October 28

“Who knows if love and its beatitude, clear manifestation as it is of the universal harmony of things, is not the best demonstration of a fatherly and understanding God, just as it is the shortest road by which to reach Him? Love is a faith, and one faith leads to another. And this faith is happiness, light, and force. Only by it does a man enter into the series of the living, the awakened, the happy, the redeemed, - of those true men who know the value of existence and who labour for the glory of God and of the Truth. Till then we are but babblers and chatterers, spendthrifts of our time, our faculties and our gifts, without aim, without real joy – weak, infirm, and useless beings, of no account in the scheme of things.”

From Amiel’s Journal

“What thing thou lovest most, thou mak’st its nature thine;
Earthly, if that be earth, - if that be God, divine.”

R. C. TRENCH

October 27

“Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a great dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An Angel, writing in a book of gold.
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
So to the presence in the room he said:
‘What writest thou?’ the Vision raised his head,
And in a voice made all of sweet accord,
Answered: ‘The names of those that love the Lord!’
‘And is mine one?’ said Abou. ‘Nay not so,’
Replied the Angel. Abou spake more low
But cheerily still, and said, ‘I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men.’
The Angel wrote and vanished. The next night
He came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the souls whom love of God had blest,
And lo! – Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest!”

LEIGH HUNT

“Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God.
“He that loves not, knows not God; for God is Love.”

I JOHN iv 7, 8

October 4

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love tee to the depth, and breadth, and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love the to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! And, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

“Love vaunteth not itself . . . seeketh not its own . . . beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. love never faileth.”

I Cor. xiii

October 3

“There are two kinds of love, confused together both in man’s nature and in our judgment on it – the love that desires to love, and the love that desires to be loved. The first is always a debtor to the world, the second always finds the world a debtor to him, and complains bitterly that the debt is unpaid. There is no more uncompromising creditor than the creditor for love, there is no avarice more grasping than his avarice. . . . Love that feeds on being loved, and not on loving, cannot conquer death; it turns traitor at the last, confessing its own baseness, that it served for the sake of the reward.

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

“It is not love that hurts men. The craving for love, the turning earhly and heavenly affection into merchandise, these hurt, and suffering hurts that we make our own; but the love that brings pain is itself painless. In the midst of longing, heart-hunger, and all the forms of selfishness that we dignify with such high-sounding names, there is one thing at peace. That is love. And about it the passions sweep, grudging, exacting, contending with each other for their gains; but the prayer of love is not to receive joy, nor to escape from pain, only that it may give more, and give for ever.”

MAY KENDALL

“To love – that is the true revelation – the lifting up of the veil. It is as different from simply being loved, as night is from day.”

Mrs OLIPHANT

September 29

“Nothing is sweeter than Love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher, nothing wider, nothing more pleasant, nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth, because love is born of God, and cannot rest but in God, above all created things.
“He that loves flies, runs and rejoices; he is free, and not bound. He gives all for all, and has all in all; because he rests in One highest above things, from whom all that is good flows and proceeds. Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible. It is therefore able to undertake all things, and it completes many things and brings them to a conclusion, where he who does not love faints and lies down. Love watches; and sleeping, slumbers not. Though weary, love is not tired; though pressed, it is not straitened; though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a lively flame and burning torch, it forces its way upwards, and securely passes through all.”

THOMAS à KEMPIS

“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”

I COR. xiii 13

April 22

“The nearer the soul approaches to the divine and eternal source of love, the more fully do the obligations of sacred human love reveal themselves, and the more keen is the self-reproach for the neglect even of the smallest of these.”

From Catherine of Siena

“What a mystery it is that the happiness, the light of one’s life, should be so often in the gift of another’s will. Which of us is there that does not hold chords that may vibrate from the very hearts of those around us? Let us pray that with reverent and loving care we may use our power – half-unconscious as it is.”

Miss THACKERAY

“It is a mistake to suppose that relations must of course love each other because they are relations. Love must be cultivated, and can be increased by judicious culture, as wild-fruits may double their bearing under the hand of a gardener; and love can dwindle and die out by neglect, as choice flower-seeds planted in poor soil dwindle and grow single.”

Mrs H. B. STOWE

April 21

“Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediment. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove;
Oh no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickles compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

SHAKESPEARE

“If we cannot love unconditionally, love is already in a critical condition.”

GOETHE

April 20

“Can the last parting do much to hurt such friendships between good souls, who have so long learnt to say farewell, to love in absence, to trust through silence, and to have faith in reunion?”

Mrs EWING

“Those children of God to whom it has been granted to see each other face to face, and to hold communion together, and to feel the same spirit working in both, can never more be sundered, though the hills may lie between. For their souls are enlarged for evermore by that union, and they bear one another about in their thoughts continually, as it were a new strength.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“Let my voice be heard that asketh
Not for fame, and not for glory;
Give, for all our life’s dear story,
Give us Love, and give us Peace.”

JEAN INGELOW