NOVEMBER 6. "God is made unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption."1 Cor. i. 30. O Lord, my God, who wilt not die, And make me free to sing of Thine. Thou art my soul's restoring rest, And fill my life with love for Thee. NOVEMBER 7. "Understanding what the will of the Lord is." -Eph. v. 17. There is many a thing which the world calls a disappointment; but there is no such word in the dictionary of faith. What to others are disappointments, are to believers intimations of the will of God. NEWTON. NOVEMBER 8. "Let me hear Thy voice, for sweet is Thy voice."-Cant. ii. 14. And none that breathed that scented air, But had a gentle thought; A gleam of something good, and fair, So prayers in crowded moments given,— Will sweeten, with a breath from heaven, Moral Songs. 66 NOVEMBER 9. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.”—Ps. lxxiii. 24. Let this, then, be our first conclusion: that it is a serious thing to live; and then we shall find encouragement, as well as true instruction, in this, as our second that the sense of our redemption is to be the great foundation truth of all our life. : We must have faith in this, if we would know our charge, or in the least fulfil it. We must believe that we have been redeemed; we must have felt that Christ has indeed redeemed us from sin and its power, from guilt and its misery, or we cannot love Him as our Deliverer-cannot thankfully receive His easy yoke and cannot witness of His truth to others. This is the great foundation of a true and earnest life. Our hearts must yearn after Him; must pray that we may be with Him; must fear to be parted from Him; must long to live in His presence,— finding it shelter, and safety, and peace; and then He will manifest Himself unto us. Even here, whilst He seems for a season to hold us from Himself, and not to suffer us to come into the ship with Him ;whilst He sends us back to life, to its business, its cares, its pleasures, and its sorrows, and bids us enter into them heartily ;-even here, He will be with us; in, and through all these acts of service, He will be at our side, and His presence will give truth, and reality, and safety to our lives. And in a little while, when He has made us able to support that glory, He will show Himself unto us, and take us into the full joy of His unveiled countenance, in the Paradise of God. BISHOP WILBERFORCE. 66 NOVEMBER 10. Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you."-St. John, xx. 21. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."- Isa. lvii. 21. This is the heritage of the children of God: "Peace I leave with you," said our blessed Lord. They have peace in their hearts, though trouble and sorrow are often in their path. With the ungodly it is not so; they may walk in a broad, untroubled way, but they have no peace within. Let us, therefore, seek to have peace in our hearts, and leave the way to Him who ordereth all things. NOVEMBER 11. "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”St. John, xv. 4. 66 Thou hast ascended on high; Thou hast led captivity captive; Thou hast received gifts for men, yea, for the rebellious also."—Ps. lxviii. 18. Behold, then, the better Tree of Life, free unto us all for grafting. Cut thee from the hollow root of self, to be budded on a richer vine. The past can never be retrieved, be the present what it may. Vain is the penance and the scourge, vain the fast and vigil ; The fencer's cautious skill to-day, can this erase his scars? It is Man's to famish as a faquir; it is Man's to die a devotee ; But it is God's to yearn in love, on the humblest, the poorest, and the worst; For He giveth freely as a King, asking only thanks for mercy. Look upon this noble-hearted Substitute: seeing thy woes, He pitied thee; |