"There was a time when low, on bended knee,
With outstretched hand and wet uplifted eye,
I cried, 'O Father! teach me how to die,
And give me strength death's awful face to see,
And not to fear.' Henceforth my prayer shall be,

We may not shrink from our appointed way,
Nor pause to rest, however rough the road
He bids us walk in, therefore let us pray,
'Give us the strength we need to live, O God'!”

His eye

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I should like to see the man who just attended to his duty and troubled himself about nothing; who did his own work and did not interfere with God's. How nobly he would work,-working not for reward, but because it was the will of God! How happily he would receive his food and clothing, receiving them as the gifts of God! What peace would be his! What a sober gayety! What a friend he would be! How sweet his sympathy! being single, his whole body would be full of light. We are like to Him with whom there is no past and future, when we live with large bright spiritual eyes, doing our work in the great present, leaving both past and future to Him, to whom they are ever present, and fearing nothing, because he is our future as much as he is in our past,partakers thus of the divine nature resting in that perfect All in All. * To live carelessly-divine, dutydoing, fearless-loving, self-forgetting lives,-lives in which the good has swallowed up the evil and turned it into good. * It is well, and better than well, whatever helps us to know the love of him who is our God.

[McDonald.]

SPIRITUAL WANTS.

My God, my strength, my hope,
On thee I cast my care,

With humble confidence look up,
And know thou hear'st my prayer.
Give me on thee to wait,

Till I can all things do;

On thee, almighty to create,
Almighty to renew.

I want a godly fear,

A quick-discerning eye,

That looks to thee when sin is near,
And bids the tempter fly;

A spirit still prepared,

And armed with jealous care, Forever standing on its guard,

And watching unto prayer.

I want a true regard,

A single, steady aim,

Unmoved by threatening or reward,

To thee and thy great name. This blesssing above all,

Always to pray, I want:

Out of the deep on thee to call,

And never, never faint.

[Charles Wesley.]

STEPS UP AND AWAY FROM SELF.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Love never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. * * * And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

The good man loves all men. He loves to speak of the good of others. Love of man is chief of all the virtues. The mean man sows that himself or his friends may reap; but the love of the perfect man is universal.-[Confucius.]

The loving service of the weak and wanting is an essential part of the discipline of the Christian life. Some habitual association with the poor, the dependent, the sorrowful, is an indispensable source of the highest elements of character. * * * If we gently take the trembling hand that seeks our guidance and spend the willing care and exercise the needful patience, why, it makes us descend into healthful depths of sorrowful affection, which else we should never reach; it strips off the thick bandages of self and bids us awake to a life which first reveals to us the deathlike insensibility from which we are emerging. [Martineau.]

Think what it is not to hate anything but sin; to be full of love to every creature; to be frightened at nothing; to be sure that all things will turn to good; not to mind pain, because it is our Father's will; to know that nothing-no, not if the earth was to be burnt up, or the waters come and drown us—nothing could part us from God who loves us, and who fills our souls with peace and joy, because we are sure that whatever he wills is holy, just and good.-[From Adam Bede.]

Every good act is charity. Giving water to the thirsty is charity. Removing stones and thorns from the road is. charity. Putting a wanderer in the right way is charity. Smiling in your brother's face is charity. A man's true wealth is the good he does in the world. When he dies, mortals will ask what property he has left behind him; but angels will inquire, "What good deeds hast thou sent before thee?"-[Mahomet.]

The light of God discovers to us our smallest sins, but we are not thereby discouraged. We walk before him. If we deviate in the least from our path, we hasten to regain our steps, and think only of pressing on more earnestly. * * If this sincere desire to do in everything that which is most pleasing in God's sight be carried out cheerfully, without being discouraged when we have failed, but beginning afresh, over and over again, bearing with ourselves in our infirmities, because God bears with us, wasting no time in looking back, but forgetting the things which are behind and reaching forth unto those which are before, we shall press towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Thus shall we gain true liberty.-[Fenelon.]

God is ever doing for us, what-be it said reverently— what he cannot speak. As a dear friend can look the love which he cannot utter, so do I read the face of nature; so do I read the record of God's interposing mercy. I feel myself embraced with a kindness too tender and strong for utterance. It cannot tell me how dear to the Infinite Love my welfare, my purity is.

Only by means and ministrations, by blessings and trials, by dealings and pressures of its gracious hand upon me, can it make me know. [O. Dewey.]

The kingdom of heaven is not come even when God's will is our law; it is come when God's will is our will. When God's will is our law we are but a kind of noble slaves; when his will is our will we are free children. [McDonald.]