Part 96

F. W. FABER.

For the rest, let that vain struggle to read the mystery of the Infinite cease to harass us. It is a mystery which, through all ages, we shall only read here a line of, there another line of. Do we not already know that the name of the Infinite is GOOD, is GOD? Here on earth we are as soldiers, fighting in a foreign land, that understand not the plan of the campaign, and have no need to understand it; seeing well what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it like soldiers, with submission, with courage, with a heroic joy. Behind us, behind each one of us, lie six thousand years of human, effort, human conquest: before us is the boundless Time, with its as yet uncreated and unconquered continents and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to conquer, to create; and from the bosom of Eternity there shine for us celestial guiding stars.

T. CARLYLE.

December 22

I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth His face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for Him.--ISA. viii. 17.

What heart can comprehend Thy name, Or, searching, find Thee out? Who art within, a quickening flame, A presence round about.

Yet though I know Thee but in part, I ask not, Lord, for more: Enough for me to know Thou art, To love Thee and adore.

F. L. HOSMER.

Stand up, O heart! and yield not one inch of thy rightful territory to the usurping intellect. Hold fast to God in spite of logic, and yet not quite blindly. Be not torn from thy grasp upon the skirts of His garments by any wrench of atheistic hypothesis that seeks only to hurl thee into utter darkness; but refuse not to let thy hands be gently unclasped by that loving and pious philosophy that seeks to draw thee from the feet of God only to place thee in His bosom. Trustfully, though tremblingly, let go the robe, and thou shalt rest upon the heart and clasp the very living soul of God.

JAMES HINTON.

December 23

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.--2 TIM. ii. 3.

Where our Captain bids us go, 'T is not ours to murmur, "No," He that gives the sword and shield, Chooses too the battle-field On which we are to fight the foe.

ANON.

Of nothing may we be more sure than this; that, if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other. Our heaven and our Almighty Father are there or nowhere. The obstructions of that lot are given for us to heave away by the concurrent touch of a holy spirit, and labor of strenuous will; its gloom, for us to tint with some celestial light; its mysteries are for our worship; its sorrows for our trust; its perils for our courage; its temptations for our faith. Soldiers of the cross, it is not for us, but for our Leader and our Lord, to choose the field; it is ours, taking the station which He assigns, to make it the field of truth and honor, though it be the field of death.

J. MARTINEAU.

December 24

Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.--COL. i. 12.

The souls most precious to us here May from this home have fled; But still we make one household dear; One Lord is still our head. Midst cherubim and seraphim They mind their Lord's affairs; Oh! if we bring our work to Him Our work is one with theirs.

T. H. GILL.

We are apt to feel as if nothing we could do on earth bears a relation to what the good are doing in a higher world; but it is not so. Heaven and earth are not so far apart. Every disinterested act, every sacrifice to duty, every exertion for the good of "one of the least of Christ's brethren," every new insight into God's works, every new impulse given to the love of truth and goodness, associates us with the departed, brings us nearer to them, and is as truly heavenly as if we were acting, not on earth, but in heaven. The spiritual tie between us and the departed is not felt as it should be. Our union with them daily grows stronger, if we daily make progress in what they are growing in.

WM. E. CHANNING.

December 25

That ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.--EPH. iii. 17-19.

O love that passeth knowledge, thee I need; Pour in the heavenly sunshine; fill my heart; Scatter the cloud, the doubting, and the dread,-- The joy unspeakable to me impart.

H. BONAR.

To examine its evidence is not to try Christianity; to admire its martyrs is not to try Christianity; to compare and estimate its teachers is not to try Christianity; to attend its rites and services with more than Mahometan punctuality is not to try or know Christianity. But for one week, for one day, to have lived in the pure atmosphere of faith and love to God, of tenderness to man; to have beheld earth annihilated, and heaven opened to the prophetic gaze of hope; to have seen evermore revealed behind the complicated troubles of this strange, mysterious life, the unchanged smile of an eternal Friend, and everything that is difficult to reason solved by that reposing trust which is higher and better than reason,--to have known and felt this, I will not say for a life, but for a single blessed hour, that, indeed, is to have made experiment of Christianity.

WM. ARCHER BUTLER.