men only procure a bad headache for the
day by beginning any sort of earnest mental effort without food. Such
men should take care accordingly to eat a _chotee hazaree_ (as old
Indians say), "a little breakfast," however little, before they pray and
read. There are appliances, simple and inexpensive, by which the man in
lodgings can, without giving any one trouble, provide himself with his
cup of cocoa or coffee as soon as he is up; and he will be wise to do
something of this sort, if he is a man whose work by day is heavy for
both body and spirit, and who is thus specially apt to find the truth of
what doctors tell us, that "sleep is, in itself, an exhausting process."

But at any cost, my dear friend and Brother in the Ministry, we must
have our Morning Watch with God, in prayer and in His Word, before all
the day's action. Not even the earliest possible Church service can
rightly take the place of that.

GOOD HOURS AT NIGHT.

It is obvious to add that punctuality and early hours in the morning
will bring into your life another rule; that of punctuality and
reasonably good hours at night. No temptation is greater, sometimes, for
the man alone than to ignore or break such a rule. And no doubt the
exigencies of pastoral life, sometimes, but surely not often, make it
hard to keep it. But it is extremely important, for the man who would
walk closely and humbly with his God, to end the day deliberately at His
feet. And here accordingly is another occasion for watchfulness, and for
method, and for will. Do not _drift into the night_. Have a settled hour
when, as a habit, you lay interests and intercourse of other sorts
down, and turn unhurried to the holy interview, spreading open your
Bible by the lamp, the Bible marked and scored with signs of past
research, and then kneeling, or standing, or _pacing_, for your
prayer--your prayer which is to be the very simplest (while most
reverent) speech with the Lord.

PRAY AS A PRIVATE CHRISTIAN.

In such acts of worship, morning and night, thought for others, for dear
ones, for parishioners, for colleagues, will have its full place of
course. Let it be so, with an ever-growing sense of the preciousness of
the work of intercession. But I do meanwhile say to my Brother in
Christ, take care that no pre-occupation with things pastoral allows you
to forget the supreme need of drawing out of Christ's fulness, and out
of the treasures of His Word, for _your own_ soul and life, as if