Part 91

The snares of the enemy will be so known to thee and discerned, the way of help so manifest and easy, that their strength will be broken, and the poor entangled bird will fly away singing, from the nets and entanglements of the fowler; and praises will spring up, and great love in thy heart to the Forgiver and Redeemer.

I. PENINGTON.

December 4

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called.--I TIM. vi. 12.

Oh, dream no more of quiet life; Care finds the careless out; more wise to vow Thy heart entire to faith's pure strife; So peace will come, thou knowest not when or how.

LYRA APOSTOLICA.

Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Complain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellow-workmen there, in God's Eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving; sacred band of the Immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mankind. To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind,--as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "With it, my son, or upon it." Thou too shall return home in honor; to thy far-distant Home, in honor; doubt it not,--if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the Eternities and deepest death-kingdoms art not an alien; thou everywhere art a denizen. Complain not.

T. CARLYLE.

December 5

The God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.--I PET. v. 10.

Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be faint-hearted.--ISA. vii. 4.

How shall thou bear the cross that now So dread a weight appears? Keep quietly to God, and think Upon the Eternal Years.

F. W. FABER.

God forgive them that raise an ill report upon the sweet cross of Christ; it is but our weak and dim eyes, that look but to the black side, that makes us mistake; those that can take that crabbed tree handsomely upon their backs, and fasten it on cannily, shall find it such a burden as wings unto a bird, or sails to a ship.

S. RUTHERFORD.

Blessed is any weight, however overwhelming, which God has been so good as to fasten with His own hand upon our shoulders.

F. W. FABER.

We cannot say this or that trouble shall not befall, yet we may, by help of the Spirit, say, nothing that doth befall shall make me do that which is unworthy of a Christian.

R. SIBBES.

December 6

This God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death.--PS. xlviii. 14.

For the Lord shall be thy confidence.--PROV. iii. 26.

Be still, my soul! Thy God doth undertake To guide the future, as He has the past: Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake, All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

J. BORTHWJCK.

He has kept and folded us from ten thousand ills when we did not know it: in the midst of our security we should have perished every hour, but that He sheltered us "from the terror by night and from the arrow that flieth by day"--from the powers of evil that walk in darkness, from snares of our own evil will. He has kept us even against ourselves, and saved us even from our own undoing. Let us read the traces of His hand in all our ways, in all the events, the chances, the changes of this troubled state. It is He that folds and feeds us, that makes us to go in and out,--to be faint, or to find pasture,--to lie down by the still waters, or to walk by the way that is parched and desert.

H. E. MANNING.

We are never without help. We have no right to say of any good work, it is too hard for me to do, or of any sorrow, it is too hard for me to bear; or of any sinful habit, it is too hard for me to overcome.

ELIZABETH CHARLES.