FEBRUARY 6.

Blessed are the dead.-REV. xiv. 13.

OH stay thy tears; for they are blessed,
Whose days are passed, whose toil is done;

Here midnight care disturbs our rest,

Here sorrow dims the noonday sun.

For laboring virtue's anxious toil,
For patient sorrow's stifled sigh,
For faith that marks the conqueror's spoil,
Heaven grants the recompense to die.

Oh cheerless were our lengthened way—
But heaven's own light dispels the gloom,
Streams downward from eternal day,

And casts a glory round the tomb.

NORTON,

FEBRUARY 7.

I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.-JOHN xiv. 6.

THOU art the Way-and he who sighs

Amid this starless waste of woe,

To find a pathway to the skies,

A light from heaven's eternal glow, By Thee must come, thou gate of love,

Through which the saints undoubting trod;

Till faith discovers, like the dove,

An ark, a resting-place in God.

Thou art the Truth-whose steady day

Shines on through earthly blight and bloom;

The pure, the everlasting ray,

The lamp that shines e'en in the tomb.

Thou art the mystic pillar given,

Our lamp by night, our light by day; Thou art the sacred bread from heaven,

Thou art the Life, the Truth, the Way.

FEBRUARY 8.

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.PSALM Xci. 1.

ALL scenes alike engaging prove

To souls impressed with sacred love!
Where'er they dwell, they dwell in Thee;
In heaven, in earth, or in the sea.

To me remains nor place nor time,
My country is in every clime;

I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.

While place we seek or place we shun,
The soul finds happiness in none;
But with my God to guide my way,

'Tis equal joy to go or stay.

GUION.

FEBRUARY 9.

As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.-ISAIAH lxvi. 13.

YOUR sorrows to His eye are known,

Your secret motives clear;

It needeth not the pomp of words,
Το pour them on His ear.

Doth death thy bosom's cell invade?
Yield up thy flower of grass;

Swells the world's wrathful billows high?

Bow down and let it pass.

True prayer is not the noisy sound
That clam'rous lips repeat,

But the deep silence of a soul
That clasps Jehovah's feet.

SIGOURNEY.

FEBRUARY 10.

I shall go to Him, but he shall not return to me. 2 SAMUEL Xii. 23

YE who mourn

WHENE'ER your vacant cradle, or the robes

That decked the lost one's form, call back a tide Of alienated joy, can ye not trust

Your treasure to His arms, whose changeless care Passeth a mother's love? Can ye not hope When a few hasting years their course have run, To go to him, though he no more on earth Returns to you.

SIGOURNEY.

FEBRUARY 11.

I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.-Ps. cxix. 75.

OH Thou that wilt not break the bruised reed, Nor heap fresh ashes on the mourner's brow, Nor rend anew the wounds that inly bleed:

The only balm of our afflictions, Thou.