the end dare to do our duty as we understand it.--_Abraham Lincoln._
Compass happiness, since happiness alone is victory. What you make of
life, it will be to you. Take it up bravely, bear it on joyfully, lay
it down triumphantly.--_Gail Hamilton._
Those things that are not practicable are not desirable. There is
nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us
the means to accomplish. If we cry like children for the moon, like
children we must cry on.--_Burke._
I feel the earth move sunward,
I join the great march onward,
And take by faith while living
My freehold of thanksgiving.
--_John G. Whittier._
Howe’er it be, it seems to me
’Tis only noble to be good;
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.
--_Tennyson._
Pin thy faith to no man’s sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thine
own?--_Carlyle._
Do your best loyally and cheerfully, and suffer yourself to feel no
anxiety nor fear. Your times are in God’s hands. He has assigned you
your place: He will direct your paths; He will accept your efforts, if
they be faithful.--_Canon Farrar._
When we cease to look upon any experience as too hard, we have made a
decided step in wise adjustment to life.--_H. W. Dresser._
A certain awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts, but as
soon as we have learned what to do with them, they become our
own.--_Emerson._
The choir invisible! Who are members of it, if not all those who in any
way are doing the day’s work, whatever it may be, as well as they know
how; who are trying to make the world happier and pleasanter for those
to whom their lives are naturally bound.--_John White Chadwick._
“By thine own soul’s law learn to live,
And if men scorn thee, take no care,
And if men hate thee, take no heed,
But sing thy song and do thy deed,
And hope thy hope, and pray thy prayer.”
There are some who want to get rid of their past, who, if they could,
would begin all over again, ... but you must learn, you must let God
teach you, that the only way to get rid of your past is to get a future
out of it.--_Phillips Brooks._
It is a sign that your reputation is small and sinking, if your own
tongue must praise you.--_Sir Matthew Hale._
Because a man has shop to mind
In time and place, since flesh must live,
Needs spirit lack all life behind,
All stray thoughts, fancies fugitive,
All loves except what trade can give?
--_Browning._
There is no beautifier in form or behavior like the wish to scatter
joy, and not pain, around us.--_Emerson._
Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great
ship.--_Benjamin Franklin._
First make your arrangements, then trust in heaven; and in no case
worry.--_Prof. Jowett._
“Hold thy peace or say something better than silence.”
“Friend, all the world’s a little queer, excepting thee and me; and
sometimes I think thee a trifle peculiar.”
We live by our enthusiasm and our exaltations. Our sympathies are our
strength. Our interests are our magnetisms, and are transmuted into our
working capital.--_Lilian Whiting._
His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to
hold the memory of a wrong. (_Said of Lincoln._)--_Emerson._
He is all truth in his words, and justice in his actions, and if the
whole world should disbelieve his integrity, dispute his character, and
question his happiness, he would neither take it ill in the least, nor
turn aside from that path that leads to the aim of life, toward which
he must move, pure, calm, well prepared--and with perfect resignation
in his fate.--_Marcus Aurelius._
Observe good faith and justice toward all nations, cultivate peace and
harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it
be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?--_Washington._
It is well to believe that there needs but a little more thought,
a little more courage, more love, more devotion to life, a little
more eagerness, one day to fling open wide the portals of joy and of
truth.--_Maurice Materlinck._
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
--_F. W. Bourdillon._
A man’s home is his castle, but it ought to be more. It ought to be his
home. That it is his castle is his right by law. To make it a real home
depends upon himself.--_Sir J. Lubbock._
We can fix our eyes on perfection and make almost everything speed
towards it.--_W. E. Channing._
“It was the heaven within her that made a heaven without.”
He who, forgetting self, makes the object of his life service,
helpfulness and kindness to others, finds his whole nature growing
and expanding, himself becoming large-hearted, magnanimous,
kind, sympathetic, joyous and happy; his life becoming rich and
beautiful.--_Ralph Waldo Trine._
“Talk happiness; the world is sad enough
Without your woes. No path is wholly rough:
Look for the places that are smooth and clear,
And speak of these to rest the weary ear
Of earth, so hurt by one continuous strain
Of human discontent and grief and pain.”
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget,--lest we forget!
--_Kipling._
This world’s no blot for us
Nor blank; it means intensely and means good:
To find its meaning is my meat and drink.
--_Robert Browning._
The test of friendship is its fidelity when every charm of fortune and
environment has been swept away, and the bare, undraped character alone
remains; if love still holds steadfast, and the joy of companionship
still survives, in such an hour, the fellowship becomes a beautiful
prophecy of immortality.--_Hamilton Wright Mabie._
We lose vigor through thinking continually the same set of thoughts.
New thought is new life.--_Prentice Mulford._
No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than
disbelief in great men.--_Carlyle._
If you want knowledge, you must toil for it; if food, you must toil for
it; and if pleasure, you must toil for it. Toil is the law. Pleasure
comes through toil, and not by self-indulgence and indolence. When one
gets to love work, his life is a happy one.--_Ruskin._
Nay, never falter; no great deed is done
By falterers who ask for certainty.
No good is certain but the steadfast mind,
The undivided will to seek the good.
--_George Eliot._
There is a class of people who are comparatively valueless to the
world because of a certain morbidness which they are pleased to call
sensitiveness. In reality it is nothing of the sort. It is self-love--a
refined variety of it, to be sure, but none the less is it the result
of a selfishly subjective state, in which they look in and not out,
and down and not up, and fail to lend a hand--not from any real
unwillingness, but because they are looking in, and do not see the
opportunity.--_Lilian Whiting._
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to anyone
else.--_Dickens._
We always weaken when we exaggerate.--_La Harpe._
It is not poverty that helps a man; it is the effort by which he throws
off the yoke of poverty that enlarges the powers.--_David Starr Jordan._
“Of all bad habits, despondency is among the least respectable, and
there is no one quite so tiresome as the sad-visaged Christian who is
oppressed by the wickedness and hopelessness of the world.”
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under the trees
on a summer’s day, listening to the murmur of water, or watching the
clouds float across the sky, is by no means waste of time.--_Sir J.
Lubbock._
There is no preservative and antiseptic, nothing that keeps one’s heart
young like sympathy, like giving one’s self with enthusiasm to some
worthy thing or cause.--_John Burroughs._
A truly concentrated life promptly rejects every thought of past or
future that would disturb its confidence in the present hour.--_C. B.
Newcomb._
A man can never be idle with safety and advantage until he has been
so trained by work that he makes his freedom more fruitful than his
toil.--_Hamilton Wright Mabie._
After every storm the sun will smile; for every problem there is
a solution, and the soul’s indefeasible duty is to be of good
cheer.--_Wm. R. Alger._
Be sure to live on the sunny side, and even then do not expect
the world to look bright, if you habitually wear gray-brown
glasses.--_Chas. H. Eliot._
Whenever Conscience calls a halt, it is no place for Reason to debate
the question. The way ahead is no thoroughfare.--_Charles Egbert
Craddock._
Give what you have. To some one it may be better than you dare to
think.--_Longfellow._
“If bitterness has crept into the heart in the friction of the busy
day’s unguarded moments, be sure it steals away with the setting sun.
Twilight is God’s interval for peace-making.”
It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much.--_Geo.
Eliot._
“The initial need to enjoyment is not many possessions, but much
appreciation.”
Just to be good, to keep life pure from degrading elements, to make it
constantly helpful in little ways to those who are touched by it, to
keep one’s spirit always sweet and avoid all manner of petty anger and
irritability,--that is an idea as noble as it is difficult.--_Edward
Howard Griggs._
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous
difficulties.--_Spurgeon._
“No matter how narrow your limits
Go forth and make them broad:
You are every one the daughter or son,
Crown prince or princess of God.”
The best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but
to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for
themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely.--_Lubbock._
Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if
you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, “Why should I tell
it?”--_Lavater._
[Illustration: Henry Ward Beecher
_Great powers and natural gifts do not bring privileges to
their possessors so much as they bring duties._]
Let us then labor for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our own spirits,
That we may do His will, and that only.--_Longfellow._
Many persons might have attained to wisdom had they not assumed that
they already possessed it.--_Seneca._
Stagnation is death, whether it be physical or spiritual. A pool cannot
be pure and sweet unless there is an outlet as well as an inlet. Unless
you use for the service of others what God has already given you, you
will find it a long weary road to Spiritual Understanding.--_H. Emilie
Cady._
Make friends with your trials, as though you were always to live
together, and you will find that when you cease to take thought for
your own deliverance, God will take thought for you.--_Francis de
Sales._
“God will never leave you without light enough to take one step. Don’t
stop walking till the light gives out.”
We ask for long life, but ’tis deep life, or grand moments
that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not
mechanical.--_Emerson._
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through
life, he will soon find himself alone. A man, sir, should keep his
friendships in constant repair.--_Dr. Johnson._
“Happiness does not depend on money or leisure, or society, or even on
health; it depends on our relation to those we love.”
Life without endeavor is like entering a jewel-mine and coming out with
empty hands.--_Japanese Proverb._
Accustom yourself to master and overcome things of difficulty; for if
you observe--the left hand for want of practice is insignificant--and
not adapted to general business; yet it holds the bridle better than
the right--from constant use.--_Pliny._
Almost every moment of the day the eye is receiving impressions from
outward objects, and instantly communicating these impressions to the
soul. Thus the soul receives every day thousands of impressions, good
or bad, according to the character of the objects presented.--_Cardinal
Gibbons._
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we
fall.--_Confucius._
Nobody has any right to find life uninteresting or unrewarding who sees
within the sphere of his own activity a wrong he can help to remedy, or
within himself an evil he can hope to overcome.--_Chas. H. Eliot._
It is as amazing as it is sad, that we go about so largely burdening
ourselves with strivings that are of no consequence, and miss the
gladness and exhilaration of living. No life is successful until it
is radiant. The King of Glory is always ready to come in. Why do we
bar the way? We cannot all live in palaces; but we can all live in the
Kingdom of Heaven, and the material luxuries of the one pale before the
glow and thrill and exaltation of the other.--_The World Beautiful,
Lilian Whiting._
“As I walked by myself
I talked with myself,
And myself said this unto me:
Make friends with thyself,
Be true to thyself,
And thyself thy good angel shall be.”
The prosperity of a nation depends upon the health and morals of its
citizens, and the health and morals of people depend mainly upon the
food they eat and the houses they live in. The time has come when we
must have a science of domestic economy, and it must be worked out
in the homes of our educated women. A knowledge of the elements of
chemistry and physics must be applied to the daily living.--_Ellen
Richards._
’Tis looking downward makes one dizzy.--_Browning._
Contact with nobler natures arouses the feelings of unused power and
quickens the consciousness of responsibility.--_Canon Westcott._
Diligence is the mother of good luck.--_Benjamin Franklin._
“Diving and finding no pearl in the sea,
Blame not the ocean, the fault is in thee.”
A partnership with God is motherhood,
What strength, what purity, what self-control,
What love, what wisdom should belong to her
Who helps God fashion an immortal soul!
--_Mary Wood Allen._
No one but yourself can make your life beautiful, no one can be pure,
honorable and loving for you.--_J. R. Miller._
Ah, the key of our life, that passes all wards, opens all locks,
Is not I will, but I must, I must, I must,--and I do it.
--_A. H. Clough._
I beg you take courage: the brave soul can mend even
disaster.--_Catherine of Russia._
Opinions are often the very death of love. Love aright and you will
come to think aright; and those who think aright, must think the same.
In the meantime, it matters nothing. The thing that does matter is that
whereto we have attained.--_Geo. Macdonald._
Would the face of nature be so serene and beautiful if man’s destiny
were not equally so?--_Thoreau._
Some men move through life as a band of music moves down the street,
flinging out pleasure on every side through the air, to every one far
and near that can listen.--_Henry Ward Beecher._
Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and an upright man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late.
Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.
--_Beaumont and Fletcher._
The nearer you come into relation with a person, the more necessary do
tact and courtesy become.--_Holmes._
What your heart thinks great is great. The soul’s emphasis is always
right.--_Emerson._
Courage, Sir,
That makes a man or woman look their goodliest.
--_Tennyson._
For a woman to be wise and at the same time womanly, is to wield
a tremendous influence which may be felt for good in the lives of
generations to come.--_David Starr Jordan._
We never know for what God is preparing us in his schools, for what
work on earth, for what work in the hereafter. Our business is to do
our work well in the present place, whatever that may be.--_Lyman
Abbott._
There is no unbelief:
Whoever plants a seed beneath the sod,
And waits to see it push away the clod,
Trusts in God.
--_Bulwer-Lytton._
The world is such stuff as ideas are made of. Thought possesses all
things. But the world is not unreal. It extends infinitely beyond
our private consciousness, because it is the world of a universal
mind.--_Josiah Royce._
In Life’s small things be resolute and great
To keep thy muscles trained; know’st thou when fate
Thy measure takes? or when she’ll say to thee,
“I find thee worthy, do this thing for me!”
--_Emerson._
To hold one’s self in readiness for opportunity, to keep the serene,
confident, hopeful, and joyful energy of mind, is to magnetize it,
and draw privileges and power toward one. The concern is not whether
opportunity will present itself, but as to whether we will be ready for
the opportunity. It comes not to doubt and denial and disbelief. It
comes to sunny expectation, eager purpose, and to noble and generous
aspiration.--_Lilian Whiting._
Let not soft slumber close your eyes,
Before you’ve recollected thrice
The train of action through the day.
Where have my feet chose out their way?
What have I learnt, where’er I’ve been,
From all I’ve heard, from all I’ve seen?
What know I more that’s worth the knowing?
What have I done that’s worth the doing?
--_Isaac Watts._
If we neglect to exercise any talent, power, or quality, it soon falls
away from us.--_Henry Wood._
Every moment of worry weakens the soul for its daily combat.--_Anna
Robertson Brown._
With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat of the long day
And wish ’twere done.
Not till the hour of light return
All we have built do we discern.
--_Matthew Arnold._
What a man is inwardly that to him will the world be outwardly: his
mood affects the very “quality of the day.”--_Bradford Torrey._
This is my youth--its hopes and dreams
How strange and shadowy it all seems,
After these many years!
Turning the pages idly, so,
I look with smiles upon the woe,
Upon the joy, with tears!--_Aldrich._
It is in loving, not in being loved,
The heart is blessed;
It is in giving, not in seeking gifts,
We find our quest.
Whatever be thy longing or thy need,
That do thou give.
So shalt thy soul be fed, and thou, indeed,
Shalt truly live.
--_M. E. Russell._
The world is a looking glass,
Wherein ourselves are shown,--
Kindness for kindness, cheer for cheer,
Coldness for gloom, repulse for fear,--
To every soul its own.
We cannot change the world a whit,
Only ourselves, who look in it.
--_Susan Coolidge._
I would say to all: use your gentlest voice at home. Watch it day by
day, as a pearl of great price; for it will be worth to you in days to
come more than the best pearl hid in the sea. A kind voice is joy, like
a lark’s song, to a hearth at home. It is a light that sings as well as
shines. Train it to sweet tones now, and it will keep in tune through
life.--_Elihu Burritt._
In a world in which so many people wear the same clothes, live in the
same house, eat the same dinner, and say the same things, blessed
are the individuals who are not lost in the mob, who have their own
thoughts, and live their own lives.--_Hamilton Wright Mabie._
There are people who go about the world looking for slights and
they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every
turn.--_Drummond._
He who has a thousand rooms sleeps in but one.--_Japanese Proverb._
Be happy, peaceful and satisfied just as you stand, having sufficient
steadiness and independence to hold your own against the eddies and
rapids about you. Apply practically that which you perceive spiritually.
Accept your position as it is, and make the very best of it till it
passes. Work with it, knowing that Infinite Wisdom is guiding you: and
so cease all anxious thought, and rest.--_God’s Light as It Came to Me._
Aspire, break bounds! I say,
Endeavor to be good, and better still,
And best!
--_Robert Browning._
CHRISTMAS DAY.
Glory be to Thee in the highest heavens, O Thou God of our salvation.
Thou hast proclaimed peace on earth and infinite good will to men.
Unto us has been born a Guide and Deliverer. We hail the morning which
commemorates His birth. We thank Thee that we may unite in the joyful
commemoration which makes us one with millions of Thy children in all
parts of the world.--_Altar at Home._
Lift up yourselves to the great meaning of the day, and dare to think
of your humanity as something so divinely precious that it is worthy of
being an offering to God. Count it a privilege to make that offering
as complete as possible, keeping nothing back, and then go out to the
pleasures and duties of your life, having been born anew into His
divinity, as He was born into our humanity on Christmas Day.--_Phillips
Brooks._
Then wisely weigh
Our sorrow with our comfort.
--_Shakespeare._
There are two times in a man’s life when he should not speculate; when
he can’t afford it, and when he can.--_Mark Twain._
A man may get to his journey’s end by the light of a lantern, but he
is less secure than the man who travels by daylight, and he loses the
landscape.--_Hamilton Wright Mabie._
As our ideal becomes loftier, so does it become more real; and the
nobler our soul, the less does it dread that it meet not a soul of its
stature; for it must have drawn near unto truth, in whose neighborhood
all things must take of its greatness.--_Maurice Materlinck._
The importance of a home it is impossible to exaggerate. What is
liberty without it? What is education in schools without it? The
greatness of no nation can be secure that is not based upon a pure home
life.--_Arnold Toynbee._
Nay, if you come to that, best love of all
Is God’s; then why not have God’s love befall
Myself?
--_Robert Browning._
Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.
--_Santa Teresa’s Book Mark._
When a beautiful soul harmonizes with a beautiful form, and the two are
cast in one mould, that will be the fairest of sights to him who has
the eye to contemplate the vision.--_Plato._
It is only to the finest natures that age gives an added beauty and
distinction; for the most persistent self has then worked its way to
the surface, having modified the expression, and to some extent, the
features, to its own likeness.--_Mathilde Blind._
“God never loved me in so sweet a way before,
’Tis He alone who can such blessings send,
And when His love would new expressions find,
He brought thee to me, and He said,
‘Behold a friend.’”
“We can never see the sun rise by looking into the west.”
Give not thy tongue too great liberty, lest it take thee a prisoner. A
word unspoken is like the sword in the scabbard--thine: if vented, thy
sword is in another’s hand.--_Quarles._
Reputation is in itself only a farthing candle, of wavering and
uncertain flame, and easily blown out; but it is the light by which the
world looks for and finds merit.--_Lowell._
The making of friends, who are real friends, is the best token we have
of a man’s success in life.--_Edward Everett Hale._
“It was only a glad ‘Good-morning’
As she passed along the way,
But it spread the morning’s glory
Over the live long day.”
There is only one way to have good servants; that is, to be worthy
of being well served. Only let it be remembered that “kindness”
means, as with your child, so with your servant, not indulgence, but
care.--_Ruskin._
[Illustration: James Freeman Clarke
_To educate the heart, one must be willing to go out of himself and to
come into loving contact with others._]
“Far out of sight, while sorrows still enfold us,
Lies the fair country where our hearts abide:
And of its bliss is naught more wondrous told us,
Than these few words, ‘I shall be satisfied.’”
“Though there come a million,
Wise Saadi dwells alone.”
But it is a question as to whether Saadi is wise when he prefers to
dwell alone. Living on earth, is it not one’s duty to hear many voices
that ring in its air? Is one’s life for mere acquirement, or to show
results and flower into influence and deed?--_The World Beautiful,
Lilian Whiting._
The mountain top must be reached no matter how many times we fall in
reaching it. The fall is not counted, it does not register; the picking
up and going on counts in life.--_Flora Howard._
Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or opportunity as of
concentration and perseverance.--_Chas. W. Wendte._