MARCH 29.

"Then the devil leaveth him; and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."-St. Matthew, iv. 11.

We know not how greatly we are every day protected by God's saving might; we know not how He has already succoured us; how He has curbed the power of the enemy: we cannot tell from what bodily afflictions, from what mental struggles, from what fearful falls, He has actually kept us. Let us then, fear nothing but separation from Him; let us lean upon his help, seek his grace more earnestly; buckle on, and brighten our Christian armour, that we may be able "to stand against all the fiery darts of the devil." Let us believe in the greatness of our redemption; in the presence of Christ; in the aid of the Holy Spirit; in the heavenly and unseen character of our daily lives; in the treasures of grace which are opened to us. Let us see what a safe and blessed thing it is to be on God's side; that there can be in his universe no real danger for "the man who trusteth in Him." Let us watch our wavering will ; let us force sobriety on our unruly passions; let us sit often in earnest meditation beneath the cross of our only Lord: Let us thus "resist the devil, and he shall flee from us," and as he leaveth us, “ behold, angels shall come and minister unto us."

BISHOP WILBERFORCE.

MARCH 30.

"For the Lord shall comfort Zion: he shall comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody."—Isa. li. 3.

A living, lasting, loving word,
My listening ear believing heard,
While bending down in prayer;
Like a sweet breeze that none can stay,
It passed my soul upon its way,

And left a blessing there.

Then joyful thoughts that come and go,
By paths the holy angels know,

Encamped around my soul;
As in a dream of blest repose,
'Mid withered reeds a river rose,
And through the desert stole.

I lifted up my eyes to see-
The wilderness was glad for me,

Its thorns were bright with bloom;
And onward travellers still in sight,
Marked out a path of shining light,

And shade unmixed with gloom.

O sweet the strains of those before,
"The weary knees are weak no more,
The fearful heart is strong;"
But sweeter, nearer, from above,
That word of everlasting love,
The promise and the song.

MARCH 31.

“I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wicked- Ps. lxxxiv. 10.

ness.

O when my God, my glory! brings
His white and holy train,

Unto those clear and living springs,

Where comes no stain !

Where all is light, and flowers, and fruit,
And joy, and rest—

Make me amongst them,-'tis my suit,

"E'en tho' the last and least."

HENRY VAUGHAN.

66

APRIL 1.

'Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.

Ps. xxxv. 27.

The servant of God need never fear earthly prosperity. It is God's gift as surely as is eternal bliss ; and is a delightful and safe foreground, when in the wide blue distance lie the ocean of Love and the Everlasting Hills.

APRIL 2.

"We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."2 Cor. v. 1.

Oh! blessing wearing semblance of a curse!
We fear thee, thou stern sentence—yet to be
Linked to immortal bodies, were far worse
Than thus to be set free!

For, mingling with the life-blood, through each vein,
The venom of the serpent's bite has run;
And only thus might be expelled again ;—
Thus only health be won.

F

Shall we not then a gracious sentence own,—
Now since the leprosy has fretted through
The entire house,-that thou wilt take it down,
And build it all anew?

R. C. TRENCH.

APRIL 3.

"Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."—James, i. 17.

It does remove from worldly things the curse of uncertainty, if we receive them from his hands. We dare to rejoice in them, because they did not come by chance, and by chance they cannot pass away. The sense of their uncertainty-of their liability to change, is continually met by the conviction of his certainty, of his unchanging love. They have passed through his hands to us; and even though we should hunger again, yet He has fed us ; and we dare to trust in Him, that He will feed us still; and so there grows up in the trusting heart a sense of quiet security. Though the world-stream still sweeps by him as madly as before, a rock is under him, and he rejoices in its strength. This is no delusion: it is a reality; we ourselves may find it so-if we will.

BISHOP WILBERFORCE.