September 24

“There is a certain unpleasantness in undiscriminating sympathy, which possesses nothing especial nor any moment of reserve. Such a character is without loneliness; we find no mystery in it to charm or lure; we have no sense of depth which we would like to penetrate; we know all, and having known all, pass on by an irresistible necessity, and leave that friend behind, he is superficial, in one word, he wants humanity. Plainly the sympathy of Christ did not want this beauty. He had in its fitting place, the Teutonic quality of reserve. He shrank from over-publicity. He kept His secret heart for those dearest to Him, though His love went over the world. He gave closer sympathy and affection to three among His disciples than to the others. He gave more tenderness to Mary than to Martha, without any favouritism. He still as a personal friend, individualised His affections. . . . Therefore remember that Christ has sanctified what is good in that quality we call reserve. Do not be too anxious to give yourself away, to wear your heart upon your sleeve. It is not only unwise, it is wrong to make your soul common property. For you bring the delicate things of the heart into contempt by exposing them to those who cannot understand them. Nor again, should you claim too much confidence as a duty due to you from your friends. Much of the charm of life is ruined by exacting demands of confidence. Respect the natural modesty of the soul; its more delicate flowers of feeling close their petals when they are touched too rudely. Wait, with curious love, with eager interest, for the time when, all being harmonious, the revelation will come of its own accord, undemanded.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

September 23

“It is the wisdom of life to receive our friends as from the hand of God, and to give to the task of understanding them the same trouble that we give to the comprehension of the thoughts of God in nature; to work out the drama of our love and friendship, subject to the primary feeling in the mind of Christ, reverence for the human soul. Then, in the midst of the new enjoyment which they bring us, we shall find additional power of progress, and the delights of life will be as much an element of our evolution as its sorrows.”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring,
As to an oak, and precious more and more,
Without deservingness, or help of ours
They grow, and, silent, wider spread each year
Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade.”

LOWELL

“’The theatre of all my actions is fallen’; said an antique personage when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who get a theatre where the audience demands their best.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

September 22

“There is as yet, no culture, no method of progress known to men, that is so rich and complete as that which is ministered by a truly great friendship.
“No natural appetite, no artificial taste, no rivalry of competition, no contagion of social activity, calls out such a large, healthy, symmetrical working of a human nature, as the constant half unconscious power of a friend’s presence whom we thoroughly respect and love. In a true friendship there is emulation without its jealousy; there is imitation without its servility. When one friend teaches another by his present life, there is none of that divorce of truth from feeling, and of feeling from truth, which in so many of the world’s teachings makes truth hard, and feeling weak; but truth is taught, and feeling is inspired, by the same action of one nature on the other, and they keep each other true and warm. Surely there is no more beautiful sight to see in all this world, full as it is of beautiful adjustments and mutual ministrations, than the growth of two friends’ natures who, as they grow old together, are always fathoming, with newer needs, deeper depths of each other’s life, and opening richer views of one another’s helpfulness. and this best culture of personal friendship is taken up and made, in its infinite completion, the gospel method of the progressive saving of the soul by Christ.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“A true friend is one who makes us do what we can.”

PHELPS

September 21

“Life is measured by thought and action, not by time.”

Sir JOHN LUBBOCK

“We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.”

P. J. BAILEY

“It is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make men better be;
Or standing long an oak three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere.
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night;
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.”

BEN JONSON

September 20

“Little minds are in a hurry when the object proves (as it commonly does) too big for them; they run, they puzzle, confound and perplex themselves; they want to do everything at once, and never do it all. But a man of sense takes the time necessary for doing well the thing he is about; and his haste to despatch a business only appears by the continuity of his application to it; he pursues it with cool steadiness, and finishes it before he begins any other.”

Lord CHESTERFIELD

“Be methodical in your use of time. Make a scheme for its regular systematic use, even if it is often impossible to carry it out.
“Be scrupulously punctual. And make a careful use of your fragments of time. It is wonderful how much can be got through by these means. A great deal of study, or writing, or other work, can be done by a resolute will in odd quarters of hours, and very often we can get no more. Nothing is more commonly said than that if you want something done, you will have a much better chance of getting it done by a busy man than by an idle one, and this simply because the former has learnt the secret of economising his time.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

September 19

“You need not suppose that I am in a constant hurry of business. Although my engagements have now so much increased that I scarcely know how to get through them, yet I have accustomed myself to preserve a certain quietness of mind among them all. I take up one thing in order after another. I try to fix my whole thoughts upon the one thing that lies before me, as if I had nothing else to attend to. In this way I get on very well; what is done is done systematically; my mind remains clear, and does not feel oppressed by a multitude of claims on its attention.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

“Let the duties that lie nearest you be always the most imperative; the members of your own home-circle will always have the first claim on your affection and usefulness. I lay this down as an unalterable rule.”

A. SIEVEKING

“In God’s designs there is no haste, no rest, no weariness, no discontinuity; all things are done by Him in the majesty of silence, and they are seen under a light that shineth quietly in the darkness, ‘showing all things in the slow history of their ripening’.”

Archdeacon FARRAR

September 18

“It would be well if in the freshness of the morning hour we were to arrange our engagements, as far as possible, with a little forethought and discretion, and make up the plan of our day until bedtime. . . . This is consideration beforehand – thoughtfulness; but it is not the thoughtfulness which the Lord forbids, for it lies within the horizon of to-day. What he does forbid, and what unhappily it is very hard to check in oneself, is the previous contemplation and adjustment of difficulties which stretch into that unknown tomorrow, which belong not to the cycle of the present day.”

SEWELL

“Where persons are heavily engaged there is a certain feverish fidgetiness to take up several tasks at once, which greatly interferes with quietness and thoughtfulness of mind, and so with progress. Let the aim of such persons be to do the thing well rather than to get through it fast.”

GOULBURN

September 17

“In studies, whatsoever a man commandeth upon himself, let him set houres for it, but whatever is agreeable to his nature, let him take no care for any set times.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

“I knew a man that had it for a by-word when he saw men hasten to a conclusion, ‘Stay a little that we may make an end the sooner.’ . . . To choose time is to save time.”

BACON

“It is astonishing how fruitful of improvement a short season becomes when eagerly seized and faithfully used. It has often been observed, that those who have the most time at their disposal profit by it the least. A single hour in the day, steadily given to the study of some interesting subject, brings unexpected accumulations of knowledge.”

CHANNING

“Well-arranged time is the surest mark of a well-arranged mind.”

PITMAN

September 16

“Rise! For the day is passing,
And you lie dreaming on;
The others have buckled their armour,
And forth to the fight have gone.
A place in the ranks awaits you,
Each man has some part to play;
The Past and the Future are nothing,
In the face of the stern To-day.

“Rise from your dreams of the future
Of gaining some hard-fought field,
Of storming some airy fortress,
Or bidding some giant yield;
Your future has deeds of glory,
Of honour (God grant it may!)
But your arm will never be stronger,
Or the need so great as To-day.”

A. A. PROCTER

“Toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.”

LONGFELLOW

September 15

“Have we found that anxiety about possible consequences increased the clearness of our judgment, made us wiser and braver in meeting the present, and arming ourselves for the future? . . . If we had prayed for this day’s bread, and left the next to itself, if we had not huddled our days together, not alloting to each its appointed task, but ever deferring that to the future, and drawing upon the future for its own troubles, which must be met when they come whether we have anticipated them or not, we should have found a simplicity and honesty in our lives, a capacity for work, an enjoyment in it, to which we are now, for the most part, strangers.”

F. D. MAURICE

“To shape the whole future is not our problem; but only to shape faithfully a small part of it, according to rules slready known. It is perhaps possible, for each of us, who will with due earnestness enquire, to ascertain clearly what he, for his own part, ought to do; this let him, with true heart, do, and continue doing. The general issue will, as it has always done, rest well with a Higher Intelligence, than ours. . . . This day thou knowest ten commanded duties, seest in thy mind ten things which should be done for one that thou doest! Do one of them, this of itself will show thee ten others which can and shall be done.”

CARLYLE

September 14

“With his first waking consciousness, he can set himself to take a serious manly view of the day before him. He ought o know pretty well on what lines his difficulty is likely to come, whether in being irritable, or domineering, or sharp in his bargains, or self-absorbed, or whatever it be; and now, in this quiet hour, he can take a good, full look at his enemy, and make up his mind to beat him. It is a good time, too, for giving his thoughts a range quite beyond himself, - beyond even his own moral struggles, - a good time, there in the stillness, for goiug into the realm of other lives. His wife, - what needs has she for help, for sympathy, that he can meet? His children, - how can he make the day sweeter to them? This acquaintance, who is having a hard time; this friend, who dropped a word to you yesterday that you hardly noticed in your hurry, but that comes up to you now, revealing in him some finer trait, some deeper hunger, than you had guessed before, - now you can think these things over. so you get your day somewhat into right persepctive and proportion before you begin it.”

G. S. MERRIAM

“Earnestness of life is the only passport to the satisfaction of life.”

Christian Life