the things that seem to
be against us turn out to be for the furtherance of our way. Surely, this
is to be more than conquerors through Him who loved us.

Blessed Rose of Sharon
Breathe upon our heart,
Fill us with Thy fragrance,
Keep us as Thou art.
Then Thy life will make us
Holy and complete;
In Thy grace triumphant,
In Thy sweetness, sweet.

JANUARY 20.

"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of" (Luke ix. 55).

Some one has said that the most spiritual people are the easiest to get
along with. When one has a little of the Holy Ghost it is like "a little
learning, a dangerous thing"; but a full baptism of the Holy Spirit, and a
really disciplined, stablished and tested spiritual life, makes one
simple, tender, tolerant, considerate of others, and like a little child.

James and John, in their early zeal, wanted to call down fire from heaven
on the Samaritans. But John, the aged, allowed Demetrius to exclude him
from the church, and suffered in Patmos for the kingdom and with the
patience of Jesus. And aged Paul was willing to take back even Mark, whom
he had refused as a companion in his early ministry, and to acknowledge
that he was profitable to him for the ministry.

I want the love that cannot help but love;
Loving, like God, for very sake of love.
A spring so full that it must overflow,
A fountain flowing from the throne above.

"Now abideth faith, hope, love; but the greatest of these is love."

JANUARY 21.

"Pray without ceasing" (I. Thess. v. 17).

An important help in the life of prayer is the habit of bringing
everything to God, moment by moment, as it comes to us in life. This may
be established as a habit on the principle on which all habits are formed,
of repeated and constant attention, moment by moment, until that which is
at first an act of will, becomes spontaneous and second nature.

If we will watch our lives we shall find that God meets the things that we
commit to Him in prayer with special blessing, and often allows the best
things that we have not committed to Him to be ineffectual, simply to
remind us of our dependence upon Him for everything. It is very gracious
and mindful of Him thus gently to compel us to remember Him and to hold us
so close to Him that we cannot get away even the length of a single minute
from His all-sustaining arm. "In everything ... let our requests be made
known unto God."

Let us bring our least petitions,
Like th