October 7

“There are no times in life when opportunity, the chance to be and do, gathers so richly about the soul as when it has to suffer. Then everything depends on whether the man turns to the lower or the higher helps. If he resorts to mere expedients and tricks, the opportunity is lost. He comes out no richer or greater; nay, he comes out harder, poorer, smaller for his pain. But if he turns to God, the hour of suffering is the truning hour of his life. Opportunity opens before him as the ocean opens before one who sails out of a river. Men have done the best and the worst, the noblest and the basest things the world has seen, under the pressure of excessive pain. Everything depended on whether they looked to the depths or the hills for help.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“Let us take heed in time
That God may now be glorified in us;
And while we suffer, let us set our souls
To suffer perfectly; since this alone,
The suffering which is this world’s special grace,
May here be perfected and left behind.”

E. H. KING

October 6

“I beg you, my dear friend, whatever be your suffering, to learn first of all that not to take your sorrow off, is what God means, but to put strength into you that you may carry it. Be sure your sorrow is not giving you its best, unless it makes you a more thoughtful person than you have ever been before.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

“Measure thy life by loss instead of gain.
Not by the wine drunk, but by the wine poured forth;
For love’s strength stands in loves sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most has most to give.
. . . . . . . . . . .
How poor were earth if all its martydoms,
If all its struggling sighs of sacrifice
Were swept away, and all were satiate-smooth;
. . . . . . . . . . .
What we win and hold is through some strife.”

E. H. KING