DECEMBER 25.-Christmas Day.

FOR unto us a Child is born.

ISAIAH ix, 6.

HOW lowlily and gently God draws near, as if to disarm all distrust, and win by the pleading of His feeble, almost friendless infancy, the love of those whom He would save.

NATURE in awe to Him

Had doft her gaudy trim

With her great Master so to sympathise ;

Only with speeches fair

She woos the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow.

MILTON.

DECEMBER 26.-St. Stephen.

LORD, lay not this sin to their charge.

ACTS vii, 60.

LET ET us pray to our loving Lord to grant us the same spirit of meekness and patience, which He gave to His first martyr, St. Stephen.

LORD, grant Thy grace, that we,

Whate'er our lot may prove,

May learn His high fidelity,

His deep forgiving love ;

That boldness which could part with life,
And yet be gentle in the strife.

St. John the Evangelist.

BELOVED, let us love one another for love I JOHN iv, 7.

is of God.

To those who have been signally blessed of God, whose heart is quickened by a consciousness of the presence of Christ, the love of Christ is a part of their own being, they live more and more in the habitual consciousness of His love to them. The world cannot draw them from Him, it has no sweetness like fellowship with Him ; no brightness like the light of His countenance; no fairness like the beauty of His presence.

WHAT blessed beams of brightness,
Upon the Church do shine;

Enlighten'd by thy doctrine,
Evangelist Divine !

Thy head upon His bosom,

Whose heart is love's deep spring;

The tend'rest consolation,

To His beloved doth bring.

Holy Innocents.

THESE were redeemed from among men, being

the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.

REV. xiv, 4.

LET me try to keep the true martyr spirit, even in lowliest ways, by unwaverings, and by gentle yieldings of soul and body to every trial that comes, however undeserved, however unexpected.

O SAVIOUR! for whom infants died,
Whom even infants glorified,

In life and death the same;

Grant us by pure and holy lives,
And faith, which life and death survives,
To glorify Thy Name.

НЕ

HE will cut me off with pining sickness. ISAIAH XXXviii, 12.

HE has let this danger threaten you, even as tender parents seem to leave a self-willed child, that it may feel its weakness and fly to them. God would have the danger drive you to Him, and when you have thus fled to Him, He will remove it. BISHOP WILBERFORCE.

TRIALS make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to His feet;

Lay me low and keep me there.