December 13

All things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.—HER. iv. 13.

DO I endeavor to live as becomes one whose secret thoughts and most trivial actions are all open to the eye of God? Do I remember that he looks upon the heart; and is this thought a safeguard and warning to me in temptation, and an incentive to right motives and holy living? Is God's omniscience a comfort to me in the day of trouble? Does it make me careful in self-examination? Is it my encouragement in duty?

It was a saying of Mohammed that "where two are present, God is the third; and where there are three, God is the fourth" And the celebrated Linnaeus placed over the door of his lecture-room, the inscription, "Live without sinning: God sees you." *

God is present, and sees, and hears, and takes account of all the thoughts, words and actions of the transgressor. His eye, like a flame of fire, lights up a clear and searching day in his soul, and around his steps, and shows in sunbeams the iniquities which he devises or perpetrates.—T. DWIGHT.

Thine all-surrounding sight surveys My rising and my rest;

My public walks, my private ways, The secrets of my breast.

So let thy grace surround me still, And like a bulwark prove,

To guard my soul from every ill Secured by sovereign love.—WATTS.