. D. THOREAU.

Do right, and God's recompense to you will be the power of doing more right. Give, and God's reward to you will be the spirit of giving more: a blessed spirit, for it is the Spirit of God himself, whose Life is the blessedness of giving. Love, and God will pay you with the capacity of more love; for love is Heaven--love is God within you.

F. W. ROBERTSON.

June 5

Speak, Lord; for Thy servant heareth.--I SAM. iii. 9.

Though heralded with nought of fear, Or outward sign or show: Though only to the inward ear It whispers soft and low; Though dropping, as the manna fell, Unseen, yet from above, Noiseless as dew-fall, heed it well,-- Thy Father's call of love.

J. G. WHITTIER.

This is one result of the attitude into which we are put by humility, by disinterestedness, by purity, by calmness, that we have the opportunity, the disengagement, the silence, in which we may watch what is the will of God concerning us. If we think no more of ourselves than we ought to think, if we seek not our own but others' welfare, if we are prepared to take all things as God's dealings with us, then we may have a chance of catching from time to time what God has to tell us. In the Mussulman devotions, one constant gesture is to put the hands to the ears, as if to listen for the messages from the other world. This is the attitude, the posture which our minds assume, if we have a standing-place above and beyond the stir and confusion and dissipation of this mortal world.

A. P. STANLEY.

June 6

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God.--REV. iii. 12.

In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.--EPH. ii. 22.

None the place ordained refuseth, They are one, and they are all, Living stones, the Builder chooseth For the courses of His wall.

JEAN INGELOW.

Slowly, through all the universe, that temple of God is being built. Wherever, in any world, a soul, by free-willed obedience, catches the fire of God's likeness, it is set into the growing walls, a living stone. When, in your hard fight, in your tiresome drudgery, or in your terrible temptation, you catch the purpose of your being, and give yourself to God, and so give Him the chance to give Himself to you, your life, a living stone, is taken up and set into that growing wall. Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely ways;--there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple. Oh, if the stone can only have some vision of the temple of which it is to be a part forever, what patience must fill it as it feels the blows of the hammer, and knows that success for it is simply to let itself be wrought into what shape the Master wills.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.