PREFACE
Reading edition
This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it, is similar in arrangement and purpose to my former volume "Being and Doing"; and has been compiled at the request of several readers who have found that book helpful.
It is obvious that without the kindly co-operation of many authors and publishers such books could not exist, and I tender sincere and hearty thanks to those who have made the work possible. All have treated me with unfailing courtesy and generosity.
Where I have occasionally used short quotations without permission I ask forgiveness.
It would be impossible to name separately each one to whom I am a grateful debtor, so special mention must only be made of the more heavily taxed, and of those who have asked for a formal acknowledgment, namely:—
The Literary Executors of the late Mr. Ruskin, per Mr. George Allen, for extracts from Mr. Ruskin's works.
Mr. Edward Arnold for those from Red Pottage, by Mary Cholmondeley.
Canon Barnett for those from The Service of God.
Messrs. Deighton Bell & Co. for those from Pastor Pastorum, by the Rev. Henry Latham.
Mr. James Drummond for those from the writings of Professor Henry Drummond.
Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. for those from Sir Edwin Arnold's Light of Asia.
Miss May Kendall for those from Turkish Bonds, &c.
Messrs. Longmans, Green & Co. for those from the works of Bishop Paget, and from Canon MacColl's Here and Hereafter.
Professor MacCunn for those from The Making of Character.
Messrs. Macmillan & Co. for those from the works of Bishop Westcott, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet; Tennyson's Poems; from the present Lord Tennyson's Life of his father; from the Mettle of the Pasture, by James Lane Allen; and from Mrs. Humphry Ward's translation of Amiel's Journal.
Messrs. Methuen & Co. for one from the Life of R. L. Stevenson.
Mr. Lloyd Osbourne for those from R. L. Stevenson's works.
Messrs. Wells, Gardner, Darton & Co. for those from Bishop Winnington Ingram's Under the Dome and Friends of the Master.
Dr. John Watson for those from his writings.
Permission was kindly given me before by Messrs. Macmillan to quote from the works of the late Archbishop Temple and of Matthew Arnold. By Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. for quotations from Robert Browning. By Mr. C. Lewes for quotations from George Eliot; and from Lord Avebury and the Rev. Stopford Brooke for those from their works.
In my experience the reading of extracts often leads to the reading of the books from which they were taken, and I hope and believe many of these gleanings will serve as introductions.
CONSTANCE M. WHISHAW.
Sunny Bank, Arnside, Carnforth.
New Year's Day
JANUARY 1
"Here you stand at the parting of the ways; some road you are to take; and as you stand here, consider and know how it is that you intend to live. Carry no bad habits, no corrupting associations, no enmities and strifes into this New Year. Leave these behind, and let the Dead Past bury its Dead; leave them behind, and thank God that you are able to leave them."
Ephraim Peabody.
"Would'st shape a noble life? Then cast No backward glances toward the past, And though somewhat be lost and gone, Yet do thou act as one new-born; What each day needs, that shalt thou ask, Each day will set its proper task."
Goethe.
"No aim is too high, no task too great, no sin too strong, no trial too hard for those who patiently and humbly rest upon God's grace: who wait on Him that He may renew their strength."
Faculties and Difficulties for Belief and Disbelief, Bishop Paget.
Purpose
JANUARY 2
"You did not come into this world by chance, you were not born by accident. You all came charged with a mission to use your best efforts to extend the frontier of your Master's Kingdom by purifying your own hearts and leavening for good the hearts of all who come within the sphere of your influence. Your business here is not to enjoy yourselves in those fleeting pleasures which perish in the using; not to sip as many dainties as you can from the moments as they fly; not to gather as many flowers as you can pluck from the garden of this perishing earth; not even to rest in the enjoyment of those nobler delights which come from the exercise of the intellect in the investigation of the works of God and man; but rather to do your best to fit yourselves and others for the new heavens and new earth, which God has prepared for those who love Him."
Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacColl.
"Do not despise your situation; in it you must act, suffer, and conquer. From every point on earth we are equally near to heaven and to the infinite."
Amiel's Journal.
A Noble Life
JANUARY 3
"A man's greatness lies not in wealth and station, as the vulgar believe, nor yet in his intellectual capacity, which is often associated with the meanest moral character, the most abject servility to those in high places, and arrogance to the poor and lowly; but a man's true greatness lies in the consciousness of an honest purpose in life, founded on a just estimate of himself and everything else, on frequent self-examination, and a steady obedience to the rule which he knows to be right, without troubling himself about what others may think or say, or whether they do or do not do that which he thinks and says and does."
George Long.
"Whether a life is noble or ignoble depends not on the calling which is adopted, but on the spirit in which it is followed."
The Pleasures of Life, Lord Avebury.
"Every noble life leaves the fibre of itself interwoven for ever in the work of the world."
Trench.
Holiness
JANUARY 4
"Jesus and His Apostles teach that the supreme success of life is not to escape pain but to lay hold on righteousness, not to possess but to be holy, not to get things from God but to be like God. They were ever bidding Christians beware of ease, ever rousing them to surrender and sacrifice."
The Potter's Wheel, Dr. John Watson.
"The end of life is not to deny self, nor to be true, nor to keep the Ten Commandments—it is simply to do God's will. It is not to get good nor be good, nor even to do good—it is just what God wills, whether that be working or waiting, or winning or losing, or suffering or recovering, or living or dying."
The Ideal Life, Henry Drummond.
"Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good."
Marcus Aurelius.
The Power of the Holy Spirit
JANUARY 5
"We are haunted by an ideal life, and it is because we have within us the beginning and the possibility of it."
Phillips Brooks.
"The power of the Holy Spirit!—an everlasting spiritual presence among men. What but that is the thing we want? That is what the old oracles were dreaming of, what the modern Spiritualists tonight are fumbling after. The power of the Holy Ghost, by which every man who is in doubt may know what is right, every man whose soul is sick may be made spiritually whole, every weak man may be made a strong man,—that is God's one sufficient answer to the endless appeal of man's spiritual life; that is God's one great response to the unconscious need of spiritual guidance, which He hears crying out of the deep heart of every man.—I hope that I have made clear to you what I mean. I would that we might understand ourselves, see what we might be; nay, see what we are. While you are living a worldly and a wicked life, letting all sacred things go, caring for no duty, serving no God, there is another self, your possibility, the thing that you might be, the thing that God gave you a chance to be."
Phillips Brooks.
A Symphony
JANUARY 6
"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common—this is to be my symphony."
William Ellery Channing.
"Heed how thou livest. Do no act by day Which from the night shall drive thy peace away. In months of sun so live that months of rain Shall still be happy."
Whittier, Translation.
Patience with Ourselves
JANUARY 7
"To be honest, to be kind—to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends but these without capitulation—above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself—here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy."
Across the Plains, R. L. Stevenson.
"People who love themselves aright, even as they ought to love their neighbour, bear charitably, though without flattery, with self as with another. They know what needs correction at home as well as elsewhere; they strive heartily and vigorously to correct it, but they deal with self as they would deal with some one else they wished to bring to God. They set to work patiently, not exacting more than is practicable under present circumstances from themselves any more than from others, and not being disheartened because perfection is not attainable in a day."
Fénélon.
"One is so apt to think that what works smoothest works to the highest ends, having no patience for the results of friction."
Mrs. Ewing.
The Foot-path to Peace
JANUARY 8
"To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars; to be satisfied with your possessions, but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them; to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice; to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbour's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners; to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and with spirit, in God's out-of-doors—these are little guideposts on the foot-path to peace."
Henry Van Dyke.
"O Lord, that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness."
Shakespeare.
Purpose
JANUARY 9
"He who lives without a definite purpose achieves no higher end than to serve as a warning to others. He is a kind of bell-buoy, mournfully tolled by the waves of circumstance, to mark the rocks or shoals which are to be avoided."
"Surely there is something to be done from morning till night, and to find out what is the appointed work of the onward-tending soul."
Fanny Kemble.
"I ask you while hope is still fresh and enthusiasm unchilled to gain some conception of the solemnity, the vastness, the unity, the purpose of life: to pause in the street or on the river bank and ask yourselves what that strange stream of pleasure and frivolity and sorrow and vice means, and means to you: to reflect that you are bound by intelligible bonds to every suffering, sinning man and woman: to learn, while the lesson is comparatively easy, the secret of human sympathy: to search after some of the essential relationships of man to man: to interpret a little of the worth of even trivial labour: to grow sensitive to the feelings of the poor: to grow considerate to the claims of the weak."
Bishop Westcott.
Life, a School
January 10
"All life is a school, a preparation, a purpose: nor can we pass current in a higher college, if we do not undergo the tedium of education in this lower one."
Tennyson—a Memoir, by his Son.
"Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood."
Emerson.
"We never know for what God is preparing us in His schools, for what work on earth, for what work in the hereafter. Our business is to do our work well in the present place, whatever that may be."
Lyman Abbott.
Character and Service
January 11
"Never should we forget the close connection between character and service, between inward nobleness and outward philanthropy. We are not here to dream, or even to build up in grace and beauty our individual life; we are responsible, each in our own little way, for trying to leave this sad world happier, this evil world better than we found it. In this way slackness is infamy, and power to the last particle means duty. Each of us, in some degree, must have the ambition to be an 'Alter Christus'—another Christ, shouldering with the compassionate Son of God to lift our shadowed world from the gates of death."
"What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve, but the will to labour."
Bulwer Lytton.
"'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' This is the principle with which we should look forth upon the world and our own life at the beginning of this year. We look upon the world; it seems as if it were sleeping still, like Rome, as if it needed as much as ever to hear the shout, 'Awake, thou that sleepest.'"
Stopford Brooke.
Present Circumstances
JANUARY 12
"Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined."
Marcus Aurelius.
"Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;—well then, he can also live well in a palace."
Marcus Aurelius.
"Of nothing can we be more sure than this: that, if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other."
Martineau.
Circumstances
JANUARY 13
"Occasion is the father of most that is good in us. As you have seen the awkward fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fashion the most delicate little pieces of carved work; or achieve the most prodigious underground labours, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars and fetters; 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fortitude or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circumstance which gave them a being."
Esmond, W. M. Thackeray.
"It always remains true that if we had been greater, circumstances would have been less strong against us."
G. Eliot.
"A consideration of petty circumstances is the tomb of great things."
Voltaire.
The Ifs of Life
JANUARY 14
"If it were—if it might be—if it could be—if it had been. One portion of mankind go through life always regretting, always whining, always imagining. As it is—this is the way in which the other class of people look at the conditions in which they find themselves. I venture to say that if one should count the ifs and the ases in the conversation of his acquaintances, he would find the more able and important persons among them—statesmen, generals, men of business—among the ases, and the majority of conspicuous failures among the ifs."
Over the Teacups, O. W. Holmes.
"It is sad, indeed, to see how man wastes his opportunities. How many could be made happy, with the blessings which are recklessly wasted or thrown away! Happiness is a condition of Mind, not a result of circumstances; and, in the words of Dugald Stewart, the great secret of happiness is to accommodate ourselves to things external, rather than to struggle to accommodate external things to ourselves. Hume wisely said that a happy disposition was better than an estate of £10,000 a year. Try to realise all the blessings you have, and you will find perhaps that they are more than you suppose. Many a blessing has been recognised too late."
Lord Avebury.
"The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place."
Emerson.
Harmony
JANUARY 15
"... Have good will To all that lives, letting unkindness die And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made Like soft airs passing by. ... Govern the lips As they were palace-doors, the King within; Tranquil and fair and courteous be all words Which from that presence win. ... Let each act Assoil a fault or help a merit grow: Like threads of silver seen through crystal beads Let love through good deeds show."
The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
"The Past is something, but the Present more; Will It not, too, be past? Nor fail withal To recognise the Future in your hopes; Unite them in your manhood, each and all, Nor mutilate the perfectness of life!— You can remember; you can also hope."
A. H. Clough.
Harmony
JANUARY 16
... "This is peace To conquer love of self and lust of life, To tear deep-rooted passion from the breast, To still the inward strife; For love to clasp Eternal Beauty close; For glory to be Lord of self; for pleasure To live beyond the gods; for countless wealth To lay up lasting treasure Of perfect service rendered, duties done In charity, soft speech, and stainless days: These riches shall not fade away in life, Nor any death dispraise."
The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
"We are all of us made more graceful by the inward presence of what we believe to be a generous purpose; our actions move to a hidden music—'a melody that's sweetly played in tune.'"
George Eliot.
Ideals
JANUARY 17
"It is not the ideals of earlier years that are the most unattainable. 'The petty done, the undone vast' is not the thought of the youth, but of those who, having done the most, yet count themselves unprofitable servants, because it is to them only that the experience, the knowledge, and the reflection of maturer years have opened up the far vistas of moral possibility."
The Making of Character, Prof. MacCunn.
"In doing is this knowledge won, To see what yet remains undone. With this our pride repress, And give us grace, a growing store, That day by day we may do more And may esteem it less." Trench.
"Comfort me not!—for if aught be worse than failure from over-stress Of a life's prime purpose, it is to sit down content with a little success."
Lytton.
The Celestial Surgeon
JANUARY 18
THE CELESTIAL SURGEON
"If I have faltered more or less In my great task of happiness; If I have moved among my race And shown no glorious morning face; If beams from happy human eyes Have moved me not; if morning skies, Books, and my food, and summer rain Knocked on my sullen heart in vain:— Lord, Thy most pointed pleasure take And stab my spirit broad awake; Or, Lord, if too obdurate I, Choose Thou, before that spirit die, A piercing pain, a killing sin, And to my dead heart run them in." Underwoods, R. L. Stevenson.
Influence of Great Men
JANUARY 19
"The thirst for memoirs and lives and letters is not all to be put down to the hero-worship which is natural to every heart. It means, perhaps, a higher thing than that. It means, in the first place, that great living is being appreciated for its own sake; and, in the second, that great living is being imitated. If it is true that any of us are beginning to appreciate greatness for its own sake—greatness, that is to say, in the sense of great and true living—it is one of the most hopeful symptoms of our history. And, further, if we are going on from the mere admiration of great men to try and live like them, we are obeying one of the happiest impulses of our being. There is indeed no finer influence abroad than the influence of great men in great books, and all that literature can do in supplying the deformed world with worthy and shapely models is entitled to gratitude and respect."
The Ideal Life, Henry Drummond.
"Glimpses into the inner regions of a great soul do one good. Contact of this kind strengthens, restores, refreshes. Courage returns as we gaze; when we see what has been, we doubt no more that it can be again. At the sight of a MAN we too say to ourselves, Let us also be men."
Amiel's Journal.
Influence of Great Men
JANUARY 20
"We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living life-fountain, which it is good and pleasant to be near; the light which enlightens, which has enlightened, the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindling lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary, shining by the gift of Heaven; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native original insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness, in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them."
Carlyle.
"My sole fear was the fear of doing an unrighteous or unholy thing."
Socrates.
"The truly honest man, here and there to be found, is not only without thought of legal, religious, or social compulsion, when he discharges an equitable claim on him, but he is without thought of self-compulsion. He does the right thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing it; and is, indeed, impatient if anything prevents him from having the satisfaction of doing it."
Herbert Spencer.
The Habit of Admiration
JANUARY 21
"'We live by admiration, hope, and love,' Wordsworth tells us,—not, therefore, by contempt, despondency, and hatred. These contract and narrow the soul, as the others enlarge it. The more a man heartily admires, the more he takes into his nature the goodness and beauty which excite his admiration. His being grows up toward what thus evokes his enthusiasm. And the habit of admiration is the outcome of a moral discipline which represses peevish and fault-finding dispositions, and seeks the admirable in every situation and every person that life brings to us. 'Be ye enlarged' implies 'learn to admire and to praise.'"
"Learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what the great men admired; they admired great things: narrow spirits admire basely, and worship meanly."
Thackeray.
Character of Henry Drummond
JANUARY 22
Of Henry Drummond.—"He seemed to be invariably in good spirits, and invariably disengaged. He was always ready for any and every office of friendship. It should be said that though few men were more criticised or misconceived, he himself never wrote an unkind word about any one, never retaliated, never bore malice, and could do full justice to the abilities and character of his opponents. I have just heard that he exerted himself privately to secure an important appointment for one of his most trenchant critics, and was successful.... The spectacle of his long struggle with a mortal disease was something more than impressive. Those who saw him in his illness saw that, as the physical life flickered low, the spiritual energy grew. Always gentle and considerate, he became even more careful, more tender, more thoughtful, more unselfish. He never in any way complained. His doctors found it very difficult to get him to talk of his illness. It was strange and painful, but inspiring, to see his keenness, his mental elasticity, his universal interest. Dr. Barbour says: 'I have never seen pain or weariness, or the being obliged to do nothing, more entirely overcome, treated, in fact, as if they were not. The end came suddenly from failure of the heart. Those with him received only a few hours' warning of his critical condition.' It was not like death. He lay on his couch in the drawing-room, and passed away in his sleep, with the sun shining in, and the birds singing at the open window. There was no sadness nor farewell. It recalled what he himself said of a friend's death—'putting by the well-worn tools without a sigh, and expecting elsewhere better work to do.'"
Character Sketch by W. Robertson Nicoll in "The Ideal Life."
Character of R. L. Stevenson
JANUARY 23
"I Have referred to his chivalry only to find that in reality I was thinking of every one of the whole group of attributes which are associated with that name. Loyalty, honesty, generosity, courage; courtesy, tenderness, and self-devotion; to impute no unworthy motives and to bear no grudge; to bear misfortune with cheerfulness and without a murmur; to strike hard for the right and take no mean advantage; to be gentle to women and kind to all that are weak; to be very rigorous with oneself and very lenient to others—these, and any other virtues ever implied in 'chivalry,' were the traits that distinguished Stevenson."
The Life of R. L. Stevenson, Graham Balfour.
"Through life he did the thing he was doing as if it were the one thing in the world that was worth being done."
The Life of R. L. Stevenson, Graham Balfour.
Being and Doing
JANUARY 24
"Upon the man who desired to be His disciple and a member of God's Kingdom were laid the conditions of a pure heart, of a forgiving spirit, of a helpful hand, of a heavenly purpose, of an unworldly mind. Christ did not ground His Christianity in thinking, or in doing, but, first of all, in being."
The Mind of the Master, Dr. John Watson.
"History and literature furnish many instances of men who have made their mark in virtue of a striking personality; whose reputation rests, not on any visible tokens,—not on kingdoms conquered, institutions founded, books written, or inventions perfected or anything else that they did,—but mainly on what they were. Their merely having passed along a course on earth, and lived and talked and acted with others, has left lasting effects on mankind."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
Being and Doing
JANUARY 25
"Perfection is being, not doing—it is not to effect an act, but to achieve a character. If the aim of life were to do something, then, as in an earthly business, except in doing this one thing the business would be at a standstill. The student is not doing the one thing of student-life when he has ceased to think or read. The labourer leaves his work undone when the spade is not in his hand, and he sits beneath the hedge to rest. But in Christian life, every moment and every act is an opportunity for doing the one thing of becoming Christ-like. Every day is full of a most expressive experience. Every temptation to evil temper which can assail us to-day will be an opportunity to decide the question whether we shall gain the calmness and the rest of Christ, or whether we shall be tossed by the restlessness and agitation of the world. Nay, the very vicissitudes of the season, day and night, heat and cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhilaration or depression, are so contrived as to conduce towards the being which we become, and decide whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether we shall be swept at the mercy of accident and circumstance, miserably susceptible of merely outward influences. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so manifold are the paths to saintly character; and he who has not found out how directly or indirectly to make everything converge towards his soul's sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this life."
Frederick W. Robertson.
Life-Giver, not Deed-Doer
JANUARY 26
"Christ was not primarily the Deed-Doer or the Word-Sayer. He was the Life-Giver. He made men live. Wherever He went He brought vitality. Both in the days of His Incarnation and in the long years of His power which have followed since He vanished from men's sight, His work has been to create the conditions in which all sorts of men should live."
Phillips Brooks.
"Therefore with all the strength God has given us, let us be fulfillers. Let us try to make the life of the world more complete. What can we do? First, each of us can put one more healthy and holy life into the world, and so directly increase the aggregation of righteousness. That is much. To fasten one more link, however small, in the growing chain that is ultimately to bind humanity to God beyond all fear of separation, is very much indeed. And besides that, we can, with sympathy and intelligence, patience and hope, bring up the lagging side in all the vitality around us, and assert for man the worth, the meaning, and the possibility of this his human life."
Phillips Brooks.
Seeing One's Life in Perspective
JANUARY 27
"If we wish to cultivate our higher nature we must have solitude. It is vitally necessary at times that we should be able to get away from every other being on the face of the earth. What thoughtful person does not love to be alone; to be surrounded with no objects but the fields and the trees, the mountains and the waters, to hear nothing but the rustling of the foliage and the songs of the birds, and to feel the fresh breeze of heaven playing upon his cheeks? Moreover, when we are very much in contact with human life, when we are mingling with it, we are liable to become too conscious of its turbid side, or drearily oppressed with its commonplace features. To see human life, and weigh it in its many aspects, we need at times to go away and be as it were on a pinnacle, where we can take it all in with one sweeping glance. Solitude can affect us somewhat as religious worship does. It can take us out of the consciousness of where we belong, away from the ordinary selfish instincts by which we may be dominated.
"Too much solitude may be dangerous, just as too much of the sense of mystery may be. Yet something of it is essential to our advance in spiritual life. A man must go away where he can feel the mystery of his own being. Moreover, a certain degree of solitude seems necessary to the full growth of the mind, and it is in solitude that great principles are first thought out, and the genius of eminent men formed, for solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm, and enthusiasm is the real parent of genius. Solitude, moreover, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations."
H. W. Smith.
"One sees one's life in perspective when one goes abroad, and to be spectators of ourselves is very solemn."
Henry Drummond.
Triviality
JANUARY 28
"Triviality is the modern equivalent for worldliness, the regard for the outward and the visible. The trivial mind is enmity with God, and it is of many kinds. There is the triviality which concerns itself with 'nothing,' which gossips about 'him' and 'her,' and becomes serious over a form, a phrase, a dress, a race or a show. There is the triviality to which the working people are forced by the cares of this life, who all day and every day have to think of the bread which perisheth, while their souls starve for lack of knowledge which endureth. The cares of life as often choke the growth of the Word as the deceitfulness of riches. There is also that most insidious kind of triviality which tends to haunt the more serious circles, wrapping itself in talk about social schemes, Church progress, policies and philosophies, passing itself off as serious, when all the time the concern of the talker is to achieve a wordy success or to get notice for his little self or his little system."
The Service of God, Canon Barnett.
"I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality."
Thoreau.
Triviality
JANUARY 29
"They that use to employ their Minds too much upon Trifles, commonly make themselves incapable of any Thing that is Serious or Great."
La Rochefoucauld.
"Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord, from whom cometh life; whereby thou mayest receive the strength and power to allay all storms and tempests. That is it which works up into patience, innocency, soberness, into stillness, staidness, quietness up to God, with His power. Therefore mind; that is the word of the Lord God unto thee, that thou mayest feel the authority of God, and thy faith in that, to work down that which troubles thee; for that is it which keeps peace, and brings up the witness in thee, which hath been transgressed, to feel after God with His power and life, who is a God of order and peace."
George Fox.
"It is not sin so much as triviality which hides God."
The Service of God, Canon Barnett.
The Art of being Quiet
JANUARY 30
"It is only when we begin to think about life, and how we should live, that the art of being quiet assumes its real value; to the irrational creature it is nothing, to the rational it is much. In the first place, it removes what De Quincey, with his usual grand felicity of expression, calls 'the burden of that distraction which lurks in the infinite littleness of details.' It is the infinite littleness of details which takes the glory and the dignity from our common life, and which we who value that life for its own sake and for the sake of its great Giver must strive to make finite.
"Since unconscious life is not possible to the intellectual adult, as it is to the child—since he cannot go on living without a thought about the nature of his own being, its end and aim—it is good for him to cultivate a habit of repose, that he may think and feel like a man putting away those childish things—the carelessness, the thoughtless joy, 'the tear forgot as soon as shed,' which, however beautiful, because appropriate, in childhood, are not beautiful because not appropriate in mature age.
"The art of being quiet is necessary to enable a man to possess his own soul in peace and integrity—to examine himself, to understand what gifts God has endowed him with, and to consider how he may best employ them in the business of the world. This is its universal utility. It is unwholesome activity which requires not repose and thoughtful quiet as its forerunner, and every man should secure some portion of each day for voluntary retirement and repose within himself."
The Art of being Quiet
JANUARY 31
"One of the special needs of our day is more time for meditation and reflection."
Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacColl.
"We are too busy, too encumbered, too much occupied, too active! We read too much! The one thing needful is to throw off all one's load of cares, of preoccupations, of pedantry, and to become again young, simple, child-like, living happily and gratefully in the present hour. We must know how to put occupation aside, which does not mean that we must be idle. In an inaction which is meditative and attentive the wrinkles of the soul are smoothed away, and the soul itself spreads, unfolds, and springs afresh, and, like the trodden grass of the roadside or the bruised leaf of a plant, repairs its injuries, becomes new, spontaneous, true, and original. Reverie, like the rain of night, restores colour and force to thoughts which have been blanched and wearied by the heat of the day. With gentle fertilising power it awakens within us a thousand sleeping germs, and, as though in play, gathers round us materials for the future, and images for the use of talent."
Amiel's Journal.
Inward Stillness
February 1
"Let each of us sit still, and keep watch for awhile in the silent house of his spirit.... As near as is the light to one sleeping in the light, so near is Christ, the Awakener, to every Eternal man, deeply as he may be asleep within his outer man."
John Pulsford.
"Let us then labour for an inward stillness, An inward stillness and an inward healing; That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks in us, and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our own spirits, That we may do His will, and that only."
Longfellow.
Commune with your Own Heart and be Still
FEBRUARY 2
"Perhaps one very simple, but alas too often neglected rule, may be suggested to those who are indeed desirous of realising through all the petty vicissitudes and monotonous or trivial round of their daily life, the Divine presence and power. 'Devotion early in the day before the day's worries begin. It is the only way to keep the spirit Godward through them all.' Devotion, it is needless to add, is not 'saying prayers' in words either of our own or any one else's—nor is it only or chiefly 'making request.' It is pre-eminently worship, the deliberate homage of the mind and heart—of the whole being to God who is its source. And here steadfastness of will, showing itself in determined concentration of attention, is the indispensable condition of success; for such concentration is by no means always an easy matter to attain, even when the effort is 'made early in the day before the day's worries begin.' Sometimes there are sleepless 'worries' which assert their presence with the first dawn of consciousness; sometimes we are mentally or physically lazy, inert or languid. Well, if we habitually give in to such difficulties in a way of which we should be utterly ashamed were any other object of mental effort in question, we must not be surprised if the entirely natural result ensues that we fail to 'realise' what we have never honestly set ourselves to treat as real.... Amid the thronging duties, the ceaseless cares, the toilsome or pleasurable round of daily life, we must take and we must keep time to 'commune with our own hearts and in our own chamber, and be still.'"
E. M. Caillard.
The Receptive Side of Life
FEBRUARY 3
"To all who are active in Christian work I would say, ever remember that there must be fidelity to the receptive side of life if you are to exercise any real abiding influence. How often do we hear men say that they have worked hard in their district, or their school, or their class, and yet there is no result.
"Perhaps they have worked too hard. There are a multitude of Marthas in modern English life; but it were good for such if, at times, they would follow the example of the wiser Mary, and sit down quietly at Jesus' feet, and draw in from Him that power which cannot by any possibility be given out, before it is taken in."
Canon Body.
"The problem set before us is to bring our daily task into the temple of contemplation and ply it there, to act as in the presence of God, to interfuse one's little part with religion. So only can we inform the detail of life, all that is passing, temporary, and insignificant, with beauty and nobility. So may we dignify and consecrate the meanest of occupations. So may we feel that we are paying our tribute to the universal work and the eternal will. So are we reconciled with life and delivered from the fear of death. So are we in order and at peace."
Amiel's Journal.
Regulation of Time
FEBRUARY 4
"No two things differ more than hurry and despatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, despatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is labouring eternally, but to no purpose, and in constant motion, without getting on a jot: like a turnstile, he is in everybody's way, but stops nobody: he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything, but sees into nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with these few that are he burns his fingers."
Colton.
"Hurry belongs to the mortal who wants to see the outcome of his work, while eternity is lavish of time."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time."
Horace Mann.
"Punctuality is the politeness of kings."
Louis XIV.
Business-like Habits
FEBRUARY 5
"It is very important to cultivate business-like habits. An eminent friend of mine assured me not long ago that when he thought over the many cases he had known of men, even of good ability and high character, who had been unsuccessful in life, by far the most frequent cause of failure was that they were dilatory, unpunctual, unable to work cordially with others, obstinate in small things, and, in fact, what we call unbusiness-like."
Lord Avebury.
"A 'bustling' man is, to a man of business, what a monkey is to a man. He is the shadow of despatch, or, rather, the echo thereof; for he maketh noise enough for an alarm. The quickness of a true man of business he imitateth, imitateth excellently well, but neither his silence nor his method; and it is to be noted that he is ever most vehement about matters of no significance. He is always in such headlong haste to overtake the next minute, that he loses half the minute in hand; and yet is full of indignation and impatience at other people's slowness, and wasteth more time in reiterating his love of despatch than would suffice for doing a great deal of business. He never giveth you his quiet attention with a mind centred on what you are saying, but hears you with a restless eye, and a perpetual shifting posture, and is so eager to show his quickness that he interrupteth you a dozen times, misunderstands you as often, and ends by making you and himself lose twice as much time as was necessary."
H. Rogers.
Time and Method
FEBRUARY 6
"The thrift of time will repay in after life with usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and waste of it will make you dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature beyond your darkest reckoning."
Gladstone.
"One of the striking characteristics of successful persons is their faculty of readily determining the relative importance of different things. There are many things which it is desirable to do, a few are essential, and there is no more useful quality of the human mind than that which enables its possessor at once to distinguish which the few essential things are. Life is so short and time so fleeting that much which one would wish to do must fain be omitted. He is fortunate who perceives at a glance what it will do, and what it will not do, to omit. This invaluable faculty, if not possessed in a remarkable degree naturally, is susceptible of cultivation to a considerable extent. Let any one adopt the practice of reflecting, every morning, what must necessarily be done during the day, and then begin by doing the most important things first, leaving the others to take their chance of being done or left undone. In this way attention first to the things of first importance soon acquires the almost irresistible force of habit, and becomes a rule of life. There is no rule more indispensable to success."
Concentration
FEBRUARY 7
"The marked differences of working power among men are due chiefly to differences in the power of concentration. A retentive and accurate memory is conditioned upon close attention. If one gives entire attention to what is passing before him, he is not likely to forget it, or to confuse persons or incidents. The book which one reads with eyes which are continually lifted from the page may furnish entertainment for the moment, but cannot enrich the reader, because it cannot become part of his knowledge. Attention is the simplest form of concentration, and its value illustrates the supreme importance of that focussing of all the powers upon the thing in hand which may be called the sustained attention of the whole nature.
"Here, as everywhere in the field of man's life, there enters that element of sacrifice without which no real achievement is possible. To secure a great end, one must be willing to pay a great price. The exact adjustment of achievement to sacrifice makes us aware, at every step, of the invisible spiritual order with which all men are in every kind of endeavour. If the highest skill could be secured without long and painful effort, it would be wasted through ignorance of its value, or misused through lack of education; but a man rarely attains great skill without undergoing a discipline of self-denial and work which gives him steadiness, restraint, and a certain kind of character. The giving up of pleasures which are wholesome, the turning aside from fields which are inviting, the steady refusal of invitations and claims which one would be glad to accept or recognise, invest the power of concentration with moral quality, and throw a searching light on the nature of genuine success.
"To do one thing well, a man must be willing to hold all other interests and activities subordinate; to attain the largest freedom, a man must first bear the cross of self-denial."
Concentration
FEBRUARY 8
"Strive constantly to concentrate yourself; never dissipate your powers; incessant activity, of whatever kind, leads finally to bankruptcy."
Goethe.
"All impatience disturbs the circulation, scatters force, makes concentration difficult if not impossible."
C. B. Newcomb.
"They have great powers, and they waste them pitifully, for they have not the greatest power,—the power to rule the use of their powers."
F. W. Robertson.
"Concentration is the secret of strength."
Emerson.
Readiness
FEBRUARY 9
"To know how to be ready—a great thing—a precious gift,—and one that implies calculation, grasp and decision. To be always ready, a man must be able to cut a knot, for everything cannot be untied; he must know how to disengage what is essential from the detail in which it is enwrapped, for everything cannot be equally considered; in a word, he must be able to simplify his duties, his business, and his life. To know how to be ready, is to know how to start.
"It is astonishing how all of us are generally cumbered up with the thousand and one hindrances and duties which are not such, but which nevertheless wind us about with their spider threads and fetter the movement of our wings. It is the lack of order which makes us slaves; the confusion of to-day discounts the freedom of to-morrow.
"Confusion is the enemy of all comfort, and confusion is born of procrastination. To know how to be ready we must be able to finish. Nothing is done but what is finished. The things which we leave dragging behind us will start up again later on before us and harass our path. Let each day take thought for what concerns it, liquidate its own affairs and respect the day which is to follow, and then we shall be always ready. To know how to be ready, is at bottom to know how to die."
Amiel's Journal.
Order
FEBRUARY 10
"What comfort, what strength, what economy there is in order—material order, intellectual order, moral order. To know where one is going and what one wishes—this is order; to keep one's word and one's engagements—again order; to have everything ready under one's hand, to be able to dispose of all one's forces, and to have all one's means of whatever kind under command—still order; to discipline one's habits, one's efforts, one's wishes; to organise one's life, to distribute one's time, to take the measure of one's duties and make one's rights respected; to employ one's capital and resources, one's talent and one's chances profitably;—all this belongs to and is included in the word order. Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over oneself; order is power. Æsthetic and moral beauty consist, the first in a true conception of order, and the second in submission to it, and in the realisation of it, by, in, and around oneself. Order is man's greatest need and his true well-being."
Amiel's Journal.
"The commissioning of the Twelve imposed no particular form of rule; but it taught the lesson that organisation and order and the distribution of duty were essential in things spiritual as well as in things temporal, and that it was well for the children of light to be as 'wise in their generation' as the children of the world."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
The Secret of Thrift
FEBRUARY 11
"The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as possible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and obstruction, the least wear and tear. And the secret of thrift is knowledge. In proportion as you know the laws and nature of a subject, you will be able to work at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, instead of wasting your money or your energies in mistaken schemes, irregular efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion."
Charles Kingsley.
"It is never enough for us simply to know. We must also weigh."
The Making of Character, Prof. MacCunn.
"Doing good, being so divine a privilege, is beset by its own dangers. Let us see that our good be not evil spoken of by want of thought, method, and self-denial in the doing of it. The world is waiting for us, with our little store. Oh that we might economise it more, devote it more thoroughly, and add to it! Every time we pray, or study, or work, we are receiving to give away. Men are looking to us in faintness, weariness, and want, and a voice says to us, 'Give ye them to eat.' If it is but five loaves, we can offer them to Christ, and He will multiply them."
Phillips Brooks.
Endurance
FEBRUARY 12
"'A somewhat varied experience of men has led me, the longer I live,' said Huxley, 'to set less value on mere cleverness; to attach more and more importance to industry and physical endurance. Indeed, I am much disposed to think that endurance is the most valuable quality of all; for industry, as the desire to work hard, does not come to much if a feeble frame is unable to respond to the desire. No life is wasted unless it ends in sloth, dishonesty, or cowardice. No success is worthy of the name unless it is won by honest industry and brave breasting of the waves of fortune.'"
"Of all work producing results, nine-tenths must be drudgery. There is no work, from the highest to the lowest, which can be done well by any man who is unwilling to make that sacrifice. Part of the very nobility of the devotion of the true workman to his work consists in the fact that a man is not daunted by finding that drudgery must be done, and no man can really succeed in any walk of life without a good deal of what in ordinary English is called pluck. That is the condition of all success, and there is nothing which so truly repays itself as this perseverance against weariness."
Bishop Philpotts.
Perseverance
FEBRUARY 13
"Practise thyself even in the things which thou despairest of accomplishing. For even the left hand, which is ineffectual for all other things for want of practice, holds the bridle more vigorously than the right hand; for it has been practised in this."
Marcus Aurelius.
"'It is not the spurt at the start, but the continued, unresting, unhasting advance that wins the day.'"
"The same law runs in ordinary life, and he only need expect to attain success and win the honour of his fellow-men who is thorough. The reason why men fail is, in five cases out of six, not through want of influence or brains, or opportunity, or good guidance, but because they are slack; and the reason why certain men with few advantages succeed, is that they are diligent, concentrated, persevering and conscientious—because, in fact, they are thorough."
The Homely Virtues, Dr. John Watson.
"Unto him who works, and feels he works, This same grand year is ever at the doors." Tennyson.
Pleasure in Work
FEBRUARY 14
"Joy or delight in what we are doing is not a mere luxury; it is a means, a help for the more perfect doing of our work. Indeed, it may be truly said that no man does any work perfectly who does not enjoy his work. Joy in one's work is the consummate tool without which the work may be done indeed, but without which the work will always be done slowly, clumsily, and without its finest perfectness. Men who do their work without enjoying it are like men carving statues with hatchets. The statue gets carved perhaps, and is a monument for ever of the dogged perseverance of the artist; but there is a perpetual waste of toil, and there is no fine result in the end."
Phillips Brooks.
"Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous,—a spirit all sunshine; graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."
Carlyle.
"Every joy is gain, and gain is gain, however small."
Browning.
Duty
FEBRUARY 15
"In Life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee 'I find thee worthy; do this thing for me'?" Lowell.
"Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers."
Amiel's Journal.
"I'll bind myself to that which, once being right, Will not be less right when I shrink from it."
Kingsley.
"There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving." Whittier.
Duty
FEBRUARY 16
"A duty is no sooner divined than from that very moment it becomes binding upon us."
Amiel's Journal.
"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it."
Emerson.
"The toppling crags of duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God Himself is moon and sun." Tennyson.
The Iron Chains of Duty
FEBRUARY 17
"... One conviction I have gained from the experience of the last years—life is not jest and amusement; life is not even enjoyment ... life is hard labour. Renunciation, continual renunciation—that is its secret meaning, its solution. Not the fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations, however lofty they may be—the fulfilment of duty, that is what must be the care of man. Without laying on himself chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot reach without a fall the end of his career."
A Lear of the Steppes, Ivan Turgenev.
"Granted that life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion to make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other and comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the military sense; and the religious man is he who has a military joy in duty—not he who weeps over the wounded."
Lay Morals, R. L. Stevenson.
Power
FEBRUARY 18
"Oh, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks! Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be a miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which has come in you by the grace of God.
"There is nothing which comes to seem more foolish to us, I think, as years go by, than the limitations which have been quietly set to the moral possibilities of man. They are placidly and perpetually assumed. 'You must not expect too much of him,' so it is said. 'You must remember that he is only a man after all.' 'Only a man!' That sounds to me as if one said, 'You may launch your boat and sail a little way, but you must not expect to go very far. It is only the Atlantic Ocean.' Why, man's moral range and reach is practically infinite, at least no man has yet begun to comprehend where its limit lies. Man's powers of conquering temptation, of despising danger, of being true to principle, have never been even indicated, save in Christ."
Phillips Brooks.
"Virgil said of the winning crew in his boat-race, 'They can, because they believe they can.'"
An Ideal Level
FEBRUARY 19
"No man who, being a Christian, desires the kingdom of God, can justly neglect giving his energy to the bettering of the social, physical, and educational condition of the poor, the diseased, and the criminal classes. But he is not a Christian, or he has not realised the problem fully, if that is all he does. Social improvement is a work portions of which any one can do, in which all ought to share; but if we who follow Christ desire to do the best work in that improvement, and in the best way, we ought to strive—while we join in the universal movement towards a juster society—to give a spiritual life to that movement; to keep it at an ideal level; to free it from mere materialism; to maintain in it the monarchy of self-sacrifice; to fix its eyes on invisible and unworldly truths; to supply it with noble and spiritual faiths; to base all associations of men on the ground of their spiritual union—all being children of God, and brothers of one another, in the love and faith by which Jesus lived; and to maintain the dignity of this spiritual communion of men in faith in their immortal union with God. This is the fight of faith we, as fellow-workers with God, shall have to wage; and this not only binds us up with the poor, but with the rich, not only with the ignorant, but the learned; for on these grounds all men are seen as stripped of everything save of their humanity and their divine kinship.... Improve, then, the material condition and the knowledge of all who are struggling for justice; it is part of your life which if you neglect, you are out of touch with the new life; but kindle in it, uphold and sanctify in it, the life which is divine, the communion with man of God, without union with whose character all effort for social improvement will revert to new miseries and new despair."
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
Work
FEBRUARY 20
"Idleness standing in the midst of unattempted tasks is always proud. Work is always tending to humility. Work touches the keys of endless activity, opens the infinite, and stands awe-struck before the immensity of what there is to do. Work brings a man into the good realm of facts. Work takes the dreamy youth who is growing proud in his closet over one or two sprouting powers which he has discovered in himself, and sets him out among the gigantic needs and the vast processes of the world, and makes him feel his littleness. Work opens the measureless fields of knowledge and skill that reach far out of sight. I am sure we all know the fine, calm, sober humbleness of men who have really tried themselves against the great tasks of life. It was great in Paul, and in Luther, and in Cromwell. It is something that never comes into the character, never shows in the face of a man who has never worked."
Phillips Brooks.
"No man is born into the world, whose work Is not born with him; there is always work, And tools to work withal, for those who will; And blessed are the horny hands of toil! The busy world shoves angrily aside The man who stands with arms akimbo set, Until occasion tells him what to do; And he who waits to have his task marked out Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled." James Russell Lowell.
Special Work for Each
FEBRUARY 21
"There is some particular work which lies to every one's hand which he can do better than any other person. What we ought to be concerned about is not whether it be on a large scale or a small—about which we can never be quite certain—nor whether it is going to bring us fame or leave us in obscurity—an issue which is in the hands of God—but that we do it, and that we do it with all our might. Having done that, there is no cause to fret ourselves or ask questions which cannot be answered. We may rest with a quiet conscience and a contented heart, for we have filled our place and done what we could. The battle of life extends over a vast area, and it is vain for us to inquire about the other wings of the army; it is enough that we have received our orders, and that we have held the few feet of ground committed to our charge. There let us fight and there let us die, and so fighting and so dying in the place of duty we cannot be condemned, we must be justified. Brilliant qualities may never be ours, but the homely virtues are within our reach, and character is built up not out of great intellectual gifts and splendid public achievements, but out of honesty, industry, thrift, kindness, courtesy, and gratitude, resting upon faith in God and love towards man. And the inheritance of the soul which ranks highest and lasts for ever is character."
The Homely Virtues, Dr. John Watson.
The Sin of Idleness
FEBRUARY 22
"There is a certain amount of work to be done in this world. If any of us does not take his full share, he imposes that which he does not take on the shoulders of another; and the first cause of poverty, of disease, of misery in all States, is the overwork which is imposed on men and women by the idle and indifferent members of the nation. This is to steal from the human race; to steal from them joy, leisure, health, comfort and peace, and to impose on them sorrow and overwork, disease and homelessness, bitter anger and fruitless tears. This is the curse which the selfish dreamer leaves behind him. Many have been the fierce oppressors and defrauders of the human race, but the evil they have done is less than that done by those who drop by drop and hour by hour drain the blood of mankind by doing no work for the overworked. This is the crime with which the idle and indifferent will be confronted when the great throne is set in our soul, and the books we have written on men's lives are opened, and God shall lay judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet. 'Lord, what hast Thou to do with it?' we will say. 'I did not neglect Thee; I took my ease, it is true, but I kept Thy law. I was never impious, never an atheist. When was I not religious?' Then He will answer: 'Inasmuch as ye never worked for the least of these My brothers, ye never worked for Me!'"
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"Let us start up and live: here come moments that cannot be had again; some few may yet be filled with imperishable good."
J. Martineau.
Idleness
FEBRUARY 23
"It is not necessary for a man to be actively bad in order to make a failure of life; simple inaction will accomplish it. Nature has everywhere written her protest against idleness; everything which ceases to struggle, which remains inactive, rapidly deteriorates. It is the struggle towards an ideal, the constant effort to get higher and further which develops manhood and character."
"Shun idleness, it is the rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals."
Voltaire.
"There is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair."
Carlyle.
"'Twere all as good to ease one breast of grief As sit and watch the sorrows of the world."
The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
Fear of Failure
FEBRUARY 24
"Who would ever stir a finger, if only on condition of being guaranteed against oversights, misinformation, mistakes, ignorance, loss, and danger?"
H. Martineau.
"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."
Amiel's Journal.
"He who is too much afraid of being duped has lost the power of being magnanimous."
Amiel's Journal.
"Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome."
Dr. Johnson.
Fear of Failure
FEBRUARY 25
"Extreme caution is no less harmful than its opposite."
Vauvenargues.
"The men who succeed best in public life are those who take the risk of standing by their own convictions."
Garfield.
"Our doubts are traitors, And make us lose the good we oft might win, By fearing to attempt." Shakespeare.
"It is better by a noble boldness to run the risk of being subject to half of the evils which we anticipate, than to remain in cowardly listlessness for fear of what may happen."
Herodotus.
Falterers
FEBRUARY 26
"Nay, never falter: no great deed is done By falterers who ask for certainty. No good is certain, but the steadfast mind, The undivided will to seek the good: 'Tis that compels the elements, and wrings A human music from the indifferent air. The greatest gift the hero leaves his race Is to have been a hero. Say we fail!— We feed the high tradition of the world, And leave our spirit in our children's breasts." George Eliot.
"How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rest unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life." Tennyson.
"After all, depend upon it, it is better to be worn out with work in a thronged community, than to perish in inaction in a stagnant solitude: take this truth into consideration whenever you get tired of work and bustle."
Mrs. Gaskell's Life of C. Brontë.
Courage
FEBRUARY 27
"Whether you be man or woman you will never do anything in the world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour."
James Lane Allen.
"The brave man is not he who feels no fear, For that were stupid and irrational, But he whose noble soul its fear subdues And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from." Joanna Baillie.
"Heroism is the brilliant triumph of the soul over the flesh—that is to say, over fear: fear of poverty, of suffering, of calumny, of sickness, of isolation, and of death. There is no serious piety without heroism. Heroism is the dazzling and glorious concentration of courage."
Amiel's Journal.
"Self-trust is the essence of heroism."
Emerson.
Responsibility
FEBRUARY 28
"Thousands live and die in the dim borderland of destitution; that little children wail, and starve, and perish, and soak and blacken soul and sense, in our streets; that there are hundreds and thousands of the unemployed, not all of whom, as some would persuade us, are lazy impostors; that the demon of drink still causes among us daily horrors which would disgrace Dahomey or Ashantee, and rakes into his coffers millions of pounds which are wet with tears and red with blood; these are facts patent to every eye. Now, God will work no miracle to mend these miseries. If we neglect them they will be left uncured, but He will hold us responsible for the neglect. It is vain for us to ask, 'Am I my brother's keeper?' In spite of all the political economists, in spite of all superfine theories of chilly and purse-saving wisdom, in spite of all the critiques of the irreligious—still more of the semi-religious, and the religious press, He will say to the callous and the slothful, with such a glance 'as struck Gehazi with leprosy, and Simon Magus with a curse,' 'What hast thou done? Smooth religionist, orthodox Churchman, scrupulous Levite, befringed and bephylacteried Pharisee, thy brother's blood crieth to Me from the ground!'"
F. W. Farrar.
"The healing of the world Is in its nameless saints. Each separate star Seems nothing, but a myriad scattered stars Break up the night, and make it beautiful."
Bayard Taylor.
The Sin of Indifference
MARCH 1
"They hear no more the cries of their brothers caught in the nets of misery: 'Help us, we are perishing.' The curtains of their comfort are fast drawn; they sit at home wrapt in family ease. Outside, the sleet is falling, the bitter wind is blowing, thousands of the children of sorrow are dying in the fierce weather. God Himself is knocking at the door, calling 'Come forth and seek the lost with Jesus.' We hear nothing, the cotton of comfort stops our ears. For a time, till God Himself breaks in on us with storm, and disperses our comfort to the winds, we can run no Christian race.... Therefore, lay aside, not all comfort—men have a right to that—but that excess of it which softens and enfeebles the soul; which sends to sleep the longing for God's perfection; which makes our life too slothful to follow Christ, the Healer of the world!"
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"All my soul is full Of pity for the sickness of this world; Which I will heal, if healing may be found By uttermost renouncing and strong strife." The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
Wasted Emotions
MARCH 2
"Pity, indignation, love, felt and not made into acts of pity or of self-sacrifice, lose their very heart in our dainty dreaming, and are turned into their opposites. Our animation and activity of love, unexercised, becomes like the unused muscle, attenuated; and we are content to think with pleasure of the times when we were animated and active—a vile condition. But the worst wretchedness of these losses does not consist in the damage we do ourselves, but in the loss of power to benefit mankind, in the loss of power to do God's work for the salvation and the greater happiness of man. We are guilty to man, and guilty before God, when we lose our powers in inglorious ease. We owe ourselves to men and women; no amount of work frees us from the duty of keeping ourselves in the best possible trim, body and soul, mind and spirit, that we may nobly work the loving work of Him that sent us."
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"Opportunities are swarming around us all the time, thicker than gnats at sundown. We walk through a cloud of them."
Van Dyke.
"Doing" more than "Feeling"
MARCH 3
"Our Lord ... always brings back to mind that doing is more than feeling."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"A maxim of Professor James 'never to suffer a single emotion to evaporate without exacting from it some practical service.'"
The Making of Character, Prof. John MacCunn.
"But two ways are offered to our will— Toil with rare triumph, Ease with safe disgrace:— Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance! The man's whole life preludes the single deed That shall decide if his inheritance Be with the sifted few of matchless breed, Or with the unnoticed herd that only sleep and feed."
Lowell.
The Sacredness of Work
MARCH 4
"All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness."
Carlyle.
"Some of the commonest faults of thought and work are those which come from thinking too poorly of our own lives, and of that which must rightly be demanded of us. A high standard of accuracy, a chivalrous loyalty to exact truth, generosity to fellow-workers, indifference to results, distrust of all that is showy, self-discipline and undiscouraged patience through all difficulties,—these are among the first and greatest conditions of good work; and they ought never to seem too hard for us if we remember what we owe to the best work of bygone days."
The Spirit of Discipline, Bishop Paget.
"Whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn a reward to the senses as well as to the thought; no matter how often defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done is to have done it."
Emerson.
Doing our Best
MARCH 5
"It is not the quantity of our work that He regards, but the quality of it. He is less anxious that we should fulfil our task—for He can make up for our deficiencies—than that we should do our best; for what He desires is the improvement of our characters, and that requires the co-operation of our own wills with His."
Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacColl.
"Experience shows that success is due less to ability than to zeal. The winner is he who gives himself to his work, body and soul."
Charles Buxton.
"Life is too short to waste, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 'Twill soon be dark; Up! mind thine own aim, and God speed the mark!"
Emerson.
Work—Effective Reforms
MARCH 6
"We must be careful not to undermine independence in our anxiety to relieve distress. There is always the initial difficulty that whatever is done for men takes from them a great stimulus to work, and weakens the feeling of independence; all creatures which depend on others tend to become mere parasites. It is important therefore, as far as possible, not so much to give a man bread, as to put him in the way of earning it for himself; not to give direct aid, but to help others to help themselves. The world is so complex that we must all inevitably owe much to our neighbours; but, as far as possible, every man should stand on his own feet."
Lord Avebury.
"We are now generally agreed upon our aims: nobility of character and not only outward prosperity; victory over evil at its source, and not in its consequences; reforms which shall regard the welfare of future generations, who are 'the greatest number.'"
Bishop Westcott.
"We fall under the temptation of seeking material solutions for spiritual problems; material remedies for spiritual maladies. The thought of spiritual poverty, of spiritual destitution, is crowded out. We treat the symptoms and neglect the disease itself."
Bishop Westcott.
Work—Effective Reforms
MARCH 7
"If you are moved with a vague desire to help men be better men, you must know that you can do it not by belabouring the evil but by training the good that there is in them."
Phillips Brooks.
"The Christian, therefore, I repeat, as Christian, will take his full part in preparing for the amelioration of the conditions of men no less than for their conversion. He will in due measure strive to follow, under the limitations of his own labour, the whole example of his Lord, who removed outward distresses and satisfied outward wants, even as He brought spiritual strength and rest to the weak and weary. Moreover, this effort based upon resolute thought, belongs to the completeness of the religious life of the Christian."
Bishop Westcott.
"Reforms which are effective must develop and strengthen character."
Bishop Westcott.
Work—"To cure is the Voice of the Past"
MARCH 8
"All measures of reformation are effective in exact proportion to their timeliness. Partial decay may be cut away and cleansed, incipient error corrected: but there is a point at which corruption can no more be stayed, nor wandering recalled. It has been the manner of modern philanthropy to remain passive until that precise period, and to leave the sick to perish, and the foolish to stray, while it spent itself in frantic exertions to raise the dead, and reform the dust."
The Queen of the Air, John Ruskin.
"The real work of charity is not to afford facilities to the poor to lower their standard, but to step in when calamity threatens and prevent it from falling."
The Standard of Life, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet.
"To cure is the voice of the past; to prevent, the divine whisper of to-day."
Children's Rights, Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Satan's Opportunities
MARCH 9
"Physiologists know as much about morality as ministers of the gospel. The vices which drag men and women into crime spring as often from unhealthy bodies as from weak wills and callous consciences. Vile fancies and sensual appetites grow stronger and more terrible when a feeble physique and low vitality offer no opposing force. Deadly vices are nourished in the weak diseased bodies that are penned, day after day, in filthy crowded tenements of great cities."
Children's Rights, Kate Douglas Wiggin.
"Man's unpitied misery is Satan's opportunity."
"Mould conditions aright, and men will grow good to fit them."
Horace Fletcher.
"Evil is Wrought by want of Thought"
MARCH 10
"But evil is wrought by want of thought, As well as want of heart."
Thomas Hood.
"It is clear that in whatever it is our duty to act, those matters also it is our duty to study."
Dr. Arnold.
"No alms-giving of money is so helpful as alms-giving of care and thought; the giving of money without thought is indeed continually mischievous; but the invective of the economist against indiscriminate charity is idle if it be not coupled with pleading for discriminate charity, and above all, for that charity which discerns the uses that people may be put to, and helps them by setting them to work in those services. That is the help beyond all others; find out how to make useless people useful, and let them earn their money instead of begging it."
Arrows of the Chace, John Ruskin. (From a letter published in the Daily Telegraph of December 20, 1868.)
The Hallowing of Work
March 11
"We shall not do much of that which is best worth doing in the world if we only consecrate to it our gifts. We have something else to consecrate for our work's sake, for our friend's sake, for the sake of all for whom in any way we are responsible. Beyond and above all that we may do, is that which we may be. 'For their sakes I sanctify, I consecrate, Myself.' So our Blessed Lord spoke in regard to those whom He had drawn nearest to Himself—His friends; those whose characters He would fashion for the greatest task that ever yet was laid upon frail men. And even when we have set apart all that was unique in the nature and results of His Self-consecration, all that He alone could, once for all, achieve; still, I think, the words disclose a principle that concerns every one of us—the principle of all that is highest and purest in the influence of one life upon the lives it touches: 'For their sakes I consecrate Myself.' There is the ultimate secret of power; the one sure way of doing good in our generation. We cannot anticipate or analyse the power of a pure and holy life; but there can be no doubt about its reality, and there seems no limit to its range. We can only know in part the laws and forces of the spiritual world; and it may be that every soul that is purified and given up to God and to His work releases or awakens energies of which we have no suspicion—energies viewless as the wind; but we can be sure of the result, and we may have glimpses sometimes of the process—surely, there is no power in the world so unerring or so irrepressible as the power of personal holiness. All else at times goes wrong, blunders, loses proportion, falls disastrously short of its aim, grows stiff or one-sided, or out of date—'whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away;' but nothing mars or misleads the influence that issues from a pure and humble and unselfish character."
The Hallowing of Work, Bishop Paget.
One by One
MARCH 12
"Nothing is more characteristic of Jesus' method than His indifference to the many—His devotion to the single soul. His attitude to the public, and His attitude to a private person were a contrast and a contradiction. If His work was likely to cause a sensation Jesus charged His disciples to let no man know it: if the people got wind of Him, He fled to solitary places: if they found Him, as soon as might be He escaped. But He used to take young men home with Him, who wished to ask questions: He would spend all night with a perplexed scholar: He gave an afternoon to a Samaritan woman. He denied Himself to the multitude: He lay in wait for the individual. This was not because He under-valued a thousand, it was because He could not work on the thousand scale: it was not because He over-valued the individual, it was because His method was arranged for the scale of one. Jesus never succeeded in public save once, when He was crucified: He never failed in private save once, with Pontius Pilate. His method was not sensation: it was influence. He did not rely on impulses: He believed in discipline. He never numbered converts, because He knew what was in man: He sifted them, as one winnoweth the wheat from the chaff. Spiritual statistics are unknown in the Gospels: they came in with St. Peter in the pardonable intoxication of success: they have since grown to be a mania. As the Church coarsens she estimates salvation by quantity, how many souls are saved: Jesus was concerned with quality, after what fashion they were saved. His mission was to bring Humanity to perfection."
The Mind of the Master, Dr. John Watson.
One by One
MARCH 13
"Our Lord ... does not, on entering a village, ordain that all the lepers in it shall be cleansed, or all the palsied restored to the use of their limbs. He condescends to take each case by itself."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"'One by one' is not only the safest way of helping, it is the only possible way of ensuring that any real good is done."
Rich and Poor, Mrs. Bernard Bosanquet.
"Love cannot be content while any suffer,—cannot rest while any sin."
"I would not let one cry whom I could save."
The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
Interruptions
MARCH 14
"So long as there is work to do there will be interruptions—breaks in its progress. The minister at work on his sermon, the merchant at his desk, the woman in her household duties—all must expect these calls to turn aside from the work in hand. And it is a part of one's character growth to bear these timely or untimely interruptions without any break in good temper or courtesy. A young student who was privileged to call often upon Phillips Brooks in his study, told the writer that he could never have learned from the Bishop's manner or words, that the big-hearted, busy man was ever too busy to receive him. To bear interruptions thus serenely is an opportunity for self-control not to be overlooked by any one who wants to do God's work in the right spirit."
"He threw himself spontaneously, apparently without effort and yet irresistibly, into the griefs and joys, the needs and interests of others. He had the happy gift of taking everybody to his heart. He was never inattentive. As you talked to him you always felt he was listening and really trying to understand your case. In the light of sympathy you saw yourself reflected in the mirror of his heart. Nor did he forget you when you were gone from sight. His was not the cheap sympathy of an outward manner, but the true emotion of the inward self. To your surprise, when you had left Bishop Fraser with a sense of shame at having occupied, in your interview, so much of his overcrowded time, you would find the next morning a letter upon your table giving his fuller and more mature opinion of your plans or course of action."... "Tender and loving, in sympathy with the lowliest, forbearing with the most unreasonable, often interrupted, but never resenting, the sacrifice of self crowning all."
Bishop Fraser's Lancashire Life, Archdeacon Diggle.
Mechanical Work
MARCH 15
"Miss Keane took but little heed of the presence of Rachel and Hester in her brother's house. Those who work mechanically on fixed lines seem as a rule to miss the pith of life. She was kind when she remembered them, but her heart was where her treasure was—namely, in her escritoire, with her list of Bible classes, and servants' choral unions, and the long roll of contributors to the guild of work which she herself had started."
Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley.
"Any man seeking to be holy who does not set himself in close live contact with the life about him, stands in great danger of growing pious or punctilious instead of holy."
Phillips Brooks.
An Ideal Guest-chamber
MARCH 16
"In Mrs. Charles' well-known book, 'Chronicles of the Schonberg-Cotta family,' there is a beautiful passage where Fritz and Eva, beginning their young life together, take into their house a penitent woman who was thought to be near death. Eva writes: 'There is a little room over the porch that we had set apart as a guest-chamber, and very sweet it was to me that Bertha should be its first inmate; very sweet to Fritz and me that our home should be what our Lord's heart is, a refuge for the outcast, the penitent, the solitary, and the sorrowful.'"
"We all say we follow Christ, but most of us only follow Him and His cross—part of the way. When we are told that our Lord bore our sins, and was wounded for our transgressions, I suppose that meant that He felt as if they were His own, in His great love for us. But when you shrink from bearing your fellow-creatures' transgressions, it shows that your love is small."
Red Pottage, Mary Cholmondeley.
"Radiant with heavenly pity, lost in care For those he knew not, save as fellow lives." The Light of Asia, E. Arnold.
"To be Trusted is to be Saved"
MARCH 17
"No one can perish in whom any spark of the Divine life is still burning. No one can be plucked out of the Saviour's hands who still struggles towards Him, however feebly and falteringly."
Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MacColl.
"To be trusted is to be saved. And if we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. For the respect of another is the first restoration of the self-respect a man has lost; our ideal of what he is becomes to him the hope and pattern of what he may become."
The Greatest Thing in the World, Henry Drummond.
"Coarse treatment never wins souls."
God's Children
MARCH 18
"Hallow the name of God, hallow His character, in all noble and good humanity.
"That is not difficult. But to hallow God's character in men and women who are not good, in sinful humanity—that is not so easy. Yet, if we would be true to this prayer of Christ, this too is part of our duty. The evil are also the children of God. They have not hallowed His character, but abandoned its worship. Nevertheless they cannot get rid of it. That divine thing lies hid, ineradicably, beneath their evil doing and evil thought. The truth, justice, love, piety, and goodness of God are in abeyance in the wrong-doer, but they are not dead in him. They cannot die; nothing can destroy them. And we, whose desire it should be to save men, can, if we have faith in the indestructible God in men, pierce to this immortal good in the evil, appeal to it, and call it forth to light, like Lazarus, from the tomb. This we can do, if, like Jesus, we love men enough; if our faith that the evil are still God's children be deep and firm enough. In this we can keep closest to Christ, for it was His daily way of life; and divinely beautiful it was. He hallowed God's character in the criminal and the harlot. He saw the good beneath the evil. At His touch it leaped into life, and its life destroyed the death in the sinner's soul. It seems as if He said when He looked into the face of the wrong-doer, 'Father, hallowed be Thy character.' No lesson for life can be wiser or deeper than this. It ought to rule all our doings with the weak and guilty. It is at the very centre of the prayer, 'Hallowed be Thy name.'"
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"Always at the door Of foulest hearts, the angel-nature yet Knocks to return and cancel all its debt." J. R. Lowell.
Raw Material
MARCH 19
"One also is filled with hope at the figure of the clay, because it suggests the immense and unimagined possibilities of human nature. Upon first sight how poor a thing is this man, with his ignorances, prejudices, pettinesses, his envy, jealousy, evil temper. Upon second thoughts how much may be in this man, how much he may achieve, how high he may attain. This dull and unattractive man must not be despised, whether he be yourself or another: he is incalculable and unfathomable. He is simply raw material, soul stuff, and one can no more anticipate him than you could foresee a Turner from the master's colours—some of them very strange—or a Persian rug from a heap of wool. Out of that unpromising face, that sleeping intellect, those awkward ways, this crust of selfishness and a hundred faults, is going to be made a man whom the world will admire and honour."
The Potter's Wheel, Dr. John Watson.
"To have faith is to create; to have hope is to call down blessing; to have love is to work miracles."
The Roadmender, Michael Fairless.
"The faith which saves others is the enthusiasm of patience."
The Service of God, Canon Barnett.
Pessimism
MARCH 20
"The next thing to speak of is a tendency in the world which is the very opposite of that of which we have spoken, but which is equally characteristic of a time when a new life and spirit is on the verge of taking its form. As part of the fight of faith is to support and direct the first, so part of that battle is to weaken and oppose the doctrine that the world is going from bad to worse, that there is no regeneration for it, and that there ought to be none. On this doctrine I have frequently spoken, but I do not hesitate to speak of it again. It is the fashion to praise it; it deserves no praise, it is detestable. This is a favourite doctrine of the comfortable classes who are idle and luxurious or merely fantastic, and of a certain type of scientific men, both of whom are profoundly ignorant of the working world and of the poor, who hate this doctrine and despise it. The sufferings of the poor and the oppressed are used as an argument in its favour, but, curiously enough, you scarcely ever find it held by the poor and the oppressed;—on the contrary, these are the creators and builders of Utopias: out of this class grow those who prophesy a golden year. Those who have most reason to despair never despair."
The Gospel of Joy, Stopford Brooke.
"Of all bad habits despondency is among the least respectable, and there is no one quite so tiresome as the sad-visaged Christian who is oppressed by the wickedness and hopelessness of the world."
Service
MARCH 21
"Service implies self-giving. There is service which is just self-satisfaction, pleasing to the taste for doing and meddling, and there is service which is exactly measured to its pay. True service implies giving, the surrender of time or taste, the subjection of self to others, the gift which is neither noticed nor returned."
The Service of God, Canon Barnett.
"Christian greatness is born of willingness to lay the lowliest duties on yourself, and the way to be first is to be ready to remain last."
Pastor Pastorum, Henry Latham.
"Nobleness consists in a valiant suffering for others, not in making others suffer for us. The chief of men is he who stands in the van of men; fronting the peril which frightens back all others.... Every noble crown is, and on earth will for ever be, a crown of thorns."
Past and Present, Carlyle.
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to any one else."
Dickens.
Service
MARCH 22
"They were to mortify the self-importance and vain dignity that will not render commonplace kindness. 'If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet.'"
The Mind of the Master, Dr. John Watson.
"Nothing is degrading which a high and graceful purpose ennobles, and offices the most menial cease to be menial the moment they are wrought in love."
J. Martineau.
"And service will be the personal tribute to Jesus, whom we shall recognise under any disguise, as his nurse detected Ulysses by his wounds, and whose Body, in the poor and miserable, will ever be with us for our discernment. Jesus is the leper whom the saint kissed, and the child the monk carried over the stream, and the sick man the widow nursed into health, after the legends of the ages of faith. And Jesus will say at the close of the day, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.'"
The Mind of the Master, Dr. John Watson.
Service
MARCH 23
"We must not be perplexed or put out if we have to change our plans. God sends us hither and thither; we may think that we are wasting our special talents, when God has, after all, some particular need for our particular work at a particular time. And equally we must learn to measure our strength; we cannot all do the same things, we are not all adapted to the same work, or charged with the same duties. Why should we overstrain ourselves in that which is beyond our strength, or neglect plain duties for others less obvious? Ah! God receives many a Corban now which He will never accept; self-chosen work done at the expense of duty; work outside done to the neglect of our own proper work; work done at the entire expense of our home and social duties; the clear commandment of God shattered to pieces by some purely human tradition."