July 1

“What is our life? It is a mission to go into every corner we can reach, and reconquer for God’s beatitude His unhappy world back to Him. It is a devotion of ourselves to the bliss of the Divine Life, by the beautiful apostolate of kindness.”

FABER

“If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on;
If a blinder soul there be,
Let me guide him nearer Thee.
Make my mortal dreams come true
With the work I fain would do;
Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant;
Let me find in Thy employ
Peace that dearer is than joy;
Out of self to love be led
And to heaven acclimated,
Until all things sweet and good
Seem my natural habitude.”

WHITTIER

June 30

“We live in an age when there is a fashion in philanthropy as well as a fashion in religion. Do we atone by an interest in large questions – a common fault – for a failure towards lesser claims? We live in an age when, at all costs, men seek for personal aggrandisement, or for the intoxication of passing pleasure. We, each of us, must see to it lest our ingrained selfishness is destroying the ‘diligence’ of the Christian. Can it be that our life is being frittered away in nothings when men around us are in the direst need? Can it be that we occupy ourselves with ‘great interests’ when unworthy suspicions, or cruel slanders, or petty unkindnesses, or thoughtless acts of neglect, are emptying the lives that lie within our arm-sweep of the power of happiness and the influence for improvement that are entrusted to us to use. Let us see to it. every day in every life gives social opportunities, and therefore responsibilities at the last.”

KNOX LITTLE

“Do not dare to live without some clear intention toward which your living shall be bent. Mean to be something with all your might. . . . Do not dare to think that a Child of God can worthily work out his career, or worthily serve God’s other children, unless he does both in the love and fear of God their father.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

June 29

“A life without purpose is a languid, drifting thing; . . . Every day we ought to renew our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught; - Our improvement is in proportion to our purpose; - We hardly ever manage to get completely rid of one fault, and do not set our hearts on daily improvement; - Always place a definite purpose before thee; get the habit of mastering thine inclination.”

“The great clock at Westminster booms out its chimes to the tune of

‘Lord, thro’ this hour
Be Thou my Guide,
So by Thy power
No foot shall slide.’”

Archdeacon FARRAR

“Do as well as you can to-day, and perhaps to-morrow you may be able to do better.”

NEWTON

June 28

“Tell me not, in mournful numbers
‘Life is but an empty dream!’
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

“Not enjoyment and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than today.

“Trust no future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act, - act in the living present!
Heart within and God o’erhead!

“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time; -

“Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

“Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.”

LONGFELLOW

June 25

“It should not seem to be so very wonderful a thing that men should attain to the ability to say ‘I am willing to die’. . . . It seems to me a much better, grander, and nobler thing to say, ‘I am willing and ready to live, right here, to-day, in my circumstances; ready to take up my burden, to carry my load, to do my work, to wait God’s time’.”

M. D. SAVAGE

“We know what strength, what resolution, what scattering of idle doubts, what concentration of aim, come when we once have avowed our choice.
“Numberless temptations are removed by the mere fact that our part is taken.
“The obligation of our cause is upon us.”

Bishop WESTCOTT

“An ideal may seem unattainable, but when it is distinctly acknowledged as the object of aspiration, it will be found close at hand.”

Bishop WESTCOTT

January 3

"It is by believing in, loving and following illimitable ideals that man grows great. Their very impossibility is their highest virtue. They live before us as the image of that unto which we are to grow for ever."
STOPFORD BROOKE

"Nay, falter not - 'tis an assured good
To seek the noblest - 'tis your only good
Now you have seen it; for that higher vision
Poisons all meaner choice for evermore."

GEORGE ELIOT (Pen-name of Mary Ann Evans)

"He preached, very solemnly, on the divided allegiance: wealth, position, clothes, on one side, and on the other, the eternal kingdom and glory of Christ. Which weighed most with those before him in their estimate of their neighbours - the dress, the equipage, the very baubles round their necks, or holiness, and truth, and meekness?"

E. B. BAYLY

January 2

"A sacred burden is the life ye bear,
Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly;
Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly;
Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin,
But onward, upward, till the goal ye win."
KEMBLE

"For what we see in that life is not only a purpose and a work passing man's understanding; but that purpose followed and that work done in a way which man can understand. It is life governed by its end and purpose, in which shows or illusions have no place; founded on unshrinking unexaggerated truth, facing everything as it is without disguise or mistake; and further, a life in which its purpose is followed, with absolute indifference to whatever sacrifice it may cost.'
DEAN CHURCH