Though I walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt revive me.
Ps. cxxxviii. 7.

IT is very helpful to make a habit of offering, morning by morning, the troubles of the day just beginning to our dear Lord, accepting His will in all things, especially in all little personal trials and vexations. Some persons have found great benefit from making, when first they wake, the act taught to Madame de Chantal by St. Francis de Sales, accepting “all things tolerable and intolerable” for love of Christ; then at midday, a moment’s inward search to see whether there has been any voluntary slackening of submission, any deliberate opposition to God’s will, any hesitation in resisting the distaste or fretfulness, the impatience or discouragement we are tempted to feel when things go contrary to our own will and likings, making a fresh resolution to go on heartily; and, at night, a quick review of the day’s failures for which to ask pardon, and strength to go on better anew. Some such habit as this is a great check to that terrible hindrance of the spiritual life which, terrible though it be, is so apt to steal upon many good and earnest souls, — a complaining, grumbling, self-pitying spirit.
H. L. Sidney Lear.