_Man's goings are of the Lord; how can a man then understand his own way_?--PROV. xx. 24. Be quiet, why this anxious heed About thy tangled ways? God knows them all, He giveth speed, And He allows delays. E. W. We complain of the slow, dull life we are forced to lead, of our humble sphere of action, of our low position in the scale of society, of our having no room to make ourselves known, of our wasted energies, of our years of patience. So do we say that we have no Father who is directing our life; so do we say that God has forgotten us; so do we boldly judge what life is best for us, and so by our complaining do we lose the use and profit of the quiet years. O men of little faith! Because you are not sent out yet into your labor, do you think God has ceased to remember you? Because you are forced to be outwardly inactive, do you think you, also, may not be, in your years of quiet, "about your Father's business"? It is a period given to us in which to mature ourselves for the work which God will give us to do. STOPFORD A. BROOKE. July 26 _They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth for ever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even for ever_.--PS. cxxv. I, 2. How on a rock they stand, Who watch His eye, and hold His guiding hand! Not half so fixed amid her vassal hills, Rises the holy pile that Kedron's valley fills. J. KEBLE. That is the way to be immovable in the midst of troubles, as a rock amidst the waves. When God is in the midst of a kingdom or city, He makes it firm as Mount Sion, that cannot be removed. When He is in the midst of a soul, though calamities throng about it on all hands, and roar like the billows of the sea, yet there is a constant calm within, such a peace as the world can neither give nor take away. What is it but want of lodging God in the soul, and that in His stead the world is in men's hearts, that makes them shake like leaves at every blast of danger? R. LEIGHTON. July 27 _He that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty_.--MATT. xiii. 23. Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb; Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch Till the white-winged reapers come. H. VAUGHAN.