"Perfection is being, not doing--it is not to effect an act, but to achieve a character. If the aim of life were to do something, then, as in an earthly business, except in doing this one thing the business would be at a standstill. The student is not doing the one thing of student-life when he has ceased to think or read. The labourer leaves his work undone when the spade is not in his hand, and he sits beneath the hedge to rest. But in Christian life, every moment and every act is an opportunity for doing the one thing of _becoming_ Christ-like. Every day is full of a most expressive experience. Every temptation to evil temper which can assail us to-day will be an opportunity to decide the question whether we shall gain the calmness and the rest of Christ, or whether we shall be tossed by the restlessness and agitation of the world. Nay, the very vicissitudes of the season, day and night, heat and cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhilaration or depression, are so contrived as to conduce towards the being which we become, and decide whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether we shall be swept at the mercy of accident and circumstance, miserably susceptible of merely outward influences. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so manifold are the paths to saintly character; and he who has not found out how directly or indirectly to make everything converge towards his soul's sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this life." FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON. Life-Giver, not Deed-Doer JANUARY 26 "Christ was not primarily the Deed-Doer or the Word-Sayer. He was the Life-Giver. He made men live. Wherever He went He brought vitality. Both in the days of His Incarnation and in the long years of His power which have followed since He vanished from men's sight, His work has been to create the conditions in which all sorts of men should live." PHILLIPS BROOKS. "Therefore with all the strength God has given us, let us be fulfillers. Let us try to make the life of the world more complete. What can we do? First, each of us can put one more healthy and holy life into the world, and so directly increase the aggregation of righteousness. That is much. To fasten one more link, however small, in the growing chain that is ultimately to bind humanity to God beyond all fear of separation, is very much indeed. And besides that, we can, with sympathy and intelligence, patience and hope, bring up the lagging side in all the vitality around us, and assert for man the worth, the meaning, and the possibility of this his human life." PHILLIPS BROOKS. Seeing One's Life in Perspective JANUARY 27