Character and Conduct Part 58

GEORGE HERBERT.

"Wealth in every form, material, intellectual, moral, has to be administered for the common good. G.o.d only can say of any possession 'My own.'"

Bishop WESTCOTT.

Courage to be Poor

DECEMBER 21

"How the sting of poverty, or small means, is gone when one keeps house for one's own comfort, and not for the comfort of one's neighbours."

DINAH MARIA MULOCH.

"I wish that more of us had the courage to be poor; that the world had not gone mad after fas.h.i.+on and display; but so it is, and the blessings we might have are lost in the effort to get those which lie outside the possible."

ALICE CAREY.

"To have what we want is riches; but to be able to do without is power."

GEORGE MACDONALD.

Hospitality

DECEMBER 22

"The truest hospitality is shown not in the effort to entertain, but in the depth of welcome. What a guest loves to come for, and come again, is not the meal, but those who sit at the meal. If we remembered this, more homes would be habitually thrown open to win the benedictions upon hospitality. It is our ceremony, not our poverty, it is self-consciousness oftener than inability to be agreeable that makes us willing to live cloistered. Seldom is it that pleasantest homes to visit are the richest. The real compliment is _not_ to apologise for the simple fare. That means trust, and trust is better than fried oysters."

W. C. GANNETT.

"Hospitality must be for service, and not for show, or it pulls down the host."

EMERSON.

Hospitality

DECEMBER 23

"I pray you, O excellent wife, not to c.u.mber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this woman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bedchamber made ready at too great a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for a dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your looks, in your accent and behaviour, read in your heart and earnestness, your thought and will, which he cannot buy at any price in any village or city, and which he may well travel fifty miles and dine sparely and sleep hard in order to behold.

Certainly, let the board be spread and let the bed be dressed for the traveller; but let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in these things.

Honour to the house where they are simple to the verge of hards.h.i.+p, so that there the intellect is awake and reads the laws of the universe."

EMERSON.

"I should count myself fortunate if my home were remembered for some inspiring quality of faith, charity and aspiring intelligence."

HAMILTON W. MABIE.

Christmas Eve

DECEMBER 24

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

"It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas Eve, I went sighing past the church across the moorland dreary-- 'Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, And the bells but mock the wailing rounds, they sing so cheery.

How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again!

Still in cellar, and in garret, and on moorland dreary The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain, Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be cheery.'

"Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, Beneath the stars, across the snow, like clear bells ringing, And a voice within cried,--'Listen! Christmas carols even here!

Tho' thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are singing.

Blind! I live, I love, I reign; and all the nations through, With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing; Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it angels singing.'"

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Christmas Day

DECEMBER 25

"And now once more comes Christmas Day. Once more, borne abroad on the words of simple-minded shepherds, runs the story. G.o.d and man have met, in visible, actual union, in a life which is both human and divine....

Lift up yourselves to the great meaning of the Day, and dare to think of your Humanity as something so sublimely precious that it is worthy of being made an offering to G.o.d. Count it a privilege to make that offering as complete as possible, keeping nothing back, and then go out to the pleasures and duties of your life, having been truly born anew into His Divinity, as He was born into our Humanity, on Christmas Day."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"Let not the hearts, whose sorrow cannot call This Christmas merry, slight the festival; Let us be merry that may merry be, But let us not forget that many mourn; The smiling Baby came to give us glee, But for the weepers was the Saviour born."

COLERIDGE.

Mile-marks

DECEMBER 26

"But Christmas is not only the mile-mark of another year, moving us to thoughts of self-examination: it is a season, from all its a.s.sociations, whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of joy. A man dissatisfied with his endeavours is a man tempted to sadness. And in the midst of the winter, when his life runs lowest and he is reminded of the empty chairs of his beloved, it is well he should be condemned to this fas.h.i.+on of the smiling face. n.o.ble disappointment, n.o.ble self-denial, are not to be admired, not even to be pardoned, if they bring bitterness. It is one thing to enter the kingdom of heaven maimed; another to maim yourself and stay without. And the kingdom of heaven is of the childlike, of those who are easy to please, who love and who give pleasure."

_Across the Plains_, R. L. STEVENSON.

Growing Old