anew.

whom should Christ dwell, if not in those who love and seek Him? He will immediately bend His heart to all hearts that incline to Him: O hearts! what do ye seek out of Him, the friend of hearts? Your hearts cannot live, cannot be happy unless ye seek Him, and turn to Him with your whole heart. For do ye not know that ye will find sorrow of heart everywhere. Rest and peace of heart ye can find only with Him, who has made your heart, and who can and will create it His kingdom is a kingdom of the heart. He is willing to come into the heart, and bless it. That is His delight. If ye have but Him in your hearts, ye have in you a spring of joy that is inexhaustible. What, then, can make you sad? What a heaven is such a heart! What a heaven the heaven when many such hearts come together that have the Lord within them! Who shall disturb their joy? But how shall all be filled with anguish and fall, who have not, and do not seek Him! Ever blessed is the soul in which God, Jesus dwells. Blessed, glorious as heaven is every heart that lives in Christ. But miserable, wretched, and poor is every soul that lives on without God, without Jesus, and without grace.

NOVEMBER THE FOURTEENTH.

"Arise, O Lord; lift up thine hand, forget not the humble."-Ps. x. 12. "He forgetteth not the cry of the humble."-Ps. ix. 12. "Forsake me not, O Lord: O my God, be not far from me."-Ps. xxxviii. 21. "Cast us not off for ever."-Ps. xliv. 23; cxli. 8. "The Lord will not cast off his people.-The Lord will not cast off for ever."Ps. xciv. 14; LAM. iii. 31.

FOR

OR these prayers there are answers and promises enough in the word of the Lord. If there were none but those in Isa. xlix. 15, and John vi. 37, they alone would be sufficient to console all afflicted and mourning, all dismayed and doubting ones, if they lay hold on them by faith, and trust God that He would not lie nor mock poor men, but that He would make good what He has promised them in His word. O that we might ever so supplicate, and continue in this child-like, importunate prayer! Would we only knock often at His fatherly heart, the answer would never fail. What could surpass the motherlike fidelity, the tender love and care of our Bridegroom? What, what should we, may we not expect from Him? O we of little faith! If we really stood in and upon His word, we would stand faster than mountains, and never be moved. For heaven shall fall and pass away, but His word and His faithfulness shall not fail nor pass away. God has written to thee upon the cross on Golgotha with blood, with the blood of His Son, a writing of weighty contents. Go there; what dost thou read? If thou canst not read nor believe one word more, yet thou shouldst be able

to read and believe this hand-writing of God the Father in the wounds and blood of His Son. For more legibly, strongly, convincingly, or livingly, can no writer write, no speaker speak. There it stands written as strongly as one could desire : I will not forget thee! I will not forsake thee! I will not cast thee off!

NOVEMBER THE FIFTEENTH.

"My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways."-PROV. xxiii. 26. Sanctify the Lord God in your hearts."-1 PET. iii. 15., "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."-MATT. v. 8. "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”—MATT. xii. 34.

10

To give one's heart to God is, to keep the heart

pure from all that is not good; to cleave to nothing with the heart, beyond God and Christ; to have only one will with God, to have pleasure in all that is pleasing to God, and to abhor all that is displeasing to God. He sanctifies God or Christ in his heart, who is ever full of God and the love of Christ, and allows himself to be influenced and urged on in all things only by the love of Christ, which does not ask: What will men, what will the world say? But what will my love say? What is pleasing to the God of my heart? How can I best act in harmony with His mind? What is the pleasure of His will? He who will not allow himself to do the least wrong, even things that are permitted, although he could gain a world thereby, because he knows that God, Christ, is

not willing, or is not willing that it should be done by him then, has sanctified and given God his heart, his heart is pure, and such a heart shall see God. His mouth can bring forth nothing but what is of God, whose heart is so full of the love of God. The mouth is the betrayer of the heart. But it is also often a deceiver and a liar, for the mouth of the hypocrite can speak of God and the love of Christ, without God and love to Christ dwelling in the heart. But yet not always; it still betrays sometimes what is in the heart, because the mouth of him whose heart is not right with God changes and does not always abide the same.

NOVEMBER THE SIXTEENTH.

"Lord, unto whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."-JOHN vi. 68. "We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts."2 PET. i. 19.

A

LL men who have not the word of God, or do not believe it, who will not hear Jesus, are in the thickest darkness and blindness, without true comfort, and without salvation in life and in death, are miserable and unhappy, even although they do not feel it. This every one knows, who has learned to know Jesus and His living word. Before, he knew not how miserable he was, but now he knows it, after he has tasted the blessedness that one experiences in Jesus. The word of the Lord only becomes priceless, invaluable to

us, when the day of awakening and return dawns, and the Morning Star, Christ, the living Word, the true Light, arises in us. Then one sees light in His light. Then all becomes clear, bright, and living. But what ye have received, hold fast in your heart, in a living remembrance, that nothing may take you away from Jesus any more. All kinds of temptations and trials come upon believers. But if they hold Jesus Christ in remembrance, if they have tasted the powers of the world to come, and experienced the living word of God, that has brought the soul from death into life, from darkness to light, and ever seek to keep this light and life, they will be able, in every temptation, that would make them fall away from Christ, to say with Peter:-To whom shall we go? We will abide with Thee, Lord! for Thou hast the words of eternal life.

NOVEMBER THE SEVENTEENTH.

"Behold, God is mine helper; the Lord upholdeth my soul."-Ps. liv. 4-(Ger. Trans.) "I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever; I will trust in the covert of thy wings."-Ps. lxi. 4. "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called."-ISA. liv. 5.

OD has bestowed Himself on us. I will be

GOD

your God, and ye shall be my people; thus He speaks often in His word. (Lev. xxvi, 12.) I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in faithfulness, He says