God enable the reader to embrace her with all his heart!" Thy sacred truth, O Lord, impart; JUNE 2. "When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple." JONAH ii. 7. E have here a fainting soul. There are W various uses which produce spiritual faint ing. The prophet's soul fainted under the chastisements of the Divine hand. His heart sank within him as he saw his rebelliousness in its true light, and as he feared that God had cast him off for ever. In his anguish, however, he "remembered the Lord." So we have here a quickened memory. It is well when the Lord's chastisements lead to this result. Jonah remembered what the Lord was what he had said-and what he had done. If we forget God, God will not forget us: and, sooner or later, he will cause us to remember him again. When we remember him, we should humble ourselves in prayer before his throne. There is hope of a backslider, when he is brought to pray. The case before us furnishes an instance of successful prayer. God never denies the request of a returning child. From the deepest pit of our misery, our prayer will reach his throne. While we are yet calling he hears; and, sometimes, before we have finished our petition, we have the blessing we desire. In all times of darkness and distress, help me, O Lord, to remember thee! May my prayer come "in unto thee, into thine holy temple!"' Then shall my cheerful spirit sing And rise on faith's expanding wing JUNE 3. "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue." PSAL. xxxix. 1. T is of the utmost importance that we should watch against sins of the tongue. More mischief is sometimes done with this small member, in five minutes, than a life-time can repair. It is related of an ancient father, that a man destitute of learning came to him once, to be taught a Psalm. The father turned to the thirty-ninth, but when the man had heard the first verse of it, "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue," he would hear no more, saying this was enough, if he could practise it; and, afterwards, when his instructor blamed him for having absented himself six months, he replied, that he had not done that verse. Forty years after, he confessed he had been all that time studying the Psalmist's resolve, but had not learned yet to fulfil it. May I be careful not to offend with my tongue! May all my speech be full of grace, and consecrated to the Lord! May I from every word abstain JUNE 4. " They did not like to retain God in their knowledge." ROM. i. 28. GENTLEMAN, eminent in the literary world, "No im who died some years since, was in early life what is termed, a "Free-thinker," as it regards the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures and kindred subjects, and used to talk over matters of this kind with a friend, in the hearing of a religious but illiterate man. When the Free-thinker afterwards became a decided believer in Divine revelatian, he was much concerned for this person, lest his faith should have been shaken, and once asked him whether what had so frequently been advanc ed in his hearing had not had this effect upon him? "By no means," answered the man, it never made the least impression upon me." pression upon you!" said the gentleman. Why, you must have known that we had read and thought of these things much more than you had any opportunity of doing." "O yes," said the other, "but I knew also your manner of living. I knew that to maintain such a course of conduct you found it necessary to renounce Christianity." In this reply we have the true cause of almost the whole of that scepticism about which we hear so much. Men love sin, and therefore do not like to retain God and his truth in their knowledge. Unbelief has its root in the heart, rather than in the head. The sneers and sophistries of the infidel shall never shake my faith. The holy faith which I profess JUNE 5. "Blessed are the meek: for they shall in herit the earth." MATT. v. 5. ISHOP Burnet, who had often meditated on the above text, but was not satisfied as to its true meaning, was one morning taking a walk, when he observed a dwelling more wretched than any he had passed, and going towards it, to his sur prise, he heard a voice of joyous praise. Drawing nearer, he heard it as that of an individual only. Endeavouring to ascertain the cause, he looked in at the window, when he saw the poor inmate in the most wretched state of outward want and poverty imaginable. On a little stool before her, she had a piece of black bread, and a cup of cold water; and with her eyes and hands lifted up to heaven, as in a rapture of praise, she repeated these. words: "What! all this, and Jesus Christ too? What! all this, and Jesus Christ too!" The lesson which the bishop thus learnt, was indelibly impressed on his mind. He returned home with a holy gratitude, understanding, as he had never understood before, our Lord's words. He saw that they only inherited, in our Lord's sense, the whole earth, who through grace possess Christ himself. O that all may seek, and find, JUNE 6. "We are not ignorant of his devices." 2 COR. ii. 11. ENKIN, in his commentary on the Epistle of Jude, has the following remarks, which may be appropriately introduced here, as illustrative of the above passage. "It is observable that a huntsman or forester goeth usually in green, suitable to the leaves of the trees and the grass of the forest; so that by this means the most observant in the herd never so much as distrusteth him, till the arrow sticks in his sides. And thus the devil shapes himself to the fashions of all men. If he meet with a proud man, or a prodigal, then he makes himself a flatterer. If a covetous man, then he comes with a reward in his hand. He hath an apple for Eve, a grape for Noah, a change of raiment for Gehazi, a bag for Judas. He can dish out his meat for all palates: he hath a last to fit every shoe; he hath something to please all conditions, and all dispositions whatsoever." How keen the tempter's malice is, Though not one grain shall be destroyed, JUNE 7. "Christ is all." COL. iii. 11. E is all in the believer's estimation and experience, inasmuch as he is the only foundation of our hope-he is the only medium of our approach to God-he is the support of our spiritual life-he is the object of our love-he will grant us full redemption at the last day. Well might poor Joseph, the converted idiot, sing, "I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all; and Jesus Christ is my all |