Eternally, and for ever, in heaven, says St. John, Christ says and is and does what prophets prophesied of Him that He would say and be and do. "I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star. And let him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take of the Water of Life freely." For ever Christ calls to every anxious soul, every afflicted soul, to every man who is ashamed of himself, and angry with himself, and longs to live a gentler, nobler, purer, truer, and more useful life, "Come, and live for ever the eternal life of righteousness, holiness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the one true and only salvation bought for us by the precious blood of Christ our Lord." Amen. _Water of Life Sermons_. 1865 The Golden Cup of Youth. January 16. Ah, glorious twenty-one, with your inexhaustible powers of doing and enjoying, eating and hungering, sleeping and sitting up, reading and playing! Happy are those who still possess you, and can take their fill of your golden cup, steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance that for all things a good and loving God will bring them to judgment! Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the health and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and, seeming to grow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care and work at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years ago, and say with Wordsworth-- "So was it when I was a boy, So let it be when I am old, Or let me die." _Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856. Work and Duty. January 17. If a man is busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he require for time or for eternity? _Chalk Stream Studies_. 1856. Members of Christ. January 18. . . . Would you be humble, daughter? You must look up, not down, and see yourself A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein Of Christ's vast vine; the pettiest joint and member Of His great body. . . . . . . Let thyself die-- And dying, rise again to fuller life. To be a whole is to be small and weak-- To be a part is to be great and mighty In the one spirit of the mighty whole-- The spirit of the martyrs and the saints. _Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene vi. 1847. Beauty a Sacrament. January 19. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's handwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing. _True Words to Brave Men_. 1844. The Ideal of Rank. January 20.