We ought daily or weekly to dedicate a little time to the reckoning up of the virtues of our belongings,--wife, children, friends,--contemplating them then in a beautiful collection. And we should do so now, that we may not pardon and love in vain and too late, after the beloved one has been taken away from us to a better world. JEAN PAUL RICHTER. September 26 _Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me_.--PS. xxiii. 4. O will, that wiliest good alone, Lead Thou the way, Thou guides! best; A silent child, I follow on, And trusting lean upon Thy breast. And if in gloom I see Thee not, I lean upon Thy love unknown; In me Thy blessed will is wrought, If I will nothing of my own. GERHARD TERSTEEGEN. The devout soul is always safe in every state, if it makes everything an occasion either of rising up, or falling down into the hands of God, and exercising faith, and trust, and resignation to Him. The pious soul, that eyes only God, that means nothing but being His alone, can have no stop put to its progress; light and darkness equally assist him: in the light he looks up to God, in the darkness he lays hold on God, and so they both do him the same good. WM. LAW. September 27 _When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me_.--MICAH vii. 8. _There be many that say, Who will show us any good? Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us_.--PS. iv. 6. How oft a gleam of glory sent Straight through the deepest, darkest night, Has filled the soul with heavenly light, With holy peace and sweet content. ANON. Suppose you are bewildered and know not what is right nor what is true. Can you not cease to regard whether you do or not, whether you be bewildered, whether you be happy? Cannot you utterly and perfectly love, and rejoice to be in the dark, and gloom-beset, because that very thing is the fact of God's Infinite Being as it is to you? Cannot you take this trial also into your own heart, and be ignorant, not because you are obliged, but because that being God's will, it is yours also? Do you not see that a person who truly loves is one with the Infinite Being--cannot be uncomfortable or unhappy? It is that which is that he wills and desires and holds best of all to be. To know God is utterly to sacrifice self. JAMES HINTON. September 28 _My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed, and in truth_.--I JOHN iii. 18. _But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves_.--JAMES i. 22. Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers, Whose loves in higher love endure; What souls possess themselves so pure, Or is there blessedness like theirs? A. TENNYSON.