April 16

The very God of peace sanctify you wholly, and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it. — 1 Thess 5:23-24

Be still, my soul!—the Lord is on thy side;
Bear patiently the cross of grief and pain;
Leave to thy God to order and provide,—
In every change He faithful will remain.
—HYMNS FROM THE LAND OF LUTHER.

It was no relief from temporal evils that the Apostle promised. No; the mercy of God might send them to the stake, or the lions; it was still His mercy, if it but kept them “unspotted from the world.” It might expose them to insult, calumny, and wrong; they received it still as mercy, if it “established them in every good word and work.” O brethren! how many of you are content with such faithfulness as this on the part of your heavenly Father? Is this, indeed, the tone and tenor of your prayers? —WM. ARCHER BUTLER.

The highest pinnacle of the spiritual life is not happy joy in unbroken sunshine, but absolute and undoubting trust in the love of God. —A. W. THOROLD.