Leaves of Life Part 25

MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH

Alfred Vigny born 1799.

General A. W. Greely born 1847.

Sir Gilbert Scott died 1878.

It takes great strength to bring your life up square With your accepted thought and hold it there: Resisting the inertia that drags it back From new attempts, to the old habit's track.

It is so easy to drift back, to sink.

So hard to live abreast of what you think.

--Charlotte Perkins Stetson.

If a person had delivered up your body to anyone whom he met in his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to be disconcerted and confounded by anyone who happens to give you ill language.

--Epictetus.

Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision.

--Acts 26. 19.

My Father, my soul sinks with shame when I think of the great moments that I have given over to mean little things. Help me that I may reckon more on the value of time, and live not to tolerate life, but to have a great need for it, that day by day I may have a deeper consciousness of its appropriate use. Amen.

MARCH TWENTY-EIGHTH

Santi d'Urbino Raphael born 1483.

Sir Thomas Smith born 1514.

Margaret (Peg) Woffington died 1760.

They may not need me, Yet they might; I'll let my heart be Just in sight--

A smile so small As mine might be Precisely their Necessity.

--Unknown.

You hear that boy laughing?--you think he's all fun; But the angels laugh too at the good he has done; The children laugh loud as they troop to his call, And the poor man that knows him laughs loudest of all.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other.

--Ephesians 4. 31.

Lord G.o.d, I pray that I may be fair, and not pa.s.s judgment on those whom I like or those whom I dislike, and so bring unhappy regrets. May I remember that, though hasty judgment often may be temporary, the gain or loss of a friend may be permanent. Amen.

MARCH TWENTY-NINTH

Dr. John Lightfoot born 1602.

John Tyler, Virginia, tenth President United States, born 1790.

Amelia Barr born 1831.

The year's at the spring And the day's at the morn; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing: The snail's on the thorn; G.o.d's in his heaven: All's well with the world.

--Robert Browning.

Dear Lord and Father of mankinds Forgive our feverish ways; Reclothe us in our rightful mind; In purer lives thy service find, In deeper reverence praise.

--John G. Whittier.

In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.

--Isaiah 30. 15.

Lord G.o.d, I beseech thee to give me the strength which endures. Grant that I may have the ceaseless content which is secured by choosing and continuing in the right way. From the wealth of each day renew my hope, and quiet my soul with the calm of thy peace. Amen.

MARCH THIRTIETH

Sir Henry Wotton born 1568.

Archbishop Somner born 1606.

John Fiske born 1842.

John Constable died 1837.

I said, "Let us walk in the field."

He said, "Nay walk in the town."

I said, "There are no flowers there."

He said, "No flowers but a crown."

I said, "But the air is thick, And the fogs are veiling the sun."

He answered, "Yet souls are sick And souls in the dark undone."

I cast one look at the field, Then set my face to the town.

He said: "My child, do you yield?