ion is
this: "Let him that _thinketh he standeth_!" The secret of real strength
is this: "_Kept_ by the _power of God_!"

How it sweetens all our blessings, and alleviates all our sorrows, to
regard both as emanations from a loving Father's hand. Even if we should
be, like the disciples of old, "_constrained_" to go into the ship; if
all should be darkness and tempest, frowning providences--"the wind
contrary;" how blessed to feel that in embarking on the unquiet
element, "the Lord has bidden us!" Paul could not speak even of taking
an earthly journey, without the parenthesis ("if the Lord will"). How
many trials, and sorrows, and _sins_, would it save us, if the same were
the habitual regulator of our daily life! It would lead to calm
contentment with our lot, hushing every disquieting suggestion with the
thought that that lot, with all that is apparently adverse in it, was
_ordained_ for us. It would teach us not to be aspiring after _great_
things, but humbly to wait the will and purposes of a wise Provider; not
to go _before_ our Heavenly Guide, but to _follow_ Him, saying, in meek
subjection, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither
do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for for me
... my soul is even as a weaned child!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twentieth Day.

NOT RETALIATING.

"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again."--1 Peter, ii. 23.

What a common dictate of the fallen and regenerate heart to resent and
recriminate! How alien to natural feeling to answer cutting taunts, and
meet unmerited wrong with the Divine method the Gospel
prescribes--"Overcome evil with good!" It was in the closing scenes of
the Saviour's humiliation, when, silent and unresenting, He stood "dumb
before His shearers," that this beautiful feature in His character was
most wondrously manifested; but it beams forth, also, for our imitation
in the ordinary and less prominent incidents of His pilgrimage.

When He met Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, He found him clinging to an
unreasonable prejudice--"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The
severe remark is allowed to pass unnoticed. Overlooking the unkind
insinuation, the Saviour fixes on the favorable feature of his
character, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" After His
resurrection, He appears to His disciples. They were cowering in shame,
half afraid to confront the glance of i