April 3
As for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.--DEUT.
xviii. 14.
Lord, for the erring thought
Not into evil wrought;
Lord, for the wicked will
Betrayed and baffled still;
For the heart from itself kept,
Our Thanksgiving accept.
W. D. HOWELLS.
What an amazing, what a blessed disproportion between the evil we do, and
the evil we are capable of doing, and seem sometimes on the very verge
of doing! If my soul has grown tares, when it was full of the seeds of
nightshade, how happy ought I to be! And that the tares have not wholly
strangled the wheat, what a wonder it is! We ought to thank God daily for
the sins we have not committed.
F. W. FABER.
We give thanks often with a tearful, doubtful voice, for our spiritual
mercies _positive_; but what an almost infinite field there is for mercies
negative! We cannot even imagine all that God has suffered us _not_ to do,
not to be.
F. R. HAVERGAL.
You are surprised at your imperfections--why? I should infer from that,
that your self-knowledge is small. Surely, you might rather be astonished
that you do not fall into more frequent and more grievous faults, and thank
God for His upholding grace.
JEAN NICOLAS GROU.
