heaven and earth, through our Blessed Lord's mediation. The confession of sin, which flows from a contrite heart-the Publican's 'God be merciful to me a sinner'—is borne upward by angel ministries, and accepted. United (by faith and an holy intention) with the Intercession of the great High Priest, the feeblest cry for support, strength, and protection, finds its way to the golden altar before the Throne, and is there 'offered with much incense,' and becomes an acceptable sacrifice.

WITH

DEAN GOULBURN.

ITH joy the guardian angel sees
A duteous child upon his knees,
And writes in his approving book
Each upward, earnest, holy look.

Light from his pure aërial dream
He springs to meet morn's orient beam,
And pours towards the kindling skies
His clear adoring melodies.

Some glorious seraph, waiting by,
Receives the prayer to waft on high,
And wonders, as he soars, to read
More than we know, and all we need.

Know

KEBLE.

There is a rose-lipp'd seraph sits on high,
Who ever bends his holy ear to earth
To mark the voice of penitence, to catch
Her solemn sighs, to tune them to his harp,
And echo them in harmonies divine
Up to the throne of grace.

March 7

MASON.

And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands.— GEN. xvi. 9.

And David spake unto the Lord when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo, I have sinned, and I have done perversely. - 2 SAMUEL xxiv.

17.

WHEN you speak falsely, and act unjustly and deceitfully, you sometimes hear a still small voice whispering to your soul, 'That is wrong; that is mean and unjust.' It is the voice of an angel. You may know it as certainly as though he stood before you in the flaming splendours of heaven and audibly addressed you. Whenever you feel inclined to say a kind word, to do an unselfish deed, to act according to the dictates of truth and duty, that inclination comes from heaven. Some angel is trying to bend your will and turn your face towards the Lord. Yield to the loving attraction; obey the heavenly dictate.

REV. CHAUNCEY GILES.

NOT for this

Was common clay ta'en from the common earth, Moulded by God, and tempered with the tears Of angels to the perfect shape of man.

TENNYSON.

AND quickened by the Almighty's breath
And chastened by His rod,

And taught by angel visitings,
At length he sought his God.

DR. J. H. NEWMAN.

WHEN Ambrose looked up, he stood alone,

But he knew, by a sense of humbled grace,
He had talked with an angel face to face,
And felt his heart change inwardly,

As he fell on his knees beneath the tree.

J. R. LOWELL.

March 8

Therefore with angels and archangels and with all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name: evermore praising Thee and saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts. - BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER.

The Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.-1 SAMUEL XVI. 7.

COULD

our eyes but be opened for one moment to see the high company we are in, and the glorious work we are about, when we are praising. God in His church, surely it would be harder for us to go back to the miserable, contemptible follies which now too easily prevail against us. We could not then so lightly pass in a moment from holy things to unholy. We should be frightened and ashamed when the temptation came to look out for the praise of men, or to favour ourselves in respect of bodily and sensual comfort. The thought would keep fresh in our heart, 'Am I not a Christian?-a companion of cherubim and seraphim in glorifying God? How then dare I give myself up to be carried away by such childish, unworthy things?'

N the olden day when Immortals

IN

Came oftener visibly down,

There went a youth with an angel

KEBLE.

Through the gate of an Eastern town:
They passed a dog by the roadside,
Where dead and rotting it lay,
And the youth, at the ghastly odour,
Sickened and turned away.

He gathered his robes about him
And hastily hurried thence;
But nought annoyed the angel's
Clear, pure, immortal sense.

F

By came a lady, lip-luscious,

On delicate, tinkling feet:

All the place grew glad with her presence,
The air about her sweet;

For she came in fragrance floating,
And her voice most silvery rang ;
The youth to embrace her beauty,
With all his being sprang,
A sweet, delightsome lady;
And yet the legend saith,
The angel, while he passed her,
Shuddered and held his breath.

GERALD MASSEY.

March 9

And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.-Exodus iii.

2, 5.

IVEN the consciousness that an angel is leading GIV us, and instantly a series of preparations must be set up corresponding with the quality and title of the leading angel of our pilgrimage. Whom our love expects our love provides for. . . . The invention of love is fertile, the expenditure of love is without a grudge or a murmur. Any appeal that so works upon every kind of faculty, upon imagination, conscience, will, force, must be an appeal that will do the life good. It calls us to perfectness, to preparedness, to a nobility corresponding in some degree with the nobility of the guest whom we entertain.

DR. JOSEPH PARKER.

'HE soul goeth out in the morning,

THE

Into the world of men :

Into the loving and scorning,

Into the gossip and gain.

Home she at night returneth

To prayer and silence and sleep;
Much she hath seen and spurneth,
Much made her smile and weep.

She beareth the flesh her burden,
And oft it weigheth her down,
But she thinks of her heavenly guerdon,
The harp and the golden crown.

So down the valley she roameth
Under her angel's eyes,

Till to the gate she cometh,
The gate of Paradise.

THEN

REV. G. S. CAUTLEY.

HEN consecrate us, Lord, anew,
And fire our hearts with love;
That all we think, and all we do,
Within, without, be pure and true,
Rekindled from above.

FROM THE LATIN.

March 10

Then there came again and touched me one like the appearance of a man, and he strengthened me, and said, O man greatly beloved, fear not; peace be unto thee, be strong, yea, be strong. And when he had spoken unto me, I was strengthened, and said, Let my Lord speak, for thou hast strengthened me.— DAN. X. 18, 19.

THE

HE angels must watch with eager interest the man who is going through hard struggle which tries his spirit-they watch to see that he endures. They do not try to make the struggle less hard, but in the moment of faintness or waveringif there be such a moment-they whisper cheer and encouragement, that the man may not faint. We have a beautiful illustration of this in our Lord's experience in Gethsemane. Angels came-not to