August 25

“Remember, in speaking to any one you wish to help, that the more earnest and unconscious of self you are, the better you will help them. Probably the words you think most telling will affect them least, while those you think nothing of, God will use for their good. Leave all results with God. You are not always digging up the seeds in your garden to see how they are growing. Trust all to God, and He will bless your work. . . .
“Remember, God always works, very slowly and very surely; the bud is formed slowly, opens slowly. We must work as God works, not with the great strides self-love would like to work with.”

H. MONSELL

“A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace.”

EMERSON

“All we do which is good or permanent is done in us or through us, consciously or unconsciously, by a divine Spirit, with Whom, if we work cheerfully and obediently, the work thrives, if proudly and resistingly, it is marred.”

F. D. MAURICE

August 22

“Leave results to God.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

“Like many other reformers, she at first hoped for a more quick return for her labours; but as the years went on, she learned, as they have learned, that God had greater designs in view than any which came within their human calculations.”

From Life of Catherine of Siena

“Quiet, patient work often brings startling results. The heart is melted at last and the conscience touched.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

August 21

On working a Guild. “It is a matter in which we can only pray for wisdom to deal with individual cases; but it has often seemed to me that a good rule to adopt would be ‘Love them, and pray for them, and leave them alone as much as possible.’ – To be ever on the watch for results is not good. It is like pulling up the growing plant to examine its progress. It is well to remember that though ‘Duties are ours – results are God’s’”

“I am glad to think
I am not bound to make the world go right;
But only to discover and to do,
With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.
I will trust in Him,
That He can hold His own; and I will take
His will, above the work He sendeth me,
To be my chiefest good.”

JEAN INGELOW

"Much of the ability to do good is in the disposition to do it. The very breathing of a benevolent heart is a species of doing good.”

HARVEY