NOVEMBER 30.
St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr.

Form your own notions about angels and saints in heaven--as you will, . .
. but bear this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the
everlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, and
of good works. The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life,
spent only in individual happiness.

_Good News of God Sermons_.

December.

It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve,
I went sighing past the Church across the moorland dreary:
"Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,
And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing so cheery.
How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?
Still in cellar and in garret, and on moorland dreary,
The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain:
Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be
cheery."

Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,
Beneath the stars across the snow, like clear bells ringing,
And a voice within cried, "Listen! Christmas carols even here!
Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are
singing.
Blind! I live, I love, I reign, and all the nations through
With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing;
Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,
Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it the angels'
singing."

_A Christmas Carol_.

The Final Victory. December 1.

I believe that the ancient creed, the eternal gospel, will stand and
conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other for
eighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing and organising those
young anarchic forces which now, unconscious of their parentage, rebel
against Him to whom they owe their being.

_Yeast_, Preface. 1851.

Drifting away. December 2.

They drift away--Ah, God! they drift for ever.
. . . . . .
I watch them drift--the old familiar faces,
Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places.
. . . . . .
Shores, landmarks, beacons drift alike.
Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven
Still fades to night, still blazes into day.
Ah, God! My God! _Thou_ wilt not drift away!

_A Fragment_. 1867.

Our Father. December 3.

Take your sorrows not to man, but to your Father in heaven. If that
name, Father, mean anything, it must mean that He will not turn away from
His wandering child in a