Or rash, or idle, or unkind!
Oh, how shall I, most gracious Lord,
This mark of true perfection find?

C. WESLEY.

When we remember our temptations to give quick indulgence to disappointment
or irritation or unsympathizing weariness, and how hard a thing it is
from day to day to meet our fellow-men, our neighbors, or even our own
households, in all moods, in all discordances between the world without
us and the frames within, in all states of health, of solicitude,
of preoccupation, and show no signs of impatience, ungentleness, or
unobservant self-absorption,--with only kindly feeling finding expression,
and ungenial feeling at least inwardly imprisoned;--we shall be ready to
acknowledge that the man who has thus attained is master of himself, and in
the graciousness of his power is fashioned upon the style of a Perfect Man.

J. H. THOM.



February 5


_Blessed are they that keep judgment, and he that doeth righteousness at
all times_.--PS. cvi. 3.

_Thou shalt be stedfast, and shalt not fear: because thou shalt forget thy
misery, and remember it as waters that pass away_.--JOB xi. 15, 16.