Chapter 6

_What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all His ways, and to love Him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul_?--DEUT. x. 12.

What asks our Father of His children save Justice and mercy and humility, A reasonable service of good deeds, Pure living, tenderness to human needs, Reverence, and trust, and prayer for light to see The Master's footprints in our daily ways? No knotted scourge, nor sacrificial knife, But the calm beauty of an ordered life Whose every breathing is unworded praise.

J. G. WHITTIER.

Give up yourself to God without reserve; in singleness of heart meeting everything that every day brings forth, as something that comes from God, and is to be received and gone through by you, in such an heavenly use of it, as you would suppose the holy Jesus would have done in such occurrences. This is an attainable degree of perfection.

WM. LAW.

We ought to measure our actual lot, and to fulfil it; to be with all our strength that which our lot requires and allows. What is beyond it, is no calling of ours. How much peace, quiet, confidence, and strength, would people attain, if they would go by this plain rule.

H. E. MANNING.

April 19

_The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek Him_.--EZRA viii. 22.

_Into Thy hand I commit my spirit_.--PS. xxxi. 5.

Thou layest Thy hand on the fluttering heart, And sayest, "Be still!" The silence and shadow are only a part Of Thy sweet will; Thy presence is with me, and where Thou art I fear no ill.

F. R. HAVERGAL.

Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God, to turn thy mind to the Lord God, from whom life comes; whereby thou mayest receive His strength, and power to allay all blustering storms and tempests. That is it which works up into patience, into innocency, into soberness, into stillness, into stayedness, into quietness, up to God with His power. Therefore be still awhile from thy own thoughts, searching, seeking, desires, and imaginations, and be stayed in the principle of God in thee, that it may raise thy mind up to God, and stay it upon God; and thou wilt find strength from Him, and find Him to be a God at hand, a present help in the time of trouble and need.

GEORGE FOX.

April 20

_I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry_.--PS. xl. 1.

_Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope,_--ROM. v. 3, 4.

Lord, we have wandered forth through doubt and sorrow, And Thou hast made each step an onward one; And we will ever trust each unknown morrow,-- Thou wilt sustain us till its work is done.

S. JOHNSON.

It is possible, when the future is dim, when our depressed faculties can form no bright ideas of the perfection and happiness of a better world,--it is possible still to cling to the conviction of God's merciful purpose towards His creatures, of His parental goodness even in suffering; still to feel that the path of duty, though trodden with a heavy heart, leads to peace; still to be true to conscience; still to do our work, to resist temptation, to be useful, though with diminished energy, to give up our wills when we cannot rejoice under God's mysterious providence. In this patient, though uncheered obedience, we become prepared for light. The soul gathers force.

WM. E. CHANNING.

April 21

_Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect_.--MATT. v. 48.

_As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness_.--PS. xvii. 15.

The righteousness he marks in Thee His will to right doth win; Delighting in Thy purity, He deeply drinks it in.

T. H. GILL.

To love God is to love His character. For instance, God is Purity. And to be pure in thought and look, to turn away from unhallowed books and conversation, to abhor the moments in which we have not been pure, is to love God. God is Love; and to love men till private attachments have expanded into a philanthropy which embraces all,--at last even the evil and enemies with compassion,--that is to love God. God is Truth. To be true, to hate every form of falsehood, to live a brave, true, real life,--that is to love God. God is Infinite; and to love the boundless, reaching on from grace to grace, adding charity to faith, and rising upwards ever to see the Ideal still above us, and to die with it unattained, aiming insatiably to be perfect even as the Father is perfect,--that is to love God.

F. W. ROBERTSON.

April 22

_Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory_.--I PETER i. 8.

If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word; And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of our Lord.

F. W. FABER.

What would it be to love absolutely a Being absolutely lovely,--to be able to give our whole existence, every thought, every act, every desire, to that adored One,--to know that He accepts it all, and loves us in return as God alone can love? This happiness grows forever. The larger our natures become, the wider our scope of thought, the stronger our will, the more fervent our affections, the deeper must be the rapture of such God-granted prayer. Every sacrifice _resolved on_ opens wide the gate; every sacrifice _accomplished_ is a step towards the paradise within. Soon it will be no transitory glimpse, no rapture of a day, to be followed by clouds and coldness. Let us but labor, and pray, and wait, and the intervals of human frailty shall grow shorter and less dark, the days of our delight in God longer and brighter, till at last life shall be nought but His love, our eyes shall never grow dim, His smile never turn away.

F. B. COBBE.

April 23

_These were the potters, and those that dwelt among plants and hedges: there they dwelt with the king for his work_.--I CHRON. iv. 23.

A lowlier task on them is laid, With love to make the labor light; And there their beauty they must shed On quiet homes, and lost to sight. Changed are their visions high and fair, Yet, calm and still, they labor there.

HYMNS OF THE AGES.

Anywhere and everywhere we may dwell "with the King for His work." We may be in a very unlikely or unfavorable place for this; it may be in a literal country life, with little enough to be seen of the "goings" of the King around us; it may be among hedges of all sorts, hindrances in all directions; it may be, furthermore, with our hands full of all manner of pottery for our daily task. No matter! The King who placed us "there" will come and dwell there with us; the hedges are all right, or He would soon do away with them; and it does not follow that what seems to hinder our way may not be for its very protection; and as for the pottery, why, that is just exactly what He has seen fit to put into our hands, and therefore it is, for the present, "His work."

F. R. HAVERGAL.

April 24

_Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ_.--GAL. vi. 2.

Is thy cruse of comfort wasting? Rise and share it with another, And through all the years of famine, It shall serve thee and thy brother. Is thy burden hard and heavy? Do thy steps drag heavily? Help to bear thy brother's burden; God will bear both it and thee.

ELIZABETH CHARLES.

However perplexed you may at any hour become about some question of truth, one refuge and resource is always at hand: you can do something for some one besides yourself. When your own burden is heaviest, you can always lighten a little some other burden. At the times when you cannot see God, there is still open to you this sacred possibility, to _show_ God; for it is the love and kindness of human hearts through which the divine reality comes home to men, whether they name it or not. Let this thought, then, stay with you: there may be times when you cannot find help, but there is no time when you cannot give help.

GEORGE S. MERRIAM.

April 25

_Surely, I have behaved and quieted myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother: my soul is even as a weaned child_.--PS. cxxxi. 2.

Quiet, Lord, my froward heart, Make me teachable and mild, Upright, simple, free from art, Make me as a weaned child; From distrust and envy free, Pleased with all that pleaseth Thee.

J. NEWTON.

Oh! look not after great things: small breathings, small desires after the Lord, if true and pure, are sweet beginnings of life. Take heed of despising "the day of small things," by looking after some great visitation, proportionable to thy distress, according to thy eye. Nay, thou must become a child; thou must lose thy own will quite by degrees. Thou must wait for life to be measured out by the Father, and be content with what proportion, and at what time, He shall please to measure.

I. PENINGTON.

"When Israel was a child, then I loved him" (Hosea xi. 1). Aim to be ever this little child, contented with what the Father gives of pleasure or of play; and when restrained from pleasure or from play, and led for a season into the chamber of sorrow, rest quiet on His bosom, and be patient, and smile, as one who is nestled in a sweet and secure asylum.

ANON.

April 26

_If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it_.--ROM. viii. 25.

_One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day_.--2 PETER iii. 8.

Lord! who Thy thousand years dost wait To work the thousandth part Of Thy vast plan, for us create With zeal a patient heart.

J. H. NEWMAN.

I believe that if we could only see beforehand what it is that our heavenly Father means us to be,--the _soul_ beauty and perfection and glory, the glorious and lovely spiritual body that this soul is to dwell in through all eternity,--if we could have a glimpse of _this_, we should not grudge all the trouble and pains He is taking with us now, to bring us up to that ideal, which is His thought of us. We know that it is God's way to work slowly, so we must not be surprised if He takes a great many years of discipline to turn a mortal being into an immortal, glorious angel.

ANNIE KEARY.

April 27

_Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor_,--ZECH. viii. 16.

_For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity... we have had our conversation in the world_.--2 COR. i. 12.

Appear I always what I am? And am I what I am pretending? Know I what way my course is bending? And sound my word and thought the same?

ANON.

Am I acting in simplicity, from a germ of the Divine life within, or am I shaping my path to obtain some immediate result of expediency? Am I endeavoring to compass effects, amidst a tangled web of foreign influences I cannot calculate; or am I seeking simply to do what is right, and leaving the consequences to the good providence of God?

M. A. SCHIMMELPENNINCK.

Let it not be in any man's power to say truly of thee that thou art not simple, or that thou art not good; but let him be a liar whoever shall think anything of this kind about thee; and this is altogether in thy power. For who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?

MARCUS ANTONINUS.

April 28

_The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand_.--PS. cxxi. 5.

_Great peace have they which love Thy law: and nothing shall offend them_.--PS. cxix. 165.

I rest beneath the Almighty's shade, My griefs expire, my troubles cease; Thou, Lord, on whom my soul is stayed, Wilt keep me still in perfect peace.

C. WESLEY.

One great sign of the practical recognition of the "divine moment," and of our finding God's habitation in it, is constant calmness and peace of mind. Events and things come with the moment; but God comes with them too. So that if He comes in the sunshine, we find rest and joy; and if He comes in the storm, we know He is King of the storms, and our hearts are not troubled. God Himself, though possessing a heart filled with the tenderest feelings, is, nevertheless, an everlasting tranquillity; and when we enter into His holy tabernacle, our souls necessarily enter into the tabernacle of rest.

T. C. UPHAM.

My soul was not only brought into harmony with itself and with God, but with God's providences. In the exercise of faith and love, I endured and performed whatever came in God's providence, in submission, in thankfulness, and silence.

MADAME GUYON.

April 29

_I will arise and go to my Father_.--LUKE xv. 18.

O my God, my Father! hear, And help me to believe; Weak and weary I draw near; Thy child, O God, receive. I so oft have gone astray; To the perfect Guide I flee; Thou wilt turn me not away, Thy love is pledged to me.

HYMNS OF THE SPIRIT.

O child, hast thou fallen? arise, and go, with childlike trust, to thy Father, like the prodigal son, and humbly say, with heart and mouth, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; make me as one of Thy hired servants." And what will thy heavenly Father do but what that father did in the parable? Assuredly He will not change His essence, which is love, for the sake of thy misdoings. Is it not His own precious treasure, and a small thing with Him to forgive thee thy trespasses, if thou believe in Him? for His hand is not shortened that it cannot make thee fit to be saved.

JOHN TAULER.

April 30

_Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward_.--EX. xiv. 15.

_No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God_.--LUKE ix. 62.

Be trustful, be steadfast, whatever betide thee, Only one thing do thou ask of the Lord,-- Grace to go forward wherever He guide thee, Simply believing the truth of His word.

ANON.

The soul ceases to weary itself with planning and foreseeing, giving itself up to God's Holy Spirit within, and to the teachings of His providence without. He is not forever fretting as to his progress, or looking back to see how far he is getting on; rather he goes steadily and quietly on, and makes all the more progress because it is unconscious. So he never gets troubled and discouraged; if he falls he humbles himself, but gets up at once, and goes on with renewed earnestness.

JEAN NICOLAS GROU.

May 1

_I will bless the Lord at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth_.--PS. xxxiv. I.

_I will praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart; I will show forth all Thy marvellous works_.--PS. ix. I.

Thrice blest will all our blessings be, When we can look through them to Thee; When each glad heart its tribute pays Of love and gratitude and praise.

JANE COTTERILL.

That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness, and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Shall not the heart which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so gently, and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of the past?

R. W. EMERSON.

I have experienced that the habit of taking out of the hand of our Lord every little blessing and brightness on our path, confirms us, in an especial manner, in communion with His love.

M. A. SCHIMMELPENNINCK.

May 2

_The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price_.--I PETER iii. 4.

_To present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in His sight_.--COL. i. 22.

Thy sinless mind in us reveal, Thy spirit's plenitude impart! Till all my spotless life shall tell The abundance of a loving heart.

C. WESLEY.

Holiness appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature. It seemed to me, it brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul; and that it made the soul like a field or garden of God, with all manner of pleasant flowers, that is all pleasant, delightful, and undisturbed; enjoying a sweet calm, and the gently vivifying beams of the sun. The soul of a true Christian appeared like such a little white flower, as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun's glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly in the midst of other flowers round about, all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun.

JONATHAN EDWARDS.

May 3

_The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knoweth them that trust in Him_.--NAHUM i. 7.

Leave God to order all thy ways, And hope in Him, whate'er betide; Thou 'It find Him in the evil days Thy all-sufficient strength and guide; Who trusts in God's unchanging love, Builds on the rock that nought can move.

G. NEUMARK.

Our whole trouble in our lot in this world rises from the disagreement of our mind therewith. Let the mind be brought to the lot, and the whole tumult is instantly hushed; let it be kept in that disposition, and the man shall stand at ease, in his affliction, like a rock unmoved with waters beating upon it.

T. BOSTON.

How does our will become sanctified? By conforming itself unreservedly to that of God. We will all that He wills, and will nothing that He does not will; we attach our feeble will to that all-powerful will which performs everything. Thus, nothing can ever come to pass against our will; for nothing can happen save that which God wills, and we find in His good pleasure an inexhaustible source of peace and consolation.

FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON.

May 4

_Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong_.--HEB xi. 33, 34.

She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look That altered not beneath the frown they wore, And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took, Meekly, her gentle rule, and frowned no more. Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, And calmly broke in twain The fiery shafts of pain, And rent the nets of passion from her path. By that victorious hand despair was slain; With love she vanquished hate, and overcame Evil with good, in her great Master's name.

W. C. BRYANT.

As to what may befall us outwardly, in this confused state of things, shall we not trust our tender Father, and rest satisfied in His will? Shall anything hurt us? Can tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, come between the love of the Father to the child, or the child's rest, content, and delight in His love? And doth not the love, the rest, the peace, the joy felt, swallow up all the bitterness and sorrow of the outward condition?

I. PENINGTON.

May 5

_If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan_?--JER. xii. 5.

How couldst thou hang upon the cross, To whom a weary hour is loss? Or how the thorns and scourging brook, Who shrinkest from a scornful look?

J. KEBLE.

A heart unloving among kindred has no love towards God's saints and angels. If we have a cold heart towards a servant or a friend, why should we wonder if we have no fervor towards God? If we are cold in our private prayers, we should be earthly and dull in the most devout religious order; if we cannot bear the vexations of a companion, how should we bear the contradiction of sinners? if a little pain overcomes us, how could we endure a cross? if we have no tender, cheerful, affectionate love to those with whom our daily hours are spent, how should we feel the pulse and ardor of love to the unknown and the evil, the ungrateful and repulsive?

H. E. MANNING.

May 6

_Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love_.--ROM. xii. 10.

_In her tongue is the law of kindness_.--PROV. xxxi. 26.

Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And though but few can serve, yet all can please; Oh, let the ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence.

HANNAH MORE.

All usefulness and all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,--a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied--your husband or your wife cannot tell why--will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render life anything but a blessing.

ALBERT BARNES.

You have not fulfilled every duty, unless you have fulfilled that of being pleasant.

CHARLES BUXTON.

May 7

_He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names_.--PS. cxlvii. 3, 4.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on space no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die.

R. W. EMERSON.

I looked up to the heavens once more, and the quietness of the stars seemed to reproach me. "We are safe up here," they seemed to say; "we shine, fearless and confident, for the God who gave the primrose its rough leaves to hide it from the blast of uneven spring, hangs us in the awful hollows of space. We cannot fall out of His safety. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold! Who hath created these things--that bringeth out their host by number? He calleth them all by names. By the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O Israel! my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?"

G. MACDONALD.

May 8

_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it_.--PS. cxviii. 24.

_Why stand ye here all the day idle_?--MATT. xx. 6.

So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night will return.

T. CARLYLE.

Small cares, some deficiencies in the mere arrangement and ordering of our lives, daily fret our hearts, and cross the clearness of our faculties; and these entanglements hang around us, and leave us no free soul able to give itself up, in power and gladness, to the true work of life. The severest training and self-denial,--a superiority to the servitude of indulgence,--are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness,--much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

J. H. THOM.

True, we can never be at peace till we have performed the highest duty of all,--till we have arisen, and gone to our Father; but the performance of smaller duties, yes, even of the smallest, will do more to give us temporary repose, will act more as healthful anodynes, than the greatest joys that can come to us from any other quarter.

G. MACDONALD.

May 9

_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord_.--JOB i. 21.

What Thou hast given, Thou canst take, And when Thou wilt new gifts can make. All flows from Thee alone; When Thou didst give it, it was Thine; When Thou retook'st it, 't was not mine. Thy will in all be done.

JOHN AUSTIN.