September 4

Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because He hath given us of His Spirit.—I JOHN iv, 13.

Alone with Thee, my God! alone with Thee!

Thus wouldst Thou have it still, thus let it be;

There is a secret chamber in each mind

Which none can find

But He who made it; none beside can know

Its joy or woe.

Oft may I enter it, oppressed by care,

And find Thee there;

So full of watchful love, Thou knowest the why

Of every sigh.

Then all Thy righteous dealings shall I see

Alone with Thee, my God! alone with Thee!

Littell's Living Age.

Alone must every son of man meet his trial hour. The individuality of the soul necessitates that. Each man is a new soul in this world, untried, with a boundless possible before him. No one can predict what he may become, prescribe his duties, or mark out his obligations. Each man's own nature has its own peculiar rules; and he must take up his life-plan alone, and persevere in it in a perfect privacy, with which no stranger intermeddleth. Each man's temptations are made up of a host of peculiarities, internal and external, which no other mind can measure. You are tried alone: alone you pass into the desert—alone you must bear and conquer in the agony—alone you must be sifted by the world. There are moments known only to a man's own self, when human advice is unavailable, that the soul feels what it is to be alone. . . . The philosopher tells us that no atom in creation touches another atom. They only approach within a certain distance; then the attraction ceases, and an invisible something repels: they only seem to touch. No soul touches another soul except at one or two points, and those chiefly external—a fearful and a lonely thought, but one of the truest of life. Death only realizes that which has been the fact all along. In the central deeps of our being we are alone.

F. W. ROBERTSON.