knows to be most conducive to his well-being; in confidence that He heareth prayer, and will grant aid where it is truly sought; in confidence in His love to us, which is unbounded as His own infinite nature. Where can we gain strength but in such confidence as this?

to

Quietness precedes confidence. When in the midst of the stormy whirlwind of action and passion, we are apt to trust to our own frail barks, to impute all we effect to our own efforts, cry, "Behold this great Babylon that I have built !" and we hear not the voice of God until after the storm, in the still small whisper in our souls. When the heart is calmed, we can feel the power and behold the brightness of our Father's love; we can yield ourselves to Him, and desire to be led by Him wherever He chooseth. Thus we can have confidence that we are treading in the right path; and we shall feel a strength which will carry us through the troubles and temptations of life.

How long, O my soul, wilt thou be restless and agitated by unreasonable activity; by over-excited feelings; by an engrossing imagination; in fine, by all those things which are not quietness?

O my Father! do Thou grant me Thine aid to come to Thee with confidence,

my strength.

to find in Thee

LORD! it is not life to live

If Thy presence Thou deny; Lord! if Thou Thy presence give, 'T is no longer death to die. Source and Giver of repose! Singly from Thy smile it flows; Thee to see, and Thee to love, Perfect bliss, below, above.

FRIDAY MORNING.

For we walk by faith, not by sight. — 2 Cor. v. 7.

"WE walk by, .faith," says the apostle, and "not by sight." We are guided by the things eternal, rather than by the things temporal. We pursue the realities, rather than the shadows. We fasten our hold on that which is permanent, rather than on that which our sight itself may tell us is passing away. In the concerns of our souls, we regard the Author of our souls, and not the enemies of our souls. We strive to conform our conduct to the commandments of God, rather than to the custom of the time. We keep our hearts fixed on the world which is to come, and the glories which will be revealed, rather than on the present world, which soon will be no more, and its objects, which will soon vanish from our eyes. This is the declaration of St. Paul; and the way which he adopts and announces is the only true, and rational, and living way. The Christian has far more reason, more evidence, and better authority for walking by faith, in the path of conduct and the regulation of life, than they who question or wonder at him can

have for walking by sight. In his turn he may question and wonder at them. Why, he may ask, do you walk by sight? Why, formed to look upward, are you continually bending your spirit towards earth? Why do you confine your hope, that divine and soaring faculty, to fleeting objects, which perish while you pursue them? Why do you bind your affections so tightly to things, which, though visible, are visibly withering, and which, even if they should remain, cannot follow you, cannot be taken with you out of the world? Why do you look for your friends among the dead, as if the clods of the valley could bury goodness, or hide and cover sin? Are you yourselves going nowhere but to the grave, which necessarily bounds and terminates every earthly prospect? Alas! that all Alas! that all your sight, that all your evidence, should be shut up there; should end by conducting you there! Is there no God, no Christ, no resurrection, no immortality? Is the short life of sense more worthy than the eternal life of the soul? O, why do you walk by sight?

Do I walk by faith? Do I walk as if there were other things in existence beside what I see, and of far more glory and desirableness than what I see with my mortal sight? Do I walk as if Christ had risen from the dead, and revealed another world to my soul, in comparison with which this world is nothing; but in preparation for which this world is

every thing? Let me ponder with myself that question. And let me remember that the question is not, whether I merely believe in God, in Christ, in the unseen and spiritual world, but whether I mould my dispositions, my purposes, my actions, after the image of that belief; not merely whether I have faith, but more especially whether I walk by faith; whether, believing in God, I walk in the way of His commandments; whether, believing in Christ, I walk as he walked, in benevolence, selfdenial, and piety; whether, believing in his resurrection, I acknowledge its power, and rise from sin, and set my affections on things above?

O THOU! in sovereign majesty enthroned
O'er all the seen and unseen universe;
Supreme, omnipotent, all-wise, all-good;
For ever present, though invisible;
Thee, King and Father, humbly I adore!
Thee I adore, eternal light and love!
Yet who can worthily express Thy praise,
That praise which falters on angelic tongues;
That praise, above e'en seraph's loftiest lays?
Sole fountain of existence, and of all

For which existence may be hailed and prized,
What, what is man, that he may raise to Thee
His thought, his prayer! O Excellent Supreme,
From whom alone are all the powers of thought,