Rouse to some work of high and holy love, Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, And yield thee fruit divine in heaven's immortal bowers. DECEMBER 15. WILCOX. 66 In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."— Ps. xvi. 11. There is a peculiar and present joy in communion with God. The deepest pleasures are the purest; and of all pleasures, the purest is the peace of God. To feel that He is love,-to draw so near Him as to forget the world, so near as to lose the love of sin, -so near that all worldly delights are drowned in the river of His pleasures, and all holy joys enhanced in the brightness of His smile; to bask-for ever so brief a moment-in the light inaccessible, and rejoice, with loyalty of spirit, in Jehovah's righteous sovereignty, and feel, through all the recesses of the soul, the sin-supplanting flow, and beatific thrills of infinite holiness, and soul-transforming love; to feel this is, of all pleasures, the sweetest—of all blessedness, the purest and most profound.-Mount of Olives. DECEMBER 16. Unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance."-St. Matt. xxv. 29. Be thankful for what God has done, and He will do more. NEWTON. DECEMBER 17. "God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love."-Heb. vi. 10. If as a flower doth spread and die, Before I were by frost's extremity Nipt in the bud ; The sweetness and the praise were thine, Which in Thy garland I should fill, were mine, At Thy great doom. For as Thou dost impart Thy grace, The measure of our joys is in this place, The stuff with Thee. Let me not languish then, and spend As in the dust to which that life doth tend But with delays. All things are busy; only I Neither bring honey with the bees, To water these. I am no link of Thy great chain; Lord! place me in Thy concert; give one strain To my poor reed. GEORGE HERBERT. DECEMBER 18. "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them."Ps. xxxiv. 7. The innocent spirit bears A charm against the evil power, And never yet, I ween, was ward 66 DECEMBER 19. Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day."-2 Cor. iv. 16. The last time I saw him was four days before his death. I found him lying on a bed in a corner of the ward, very ill, labouring for breath, and believing himself to be near the hour of his dissolution; but his countenance was tranquil, and beaming with heavenly hope. He expressed his longing for deliverance; his desire to depart, and be with his Lord: he assured me he wanted nothing. "I feel," he said, 66 an inward satisfaction, which nothing in the world can take from me." When I inquired, if he were not at times clouded in spirit; he replied: "I find the presence of the Lord to be continually with me; I never lose the sense of it." On my asking him the ground of his hope and confidence, he answered: "None but Christ." DECEMBER 20. "There remaineth, therefore, a rest for the people of God."-Heb. iv. 9. How brightly to a Christian's trembling eye Shine, of his sojourn here, the latter hours ; When faith's refulgence, falling from the sky, Her golden radiance o'er his sunset showers. Sweet is the thought of ceaseless rest in heaven; That fairer land than even Eden's bowers; Where sin is sown not, and whence woe is driven, And of all sorrows past, forgetfulness is given. DECEMBER 21. And they thirsted not when He led them through the deserts: He caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: He clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out."-Isa. xlviii. 21. How blessed are the sons of light, Though poor on earth, and ill at ease; |