Daily Strength for Daily Needs Part 23

J. KEBLE.

A heart unloving among kindred has no love towards G.o.d's saints and angels.

If we have a cold heart towards a servant or a friend, why should we wonder if we have no fervor towards G.o.d? If we are cold in our private prayers, we should be earthly and dull in the most devout religious order; if we cannot bear the vexations of a companion, how should we bear the contradiction of sinners? if a little pain overcomes us, how could we endure a cross? if we have no tender, cheerful, affectionate love to those with whom our daily hours are spent, how should we feel the pulse and ardor of love to the unknown and the evil, the ungrateful and repulsive?

H. E. MANNING.

May 6

_Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love_.--ROM. xii. 10.

_In her tongue is the law of kindness_.--PROV. x.x.xi. 26.

Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And though but few can serve, yet all can please; Oh, let the ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence.

HANNAH MORE.

All usefulness and all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,--a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied--your husband or your wife cannot tell why--will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render life anything but a blessing.

ALBERT BARNES.

You have not fulfilled every duty, unless you have fulfilled that of being pleasant.

CHARLES BUXTON.

May 7

_He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names_.--PS. cxlvii.

3, 4.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars!

Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on s.p.a.ce no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die.

R. W. EMERSON.

I looked up to the heavens once more, and the quietness of the stars seemed to reproach me. "We are safe up here," they seemed to say; "we shine, fearless and confident, for the G.o.d who gave the primrose its rough leaves to hide it from the blast of uneven spring, hangs us in the awful hollows of s.p.a.ce. We cannot fall out of His safety. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold! Who hath created these things--that bringeth out their host by number? He calleth them all by names. By the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O Israel! my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is pa.s.sed over from my G.o.d?"

G. MACDONALD.

May 8

_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it_.--PS. cxviii. 24.

_Why stand ye here all the day idle_?--MATT. xx. 6.

So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?

Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night will return.

T. CARLYLE.

Small cares, some deficiencies in the mere arrangement and ordering of our lives, daily fret our hearts, and cross the clearness of our faculties; and these entanglements hang around us, and leave us no free soul able to give itself up, in power and gladness, to the true work of life. The severest training and self-denial,--a superiority to the servitude of indulgence,--are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness,--much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

J. H. THOM.

True, we can never be at peace till we have performed the highest duty of all,--till we have arisen, and gone to our Father; but the performance of smaller duties, yes, even of the smallest, will do more to give us temporary repose, will act more as healthful anodynes, than the greatest joys that can come to us from any other quarter.

G. MACDONALD.

May 9

_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord_.--JOB i. 21.

What Thou hast given, Thou canst take, And when Thou wilt new gifts can make.

All flows from Thee alone; When Thou didst give it, it was Thine; When Thou retook'st it, 't was not mine.

Thy will in all be done.

JOHN AUSTIN.

We are ready to praise when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, and with the shadow of death approaching,--then to praise G.o.d; then to say, This fear, loneliness, affliction, pain, and trembling awe are as sure tokens of love, as life, health, joy, and the gifts of home: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;" on either side it is He, and all is love alike; "blessed be the name of the Lord,"--this is the true sacrifice of praise. What can come amiss to a soul which is so in accord with G.o.d? What can make so much as one jarring tone in all its harmony? In all the changes of this fitful life, it ever dwells in praise.

H. E. MANNING.

May 10

_The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants; and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate_.--PS. x.x.xiv. 22.

_Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him_.--JOB xiii. 15.

I praise Thee while my days go on; I love Thee while my days go on: Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost, With emptied arms and treasure lost, I thank Thee while my days go on.

E. B. BROWNING.

The sickness of the last week was fine medicine; pain disintegrated the spirit, or became spiritual. I rose,--I felt that I had given to G.o.d more perhaps than an angel could,--had promised Him in youth that to be a blot on this fair world, at His command, would be acceptable. Constantly offer myself to continue the obscurest 'and loneliest thing ever heard of, with one proviso,--His agency. Yes, love Thee, and all Thou dost, while Thou sheddest frost and darkness on every path of mine.