cause of God and truth, require it. It is of more value to thee to detect one grain of fault in thyself, than to show another that thou deservest not, as it were, a hundred-weight of blame.-E. B. PUSEY.

LXV.

REGRETTING is a dangerous

thing at the best, even if it goes no further; for it is apt to make a man discontented with the present state of things, and unfaithful, as if God had not done so much for him as He might have done, or as if He might not be trusted in each case to do that which is best. But it has also a direct and most baneful tendency to affect a man's life. It reacts with wonderfully chilling effect

upon the conduct. He who indulges in regrets is seldom doing his best with the advantages he possesses. He is so busy thinking how good he would be if things were otherwise, that he has hardly leisure to be as good as he can be as they are.-BISHOP MOBERLY.

LXVI.

BE not diverted from what you

are doing, but assure yourself that if you perform your present duty well, God will not fail to put you in mind, in due time, of the thoughts you had banished for His sake, and will fix them again in your mind to your still greater advantage.-RODRIGUEZ.

LXVII.

OVERT acts are entirely in our

power. What remains is that we learn to keep our heart; to govern and regulate our passions, mind, affections: that so we may be free from the impotencies of fear, envy, malice, covetousness, ambition; that we may be clear of these, considered as vices seated in the heart, considered as constituting a general wrong temper; from which general wrong frame of mind all the mistaken pursuits, and far the greatest part of the unhappiness of life, proceed. He who should find out one rule to assist us in this work would deserve infinitely better of mankind than all the improvers

other knowledge put together. —

BISHOP BUTLER.

LXVIII.

EVERY one has his routine of pious exercises, and there are

w days in which these do not tail upon us some little inconveniences. Perhaps it is one of their special uses to do this.-F. W. Faber.

LXIX.

IF Speech is the first power in the

world, certainly Silence is the second.-LACORDAIRE.

LXX.

"A GOOD man Caius Seius,

only he is a Christian." So

another: "I marvel that that wise man Lucius Titius hath suddenly become a Christian." No one reflecteth whether Caius be not therefore good, and Lucius wise, because a Christian, or therefore a Christian, because wise and good.-TERTULLIAN (Apol. i. 3).

LXXI.

WE lament over a man's sorrows,

struggles, disasters, and shortcomings; yet they were possessions too. We talk of the origin of evil, and the permission of evil. But what is evil? We mostly speak of sufferings and trials as good, perhaps, in their result; but we hardly adm that they may be good in them