May 18

Choose you this day whom ye will serve.—Joshua 24:15.

HAVE I made religion my serious and deliberate choice? Is mine that better part that can never be taken away? Does the fact of having to take up the cross daily, make the thought of religion unpleasant to me? And if so, can I expect a heavenly crown? Ought I to hesitate a moment between the things of time and those of eternity? Do I pray for grace and strength to make the right choice while it is called to-day?

Let us resolve upon a life of serious godliness, not merely because we know no other way, but because upon search we can find no better.—MATTHEW HENRY.

If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness.—ADAM.

How dangerous to defer the momentous reformation which conscience is solemnly pressing on the heart. If neglected, the difficulty and indisposition increase every day. The mind is receding, degree after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone, till at last it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed in relentless and eternal ice.—JOHN FOSTER.

'Tis not for man to trifle; life is brief, And sin is here—

Our age is but the falling of a leaf, A dropping tear.

We have not time to sport away the hours; All must be earnest in a world like ours.