Part 2

The morning is the gate of the day, and should be well guarded with prayer. It is one end of the thread on which the day's actions are strung, and should be well knotted with devotion. If we felt more the majesty of life we should be more careful of its mornings. He who rushes from his bed to his business and waiteth not to worship is as foolish as though he had not put on his clothes, or cleansed his face, and as unwise as though he dashed into battle without arms or armor. Be it ours to bathe in the softly flowing river of communion with God, before the heat of the wilderness and the burden of the way begin to oppress us.--_Spurgeon._

=January 21st.=

_Show me Thy ways, O Lord; teach me Thy paths. Psa. xxv. 4._

There is a path in which every child of God is to walk, and in which alone God can accompany him.--_Denham Smith._

=January 22nd.=

_There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Heb. iv. 9._

How sweet the music of this first heavenly chime floating across the waters of death from the towers of the New Jerusalem. Pilgrim, faint under thy long and arduous pilgrimage, hear it! It is REST. Soldier, carrying still upon thee blood and dust of battle, hear it! It is REST. Voyager, tossed on the waves of sin and sorrow, driven hither and thither on the world's heaving ocean of vicissitude, hear it! The haven is in sight; the very waves that are breaking on thee seem to murmur--"_So He giveth His beloved_ REST." It is the long-drawn sigh of existence at last answered. The toil and travail of earth's protracted week is at an end. The calm of its unbroken Sabbath is begun. Man, weary man, has found at last the long-sought-for _rest_ in the bosom of his God!--_Macduff._

=January 23rd.=

_Under His shadow. Song of Sol. ii. 3._

Frances Ridley Havergal says: I seem to see four pictures suggested by that: under the shadow of a rock in a weary plain; under the shadow of a tree; closer still, under the shadow of His wing; nearest and closest, in the shadow of His hand. Surely that hand must be the piercèd hand, that may oftentimes press us sorely, and yet evermore encircling, upholding and shadowing!

=January 24th.=

_He made as though He would have gone further. Luke xxiv. 28._

Is not God always acting thus? He comes to us by His Holy Spirit as He did to these two disciples. He speaks to us through the preaching of the Gospel, through the Word of God, through the various means of grace and the providential circumstances of life; and having thus spoken, He makes as though He would go further. If the ear be opened to His voice and the heart to His Spirit, the prayer will then go up, "Lord, abide with me." But if that voice makes no impression, then He passes on, as He has done thousands of times, leaving the heart at each time harder than before, and the ear more closed to the Spirit's call.--_F. Whitfield._

=January 25th.=

_My God shall be my strength. Isa. xlix. 5._

Oh, do not pray for easy lives! Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.--_Phillips Brooks._

=January 26th.=

_Despising the shame. Heb. xii. 2._

And how is that to be done? In two ways. Go up the mountain, and the things in the plain will look very small; the higher you rise the more insignificant they will seem. Hold fellowship with God, and the threatening foes here will seem very, very unformidable. Another way is, pull up the curtain and gaze on what is behind it. The low foot-hills that lie at the base of some Alpine country may look high when seen from the plain, as long as the snowy summits are wrapped in mist; but when a little puff of wind comes and clears away the fog from the lofty peaks, nobody looks at the little green hills in front. So the world's hindrances and the world's difficulties and cares look very lofty till the cloud lifts. But when we see the great white summits, everything lower does not seem so very high after all. Look to Jesus, and that will dwarf the difficulties.--_Alex. McLaren._

=January 27th.=

_Are there not twelve hours in the day? John xi. 9._

The very fact of a Christian being here, and not in heaven, is a proof that some work awaits him.--_William Arnot._

=January 28th.=

_Not as I will, but as Thou wilt. Matt. xxvi. 39._

There are no disappointments to those whose wills are buried in the will of God.--_Faber._

=January 29th.=

_The living God. Dan. vi. 20._

How many times we find this expression in the Scriptures, and yet it is just this very thing that we are so prone to lose sight of! We know it is written "_the living God_"; but in our daily life there is scarcely anything we practically so much lose sight of as the fact that God is THE LIVING GOD; that He is now whatever He was three or four thousand years since; that He has the same sovereign power, the same saving love towards those who love and serve Him as ever He had, and that He will do for them now what He did for others two, three, four thousand years ago, simply because He is the living God, the unchanging One. Oh, how therefore we should confide in Him, and in our darkest moments never lose sight of the fact that He _is_ still and ever _will be_ THE LIVING GOD!--_George Müller._

=January 30th.=

_Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Rom. vi. 4._

That is the life we are called upon to live, and that is the life it is our privilege to lead; for God never gives us a call without its being a privilege, and He never gives us the privilege to come up higher without stretching out to us His hand to lift us up. Come up higher and higher into the realities and glories of the resurrection life, knowing that your life is hid with Christ in God. Shake yourself loose of every incumbrance, turn your back on every defilement, give yourself over like clay to the hands of the potter, that He may stamp upon you the fulness of His own resurrection glory, that you, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, may be changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord.--_W. Hay Aitken._

=January 31st.=

_Christ is all, and in all. Col. iii. 11._

The _service_ of Christ is the _business_ of my life. The _will_ of Christ is the _law_ of my life. The _presence_ of Christ is the _joy_ of my life. The _glory_ of Christ is the _crown_ of my life.--_Selected._

=February 1st.=

_Continue in prayer. Col. iv. 2._

Dost thou want nothing? Then I fear thou dost not know thy poverty. Hast thou no mercy to ask of God? Then may the Lord's mercy show thee thy misery. A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus.--_Spurgeon._

=February 2nd.=

_In whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord. Eph. ii. 21._

The life-tabernacle is a wondrous building; there is room for workers of all kinds in the uprearing of its mysterious and glorious walls. If we cannot do the greatest work, we may do the least. Our heaven will come out of the realization of the fact that it was God's tabernacle we were building, and under God's blessing that we were working.--_Joseph Parker._

=February 3rd.=

_Love not the world. 1 John ii. 15._

Love it not, and yet love it. Love it with the love of Him who gave His Son to die for it. Love it with the love of Him who shed His blood for it. Love it with the love of angels, who rejoice in its conversion. Love it to do it good, giving your tears to its sufferings, your pity to its sorrows, your wealth to its wants, your prayers to its miseries, and to its fields of charity, and philanthropy, and Christian piety, your powers and hours of labor. You cannot live without affecting it, or being affected by it. You will make the world better, or it will make you worse.

God help you by His grace and Holy Spirit so to live in the world as to live above it, and look beyond it; and so to love it that when you leave it, you may leave it better than you found it.--_Guthrie._

=February 4th.=

_Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Psa. cxlv. 16._

Desire, it is a dainty word! It were much that He should satisfy the _need_, the _want_; but He goeth far beyond that. Pity is moved to meet our need; duty may sometimes look after our wants; but to satisfy the _desire_ implies a tender watchfulness, a sweet and gracious knowledge of us, an eagerness of blessing. God is never satisfied until He has satisfied our desires.--_Mark Guy Pearse._

=February 5th.=

_Ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. . . . The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. Psa. cxxxiv. 1, 3._

If I would know the love of my friend, I must see what it can do in the winter. So with the divine love. It is very easy for me to worship in the summer sunshine, when the melodies of life are in the air and the fruits of life are on the tree. But let the song of the bird cease, and the fruit of the tree fall; and will my heart still go on to sing? Will I stand in God's house by night? Will I love Him in His own night? Will I watch with Him even one hour in His Gethsemane? Will I help to bear His cross up the Via Dolorosa? My love has come to Him in His humiliation. My faith has found Him in His lowliness. My heart has recognized His majesty through His mean disguise, and I know at last that I desire not the gift, but the Giver. When I can stand in His house by night, I have accepted Him for Himself alone.--_George Matheson._

=February 6th.=

_He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself also so to walk even as He walked. 1 John ii. 6._

The preaching that this world needs most is the _sermons in shoes_ that are walking with Jesus Christ.--_Selected._

=February 7th.=

_Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord. Hosea vi. 3._

The Lord has brought us into the pathway of the knowledge of Him, and bids us pursue that path through all its strange meanderings until it opens out upon the plain where God's throne is. Our life is a following on to know the Lord. We marvel at some of the experiences through which we are called to pass, but afterwards we see that they afforded us some new knowledge of our Lord. . . . We have not to wait for some brighter opportunity; but by improvement of the present are to build for ourselves a bridge to that future.--_G Bowen._

=February 8th.=

_Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house. Gen. xii. 1._

_Abraham . . . was gathered to his people. Gen. xxv. 8._

After all communion we dwell as upon islands, dotted over a great archipelago, each upon his little rock with the sea dashing between us; but the time comes when, if our hearts are set upon that great Lord whose presence makes us one, there shall be no more sea and all the isolated rocks shall be parts of a great continent . . . If we cultivate that sense of detachment from the present and of having our true affinities in the unseen, if we dwell here as strangers because our citizenship is in heaven, then death will not drag us away from our associates nor hunt us into a lonely land, but will bring us where closer bonds shall knit the "sweet societies" together, and the sheep shall couch close by one another because all gathered round the one Shepherd. Then many a tie shall be re-woven, and the solitary wanderer meet again the dear ones whom he had "loved long since and lost awhile."--_Alex. McLaren._

=February 9th.=

_Therefore will the Lord wait, that He may be gracious unto you. Isa. xxx. 18._

This is God's way. In the darkest hours of the night His tread draws near across the billows. As the day of execution is breaking, the angel comes to Peter's cell. When the scaffold for Mordecai is complete, the royal sleeplessness leads to a reaction in favor of the threatened race.

Ah, soul, it may have come to the worst with thee ere thou art delivered; but thou wilt be! God may keep thee waiting, but He will ever be mindful of His covenant, and will appear to fulfil His inviolable word.--_F. B. Meyer._

=February 10th.=

_He loveth our nation and he hath built us a synagogue. Luke vii. 5._

Marble and granite are perishable monuments, and their inscriptions may be seldom read. _Carve your names on human hearts_; they alone are immortal!--_Theodore Cuyler._

=February 11th.=

_As many as I love I . . . chasten. Rev. iii. 19._

I once saw a dark shadow resting on the bare side of a hill. Seeking its cause I saw a little cloud, bright as the light, floating in the clear blue above. Thus it is with our sorrow. It may be dark and cheerless here on earth; yet look above and you shall see it to be but a shadow of His brightness whose name is Love.--_Dean Alford._

=February 12th.=

_What means these stones? Josh. iv. 21._

_Ye also as living stones. 1 Pet. ii. 5. (R. V.)_

There should be something so remarkable, so peculiar about the life and conversation of a Christian that men should be compelled to ask, "What does this mean?". . . . Is there anything in your character, words, and habits of life so different from the world around you that men are involuntarily compelled to ask themselves or others, "What does this mean?" Not that there is to be a forced singularity, a peculiarity for the sake of being peculiar; that were merely to copy the pharisaism of ancient days. . . . Oh, that we might realize that this is the purpose for which God sends us into the world, as He sent His only begotten Son!--_S. A. Blackwood._

=February 13th.=

_All . . . saw his face as it had been the face of an angel Acts vi. 15._

The face is made every day by its morning prayer, and by its morning look out of windows which open upon heaven.--_Joseph Parker._

=February 14th.=

_At the commandment of the Lord they rested in the tents, and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed. Num. ix. 23._

This is the secret of peace and calm elevation. If an Israelite, in the desert, had taken it into his head to make some movement independent of Jehovah; if he took it upon him to move when the crowd was at rest, or to halt while the crowd was moving, we can easily see what the result would have been. And so it will ever be with us. If we move when we ought to rest, or rest when we ought to move, we shall not have the divine presence with us.--_C. H. M._

=February 15th.=

_In whom also, after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise. Eph. i. 13._

The Lord puts a seal upon His own, that everybody may know them. The sealing in your case is the Spirit producing in you likeness to the Lord. The holier you become, the seal is the more distinct and plain, the more evident to every passer-by, for then will men take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus.--_Andrew Bonar._

=February 16th.=

_Boast not thyself of to-morrow. Prov. xxvii. 1._

The only preparation for the morrow is the right use of to-day. The stone in the hands of the builder must be put in its place and fitted to receive another. The morrow comes for naught, if to-day is not heeded. Neglect not the call that comes to thee this day, for such neglect is nothing else than boasting thyself of to-morrow.--_G. Bowen._

=February 17th.=

_I will help thee, saith the Lord. Isa. xli. 14._

O my soul, is not this enough? Dost thou need more strength than the omnipotence of the united Trinity? Dost thou want more wisdom than exists in the Father, more love than displays itself in the Son, or more power than is manifest in the influences of the Spirit? Bring hither thine empty pitcher! Surely this well will fill it. Haste, gather up thy wants, and bring them here--thine emptiness, thy woes, thy needs. Behold, this river of God is full for thy supply; what canst thou desire beside? Go forth, my soul, in this thy might. The eternal God is thine helper!--_Spurgeon._

=February 18th.=

_To every man his work. Mark xiii. 34._

He does the most for God's great world who does the best in his own little world.--_Selected._

=February 19th.=

_Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. John xxi. 10._

Why was this? Oh, the Lord wants us to minister to Him as well as to receive from Him, and our service finds its true end when it becomes food for our dear Lord. He was pleased to feed on their fish while they were feeding on His. It was the double banquet of which He speaks in the tender message of revelation, "I will sup with him, and he with Me."--_A. B. Simpson._

=February 20th.=

_By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed. Heb. xi. 8._

Whither he went, he knew not; it was enough for him to know that he went with God. He leant not so much upon the promises as upon the Promiser. He looked not on the difficulties of his lot, but on the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, who had deigned to appoint his course, and would certainly vindicate Himself. O glorious faith! This is thy work, these are thy possibilities: contentment to sail with sealed orders, because of unwavering confidence in the love and wisdom of the Lord High Admiral: willinghood to rise up, leave all, and follow Christ, because of the glad assurance that earth's best cannot bear comparison with heaven's least.--_F. B. Meyer._

=February 21st.=

_The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. 1 Sam. ii. 3._

God does not _measure_ what we bring to Him. He _weighs_ it.--_Mark Guy Pearse._

=February 22nd.=

_After ye were illuminated ye endured a great fight of afflictions. Heb. x. 32._

Our boldness for God _before the world_ must always be the result of individual dealing with God _in secret_. Our victories over self, and sin, and the world, are always first fought where no eye sees but God's. . . . If we have not these _secret_ conflicts, well may we not have any _open_ ones. The _outward_ absence of conflict betrays the _inward_ sleep of the soul.--_F. Whitfield._

=February 23d.=

_Philip findeth Nathaniel and saith unto him, We have found Him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. . . . Come and see. John i. 45, 46._

The next thing to knowing that "we have found Him" is to find someone else, and say, "Come and see."--_Frances Ridley Havergal._

=February 24th.=

_The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. John iii. 8._

We know that the wind listeth to blow where there is a vacuum. If you find a tremendous rush of wind, you know that somewhere there is an empty space. I am perfectly sure about this fact: if we could expel all pride, vanity, self-righteousness, self-seeking, desire for applause, honor, and promotion--if by some divine power we should be utterly emptied of all that, the Spirit would come as a rushing mighty wind to fill us.--_A. J. Gordon._

=February 25th.=

_Thy gentleness hath made me great. 2 Sam. xxii. 36._

The gentleness of Christ is the comeliest ornament that a Christian can wear.--_William Arnot._

=February 26th.=

_Jacob went on his way, and the angels of God met him. Gen. xxxii. 1._

It is in the path where God has bade us walk that we shall find the angels around us. We may meet them, indeed, on paths of our own choosing, but it will be the sort of angel that Balaam met, with a sword in his hand, mighty and beautiful, but wrathful too; and we had better not front him! But the friendly helpers, the emissaries of God's love, the apostles of His grace, do not haunt the roads that we make for ourselves.--_Alex. McLaren._

=February 27th.=

_I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me. John xiv. 6._

Heaven often seems distant and unknown, but if He who made the road thither is our guide, we need not fear to lose the way. We do not want to see far ahead--only far enough to discern Him and trace His footsteps. . . . They who follow Christ, even through darkness, will surely reach the Father.--_Henry Van Dyke._

=February 28th.=

_Forgetting those things which are behind . . . I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Phil. iii. 13, 14._

It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are, is God's providential arrangement--God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing. Life is a series of mistakes, and he is not the best Christian who makes the fewest false steps. He is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes.--_F. W. Robertson._

=March 1st.=

_Come up in the morning . . . and present thyself unto me in the top of the mount. Ex. xxxiv. 2._

The morning is the time fixed for my meeting the Lord. This very word _morning_ is as a cluster of rich grapes. Let me crush them, and drink the sacred wine.

In the morning! Then God means me to be at my best in strength and hope. I have not to climb in my weakness. In the night I have buried yesterday's fatigue, and in the morning I take a new lease of energy.

Sweet morning! There is hope in its music. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified! Successful is the day whose first victory was won in prayer! Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount! Health is established in the morning. Wealth is won in the morning. The light is brightest in the morning. "Wake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early."--_Joseph Parker._

=March 2nd.=

_Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Gal. vi. 7._

The most common actions of life, its every day and hour, are invested with the highest grandeur, when we think how they extend their issues into eternity. Our hands are now sowing seeds for that great harvest. We shall meet again all we are doing and have done. The graves shall give up their dead, and from the tombs of oblivion the past shall give up all that it holds in keeping, to bear true witness for or against us.--_Guthrie._

=March 3rd.=

_There are eleven days' journey from Horeb, by the way of mount Seir, unto Kadesh-barnea. Deut. i. 2._

Eleven days, and yet it took them forty years! How was this? Alas! we need not travel far for the answer. It is only too like ourselves. How slowly we get over the ground! What windings and turnings! How often we have to go back and travel over the same ground, again and again. We are slow travelers because we are slow learners. Our God is a faithful and wise, as well as a gracious and patient Teacher. He will not permit us to pass cursorily over our lessons. Sometimes, perhaps, we think we have mastered a lesson and we attempt to move on to another, but our wise Teacher knows better, and He sees the need of deeper ploughing. He will not have us mere theorists or smatterers; He will keep us, if need be, year after year at our scales until we learn to sing.--=C. H. M.=

=March 4th.=

_If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John i. 9._

The same moment which brings the consciousness of sin ought to bring also the confession of it and the consciousness of forgiveness.--_Smith._

=March 5th.=