October 17

Bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.—II COR. x, 5.

Let every thought

Be captive brought,

Lord Jesus Christ, to Thine own sweet obedience!

That I may know,

In ebbless flow,

The perfect peace of full and pure allegiance.

F. R. HAVERGAL.

Do not flatter yourself that your thoughts are under due control, your desires properly regulated, or your dispositions subject as they should be to Christian principle, if your intercourse with others consists mainly of frivolous gossip, impertinent anecdotes, speculations on the character and affairs of your neighbors, the repetition of former conversations, or a discussion of the current petty scandal of society; much less, if you allow yourself in careless exaggeration on all these points, and that grievous inattention to exact truth which is apt to attend the statements of those whose conversation is made up of these materials.

H. WARE, JR.

The habit of dissipating every serious thought by a succession of agreeable sensations, is as fatal to happiness as to virtue; for when amusement is uniformly substituted for objects of moral and mental interest, we lose all that elevates our enjoyments above the scale of childish pleasures.

ANNA MARIA PORTER.