April 14

“It is very good for strength
To know that someone needs you to be strong.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

“I know not a more serious thing than the responsibility incurred by all human affection. Only think of this: whoever loves you is growing like you. Neither he nor you can hinder it, save at the cost of alienation. Oh! If you are grateful but for one creature’s love, rise to the height of so pure a blessing, drag them not down by the very embrace with which they cling to you, but through their gentleness secure their consecration.”

“As one lamp lights another, nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.”

LOWELL

“Good, the more

Communicated, more abundant grows.”

MILTON

April 13

“Jesus said: ‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’”

ST. MATT. xxii. 37

“Which of us does not know that the old law, ‘Thou shalt not,’ is weak through the flesh? Which of us does not recognise that the source of man’s sin is the self in him which sets itself up as an end to itself; that so long, therefore, as his eyes are fixed on himself, even though it be on his own virtue, or his own goodness, he is and must be, in the reason of things, fatally weak? And that, therefore, Christ has placed the fulcrum that was to lift up man’s nature, outside himself in the principle of faith, made that fulcrum rest, not on self-virtue, but on love – love to God and love to his fellow-man, - something, as we say, that takes him out of himself? Which of us has not felt a sin that we have gone on carelessly yielding to when only our own character was at stake, become impossible to us when we were made to realise that it involved injury to another, - love overcoming where virtue was weak?”

ELLICE HOPKINS

April 12

“A little thought will show you how vastly your own happiness depends on the way other people bear themselves towards you. The looks and tones at your breakfast table, the conduct of your fellow-workers or employers, the faithful or unreliable men you deal with, what people say to you on the street, the way your cook and housemaid do their work, the letters you get, the friends or foes you meet, - these things make up very much of the pleasure or misery of your day. Turn the idea around, and remember that just so much are you adding to the pleasure or the misery of other people’s days. And this is the half of the matter which you can control. Whether any particular day shall bring to you more of happiness or of suffering is largely beyond your power to determine. Whether each day of your life shall give happiness or suffering rests with yourself.”

G. S. MERRIAM

“We do not always perceive that even the writing of a note of congratulation, the fabrication of something intended as an offering of affection, our necessary intercourse with characters which have no congeniality with our own, or hours apparently trifled away in the domestic circle, may be made by us the performance of a most sacred and blessed work; even the carrying out, after our feeble measure, of the design of God for the increase of happiness.”

From Anna

April 11

“A vexation arises, and our expressions of impatience hinder others from taking it patiently. Disappointment, ailment, or even weather depresses us, and our look or tone of depression hinders others from maintaining a cheerful and thankful spirit. We say an unkind thing, and another is hindered in learning the holy lesson of charity that thinketh no evil. We say a provoking thing, and our sister or brother is hindered in that day’s effort to be meek. How sadly, too, we may hinder without word or act. For wrong feeling is more infectious than wrong doing; especially the various phases of ill-temper, - gloominess, touchiness, discontent, irritability, - do we not know how catching these are?”

F. R. HAVERGAL

“No human being can come into this world without increasing or diminishing the sum total of human happiness, not only of the present, but of every subsequent age of humanity. No one can detach himself from this connection. There is no sequestered spot in the universe, no dark niche along the disc of non-existence, to which he can retreat from his relations to others, where he can withdraw the influence of his existence upon the moral destiny of the world; everywhere his presence or absence will be felt, - everywhere he will have companions who will be better or worse for his influence.”

ELIHU BURRITT

April 10

“What is meant by our neighbour we cannot doubt; it is everyone with whom we are brought into contact. First of all, he is literally our neighbour who is next to us in our own family and household; husband to wife, wife to husband, parent to child, brother to sister, master to servant, servant to master. Then it is he who is close to us in our own neighbourhood, in our own town, in our own parish, in our own street. With these all true charity begins. To love and be kind to theese is the very beginning of all true religion. But, besides these, as our Lord teaches, it is everyone who is thrown across our path by the changes and chances of life, he or she, whosoever it be, whom we have any means of helping, - the unfortunate stranger whom we may meet in travelling, the deserted friend whom no one else cares to look after.”

A. P. STANLEY

“To cultivate kindness is a great part of the business of life.”

JOHNSON

April 9

“Oh, how many times we can most of us remember when we would gladly have made any compromise with our consciences, would gladly have made the most costly sacrifices to God, if He would only have excused us from this duty of loving, of which our nature seemed utterly incapable. It is far easier to feel kindly, to act kindly, towards those with whom we are seldom brought into contact, whose tempers and prejudices do not rub against ours, whose interests do not clash with ours, than to keep up an habitual, steady, self-sacrificing love towards those whose weaknesses and faults are always forcing themselves upon us, and are stirring up our own. A man may pass good muster as a philanthropist who makes but a poor master to his servants, or father to his children.”

F. D. MAURICE

“It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbours as members of the heavenly family, than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany or Madeira. To love the whole Church is one thing; to love – that is, to delight in the graces and veil the defects – of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday, whose peculiar infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.”

E. CHARLES

April 8

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

GEN. iv. 9

“How much may be done, is done, by the brain and heart of one human being in contact with another! We are answerable for incalculable opportunities of good and evil in our daily intercourse with every soul with whom we have to deal; every meeting, every parting, every chance greeting, and every appointed encounter, are occasions open to us for which we are to account. To our children, our servants, our friends, our acquaintances, - to each and all, every day, and all day long, we are distributing that which is best or worst in existence, - influence; with every word, with every look, with every gesture, something is given or withheld of great importance, it may be, to the receiver, inestimable importance to the giver.”

F. A, KEMBLE

“Let us reflect that the highest path is pointed out by the pure ideal of those who look up to us, and who, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high again. Remembering this, let it suggest one generous motive for walking heedfully amid the defilements of earthly ways.”

N. HAWTHORNE

“To love her is a liberal education.”

STEELE

April 7

“There is no sort of wrong deed of which a man can bear the punishment alone; you can’t isolate yourself and say that the evil which is in you shall not spread. Men’s lives are as thoroughly blended with each other as the air they breathe; evil spreads as necessarily as disease.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“A great act does not perish with the life of him who performed it, but lives and grows up into like acts in those who survive the doer thereof and cherish his memory.”

SMILES

“The doors of your soul are open on others, and theirs on you. . . . Simply to be in this world, whatever you are, is to exert an influence, - an influence, too, compared with which mere language and persuasion are feeble.”

HORACE BUSHNELL

April 6

“Throughout all her novels (George Eliot’s; [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans] ) there prevails the idea that the effect of our deeds extends to the remotest generations, a conception which, if vividly realised, ought to induce human beings to keep the strictest watch over their actions, the consequence of such actions being, for good or for evil, everlasting.”

“Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
Our hearts in glad surprise
To higher levels rise;
The tidal wave of deeper souls
Into our inmost being rolls,
And lifts us unawares
Out of all meaner cares.”

LONGFELLOW

“No Life
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby.”

OWEN MEREDITH

April 5

“Arnold certainly did teach us that we could not cut our life into slices, and say, ‘In this slice your actions are indifferent, and you need not trouble yourself about them one way or another; but in this slice mind what you are about, for they are important.’ He taught us that in this wonderful world, no boy or man can tell which of his actions is indifferent and which is not, and that by a thoughtless word or look we may lead astray a brother for whom Christ died. He taught us that life is a whole, made up of actions, and thoughts, and longings, great and small, noble and ignoble; therefore the only true wisdom, for the boy or man, is to bring the whole life into obedience to Him whose world we live in, and Who has purchased us with His blood; and that whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do, we are to do all in His Name and to his glory; in such teaching, faithfully, as it seems to me, following that of Paul of Tarsus, who was in the habit of meaning what he said, and who set up this standard for every boy and man in his time.
“I think it lies with those who say that such teaching will not do for us now, to show why a teacher in the nineteenth century is to teach a lower standard than one in the first.”

TOM HUGHES

“He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much; and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”

S. LUKE xvi. 10

April 4

“That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened. Character teaches over our head.”

EMERSON

No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record, written by fingers ghostly
As a blessing, or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts which follow it, till at length
The wrongs of ages are redressed,
And the justice of God made manifest.”

LONGFELLOW

“For every good deed of ours, the world will be better always. And, perhaps, no day does a man walk down a street cheerfully and like a child of God, without some passengers being brightened by his face, and, unknowingly to himself, catching from its look a something of religion.”

April 3

“The inner life reveals itself not in detail, but in its spirit. . . . What is in us is found out, and it is this which most tells for good or eveil on those who know us. We are. For the most part, wholly unconscious of it, but, for that very reason, how watchful we should be to make our inner life holy, harmless, undefiled, the friend of justice, pity and peace, aspiring, true and free, so that these things may stream from us unconsciously. For when we look it in the face, it is an awful thought that we cannot prevent our real character from doing its work among men, that what we are, not what we seem, is that which is really influencing others.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. And these others have also their sphere of influence. So that a single act of mine may spread in widening circles through a nation or humanity.”

W. E. CHANNING

“Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,
Not light them for ourselves.”

SHAKESPEARE

April 2

“We are too much wedded to our own plans, whether they be plans for a life, or plans for a day or an hour; too little loyal at heart to the will of God. And hence arises great uneasiness and discomposure of mind, which, from whatever source it arises, cannot fail to be prejudicial and a hindrance to the spiritual life. We have set apart, it may be, such an hour of the day for the purpose of devotional study; but just as we are about to spend it so, some call of necessity or charity arises in another direction. In either case, whether it be of necessity or charity, it is God’s call; and not our duty only, but our happiness lies in responding to it cheerfully and lovingly. We must be ready to go out of our way, or, in other words, to have our little plans so modified and corrected as to be brought into the scheme of His great and all-wise plan. It is every way better to do what God intends for us, than what we intend for ourselves.”

GOULBURN

“Every man and every woman, in their self-training and self-culture, should study the art of giving up with a good grace. The charm of polite society is formed by that sort of freedom and facility in all the members of a circle which makes each one pliable to the influences of the others, and sympathetic to slide into the moods and tastes of others without a jar.”

HARRIET B. STOWE

April 1

“We cannot always be doing a great work, but we can always be doing something that belongs to our condition. To be silent, to suffer, to pray when we cannot act, is acceptable to God. A disappointment, a contradiction, a harsh word, an annoyance, a wrong received and endured as in His Presence, is worth more than a long prayer; and we do not lose time if we bear its loss with gentleness and patience, provided the loss was inevitable, and was not caused by our own fault.”

FÉNÉLON

“God makes every common thing serve, if thou wilt, to enlarge that capacity of bliss in His love. Not a prayer, not an act of faithfulness in your calling, not a self-denying or kind word or deed, done out of love for Himself; not a weariness or painfulness endured patiently; not a duty performed; not a temptation resisted; but it enlarges the whole soul for the endless capacity of the love of God.”

E. B. PUSEY

March 31

“Everything that raises our personal standard of thought and purpose, everything that brings us nearer to the stature of the completed one in Christ, increases our power for good, and makes us more and more a power in the world about us. When we crave the privilege of doing for others, it is well for us to realise the privilege of being for others.”

“We can never really benefit anybody by doing wrong on his behalf, and the truest and surest way in which we can serve our fellow-men is, not so much to do anything for them, but to be the very truest, purest, noblest beings we know how.”

Miss COBBE

“As there can be no goodness of life without goodness of principle, so neither can there be any goodness of principle, that deserves the name, without its being shown in goodness of life.”

DR ARNOLD

March 30

“Certainly, in our own little sphere, it is not the most active people to whom we owe the most. Among the common people whom we know, it is not necessarily those who are busiest, not those who, meteor-like, are ever on the rush after some visible charge and work. It is the lives, like the stars, which simply pour down on us the calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to which we look, and out of which we gather the deepest calm and courage. It seems to me that there is reassurance here for many of us who seem to have no chance for active usefulness. We can do nothing for our fellow-men. But still it is good to know that we can be something for them; to know (and this we may know surely) that no man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“Always the important question is, and ultimately we must realise that it is, not what we do or what we know, but what we are. Blessed, most blessed they who waken wide-eyed and early to the fact.”

KNOX LITTLE

March 29

“Our work must be what we ourselves are; and in ministering to others we realise more and more the solemn obligation which rests upon us – for their sakes, if not for our own – to sanctify ourselves.”

From Our Work

“Know, then, that to be is infinitely higher than to do; that to be thoroughly true is a higher service, and a more lasting service, than to spread the truth; that to be pure in heart brings you nearer to God, does more for your fellow-men, bears a more excellent fruit, than a life spent in helping others to be pure; that to be just is more excellent than to aid justice; that to be a Christian makes more Christians than to teach the Gospel.

Bishop TEMPLE

“To try too hard to make people good is one way to make them worse; the only way to make them good is to be good.”

G. MACDONALD

March 28

“We never have more than we can bear. The present hour we are always able to endure. As one day, so is our strength. If the trials of many years were gathered into one, they would overwhelm us; therefore, in pity to our little strength, He sends first one, then another, then removes both and lays on a third heavier, perhaps, than either, but all is so wisely measured to our strength that the bruised reed is never broken. We do not enough look at our trials in this continuous and successive view. Each one is sent to teach us something, and, altogether, they have a lesson which is beyond the power of any to teach alone.”

H. E. MANNING

“We are never without help. We have no right to say of any good work, it is too hard for me to do; or of any sorrow, it is too hard for me to bear; or of any sinful habit, it is too hard for me to overcome.”

E. CHARLES

March 27

“The souls that would really be richer in duty in some new position are precisely those who borrow no excuses from the old one; who even esteem it full of privileges, plenteous in occasions of good, frequent in divine appeals, which they chide their graceless and unloving temper for not heeding more. Wretched and barren is the discontent that quarrels with its tools instead of with its skill; and, by criticising Providence, manages to keep up complacency with self. How gentle should we be, if we were not provoked; how pious, if we were not busy; the sick would be patient, only he is not in health; the obscure would do great things, only he is not conspicuous!”

J. MARTINEAU

“I had hoped, Madame, to find you here, and was rejoicing in that hope; but God has sent you elsewhere. The best place is wherever He puts us, and any other would be undesirable, all the worse because it would please our fancy, and would be of our own choice.”

FÉNÉLON

March 26

“Every day let us renew the consecration to God’s service; every day let us, in His strength, pledge ourselves afresh to do His will; even in the veriest trifle, and to turn aside from anything that may displease Him. . . . He does not bid us bear the burdens of to-morrow, next week, or next year. Every day we are to come to Him in simple obedience and faith, asking help to keep us and aid us through that day’s work; and to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, through years of long to-morrows it will be but the same thing to do; leaving the future always in God’s hands, sure that He can care for it better than we. Blessed trust! That can thus confidingly say, ‘This hour is mine with its present duty; the next is God’s and when it comes His presence will come with it.’”

“Lord, I my vows to Thee renew;
Scatter my sins as morning dew;
Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with Thyself my spirit fill.

“Direct, control, suggest this day
All I design, or do, or say;
That all my powers with all their might,
In Thy sole glory may unite.”

Bishop KEN

March 25

March 25

“If we measure our work for God by our own ability to do it, we must not be surprised if God takes us at our word, and the results are small; but if we are trustful enough to believe that it is God, and not we, by whom the work is done, we shall surely find the blessing to be according to His power, and out of all proportion to our strength.”

BRAITHWAITE

“Every man can help on the world’s work more than he knows of. What we want is the single eye, that we may see what our work is, the humility to accept it, however lowly, the faith to do it for God, the perseverance to go on till death.”

NORMAN MCLEOD

“Each man should live and work as if no one but himself could do the special work which lies to his hand, and in the full realisation that he has only a short time in which to do it.”

March 24

“His friends sometimes remonstrated at the way in which he allowed people to consume his precious time about comparative trifles: ‘But they are important to those whom they concern,’ he would reply, ‘ and the persons in question want help as much as others. Such work is quite sufficient for me. I care not how I am employed so long as I am at work for God’s service.”

From Life of S. Francis de Sales

“Very slight deeds and words may have a sacramental efficacy, if we can cast our self-love behind us in order to do and say them.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“Nothing is too little to be ordered by our Father; nothing too little in which to see His Hand; nothing which touches our souls, too little to accept from Him; nothing too little to be done to Him.”

E. B. PUSEY

March 23

“Let no one say that he must be better before he can take a part, even a quiet and unobserved part, in making others better. On the contrary, there is no duty which may not be made the gate of the road to Christ. Begin here and you will find that this way leads, where all such ways lead, to your Master’s Presence. Do not fear that you are unworthy to serve Him, for serving Him in any way is the sure means to make you more worthy.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“You will never lead souls heavenward unless climbing yourself. You need not be very far up, but you must be climbing.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

“The best men doing their best
Know peradventure least of what they do:
Men usefullest in the world are simply used;
The nail that holds the wood must pierce it first,
And He alone Who wields the hammer sees
The work advanced by the earliest blow. Take heart.”

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

March 22

“The service of Christ needs heroes and heroism as much as the work of the world. Fill your soul by all means with large-hearted generosity which can find brotherhood with all mankind, with deep convictions which cannot be shaken by the opposition of the world, with strong will and fixed purpose that shall never fail in steadfast perseverance. And then add to this the heroism of utter self-sacrifice which knows no other aim than to consecrate all to the Master who gives it, loyally laying at His Feet the tribute of loving self-devoted obedience in answer to His ever-loving and ever-upholding guidance.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“An ignorance of means may minister to greatness, but an ignorance of aims makes it impossible to be great at all.”

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

“Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Do good for something while you live and it is in your power.”

MARCUS AURELIUS

March 21

“I never saw a more perfect instance of the spirit of power and of love, and of a sound mind; intense love almost to the annihilation of selfishness – a daily martyrdom for twenty years, during which she adhered to her early-formed resolution of never talking about herself; thoughtful about the very pins and ribands of my wife’s dress, about the making of a doll’s cap for a child, - but of herself, save only as regarded her ripening in all goodness, wholly thoughtless, enjoying everything lovely, graceful, beautiful, high-minded, whether in God’s work or man’s, with the keenest relish; inheriting the earth to the very fulness of the promise, though never leaving her crib, nor changing her posture; and preserved through the very valley of the shadow of death from all fear or impatience, or from every cloud of impaired vision, which might mar the beauty of Christ’s spirit’s glorious work.”

Letter from Dr Arnold on the death of his Sister

March 20

“As one looks around upon the community to-day, how clear the problem of hundreds of unhappy lives appears. Do we not all know men for whom it is just as clear as daylight that that is what they need, the sacrifice of themselves for other people? Rich men who, with all their wealth, are weary and wretched; learned men whose learning only makes them querulous and jealous; believing men whose faith is always souring into bigotry and envy, - every man knows what these men need; just something which shall make them let themselves go out into the open ocean of a complete self-sacrifice. They are rubbing, and fretting and chafing themselves against the wooden wharves of their own interests to which they are tied. Some time or other a great, slow, quiet tide, or a great, strong, furious storm, must come and break every rope that binds them, and carry them clear out to sea; and then they will for the first time know the true, manly joy for which a man was made, as a ship for the first time knows the full joy for which a ship was made, when she trusts herself to the open sea and, with the wharf left far behind, feels the winds over her and the waters under her, and recognises her true life. Only, the trust to the great ocean must be complete. No trial trip will do. No ship can tempt the sea and learn its glory, so long as she goes moored by any rope, however long, by which she means to be drawn back again if the sea is too rough. The soul that trifles and toys with self-sacrifice never can get its true joy and power. Only the soul that with an overwhelming impulse and a perfect trust gives itself up for ever to the life of other men, finds the delight and peace which such complete self-surrender has to give.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

March 19

“The more irksome any habit is in its formation, the more pleasantly and satisfactorily it sticks to you when formed.”

TOM HUGHES

“Habit is a cable. We weave a thread of it each day, and it becomes so strong we cannot break it.”

“Contend manfully; one habit overcometh another.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit, and you reap a character;
Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”

March 18

“Receive every reward and outward trouble, every disappointment, pain, uneasiness, temptation, darkness and desolation, with both thy hands, as a true opportunity and blessed occasion of dying to self, and entering into a fuller fellowship with thy self-denying, suffering Saviour. Look at no inward or outward trouble in any other view; reject every other thought about it; and then every kind of trial and distress will become the blessed day of thy prosperity. That state is best which exerciseth the highest faith in, and fullest resignation to, God.”

WILLIAM LAW

“If anyone wuld tell you the shortest, surest way to all happiness and perfection, he must tell you to make it a rule to yourself to thank and praise God for everything that happens to you. For it is certain that whatever seeming calamity happens to you, if you thank and praise God for it, you turn it into a blessing. Could you, therefore, work miracles, you could not do more for yourself than by this thankful spirit; for it heals with a word spoken, and turns all that it touches into happiness.”

WILLIAM LAW

March 17

“He was a sworn foe to all complaining and murmurs. Every complaining spirit, he said, implied some dissatisfaction with God’s decrees, and a good deal of self-love.”

“Goodness, he taught, should always be attractive, ready to adapt itself to the wills and wishes of others; cheerful, bright, well-balanced, free from all singularity and self-consciousness.”

From Life of S. Francis de Sales

“If we could do our work in a brighter, less anxious spirit, it would wear us less. It is worry, not work, that wears.”

GOULBURN

March 16

“If we wished to gain contentment, we might try such rules as these: -

1. Allow thyself to complain of nothing, not even of the weather.
2. Never picture thyself to thyself under any circumstances in which thou art not.
3. Never compare thine own lot with that of another.
4. Never allow thyself to dwell on the wish that this or that had been, or were, otherwise than it was, or is. God Almighty loves thee better and more wisely than thou dost thyself.
5. Never dwell on the morrow. Remember that it is God’s, not thine. The heaviest part of sorrow often is to look forward to it. ‘The Lord will provide.’”

E. B. PUSEY

March 15

“In this world, where there is so much sorrow, and so much unnecessary grief, of fret and worry, how grateful ought we to be that God sends along, here and there, a natural heart-singer, who, by his very carriage and spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and helps his fellows. God bless the good-natured, for they bless everybody else.”

“Give us, oh, give us the man who sings at his work. Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in sullen silence. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer.”

CARLYLE

“True joy is a serene and sober motion, and they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing. The seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a brave mind.”

SENECA

March 14

“Life certainly may be, and ought to be, bright, interesting and happy; and, according to the Italian proverb, ‘If all cannot live on the piazza, everyone may yet feel the sun.’ If we do our best; if we do not magnify trifling troubles; if we resolutely look, I do not say at the bright side of things, but at things as they really are; if we avail ourselves of the manifold blessings which surround us, we cannot but feel how thankful we ought to be for the ‘scared trusts of health, strength and time,’ for the glorious inheritance of life. . . . Few of us, indeed, realise the wonderful privilege of living; the blessings we inherit; the glories and beauties of the universe, which is our own if we choose to have it so; the extent to which we can make ourselves what we wish to be; or the power we possess of securing peace, of triumphing over pain and sorrow.”

Sir JOHN LUBBOCK

“There are nettles everywhere,
But smooth green grasses are more common still;
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud.”

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

March 13

“Think a little less of your sorrows and more of your joys, for the joys will make you grateful, and gratitude is in itself one of the most beautiful pleasures of the soul. And being grateful, you can take this blessing (‘The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all’) to yourself, and make it yours, for part of the grace of the Lord Jesus is to have a grateful heart.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them ‘curses’”.

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“The shadows God sends are few, those we make for ourselves are many.”

“In all things throughout the world the men who look for the crooked will see the crooked, and the men who look for the straight will see the straight.”

RUSKIN

March 12

“The way some persons lay on their life layer after layer of blackness is pitiable; they nurse their grief for the wrongs of men till they have no pleasure but in brooding over darkness. Instead of that they ought to pray - ‘Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us.’ The moment we pray that prayer with full desire and yearning, we see that light, and beautiful it is! It wakens all life, all energy, every work and hope and thought. How swiftly when we see it we rise from the dead!”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“Open our eyes, thou Sun of life and gladness,
That we may see that glorious world of thine!
It shines for us in vain, while drooping sadness
Enfolds us here like mist; come, Power benign,
Touch our chilled hearts with vernal smile,
Our wintry course do Thou beguile,
Nor by the wayside ruins let us mourn,
Who have th’ eternal towers for our appointed bourne.”

KEBLE

March 11

“We overstate the ills of life, and take
Imagination (given us to bring down
The choirs of singing angels overshone
By God’s clear glory) down our earth to rake
The dismal snows instead, flake following flake,
To cover all the corn; we walk upon
The shadows of hills across a level thrown,
And pant like climbers; near the alder brake
We sigh so loud, the nightingale within
Refuses to sing loud, as else she would.
O brothers, let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of GRIEF! – holy herein,
That by the grief of ONE came all our good.”

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

“The habit of viewing things cheerfully, and of thinking about life hopefully, may be made to grow up in us like any other habit.”

SMILES

March 10

“Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness.”

CARLYLE

“Happiness, and brightness in God’s service, is a great gift, and one that wins others to Him. We are told to ‘make melody in our hearts to the Lord’, and how can we do this unless we are bright and cheerful, and serve Him gladly? . . . you must live the life, not merely do the work. Live a quiet peaceful life alone with God, stayed on Him, and the work will come out of it. You will then do it simply, unconsciously. Try to keep yourself perfectly free and ready for Him to use you.”

H. MONSELL

“Every now and then there are flashes of light upon the gospel-page which let us see what a bright, sunny, sympathetic life the Saviour led, how perfectly free from harshness and asceticism was that character which, at the same time, carried a sweet and gentle seriousness and a robust earnestness with it wherever it went.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

March 9

“This joy in obeying, this happiness in the sense of Christ’s help, this cheerfulness in the sight of God and man, is one of the great missionary powers on earth, second only to the power of love. And if we would ask how, without any ostentation, we can best obey our Lord’s command to ‘let our light so shine before men that they shall glorify our Father in heaven’; how we can combine such a command with the direction ‘not to let our left hand know what our right hand doeth’; the answer is, let all men read in your face the happiness of a Christian that loves his Master. Let them see in your unvarying cheerfulness the assurance of your faith, and the certainty of your hope, and the blessedness of your love.”

Bishop TEMPLE

“ . . . . So others shall
Take patience, labour, to thy heart and hand
From thy hand and heart, and thy brave cheer
And God’s grace fructify through thee to all.
The least flower with a brimming cup may stand
And share its dewdrop with another near.”

ELIZABETH B. BROWNING

March 8

“Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach. I once gave a lady two and twenty receipts against melancholy; one was a bright fire; another, to remember all the pleasant things said to her; another, to keep a box of sugar-plums on the chimney-piece, and a kettle simmering on the hob. I thought this mere trifling at the moment, but have in after life discovered how true it is that these little pleasures often banish melancholy better than higher and more exalted objects; and that no means ought to be thought too trifling which can oppose it, either in ourselves or in others.”

SIDNEY SMITH

“We should not sadden the harmless mirth of others by suffering our own melancholy to be seen; and this species of exertion is like virtue, its own reward; for the good spirits which are at first simulated become at length real.”

THOMAS SCOTT

March 7

“Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of God.”

S. MATT. v. 9

“First, keep thyself in peace, and then shalt thou be able to make peace among others.”

“A peaceable man doth more good than he that is well learned.”

“A passionate man draweth even good into evil, and easily believeth the worst.”

“A good and peaceable man turneth all things to good.”

“He that is in peace is not suspicious of any. But he that is discontented and troubled is tossed with divers suspicions; he is neither quiet himself, nor suffereth others to be quiet.”

“If thou wilt thyself be borne with, bear also with another.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace.”

ROMANS xiv. 19

March 6

“We ask for peace, oh Lord!
Thy children ask thy peace;
Not what the world calls rest,
That toil and care should cease;
That through bright sunny hours
Calm life should fleet away,
And tranquil night should fade
In smiling day; -
It is not for such peace that we would pray.

“We ask for peace, oh Lord!
Yet not to stand secure,
Girt round with iron pride,
Contented to endure:
Crushing the gentle strings
That human hearts should know,
Untouched by others’ joy
Or others’ woe; -
Thou, oh dear Lord, wilt never teach us so.

“We ask thy peace, oh Lord!
Through storm, and fear, and strife,
To light and guide us on
Through a long struggling life;
While no success or gain
Shall cheer the desperate fight,
Or nerve what the world calls
Our wasted might;
Yet pressing through the darkness to the light.”

A. A. PROCTER

March 5

“It is the oneness of the soul’s life with God’s life that at once makes us try to be like Him, and brings forth our unlikeness to Him. It is the source at once of aspiration and humility. The more aspiration the more humility. Humility comes by aspiration. If, in all Christian history, it has been the souls which most looked up that were the humblest souls; if to-day the rescue of a soul from foolish pride must be not by a depreciation of present attainment, but by opening more and more the vastness of the future possibility; if the Christian man keeps his soul full of the sense of littleness, even in all his hardest work for Christ, not by denying his own stature, but by standing up at his whole height, and then looking up in love and awe and seeing God tower into infinitude above him – certainly all this stamps the morality which is wrought out within the idea of Jesus with this singular excellence, that it has solved the problem of faithfulness and pride, and made possible humility by aspiration.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”

PHIL. iv. 13

March 4

“In the Christian graces, humility stands highest of all, in the form of the Madonna; and in life this is the secret of the wise.”

EMERSON

“Practice humility. . . . Be content to be the last of all and the least of all. Do not be ill-tempered with yourself, and even with God, because you seem to be the last and least of the saints. Never give way to that proud unbelief which sounds like humility: ‘I shall never be any better!’ . . . Think of God. . . . not of self. . . . If we find that we have to take the lowest place, let us take it quietly and thank God that it is no worse.”

Bishop WILKINSON

“He that is down need fear no fall,
He that is low, no pride;
He that is humble ever shall
Have God to be his guide.”

BUNYAN

March 3

“We have need of patience with ourselves and with others; with those below, and those above us, and with our own equals; with those who love us and those who love us not; for the greatest things and for the least; against sudden inroads of trouble, and under our daily burdens; disappointments as to the weather, or the breaking of the heart; in the weariness of the body, or the wearing of the soul; in our own failure of duty, or others’ failure toward us; in every-day wants, or in the aching of sickness or the decay of age; in disappointment, bereavement, losses, injuries, reproaches; in heaviness of the heart; or its sickness amid delayed hopes. In all these things, from childhood’s little troubles to the martyr’s sufferings, patience is the grace of God, whereby we endure evil for the love of God.”

E. B. PUSEY

“The exercise of patience involves a continual practice of the presence of God; for we may be come upon at any moment for an almost heroic display of good temper, and it is a short road to unselfishness, for nothing is left to self; all that seems to belong most intimately to self, to be self’s private property, such as time, home, and rest, are invaded by these continual trials of patience. The family is full of such opportunities.”

F. W. FABER

March 2

“’I often think,’ she said, ‘that it is not in our Lord’s Cross and Passion that His patience comes most home to us. To be patient before an unjust judge or brutal soldiers might be almost a part of self-respect; but patience with the daily disappointments of a life “too good for this world,” as people say, patience with the follies, the unworthiness, the ingratitude of those one loves – these things are our daily example. For wounds in the house of our enemies pride may be prepared; wounds in the house of our friends take human nature by surprise, and God only can teach us to bear them. And with all reverence I think that we may say that ours have an element of difficulty in which His were wanting. They are mixed with blame on our own parts.’”

Mrs EWING

“It is no great matter to associate with the good and gentle; for this is naturally pleasing to all, and every one willingly enjoyeth peace, and loveth those best that agree with him.
“But to be able to live peaceably with hard and perverse persons, or with the disorderly, or with such as go contrary to us, is a most commendable and manly thing.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

March 1

“Impatience and impetuosity of will were corrected, as indeed every other fault of character can alone be corrected, by the constant exercise of the virtues which balanced and controlled them, hope, patience, faith, and the renunciation of self. Patience she calls the touchstone of all the virtues.”

From Catherine of Siena

“There are two sorts of patience; the one by which we bear up in adversity, which is fine and beautiful; but the other, that by which we understand the commission of evil, is better.”

“To understand everything would be to pardon everything.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“On the whole it is patience which makes the final difference between those who succeed or fail, in all things. All the greatest people have it in an infinite degree, and among the less, the patient weak ones always conquer the strong.”

RUSKIN

February 28

“Do not say, ‘I cannot endure to suffer these things at the hands of such an one, nor ought I to endure things of this sort; for he hath done me great wrong, and reproacheth me with things which I never thought of; but of another I will willingly suffer, that is, if they are things which I shall see I ought to suffer.’
“Such a thought is foolish; it considereth not the virtue of patience nor by whom it will be to be crowned; but rather, weigheth too exactly the persons, and the injuries offered to itself.
“He is not truly patient, who is willing to suffer only so much as he thinks good, and from whom he pleases.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“If thou wilt thyself be borne with, bear also with another.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“Endeavour to be patient in bearing with the defects and infirmities of others, of what sort they may be; for that thyself also hast many failings which must be borne by others.
“If thou can’st not make thyself such an one as thou wouldest, how can thou expect to have another in all things to thy liking?
“We would willingly have others perfect, and yet we amend not our own faults.
“We will have others severely corrected, and will not be corrected ourselves.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

February 27

“While you have any love in you exercise it, make the most of it, feed it by the sight of good things and by imitation of good deeds. Ask of God to enter into your hearts by that open door. Love your husband, your wife, your children, your servants, your master, your brothers and sisters, your neighbours and tradesmen as well as your friends, and consider yourself as sent into the world for the one great purpose of showing kindness and being good to others. Seek in this way to find out what God is. Then God will be found in you and He will show you that He Himself is love; that your love is the reflection of His own; that the less selfish and more loving you are, the more you shall know of Him, and the nearer you shall be drawn to Him.”

VOYSEY

“I do not mean by that . . . I hope we may be less busy, for I wish to be far more so than I have ever been, only with even, ordinary business and calm thoughts. The more we can live out of ourselves and labour for others, the more, I am sure, we shall have of them. Nothing really tires me but self and selfish thoughts.”

F. D. MAURICE

February 26

“Kind words are the music of the world. They have a power which seems to be beyond natural causes.”

F. W. FABER

“If you would fall into any extreme, let it be on the side of gentleness. The human mind is so constructed that it resists vigour and yields to softness.”

ST. FRANCIS DE SALES

“Kind encouragement is good, cutteth the root of evil.”

Proverbial Philosophy

“There is power in the direct glance of a sincere and loving human soul, which will do more to dissipate prejudice and kindle charity than the most elaborate arguments.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

February 25

“What a great deal of time and ease that man gains who lets his neighbour’s words, thoughts and behaviour alone, confines his inspections to himself, and takes care that his own actions are honest and righteous.”

MARCUS AURELIUS

“We are all inclined to judge of others as we find them. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions. We find it difficult to think well of those by whom we are thwarted or depressed, and we are ready to admit every excuse for the vices of those who are useful or agreeable to us.”

MACAULAY

“Observation without sympathy is simple torture.”

E. B. BROWNING [Elizabeth Barrett Browning]

“A quick perception of the feelings of others, and a gracious tenderness for such feelings, even if mistaken, are gifts to be coveted and cherished.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

February 24

“Our private severity against sinners should be ever checked by the remembrance of our own sin.”

Dr. ARNOLD

“Our fallibility and the shortness of our knowledge should make us peaceable and gentle; because I may be mistaken, I must not be dogmatical and confident, peremptory and imperious. I will not break the certain rules of charity for a doubtful doctrine, nor for an uncertain truth.”

Dr WHICHCOTE

“The more we know of ourselves the more easy we shall be in our intercourse with others, and they with us; for mutual allowances will be made, and mutual credit given.”

W. DANBY

February 23

“Think kindly of the erring!
Ye know not of the power
With which the dark temptation came
In some unguarded hour;
Ye may not know how earnestly
They struggled, or how well,
Until the hour of weakness came,
And sadly then they fell.

“Think kindly of the erring!
Oh! Do not thou forget
However darkly stained by sin,
He is thy brother yet.
Heir of the self-same heritage,
Child of the self-same God,
He has but stumbled in the path
Thou hast in weakness trod.

“Speak gently to the erring!
For is it not enough
That happiness and peace are gone
Without the censure rough?
It sure must be a weary lot
The sin-crushed soul to bear,
And they who have a happier lot
Their chiding well may spare.

“Speak Gently to the erring!
And thou may’st lead them back,
With holy words and tones of love
From misery’s thorny track.
Forget not thou hast often sinned,
And sinning yet may be.
Deal gently with the erring one,
As He has dealt with thee.”

BATES

February 22

“’Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times?’
“Jesus saith unto him, ‘I say not unto thee, until seven times; but until seventy times seven.’”

S. MATT. xviii. 21

“Is it fair always to forget all the good or kindness shown to us by those with whom we live, for the sake of one little pain they may have caused us, and which, most likely, was quite unintentional on their part?”

From Gold Dust

“For every vexation caused by people, the great balm is love – charity.”

“Our own imperfection makes us hasty to rebuke the imperfect; and it is a very subtle and all-permeating self-love which cannot forgive the self-love of others. The stronger it is, the more critical will the censor be; there is nothing so irritating to a proud self-willed mind as the self-will of a neighbour; and another man’s pasion seems intolerably ridiculous, unbearable to a man who is given up to his own, But he who is full of the Love of God, on the contrary, is full of forbearance, consideration, and indulgence.”

FÉNÉLON

February 21

“When once the moment and the expression of righteous indignation was over, he had a wonderful power of putting attacks, and the individuals who made them, out of his mind, and going on his way. ‘Life is too hard work in itself,’ he would say, ‘to let one stop to hate and suspect people.”

From Life of Charles Kingsley

“Never let your thoughts dwell on a matter in which another has made you sore. If you do, a hundred aggravating circumstances will spring up in your mind, which will make the slightest offence swell up to the most formidable dimensions. Try to realise God’s Presence; the realising it ever so little has a wonderfully soothing and calming influence. ‘My Presence shall go with thee, and I will give thee rest.’”

GOULBURN

“When thou art annoyed and offended by others, do not let thy mind dwell upon them, or on such thoughts as these: ‘That they ought not so to have treated thee,’ ‘Who are they, or who do they think themselves to be?’ and the like; for all this is fuel and a kindling of anger, wrath and hatred.”

SCUPOLI

February 20

“True forgiveness involves two things, a perfect knowledge of the offence and a perfect restoration of love.”

Bishop WESTCOTT

“Does any man wound thee? Not only forgive, but work into thy thought intelligence of the kind of pain that thou mayest never inflict it on another spirit.”

“The aim of our life is so to keep up the sense of His forgiveness and love in our minds, that they shall be a continual terror and shame to us in all our want of forgiveness and love.”

F. D. MAURICE

“Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

S. MATT. vi. 12

February 19

“It is wise not to be very impatient to justify oneself; and, altogether, too much stress should not be laid upon calumny by the calumniated, else their serious work will be for ever interrupted; and they should remember that it is not so much their business to explain to others all they do, as to be sure that it will bear explanation and satisfy themselves.”

A. HELPS

“Certainly in taking revenge a man is but even with his enemy, but in passing it over he is superior, for it is a prince’s part to pardon. And solomon, I am sure, says, ‘It is the glory of a man to pass by the offence.’ That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come; therefore they do but trifle with themselves that labour in past matters.”

BACON

“The best way of revenge is not to imitate the injury.”

MARCUS AURELIUS

February 18

“Dislike – misunderstanding – opposition – likely enough, and if not self-caused, wholesome enough, yet very hard to bear. When these things come we must examine our conscience, and see whether there may not be in ourselves some self-will or pride, or narrowness, or over-sensitiveness, or love of self-assertion, which may account for what we are suffering. And then if our conscience is clear, we can leave it to God. It will pass. And we will pray that it pass not without teaching us its lessons of humility and patience and forbearance.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

“If you would not be known to do a thing – never do it.”

EMERSON

“If thou consider what thou art in thyself, thou wilt not care what men say of thee.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“What can harm us if we are true to ourselves and do what we think is right?”

BLACK

February 17

“It is an immense blessing to be perfectly callous to ridicule; or, which comes to the same thing, to be conscious thoroughly that what we have in us of noble and delicate is not ridiculous to any but fools, and that, if fools will laugh, wise men will do well to let them.”

Dr. ARNOLD

“When the world blames and slanders us, our business is not to be vexed at it, but rather to consider whether there is any foundation for it, any truth at bottom, though there be exaggeration and mistake. I conceive a person may always gain good to his own soul, gain instruction and useful suggestion, by the mistakes of the world about him.”

J. H. NEWMAN

“Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false they cannot harm you, unless you are wanting in character; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble.”

February 16

“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your won; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

EMERSON

“Do not be the slave of first impressions.”

“True self-consciousness holds to its course. Not recklessly and ruthlessly, not with a contempt for the feelings and judgments of his fellow creatures, but with a serene trust in the justification ensured to every honest endeavour.”

A. N. WARD

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule . . . is harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it.”

EMERSON

February 15

“Perfect valour is to do without witnesses what one would do before the world.”

ROCHEFOUCALD

“The noblest deeds of heroism are done within four walls, not before the public gaze.”

J. P. F. RICHTER

“Real greatness has nothing to do with a man’s sphere. It does not lie in the magnitude of his outward agency, in the extent of the effects he produces. The greatest men may do comparatively little abroad. Perhaps the greatest in our city at the moment are buried in obscurity. Grandeur of character lies wholly in force of soul, that is, in the force of thought, moral principle, and love, and this may be found in the humblest conditions of life.”

CHANNING

“I see the vision of a poor weak soul striving after good. It was not cut short; and, in the end, it learnt, through tears and much pain, that holiness is an infinite compassion for others; that greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them; that happiness is a great love and much serving.”

RALPH IRON

February 14

“We alter day by day:
Each little moment as life’s current rolls,
Stamps some faint impress on our yielding souls;
We may not rest or stay,
Drifting on tides unseen to one dread goal and sure.”

LEWIS MORRIS

“Probably there is no such thing as an indifferent moment – a moment in which our characters are not being secretly shaped by the bias of our will, either for good or evil.”

GOULBURN

“By repeated choices we form our character.”

February 13

“A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. . . . The life is more than the meat.”

LUKE xii. 15

“We have not our choice to be rich or poor, to be in health or in sickness, but we have our choice to be worthy or worthless.”

“Keep innocence, be all a true man ought;
Let neither pleasure tempt, nor pain appal;
Who hath this hath all things, - having naught,
Who hath it not, hath nothing, having all.”

LEWIS MORRIS

“Character is property. It is the noblest of possessions.”

SMILES

“Every human being is intended to have a character of his own, to be what no other is, to do what no other can do.”

CHANNING

February 12

“Living as those who have a charge from Christ will be to us a constant safeguard. Sorrow, instead of embittering our hearts, will open in them deeper and sweeter fountains; success will make them watchful; Failure, humble; nay, the commonest things will be ministers of good; in them there will be a discipline for our tempers; and from their use we shall obtain the power of applying high principles to little things.”

Bishop WILBERFORCE

“It is our chief difficulty about the formation of Christian character, that we do not give enough time to it. We do not make it sufficiently one continual work through our whole life. . . . We never outgrow the need of watchfulness till we come to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.”

“Tito was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls, that we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character.”

GEORGE ELIOT

February 11

“Some men are content not to do mean actions. I want to become incapable of a mean thought or feeling.”

G. MACDONALD

“No indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.”

G. MACDONALD

“To give unbridled bent to impulse, spiritual or physical, is to lose, or lower, or destroy the tone of character.”

KNOX LITTLE

“The gentleness of perfect freedom can only be won by the discipline of self-restraint.”

BARRETT

February 10

“Hardness of character is a want of minute attention to the feelings of others. It does not proceed from malignity or a carelessness of inflicting pain, but from a want of delicate perception of those little things by which pleasure is conferred or pain excited.”

SIDNEY SMITH

“His gentleness was inconceivable to those who had not seen it. One might almost say that he was meekness itself rather than a man gifted with that grace, and this gave him such ascendancy over other men that everyone yielded to him, while he, on his part, sought to give up everything to others, desiring nothing, save to see them serving God and saving their souls.”

From The Life of St. Francis de Sales

“However just her indignation might be, her ideal was not to claim justice, but to give tenderness.”

From Ethics of George Eliot

February 9

“Nobleness of character is nothing but steady love of good, and steady scorn of evil.”

FROUDE

“The foundation of every noble character is absolute sincerity.”

“What is character? Character is that actual, mental, moral, spiritual condition reached at any given moment through the influence of all the many impulses, external and internal, of life; character, that is, the set or bent of the soul; the resultant in the individual personal being, of all the converging forces which it exerts or to which it submits. . . . Try to live in view of the truth that each act is contributing to that final fixed result.”

February 8

“All are architects of Fate,
Working in these walls of Time;
Some with massive deeds and great,
Some with ornaments of rhyme.

For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Truly shape and fashion these;
Leave no yawning gaps between;
Think not, because no man sees,
Such things will remain unseen.

In the elder days of art,
Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part;
For the gods see everywhere.

Let us do our work as well,
Both the unseen and the seen;
Make the house, where gods may dwell,
Beautiful, entire, and clean.

Else our lives are incomplete,
Standing in these walls of Time,
Broken stairways, where the feet
Stumble as they seek to climb.

Build today, then, strong and sure,
With a firm and ample base;
And ascending and secure,
Shall to-morrow find its place.”

LONGFELLOW

February 7

“’I have but done that which it was my duty to do.’ These words bring us another element of heroism – its simplicity. Whatsoever is not simple, whatsoever is affected, boastful, and wilful – covetous – tarnishes, even destroys, the heroic character of a deed; because all three faults spring out of self. On the other hand, wherever you find a perfectly simple, frank, unconscious character, there you have the possibility at least of heroic action. For it is nobler far to do the most commonplace duty ib the household or behind the counter, with a single eye to duty, simply because it must be done – nobler far, I say, than to go out of your way to attempt a brilliant deed with a double mind. . . . Do your duty first; it will be time after that to talk of being heroic. And, therefore, we must seriously warn the young, lest they mistake for heroism and self-sacrifice what is merely pride and self-will, discontent with the relations by which God has bound them, and the circumstances which God has appointed for them. I have known girls think they were doing a fine thing by leaving uncongenial parents, or disagreeable sisters, and cutting out for themselves, as they fancied, a more useful and elevated line of life than mere home duties, while, after all, poor things, they were only, in the name of God, neglecting the command of God to honour their father and mother.”

C. KINGSLEY, from Health and Education

“Each hour has its lesson, and each life;
And if we miss our life we shall not find
Its lesson in another.”

E. H. KING

February 6

“Not for a soul like thine the calm
Of selfish ease and joys of sense;
But duty, more than crown or palm,
Its own exceeding recompense.

Go up and on! thy day well done,
Its morning promise well fulfilled,
Arise to triumphs yet unwon,
To holier tasks that God has willed.”

WHITTIER

“Rightness expresses of actions what straightness does of lines, and there can no more be two kinds of right actions than of straight lines.”

H. SPENCER

February 5

“Our thoughts, good or bad, are not in our command, but every one of us has at all hours duties to do, and these he can do negligently, like a slave, or faithfully, like a true servant. ‘Do the duty that is nearest thee’ – that first, and that well; all the rest will disclose themselves with increasing clearness, and make their successive demand. Were your duties never so small, I advise you, set yourself with double and treble energy and punctuality to do them, hour after hour, day after day.”

CARLYLE

“Every duty, even the least duty, involves the whole principle of obedience. And little duties make the will dutiful, that is, supple and prompt to obey. Little obediences lead into great. The daily round of duty is full of probation and of discipline; it trains the will, heart, and conscience. We need not to be prophets or apostles. The commonest life may be full of perfection. The duties of home are a discipline for the ministries of heaven.”

H. E. MANNING

February 4

“You are seeking your own will. You are seeking some good other than the law you are bound to obey. But how will you find good? It is not a thing of choice; it is a river that flows from the foot of the Invisible Throne, and flows by the path of obedience. I say, again, man cannot choose his duties. You may choose to forsake your duties, and choose not to have the sorrow they bring. But you will go forth; and what will you find? Sorrow without duty – bitter herbs, and no bread with them.”

GEORGE ELIOT [Pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“The performance of a duty is never a useless office, though we may not see the consequences or they may be quite different from what we expected or calculated on.”

Mrs. GASKELL

“He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten its cause.”

February 3

“No day is commonplace if we had only eyes to see its splendour. There is no duty that comes to our hand but brings to us the possibility of kingly service. . . . There is nothing possible to a human soul greater than simple faithfulness.”

“Stern Lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear
The Godhead’s most benignant grace;
Now know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

“To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee; I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondsman let me live!”

WORDSWORTH

February 2

“So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
So near is God to man,
When duty whispers low, ‘Thou must,’
The soul replies, ‘I can.’”

EMERSON

“Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right, and stick to it.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“I never saw in any man such fearlessness in the path of duty. The one question with him was, ‘Is it right?’ No dread of consequences, and consequences often bitterly felt by him, and wounding his sensitive nature, ever prevented him from doing that to which conscience prompted. His sense of right amounted to chivalry.”

From The life of Professor Forbes

February 1

“One by one the sands are flowing,
One by one the moments fall;
Some are coming, some are going,
Do not strive to grasp them all.

One by one the duties wait thee,
Let thy whole strength go to each;
Let no future dreams elate thee,
Learn thou first what these can teach.

One by one (bright gifts from heaven)
Joys are sent thee here below;
Take them readily when given,
Ready, too, to let them go.

One by one thy griefs shall meet thee,
Do not fear an armèd band;
One will fade as others greet thee,
Shadows passing through the land.

Do not look at life’s long sorrow,
See how small each moment’s pain;
God will help thee for tomorrow,
So each day begin again.

Every hour that fleets so slowly
Has its task to do or bear;
Luminous the crown, and holy,
When each gem is set with care.

Do not linger with regretting,
Or for passing hours despond;
Nor, the daily toil forgetting,
Look too eagerly beyond.

Hours are golden links, God’s token,
Reaching Heaven; but, one by one,
Take them, lest the chain be broken
Ere the pilgrimage be done.”

A. A. PROCTER