MORNING AND EVENING EXERCISES. JANUARY 1: MORNING. Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the Lord.-Lam. iii., 40. I CAN not bear to go into the coming year just as I came out of the old one. I would fain believe each year to be a mother, and that I am born into the next one, that I may, as it were, with renewed childhood, go forward, endowed with the experience and the strength of the past. I fain would bring something better than that which I do bring to him whom I know I love, and who knows that I love him. I fain would bring a higher thought, a clearer purpose, a character whose essential powers are higher than mine have been. I know that I have felt the grace of God in my heart; but alas! it seems as though God's grace were but as Columbus, that touched the shore here and there, and left the vast continent within almost unexplored -certainly unsubdued and untilled. I am not content when I think of the generosities and magnanimities of which my life should perpetually speak, as a band of music speaks sweet notes, stretching them far out through the air. How is it with you? Are you content with the character which you brought out of the old year, and with which you are setting forward upon the new? Is not this a time for you to review your character, and see what are its elements, how you are shaping it, what you mean by it, and what you have obtained thus far? Is it not a time for you to look into the future? No matter how old you are, it is not too late for you to learn in the school of Christ. And it is a noble ambition with which you should begin the year-not to swell your coffers, not to have more of this world's good, but to begin the year chiefly with the ambition to be more like Christ, and to have the power of God resting upon you, and to know the will of God, and so to live that whosoever meets you shall know that you have been with Christ. Out of this spirit what blessings will flow! Oh, if you were holier, how much happier would you be! Oh, if you were holier, how would fall down from you straightway those discontents, those cares, those frets, those ill wills, and those thousand torments which so much have snared you, and so much have marred your enjoyment in the days that are past! It is because you are not good that you are not happy. For he that dwells in the secret place of the Almighty, he that lives as in the very presence of Christ, can say, "My Master hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, so that I can boldly cry, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me." A friend stands at the door; In either tight-closed hand Hiding rich gifts, three hundred and threescore; Waiting to strew them daily o'er the land, Even as seed the sower. Each drop he treads it in, and passes by: It can not be made fruitful till it die. Friend, come thou like a friend, And whether bright thy face, Or dim with clouds we can not comprehend, And trust thee to the end; Knowing thou leadest onward to those spheres JANUARY 1: EVENING. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.—Ephes. v., 16. DID you ever sit down and make an inventory of what you do, in order to come to a distinct understanding with reference to your use of time? You probably know all about your possessions. You know every bond, if you have bonds; you know every mortgage, if you have mortgages; you know every dollar that is deposited, if you have deposits of money; you know every piece of property, if you own real estate; you know all your debts and credits. These things you look at both in detail and in the sum. But God has given our chief treasure to us in the use of time; and how many of us know what we do with our time? How many of us have ever taken even a cursory view of one single year, saying, "I am anxious to know, on the whole, how I carried myself with reference to a faithful use of the element of time through January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, from month to month? What is the habit of my life in this respect? Of the time that is given me, how much of it do I use well; how much do I use indifferently; and how much do I squander?" There is not one man in a hundred that ever thought of these things. We hear the general declaration that we ought to employ our time; men are exhorted to be diligent in business and fervent in spirit; but there are very few who ever sit down to make a deliberate inventory in regard to the element of time, so as to form a correct judgment of their habit of using it. Ought that so to be? Every hour that fleets so slowly, Has its task to do or bear ; If thou set each gem with care. Hours are golden links, God's token, JANUARY 2: MORNING. And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God and toward men.-Acts xxiv., 16. A How blessed it is to be able, as one is drawing near to his decline, to bear this testimony: "I have a good conscience." And how sad it is that a man's conscience, which begins life like a full-stringed harp, should become like a harp out of which one cord after another has been broken, till at last it is not capable of melody, certainly not of harmony, and is only a remnant of what it once was. There are some men and some matrons whose age fills me with more respect than any temple. I have stood before great piles of architecture, whose impression so affected me that I trembled as if I had a chill or a fever in my veins; but I have stood before men and women whose greatness, and serenity, and goodness were such that I felt like bowing down in their presence. I have also stood before men so gaunt, so hard, so selfish, so hackneyed, that I felt that I was in a cave where monsters re sorted, and I trembled with horror, as before I had trembled with sympathy and with love. grant to you the liberty of a good conscience. And if he does grant it, it must be by your help. You are to form your own conscience, and you are to form the habit of following that conscience implicitly. JANUARY 2: EVENING. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.—Rev. ii., 10. NEED any one be discouraged who has begun to live a Christian life, because so often he has failed and fallen into backsliding? Whatever may have been the arguments of the past, let them be forgotten. Try again. There are thousands of Christians who too soon grow discouraged, saying, "I have proved that I was mistaken. I have proved that the root of the matter was not in me. There is no use; I have tried and failed." There is all the use in the world. No man ever fails until death settles the great conflict. Because you have begun, and then stumbled and lagged, and gone back a little way, do not give up the whole contest. There is encouragement, since we have one that is not ashamed of us in spite of our defections and inferiorities. Why should we not, therefore, gird up our loins and take a fresh hold, with new consecration, on the Christian life? Will not every day's experience give reason and argument for gratitude to such a Lord as this? Is there not in every Christian man's life and experience reason for blessing, for thanks, for gratitude inexpressible to him that has revealed his Son Jesus Christ, the helpful, the loving, the patient, the gentle? Pilgrim of earth, who art journeying to heaven! Earthliness, coldness, unthankful behavior— |
