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January 4.

Onward and Upward.

Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto
perfection.--Heb. vi. 1.

Thou who canst *think* as well as *feel*,
Mount from the earth! Aspire! Aspire!
Wordsworth.

Thou might'st have been one of us,
   Cleaving the storm and fire;
Aspiring though faith to the glorious,
   Higher and ever higher;
Till the world of storms look tremulous
   Far down, like a smitten lyre!
Mac Donald.

Man was made to grow, not stop;
That help he needed once and needs no more,--
Having grown but an inch by,--is withdrawn.
For he hath new needs,--and new helps to these.
   This imparts solely, man should mount on each
New height in view; the help whereby he mounts--
The ladder-rung his foot has left,--may fall,
Since all things suffer change, save God the Truth
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage
Whereat earth's ladder drops,--its service done;
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.
Browning.

          Then be it so!
For in better things we yet may grow,
Onward and upward still our way,
With the joy of progress from day to day;
Nearer and nearer every year
To the visions and hopes most true and dear!
Children still of a Father's love,
Childrin still of a home above!
        Thus we look back
Without a sigh, o'er the lengthening track.
F. R. Havergal.

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January 5. The New Year.

Onward and Upward.

We know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away.--1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.

Man knows partly but conceives beside,
Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact,
And in this striving, --this converting air
Into a solid he may grasp and use,--
Finds Progress,--man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts'.  God is,--They are,--
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be!
Browning.

Learn the mystery of Progression duly,
Do not call each glorious change Decay;
But know we only hold our treasures truly
When it seems as if they pass'd away!
Nor dare to blame God's gifts for incompleteness!
In that want their beauty lies; they roll
Towards some infinite depth of love and sweetness,
Bearing onward man's reluctant soul.
A. Procter.

O eye, and O soul, is your thirst yet sated?
Or what more do ye claim for your own?
Must this world, at the best, be so lightly rated,
For the sake of a better, unknown?
Lyton.

Ends accomplished turn to means.
Browning.

Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond;
I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,
Of a completion over-soon assumed,--
Of adding up too soon.--
Clough.

So oft the doing of God's will
   Our foolish wills undoeth!
And yet what idle dream breaks ill
   Which morning-light subdueth?
And who would murmur and misdoubt
   When God's great Sunrise finds him out?
E. B. Browning.

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