"If we wish to cultivate our higher nature we must have solitude. It is vitally necessary at times that we should be able to get away from every other being on the face of the earth. What thoughtful person does not love to be alone; to be surrounded with no objects but the fields and the trees, the mountains and the waters, to hear nothing but the rustling of the foliage and the songs of the birds, and to feel the fresh breeze of heaven playing upon his cheeks? Moreover, when we are very much in contact with human life, when we are mingling with it, we are liable to become too conscious of its turbid side, or drearily oppressed with its commonplace features. To see human life, and weigh it in its many aspects, we need at times to go away and be as it were on a pinnacle, where we can take it all in with one sweeping glance. Solitude can affect us somewhat as religious worship does. It can take us out of the consciousness of where we belong, away from the ordinary selfish instincts by which we may be dominated. "Too much solitude may be dangerous, just as too much of the sense of mystery may be. Yet something of it is essential to our advance in spiritual life. A man must go away where he can feel the mystery of his own being. Moreover, a certain degree of solitude seems necessary to the full growth of the mind, and it is in solitude that great principles are first thought out, and the genius of eminent men formed, for solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the real parent of genius. Solitude, moreover, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations." H. W. SMITH. "One sees one's life in perspective when one goes abroad, and to be spectators of ourselves is very solemn." HENRY DRUMMOND. Triviality JANUARY 28 "Triviality is the modern equivalent for worldliness, the regard for the outward and the visible. The trivial mind is enmity with God, and it is of many kinds. There is the triviality which concerns itself with 'nothing,' which gossips about 'him' and 'her,' and becomes serious over a form, a phrase, a dress, a race or a show. There is the triviality to which the working people are forced by the cares of this life, who all day and every day have to think of the bread which perisheth, while their souls starve for lack of knowledge which endureth. The cares of life as often choke the growth of the Word as the deceitfulness of riches. There is also that most insidious kind of triviality which tends to haunt the more serious circles, wrapping itself in talk about social schemes, Church progress, policies and philosophies, passing itself off as serious, when all the time the concern of the talker is to achieve a wordy success or to get notice for his little self or his little system." _The Service of God,_ CANON BARNETT.