When sorrow all our heart would ask, We need not shun our daily task, And hide ourselves for calm; The herbs we seek to heal our woe Familiar by our pathway grow, Our common air is balm. J. KEBLE. Oh, when we turn away from some duty or some fellow-creature, saying that our hearts are too sick and sore with some great yearning of our own, we may often sever the line on which a divine message was coming to us. We shut out the man, and we shut out the angel who had sent him on to open the door. There is a plan working in our lives; and if we keep our hearts quiet and our eyes open, it all works together; and, if we don't, it all rights together, and goes on fighting till it comes right, somehow, somewhere. ANNIE KEARY. January 17 _Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings_.--I PETER iv. 12, 13. We take with solemn thankfulness Our burden up, nor ask it less, And count it joy that even we May suffer, serve, or wait for Thee, Whose will be done! J. G. WHITTIER. Receive every inward and outward trouble, every disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, darkness, and desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity and blessed occasion of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with thy self-denying, suffering Saviour. Look at no inward or outward trouble in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and then every kind of trial and distress will become the blessed day of thy prosperity. That state is best, which exerciseth the highest faith in, and fullest resignation to God. WM. LAW. January 18 _Thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the Lord thy God hath given unto thee_.--DEUT. XXVI. 11. _Rejoice evermore. In everything give thanks_.--I THESS. v. 16, 18. Grave on thy heart each past "red-letter day"! Forget not all the sunshine of the way By which the Lord hath led thee; answered prayers, And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares, Grand promise-echoes! Thus thy life shall be One record of His love and faithfulness to thee. F. R. HAVERGAL.