For real business at the mercy-seat give me a home-made prayer, a prayer that comes out of the depths of my heart, not because I invented it, but because God the Holy Ghost, put it there, and gave it such living force that I could not help letting it out. Though your words are broken, and your sentences disconnected, if your desires are earnest, if they are like coals of juniper, burning with a vehement flame, God will not mind how they find expression. If you have no words, perhaps you will pray better without them than with them. There are prayers that break the backs of words; they are too heavy for any human language to carry.--_Spurgeon._ =December 30th.= _Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Gen. vi. 8._ Noah found grace in the same way that Paul obtained mercy (1 Tim. 1: 16), namely, by mercy's taking hold of him.--_Selected._ =December 31st.= _Which hope we have as an anchor to the soul. Heb. vi. 19._ Anchor to the throne of God, and then shorten the rope!--_Selected._ * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Page 4, there was a reference "11:10" listed under Ephesians. As Ephesians doesn't have eleven chapters, the transcriber checked page 78. Ephesians 2, written as ii, is on page 78 and is already listed under Ephesians. The reference to 11:10 being on page 78 was removed. Page 4, "I." added to "Thessalonians". Pge 24, "regetting" changed to "regretting" (by regretting what is) Page 63, "Jnue" changed to "June" (June 22nd) Page 64, "closee" changed to "closer" (by closer following) Page 110, "porals" changed to "portals" (portals of the grave)