December 2

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ.—PHIL. i, 9, 10.

In conversation be sincere,

Keep conscience as the noontide clear;

Think how All-seeing God thy ways

And all thy secret thoughts surveys.

THOMAS KEN.

Sincerity is like traveling in a plain, beaten road, which commonly brings a man much sooner to his journey's end than by-ways, in which men often lose themselves.

Am I acting in simplicity from a germ of the Divine life within, or am I shaping my path to obtain some immediate result of expediency? Am I endeavoring to compass effects amidst a tangled web of foreign influences I cannot calculate, or am I seeking simply to do what is right and leaving the consequences to the good providence of God?

M. A. SCHIMMELPENNINCK.