And, if the first secret is detachment of mind, putting aside self-consciousness, which is very often other-people-consciousness, the second secret is _an increasing consciousness of God_. Is it not an extraordinary thing that when we are only here for a few fleeting years, and everybody around us is hurrying to his grave as fast as he can, and when the only person whose opinion matters the least is the eternal God, Who goes on generation after generation, and before Whom everyone must appear at the last--is it not an extraordinary thing how little we think of Him at all? How often during the past week have you thought of God? To actually acquire a continual sense of His presence, to be conscious that His eyes, the eyes of Him Who is from everlasting to everlasting, are always fixed upon us, to rise in the morning with the feeling, "One more day's work for God," and to go to bed in the evening with only one care, "How have we done it?"--that is to gradually foster in the character the second great thing which will produce truth in the inward parts--a consciousness and love of God. And then, thirdly, _learn truth like a lesson_. If we did not learn it as the Queen did as a child, let us begin now. Watch every word. Are we in the habit of boasting, are we in the habit of lying, are we in the habit of being insincere? Not "What did we do?" but "Why did we do it?" is the real question. Why did we give that donation to something? For the good of the cause or to see our name in the paper? Why did we do this thing? Was it done from a true and pure motive? And if, as we try and learn truth like a lesson, step by step, in word and deed, we also pray continually, "Give me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me," then there shall emerge gradually something that will last beyond the grave--an image, which is also the pattern, the character of the child, slowly won, but which was the prototype to start with; and thus we may hope to be sincere, and without offence until the day of Christ. [1] Lines by the Rev. W. H. Draper, Rector of Adel, Leeds. II. HER MORAL COURAGE. "Why are ye fearful? O! ye of little faith."--_St. Matthew viii. 26._ We saw last Sunday that we were like men who had just watched a great sunset, that we were standing, as it were, in the beautiful and tender after-glow, which so often follows a beautiful sunset, and we set ourselves to try and gather up and meditate upon some of the great qualities in the character of her whom we have lost, as some explanation, of the influence which made her reign so great.