_The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Gen. ii. 7._ And so this soul of mine is a compound of two worlds--dust and deity! It touches the boundary line of two hemispheres. It is allied on one side to the divine; on the other, to the beast of the field. Its beginning is from beneath, but its culmination is from above; it is started from the dust of the ground, but it is finished in the breath of God. My soul, art thou living up to thy twofold origin? Art thou remembering thy double parentage, and therefore thy double duty? Thou hast a duty to thy God, for His breath is in thee; thou hast a duty to the earth, for out of it wast thou taken.--_George Matheson._ =April 3rd.= _Always rejoicing. 2 Cor. vi. 10._ No Christian can ever know what is meant by those two little words, "always rejoicing," but the Christian who takes up his cross and follows Jesus.--_W. Hay Aitken._ =April 4th.= _All the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. Gen. xiii. 15._ God's promises are ever on the ascending scale. One leads up to another, fuller and more blessed than itself. In Mesopotamia God said, "I will show thee the land." At Bethel, "This is the land." Here, "I will give thee all the land, and children innumerable as the grains of sand." And we shall find even these eclipsed. It is thus that God allures us to saintliness. Not giving anything till we have dared to act--that He may test us. Not giving everything at first--that He may not overwhelm us. And always keeping in hand an infinite reserve of blessing. Oh, the unexplored remainders of God! Whoever saw His last star?--_F. B. Meyer._ =April 5th.= _That night they caught nothing. John xxi. 3._ God may let the sinful world succeed in their forbidden schemes, but, blessed be His name, He does not allow His chosen ones to prosper in the path which leads them out of His holy will! He has a storm to send after every Jonah, and an empty net for every unbelieving and inconsistent Simon.--_A. B. Simpson._ =April 6th.= _They made me keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. Song of Sol. i. 6._ Our attention is here drawn to a danger which is preeminently one of this day: the intense activity of our times may lead to zeal in service _to the neglect of personal communion_; but such neglect will not only lessen the value of the service, but tend to incapacitate us for the highest service.--_J. Hudson Taylor._ =April 7th.= _We came unto the land whither thou sentest us . . . we saw the children of Anak there. Num. xiii. 27, 28._ It is when we are in the way of _duty_ that we find _giants_. It was when Israel was going _forward_ that the giants appeared. When they turned back into the wilderness they found none.--_Selected._ =April 8th.=