and neglect of devotion,-a habit most congenial to our natural love of ease, and entirely falling in with the smooth, self-indulgent temper of our age.

II. The second form of peace, which must be maintained in order to Holiness, is peace in the heart,-peace under the vexations and fretting of life.

(1) This fretting may arise first from anxieties. The right method of dealing with anxieties, and maintaining peace of heart under them, is clearly and succinctly laid down by St. Paul in the passage already quoted from the Philippians. Whatever may be your wishes on the subject which makes you anxious, refer them to God in prayer (using the simplest and most direct language), not asking Him absolutely to bring them about, which might be productive of any thing but a happy result, but simply letting Him know them, and begging Him to deal in the matter, not according to your short-sighted views, but as seems best to His wisdom and love. This exposure of the heart's wishes to God is a fulfilment of the precept; "Trust in Him at all times, ye people; pour out your hearts before Him;" it is acting in the spirit of Hezekiah, when he went up into the temple and spread Sennacherib's letter before the Lord. Having made this reference of your wishes to God, leave them with Him, in confident assurance that He will order the matter for the best. I say, leave them with Him. Drop them altogether. Do not let your mind recur to them any more; they are off your hands now; they are in better hands

than yours; they are no longer your business, and therefore they need not-nay, they must not

be your care. If prudence and caution dictate

that any thing should be done to avert the evil you anticipate, do it, and then think no more of the subject. Thinking of it is utterly fruitless; "Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?" And fruitless thinking is just so much waste of that mental and spiritual energy, every atom of which you need for your spiritual progress. But it is worse than this. It is a positive breach of God's precept, "Be careful for nothing,"—that is, do not give anxiety a harbour in your heart; let it not find there a peg to hang its burden on. Deal with a fruitless anxiety just as you would deal with an impure or a resentful motion of the heart. Shut the door on it at once, and with one or two short ejaculatory prayers rouse the will, and turn the thoughts in a different direction. spiritual life of the present moment is the one thing needful; as for the evil in the future, that may never come; and if it does, you will probably find that it has been far worse in anticipation than it is in the reality. The holy women on their road to Christ's sepulchre anticipated a difficulty, which threatened to baffle entirely their pious design. "Who shall roll us away the stone," they said among themselves, "from the door of the sepulchre ?" It turned out that they were troubled about nothing. When they marched up close to it, the difficulty had vanished. "When they looked,"

The

says the Evangelist, "they saw that the stone was rolled away." Take encouragement from their example. Go forward in your spiritual course with all the energy of your soul. Place the foreseen difficulties in the hand of God, and He shall remove them.

(2) Secondly; fretting and discomposure of heart may result from things going cross in daily life, from rubs of temper, offences, irritation, and annoyance with others. The rule for the maintenance of peace is here the same. Never let your thoughts dwell on a matter in which another has made you sore. If you do, a hundred aggravating circumstances will spring up in your mind, which will make the slightest offence swell up to the most formidable dimensions. With a brief prayer for him who has offended you, keep your thoughts sedulously away from what he has done. Try to realize God's Presence; the realizing it ever so little has a wonderfully soothing and calming influence on the heart. "My Presence shall go with thee," said God to Moses; and then immediately adds, as if that were a necessary consequence of the foregoing, "and I will give thee rest." But the great point is to let the mind settle. Turbid liquids will clear themselves, and precipitate their sediment to the bottom simply by standing. Be still then. Refrain from every impulsive action and speech. Make an effort to turn the mind, till it is perfectly cool and reasonable, to other subjects. Say secretly, "The Lord is in His Holy Temple" (His temple of the inner man); "keep silence, O my heart, before Him."

Those who indulge fretful feelings, either of anxiety, or irritation, know not what an opening they thereby give to the devil in their hearts. "Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist; "else shalt thou be moved to do evil." And in entire harmony with this warning of the elder Scriptures is the precept of St. Paul against undue indulgence of anger; "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil." Peace is the sentinel of the soul, which keeps the heart and mind of the Christian through Christ Jesus. So long as this sentinel is on guard and doing his duty, the castle of the soul is kept secure. But let the sentinel be removed, and the way is opened immediately for an attack upon the fortress. And our spiritual foes are vigilant, however much we may sleep. They are quick to observe an opportunity, and prompt to avail themselves of it. They rush upon the city at once in the absence of the sentinel, and do great mischief in a short time.

In conclusion; be careful to maintain peace in the heart, if thou wouldst not only resist the devil, but also receive the guidance of God's Spirit. That Spirit cannot make communications to a soul in a turbulent state, stormy with passion, rocked by anxiety, or fevered with indignation. The Lord is neither in the great and strong wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire; and not until these have subsided and passed away, can His still small voice be heard communing with man in the depths of his soul.

CHAPTER XV.

PEACE BY LIVING IN THE PRESENT RATHER THAN IN THE PAST.

"And He said unto another, Follow Me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God."-LUKE ix. 59, 60.

WE

E saw in our last Chapter that peace of heart and mind is essential to Holiness; and we traced two of the forms in which this peace manifests itself, reserving for future consideration its other forms. Peace amid the various distractions of heart and mind, incidental to our nature and circumstances, will form the subject of this and the following Chapter.

sent.

We shall never know what it is to live in peace, until we know what it is to live thoroughly in the preThe assertion startles some of my readers. But let them look at it again; and they will see no reason for surprise or alarm. A preposition will sometimes make the whole difference in the meaning of a proposition. I do not say that, in order to the maintenance