July 23

“’Father of all’! he urges his strong plea
Thou lovest all; Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee.

“All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear
None from that Presence which is everywhere.
Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.

“Through sins of sense, perversities of will,
Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill
Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.

“Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal!
In Thy long years, life’s broken circle whole,
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?”

WHITTIER

“I dislike extremely a passage in which you appear to consider the disregard of individuals as a lofty condition of mind. My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathise with individual suffering and individual joy.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

July 22

“Despise no soul, however debased, grimed, or soiled. These souls are God’s. . . . For all souls Jesus died. . . . At least, O Christians, pray for them. Give God what God can justly claim. ‘All souls are mine.’”

KNOX LITTLE

“Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,
Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,
And sees beneath the foulest faces lurking
One God-built shrine of reverence and love.
Who feels that God and Heaven’s great deep are nearer
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh.
Who does not hold his soul’s own freedom dearer
Than that of all his brethren, low or high.
Who to the right can feel himself the truer
For being gently patient with the wrong,
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,
And finds in Love the heart’s blood of his song.”

LOWELL

“Many who talk loudly of progress and the perfectibility of the human race do not see the beauty and worth of every human soul, even in the midst of its utmost ignorance or bondage to sin.”

From Catherine of Siena