Part 84

T. C. UPHAM.

When we have learned to offer up every duty connected with our situation in life as a sacrifice to God, a settled employment becomes just a settled habit of prayer.

THOMAS ERSKINE.

"Do the duty which lies nearest thee," which thou knowest to be a duty. Thy second duty will already have become clearer.

T. CARLYLE.

November 9

Say not thou, I will hide myself from the Lord: shall any remember me from above? I shall not be remembered among so many people: for what is my soul among such an infinite number of creatures?--ECCLESIASTICUS xvi. 17.

Among so many, can He care? Can special love be everywhere? A myriad homes,--a myriad ways,-- And God's eye over every place?

I asked: my soul bethought of this;-- In just that very place of His Where He hath put and keepeth you, God hath no other thing to do!

A. D. T. WHITNEY.

Give free and bold play to those instincts of the heart which believe that the Creator must care for the creatures He has made, and that the only real effective care for them must be that which takes each of them into His love, and knowing it separately surrounds it with His separate sympathy. There is not one life which the Life-giver ever loses out of His sight; not one which sins so that He casts it away; not one which is not so near to Him that whatever touches it touches Him with sorrow or with joy.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

November 10

In Him we live, and move, and have our being.--ACTS xvii. 28.

Whither shall I go from Thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?--PS. cxxxix. 7.

Yea! In Thy life our little lives are ended, Into Thy depths our trembling spirits fall; In Thee enfolded, gathered, comprehended, As holds the sea her waves--Thou hold'st us all.

E. SCUDDER.

Where then is our God? You say, He is everywhere: then show me anywhere that you have met Him. You declare Him everlasting: then tell me any moment that He has been with you. You believe Him ready to succor them that are tempted, and to lift those that are bowed down: then in what passionate hour did you subside into His calm grace? in what sorrow lose yourself in His "more exceeding" joy? These are the testing questions by which we may learn whether we too have raised our altar to an "unknown God" and pay the worship of the blind; or whether we commune with Him "in whom we live, and move, and have our being."

J. MARTINEAU.

November 11

Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness.--COL. i. 10, ii.

To be the thing we seem, To do the thing we deem Enjoined by duty; To walk in faith, nor dream Of questioning God's scheme Of truth and beauty.

ANON.

To shape the whole Future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully a small part of it, according to rules already known. It is perhaps possible for each of us, who will with due earnestness inquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to do; this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing. The general issue will, as it has always done, rest well with a Higher Intelligence than ours. This day thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten things which should be done for one that thou doest! Do one of them; this of itself will show thee ten others which can and shall be done.

T. CARLYLE.

November 12

I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.--JOHN ix. 4.

Wherefore have ye not fulfilled your task?--EX. v. 14.