nf,T> 


 
 A YEAR OF SUNSHINE.
 
 |6y lr)C QDarr)c c/iulr)6r. 
 
 PURPLE AND GOLD. 
 
 Choice Poems about Purple Aster and Golden Rod. On leaves bound 
 with purple ribbon. Kate S.\nborn compiled it; Kosina Emmet 
 illustrated it. Sumptuous illuminated covers. $1.25. 
 " The loveliest of Christmas cards." — " An exquisite brochure." — 
 
 " True festheticism." 
 
 " We can conceive of nothing prettier for a present." — Gazette. 
 " The very ideal of true aesthcticism." — Home Journal. 
 
 GRANDMA S GARDEN. 
 
 A group of leaflets similar in style to " Purple and Gold." It con- 
 tains 38 pages of reading matter, including new poems by Lucy 
 Larcom, Rose Terry Cooke, and others, and is " tied up in flexible 
 covers with a cord and tassel of gold color, and with a dear old Kate 
 (ireenaway style of old lady walking among beds of flowers." $1.25. 
 " Dainty." — Coiigregatioiialist. 
 " Very beautiful." — Chicago Journal. 
 " A choice little gem." — hidianapolis Herald. 
 
 LITERATURE LESSONS. 
 
 ROUND-TABLE SERIES. — TWENTY-FIVE NUMBERS. 
 
 These novel and labor-saving Literature Lessons are called the 
 "Round-Table Series:" twenty-five papers, from Chaucer to Ten- 
 nyson, with suggestions for study, subjects for essays, special read- 
 ings for each period, brought down to latest date. Each author is 
 treated by topics, with his contemporaries in his own coiuitry, and 
 afterward, all over the world, grouped in circles about the central 
 figure. 
 
 Th8 Celts. 
 
 Pope. 
 
 
 Thomson. 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 Addison. 
 
 
 Gray. 
 
 Hallam. 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 Defoe. 
 
 
 Scott. 
 
 Macaulay. 
 
 Shakespeare 
 
 Hume. 
 
 
 Byron. 
 
 Dicliens. 
 
 John Donne. 
 
 Johnson. 
 
 
 Burns. 
 
 Lord Jeffrey. 
 
 Milton. 
 
 Chatterton 
 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Printed separr 
 
 telv on sheets, 
 
 and 
 
 enclosed in neat 
 
 envelope. Price 
 
 for each author. 
 
 25 cents. 
 
 
 
 
 *** .9r'//, /•osf/>atd, by the puHisIicrs, to any address in the 
 United States cr Canada, on mei/'t 0/ the f>rice. 
 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., Publishers, Boston.
 
 YEAR OF SUNSHINE 
 
 (-.riccr^I Exfracfs 
 FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR 
 
 Oclccfcd arid cTlrpanqcd 
 
 Bv KATE SANBORN 
 
 Jaoslor) 
 JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY 
 
 JS.Sj
 
 Copyright, 1S82 and i88j 
 By KATE SANBORN. 
 
 JTraiiftlin ]j]rt90: 
 
 RAND, AVERV, AND COMl'A»rY, 
 BOSTON.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The sun does not always shine ; and once in a while 
 there is no " bright side," unless we imitate the old woman, 
 who, having heard that her husband's neck was broken, 
 thanked God that it was no worse. At such times we 
 must make our own sunshine, or take it ready made. 
 This calendar, with nearly five hundred selections on mak- 
 ing the best of things, has found its way to many hearts 
 as a help, a spur, an inspiration. One is ashamed to be 
 blue, and sees the utter uselessness of gloomy retrospect 
 or forebodings, with such cheery sentences staring him in 
 the face. 
 
 So many requests have been received to have it put in 
 a more permanent form, that a revised edition is offered, 
 with space for amateur decoration, or memoranda, birth- 
 days, or what you please, with poems for special days at 
 the close. Modern autliors indulge altogether too much 
 in the morbid and unintelligible. Healthful men and 
 women, with a keen enjoyment of life, sigh (in print) for 
 the death-angel, and crave a quiet grave. But pessimism 
 is contemptible and cowardly in print or in life. Let us 
 make each year for ourselves and all around us, " A Year 
 
 of Sunshine." 
 
 KATE SANI50RN.
 
 January 1. 
 
 Another year is dawning ! 
 Dear Master, let it be, 
 In working or in waiting, 
 Another year with thee. 
 
 Another year of progress, 
 Another year of praise ; 
 Another year of proving 
 Thy presence "all the days." 
 
 Another year is dawning ! 
 Dear Master, let it be. 
 On earth, or else in heaven, 
 Another year for thee. 
 
 Frances R. Haver^al.
 
 January 2. 
 
 In ancient mythology, Janus was the god of gates and 
 avenues, and held a key in his right hand, a rod in his 
 left, to symbolize his opening and ruHng the year. 
 
 SELF-ESTEEM. 
 
 Some Frenchmen, who had landed on the coast of 
 Guinea, found a negro prince seated under a tree, on a 
 block of wood for his throne, and three or four negroes, 
 armed with wooden pikes, for his guards. His sable 
 majesty anxiously inquired, " Do they talk much of me 
 in France ? " 
 
 If you want your business done, go / if not, send !
 
 January 3. 
 
 God send our maister a happy New- Year ! 
 A happy New-Year as e'er he did see ! 
 
 Old Eni:lish Ballad 
 
 Yes, yes, it's very true and very dear, 
 By way of compliment and common chat, 
 It's very well to wish me a New- Year; 
 But wish me a new hat ! 
 
 Although not spent in luxury and ease, 
 In course a longer life I won't refuse ; 
 But, while you're wishing, wish me, please, 
 A newer pair of shoes ! 
 
 Thomas Hood. 
 
 Defeat may be victory in disguise : 
 The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 January 4. 
 
 The Spaniard of whom Southey tells that he ahvays 
 put on his magnifying-glasses when he ate cherries, in 
 order to make them seem larger, had the true philosophy 
 of life. It is surprising how narrow means and simple 
 pleasures may be eked out by a little invention. 
 
 Sydney Smith, that great master of human happiness, 
 used to cry out, " Glorify the room ! " and the windows, 
 being thrown open, let in a blaze of sunshine and flowers. 
 It is well to glorify our lives in this way a little, by throw- 
 ing open the windows, and taking an enlarged view ot 
 all our blessings. 
 
 Oh, what were life, if life were all? 
 
 Thine eyes are blinded by their tears, or thou wouldst see. 
 
 Thy treasures wait thee in the far-off skies ; 
 
 And Death, thy friend, will give them all to thee. 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter,
 
 January 5. 
 
 In a small place a woman can't buy a calico apron 
 without the neighbors holdin' a inquest over it. Some 
 think she ort to have it, some think it is extravagant in 
 her, and some think the set flowers on it is too young 
 for her; and then they will all quarrel agin whether she 
 ort to make it with a bib, or not. 
 
 The very reason why men's talk, as a general thing, is 
 nobler than wimmen's, is because they have nobler things 
 to talk about. 
 
 Saniantha Allen. 
 
 Haply no more, music and mirth and love, 
 
 And glorious things of old and younger art, _ 
 
 Shall of thy days make one perpetual feast. 
 
 But, when these bright companions all depart, 
 
 Lay then thy heart upon the ample breast 
 
 Of Hope, — and thou shalt hear the angels sing above. 
 
 Frances Anne Kcinble.
 
 January 6. 
 
 O New- Year, teach us faith ! 
 
 The road of life is hard : 
 When our feet bleed, and scourging winds us scath, 
 
 Point thou to Him whose visage was more marred 
 Than any man's, who saith, 
 
 "Make straight paths for your feet," and, to the opprest, 
 "Come to me, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Yet hang some lamp-like hope 
 
 Above this unknown way, 
 Kind year, to give our spirits freer scope, 
 
 And our hands strength to work while it is day. 
 But if that way must slope 
 Tombward, oh bring before our fading eyes 
 The lamp of life, the hope that never dies ! 
 
 Mrs. Craik. 
 
 Walk as children of light, for the fruit of the light is in 
 all goodness and righteousness and truth.
 
 January 7. 
 
 We are bound, by every rule of justice and equity, to 
 give the New- Year credit for being a good one until he 
 proves himself unworthy the confidence we repose in him. 
 
 Dickens 
 
 Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but 
 of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small 
 obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve 
 the heart, and secure comfort. 
 
 Sir H. Davy. 
 
 The grand essentials of happiness are, something to do, 
 something to love, and something to hope for. 
 
 Chalmers. 
 
 Good deeds ring clear through heaven like a bell. 
 
 Richter.
 
 January 8. 
 
 There are no inclinations in women which more sur- 
 prise me than their passions for chalk and china. The 
 first of these maladies wears out in a little time ; but, 
 when a woman is visited with the second, it generally 
 takes possession of her for life. China vessels are play- 
 things for women of all ages. An old lady of fourscore 
 shall be as busy in cleaning an Indian mandarin as hex 
 
 great-granddaughter is in dressing her baby. 
 
 Addison. 
 
 Fade, with thy freight of memories fond, 
 O Year ! to seek the land beyond. 
 
 Rise from thy newer realm of bliss, 
 O Year ! and bring fresh hopes to this. 
 
 While we send up from thankful breasts 
 God-speed and love to both our guests. 
 
 Mary E. Blake.
 
 January 9. 
 
 Take well whate'er shall chance, though bad it be : 
 Take it for good, and 'twill be good to thee. 
 
 Thomas Randolph. 
 
 Inquisitive people are the funnels of conversation : tliey 
 do not take in any thing for their own use, but merely 
 to pass it to another. 
 
 Sir R. Steele. 
 
 Never hold any one by the button or the hand in order 
 to be heard out ; for, if people are unwilling to hear you, 
 you had better hold your tongue than them. 
 
 Lord Chesterfield.
 
 January lO. 
 
 They're always abusing the women 
 
 As a terrible plague to men ; 
 They say we're the root of all evil, 
 
 And repeat it again and again ; 
 Of war and quarrels and bloodshed, — 
 
 All mischief, be what it may ; 
 And pray, then, why do you marry us 
 
 If we're all the plagues you say? 
 When you ought to be thanking heaven 
 
 That your Plague is out of the way. 
 You all keep fussing and fretting, 
 
 Where is my Plague to-day ? 
 
 A ristophanes. 
 
 So called because he had a deal of airy-stufl" in his writings. 
 
 Dean Swift.
 
 January 11. 
 
 Friday, long regarded as a day of ill omen, has been an 
 (venfful one in American history. 
 
 Friday, Columbus sailed on his voyage of discovery. 
 
 Friday, ten weeks after, he discovered America. 
 
 Friday, Henry III. of England gave John Cabot his com- 
 mission, which led to the discovery of North America. 
 
 Friday, St. Augustine, the oldest town in the United States, 
 was founded. 
 
 Friday, the " Mayflower," with the Pilgrims, arrived at 
 Plymouth ; and on Friday they signed that august com- 
 pact, the forerunner of the present Constitution. 
 
 Friday, George Washington was born. 
 
 Friday, Bunker Hill was seized and fortified. 
 
 Friday, the surrender of Saratoga was made. 
 
 Friday, Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown ; and on Friday 
 the motion was made in Congress that the United Colonies 
 were, and of right ought to be, free and independent. 
 
 Americans surely ought not to be afraid of Fridav.
 
 January 12. 
 
 An ounce of good cheer is worth a ton of melancholy. 
 
 Samuel Smiles. 
 
 OppORTUNin' has hair in front : behind she is bald. If 
 you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her ; but, if 
 suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again. 
 
 Prom the Latin. 
 
 A YOUNG man declared to Dr. Parr that he would believe 
 nothing he did not understand. "Then, sir," said the 
 doctor, " your creed would be the shortest of any man 
 whom I ever knew."
 
 January 13. 
 
 I KNOW not if the year shall send 
 
 Tidings to us-ward as a friend, 
 
 And salutation, and such things, 
 
 Bear on his wings. 
 
 As the soul turns and thirsts unto 
 
 With hungering eyes, and lips that sue 
 
 For that sweet food which makes all new. 
 
 I know not if his light shall be 
 
 Darkness, or else light verily : 
 
 I know but that it will not part 
 
 Heart's faith from heart. 
 
 Truth from the trust in truth, nor hope 
 
 From sight of days unsealed that ope 
 
 Beyond one poor year's horoscope. 
 
 A. C. Snvinburnc.
 
 January 14. 
 
 In January a man spends a few minutes in the sunshine, 
 but all the rest of the day in the chimney-corner. 
 
 Portugal. 
 
 A COMMONPLACE life, we say, and we sigh ; 
 
 But why should we sigh as we say? 
 The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky 
 
 Makes up the commonplace day. 
 The moon and the stars are commonplace things, 
 
 The flower that blooms, and the bird that sings j 
 But sad were the world, and dark our lot. 
 
 If flowers failed and the sun shone not. 
 And God, who sees each separate soul. 
 
 Out of commonplace lives makes his beautiful whole. 
 
 Susan Coolidsre. 
 
 He who rises late must trot all day, and will scarcely 
 
 overtake hib business at night. 
 
 Fuller.
 
 January 15. 
 
 HOW TO CORRECTLY ASCERTAIN THE AGE OF A LADY. 
 
 I FIRST ask the lady accused her own age. I then in- 
 quire of her " dearest friends." I next ascertain tlie dif- 
 ference between the two accounts (which frequently varies 
 from five to forty years) : and, dividing that difference by 
 2, I add that quotient to the lady's own representation ; 
 and the result is the lady's age as near as a lady's age 
 can be ascertained. 
 
 Example. — Mrs. Wellington Seymour gives herself out to be 28. Her 
 friends, Mrs. McCabe, Mrs. Alfred Stevens, Madame Cornichon, and M'iss 
 Jerkins, indignantly declare that they will eat their respective Iieads off if she 
 is a day younger than 46. Now, the disputed account stands thus: — 
 
 YEARS. 
 
 Mrs. Seymour's age, as represented by her friends 46 
 
 Mrs. Seymour's age, as represenled by herself 28 
 
 Difference between the two accounts 18 
 
 That difference has to be divided by 2, which, I believe, will give 9. If that 
 is added to Mrs. Seymour's own statement, the result obtained will be the 
 answer required. Accordingly Mrs. Wellington Seymour's age is ^"j, — a fact, 
 which, upon consulting the family Bible, I find to be perfectly correct, — and I 
 hope Mrs. Seymour will someday forgive ir.e for publishing it. 
 
 Punch,
 
 January 16. 
 
 A Quarrelsome Man. — Dr. Johnson once said, in 
 speaking of a quarrelsome fellow, " If he had two ideas 
 in his head, they would fall out with one another." 
 
 Many unhappy persons seem to imagine that they are 
 always in an amphitheatre, with the assembled world as 
 spectators ; whereas, all the while, they are playing to 
 empty benches. 
 
 A BENEFICENT pcrson Is like a fountain watering the earth 
 and spreading fertility : it is therefore more delightful and 
 more honorable to give than receive. 
 
 Epicurus.
 
 January 17. 
 
 Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew, 
 The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view 
 The face of nature in a rich disguise, 
 And brightened every object to my eyes ; 
 For every shrub, and every blade of grass, 
 And every pointed thorn, seemed wrought in glass 
 The spreading oak, the beech, and towering pine. 
 Glazed over, in the freezing ether shine. 
 
 Philips. 
 
 What can be more delicately beautiful than the specta- 
 cle which sometimes salutes the eye at the breakfast- 
 room window, occasioned by the hoar-frost dew? If a 
 jeweller had come to dress every plant over night to 
 surprise an Eastern sultan, he could not produce any 
 thing like the "pearly drops" or the silvery plumage. 
 
 Lei<'h Hntit.
 
 January 18. 
 
 Blessed are they who see, and yet wlio believe not 
 
 Yea, blest are they who look on graves, and still 
 
 Believe none dead ; who see proud tyrants ruling, 
 
 And yet believe not in the strength of evil ; 
 
 Blessed are they who see the wandering poor, 
 
 And yet believe not that their God forsakes them ; 
 
 Who see the blind worm creeping, yet believe not 
 
 That even that is left without a path. 
 
 Leopold Schcfir. 
 
 If fortune, with a smiling face, 
 
 Strews roses on your way, 
 When shall we stoop to pick them up? 
 
 To-day, my friend, to-day ! 
 
 But should she frown with lace of care, 
 
 And talk of coming sorrow, 
 When shall we grieve, if grieve we must? 
 
 To-morrow, friend, to-morrow !
 
 January 19. 
 
 AUNT POLLY'S ADVICE. 
 
 If things go wrong in the household, 
 
 As they often will, you know, 
 Or you're worried out with cares that vex, 
 
 And the children try you so, 
 Don't sit in the vale of shadows, 
 
 Or stoop to be a scold : 
 'Twill only make bad worse, you see, 
 
 While you grow gray and old. 
 
 Helen Rich. 
 
 A CUCUMBER is bitter : throw it away. There are briers 
 in the road : turn aside from them. This is enough. Do 
 not add, And why were such things made in the world? 
 
 A/urcus Antoninus. 
 
 Three degrees of raining speculation : Positive, mine \ 
 comparative, miner ; superlative, minus.
 
 January 20. 
 
 Sometimes, says John Newton, I compare the troubles 
 we have to undergo in the course of a year to a great 
 bundle of fagots, far too large for us to lift. But God 
 does not require us to carry the whole at once. He mer- 
 cifully unties the bundle, and gives us first one stick, 
 which we are to carry to-day, and then another, which we 
 are to carry to-morrow, and so on. This we might easily 
 manage if we would only take the burden appointed for 
 us each day ; but we choose to increase our trouble by 
 carrying yesterday's stick over again to-day, and adding 
 to-morrow's burden to our load before we are required to 
 bear it. 
 
 Who never ate his bread in sorrow. 
 Who never spent the darksome hours 
 
 Weeping and watcliing for the morrow. 
 He knows you not, ye unseen Powers. 
 
 Godhe.
 
 January 21. 
 
 I FIND the gayest castles in the air that were ever 
 piled, far better for comfort and for use than the dun- 
 geons in the air, that are daily dug and caverned out by 
 grumbling, discontented people. 
 
 A man should make life and nature happier to us, or 
 he had better never been born. An old French verse 
 runs in my translation : — 
 
 " Some of your griefs you have cured, 
 
 And the sharpest you still have survived ; 
 
 But what torments of pain you endured 
 
 From evils that never arrived ! " 
 
 Enter son. 
 
 The gravest beast is an ass, the gravest bird is an 
 owl, the gravest fish is an oyster, and the gravest man 
 
 is a fool I 
 
 Joe Miller.
 
 January 22. 
 
 SERVE GOD AND BE CHEERFUL. 
 
 " Serve God and be cheerful," self-balanced, 
 
 Whether Fortune smile sweetly or frown, 
 hrist stood king before Pilate : within me 
 I carry the sceptre and crown. 
 
 " Serve God and be cheerful." Make brighter 
 The brightness that falls to your lot : 
 The rare or the daily-sent blessing 
 
 Profane not with gloom and with doubt. 
 
 " Serve God and be cheerful." Live nobly, 
 Do right, and do good. Make the best 
 Of the gifts and the work put before you, 
 And to God, without fear, leave the rest. 
 
 William Newell, D.D.
 
 January 23. 
 
 I CANNOT but take notice of the wonderful love of God 
 to mankind, who, in order to encourage obedience to his 
 laws, has annexed a present as well as a future reward to 
 a good life, and has so interwoven our duty and liapjMness 
 together, that, while we are discharging our obligations to 
 tlie one, we are at the same time making the best pro- 
 vision for the other. 
 
 Mel moth. 
 
 Whatever you dislike in another person, take care to 
 correct in yourself. 
 
 Sp7-at. 
 
 A POUND of pluck is worth a ton of luck, 
 
 Garfield. 
 
 Care's no cure.
 
 January 24. 
 
 It's no in titles nor in rank, 
 
 It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank, 
 
 To purchase peace and rest; 
 It's no in makin' muckle niair, 
 It's no in books, it's no in lear, 
 
 To make us truly blest : 
 If Happiness hae not her seat 
 
 And centre in the breast, 
 We may be wise or rich or great, 
 
 But never can be blest. 
 
 Robert Burtts, 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Swing says "that a novel is the world's 
 truth with a beautiful woman walking through it." Gen- 
 erally, we may add, with a man after her.
 
 January 25. 
 
 "You see, we don't propose to warm our house with a 
 wood-fire, but only to adorn it. It is an altar-fire that we 
 will kindle every evening, just to light up our room, and 
 show it to advantage. How charming every thing looks at 
 your mother's in that time between daylight and dark, when 
 you all sit round the hearth, and the fire lights up the pic- 
 tures and the books, and makes every thing look so dreamy 
 and beautiful ! " 
 
 "You are a litde poet, my dear. It will be your specialty 
 to turn life into poetry." 
 
 And that is what I call woman's genius. To make life 
 beautiful ; to keep down and out of sight the hard, dry, 
 prosaic side, and keep up the poetry, — that is my idea of 
 our "mission." I think woman ought to be what Hawthorne 
 calls " The Artist of the Beautiful." 
 
 Mrs. H. B. Stowe, in ''My Wife and /."
 
 January 26. 
 
 I SEE in this world two heaps of human happiness and 
 misery. Now, if I can take but the smallest bit from one 
 heap, and add it to the other, I carry a point. If, as I go 
 home, a child has dropped a halfpenny, and if, by giving it 
 another, I can wipe away its tears, I feel that I have done 
 something. I should be glad, indeed, to do greater things ; 
 but I will not neglect this. 
 
 John Newton. 
 
 Never go gloomily, man with a mind; 
 
 Hope is a better companion than fear ; 
 
 Providence, ever benignant and kind. 
 
 Gives with a smile what you take with a tear. 
 
 All will be right : 
 
 Look to the light, — 
 
 Morning is ever the daugliter of night : 
 
 All that is black will be all that is bright. 
 
 Cheerily, cheerily, then ! cheer up ! 
 
 Tti/'fer.
 
 January 27. 
 
 When Grief sliall come to thee, 
 
 Think not to flee ; 
 
 For Grief, with steady pace, 
 
 Will win the race : 
 
 Nor crowd her forth with Mirth ; 
 
 For at thy hearth, 
 
 When Mirth is tired and gone, 
 
 Will Grief sit on : 
 
 But make of her thy friend. 
 
 And in the end 
 
 Her coimsels will grow sweet ; 
 
 And with swift feet 
 
 Three lovelier than she 
 
 Will come to thee, — 
 
 Cahii Patience, Courage strong. 
 
 And Hope, — erelong. 
 
 Henrietta R. Elliott,
 
 January 28. 
 
 Sit not like a mourner, brother, by the grave of that dear 
 
 Past: 
 Throw the Present ; 'tis thy servant only when 'tis overcast. 
 Give battle to the leagued world : if thou'rt worthy, truly 
 
 brave, 
 Thou shalt make the hardest circumstance a helper or a 
 
 slave. 
 
 Alexander Smith. 
 
 If our faith were but more simple, 
 We would take Him at his word, 
 
 And our lives would be all sunshine 
 In the presence of our Lord. 
 
 Fabcr. 
 
 Make the best of things. 
 
 Koran.
 
 January 29. 
 
 This wretched and joyless expression on the American 
 face is so common that we "are hardened to seeing it, and 
 look for nothing better. Only when, by chance, some 
 blessed, rollicking, sunshiny boy or girl or man or woman 
 flashes the beam of their laughing countenance into the 
 level gloom do we even know that we are in the dark. 
 
 He^cn Hunt. 
 
 Never give way to melancholy. Nothing encroaches more. 
 I fight against it vigorously. One great remedy is, to take 
 short views of life. Are you happy now ? xAre you likely 
 to remain so till this evening, or next month, or next year? 
 Then, why destroy present happiness by a distant misery 
 which may never come at all, or you may never live to see ? 
 For every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of 
 them shadows of your own making. 
 
 Sydney Stitith,
 
 January 30. 
 
 Jack P^rost in Janivecr 
 
 Nips tlie nose of the nascent year. 
 
 Brescia. 
 
 Children are travellers newly arrived in a strange coun- 
 try : we should therefore make conscience not to mislead 
 
 them. 
 
 Locke, 
 
 There are three companions with whom you should al- 
 ways keep on good terms : — ■ 
 First, your \Vife. 
 Second, your Stomach. 
 Thifd, your Conscience. 
 
 There is no cream like that which rises on spilled milk. 
 
 Bcecher.
 
 January 31. 
 
 Forget not all the sunshine of the way 
 By which the Lord hath led thee, — answered prayers, 
 And joys unasked, strange blessings, lifted cares, 
 (kand promise-echoes ! Thus each page shall be 
 A record of God's love and faithfulness to thee. 
 
 Frances Ridley Haver gal. 
 
 I RESOLVED, that like the sun, so long as my day lasted, I 
 would look on the bright side of every thing. 
 
 Despondency in a nice case is the overweight that may 
 
 make you kick the beam and the bucket both at once. In 
 
 short, never meet trouble half way, but let him have the 
 
 whole walk for his pains. I have even known him to give 
 
 up his visit in sight of the house. Besides, the best fence 
 
 against care is a ha, ha ! Wherefore take care to have one 
 
 all round you wherever you can. 
 
 Tom Hood.
 
 February 1. 
 
 The February sunshine steeps your boughs, 
 And tints the buds and swells the leaves within. 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 When the winds of winter 
 
 Through the forests blow, 
 And the moonbeams glitter 
 
 Coldly on the snow, 
 Sweet it is to fancy, 
 
 Though the earth is chill, 
 How her heart is keeping 
 
 Thoughts of summer still. 
 
 Emily Hiintiiigtoii Miller. 
 
 Do not force on thy neighbor a hat that hurts thine own 
 
 head. 
 
 Heidcr.
 
 February 2. 
 
 FEBRUARY — IMPATIENCE. 
 
 Earth captive held 
 
 By winter, a foe 
 
 Him deems, to weld 
 
 Such fetters. Below 
 
 Her violets close-celled 
 
 Flutter to go. 
 
 Earth, when she's free 
 
 To bud and blow, 
 
 And feel through every fibre of each tree 
 
 The strength to grow, 
 
 Will say, " 'Twas winter gave it me ! " 
 
 And in the sunshine bless the snow. 
 
 Alice Ward. 
 
 One hand cannot expiate the wrong of the other. 
 
 Talmud.
 
 February 3. 
 
 My Saviour, what thou didst of old 
 
 When thou wast dwelling here, 
 Thou doest yet for them, who, bold 
 
 In faith, to thee draw near. 
 As thou hadst pity on the blind, 
 
 According to thy ^Vord, 
 Thou sufferedst me thy grace to find, 
 
 Thy Light hast on me poured. 
 
 And words of thine can never fail ; 
 
 My fears are past and o'er ; 
 My soul is glad with light, — the veil 
 
 Is on my heart no more. 
 Thou blesseth me, and forth I fare, 
 
 Free from my old disgrace. 
 And fellow on with joy where'er 
 
 Thy footsteps. Lord, I trace. 
 
 De la Motte Foitqiic.
 
 February 4. 
 
 It is selfish to dwell on our griefs, as though some 
 
 strange thing had happened to us, as though they were 
 
 too important to be relieved, or it were a virtue to sink 
 
 under them. That bereavement seems rather sanctified 
 
 which saddens the heart not over much, and softens 
 
 without withering it. 
 
 //. Hooker. 
 
 What dost thou mean by fortune? If mere chance, 
 then to envy the lot of others, or to murmur at thy own, 
 is folly ; if providence, then it is impiety. 
 
 Lucas.
 
 February 5. 
 
 The hour whose happy 
 Unalloyed moments 
 I would eternalize, 
 Ten thousand mourners 
 Well pleased see end. 
 
 The bleak, stern hour, 
 Whose severe moments 
 I would annihilate, 
 Is passed by others 
 In warmth, light, joy. 
 
 Time so complained of, 
 Who to no one man 
 Shows partiality. 
 Brings round to all men 
 Some undimmed hours. 
 
 Matthew Arnohl.
 
 February 6. 
 
 So long as we have nothing to say to God. nothing to do 
 with him save in the sunshine of the mind when we feel him 
 near us, we are poor creatures, willed upon, not willing, reeds, 
 — flowering reeds, it may be, and pleasant to behold, but 
 only reeds blown about by the wind ; not bad, but poor, 
 creatures. 
 
 Geo7's:e Macdonald. 
 
 Oh, trifling tasks so often done, 
 
 Yet ever to be done anew ! 
 
 Oh, cares which come with every sun. 
 
 Morn after morn, the long years through ! 
 
 We shrink beneath their paltry sway, — 
 
 The irksome calls of every day. 
 
 Ah ! more than martyr's aureole, 
 And more than hero's heart of fire. 
 We need the humble strength of soul 
 Wliich daily toils and ills require. 
 Sweet Patience ! grant us, if you may, 
 An added grace for every day. 
 
 Elizabeth A. Allen.
 
 February 7. 
 
 Some Christians are too dejected. They get under the 
 covert of a pecuHar theology, or ensconce themselves in 
 shadowy caves of wilfulness or pertinacity or unbelief, and 
 then complain that they cannot see the Sun of righteous- 
 ness. He lightens the world. Let them come out beneath 
 his beams, and at once they will feel the fire. Their shivering 
 faith, which with them is rather the reminiscence of heat 
 than a resorting to its unfailing source, will soon mount up 
 to fervor. 
 
 Kcv. y. Haviilton. 
 
 Hope is the cordial of the human heart. 
 
 Burns.
 
 February 8. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS OF REV. GABE TUCKER. 
 
 You may notch it on de palin's as a mighty resky plan 
 
 To make your judgment by de clothes that kivers up a man, 
 
 For I hardly needs to tell you how you often come ercross 
 
 A fifty-dollar saddle on a twenty-dollar hoss. 
 
 An', wukin' in de low groun's, you diskiver as you go, 
 
 Dat de fines' shuck may hide de meanes' nubbin' in a row. 
 
 I think a man has got a mighty slender chance for heben 
 Dat holds onto his piety but one day out ob seben ; 
 Dat talks about de sinner with a heap o' solemn chat. 
 An' nebber drops a nickel in de missionary hat ; 
 Dat's foremost in de meetin '-house for raisin' all de chunes, 
 But lays aside his 'ligion wid his Sunday pantaloons. 
 
 I nebber judge o' people dat I meets along de way 
 
 By de places whar dey comes from and de houses whar dey 
 
 stay ; 
 For de bantam chicken's awful fond o' roostin' pretty high, 
 An' de turkey-buzzard sails above de eagle in de sky ; 
 Dey ketches little minners in de middle ob de sea, 
 An' you finds de smalles' possum up de bigges' kind o' tree. 
 
 Scribner.
 
 February 9. 
 
 It is a great misfortune to have a fretful disposition. It 
 takes the fi-agrance out of one's hfe, and leaves only weeds 
 where a cheerful disposition would cause flowers to bloom. 
 
 Always say a kind word if you can, if only that it may 
 come in, perhaps, with singular opportuneness, entering 
 some mournful man's darkened room like a beautiful fire-fly, 
 whose happy convolutions he cannot but watch, forgetting 
 his many troubles. 
 
 Arthur Helps.
 
 February lO. 
 
 It is a celebrated thought of Socrates, that if all the 
 misfortunes of mankind were cast into a public stock, in 
 order to be equally distributed among the whole species, 
 those who now think themselves the most unhappy would 
 prefer the share they are already possessed of, before that 
 which would fall to them by such a division. 
 
 Addison. 
 
 So what signifies wishing and hoping for better times? 
 We may make these times better, if we bestir ourselves. 
 
 Bt'H Franklin. 
 
 It is said every other demon attacks in the front, but 
 Slander, which assaults from behind. 
 
 Parsi.
 
 February 11. 
 
 Rise ! if the Past detains you, 
 
 Her sunshine and storms forget : 
 
 No chains so unworthy to hold you 
 
 As those of a vain regret. 
 
 Sad or bright, she is hfeless ever ; 
 
 Cast her phantom arms away, 
 
 Nor look back, save to learn the lesson 
 
 Of a nobler strife — to-day. 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter. 
 
 Look here, dear friend, get you away and do something ; 
 for pity's sake, do something ! Do some good somewhere. 
 Cart-wheels grumble and creak sometimes for want of 
 grease, but very often it is for want of work. I never knew 
 a grumbler yet that ever had a moment to do any good with. 
 
 H/ark G. Pearse.
 
 February 12. 
 
 Ten measures of garrulity, says the Talmud, were sent 
 down upon the earth ; and the women took nine. I have 
 known in my life eight terrific talkers, and five of them 
 were of the masculine gender. But, supposing that the 
 rabbis were right in allotting to the women a ninefold 
 proportion of talkativeness, I confess that I have inherited 
 my mother's share. 
 
 Soiithey. 
 
 Lutle minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, 
 but great minds rise above it. 
 
 IVashhicton Irviiis: 
 
 All who joy would win 
 ^^ust share it. Happiness was born a twin. 
 
 Byron.
 
 February 13. 
 
 Hail to thy returning festival, old Bishop Valentine ! 
 Great is thy name in the rubric. Like unto thee, assur- 
 edly, there is no other mitred father in the calendar. 
 
 Larnb. 
 
 To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day, 
 All in the morninsr betime. 
 
 Ilatniet. 
 
 It is a very odd notion, alluded to by Shakespeare, 
 that on this day birds begin to couple. 
 
 N. Webster.
 
 February 14. 
 
 What if we should quarrel? 
 
 Bless you, all folks do ! 
 Will you take the war ill, 
 
 Yet half like it too ? 
 When I storm and jangle, 
 
 Obstinate, absurd, 
 Will you sit and wrangle, 
 
 Just for the last word ? 
 Or, while poor Love, crying, 
 
 Upon tiptoe stands. 
 Ready plumed for flying, 
 
 Will you smile, shake hands. 
 And, the truth beholding, 
 
 With a kiss divine 
 Stop my rough mouth's scolding? 
 
 Bless you, Valentine ! 
 
 Mrs. Craik.
 
 February 15. 
 
 Let poets sing 
 The chicken's wing, 
 And buckwheat-cakes and griddlefishes, 
 And side by side 
 Place lobster fried, 
 Pork-chops, and other comic dishes ; 
 But yet, unto my dying day, 
 
 While o'er my reason I am lord, 
 I'll stand before the world, and say, 
 " The fish-ball is its own reward ! " 
 
 R. P. Munkitri,'k. 
 
 The woman who makes flannel shirts for the Hottentots 
 
 is very apt to have Hottentots in her own house whose 
 
 shirts need mending. 
 
 J. G. Holland.
 
 February 16. 
 
 It's no use to cry over spilt milk, we all know ; but it's 
 easier said than done, that. Womenkind, and especially 
 single folks, will take on dreadful at the fadin' of their 
 roses ; and their frettin' only seems to make the thorns 
 look sharper. 
 
 Our minister used to say to sister Sal (and, when she 
 was young, she was a rael witch, a most an everlastin' 
 sweet girl), "Sally," he used to say, "now's the time to 
 lam, when you are young : store your mind wc'l, dear ; 
 and the fragrance will remain long after the rose has shed 
 its leaves. The otter of roses is stronger than the rose, 
 and a plaguy sight more valuable." 
 
 Samuel Slick of Slickville (T C. Haliburto7i\.
 
 February 17. 
 
 REST ON THE SABBATH. 
 
 It was the saying of Sir Robert Peel, " I never knew 
 a man to escape failure, in either body or mind, who 
 worked seven days in the week." 
 
 It is by the daily lives of Christians that Christ is 
 either honored or dishonored. 
 
 Martha Whitiin:. 
 
 On Sunday heaven's gate stands ope : 
 
 Blessings are plentiful and rife, 
 More plentiful than hope. 
 
 George Herbert.
 
 February 18. 
 
 Do not look for wrong and evil : 
 
 You will find them if you do. 
 As you measure for your neighbor, 
 
 He will measure back to you. 
 
 Look for goodness, look for gladness : 
 You will meet them all the while. 
 
 If you bring a smiling visage 
 To the glass, you meet a smile. 
 
 Alicd Cary. 
 
 I itATE a complainer.
 
 February 19. 
 
 We wait for ihy coming, sweet wind of tlie South, 
 The touch of thy hght wings, the kiss of thy mouth ; 
 For the yearly evangel thou bearest from God, — 
 Resurrection and life to the graves of the sod. 
 Oh, soul of the springtime, its balm and its breath ! 
 Oh, light of its darkness, and life of its death ! 
 Why wait we thy coming? Why linger so long 
 The warmth of thy breathing, the voice of thy song? 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 Every evil to which we do not succumb is a bene- 
 factor. 
 
 As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength and 
 valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we 
 gain the strength of the temptation we resist. 
 
 Emerson.
 
 February 20. 
 
 CHEERFULNESS TAUGHT BY REASON. 
 
 I THINK we are too ready with complaint 
 
 In tliis fair world of God's. Had we no hope 
 Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope 
 
 Of yon gray bank of sky, we might be faint 
 
 To muse upon eternity's constraint 
 
 Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope 
 Must widen early, is it well to droop 
 
 For a few days consumed in loss and taint? 
 
 O pusillanimous heart, be comforted, — 
 
 And, like a cheerful traveller, take the road, 
 
 Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread 
 Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod 
 
 To meet the flints? — At least it may be said, 
 " Because the way is short, I thank thee, God ! " 
 
 EHzabeth Barrett Brownitte.
 
 February 21. 
 
 If the world seems cold to you, 
 
 Kindle fires to warm it : 
 Let their comfort hide from view 
 
 Winters that deform it. 
 Hearts as frozen as your own 
 
 To that radiance gather : 
 
 You will soon forget to moan, 
 
 " Ah, the cheerless weather ! " 
 
 Lucy Larcom. 
 
 As welcome as sunshine in every place 
 
 Is the beaming approach of a good-natured face ; 
 
 As genial as sunshine, like warmth to impart, 
 
 Is a good-natured word from a good-natured heart. 
 
 Real glorj' 
 Springs from the silent conquest of ourselves. 
 
 Thomson.
 
 February 22. 
 
 Soldier and statesman, rarest unison ; 
 
 High-poised example of great duties done 
 Simply as breathing ; a world's honors worn 
 
 As hfe's indifferent gifts to all men born. 
 Dumb for himself, unless it were to God, 
 
 But for his barefoot soldiers eloquent ; 
 Tramping the snow to coral where they trod, 
 
 Held by his awe in hollow-eyed content. 
 Modest, yet firm as nature's self; unblamed 
 
 Save by the men his nobler temper shamed. 
 Not honored then or now because he awed 
 
 The popular voice, but that he still withstood. 
 Broad minded, higher souled, there is but one 
 
 \\'ho has all this, and our's and all men's — 
 Washington. 
 
 J. R. Lowell.
 
 February 23. 
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 Lovely, lasting peace, appear ! 
 This world itself, if thou art here, 
 Is once again with Eden blest ; 
 And man contains it in his breast. 
 
 Go search among your idle dreams, 
 Your busy or your vain extremes. 
 And find a life of equal bliss, 
 Or own the next begun in this. 
 
 ThoDias Parnell. 
 
 The cloud-lights of a wintry sky have a clear purity 
 and brilliancy that no other months can rival. 
 
 Neither are trees, as seen in winter, destitute of their 
 own peculiar beauty. 
 
 Harrii't B. Stowc.
 
 February 24. 
 
 Though all great deeds were proved but fables fine ; 
 
 Though earth's old story could be told anew ; 
 
 Though the sweet fashions loved of them that sue 
 Were empty as the ruined Delphian shrine ; 
 Though God did never man in words benign, 
 
 With sense of his great fatherhood endue ; 
 
 Though life immortal were a dream untrue, 
 And He that promised it were not divine ; 
 Though soul, though spirit, were not, and all hope 
 
 Reaching beyond the bourn melted away ; 
 Though virtue had no goal, and good no scope. 
 
 But both were doomed to end with this our clay ; 
 Though all these were not, — to the ungraced heir 
 Would this remain, — to live as though they were. 
 
 Jean Ingelow.
 
 February 25. 
 
 " At Frankfort," said little Simson, " I once saw a 
 watch that did not believe in the existence of a watch- 
 maker. It had a very poor movement by the way, and 
 a pinchbeck case." 
 
 Ileinrich Heine. 
 
 Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have 
 any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough 
 of my own. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 There is strength 
 Deep-bedded in our hearts, of which we seek 
 But litUe till the shafts of heaven have pierced 
 Its fragile dwelling. Must not earth be rent 
 Before her gems are found? 
 
 ^[rs. Hem arts.
 
 February 26. 
 
 FEBRUARY. 
 
 I've brought some snowdrops, — only just a few, 
 But quite enough to prove the world awake, 
 
 Cheerful and hopeful in the frosty dew, 
 And for the pale sun's sake. 
 
 Christina G. Rossetti. 
 
 Man should trust in God as if God did all, and labor 
 himself as if man did all. 
 
 Chalmers. 
 
 I KNOW that sunshine, through whatever rift 
 How shaped it matters not, u])on my halls 
 Paints disks as perfect-rounded as its source. 
 And, like its antitype, the ray divine, 
 However finding entrance, perfect still. 
 Repeats the image unimpaired of God. 
 
 Lo-iUcU.
 
 February 27. 
 
 Late February days ; and now, at last, 
 
 Might you have thought that winter's woe was past, 
 
 So fair the sky was, and so soft the air. 
 
 The happy birds were hurrying here and there. 
 
 As something soon would happen. Reddened now 
 
 The hedges, and in gardens many a bough 
 
 Was overbold of buds. Sweet days, indeed. 
 
 William Morris. 
 
 February makes a bridge, and March breaks it. 
 
 Herbert. 
 
 Cheerfulness is also an excellent wearing quality. It 
 has been called the bright weather of the heart. 
 
 Smiles.
 
 February 28. 
 
 Never hunt trouble. However dead a shot one may be, 
 the gun he carries on such expeditions is sure to kick or 
 go off half-cocked. Trouble will come soon enough ; and, 
 when he does come, receive him as pleasantly as possible. 
 Like the tax-collector, he is a disagreeable chap to have 
 in one's house ; but, the more amiably you greet him, the 
 sooner he will go away. 
 
 Artcmiis Ward. 
 
 " A wilderness," says neighbor Black, 
 
 " A desert waste and wide, 
 Where rank weeds choke, and ravens croak. 
 
 And noisome reptiles hide ! " 
 " Ay, so it is," says neighbor White ; 
 
 " But haply you and I 
 Might clear the ground our homes around — 
 
 Come, neighbor, let us try." 
 
 Frederick Laiigbridge, in Sunday Magazitie,
 
 February 29. 
 
 What is so rare as a day in June? Give it up? The 
 29th of February. 
 
 Superfluous woman ! Now is your time. To-day it is 
 woman, not man, who proposes. 
 
 A MAID unasked may own a well-placed flame : 
 Not lovingyfrj/, but loving wrong, is shame. 
 
 Ovid. 
 
 Why should not woman seek her happiness 
 With brow as unabashed as man may wear 
 In seeking his? Ah ! lack of candor here 
 Works more regrets for woman and for man 
 Than we can reckon. 
 
 Epes Sargent.
 
 March 1. 
 
 Slayer of the winter, art thou here again? 
 
 Oh welcome, thou that bring'st the summer nigh ! 
 The bitter wind makes not thy victory vain, 
 
 Nor will we mock thee for thy faint blue sky. 
 
 Welcome, O March ! whose kindly days and dry 
 Make April ready for the throstle's song, 
 Thou first redresser of the winter's wrong 1 
 
 Yea, welcome March ! and though I die ere June, 
 Yet for the hope of life I give thee praise. 
 
 Striving to swell the burden of the tune 
 
 That even now I hear thy brown birds raise, 
 
 Who sing, " O joy ! a new year has begun : 
 
 What happiness to look upon the sun ! " 
 
 William Morris.
 
 March 2. 
 
 "A MERRY heart doeth good like a medicine." 
 
 " He that showeth mercy, let him do it with cheerful- 
 
 A HELPING word to one in trouble is often like a switch 
 
 on a railroad track, — but one inch between wreck and 
 
 smooth-rolling prosperity. 
 
 Beecher. 
 
 I DO wish that all tired people did but know the infi- 
 nite rest there is in fencing off the six days from the 
 seventh, — in anchoring the business-ships of our daily life 
 as the Saturday draws to its close, leaving them to ride 
 peacefully upon the flow or the ebb until Monday morn- 
 ing comes again. 
 
 Anna JVarner.
 
 March 3. 
 
 What a beautiful word is spring! At least one fancies 
 so, knowing the meaning of it, and being used to identify 
 it with so many pleasant things. An Italian might find 
 it harsh, and object to the sp and the terminating con- 
 sonant : but if he were a proper Italian, a man of fancy, 
 the worthy countryman of Petrarch and Ariosto, we 
 would convince him that the word was an excellent 
 good word, crammed as full of beauty as a bud ; and 
 that s had the whistling of the brooks in it ; / and r the 
 force and roughness of whatsoever is animated and pic- 
 turesque ; ing the singing of the birds ; and the whole 
 word the suddenness and salience of all that is lively, 
 
 sprouting, and new. 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Sunshine is like love, — it makes every thing shine with 
 its own beauty. 
 
 Wilson.
 
 March 4. 
 
 As the wild air stirs and sways 
 The tree-swung cradle of a child, 
 
 So the breath of these rude days 
 Rocks the year. Be calm and mild, 
 
 Trembling hours : she will arise 
 
 With new love within her eyes. 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 Our life is March weather, savage and serene in one 
 hour. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Spring is over the world, the seeds buried in the earth 
 burst to flower, but man's heart knoweth not the sweet 
 divisions of the seasons. In winter or summer, autumn 
 or spring, alike, his thoughts sow the germ of actions; 
 and day after day his destiny gathers in her harvests. 
 
 Bulwer Lytton^
 
 March 5. 
 
 For well I know, o'er sunny seas 
 The bluebird waits for April skies ; 
 
 And at the roots of forest-trees 
 
 The Mayflowers sleep in fragrant ease, 
 
 And violets hide their azure eyes. 
 
 O thou, by winds of grief o'erblown 
 Beside some golden summer's bier, 
 
 Take heart ! Thy birds are only flown, 
 Thy blossoms sleeping, tearful sowni. 
 
 To greet thee in the immortal }'ear. 
 
 Edna Dean Proctor. 
 
 A CALAMITY is always the better borne for not being 
 previously dwelt upon. 
 
 Mtne. Bunseti. 
 
 Love is sunshine : hate is shadow. 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 March 6. 
 
 Vague rumors are afloat in tlie air of a great and coming 
 change, — Winter to be gone ; but he will not abdicate with- 
 out a struggle. Day after day he rallies his scattered forces, 
 and night after night pitches his white tents on the hills, and 
 would fain regain his lost ground ; but the young prince in 
 every encounter prevails. Slowly and reluctantly the gray 
 old hero retreats up the mountain, till finally the south rain 
 comes in earnest, and in a night he is dead. 
 
 John Bin-roughs. 
 
 None are so old as those who have outlived enthusi- 
 asm. 
 
 Be not simply good — be good for something. 
 
 Thorcaii.
 
 March 7. 
 
 In this world, where there is so much real sorrow, and 
 so much unnecessary grief of fret and worry ; where men 
 stumble in rough paths, and so many push them down 
 rather than help them up ; where tears are as common as 
 smiles, and hearts ache so easily, but are poorly fed on 
 higher joys, — how grateful ought we to be that God sends 
 along, here and there, a natural heart-singer, — a man whose 
 nature is large and luminous, and who, by his very carriage 
 and spontaneous actions, calms, cheers, and helps his fel- 
 lows. God bless the good natured, for they bless everybody 
 
 else ! 
 
 Beecher.
 
 March 8. 
 
 Give me of the brook's faith, joyously sung 
 
 Under clank of its icy chain ! 
 Give me the patience that hides among 
 
 Thy hilltops in mist and rain ! 
 Lift me up from the clod, let me breathe thy breath, 
 
 Thy beauty and strength give me ! 
 
 Let me lose both the name and the meaning of death 
 
 In the life that I share with thee ! 
 
 Lucy Larcom. 
 
 Sit down, sad soul, and count 
 
 The moments flying : 
 Come, tell the sad amount 
 
 That's lost by sighing. 
 How many smiles? A score? 
 Then, laugh and count no more, 
 
 For day is dying. 
 
 Tennyson.
 
 March 9. 
 
 De.\r dead ! they have become 
 
 Like guardian angels to us ; 
 And distant heaven like home, 
 
 Through them begins to woo us; 
 Love that was earthly, wings 
 Its flight to holier places : 
 
 The dead are sacred things 
 That multiply our graces. 
 
 Those whom we loved on earth 
 
 Attract us now to heaven ; 
 Who shared our grief and mirth, 
 
 Back to us now are given : 
 They move with noiseless foot 
 
 Gravely and sweetly round us, 
 And their soft touch hath cut 
 Full many a chain that bound us. 
 
 F. IV. Faber
 
 March 10. 
 
 Be more cheerful ; do not worry : 
 There is time enough to do 
 
 Every day the daily duties 
 
 That your Father sendeth you, 
 
 And to find some little moments 
 For heart-music fresh and new. 
 
 A MAN must be excessively stupid, as well as unchari- 
 table, who believes there is no virtue but on his own 
 
 side. 
 
 Addison. 
 
 In conversation with the egotist, all subjects lead to 
 kis "I," as "All roads lead to Rome."
 
 March 11. 
 
 I WOULD not have my life go on, 
 A level stretch from sun to sun, 
 With nothing for my gaze to meet 
 But pleasant places for the feet, 
 No glorious hills for me to mount, 
 No obstacles by which to count 
 My progress on the path I tread, 
 And naught but sunshine overhead. 
 
 If life ran on so smooth a plane. 
 
 With more of bliss, and less of pain ; 
 
 If here we never suffered loss. 
 
 But held the gold without the dross. 
 
 And found the treasures in our trust 
 
 Untarnished by a grain of rust, — 
 
 If unto us such bliss were given, 
 
 Oh ! would we have one thought of heaven ? 
 
 Josephine Pollard.
 
 March 12. 
 
 Though the transient springs have failed thee, 
 Though the founts of youth are dried, 
 
 Wilt thou among the mouldering stones 
 In weariness abide? 
 
 Up and onward ! Toward the East 
 
 Green oases thou shalt find, — 
 Streams that rise from higher sources 
 
 Than the pools thou leav'st behind. 
 
 Life has import more inspiring 
 Than the fancies of thy youth : 
 
 It has hopes as high as heaven, 
 It has labors, it has truth. 
 
 It has wrongs that may be righted, 
 Noble deeds that may be done : 
 
 Its great battles are unfought, 
 Its great triumphs are unwon. 
 
 Afrs. A. C. L. Botta.
 
 March 13. 
 
 Things seem to die, but die not. The spring-showers 
 Die on the bosom of the motherly Earth, 
 
 But rise again in fruits and leaves and flowers ; 
 And every death is nothing but a birth. 
 
 Lucretius. 
 
 Of all bad things with which mankind arc curst, 
 Their own bad tempers surely are the worst. 
 
 Menander, 
 
 Learn thy tnie self, and live it. 
 
 Pindar.
 
 March 14. 
 
 DAFFODIL. 
 
 Gold tassel upon March's bugle-horn, 
 
 Whose blithe reveille blows from hill to hill, 
 And every valley rings, O Daffodil ! 
 
 What promise for the season newly born? 
 
 Shall wave on wave of flowers, full tide of com, 
 O'erflow the world, then fruited Autumn fill 
 Hedgerow and garth? Shall tempest, blight, or chill 
 
 Turn all felicity to scathe and scorn? 
 
 Tantarrara ! the joyous Book of Spring 
 Lies open, writ in blossoms ; not a bird 
 Of evil augury is seen or heard. 
 
 Come, now ! like Pan's old crew we'll dance and sing, 
 
 Or Oberon's ; for hill and valley ring 
 
 To March's bugle-horn : Earth's blood is stiired. 
 
 I'F. A.
 
 March 15. 
 
 It is the first mid-day of March, 
 Each minute sweeter than before : 
 
 The redbreast sings from the tall larch 
 That stands beside our door. 
 
 There is a blessing in the air, 
 
 Which seems a sense of joy to yield 
 
 To the bare trees, and mountains bare. 
 And grass in the green field. 
 
 Wordnvorth. 
 
 Man\' Christians do greatly wrong themselves with a dull 
 and heavy kind of sullenness ; who, not suffering them- 
 selves to delight in any worldly thing, are thereupon 
 ofttimes so heartless that they delight in nothing. 
 
 Bishop HaU.
 
 March 16. 
 
 Who said that March was a scold and a slirew? 
 Who said she had nothing on earth to do 
 But tempests and furies and rages to brew? 
 Why, look at the wealth she has lavished on you ! 
 
 O March that blusters, and March that blows, 
 What color under your footsteps glows ! 
 Beauty you summon from winter snows, 
 And you are the pathway that leads to the rose. 
 
 Celia Thaxter. 
 
 When daffodils begin to peer 
 
 With heigh 1 the doxy over the dale, 
 
 Why, then comes in the sweet o' the year. 
 For the red blood reigns in the winter's pale. 
 
 Shakespeare.
 
 March 17. 
 
 THE OAK. 
 
 How doth his patient strength the rude March ^vind 
 Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze, 
 
 And win the soil that fain would be unkind, 
 To swell his revenues with proud increase ! 
 
 So from oft converse with Hfe's wintry gales, 
 
 Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots 
 
 The inspiring earth ; how otherwise avails 
 The leaf, creating sap that sunward shoots. 
 
 ImwcU. 
 
 I DARE no more fret than I dare curse and swear. 
 
 John Wesley.
 
 March 18. 
 
 A PLAIN MAN'S PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 " A GLOOMY world," says neighbor Black, 
 
 " Where clouds of dreary dun, 
 In masses rolled, the sky infold, 
 
 And blot the noonday sun 1 " 
 " Ay, so it is," says neighbor White ; 
 
 "But haply you and I 
 Might shed a ray to cheer the way — 
 
 Come, neighbor, let us try." 
 
 " A vale of tears," says neighbor Black, 
 
 " A vale of weary breath. 
 Of soul-wrung sighs and hopeless eyes, 
 
 From birth to early death ! " 
 " Ay, so it is," says neighbor White ; 
 
 " But haply you and I, 
 Just there and here, might dry a tear — 
 
 Come, neighbor, let us try."
 
 March 19. 
 
 " This world is not so bad a world 
 As some would like to make it ; 
 
 For whether good or whether bad, 
 Depends on how you take it." 
 
 A NEGRO minister widower, who married rather sooner 
 than some of the sisters thought proper and becoming, 
 excused himself as follows : " My dear brethren and 
 sisters, my grief was greater than I could bear. I turned 
 every way for peace and comfort, but none came. I 
 searched the Scriptures from Ginisee to Reverlations, and 
 found plenty of promises to the widder, but narry one to 
 the widderer. And so I took it that the Lord didn't 
 waste sympatliy on a man when it was in his power to 
 comfort himself; and, having a first-rate chance to marry 
 in the Lord, I did so again. Besides, brethren, I consider 
 that poor Betsy was just as dead as she would ever be."
 
 March 20. 
 
 You observe a man becoming day by day holier, or 
 advancing in station, or increasing in professional reputa- 
 tion, and you set him down as a successful man in life. 
 But if his home is an ill-regulated one, where no links 
 of affection extend throughout the family, whose former 
 domestics (and he has had more of them than he can 
 well remember) look back upon their sojourn with him 
 as one unblessed by kind words or deeds, I contend 
 that that man has not been successful. 
 
 Arthur Helps. 
 
 He who loves to read, and knows how to reflect, has 
 laid by a perpetual feast for his old age.
 
 March 21. 
 
 When the hounds of Spring are on Winter's traces, 
 The mother of montlis in meadow or plain 
 
 Fills the shadows and windy places 
 With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain. 
 
 Swinburne. 
 
 March. Its tree, juniper; 
 Its stone, blood-stone ; 
 Its motto, Courage and strength in times of danger. 
 
 Ah, "March! we know thou art 
 Kind-hearted, spite of ugly looks and threats, 
 And out of siglit are nursing April's violets ! 
 
 Helen Hunt.
 
 March 22. 
 
 Now when the budding spring escapes from winter's durance, 
 Hope hath its flowering, and faith its sweet assurance. 
 How shall our hearts be sad when Nature's flice rejoices, 
 And earth and air are glad with her tumultuous voices? 
 Ears that His message seek, and doubt not in possessing, 
 To them the winds shall speak in undertones of blessing ; 
 And to the seeing eyes. His gracious works beholding, 
 No little bird that flies, no small green thing unfolding, 
 But shall His love express who doth our souls deliver, 
 Whose holy name we bless and magnify forever. 
 
 Praise Him, O soul of mine ! nor ever cease from praising, 
 Though olive-tree and vine be blighted in the raising; 
 Though flood and frost and fire assail me in one morning, 
 And though my heart's desire shall perish without warning ! 
 Still shall His rivers flow, the heavens declare His glory ; 
 Still shall His green things grow, ?Iis winds repeat their story ; 
 And I, who sit to-day beneath the cloud of sorrow, 
 And see no opening way for sunshine for the morrow, 
 Still by His mighty word upheld for fresh endeavor. 
 Will magnify tlie Lord, and bless His name forever. 
 
 Mary E. Bradley.
 
 March 23. 
 
 OPPORTUNITY. 
 
 And this I saw, or dreamed it in a dream : — 
 There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ; 
 And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
 A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
 Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince's banner 
 Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 
 A craven hung along the battle's edge, 
 And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel, — 
 That blue blade that the king's son bears — but this 
 Blunt thing ! " — He snapt and flung it from his hand, 
 And, lowering, crept away, and left the field. 
 Then came the king's son, wounded, sore bestead, 
 And weaponless, and saw the broken sword. 
 And ran and snatched it, and, with battle-shout 
 Lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down. 
 And saved a great cause that heroic day. 
 
 E. R. Sill.
 
 March 24. 
 
 A SUBTLE red 
 Of life is kindling every twig and stalk 
 Of lowly meadow growths ; the willows wrap 
 Their stems in furry white ; the pines grow gray 
 A little in the biting wind ; mid-day 
 Brings tiny burrowed creatures, peeping out, 
 Alert for sun. 
 
 "H. //." 
 
 The "blues " are generally a sin. No one has a right to 
 yield to disappointment or discouragement, or to distrust 
 his heavenly Father, or to carry even the light burden of a 
 half-conscious, unforgiven sin, or to overwork and exhaus! 
 the wonderful mechanism which God has given him. But 
 repentance is as many-formed as sin ; and, when the sin is 
 overv\\)rk, repentance is rest. 
 
 Lyvtaii Abbott.
 
 March 25. 
 
 Never did a sunbeam shine in vain, and therefore no 
 sunbeam that ever streaked this world with light could be 
 finally lost. Yet the sunbeam, lovely as it is, has had its 
 grave ; and there, sometimes for unnumbered ages, it has 
 slept in undisturbed repose. What is coal but latent sun- 
 beams, which need only to be ignited to start again into 
 active life? The sun, when many thousand years younger 
 than he is now, cast forth his radiant beams on the surface 
 of the world, and noble trees of ferns and other acrogens 
 started at his bidding into vigorous life : they lived, died, 
 and underwent changes which made them coal, — yes, coal ! 
 and the old sun, he did it all. These sunbeams have long 
 been burned in the form of coal ; and though, by ignition, 
 their resurrection life is but a dim shadow of their early 
 briglitness, they are yet sunbeams. We have nothing but 
 sunlight in summer or winter, think or talk as we may. The 
 fire on our hearths, the gas in our tubes, the oil in our 
 lamps, and the candles on our tables, are all products of the 
 sunbeam. Brooke.
 
 March 26. 
 
 When the hill-side breaks into green, every hollow of blue 
 shade, every curve of tuft and plume and tendril, .every 
 broken sunbeam on spray of young leaves, is new. No 
 spring is a representation of a former spring. 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 The dial 
 Receives many shades, and each points to the sun : 
 The shadows are many, the sunlight is one. 
 Life's sorrows still fluctuate : God's love does not, 
 And His love is unchanged when it changes our lot. 
 Looking up to this light, which is common to all, 
 And down to those shadows on each side, that fall 
 In Time's silent aisle, so various for each, 
 Is it nothing to know that they never can reach 
 So far but that light lies beyond them forever? 
 
 Oweii Meredith.
 
 March 27. 
 
 Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past 
 calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be perma- 
 nently useful, must be uniformly joyous, — a spirit all sun- 
 shine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 Be cheerful : do not brood over fond hopes unrealized 
 until a chain, link after link, is fastened on each thought 
 and wound around the heart. Nature intended you to be 
 the fountain-spring of cheerfulness and social life, and not 
 the travelling monument of despair and melancholy. 
 
 Arthur Helps.
 
 March 28. 
 
 PENSEES. 
 
 Bethink you, while the tears do nin, 
 No cloud would rise but for the sun. 
 
 The sap is bitter in the bark 
 
 That sweetens in the fruit above ; 
 
 And spirits toiling through the dark 
 Shall reach at last their light of love. 
 
 We hear the arrows in the dark go by : 
 
 The cowering soul no longer soars or sings, 
 
 Or it might know God's presence then most nigh, 
 Our darkness being the shadow of his wings. 
 
 Gerald Massey.
 
 March 29. 
 
 SNOWDROPS. 
 
 These first flowers of spring, — what a gracious charm 
 they have ! a charm which is all their own ! 
 
 The meanest and poorest little blossom is more to us 
 to-day than a whole parterre of gayly colored summer favor- 
 ites will be a few months hence. 
 
 " Make Thou my spirit pure and clear 
 As are the frosty skies, 
 Or this first snowdrop of the year 
 That in my bosom lies."
 
 March 30. 
 
 Though the sun scorches us sometimes, and gives us the 
 headache, we do not refuse tu acknowledge that we stand in 
 need of his warmth. 
 
 Philip de J\Io7nay. 
 
 There is a bright side to religion, and I love to see 
 
 Ciiristians walking in the sunshine. I trust you have found 
 
 this out for yourself. 
 
 Mrs. E. Prentiss. 
 
 O Sun ! of this great world, both eye and soul. 
 
 ISIillon.
 
 March 31. 
 
 March, just ready to depart, begins 
 To soften into April. 
 
 Brya7jt. 
 
 Were a star quenched on high, 
 
 For ages would its light, 
 Still travelling downward from the sky, 
 
 Shine on our mortal sight. 
 
 So when a great man dies, 
 
 For years beyond our ken 
 The light he leaves behind him lies 
 
 Upon the paths of men. 
 
 Lon^ellow,
 
 April 1. 
 
 The compliments of the season and a merry first of 
 April to us all ! 
 
 Take my word for this, reader, and say a fool told it 
 you, if you please, that he who hath not a drachm of 
 folly in his mixture, hath pounds of much worse matter in 
 his composition. And what are commonly the world's re- 
 ceived fools but such whereof the world is not worthy? 
 And what have been some of the kindliest patterns of our 
 species but so many darlings of absurdity, minions of the 
 goddess and her white boys ? 
 
 Reader, if you wrest my words beyond their fair con- 
 struction, it is you, and not I, that are the April fool. 
 
 Charles Lamb.
 
 April 2. 
 
 Nothing is surer than that the soul will win what it 
 
 wants. If it desires God, it will gain him. The principle 
 
 of constancy in heavenly as in earthly affairs is greater than 
 
 the greatest mood. 
 
 E. S. Fhdps. 
 
 My name is April, sir : and I 
 Often laugh, as often cry; 
 And I cannot tell what makes me ! 
 Only, as the fit o'ertakes me, 
 I must dimple, smile, and frown, 
 Laughing, though the tears roll down. 
 But 'tis nature, sir, not art ; 
 And I'm happy at my heart. 
 
 Mrs. Z. B. Gustafson.
 
 April 3. 
 
 O RAINY days ! O days of sun ! 
 
 What are ye all when the year is done? 
 
 Who shall remember sun or rain? 
 O years of loss 1 O joyful years ! 
 What are ye when all heaven appears? 
 
 Who shall look back for joy or pain? 
 
 IV. P. Foster. 
 
 To know how to say what other people only think, is 
 
 what makes men poets and sages ; and to dare to say what 
 
 others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, 
 
 or both. 
 
 Mrs. Charles.
 
 April 4. 
 
 When we shall be endowed with our spiritual bodies, 
 I think that they will be so constituted that we may send 
 thoughts and feelings any distance in no time at all. 
 
 Hawthorne. 
 
 Many a parent heart before, 
 Laden till it could bear no more, 
 Has seen a heavenward light that smiled, 
 And knew it placed there by a child, — 
 A long-gone child, whose anxious face 
 Gazed toward them down the deeps of space, 
 Longing for the loved to come 
 To the quiet of that home. 
 
 T. Buchanan Read,
 
 A-PRIL 5. 
 
 The spring is in the air; 
 For, with the first warm kisses of the rain, 
 The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears ; 
 
 And the brown thrushes mate ; and with bright eyes the 
 rabbit peers 
 From the dark warren where the fir-cones he. 
 
 And treads one snowdrop underfoot, and runs 
 Over the mossy knoll; and black-birds fly 
 
 Across our path at evening and the sun's. 
 Stay longer with us ! Ah, how good to see 
 Grass-girdled Spring in all her joy of laughing greenery ! 
 
 Oscar Wilde. 
 
 I AM thinking of the lilac-trees 
 That shook their purple plumes, 
 
 And, when the sash was open. 
 Shed fragrance through the rooms. 
 
 Mrs. Stephens.
 
 April 6. 
 
 Oh, this April weather ! 
 
 Breath of bahii and snow ; 
 June and March together 
 
 In an hour or so. 
 
 Something altogether 
 
 Charming in it too ; 
 Not the worst of weather 
 
 When the sun shines through. 
 
 Taken altogether, 
 
 It's the counterpart. 
 This queer April weather, 
 
 Of — yourself, sweetheart. 
 
 A^ora Perry. 
 
 If you would create something, you must be something. 
 
 Goethe.
 
 April 7. 
 
 The April winds are magical, 
 And thrill our tuneful frames. 
 
 R. IV. E77ierson. 
 
 To the giver shall be given. 
 If thou wouldst walk in light, 
 Make other spirits bright : 
 Who, seeking for himself alone, ever entered heaven? 
 In blessing we are blest, 
 In labor find our rest ; 
 If we bend not to the world's work, heart and hand and 
 brain, 
 We have lived our life in vain. 
 
 Caroline Seymour.
 
 April 8. 
 
 "Unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of right- 
 eousness arise with healins; in his winrjs." 
 
 He sendeth sun, he sendeth shovvei ; 
 Alike they're needful for the flower : 
 And joys and tears alike are sent 
 To give the soul fit nourishment. 
 As comes to me or cloud or sun, 
 Father, thy will, not mine, be done ! 
 
 S. F. Adams. 
 
 A STRAIGHT line is the shortest in morals as in mathe- 
 matics. 
 
 Maria Edgcworth.
 
 April 9. 
 
 Like a blind spinner in the sun 
 
 I tread my days. 
 I know that all the threads will run 
 
 Appointed ways. 
 I know each day will bring its task ; 
 
 And, being blind, no more I ask. 
 
 Helen Hunt. 
 
 Lord, all thy works are lessons. Each contains 
 
 Some emblem of man's all-containing soul : 
 Shall he make fruitless all thy glorious pains. 
 
 Delving within thy grace an eyeless mole? 
 Make me the least of thy Dodona grove ; 
 
 Cause me some message of thy truth to bring; 
 Speak but a word through me, nor let thy love 
 
 Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. 
 
 7. R. Lowell.
 
 April lO. 
 
 As thy days thy strength shall be : 
 This should be enough for thee ; 
 He who knovvs thy frame will spare 
 Burdens more than thou canst bear. 
 
 Francis Ridley Havergal. 
 
 " But it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall 
 be light." 
 
 The vault is blue, 
 Without a cloud ; and white without a speck 
 The dazzling splendor of the scene below. 
 
 Ccnvper.
 
 April U. 
 
 Earth is a wintry clod ; 
 But spring wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes 
 Over its breast to waken it : rare verdure 
 Buds tenderly upon rough banks, between 
 The withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost. 
 Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face. 
 The grass grows bright ; the boughs are swol'n with blooms, 
 Like chrysalids impatient for the air ; 
 The shining dors are busy ; beetles run 
 Along the furrows ; ants make their ado ; 
 Above, birds fly in merry flocks, — the lark 
 Soai's up and up, shivering for very joy ; 
 Savage creatures seek their loves in wood and plain ; 
 And God renews his ancient rapture. 
 
 Robert Browning.
 
 April 12. 
 
 Again has come the spring-time, 
 
 With the crocus's golden bloom, 
 With the smell of the fresh-turned earth-mould, 
 
 And the violet's perfume. 
 
 S. Longfellcra.1. 
 
 Oh ! teach me, thou forest, to testify glad. 
 As in autumn the gloom of thy yellowing leaf. 
 
 That my spring cometh back after winter, the seed ; 
 That my tree gleameth green after mournfulness brief; 
 
 The roots of my tree stand deep, strong, and divine 
 
 In eternity's summer : oh, why, then, repine ! 
 
 From the Danish. 
 
 What a pity that wrinkles should not be all under our 
 heels instead of on our faces ! It would be a much 
 better arrangement. 
 
 A^inon de rEnclos.
 
 April 13. 
 
 These two things, contradictory as they may seem, 
 must go together, — manly dependence and manly inde- 
 pendence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 I WANT a sofa, as I want a friend, upon which I can 
 repose familiarly. If I can't have intimate terms and 
 freedom with one and the other, they are of no good. 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 True friends visit us in prosperity only when invited, 
 but in adversity they come without invitation. 
 
 Theophrastus.
 
 April 14. 
 
 DAY BY DAY. 
 
 Why do we heap huge mounds of years 
 
 Before us and behind, 
 And scorn the Httle days that pass 
 
 Like angels on the wind? 
 
 Each turning round a small, sweet face, 
 
 As beautiful as near ; 
 Because it has so small a face, 
 
 We will not see it clear. 
 
 And so it turns from us, and goes 
 
 Away in sad disdain : 
 Though we would give our lives for it, 
 
 It never comes again. 
 
 Yet every day has its dawn, 
 
 Its noontide, and its eve : 
 Live while we live, giving God thanks, — 
 
 He will not let us grieve. 
 
 Mrs. Craik.
 
 April 15. 
 
 \V'hen you lie down, close your eyes with a short prayer, 
 commit yourself into the hands of your faithful Creator; 
 and, when you have done, trust him with yourself, as you 
 must do when you are dying. 
 
 ye7-emy Taylor. 
 
 Religion gives part of its reward in hand, — the present 
 comfort of having done our duty ; and, for the rest, it 
 offers us the best security that heaven can give. 
 
 Tillotson. 
 
 Whether religion be true or false, it must be necessa- 
 rily granted to be the only wise principle and safe 
 hypothesis for a man to live and die by. 
 
 Tillotson.
 
 April 16. 
 
 Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed. 
 Be any thing else, and you will be ten thousand times 
 worse than nothing. 
 
 Sydney Smith. 
 
 Life, believe, is not a dream 
 
 So dark as sages say : 
 Oft a little morning rain 
 
 Foretells a pleasant day. 
 Sometimes there are clouds of gloom, 
 
 But these are transient all : 
 If the shower will make the roses bloom. 
 
 Oh! why lament its fall? 
 Rapidly, merrily, 
 
 Life's sunny hours flit by, 
 Gratefully, cheerily. 
 
 Enjoy them as they fly. 
 
 Cnrrer Hell. 
 {Charlotte Ij route.)
 
 April 17. 
 
 Be cheerful, no matter what reverse obstruct your path- 
 way, or what plagues follow you in your trail to annoy 
 you. Ask yourself what is to be gained by looking or 
 feeling sad when troubles throng around you, or how your 
 condition is to be alleviated by abandoning yourself to 
 despondency. ... Be cheerful. 
 
 Art/iur Helps. 
 
 CHEERFULNESS. 
 
 Some wise man once remarked, that he would rather 
 be born possessed of a cheerful and contented disposition 
 than heir to twenty thousand a year. He was right in 
 his choice : for a cheerful nature, like a Claude Lorraine 
 glass, tinges all objects with sunlight ; while a discontented 
 disposition makes itself miserable everywhere, and in the 
 greatest prosperity can sing, — 
 
 " If it's fine to-day, it will rain to-morrow ; 
 So let us all be unhappy together."
 
 April 18. 
 
 ARBUTUS. 
 
 Oft have I walked these woodland paths 
 Without the blest foreknowing 
 
 That underneath the withered leaves 
 The fairest flowers were growing. 
 
 O prophet soul ! with lips of bloom, 
 
 Outvying, in your beauty. 
 The pearly tints of ocean shells, 
 
 Ye teach me faith and duty. 
 
 Walk life's dark paths, they seem to say. 
 With Love's divine foreknowing, 
 
 That where man sees but withered leaves, 
 God sees the sweet flowers growing. 
 
 Leii'hton. 
 
 Hard work will best uncertain fortune mend.
 
 April 19. 
 
 When on your home falls unforeseen distress, 
 Half-clothed come neighbors : kinsmen stay to dress. 
 
 Hesiod. 
 
 One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say 
 a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish 
 we had rather left unsaid ; nor can there any thing be 
 well more contrary to the ends for which people meet 
 together than to part unsatisfied with each other or them- 
 selves. 
 
 Swift. 
 
 You may keep your beauty and your health, unless you 
 destroy them yourself, or discourage them to stay with 
 you by using them ill. 
 
 Sir W. Temple.
 
 April 20. 
 
 Health is coming into fasliion. Now that the country 
 is becoming safe, we must again turn our attention to the 
 health of our girls. Unless they are healthy, the country 
 is not safe. The fate of our institutions may hang on the 
 precise temperament which our next president shall have 
 inherited from his mother. 
 
 T. fV. ///•'■iT'/ison. 
 
 All discouragement is of tlie Devil. When Trust comes 
 in, Worry goes out. 
 
 Every tear is answered by a blossom ; 
 Every sigh with songs and laughter blent ; 
 Apple-blooms upon the breezes toss them ; 
 April knows her own, and is content. 
 
 Susan Coolid'je.
 
 April 21. 
 
 THE WOOD-ANEMONE. 
 
 Thou gentle flower, 
 That first doth greet the heightening sun, 
 Anemone, thou modest one, 
 Who taught thee that the \"vinter's course is run, 
 
 While storms still lower? 
 Thou, trusting nature's word, doth come 
 Ere birds are mated, or the hum 
 Of bees returns the spotted picker's drum. 
 
 The tingeing blush 
 That touches on thy petals fair. 
 When blows the south-wind's amorous air, 
 Is like a maiden's face. Thou dost not bear 
 
 The hot-breathed rush 
 Of June, but on tliy slender stalk 
 Soon diest, while thy leaves unlock 
 Their fingers, prayer-like, drooping on the rock. 
 
 Thy lessons fall 
 Like seeds of good upon my soul, 
 To teach me faith in Cod, to pole 
 My scattered thoughts to one more perfect whole, 
 
 Pervading all. 
 Sweet emblem, full of trust, and chaste, 
 I love thy tinted bell, so graced 
 With springtime's life amid the winter's waste. 
 
 Charles Hall Perry.
 
 April 22. 
 
 '•'That ye sorrow not, even as others which have no 
 hope." 
 
 Grief, it is truly said, is sacred ; but grief brought for- 
 ward promiscuously, harped upon, condoled over, made 
 the staple of conversation, becomes rapidly profane. 
 
 Apply healing to other minds diseasea, and you will not 
 fail to heal your own. The law of impenetrability obtains 
 in mind as well as in matter. Sorrow cannot wholly fill 
 the heart that is occupied with others' welfare. 
 
 Constant melancholy, furthermore, is constant rebellion. 
 
 Gail Hamilton. 
 
 Sorrow is not selfish, but many persons are in sorrow 
 entirely selfish. It makes them so important in their own 
 eyes, that they seem to have a claim on all that people 
 can do for them. 
 
 George Macdonald.
 
 April 23. 
 
 A GUSH of bird-song, a patter of dew, 
 A cloud, and a rainbow's warning. 
 
 Suddenly sunshine and perfect blue, — 
 An April day in the morning. 
 
 Harriet Prescott Spodford. 
 
 The orchards all a-flutter with pink, 
 
 Robins' twitter, and wild bees' humming, 
 
 Break the song with a thrill to think 
 
 How sweet is life when summer is coming. 
 
 Harriet Prescott Spofford. 
 
 Rare benevolence, the minister of God. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 If you wish to preserve your secret, wrap it up in 
 frankness. 
 
 Montaii^ne.
 
 April 24. 
 
 Cicero was at dinner when an ancient lady said she 
 was but forty. One that sat by rounded him in the ear, 
 "She is far more, — out of the questicjn." Cicero an- 
 swered, " I must believe her, for I have heard her say so 
 any time these ten years." 
 
 Lord Bacon. 
 
 I DO not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his 
 mind and vigorous in his arms, — I cannot call such a 
 man, — poor. I cannot pity my kind as a kind, merely 
 because they are men. This affected pity only tends to 
 dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach their. 
 to seek resources where no resources are to be found, — in 
 something else than their own industry and frugality and 
 sobri(;ty. 
 
 Burke.
 
 April 25. 
 
 REWARD OF ENDEAVOR. 
 
 What hast thou for thy scattered seed, 
 
 O sower of the plahi? 
 Where are the many gathered sheaves 
 
 Thy hope shall bring again? 
 "The only record of my work 
 
 Lies in the buried grain." 
 
 What is the harvest of thy saints, 
 
 O God ! who dost abide ? 
 Wliere grow the garlands of thy chiefs, 
 
 In blood and sorrow dyed? 
 What have thy servants for their pains? 
 
 "This only — to have tried." 
 
 JiiHa Ward Howe. 
 
 Atheism is the suicide of the soul.
 
 April 26. 
 
 Why not take life with cheerful trust, 
 
 With faith in the strength of weakness? 
 The slenderest daisy rears its head 
 With courage and with meekness. 
 A sunny face 
 Hath holy grace, 
 To woo the sun forever. 
 
 Mary M. Doclge. 
 
 A MAN too busy to take care of his health is like a 
 mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. 
 
 HAPPiN't:ss is where it is found, and seldom where it is 
 sought.
 
 April 27. 
 
 Poor heart, above thy field of sorrow sighing 
 
 For smitten faith, and hope untimely slain, 
 Leave thou the soil whereon thy dead are lying 
 
 To the soft sunlight and the cleansing rain. 
 Love works in silence, hiding all the traces 
 
 Of bitter conflict on the trampled sod. 
 And time shall show thee all life's battle-places, 
 
 Veiled by the hand of God. 
 
 /. L. Cosliam. 
 
 To divert, at any time, a troublesome fancy, run to thy 
 books. They presently fix thee to them, and drive the 
 other out of thy thoughts. They always receive thee with 
 the same kindness. 
 
 Thomas Fuller. 
 
 To confide too much is to put your lemon into aiiolher 
 
 man's squeezer. 
 
 Bovce,
 
 April 28. 
 
 Act and speak to your servants as you would wish 
 others to do to you if you were a servant. 
 
 Dionysius the Carthusian. 
 
 I ALWAYS fancy I can hear the wheels clicking in a 
 calculator's brain. The power of dealing with numbers 
 is a kind of " detached-lever " arrangement, which may 
 be put into a mighty poor watch. 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 There is a day of sunny rest 
 
 For every dark and troubled night ; 
 
 And grief may bide an evening guest, 
 But joy shall come with early light. 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 Ever with loss the putter-off contends.
 
 April 29. 
 
 How many are familiar with the language of the cross, 
 with the terms sacrifice, self-denial, and self-crucifixion, 
 who know nothing practically of what they signify ! The 
 cross is made an ornament ; it is wrought in gold and 
 jewels ; it hangs in pictures in elegant halls, or tips the 
 costly church-spire. And yet how far is all this from true 
 evangelical cross-bearing, or the meek endurance of divine 
 chastisement, the humble and faithful performance of pain- 
 ful duty. Dr. Kirk. 
 
 We love our dead, and hold their memories dear ; 
 
 But living love is sweeter than regret : 
 God's ways are just ; and, though they seem severe, 
 
 He can give back with blessings greater yet 
 Than we have lost. He chastens for some good 
 That in our weakness is not understood. 
 
 Barton Grey.
 
 April 30. 
 
 O FAIR mid-spring, besung so oft and oft, 
 How can I praise thy loveliness enow? 
 
 The sun that burns not, and thy breezes soft 
 That o'er the blossoms of the orchard blow, 
 The thousand things that 'neath the young leaves grow, 
 
 The hopes and chances of the growing year, 
 
 Winter forgotten long, and summer near. 
 
 William Morris. 
 
 It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that 
 while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is noth- 
 ing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and 
 
 good humor. Dickens. 
 
 'Tis impious in a good man to be sad. 
 
 Edivard Young.
 
 May 1. 
 
 Now must these men be glad a little while 
 That they had lived to see May once more smile. 
 
 Chaucer. 
 
 Then came faire May, the fayiest mayd on ground, 
 
 Deckt all with dainties of her season's pryde, 
 And, throwing flowres out of her lap around, 
 
 Upon two brethren's shoulders she did ride. 
 The twinnes of I-eda, which on eyther side 
 
 Supported her like to their soveraine queene. 
 Lord ! how all creatures laught when they her spide, 
 
 And leapt and daunct as they had ravisht beene ! 
 
 And Cupid selfe about her fluttred all in greene. 
 
 Spi^nser.
 
 May 2. 
 
 May, thou month of rosy beauty, 
 Month when pleasure is a duty, 
 Month of bees and month of flowers. 
 Month of blossom-laden bowers, 
 Month of little hands with daisies, 
 Lover's love, and poet's praises, 
 May's the month that's laughing now, 
 I no sooner write the word. 
 Than it seems as though it heard. 
 And looks up, and laughs at me. 
 Like a sweet face rosily 
 Flushing from the papers white ; 
 Like a bride that knows her power, 
 Startled in a summer bower. 
 
 Leisrh Hunt.
 
 May 3. 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE GRASS. 
 
 Here I come, creeping, smiling everywhere ; 
 All round the open door, 
 Where sit the aged poor; 
 
 Here where the children play, 
 
 In the bright and merry May, 
 
 I come creeping, creeping everywhere. 
 
 Here I come creeping, creeping everywhere : 
 My humble song of praise 
 Most joyfully I raise 
 
 To Him at whose command 
 I beautify the land. 
 Creeping, silently creeping everywhere. 
 
 Sarah Roberts.
 
 May 4. 
 
 So, then, the year is repeating its old story again. We 
 are come once more, thank God ! to its most charming 
 chapter. The violets and the Mayflowers are its inscrip- 
 tions or vignettes. It always makes a pleasant impression 
 on us when we open again at these pages of the book 
 of life. Goethe. 
 
 This season of the year touches my spirit always with a 
 sense of newness, of strangeness, of resurrection. It shoots 
 boyhood again into the blood of middle age. That ten- 
 der greening of the black bough and the red field ; that 
 coming again of the new-old flowers ; that rebirth of lov^e 
 in all the family of birds, with cooings and caressings, 
 and building of nests in wood and brake ; that strange 
 glory of sunshine in the air ; that stirring of life in the 
 green mould, making even churchyards beautiful, — seems 
 like the creation of a new world. 
 
 Alexander Smith.
 
 May 5. 
 
 QUARRELLING. 
 
 If any thing in the world will make a man feel badly, 
 except pinching his fingers in the crack of a door, it is 
 a quarrel. No man fails to think less of himself after 
 than he did before : it degrades him in the eyes of 
 others, and, what is worse, tends to blunt his sensibihties, 
 and increases his irritability. The truth is, that the more 
 peaceably and quietly we get on, the better for our neigh- 
 bors. In nine cases out of ten, the better course is, if 
 the man cheats you, to quit dealing with him ; if he 
 slanders you, take care to live down his slanders. Let 
 such persons alone, for there is nothing better than this 
 way of dealing with those who injure us. 
 
 Hilton. 
 
 I THINK the pale blue clouds of May 
 Drop down, and turn to flowers. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich.
 
 May 6. 
 
 "THIS, TOO, SHALL PASS AWAY." 
 
 An Eastern monarch commanded his minister to furnish 
 a motto that should cheer in adversity, and prevent excessive 
 joy in prosperity. He gave the monarch for his signet: 
 "This, too, shall pass away." How greatly would such a 
 thought console us in sorrow, or restrain us in joy. Every 
 state of feeling or suffering, of hope or despair, will pass 
 away in this life. 
 
 Jo Jin Forster. 
 
 The longer I live, the more I think religion to consist in 
 candor, kindness, forbearance, hoping for the best. 
 
 Bela B. Edwanh. 
 
 What avails a life of fretting ? 
 
 J. G. Wliittier.
 
 May 7. 
 
 O May, sweet-voiced one, going thus before, 
 For ever June may pour her warm red wine 
 Of hfe and passion, — sweeter days are thine. 
 
 Helen Hunt. 
 
 Yet, with a heart that's ever kind, 
 
 A gentle spirit gay. 
 You've spring perennial in your mind, 
 
 And round you make a May. 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 And 'tis my faith that every flower 
 Enjoys the air it breathes. 
 
 Wordsworth.
 
 May 8. 
 
 ARBUTUS. 
 
 I WANDERED loncly where the pine-trees made 
 Against the bitter east their barricade ; 
 
 And, guided by its sweet 
 Perfume, I found, within a narrow dell, 
 
 Amid dry moss and dead leaves at my feet, 
 The trailing spring flower, tinted like a shell. 
 
 And, bending o'er it not irreverent, 
 
 I thought of lives thus lowly clogged and pent. 
 
 Which yet found room. 
 Through daily cumberings of deep decay and death, 
 
 To give to heaven the sweetness of their breath, 
 And to earth the beauty of their bloom. 
 
 John G. Whittier.
 
 May 9. 
 
 A DAY OF SUNSHINE. 
 
 O GIFT of God ! O perfect day : 
 Whereon shall no man work, but play; 
 Whereon it is enough for me, 
 Not to be doing, but to be ! 
 
 Blow, winds ! and waft through all the rooms 
 The snow-flakes of the cherry-blooms ! 
 Blow, winds ! and bend within my reach 
 The fiery blossoms of the peach ! 
 
 O Life and Love ! O happy throng 
 Of thoughts, whose only speech is song ! 
 O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
 Blithe as the air is, and a.-i free ? 
 
 Longfellow,
 
 May lO. 
 
 Lessons to be learned from the humility and cheerful- 
 ness of the grass : Its humility, in that it seems created 
 only for lowest service, — appointed to be trodden on and 
 fed upon. Its cheerfulness^in that it seems to exult under 
 all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is 
 stronger the next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its 
 shoots as if it were grateful ; you tread upon it, and it only 
 sends up richer perfume. 
 
 Now, these two characters — of humility, and joy under 
 
 trial — are exactly those which most definitely distinguish 
 
 the Christian from the Pagan spirit. 
 
 Ruskin. 
 
 In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is 
 calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness 
 against Nature, not to go out and see her riches, and 
 partake of her rejoicing with heaven and earth. 
 
 Milton.
 
 May 11. 
 
 May was called by our Saxon ancestors Tri-milki, be- 
 cause in that month they began to milk their kine tliree 
 times in the day. 
 
 The May festival has come down to us from the Druids, 
 who themselves had it from India. 
 
 Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may 
 swell. 
 
 Beecher. 
 
 The shy little Mayflower weaves her nest ; 
 
 But the south wind sighs o'er the fragrant loam, 
 
 And betrays the path to her woodland home. 
 
 S. II. Whitman.
 
 May 12. 
 
 MORAL COURAGE. 
 
 Sydney SiMith, in his woik on moral philosophy, speaks 
 in this wise of what men lose for want of a little moral 
 courage, or independence of mind : " A great deal of talent 
 is lost in the world for the want of a little courage. The 
 fact is, that to do any thing in this world worth doing, we 
 must not stand back shivering, and thinking of the cold 
 and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well 
 as we can. It will not do to be perpetually calculating 
 tasks, and adjusting nice chances ; it did very well before 
 the flood, where a man could consult his friends upon an 
 intended publication for an hundred and fifty years, and 
 then live to see its success afterwards : but at present, 
 a man waits and doubts and hesitates, and consults his 
 brother and his uncle and particular friends, till one fine 
 day he finds that he is sixty years of age ; that he has 
 lost so much time in consulting his first cousin and par- 
 ticular friends, that he has no more time to follow their 
 advice."
 
 May 13. 
 
 Sweet May hath come to love us ; 
 
 Flowers, trees, their blossoms don ; 
 And, through the blue heavens above us, 
 
 The very clouds move on. 
 
 Heine. 
 
 Ah ! human kindness, human love, — 
 
 To io.^ who seek denied, — 
 
 Too late we learn to prize above 
 
 The whole round world beside. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 It is prodigious the quantity of good that may be done 
 by one man if he will make a business of it. 
 
 Franklin.
 
 May 14. 
 
 Take thou no scorn 
 
 Of Fiction born, 
 
 Fair Fiction's muse to woo : 
 
 Old Homer's theme 
 
 Was but a dream, 
 
 Himself a fiction too. 
 
 Sir Walter S'cott. 
 
 The daffodil is our doorside queen : 
 
 She pushes up the sward already, 
 
 To spot with sunshine the early green. 
 
 Brvaiit. 
 
 The world deals good-naturedly with good-nature J peo- 
 ple ; and I never knew a sulky misanthropist who quarrelled 
 with it, but it was he, and not it, that was in the wrong. 
 
 T/iacl:e7-ay.
 
 May 15. 
 
 Be thankful for the gifts 
 
 That bounteous Heaven bestows : 
 Enjoy them while they last, 
 
 Nor mourn the fading rose. 
 The world would weary 
 
 Did night not follow day, 
 And Spring herself would perish 
 
 If every month were May. 
 
 Charles Mackay. 
 
 First Swell. — "I never did like * May,' — not nearly so 
 pretty as ' Mary.' Wonder they don't change the name 
 of the month to ' Mary.' " 
 
 Second Swell. — " Clevaw ideaw, bah Jove ! Make awy- 
 staws good to June, you know ! " 
 
 Exchans^e.
 
 May 16. 
 
 TO THE DANDELION. 
 
 Dear common flower, that grow'st beside tlie way, 
 
 Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. 
 
 First pledge of blithesome May, 
 
 Thou teachest me to deem 
 
 More sacredly of every human heart, 
 
 Since each reflects in joy its scanty gleam 
 
 Of heaven, and could some wondrous secret show, 
 
 Did we but pay the love we owe. 
 
 And with a child's undoubting wisdom look 
 
 On all these living pages of God's book. 
 
 Lcnuell. 
 
 The arbutus is now open everywhere in the woods 
 and groves. How pleasant it is to meet the same flowers 
 year after year. 
 
 Rliss Cooper.
 
 May 17. 
 
 O EVIL day ! if I were sullen 
 
 While the earth herself is adorning 
 
 This sweet May morning, 
 
 And the children are pulling, 
 
 On every side, 
 
 In a thousand valleys far and wide, 
 
 Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm, 
 
 And the babe leaps up on his mother's arm, 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 If solid happiness we prize. 
 Within our breast this jewel lies; 
 And they are fools who roam. 
 The world has nothing to bestow : 
 From our own selves our joys must flow. 
 
 Anon,
 
 May 18. 
 
 In the month of May, apple-trees go a-courting. Love 
 is evermore father of poetry. For an apple-tree in full 
 blossom is like a message sent fresh from heaven to earth, 
 of purity and beauty. It is the high noon just now, on 
 this eighteenth day of May, with the apple-trees ! In 
 the month of May, the very flower-month of the year, 
 the crown and glory of all is the apple-tree. 
 
 In my calendar hereafter, I do ordain that the name 
 of this month be changed. Instead of May, let it hence- 
 forth be called " the month of the apple-blossom." 
 
 Bcecher 
 
 A PROPENSITY to hope and joy is real riches; one to 
 fear and sorrow, real poverty. 
 
 Hume.
 
 May 19. 
 
 It is the crushed grape that gives out the blood-red 
 wine. It is the suffering soul that breathes the sweetest 
 melodies. 
 
 Gail Hamilton. 
 
 God's ways seem dark ; but, soon or late, 
 They touch the shining liills of day : 
 The evil cannot brook delay. 
 
 The good can well afford to wait. 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 Not by lamentations and mournful chants ought we to 
 celebrate the funeral of a good man, but by hymns ; for, 
 in ceasing to be numbered with mortals, he enters upon 
 the heritage of a diviner life. 
 
 Phitarch.
 
 May 20. 
 
 I ONCE remember to have heard a woman say, when 
 I was passing down a lane, — a child stood crying at the 
 door, and I heard her calling out, — "Ah! you are crying 
 for nothing : I will give you something to cry for." 
 
 It is often so with God's children. They get crying 
 for nothing. They have a miserable disposition, or a 
 turn of mind always making^ miseries for themselves; and 
 thus they have something to cry for. Their peace is 
 disturbed, some sad trouble comes, God hides his face, 
 and then they lose their peace. But keep on singing, 
 even when the sun does not keep on shining; keep a 
 song for all weathers ; get a joy that will stand clouds 
 and storms ; and then, wlien you know how always to 
 rejoice, you shall have this peace. 
 
 Ret'. C. II. Sptirgecn.
 
 May 21. 
 
 Better and sweeter than- health or friends or money 
 or fame or ease or prosperity is the adorable will of 
 our God. It gilds the darkest hours with a divine halo, 
 and sheds brightest sunshine on the gloomiest paths. 
 He always reigns who has made it his kingdom, and 
 nothing can go amiss to him. The first step you must 
 take in order to enter into the life hid with Christ in 
 God, is that of entire consecration. I cannot have you 
 look at it as a hard and stern demand. You must do it 
 gladly, thankfully, enthusiastically. You must go in on 
 what I call the privilege side of consecration ; and I can 
 assure you, from a blessed experience, that you will find 
 it the happiest place you have ever entered yet. 
 
 " //. IV. S." 
 
 If we had but more faith, we should have less care. 
 
 /\!e7>. M. Ilciiry.
 
 May 22. 
 
 A VIOLET. 
 
 God does not send us strange flowers every year. 
 When the spring winds blow o'er the pleasant places, 
 The same dear things lift up the same fair faces. 
 
 The violet is here. 
 
 So after the death -winter^ it must be, 
 
 God will not put strange signs in the heavenly places : 
 
 The old love shall look out from the old faces. 
 
 Veilchen ! I shall have thee ! 
 
 Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney. 
 
 If we stand boggling at imaginary evils, let us never 
 
 blame a horse for starting at a shadow. 
 
 U Estra7irre. 
 
 When you come into the house, do you bring sunsliine 
 with you? 
 
 Gail IlaniiltoH.
 
 May 23. 
 
 " I KXEW her in her brightness, a creature full of glee 
 As the dancing waves that sparkle on the placid sum- 
 mer sea : 
 To her the world was sunshine, and peace was on her 
 
 breast ; 
 For ' Contentment ' was her motto, and a ' Heartsease ' 
 was her crest. 
 
 " Yet deem not for a moment that her life was free from 
 
 care : 
 She shared the storms and sorrows that others sigh to 
 
 bear ; 
 But she met earth's tempests meekly in the hope of 
 
 heaven's rest ; 
 She gave not up her motto, nor cast away her crest. 
 
 "Alas ! the many frowning brows and eyes that speak 
 
 of woe, 
 And hearts that turn reprovingly from ever)' chastening 
 
 blow ; 
 But our paths might all be smoother, and our hearts 
 
 would all be blest, 
 ^Yith ' Contentment ' for our motto and a * Heartsease ' 
 
 for our crest."
 
 May 24. 
 
 Indeed, I almost doubt whether the head of a family 
 does not do more mischief if he is unsympathetic than 
 even if he were unjust. 
 
 Arthur Helps, 
 
 Be at least as polite to father, mother, child, as to 
 others ; for they are more important to you than any 
 other. 
 
 Rochefoucauld. 
 
 His text was, "What dost thou hear, Elijah?" He 
 divided it into two heads. "First, my brethren," said 
 he, " let us consider what Elijah did hear ; and, secondly, 
 what he didn't hear."
 
 May 25. 
 
 'TwAS ever thus from childhood's hour, 
 
 My fondest hopes would not decay : 
 I never loved a tree or flower 
 
 Which was the first to fade away ! 
 I never nursed a dear gazelle, 
 
 But I was given a paroquet : 
 How I did nurse him if unwell ! 
 
 He's imbecile, but lingers yet. 
 He's green, with an enchanting tuft ; 
 
 He melts me with his small black eye ; 
 He'd look inimitable stuffed, 
 
 And knows it, — but he will not die. 
 And then I bought a dog, — a queen ! 
 
 Ah, Tiny ! dear departing pug ! 
 She lives, but she is past sixteen, 
 
 And scarce can crawl across the rug. 
 I loved her beautiful and kind, 
 
 Delighted in her pert bow-wow; 
 But now she snaps if you don't mind : 
 
 'Twere lunacy to love her now. 
 
 C. S. Calverly.
 
 May 26. 
 
 We prate of life's illusive dyes, 
 
 And yet fond hope misleads us : 
 We all believe we near the prize, 
 
 Till some fresh dupe succeeds us. 
 And yet, though life's a riddle, though 
 
 No clerk has yet explained it, 
 I still can hope ; for well I know 
 
 That Love has thus ordained it. 
 
 Frederick Locker. 
 
 Dost thou love life ? Then, do not squander time ; for 
 that is the stuff life is made of. 
 
 Fraitklht. 
 
 Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising 
 every time we fall. 
 
 Coitfticius.
 
 May 27. 
 
 THE LUMINOUS TRUTH. 
 
 "Who will give me his heart," said God, 
 " My love he shall find." 
 With that speech a resplendent sun fell into my mind. 
 
 Oriental Poetry. 
 
 God asks not, " To what sect did he belong ? " 
 But, " Did he do the right, or love the wrong ? " 
 
 Oriental Poetry. 
 
 Very rarely indeed do we receive any good gift out of 
 the spiritual treasures of our God in ripe completeness at 
 the first. It would be as difficult to put a full-grown grace 
 into the soul as it is to transplant a full-grown tree. 
 
 Sarah F. Smiley.
 
 May 28. 
 
 You see no light beyond the stars, 
 No hope of lasting joys to come? 
 
 I feel, thank God ! no narrow bars 
 Between me and my final home. 
 
 Hence with your cold, sepulchral bans, — 
 The vassal doubts unfaith has given ! 
 
 My childhood's heart within the man's 
 Still whispers to me, " Trust in Heaven ! " 
 
 Janies T. Fields. 
 
 If you wish to get on, you must do as you would to 
 get in through a crowd to a gate all are equally anxious 
 to reach. Hold your ground, and push hard. To stand 
 still is to give up your hope. 
 
 Lady Alary Montagu.
 
 May 29. 
 
 ON ATHEISM. 
 
 "I BAD rather," says Sir Francis Bacon, "believe all the 
 fables in the Legend, the Talmud, and the Koran, than 
 that this universal frame is without a mind. God never 
 wrought miracles to convince atheists, because his ordi- 
 nary works are sufficient to convince them. It is true that 
 a little philosophy inclineth men's minds to atheism, but 
 depth in philosophy bringeth them back to religion : for, 
 while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scat- 
 tered, it may sometimes rest on them, and go no farther ; 
 but, when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and 
 linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity." 
 
 To do so no more is the truest repentance. 
 
 Luther.
 
 May 30. 
 
 ©fcoration ©ag. 
 
 Take from your flag its fold of gloom, 
 And let it float undimmed above, 
 
 Till over all our vales shall bloom 
 The sacred colors that we love. 
 
 Though by the places where they fell, 
 The places that are sacred ground, 
 
 Death, like a sullen sentinel, 
 Paces his everlasting round. 
 
 Not there, but risen, redeemed, they go 
 Where all the paths are sweet with flowers 
 
 They fought to give us peace ; and, lo ! 
 They gained a better peace than ours. 
 
 Phcebe Cary.
 
 May 31. 
 
 I HAVE read in old tales of the buried past, 
 Of two armies which met on the battle-plain, 
 
 Roman and Cyrabric, in numbers vast. 
 
 How they fought till the field was heaped with slain, 
 
 And how through all day the crimson tide 
 
 Of battle favored the Cymbric side. 
 
 Though their dead bestrewed the plain, 
 
 Till at length, from out of the clouded skies, 
 
 A sunbeam darted across the world, 
 Blinding the Cymbrian warriors' eyes ; 
 
 And backward their conquering hosts were hurled. 
 And thus in the record of years is told 
 How a sunbeam, back in the days of old. 
 
 Decided the fate of the world. 
 
 N. G. Shepherd.
 
 June 1. 
 
 Ah, June ! ray lovely lass, 
 
 Sweetheart, dost thou not see 
 I stay to watch thee pass? 
 
 What hast thou brought to me? 
 
 Thy mystic ministries 
 
 Of glorious far skies, 
 Thy wild-rose sermons, sweet, 
 Like dreams profound and fleet. 
 
 Thy woodland harmony, 
 
 Thou givest me. 
 
 The vision that can see, 
 
 The loving will to learn. 
 How fair thy skies may be, 
 What in thy roses burn, 
 Thy secret harmonies, — 
 Ah, give me these ! 
 
 Ellen Mackay Hutchitison.
 
 June 2. 
 
 They come ! the merry summer months of beauty, song, 
 and flowers : 
 
 Tliey come ! the gladsome months that bring thick leafi- 
 ness to bowers. 
 
 Up, up, my heart ! and walk abroad ; fling cark and care 
 aside ; 
 
 Seek silent hills, or rest thyself where peaceful waters glide ; 
 
 Or, underneath the shadow vast of patriarchal tree, 
 
 Scan through its leaves the cloudless sky in rapt tranquil- 
 lity. 
 
 William Motherwell. 
 
 Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment ; and I 
 have known a man to come home in high spirits from a 
 funeral, merely because he had the management of it. 
 
 Bishop Home.
 
 June 3. 
 
 Perhaps the most miserable people in the world are 
 tlie very careful ones. You that are so anxious about 
 what shall happen on the morrow, that you cannot enjoy 
 the pleasures of to-day ; you who have such a peculiar 
 cast of mind that you suspect every star to be a comet, 
 and imagine that there must be a volcano in every grassy 
 mead ; you that are more attracted by the spots in the sun 
 than by the sun himself, and more amazed by one sear 
 leaf upon the tree than by all the verdure of the woods; 
 you that make more of your troubles than you do of your 
 joys, — I say, I think you belong to the most miserable 
 of men. 
 
 RlIi. C. H. Spurgeon. 
 
 Sorrows will not last forever, 
 Brighter times will come agam : 
 
 Joy our every grief succeeding, 
 As the sunshine after rain. 
 
 Anon.
 
 June 4. 
 
 "Evil itself has its bright, or at any rate, its redeeming side, 
 
 piobably is but the fugitive requisite of some everlasting 
 
 good, and assuredly in the mean time, and in a thousand 
 
 obvious instances, is the admonisher, the producer, the 
 
 increaser, nay, the very adorner and splendid investitor, of 
 
 good ; it is the pain that prevents a worse, the storm that 
 
 diffuses health, the plague that sweetens sleep, the discord 
 
 that enriches harmonies, the calamity that tests affections, 
 
 the victory and the crown of patience, the enraptures of 
 
 the embraces of joy. 
 
 Leizh Hunt, 
 
 The morning-glory's blossoming 
 
 Will soon be coming round : 
 
 We see their rows of heart-shaped leaves 
 
 Upspringing from the ground. 
 
 ]\[rs. Lowell
 
 June 5. 
 
 MISCHIEF-MAKERS. 
 
 Oh ! could there in this world be found 
 Some little spot of happy ground, 
 
 Without the village tattling, 
 How doubly blest that spot would be, 
 Where all might dwell in liberty, 
 Free from the bitter misery 
 
 Of gossips' endless prattling ! 
 
 Oh, that the mischief-making crew 
 Were all reduced to one or two, 
 And they were painted red or blue. 
 That every one might know them ! 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 The folks that on the first of May 
 
 Wore winter-coats and hose, 
 
 Began to say, the first of June, 
 
 " Good Lord ! how hot it grows ! " 
 
 Holmes,
 
 June 6. 
 
 Welcome, Disappointment ! Thy hand is cold and hard, 
 but it is the hand of a friend. Thy voice is stern and harsh, 
 but it is the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something sub- 
 lime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, 
 fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes 
 disippointment oftentimes better than success ! 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 The deed divine 
 Is written in characters of gold, 
 That never shall grow old. 
 But through all ages 
 
 Burn and shine 
 
 With soft effulgence. 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 June 7. 
 
 There is no denying, that, if spring is " some," June is 
 summer. 
 
 Artemns IVa^-d. 
 
 Giver of glowing light, 
 Though but a god of other days, 
 The kings and sages 
 Of wiser ages 
 Still live and gladden in thy genial rays. 
 
 Father of rosy day. 
 No more thy clouds of incense rise ; 
 But waking flowers 
 At morning hours 
 Give out their sweets to meet thee in the skies. 
 
 Thomas Hood.
 
 June 8. 
 
 Lying among the daisies, 
 
 Under the fair blue skies, 
 I find in the life about me 
 
 A minute paradise. 
 I know not the tender grasses 
 
 By the names they have in books, 
 But I find them sweet companions 
 
 When away in shady nooks 
 I hide from the world about me, 
 
 And the wrangle of earthly seers, 
 To dwell on the countless lessons 
 
 Which lie in their tender spears. 
 Each leaf a microcosm 
 
 Singing of God's dear love. 
 Each flower a tiny picture 
 
 Of the stars that burn above ; 
 Each blade in its graceful curving 
 
 One of God's wondrous tomes, 
 And in the green about me 
 
 A multitude of homes. 
 
 D. Chauncev Brewer,
 
 June 9. 
 
 CONTENT. 
 
 Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers? 
 
 O sweet content ! 
 Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed? 
 
 O punishment ! 
 Dost laugh to see how fools are vexed 
 To add to golden numbers golden numbers? 
 O sweet content ! O sweet, O sweet content ! 
 Work apace, apace, apace, apace ; 
 Honest labor bears a lovely face. 
 He that patiently want's burden bears. 
 No burden bears, but is a king, a king: 
 O sweet content ! O sweet, O sweet content ! 
 
 Thomas Dckker. 
 
 But we will take 
 Our toils upon us nobly ! Strength is born 
 In the deep silence of long-suffering hearts ; 
 Not amidst joy ! 
 
 Mrs. Ilcmans.
 
 June lO. 
 
 Light of light, enlighten me, 
 Now anew the day is dawning ; 
 
 Sun of grace, the shadows flee. 
 
 Brighten thou my sabbath morning ; 
 
 With thy joyous sunshine blest, 
 
 Happy is my day of rest. 
 
 B. Schmolck. 
 
 Such a beautiful content. 
 Such a charmed time, is sent 
 For all souls to say that June 
 Is a glimpse of God's high noon. 
 
 Julia W. Howe. 
 
 June ! June ! June ! 
 
 Low croon 
 The brown bees in the clover; 
 Sweet ! sweet ! sweet ! 
 
 Repeat 
 
 The robins, nested over. 
 
 Avis Grey.
 
 June 11. 
 
 A GARDEN SO well watered before morn 
 Is hotly up, that not the swart sun's blaze 
 Down-beating with unmitigated rays, 
 Nor arid winds from scorching places borne, 
 Shall quite prevail to make it bare and shorn 
 Of its green beauty, — shall not quite prevail 
 That all its morning freshness shall exhale 
 Till evening and the evening dews return, — 
 A blessing such as this our hearts might reap. 
 The freshness of the garden they might share. 
 Through the long day a heavenly freshness keep. 
 If, knowing how the day and the day's glare 
 Must beat upon them, we would largely steep 
 And water them betimes with dews of prayer. 
 
 Trench.
 
 June 12. 
 
 If gilt were only gold, or sugar-candy common sense, 
 what a fine thing our society would be ! Had we recently 
 arrived from the moon, we might, upon hearing that we 
 were to meet the " best society," have fancied that we were 
 about to enjoy an opportunity not to be overvalued ; but, 
 unfortunately, we were not so freshly arrived. 
 
 George W. Curtis. 
 
 To have the tongue cut out, and to be seated, deaf 
 and dumb, in a corner, were preferable to his condition 
 who cannot govern his tongue. 
 
 Sadi. 
 
 Alas for heedless hearts and blinded sense ! 
 
 With what faint welcome and what meagre fare, 
 What mean subjections and small recompense, 
 
 We entertain our angels unaware ! 
 
 Elizabeth A. Allen.
 
 June 13. 
 
 « Why, sir," said Mr. Squeers, " I'm pretty well ; so's the 
 family, and so's the boys, except for a sort of rash as is 
 a-running through the school, and rather puts 'em off their 
 feed. But it's a ill wind as blows no good to nobody : 
 that's what I always say when them lads has a wisitation. 
 The world is chock-full of wisitations. A wisitation, sir, 
 is the lot of mortality." 
 
 Sometimes I think it's pretty dangerous living anywheres. 
 
 Harper's Drawer. 
 
 Then said his lordship, "Well, God mend all ! " — " Nay, 
 Donald, we must help him to mend it," said the other. 
 
 Quoted by Carlyle.
 
 June 14. 
 
 That earth's no paradise 
 
 We know as well as you. 
 
 What then ? you dark, dull soul ! 
 
 Suppose in the deep blue sky 
 
 There never was seen a star; 
 
 Suppose the bounteous earth 
 
 No more brought forth a flower, 
 
 And trees were barren sticks, 
 
 Like you, my worthy friend ! 
 
 Go away, grumbler ! go ! 
 
 And, ere you talk again 
 
 Of the utter misery 
 
 And darkness of the world, 
 
 Be grateful for the flowers; 
 
 And if your purblind eyes. 
 
 My most respectable friend, 
 
 Can dare to look so high. 
 
 Be thankful for the stars. 
 
 Charles Mackay.
 
 June 15. 
 
 Over and over again, 
 No matter which way I turn, 
 I ahvays find in the book of hfe 
 
 Some lesson I have to learn. 
 I must take my turn at the mill ; 
 
 I must grind out the golden grain ; 
 I must work at my task with a resolute will, 
 Over and over again. 
 
 Over and over again 
 The brook through the meadow flows, 
 And over and over again 
 
 The ponderous mill-wheel goes. 
 Once doing will not suffice, 
 
 Though doing be not in vain ; 
 And a blessing failing us once or twice 
 May come if we try again.
 
 June 16. 
 
 With brook and bird and breeze in tune, 
 The beautiful, bright earth of June 
 Moves to the fulness of her noon, 
 While serving sunbeams round her fling 
 The purple violets as they fleet. 
 
 Harriet P. Spofford. 
 
 We often do more good by our sympathy than by our 
 labors. 
 
 Canon Farrar. 
 
 If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live 
 so as to deserve happiness. 
 
 Fichte.
 
 June 17. 
 
 LILAC. 
 
 I CANNOT tell why lilac-flowers 
 
 Should bring me such strange dreams : 
 
 Within their scented purple buds 
 A wondrous witchcraft gleams. 
 
 It pictures languid Persian girls, 
 Star-Eyes and Rose-in-Bloom, — 
 
 The jewel-clusters gathering 
 In Orient-garden gloom. 
 
 Then in a still New-England lane, 
 
 Beneath the starlight wan, 
 My errant fancy stays to kiss 
 
 A dove-eyed Puritan. 
 
 All, Lilac ! in your pretty art 
 
 You give me of the best, — 
 The passion of the Orient, 
 
 The sweetness of the West ! 
 
 Ellen Miukay Hutchinson.
 
 June 18. 
 
 Ah ! why not oftener on the living shed 
 
 The fragrance lavished on the unheeding dead? 
 
 Who needs not ministries of strength and cheer? 
 
 In every sphere of faithful service done, 
 Thanks, and not pence alone, are fairly won : 
 In generous courtesy is found an oil 
 To smooth the wheels and hands of daily toil. 
 
 Out of the heart's abundance let some cheer 
 Be spoken while your friend hath ears to hear : 
 Deck, if you will, with flowers his place of rest, 
 But fix the sweetest on his living breast. 
 
 Rev. O. E. Dazzett
 
 June 19. 
 
 And oh, the buttercups ! that field 
 O' the cloth of gold, where pennons swam, 
 Where France set up his lilied shield, 
 His oriflamme, 
 
 And Henry's lion-standard rolled : 
 What was it to*ttheir matchless sheen, 
 Their million million drops of gold 
 Among the green ! 
 
 yea?t Ingelow. 
 
 Leaves are light and useless and idle and wavering 
 and changeable ; they even dance ; yet God in his wis- 
 dom has made them part of the oak. In so doing he 
 has given us a lesson not to deny the stout-heartedness 
 within because we see the lightsomeness without. 
 
 Hare.
 
 June 20. 
 
 SUMMER HYMN. 
 
 The year draws near its golden-hearted prime, 
 Fulfilled of grandeur rounded into grace : 
 
 We seem to hear sweet notes of joyance chime 
 From elfin bells through many a greenwood place. 
 
 The sovereign summer, robed^'knd garlanded, 
 
 Looks, steeped in verdure, up the enchanted skies ; 
 
 A crown, sun-woven, round her royal head. 
 And love's warm languor in her dreamy eyes. 
 
 We quaff our fill of beauty, peace, delight ; 
 
 But mid the entrancing scene a still voice saith, 
 " If earth, heaven's shadow, shows a face so bright, 
 
 What of God's summer past the straits of death? 
 
 Pattl Hamilton Hayne.
 
 June 21. 
 
 FOR THE LONGEST DAY. 
 
 Summer ebbs : each day that follows 
 
 Is a reflux from on high, 
 Tending to the darksome hollows 
 
 Where the frosts of winter lie. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 What ! shall we be put into a beautiful garden, and 
 turn up our noses at it, and call it a "vale of tears," and 
 all sorts of bad names (helping thereby to make it so), 
 and yet confidently reckon that Nature will never shut it 
 up and have done with it, or set about forming a better 
 stock of inhabitants? 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 The middle-aged person is liable to run to waist.
 
 June 22. 
 
 Of what a hideous progeny is debt the father ! What 
 
 lies, what meanness, what invasions on self-respect, what 
 
 cares, what double-dealing! How in due season it will 
 
 carve the frank, open face into wrinkles ! how, like a knife, 
 
 it will stab the honest heart ! 
 
 Dojiglas Jerrold. 
 
 The stern behests of duty, 
 
 The doom-books open thrown, 
 
 The heaven ye seek, the hell ye fear. 
 
 Are with yourselves alone. 
 
 y. G. Whittier. 
 
 In these sweet June days 
 
 The teacher and the scholar trust 
 
 Their parting feet to separate ways. 
 
 J G. WhUlUr.
 
 June 23. 
 
 Oh, happy he who is in love with beaaty! — to whom 
 flowers are a heavenly language ; day and night and weeks 
 and months and years and centuries a rhythmic song; 
 music a revelation of the infinite and the divine ; seas 
 and skies and mountains and plains voiceful echoes of 
 the everlasting Word, and all life the expression of the 
 everlasting love. 
 
 Oh, happy he who can rise out of his work, and from 
 this heavenly realm of culture look down upon it, and 
 recognize the fact, that it is only the minister to a hfe as 
 far above it as the heavens are above the earth ! 
 
 y. G. Holland. 
 
 Good and bad men are each less so than they seem. 
 
 Col er id ire.
 
 June 24. 
 
 I CANNOT but look on human creeds with feelings 
 approaching contempt. When I bring them into contrast 
 with the New Testament, into what insignificance do they 
 sink ! What are they ? Skeletons, freezing abstractions, 
 metaphysical expressions of unintelligible dogmas. Creeds 
 are to the Scriptures what rush-lights are to the sun. 
 
 William E. Channing. 
 
 The robin sings, as of old, from the limb ! 
 
 The cat-bird croons in the lilac-bush ! 
 The rich milk-tinging buttercup 
 Its tiny polished urn holds up, 
 
 Filled with ripe summer to the edge, 
 
 The sun in his own wine to pledge. 
 
 Lowell.
 
 June 25. 
 
 Each 
 Must do his own believing. As for me, 
 My creed is short as any man's may be. 
 'Tis written in the Sermon on the Mount, 
 And in the Pater Noster. I account 
 The words, "Our Father" (had we lost the rest 
 Of that sweet prayer, the briefest ind the best 
 In all the liturgies), of higher worth 
 To ailing souls than all the creeds on earth. 
 
 Why should we look one common faith to find, 
 When one in every score is color-blind? 
 If here on earth they know not red from green. 
 Will they see better into things unseen? 
 
 Holmes.
 
 June 26. 
 
 THE BOBOLINKS. 
 
 When Nature had made all her birds, 
 
 And had no cares to think on, 
 She gave a rippling laugh — and out 
 
 There flew a Bobolinkon. 
 
 What cadences of bubbling mirth 
 
 Too quick for bar or rhythm ! 
 What ecstasies, too full to keep 
 
 Coherent measure with them ! 
 
 Hope springs with you : I dread no more 
 
 Despondency and dulness. 
 For Good Supreme can never fail 
 
 That gives such perfect fulness. 
 
 C. P. Cranch.
 
 June 27. 
 
 Why should I hug Hfe's ills with cold reserve, 
 To curse myself and all who love me ? Nay ! 
 
 A thousand times more good than I deserve 
 God gives me every day. 
 
 And in each one of these rebellious tears, 
 
 Kept bravely back, he makes a rainbow shine : 
 
 Grateful I take his slightest gift ; no fears 
 Nor any doubts are mine. 
 
 Then, vex me not with chiding. Let me be. 
 
 I must be glad and grateful to the end. 
 I grudge you not your cold and darkness, — me 
 
 The powers of light befriend. 
 
 Ce//a Thaxter. 
 
 Some days must be dark and dreary. 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 June 28. 
 
 Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear, 
 It is not night if thou be near. 
 Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise, 
 To hide thee from thy servant's eyes ! 
 
 KebU. 
 
 I, TOO, could question, if I would. 
 Of all things I have learned to love. 
 
 And fain would answer, if I could. 
 For e^th below and heaven above. 
 
 But not by questionings I grow. 
 
 Nor halt and turn to mend my gait : 
 
 I live on Yes, and not on No ; 
 I trust and love, I work and wait. 
 
 Rev. O. E. Dazz^tt.
 
 June 29. 
 
 THE SWEET JUNE TIME. 
 
 The daisies and the buttercups 
 
 Now merrily are growing; 
 
 And everywhere, for June's sweet sake, 
 
 Are crimson roses blowing. 
 
 The sunbeams o'er the meadows lie, 
 
 And breezes light are straying; 
 
 And oh ! 'l-is time the schools were done, 
 
 And children out a-playing. 
 
 " Vacation is the time for fun ! " 
 All girls and boys are saying. 
 When s'^hools and books grow wearisome, 
 And hearts are ripe for playing. 
 So, little folks, come one and all. 
 And — tumble out together, 
 Amid the sunbeam's golden bright, 
 All in the sweet June weather. 
 
 Afary D. Br hie.
 
 June 30. 
 
 Be merry with sorrow, wise men have said ; 
 Which saying, being wisely weighed, 
 It seems a lesson truly laid 
 For those whom sorrows still invade : 
 Be merry, friends ! 
 
 Make ye not two sorrows of one ; 
 For of one grief grafted alone, 
 To graft a sorrow thereupon, 
 A sourer crab we can graft none : 
 Be merry, friends ! 
 
 Man hardly hath a richer thing 
 Than honest mirth, the which well-spring 
 Watereth the roots of rejoicing. 
 Feeding the flowers of flourishing : 
 Be merry, friends ! 
 
 John Hey wood.
 
 July 1. 
 
 Then came hot July, boyling like to fire, 
 That all his garments he had cast away. 
 
 Spenser. 
 
 To see the hand of God in the present, and to trust 
 the future in the hand of God, is the secret of peace. 
 
 Sorrow seems sent for our instruction, as we darken 
 the cages of birds when we would teach them to sing. 
 
 Richter, 
 
 Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made 
 and forgot to put a soul into. 
 
 Beecher.
 
 July 2. 
 
 Fat men, infatuate, fan the stagnant air, 
 In rash essay to cool their inward glowing; 
 
 While with each stroke, in dolorous despair, 
 They feel the fever growing ! 
 
 The lean and lathy find a fate as hard ; 
 
 For, all-a-dry, they bum like any tinder 
 Beneath the solar blaze, till withered, charred, 
 
 And crisped away to cinder ! 
 
 " 'Tis dreadful, dreadful hot ! " exclaims each one 
 Unto his sweating, sweltering, roasting neighbor. 
 
 Then mops his brow, and sighs, as he had done 
 A quite herculean labor ! 
 
 y. G. Saxe,
 
 July 3. 
 
 Let us recognize the beauty and power of true enthu- 
 siasm, and guard against checking or chilling a single 
 
 earnest sentiment. 
 
 //. T. Tuc/cerman. 
 
 Independence and self-respect are essential to happi- 
 ness, and these are never to be attained together without 
 
 work. 
 
 y. G. Holland. 
 
 The loafer lies about the world " owing him a living." 
 The world owes him nothing but a very rough coffin, 
 and a retired and otherwise useless place to put it in. 
 
 y. G. Holland.
 
 July 4. 
 
 When Freedom from her mountain height 
 
 Unfurled her standard to the air, 
 She tore the azure robe of night, 
 
 And set the stars of glory there. 
 
 Forever float that standard sheet, — 
 
 Where breathes the foe but falls before us?- 
 
 With freedom's soil beneath our feet, 
 And freedom's banner waving o'er us. 
 
 Halleck. 
 
 Let our object be our country, our whole country, and 
 nothing but our country. 
 
 D. Webster, 
 
 Squeak the fife and beat the drum. 
 
 Independence Day has come. 
 
 Royal Tyler.
 
 July 5. 
 
 " I'd sooner ha' brewin'-day and washin'-day together," 
 says Mrs. Poyser, in Adam Bede, " than one of these 
 pleasurin' days. There's no work so tirin' as danghn' 
 about, an' starin', and not rightly knowin' what you're 
 goin' to do next : and keepin' your face i' smilin' order, 
 hke a grocer o' market-day, for fear people shouldna 
 think you civil enough. An' you've nothin' to show for't 
 when it's done, if it isn't a yallow face wi' eatin' things 
 as disagree." 
 
 The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless 
 
 when unbroken. 
 
 Lo7igft'llaw. 
 
 Our forefathers won independence for us. It remains 
 for us to emancipate ourselves from Independence Day. 
 I would muzzle the Fourth of July. 
 
 •■'John Paul:'
 
 July 6. 
 
 Here are sweet-peas, on tiptoe for a flight, 
 With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white, 
 And taper fingers catching at all things 
 To bind them all about with tiny rings. 
 
 Keats. 
 
 THE HUMMING-BIRD. 
 
 Little green hunter in meadows of air ! 
 
 Busy, blithe buzzer mid odorous bowers ! 
 Are you a bird, say, or something more rare, 
 Kin to the butterfly? — flirting with flowers, 
 Kissing, caressing them. 
 Billing them, pressing them, 
 All the day long through the blue balmy hours ! 
 Bright little, light little, slight little hummer. 
 Lover of sunshine, and lover of summer 1 
 
 Anon.
 
 July 7. 
 
 Nobody can critically observe the structure of American 
 social or domestic life without being struck by the im- 
 mense amount of energy which is wasted in the woman's 
 half of it. 
 
 The mistake made by all these women whose energy 
 is running to waste, is that their aims are too wide and 
 too vague. A living is to be earned, not by general 
 amateur, lady-like " pottering," as Carlyle grimly calls it, 
 but by a definite trade or craft, followed accurately and 
 openly. 
 
 Sometimes, just to have one's mood 
 
 Comprehended is relief: 
 Simply to be understood 
 In one's sorrow is a good 
 
 That avails to soften grief. 
 
 Mary E. Bradley.
 
 July 8. 
 
 Let not the blessings we receive daily from God make 
 us not to value or not praise him, because they be com- 
 mon. 
 
 I have been told, that if a man that was born blind 
 could obtain to have his sight for but only one hour 
 during his whole life, and should, at the first opening of 
 his eyes, fix his sight upon the sun when it was in full 
 glory, either at the rising or the setting of it, he would be 
 so transported and amazed, that he would not willingly 
 turn his eyes to behold all the other various beauties this 
 world could present to him. And this and many other 
 blessings we enjoy daily. And, for most of them, most 
 men forget to pay their praise ; but let not us. 
 
 Izaak Walton. 
 
 Constant sunshine, however welcome, 
 Ne'er would ripen fruit or flower. 
 
 Alton
 
 July 9. 
 
 Why are the flowers growing, 
 With odors overflowing? 
 Because the sun each blossom loves 
 More than the honey-bee that roves ; 
 For this the flowers are growing, 
 With odors overflowing. 
 
 E. B. Robinson. 
 
 Don't buy a thermometer now 
 They'll be lower by and by. 
 
 Then, for the fabric of my mind, 
 'Tis mair to mirth than grief inclined : 
 I rather choose to laugh at folly. 
 Than show dislike by melancholy. 
 Well judging a sour and heavy face, 
 Is not the surest mark of grace. 
 
 Anon,
 
 July lO. 
 
 It is the part of an indiscreet and troublesome ambi- 
 tion to care too much about fame, — about what the 
 world says of us ; to be always looking into the faces of 
 others for approval ; to be always anxious for the effect 
 of what we do and say ; to be always shouting to hear 
 the echo of our own voices. If you look about you, you 
 will see men who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety 
 of fame ; and the last we shall ever hear of them will be 
 the funeral-bell that tolls them to their early graves ! 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 A PITCHER of mignonette. 
 
 In a tenement's highest casement ! 
 
 Queer sort of a flower-pot, — yet 
 
 That pitcher of mignonette 
 
 Is a garden in heaven set 
 
 To the little sick child in the basement. 
 
 Anon.
 
 July 11. 
 
 We felt all the while the cheer and gladness and 
 brightness of her presence, just because she had learned 
 to make this great distinction, — to put some things first, 
 and other things second. She had learned the great 
 secret of life, which is to live in human lives, and not in 
 things; and her sympathies were so broad, that they 
 carried her nobly, steadily, cheerily along the Christian 
 way. 
 
 William J. Tucker. 
 
 Never fail thy cheerfulness. 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 Hold out ! there comes an end to sorrow ; 
 Hope from the dust shall conquering rise ; 
 The storm foretells a summer's morrow; 
 The cross points on to paradise ; 
 The Father reigneth ! cease all doubt ; 
 Hold on, my heart, hold on, hold out ! 
 
 Golden Words.
 
 July 12. 
 
 MY NASTURTIUMS. 
 
 Quaint blossom with the old fantastic name, 
 
 By jester christened at some ancient feast, 
 How royally to-day among the least 
 
 Considered herbs it flings its spice and flame ! 
 How careless wears a velvet of the same 
 
 Unfathomed red, which ceased when Titian ceased 
 To paint it in the robe of doge and priest 1 
 
 O long-lost loyal red, which never came 
 Again to painter's palette ! — on my sight 
 
 It flashes at this moment, trained and poured 
 Through my nasturtiums in the morning light. 
 
 IT. IT.
 
 July 13. 
 
 No folded morning-glory bud 
 
 Blooms, closes fast, then blooms again : 
 Once shaken out, the colors fade, 
 
 The beauty's gone for aye, — but then, 
 
 New buds will open to the day 
 When next the early morn awakes ; 
 
 So, though some bright things pass away, 
 My heart some hopeful comfort takes. 
 
 Our "life hath many mornings," so 
 Hath said some rarely gifted one ; 
 
 And morning-glory buds will bloom 
 With every summer-morning sun. 
 
 J. //. Johuiton.
 
 July 14. 
 
 As June was the month of music and flowers, July is 
 the harvest month of the early fruits ; and, though the 
 poet might prefer the former, the present offers the 
 most attractions to the epicure. The rocks and preci- 
 pices, so lately crowned with flowers, are festooned with 
 thimbleberries. There is no spot so barren that it is not 
 covered with something that is beautiful to the sight or 
 grateful to the sense. The little pearly flowers that hung 
 in profusion from the low blueberry-bushes are trans- 
 formed into azure fruits that rival the flower in elegance. 
 
 Summer is surely the season of epicurism, as spring is 
 that of the luxury of sentiment. 
 
 _ Wilson Fiasrz- 
 
 The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless 
 
 when unbroken. 
 
 Longfellow.
 
 July 15. 
 
 " If St. Swithin weeps," the proverb says, 
 "The weather will be foul for forty days." 
 
 Try it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself 
 in an easy and cheerful frame of mind. Compare the 
 day in which you have rooted out the weed of dissatis- 
 faction with that on which you have allowed it to grow 
 up, and you will find your heart open to every good 
 motive, your life strengthened, and your breast armed with 
 a panoply against every trick of fate : truly, you will 
 wonder at your own improvement. 
 
 The best thing in the world is to be a Christian. 
 
 Phillips Brooks.
 
 July 16. 
 
 There is a flower, a little flower, 
 With silver crest and golden eye, 
 
 That welcomes every changing hour, 
 And weathers every sky. 
 
 On waste and woodland, rock and plain, 
 Its humble buds unheeded rise : 
 
 The rose has but a summer-reign ; 
 The daisy never dies ! 
 
 Montgomery. 
 
 Clear and simple in white and gold 
 
 Meadow blossom. Of sunlit spaces 
 
 The field is full as it well can hold, 
 
 And white with the drift of the ox-eye daisies. 
 
 D. R. Goodale.
 
 July 17. 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN. 
 
 Into the sunshine, 
 
 Full of the light, 
 Leaping and flashing 
 
 From morn until night; 
 Ever in motion, 
 
 Blithesome and cheery, 
 Still climbing heavenward, 
 
 Never a-weary, — 
 Glorious fountain. 
 
 Let my heart be 
 Fresh, changeful, constant, 
 
 Upward, like thee ! 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, 
 And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere. 
 
 Orietital.
 
 July 18. 
 
 The human race may, for practical purposes, be divided 
 into three parts: i. Honest men, who mean to do right, 
 and do it; 2. Knaves, who mean to do wrong, and do it; 
 3. Fools, who mean to do whichever of the two is the 
 pleasanter. These last may be divided again into black 
 fools, who would rather do wrong, but dare not, unless it 
 is tiie fashion ; white fools, who would rather do right, but 
 dare not, unless it is the fashion. 
 
 Charles Kingsley. 
 
 Yellow-Bird, where did you learn that song. 
 Perched on the trellis where grape-vines clamber, 
 In and out fluttering, all day long, 
 With your golden breast bedropped with amber ? 
 
 Where do you hide such a store of delight, 
 O delicate creature, tiny and slender ! 
 Like a mellow morning sunbeam bright, 
 And overflowing with music tender? 
 
 Celia Thaxter.
 
 July 19. 
 
 And her against sweet Cheerfulness was placed, 
 Whose eyes, hke twinkling stars in evening clear. 
 Were decked with smiles that all sad humors chased, 
 And darted forth delights the which her goodly graced. 
 
 Spenser, 
 
 Hood asserts that the phrase "republic of letters" is 
 used to insinuate, that, taking the whole tribe of authors 
 together, they have not a sovereign amongst them. 
 
 Just to bloom beside your way — 
 That is why the flowers are sweet : 
 
 You want fresh ones every day — 
 That is why the flowers are fleet. 
 
 Louise C. Moulton.
 
 July 20. 
 
 A FATAL REPUTATION. 
 
 But learn to wear a sober phiz; 
 
 Be stupid, if you can : 
 It's such a very serious thing 
 
 To be a funny man. 
 
 Saxe. 
 
 At last I discovered, that wherever I went, and under 
 whatever circumstances (except, of course, at the funeral 
 of a member of the family), I was expected to be amusing. 
 I found myself in the same relation to society that the clown 
 bears to the circus-master who has engaged him, — he must 
 either be funny or leave the troupe. 
 
 I adjure all youthful and hopeful persons, who have a 
 tendency to be funny, to keep it a profound secret from 
 the world. 
 
 Isabel F. Bellcnvs.
 
 July 21. 
 
 Blest power of sunshine ! genial day, 
 What balm, what life, is in thy ray ! 
 To feel there is -such real bliss. 
 That, had the world no joy but this, 
 To sit in sunshine calm and sweet. 
 It were a world too exquisite 
 For men to leave it, for the gloom. 
 The deep, cold shadow, of the tomb. 
 
 Moore. 
 
 Every person is responsible for all the good within the 
 scope of his abilities, and for no more ; and none can tell 
 whose sphere is the largest. 
 
 Gail Hamilton. 
 
 We do not go to heaven, but heaven comes to us. 
 They whose inner eye is opened to see heaven, and they 
 who see it, are in it ; and the air to them is thick with 
 angels, like the background of Raphael's " Mother in Glory." 
 
 F. Hed^e.
 
 July 22. 
 
 It is a strange fancy of mine, but I cannot help wishing 
 we could move for returns — as their phrase is in parlia- 
 ment — for the suffering caused in any one day, or other 
 period of time, throughout the world, to be arranged under 
 certain heads ; and we should then see what the world has 
 occasion to fear most. What a large amount would come 
 under the heads of unreasonable fear of others, of miser- 
 able quarrels amongst relations upon infinitesimally small 
 subjects, of imaginary slights, of undue cares, of false shames, 
 of absolute misunderstandings, of unnecessary pains to main- 
 tain credit or reputation, of vexation that we cannot make 
 others of the same mind with ourselves ! What a wonderful 
 thing it would be to see set down in figures, as it were, how 
 ingenious we are in plaguing one ano'.her ! 
 
 Arthur Helps.
 
 July 23. 
 
 Many a child goes astray simply because home lacks 
 sunshine. A child needs smiles as much as the flowers 
 need sunbeams. If a thing pleases, they are apt to seek 
 it : if it displeases, they are apt to avoid it. If home is a 
 place where faces are sour, and words harsh, and fault-find- 
 ing is ever in the ascendant, they will spend as many hours 
 as possible elsewhere. 
 
 Every man's life is a fairy-tale written by God's fingers. 
 
 H. C. Andersen. 
 
 Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible sun 
 
 within us. 
 
 Sir T. Browne.
 
 July 24. 
 
 JULY. 
 
 When the scarlet cardinal tells 
 
 Her dream to the dragon-fly, 
 And the lazy breeze makes a nest in the trees, 
 
 And murmurs a lullaby, 
 It is July. 
 
 When the tangled cobweb pulls 
 The corn flower's blue cap awry, 
 
 And the lilies tall lean over the wall 
 To bow to the butterfly. 
 It is July. 
 
 When the heat like a mist-veil floats. 
 
 And poppies flame in the rye, 
 And the silver note in the streamlet's throat 
 
 Has softened almost to a sigh. 
 It is July. 
 
 When the hours are so still that Time 
 
 Forgets them, and lets them lie 
 'Neath petals pink till the night stars wink 
 At the sunset in the sky. 
 It is July. 
 Susan Hartley Siveity in St. NtcJiolas.
 
 July 25. 
 
 HAPPINESS IN LITTLE THINGS OF THE PRESENT. 
 
 We live not in our moments or our years : 
 
 The present we fling from us like the rind 
 Of some sweet future, which we after find 
 
 Bitter to taste, or bind that in with fears, 
 And water it beforehand with our tears, — 
 
 Vain tears for that which never may arrive ; 
 Meanwhile the joy whereby we ought to live, 
 
 Neglected or unheeded disappears. 
 Wiser it were to welcome and make ours 
 
 Whate'er of good, though small, the present brings, 
 Kind greetings, sunshine, songs of birds, and flowers, 
 
 With a child's pure delight in little things, 
 And of the griefs unborn to rest secure, 
 
 Knowing that mercy ever will endure. 
 
 Dean Trench.
 
 July 26. 
 
 The star I was born under tells me to look up. If we 
 
 didn't come into this world to better ourselves, we might 
 
 as well have staid where we were. 
 
 Jerrold. 
 
 It is as great to be a woman as to be a man. 
 
 Walt Whitjiian. 
 
 Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor. 
 
 Samuel yohnson. 
 
 As the sun does not wait for prayers and incantations 
 before he rises, but straightway shines forth, and is hailed 
 of all : so do not wait to do good for applause and noise 
 and praise, but do it of your own desire ; and, like the 
 sun, you will be loved. 
 
 Epictetus.
 
 July 27. 
 
 Mirth has an hygienic value that can hardly be over- 
 rated while our social life remains what the slavery of 
 vices and dogmas has made it. 
 
 Joy has been called the sunshine of the heart, yet the 
 same sun that calls forth the flower of a plant is also 
 needed to expand its leaves and ripen its fruits ; and, 
 without the stimulus of exhilarating pastimes, perfect 
 bodily health is as impossible as moral and mental vigor. 
 And, as sure as a succession of uniform crops will exhaust 
 the best soil, the daily repetition of a monotonous occu- 
 pation will wear out the best man. 
 
 Felix L. Oswald. 
 
 Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry 
 
 meeting, and there is no jovial companionship equal to 
 
 that where the jokes are rather small and the laughter 
 
 abundant. 
 
 IV. IrviiiiT.
 
 July 28. 
 
 I WONDER what the clover thinks, 
 Intimate friend of bobolinks, 
 Lover of daisies slim and white, 
 Waltzer with buttercups at night; 
 Keeper of inn for travelling-bees, 
 Serving to them wine-dregs and lees 
 Left by the royal humming-birds. 
 Who sip, and pay with fine-spun words ; 
 Fellow with all the loveliest, 
 Peer of the gayest and the best ; 
 Comrade of wind, beloved of sun, 
 Kissed by the dew-drops one by one ; 
 Prophet of good-luck mystery 
 By sign of four, which few may see ; 
 Sweet by the roadsides, sweet by rills, 
 Sweet in the meadows, sweet on hills, 
 Sweet in white, sweet in its red. 
 Oh ! half its sweet cannot be said, 
 
 Saxe Holm.
 
 July 29. 
 
 God is no Arabian Nights' good genius nor fairy, nor 
 
 familiar spirit, in attendance on his favored children, to 
 
 catch them when they fall, to avert the sword or bullet that 
 
 is aimed at them, or to save them from wind and wave, 
 
 shipwreck and storm. He lends his strength in and 
 
 through the very evils that come from the operation of 
 
 his universal providence, not by averting their physical 
 
 consequences, but by fortifying the heart and will that 
 
 survive them, not necessarily here, but somewhere and 
 
 forever. 
 
 Henry W. Bellows. 
 
 The Lord God is a sun and shield. 
 
 Religion is no leaf of faded green. 
 
 Or flower of vanished fragrance, pressed between 
 
 The pages of a Bible ; but from seeds 
 
 Of love it springeth, watered by good deeds. 
 
 y. T. Trowbridge.
 
 July 30. 
 
 FERNS. 
 
 Ferns, beautiful ferns, 
 
 By the side of the running waters, 
 Lovely and sweet and fresh. 
 
 As the fairest of earth-born daughters; 
 Under the dreamy shade 
 
 Of the forest's mighty branches, 
 Curving their graceful shapes 
 
 To the playful wind's advances. 
 
 Ferns, delicate ferns. 
 
 Neighbors of emerald mosses ; 
 Having no thought or care 
 
 For worldly attainments or losses. 
 Children of shadow serene. 
 
 Fresh at the heart through the summer: 
 Over the cool springs they lean, 
 
 Where the sunbeam is rarely a comer. 
 
 Ferns, feathery ferns. 
 
 Delicate, slender, and frail ; 
 Nursed by the streamlet, whose song 
 
 Is music for hillside and vale. 
 Purity, modesty, grace, 
 
 Emblems of these to the mind ; 
 Loving the quietest place. 
 
 That ever a sunbeam will find.
 
 July 31. 
 
 What boots it to repeat 
 How time is skipping underneath our feet? 
 Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday — 
 Why fret about them if to-day be sweet? 
 
 Persiaji. 
 
 Know'st thou Yesterday, its aim and reason? 
 Work'st thou well To-day for worthy things? 
 
 Then calmly wait the morrow's hidden season, 
 And fear not thou what hap soe'er it brings. 
 
 There are some people who think they make the most 
 of life when they make it as wretched as possible. Lut- 
 trell was once asked if an acquaintance of his was not 
 very disagreeable. " Well," was the reply, " he is always 
 as disagreeable as the circumstances will permit."
 
 August 1. 
 
 In the parching August wind, 
 Cornfields bow the head, 
 Sheltered in round valley depths. 
 On low hills outspread. 
 
 C. G. Rossctti. 
 
 The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust 
 
 double-refined, — one remove farther fi-om the earth. The 
 
 woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam, — not 
 
 made out of his head to top him, nor out of his feet to 
 
 be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be 
 
 equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near 
 
 his heart to be beloved. 
 
 Matthew Henry. 
 
 The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious 
 
 of none. 
 
 Carlyle.
 
 August 2. 
 
 I didn't seem to be needed so much a-judgin' the 
 world, and settlin' on jest how many was a-goin' to be 
 saved or lost, as I did a-mindin' my own business, and 
 tryin' to read my own title clear to mansions in the 
 skies. Says I, " I find it a tuckerin' job to take care 
 of one sinner as she ort to be took care of; and it 
 would make me ravin' crazy if I had to take care of 
 the hull universe." 
 
 It fairly makes me out of patience, when there is so 
 much work our Master sot for us to do for his sake, — it 
 fairly makes me mad to see folks refuse to do a mite of 
 that work, but tackle jobs they hain't sot to tackle. 
 
 Marietta Hoi ley. 
 
 Job says, " Why should a living man complain ? " 1 
 really don't know, except it be that a dead man can't. 
 
 Byron.
 
 August 3. 
 
 It is difficult to estimate how great a part of all that 
 is cheerful and delightful in the recollections of our life 
 is associated with trees. 
 
 Trees are among the most poetic objects of creation. 
 Every wood teems with legends of mythology and ro- 
 mance, every tree is vocal with music, and their flowers 
 and fruits do not afford more luxury to the sense than 
 delight to the mind. Trees have their roots in the 
 ground ; but they send up their branches towards the 
 skies, and are so many supplicants to Heaven for bless- 
 ings on the earth. 
 
 Wilson Flagg. 
 
 As for marigolds, poppies, hollyhocks, and valorous 
 sunflowers, we shall never have a garden without them, 
 both for their own sake, and for the sake of old-fash- 
 ioned folks who used to love them. 
 
 H. W. Beecher.
 
 August 4. 
 
 Of some very lachrymose person Rivarol said, "The 
 prophet Jeremiah would have appeared a buffoon by the 
 side of him." 
 
 The quiet August noon has come : 
 A slumberous silence fills the sky ; 
 
 The fields are still, the woods are dumb ; 
 In glassy sleep the waters lie. 
 
 Away ! I will not be to-day 
 
 The only slave of toil and care. 
 Away from desk and dust ! away 1 
 
 I'll be as idle as the air. 
 
 Bryant
 
 August 5. 
 
 Our Lord God is like a printer, who sets the lotter? 
 backwards. We see and feel him set the types well, but 
 we cannot read them. When we are printed off yonder, 
 in the life to come, we shall read all clear and straight- 
 forward. Meantime we must have patience. 
 
 LtitJier. 
 
 What need of faith, if all were visibly clear? 
 
 'Tis for the trial-time that this was given. 
 Though clouds be thick, its sun is just as near; 
 
 And faith will find Him in the heart of heaven. 
 
 Some comfort when all else is night 
 
 About his fortune plays, 
 Who sets his dark to-days in the light 
 
 Of the sunnier yesterdays. 
 
 Thank God, when other power decays, 
 
 And other pleasures die. 
 We still may set our dark to-days 
 
 In the light of days gone by. 
 
 Alice Cary.
 
 August 6. 
 
 Like a cradle, rocking, rocking, 
 
 Silent, peaceful, to and fro ; 
 Like a mother's sweet looks dropping 
 
 On the little face below, — 
 Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 
 
 Jarless, noiseless, safe, and slow ; 
 Falls the light of God's face, bending 
 
 Down, and watching us below. 
 
 And as feeble babes that suffer, 
 
 Toss and cry, and will not rest, 
 Are the ones the tender mother 
 
 Holds the closest, loves the best ; 
 So when we are weak and wretched. 
 
 By our sins weighed down, distressed. 
 Then it is that God's great patience 
 
 Holds us closest, loves us best. 
 
 Saxe Holm.
 
 August 7. 
 
 Anatomikally konsidered, laffing iz the sensashun ot 
 pheeling good all over, and showing it principally in one 
 spot. 
 
 Morally konsidered, it iz the next best thing tew the 
 Ten Commandments. 
 
 Genuine laffing iz the vent of the soul, the nostrils of 
 the heart, and iz jist az necessary for helth and happi- 
 ness az spring water iz for a trout. 
 
 A CHEERFUL VIEW OF THINGS. 
 
 " How dismal you look ! " said a Bucket to his com- 
 panion, as they were going to the well. 
 
 "Ah!" replied the other: "I was reflecting on the 
 uselessness of our being filled ; for, let us go away ever 
 so full, we always come back empty." 
 
 " Dear me ! how strange to look at it in that way ! " 
 said the Bucket. " Now, I enjoy the thought, that, how- 
 ever empty we come, we always go away full. Only look 
 at it in that light, and you'll be as cheerful as I am."
 
 August 8. 
 
 Flowers preach to us if we will hear. 
 
 The rose saith in the dewy morn, 
 
 " I am most fair, 
 
 Yet all my loveliness is bom 
 
 Upon a thorn." 
 
 The lilies say, " Behold how we 
 
 Preach, without words, of purity ! " 
 
 But not alone the fairest flowers : 
 The merest grass 
 
 Along the roadside where we pass, 
 Lichen and moss and sturdy weed, 
 Tell oi His love who sends the dew, 
 The rain, and the sunshine too. 
 To nourish one small seed. 
 
 G. D. Rossetti.
 
 August 9. 
 
 MAN AND HIS SHOES. 
 
 How much a man is like old shoes ! 
 
 For instance, both a sole may lose ; 
 
 Both have been tanned, both are made tight 
 
 By cobblers. Both get left and right, 
 
 Both need a mate to be complete, 
 
 And both are made to go on feet. 
 
 They both need healing: oft are sold. 
 
 And both in time all turn to mould. 
 
 With shoes the last is first; with men 
 
 The first shall be last ; and, when 
 
 The shoes wear out, they're mended new; 
 
 When men wear out they're men dead too. 
 
 They both are trod upon ; and both 
 
 Will tread on others, nothing loath. 
 
 Both have their ties ; and both incline. 
 
 When polished, in the world to shine ; 
 
 And both peg out — and would you choose 
 
 To be a man, or be his shoes? 
 
 New Orleans Picayune.
 
 August lO. 
 
 Flowers, though born of earth, we may well believe, — 
 if any thing of earthly soil grows in the higher realm, 
 if any of its methods are continued, if any of the forms 
 are identical there, — will live on the banks of the River 
 of Life. Flowers ! that in all our gladness, in all our 
 sorrow, are never incongruous, always appropriate. Ap- 
 propriate in the church, as expressive of its purest and 
 most social themes, and blending their sweetness with 
 incense of prayer. Appropriate in the joy of the marriage 
 hour — in the loneliness of the sick-room — and crowning 
 with prophesy the forehead of the dead. They give 
 completeness to the associates of childhood, and are 
 appropriate, even by the side of old age, strongly as their 
 freshness contrasts with the wrinkles and gray hairs ; for 
 still they are suggestive — they are symbolical of the soul's 
 perpetual youth, the inward blossoming of immortality, 
 the amaranthine crown. In their presence we feel, that, 
 when the body shall be as a withered calyx, the soul shall 
 go forth like a winged steed. 
 
 Chapin.
 
 August 11. 
 
 Is this a time to be cloudy and sad, 
 
 When our Mother Nature laughs around, 
 
 When even the deep-blue heavens look glad, 
 
 And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground? 
 
 There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren. 
 And the gossip of swallows through all the sky 
 
 The ground-squirrel gayly chirps by his den, 
 And the wilding bee hums merrily by. 
 
 And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles 
 On the dewy earth, that smiles in his ray, 
 
 On the leaping waters and gay young isles, — 
 Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away. 
 
 Bryant.
 
 August 12. 
 
 Hearts grown a-vveary with heavier woe 
 
 Droop mid the darkness, — go, comfort them, go ! 
 
 Bury thy sorrow : let others be blest ; 
 
 Give them the sunshine, tell Jesus the rest. 
 
 And up the east another day 
 
 Shall chase the bitter dark away. 
 
 What though our eyes with tears be wet? 
 
 The sunrise never failed us yet. 
 
 The blush of dawn may yet restore 
 Our light and hope and joy once more. 
 Sad soul, take comfort, nor forget 
 That sunrise never failed us yet. 
 
 Celia Thaxter. 
 
 Let us seek the seaside, there 
 To wander idly as we list. 
 
 Lowell.
 
 August 13. 
 
 No woman can be the, worse for possessing brains. The 
 hue and cry set up against higher education, examinations, 
 and new openings for woman's work, has a hollow ring about 
 it. Men have a sneaking suspicion that they are not so 
 intellectually superior as they have been led to suppose. 
 Unconsciously to themselves, they are afraid of being found 
 out ; or else perhaps they are lazy, and are fearful of being 
 stirred up. 
 
 Yet womanliness does not consist in intellectuality. The 
 first thing in which it does consist is self-respect. 
 
 Sa)7uiel Pearson. 
 
 A TRUE FRIEND. 
 
 Thou mayest be sure that he that will in private tell thee 
 thy faults, is thy friend ; for he adventures thy dislike, and 
 doth hazard thy hatred : for there are few men that can 
 endure it ; every man, for the most part, delighting in self- 
 praise, which is one of the most universal follies that be- 
 
 witcheth mankind. 
 
 Sir Walter RaJeipJi.
 
 August 14. 
 
 Truth, like the sun, submits to be obscured, but, like 
 the sun, only for a time. 
 
 Bovee. 
 
 The spikes from the thistle-blossom and other winged 
 seeds, which send their pretty pinnaces afloat on our August 
 air, have not this summer, so much as aiiother summer, in 
 view. Even when November spreads her pall, there will be 
 buds ready formed, and protected against the winter, which 
 the warm south wind and sunshine of the coming spring 
 will awaken. Nothing goes out of existence carelessly : 
 nothing has danced or piped for simply selfish ends. Into 
 the whole, and in its parts, is blown the subtle breath and 
 potency of a sure, and not remote, resurrection. And so — 
 
 " The specious panorama of a year 
 But multiplies the image of a da}', — 
 A belt of mirrors round a taper's flame; 
 And universal Nature, through her vast 
 And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet, 
 Repeats one note."
 
 August 15. 
 
 There is no blessedness in life 
 
 Apart from blessed love : 
 This sanctifies the dreary strife 
 
 Which all who live must prove. 
 It lifts the burden from the soul, 
 
 And puts the staff into the hand : 
 The gloomy clouds behind us roll, 
 
 And all before is dawn and fairy-land. 
 
 Oh, love is light where all is dark ! 
 
 It goeth on before, 
 A strong and still preserved ark. 
 
 Though tempests round us roar. 
 Oh, love the sphered world contains ! 
 
 All life within itself it hath : 
 All else goes by; but love remains. 
 
 And waves a heaven-lit torch before our path. 
 
 C. P. Cranch.
 
 August 16. 
 
 No one who has not suffered deeply has ever loved deeply, 
 
 prayed deeply, enjoyed deeply. The plough which cuts 
 
 sharpest furrows in our hearts, alone enables them to bear 
 
 their richest harvest. 
 
 F. P. Cobbe. 
 
 If none were sick, and none were sad, 
 
 What service could we render? 
 I think, if we were always glad. 
 
 We scarcely could be tender. 
 Did our beloved never need 
 
 Our patient ministration. 
 Earth would grow cold, and miss indeed 
 
 Its sweetest consolation. 
 If sorrow never claimed our heart, 
 
 And every wish were granted. 
 Patience would die, and hope depart : 
 
 Life would be disenchanted. 
 
 J. Besetneres.
 
 August 17. 
 
 Give me the old Dutch honeysuckle 
 A-makin' even the night-time sweet, 
 
 A-blossoniin' at every knuckle, 
 
 And hangin' to your very feet. 
 
 And pink and buff and white carnations. 
 And rosebuds snuggled up in moss, 
 
 Heart's-ease and vi'lets, dear relations, 
 
 And gay snapdragons, bright and cross. 
 
 Give me the good old week-day blossoms 
 
 I used to see so long ago, 
 With hearty sweetness in their bosoms. 
 
 Ready and glad to bud an' blow. 
 
 Rose Terry Cooke.
 
 August 18. 
 
 The year goes wrong, and tares grow strong; 
 
 Hope starves without a crumb ; 
 
 But God's time is our harvest time, 
 
 And that is sure to come. 
 
 L. J. Bates. 
 
 A LADY may give her husband a piece of her mind, if 
 she chooses, but she shouldn't break the peace. 
 
 G. D. Prentice. 
 
 Voltaire characterized tlie employment of a medical 
 man as "pouring drugs, of which he knew very little, 
 into bodies, of which he knew less." 
 
 "How does your horse answer?" inquired the Duke of 
 Cumberland of George Selwyn. 
 
 " I really don't know," George replied. " I have never 
 asked him a question."
 
 August 19. 
 
 It would be a poor result of all our anguish and wres- 
 tling, if we were nothing but our old selves at the end of 
 it, — if we could return to the same blind loves, the same 
 self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suf- 
 fering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, 
 the same feeble sense of that unknown toward which we 
 have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. 
 
 Adatn Bede. 
 
 Yet meekly yield when thou must drink 
 The righteous cup of human sorrow, 
 
 For patient suff'ring is the link 
 
 Which binds us to a glorious morrow. 
 
 Norman Macleod,
 
 August 20. 
 
 Faith iz the rite bower ov Hope. If it wan't for faith, 
 thare would be no living in this world. We couldn't even 
 eat hash with enny safety if it wan't for faith. 
 
 Faith iz one ov them warriors who don't kno when she 
 iz whipped. 
 
 A GOOD HINT. 
 
 Always do as the sun does, — look at the bright side of 
 every thing : it is just as cheap, and three times as good for 
 digestion. Do it — if you can. 
 
 Light-enchanted sunflower, thou 
 Who gazest ever true and tender 
 On the sun's revolving splendor ! 
 
 Shelley.
 
 August 21. 
 
 Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought : our 
 brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by 
 unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their 
 odors . from time to time in the paths of life grow up 
 without culture, from seeds scattered by chance. 
 
 Samuel yohnson. 
 
 I THINK it must somewhere be written, that the virtues 
 of mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, 
 as well as the sins of their fathers. 
 
 Dickens. 
 
 Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Moderation ig the silken string running through the 
 
 pearl chain of all virtues. 
 
 Tliotiias Fuller.
 
 August 22. 
 
 Buttercup nodded, and said " good-by ; " 
 Clover and daisy went off together ; 
 But the fragrant water-hHes lie 
 Yet moored in the golden August weather. 
 
 Celia TJiaxter. 
 
 Some folks think that their personal importance fills a 
 
 large space in the public eye, when it is all in their 
 
 own. 
 
 G. D. Praiiice. 
 
 The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands 
 
 of Affliction. 
 
 Spurgeon. 
 
 No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any 
 
 pleasure so lasting. 
 
 Lady Mary Montagu.
 
 August 23. 
 
 " O DREARY life i " we cry, " O dreary life ! " 
 
 And still the generations of the birds 
 
 Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds 
 
 Serenely live while we are keeping strife 
 
 With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife 
 
 Against which we may struggle. Ocean girds 
 
 Unslackened the dry land : savannah-swards 
 
 Unweary sweep : hills watch, unworn ; and rife 
 
 Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees, 
 
 To show above the unwasted stars that pass 
 
 In their old glory. O thou God of old ! 
 
 Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these ; 
 
 But so much patience as a blade of grass 
 
 Grows by contented through the heat and cold. 
 
 Mrs, Brownimr.
 
 August 24. 
 
 In the latter part of August we begin to mark the 
 approaching footsteps of Autumn. 
 
 Already do I hear at nightfall the chirping of the 
 cicadas, whose notes are at the same time the harvest- 
 hymn of Nature, and a dirge over the depaiture of the 
 flowers. 
 
 I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, 
 
 Wherever thou art hid. 
 Thou testy little dogmatist, 
 
 Thou pretty Katydid ! 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 It seems no more than right that men should seize Time 
 by the forelock, for the rude old fellow sooner or later pulls 
 all their hair out.
 
 August 25. 
 
 On the bathing-tub of K'ang the following words were 
 engraved : " If you can, renovate yourself each day." 
 
 Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being 
 
 eminent. 
 
 Swift. 
 
 In English I would have all Gallicisms avoided, that 
 
 our tongue may be sincere, and that we may keep to 
 
 our own language. 
 
 Felton. 
 
 I HAVE seen in Islington churchyard an epitaph to an 
 
 infant who died atatis four months, with this seasonable 
 
 inscription appended : " Honor thy father and thy mother, 
 
 that thy days may be long in the land," etc. 
 
 Lamb.
 
 August 26. 
 
 One adequate support 
 For the calamities of mortal life 
 Exists, — one only: an assured belief 
 That the procession of our fate, howe'er 
 Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being 
 Of infinite benevolence and power. 
 Whose everlasting purposes embrace 
 All accidents, converting them to good. 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Make me as one that casteth not by day 
 A dreary shadow, but reflecting aye 
 One little beam, loved, warmed and golden, caught 
 From the bright sun that lights our daily way. 
 
 /. P. Boynton.
 
 August 27. 
 
 MIDSUMMER SONG. 
 
 Now flits the bee through clover-dales, 
 
 Now shallow grows the river 
 In leafy nooks where lilies float 
 
 And wandering sunbeams quiver. 
 
 Now thistledown begins to fly, 
 
 And drowsily the south winds sigh, , 
 
 " Good-by, good-by, 
 
 Good-by." 
 
 O fair Midsummer ! Like the bee 
 
 A-dream in sylvan places. 
 We taste the sweetness of thy bloom. 
 
 Thy wonderful, wild graces. 
 Alas! must all this beauty die? — 
 Drowsily the soft winds sigh, 
 " Good-by, good-by, 
 Good-by." 
 
 Ellen M. Hutr.hinson.
 
 August 28. 
 
 Some day in August, if you will watch carefully, you will 
 see a whole colony of swallows congregate on the shed or 
 barn. They are somewhat mute and pensive for once. 
 They have been holding this conference, on occasions, for 
 several days. But to-morrow you will look for them in vain. 
 The ragged remnant of summer that is left must get on with- 
 out them, and we feel that the year has made a definite step 
 again toward its close. 
 
 " Into the dun and mellow sky 
 
 The playful swallows dip and dart : 
 Now, in their reckless course, apart, 
 And now in various groups they fly. 
 
 To-morrow, on the old gray shed 
 They gather, twitterless and mute : 
 Another day wise men dispute, 
 
 But cannot tell where they have fled."
 
 August 29. 
 
 "To be resigned when ills betide, 
 Patient when favors are denied, 
 And pleased with favors given, 
 This surely is true wisdom's part. 
 This is that incense of the heart 
 Whose fragrance swells to heaven. 
 
 IV. Cotton. 
 
 Stars lying in God's hand, 
 
 We know ye were not planned 
 
 Merely to light men on their midnight way. 
 
 Shine on, ye fiery stars ! 
 
 It may be through your bars 
 
 We shall pass upwards to eternal day. 
 
 Hamilton Aidi.
 
 August 30. 
 
 Nothing makes a man so contented as an experience 
 gathered from a well-watched past. As the beauty of the 
 finest landscape is sometimes marred, on actual inspection, 
 by a nauseous weed at your feet, or painful headache, or 
 many little things, which detract from a loveliness only 
 fully felt in the recollection when those trifles are forgotten ; 
 so our chief happiness is too often in recollections of the 
 past, or anticipation of the future. Now, it is knowing 
 what the past really was, which we now recall with so much 
 pleasure, and over which there seems to be " a light which 
 never was on sea or land," that we are able to estimate the 
 amount of happiness and value of the present. And I 
 think he who does this will seldom be discontented ; for 
 the miseries of life are few, and its blessings are new to 
 us every morning and evening. 
 
 NoDiian Macleod.
 
 August 31. 
 
 Stately hollyhocks, row on row, 
 
 Golden sunflowers all aglow. 
 
 Scarlet poppies, and larkspurs blue, 
 
 Asters of every shade and hue ; 
 
 And over the wall, like a trail of fire, 
 
 The red nasturtium climbs high and higher. 
 
 My lady's-slippers are fair to see. 
 And her pinks are as sweet as sweet can be, 
 With gillyflowers and mourning-brides. 
 And many another flower besides. 
 
 "Julia Dorr. 
 
 Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the sting 
 from every loss, and quenches the fire of every pain ; and 
 only faith can do it. ^^ 
 
 J. G. Holland.
 
 September 1. 
 
 This is the first day of autumn. Summer is gone, — 
 how swiftly and unperceivedly ! It has seemed to me Hke 
 a green leaf floating upon a silent river. ... In like man- 
 ner the gold leaf of autumn has been glistening in the dis- 
 tance, and drawing daily nearer. It, too, in turn will glow 
 and shine upon the spotted stream of time, and go past. . . . 
 To-day is a goblet-day. The whole heavens have been 
 mingled with exquisite skill to a delicious flavor, and the 
 crystal cup put to every lip. Breathing is like ethereal 
 drinking. It is a luxury simply to exist. 
 
 Beecher. 
 
 R STANDS for oyster, and all should remember, 
 The opening season this first of SeptembeR.
 
 September 2. 
 
 Life has no significance to me save as the theatre in 
 which my powers are developed and disciphned for use, 
 and made fruitful in securing my own independence, and 
 the good of those around me, or as the scene in which 
 I am fitted for the work and worship of the world beyond. 
 
 J. G. Holland. 
 
 Hand in hand with angels, 
 
 Through the world we go ; 
 Brighter eyes are on us 
 
 Than we blind ones know; 
 Tenderer voices cheer us 
 
 Than we deaf will own ; 
 
 Never, walking heavenward. 
 
 Can we walk alone. 
 
 , Lucy Larcovt.
 
 September 3. 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 The golden-rod is yellow, 
 
 The corn is turning brown, 
 The trees in apple-orchards 
 
 With fruit are bending down. 
 
 The gentian's bluest fringes 
 
 Are curling in the sun, 
 In dusky pods the milkweed 
 
 Its hidden silk has spun. 
 
 The sedges flaunt their harvest 
 
 In every meadow-nook, 
 And asters by the brookside 
 
 Make asters in the brook. 
 
 By all these lovely tokens 
 
 September days are here. 
 
 With summer's best of wealth. 
 
 And autumn's best of cheer. 
 
 H. H.
 
 September 4. 
 
 The longer I live, the more certain I am that the great 
 difference between men, the feeble and the powerful, the 
 great and the insignificant, is energy and invincible deter- 
 mination, — a purpose once fixed, and then death or vic- 
 tory. That quality will do any thing that can be done in 
 this world ; and no talents, no circumstances, no oppor- 
 tunities, will make a two-legged creature a man without it. 
 
 Sir T. Fowell Buxton. 
 
 When the wayside tangles blaze 
 
 In the low September sun, 
 
 When the flowers of summer day 
 
 Droop and wither one by one, * 
 
 Reaching up through bush and brier. 
 
 Sumptuous brow and heart of fire, 
 
 Flaunting high its wind-rocked plume, 
 
 Brave with wealth of native bloom, — 
 
 Golden-rod ! 
 
 Elaine Goodale.
 
 September 5. 
 
 We are unwilling walkers. We are not innocent and 
 simple-hearted enough to enjoy a walk. We have fallen 
 from that state of grace which capacity to enjoy a walk 
 implies. It cannot be said, that as a people we are so posi- 
 tively sad or morose or melancholic as that we are vacant 
 of that sportiveness and surplusage of animal spirits that 
 characterized our ancestors, and that springs from full and 
 harmonious life, — a sound heart in accord with a sound 
 body, A man must invest himself near at hand, and in 
 common things, and be content with a steady and mod- 
 erate return, if he would know the blessedness of a cheer- 
 ful heart, and the sweetness of a walk over the round earth. 
 This is a lesson the American has yet to learn, — capability 
 of amusement on a low key. 
 
 yohn Burroughs. 
 
 One always has time enough, if one will apply it well. 
 
 Goethe.
 
 September 6. 
 
 September may be described as the month of tall weeds. 
 Where they have been suffered to stand, along- fences, by 
 roadsides, and in forgotten corners, — red-root, pig-weed, 
 rag-weed, vervain, golden-rod, burdock, elecampane, this- 
 tles, teasels, nettles, asters, etc., — how they lift themselves 
 up, as if not afraid to be seen now ! They are all out- 
 laws ; every man's hand is against them ; yet how surely 
 they hold their own ! They love the roadside because here 
 they are comparatively safe ; and, ragged and dusty, like 
 the common tramps that they are, they form one of the 
 characteristic features of early fall. 
 
 yohn Burroughs. 
 
 And, crowding close along the way. 
 The purple asters blossom free. 
 
 Dora R. Goodale.
 
 September 7. 
 
 I ASK not that for me the plan 
 
 Of good and ill be set aside, 
 But that the common lot of man 
 
 Be nobly borne, and glorified. 
 
 And that, though it be mine to know 
 How hard the stoniest pillow seems, 
 
 Good angels still may come and go 
 About the places of my dreams. 
 
 Phcebe Cary. 
 
 What she suffered, she shook off in the sunshine. 
 
 Mrs. B?ownine. 
 
 Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health, and as 
 friendly to the mind as to the body. 
 
 A ddison.
 
 September 8. 
 
 " If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." Nor a 
 woman either ; for the old creed, that our sex must always 
 be dependent on the other, has become a creed outworn. 
 First, because there are not enough of males to protect us ; 
 and secondly, because many of them are quite incapable 
 of doing it. Generally speaking, a woman at any age out 
 of teens, being well educated, prudent, and possessed of a 
 tolerable amount of common sense and ordinary "gump- 
 tion," can take care of herself fully as well as any man can 
 do it for her ; and, except in the love-phase of life, — when 
 help is so delicious and helplessness so sweet, — most men 
 prefer a woman who will and can take care of herself. It 
 saves them a world of trouble. 
 
 D. M. Miiloch. 
 
 The creed of the true saint is, to make the best of life, 
 
 and make the most of it. 
 
 CJiapin.
 
 September 9. 
 
 Sweet, sweet, sweet. 
 
 Is the wind's song, 
 
 Astir in the rippled wheat 
 
 All day long. 
 
 That exquisite music calls 
 
 The reaper everywhere. 
 
 Life and death must share 
 
 The golden harvest-falls. 
 
 Master, Consoler, Friend, 
 
 Make thou the harvest of our days 
 
 To fall within thy ways. 
 
 Faji7tie R. Feiid^re. 
 
 God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanks- 
 givings ; and all good thought and good action claim a 
 natural alliance with good cheer. 
 
 E. P. Whipple.
 
 September 10. 
 
 Can you suppose there is any harm in looking as cheer- 
 ful, and being as cheerful, as our poor circumstances will 
 permit? Do I see any thing in the way I'm made which 
 calls upon me to be a snivelling, solemn, whispering chap, 
 sneaking about as if I couldn't help it, and expressing my- 
 self in a most unpleasant snuffle? On the contrary, don't 
 
 I see every reason why I shouldn't ? 
 
 Dickens. 
 
 " Life of my desires," said Pyrocles, " what is mine, 
 
 even to my soul, is yours ; but the secret of my friend 
 
 is not mine." 
 
 Sz'r Philip Sidney. 
 
 I LAY it down as a fact, that, if all men knew what 
 
 they say of one another, there would not be four friends 
 
 in the world. 
 
 Pascal.
 
 September 11. 
 
 In a tete-d-tete conversation with Mrs. Hall, on the 
 subject of some young ladies who had been suddenly 
 bereft of fortune, Lady Morgan said, with an emphatic 
 wave of her dear old green fan, "They do every thing 
 that is fashionable imperfectly : their singing and draw- 
 ing and dancing and languages amount to nothing. 
 They were educated to marry ; and, had there been time, 
 they might have gone off with, and hereafter from, hus- 
 bands. They cannot earn their own salt : they do not 
 even know how to dress themselves. I desire to give 
 every girl, no matter her rank, a trade, — a profession if 
 that word pleases you better: cultivate all things in mod- 
 eration, but one thing to perfection, no matter what it is, 
 for which she has a talent. Give her a staff to lay hold 
 of: let her feel, ' This will carry me through life without 
 dependence.' "
 
 September 12. 
 
 People seem to be contented with " pretty good," 
 "well enough," "as good as the average," "all that is 
 required ; " and they are apt to shelter themselves behind 
 one or other of these phrases, if you try to arouse them 
 to something better. This weakness, this failure to come 
 up to any thing more than what is merely passable, 
 seems to be a want of courage, combined with a want 
 of energy, — in plain language, a mixture of cowardice 
 and laziness. 
 
 Williavi Everett. 
 
 Knowledge, in truth, is the great sun in the firma- 
 ment. Life and power are scattered with all its beams. 
 
 D. Webster.
 
 September 13. 
 
 The morrow was a bright September morn; 
 The earth was beautiful as if new-born ; 
 There was that nameless splendor everywhere, 
 That wild exhilaration in the air, 
 Which makes the passers in the city street 
 Congratulate each other as they meet. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 Life, we've been long together, 
 
 Through pleasant and through cloudy weather : 
 
 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; 
 
 Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear. 
 
 Then steal away, give little warning, 
 
 Choose thine own time. 
 
 Say not " Good-night," but in some brighter clime 
 
 Bid me " Good-morning." 
 
 Mrs. Barbauld.
 
 September 14. 
 
 Dance, dance as long as you can : we must travel 
 through life, but why make a dead march of it? 
 
 Eliza Cook, 
 
 Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches ; 
 and, to make knowledge valuable, you must have the 
 cheerfulness of wisdom. Goodness smiles to the last. 
 
 Einerson. 
 
 Laugh at those who grumble, 
 And be jolly as you can. 
 
 Saxe. 
 
 Persistent people begin their success where others end 
 
 in failure. 
 
 Edward Eggleston.
 
 September 15. 
 
 The Master hath need of the reapers; 
 
 And, mourner, he calleth to thee. 
 Come out of the valley of sorrow. 
 
 Look up to the hill-tops, and see 
 How the fields of the harvest are whitening, 
 
 How golden and full is the grain : 
 Oh ! what are thy wants to the summons ? 
 
 And what are thy grief and thy pain? 
 
 Mrs. ArchbisJiop Tliomson. 
 
 Be strong, O heart of mine ! 
 Look towards the light. 
 
 Adelaide Procter, 
 
 I SAY to thee, be thou satisfied. 
 
 Burton.
 
 September 16. 
 
 Now that the sun is gleaming bright, 
 
 Implore we, bending low, 
 That He, the uncreated Light, 
 
 May guide us as we go. 
 
 Mediaval Hymn. 
 
 The Lord shall be thine everlasting light. 
 
 Grief is a tattered tent, 
 
 Where through God's light doth shine. 
 Who glances up, at every rent 
 
 Shall catch a ray divine. 
 
 Lticy Larcom. 
 
 The worst evils are those that never arrive.
 
 September 17. 
 
 " There is a good time coming, boys ; " 
 And many a one has passed ; 
 For each has had his own good time, 
 And will have to the last. 
 Then, do thy work, while lingers youth 
 With freshness on its brow, 
 Still mindful of life's greatest truth, 
 The best of times is now. 
 
 Mrs, L. C. IVhiton. 
 
 Joy is our duty, glory, health, 
 The sunshine of the soul. 
 
 Our content is our best having. 
 
 Young. 
 
 Shakespeare.
 
 September 18. 
 
 The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the 
 dancer's in respect of this, that it should stand ready 
 and firm to meet onsets which are sudden and unex- 
 pected. 
 
 Antoni?ms. 
 
 The secret of happiness is, never to allow your energies 
 
 to stagnate. 
 
 Adavt Clark. 
 
 The sunshine of life is made up of very little beams that 
 are bright all the time. To give up something, when giving 
 up will prevent unhappiness ; to yield, when persisting will 
 chafe and fret others ; to go a little around rather than come 
 against another ; to take an ill look or a cross word quietly 
 rather than resent or return it, — these are the ways in which 
 clouds and storms are kept off, and a pleasant and steady 
 sunshine secured.
 
 September 19. 
 
 Once more the liberal year laughs out 
 
 O'er richer stores than gems or gold : 
 Once more with harvest-song and shout 
 
 Is Nature's bloodless triumph told. 
 Our common mother rests and sings, 
 
 Like Ruth, among her garnered sheaves : 
 Her lap is full of goodly things, 
 
 Her brow is bright with autumn leaves. 
 O favors every year made new ! 
 
 O gifts with rain and sunshine sent ! 
 The bounty overruns our due, 
 
 The fulness shames our discontent. 
 We shut our eyes, the flowers bloom on ; 
 
 We murmur, but the corn-ears fill ; 
 We choose the shadow; but the sun, 
 
 That casts it, shines behind us still. 
 
 VVhittier.
 
 September 20. 
 
 THE FALLEN PINE-CONE. 
 
 I LIFT thee thus, thou brown and rugged cone, 
 
 Well poised and high, 
 Between the flowering grasses and the sky ; 
 
 And, as sea-voices dwell 
 In the fine chambers of the ocean-shell, 
 
 So Fancy's ear 
 Within thy numberless, dim complexities 
 
 Hath seemed ofttimes to hear 
 The imprisoned spirits of all winds that blow, — 
 Winds of late autumn that lamenting moan 
 Across the wild sea-surges' ebb and flow ; 
 Storm-winds of winter mellowed to a sigh. 
 Long-drawn and plaintive ; or — how lingeringly !- 
 Soft echoes of the spring-tide's jocund breeze, 
 Blent with the summer south wind, murmuring low. 
 
 rani H. Hayne.
 
 September 21. 
 
 THE TREE. 
 
 I LOVE thee when thy swelling buds appear, 
 And one by one their tender leaves unfold, 
 As if the}' knew that warmer suns were near. 
 Nor longer sought to hide from winter's cold ; 
 And, when with darker growth thy leaves are seen 
 To veil from view the early robin's nest, 
 I love to lie beneath thy waving screen. 
 With limbs by summer's heat and toil opprest ; 
 And when the autumn's winds have stripped thee bare, 
 And round thee lies the smooth, untrodden snow, 
 When naught is thine that made thee once so fair, 
 I love to watch thy shadowy form below, 
 And through thy leafless arms to look above 
 On stars that brighter beam when most we need their love. 
 
 yones Very.
 
 September 22. 
 
 NEW EVERY MORNING. 
 
 Every day is a fresh beginning, 
 
 Every morn is the world made new. 
 You who are weary of sorrow and sinning, 
 
 Here is a beautiful hope for you, — 
 
 A hope for me and a hope for you. 
 
 All the past things are past and over, 
 
 The tasks are done, and the tears are shed. 
 
 Yesterday's errors let yesterday cover : 
 
 Yesterday's wounds, which smarted and bled, 
 
 Are healed with the healing which night has shed. 
 
 Yesterday now is a part of forever. 
 
 Bound up in a sheaf which God holds tight, 
 
 With glad days and sad days and bad da)'s, which never 
 Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight. 
 Their fulness of sunshine, or sorrowful night. 
 
 Let them go, since we cannot relive them, 
 
 Cannot undo, and cannot atone ; 
 God in his mercy receive, forgive them : 
 
 Only the new days are our own ; 
 
 To-day is ours, and to-day alone. 
 
 Susan Coolidire.
 
 September 23. 
 
 And yet thou canst not know, 
 And yet thou canst not see : 
 Wisdom and signs are slow 
 
 In poor humanity. 
 If thou couldst trust, poor soul ! 
 In Him who rules the whole, 
 
 Thou wouldst find peace and rest. 
 Wisdom and sight are well, but trust is best. 
 
 Adelaide A. Procter, 
 
 All are not taken ! there are left behind 
 Living beloveds, tender looks to bring, 
 And make the daylight still a happy thing, 
 
 And tender voices, to make soft the wind. 
 
 E. B. Browniinr.
 
 September 24. 
 
 THE PRINCE. 
 
 September waves his golden-rod 
 
 Along the lanes and hollows, 
 And saunters round the sunny fields 
 
 A-playing with the swallows. 
 
 The corn has listened for his step ; 
 
 The maples blush to greet him ; 
 And gay, coquetting Sumach dons 
 
 Her velvet cloak to meet him. 
 
 Come to the hearth, O merry Prince ! 
 
 With flaming knot and ember : 
 For all your tricks of fros'.y eves, 
 
 We love your ways, September ! 
 
 Ellen Mackay Hutchinson.
 
 September 25. 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1815. 
 
 While not a loaf scorns fadoil, while the fields, 
 
 With ripening harvests prodigally fair, 
 
 In brightest sunshine bask, this nipping air. 
 
 Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields 
 
 His icy cimeter, a foretaste yields 
 
 Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware, 
 
 And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare 
 
 Against the threatening (oc your trustiest shields." 
 
 For me, who, under kindlier laws, belong 
 
 To Nature's tuneful choir, this rusUing dry, 
 
 Through the green leaves, and yon crystalline sky, 
 
 Announce a season potent to renew, 
 
 'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song. 
 
 And nobler cares than lisdess summer knew. 
 
 IVi/liam IVordsworth.
 
 September 26. 
 
 There is a large class of people who deem the busi- 
 ness of life far too weighty and momentous to be made 
 light of; who would leave merriment to children, and 
 laughter to idiots ; and who hold that a joke would be as 
 much out of place on their lips as on a gravestone or in 
 a ledger. Wit and wisdom being sisters, they are afraid 
 of being indicted for bigamy were they to wed them 
 both ! 
 
 A)xJidcacon Hare. 
 
 Put not your trust in money, but put your money in 
 
 trust. 
 
 Holmes. 
 
 Thou art in the end what thou art. Put on wigs with 
 millions of curls, set thy foot upon ell-high rocks, thou 
 abidest ever — what thou art. 
 
 Goethe.
 
 'Tis more brave 
 To live than to die. 
 
 Owen Meredith. 
 
 If Poverty is the mother of crimes, want of sense is 
 
 the father. 
 
 De la Bniycre. 
 
 Dogmatism is puppyism come to its full growth. 
 
 Doiii^las ycrrold. 
 
 [Queen] Mary had a way of interrupting tattle about 
 elopements, duels, and play debts, by asking the tattlers, 
 very quietly yet significantly, whether tliey had ev'er read 
 her favorite sermon. Dr. Tillotson's, on Evil Speaking. 
 
 Lord Macaulay.
 
 September 28. 
 
 There is infinite talk of the dissipated illusions of youth, 
 the paling of bright young dreams. Life, it is said, turns 
 out to be different from what it was pictured. The rosy- 
 hued morning fades away into the gray and livid evening, 
 the black and ghastly night. I do not believe this is the 
 general experience. It surely should not be — it need not 
 be. I have found things a great deal better than I ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Atlantic Monthly, i86j. 
 
 I ASK you to look out for the sunlight the Lord sends 
 
 into your days. 
 
 Hope Campbell. 
 
 Those who live in the Lord never see each other for 
 
 the last time. 
 
 German Motto.
 
 September 29. 
 
 Jack Frost came down last night. 
 
 He slid to the earth on a starbeam, keen and sparkling and 
 bright. 
 
 He sought in the grass for the crickets with delicate, icy- 
 spear, 
 
 So sharp and fine and fatal, and he stabbed tliem far and 
 near. 
 
 Only a few stout fellows, thawed by the morning sun, 
 
 Chirrup a mournful echo of by-gone frolic and fun. 
 
 Celia Thaxter. 
 
 To be impatient at the death of a person concerning 
 whom it was certain he must die, is to mourn because 
 thy friend was not born an angel. 
 
 Jeremy Taylor.
 
 September 30. 
 
 WHEN MY SHIP COMES IN. 
 
 For summer and winter are one to me, 
 
 And the day is bright, be it storm or shine ; 
 For far away, o'er a sunny sea, 
 
 Sails a treasure-vessel, and all is mine. 
 I see the ripples that fall away. 
 
 As she cleaves the azure waves before ; 
 And nearer, nearer, day by day, 
 
 Draws the happy hour when she comes to shore. 
 
 "But what if she never comes?" you say, 
 
 " If you never the honor, the treasure, gain?" 
 It has made me happier day by day. 
 
 It has eased full many an aching pain, 
 It has kept the spirit from envy free. 
 
 Has dulled the ear to the world's rude din. 
 Oh ! best of blessings it's been to me. 
 
 To look for the hour when my ship comes in. 
 
 Edward S. Raiid.
 
 October 1. 
 
 OCTOBER. 
 
 Ay, thou art welcome, Heaven's delicious breath, 
 When woods begin to wear the crimson leaf. 
 And suns grow meek, and the meek suns grow brief, 
 
 And the year smiles as it draws near its death. 
 
 Wind of the sunny South, oh ! still delay 
 In the gay woods and in the golden air, 
 Like to a good old age released from care, 
 
 Journeying, in long serenity, away. 
 
 In such a bright, late quiet, would that I 
 
 Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks. 
 And, dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks. 
 
 And music of kind voices ever nigh. 
 And, when my last sand twinkled in the glass, 
 Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass. 
 
 William C. Bryant.
 
 October 2. 
 
 Two persons took trouble in vain, and used fruitless 
 endeavors, — he who acquired wealth without enjoying it, 
 and he who taught wisdom but did not practise it. How 
 much soever you may study science, when you do not act 
 wisely you are ignorant. The beast whom they load with 
 books is not profoundly learned and wise : what knovveth 
 his empty skull whether he carrieth firewood or books? 
 
 Sadi. 
 
 Sorrow itself is not so hard to bear as the thought of 
 sorrow coming. Airy ghosts that work no harm do terrify 
 us more than men in steel with bloody purposes. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich. 
 
 It is a part of my religion not to hurt any man's feelings, 
 
 \V. D. Howard.
 
 October 3. 
 
 Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration. Both sea- 
 sons have their equinoxes, both their filmy, hazy air, their 
 ruddy forest tints, their cold rains, their drenching fogs, 
 their mystic moons ; both have the same solar light and 
 warmth, the same rays of the sun ; yet, after all, how dif- 
 ferent the feelings which they inspire ! One is the morn- 
 ing, the other the evening : one is youth, the other is age. 
 
 yoliji Burroughs. 
 
 O HAPPY day, returned once more, 
 
 With golden plenty still replete ! 
 As though she never gave before. 
 
 Earth pours her treasures at our feet. 
 
 More rich than Autumn's robe of leaves 
 Should be the garments of our praise. 
 
 And ampler than her ample sheaves 
 The charities that crown our days. 
 
 Harriet M. Kimball.
 
 October 4. 
 
 God's finger-touch is on the hills : 
 
 The leaves beneath it gleam and glow, 
 
 Till the strange splendor overfills 
 
 Their trembling life, and lays them low. 
 
 So ardent souls, by life divine 
 Enkindled, light our gloomy day, 
 
 A little while before us shine. 
 
 Then, spent with glory, pass away. 
 
 There is only one stimulant that never fails, and yet 
 never intoxicates, — Duty. Duty puts a blue sky over 
 every man, — up in his heart, maybe, — into which the 
 skylark, happiness, always goes singing. 
 
 G. D. Prentice.
 
 October 5. 
 
 Though a gem be worn on the feet, and glass on the 
 
 head, yet glass is glass, and a gem a gem. 
 
 Hindu. 
 
 Grief is always conceited. It always thinks its case 
 peculiar and unmatched. 
 
 Beecher. 
 
 Smile not at the legend as vain, that once in holy hands 
 a worthless stone became a heap of silver. Let thy alche- 
 mist be contentment, and stone or ore shall be equal to 
 
 thee. 
 
 Persian. 
 
 All acts performed under a false guise are paths lead- 
 ing to death. 
 
 Hindu.
 
 October 6. 
 
 Eve was the first woman who gathered leaves during 
 the fall. 
 
 Build a little fence of trust 
 
 Around to-day : 
 Fill the space with loving work, 
 
 And therein stay. 
 Peer not through the sheltering bars, 
 
 At to-morrow : 
 God will help thee bear what comes 
 
 Of joy or sorrow. 
 
 Mrs, M. F. Butts. 
 
 When Eve upon the first of men 
 
 The apple pressed with specious cant, 
 
 Oh, what a thousand pities then 
 That Adam was not Adamant ! 
 
 T/iomas Hood.
 
 October 7. 
 
 May we look among the band of ministering spirits for 
 our own departed ones ? Whom would God be more likely 
 to send us? Have we in heaven a friend who knew us 
 to the heart's core, — a friend to wliom we have unfolded 
 our soul in its secret recesses, to whom we have confessed 
 our weaknesses and deplored our griefs? If we are to 
 have a ministering spirit, who better adapted? Have we 
 not memories which correspond to such a belief ? . . . 
 
 Many a one, we are confident, can remember such 
 things ; and whence come they ? Why do the children of 
 the pious mother, whose grave has grown green and smooth 
 with years, seem often to walk through perils and dangers 
 fearful and imminent as the crossing Mohammed's fiery 
 gulf on the edge of a drawn sword, yet walk unhurt? Ah ! 
 could we see that attendant form, that face where the angel 
 conceals not tlie mother, our question would be answered 
 
 Mrs. H. B. Stontfc.
 
 October 8. 
 
 THE TRUE WIFE. 
 
 Oftentimes I have seen a tall ship glide by against the 
 tide as if drawn by some invisible bowline, with a hundred 
 strong arms pulling it. Her sails were unfilled, her stream- 
 ers were drooping, she had neither side-wheel nor stern- 
 wheel ; still she moved on stately, in serene triumph, as 
 with her own life. But I knew, that on the other side of 
 the ship, hidden beneath the great bulk that swam so majes- 
 tically, there was a little toilsome steam-tug, with a heart of 
 fire and arms of iron, that was tugging it bravely on ; and 
 I knew, if the little steam-tug untwined her arm, and left 
 the ship, it would wallow and roll about, and drift hither 
 and thither, and go off with the refluent tide, no man knows 
 whither. And so I have known more than one genius, high- 
 docked, full-freighted, idle-sailed, gay-pennoned, but that 
 for the bare, toiling arms, and brave, warm-beating heart of 
 the faithful little wife, that nestles close to him, so that no 
 wind or wave could part them, would have gone down with 
 the stream, and have been heard of no more. 
 
 O. IV. Holmes.
 
 October 9. 
 
 Would you not think that a splendid sunset had fallen 
 down in fragments on the isle called Beautiful, and set it 
 all a-blaze? The woods are on fire, yet they burn not; 
 Beauty subdues the flame ; and there, as in a many-tinted 
 tabernacle, has Color pitched his royal residence, and reigns 
 in glory beyond that of any Oriental king. 
 
 Christopher North. 
 
 Strength is promised according to your day, but not 
 according to your morrow. 
 
 Cardinal Newman says, " It is almost a definition of a 
 gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain." If 
 the cardinal is correct, and can prove his statement, it is 
 pretty rough on the dentists. We are sorry for those excel- 
 lent men, but that definition lets them clear out. 
 
 Bnidctt.
 
 October lO. 
 
 There's many a trouble 
 
 Would break like a bubble, 
 And into the waters of Lethe depart, 
 
 Did we not rehearse it, 
 
 And tenderly nurse it, 
 And give it a permanent place in the heart. 
 
 There's many a sorrow 
 
 Would vanish to-morrow, 
 Were we but willing to furnish the wings : 
 
 So sadly intruding, 
 
 And quietly brooding, 
 It hatches all sorts of horrible things. 
 
 Tins ley's Magazine. 
 
 A WIDE-SPREADING, hopcful disposition is your only true 
 umbiella in this vale of tears. 
 
 T. B. Aldrich.
 
 October 11. 
 
 For myself I made an excuse for poor Anna, knowing 
 slie supports upon her head the ivoi'7-y-pole. I dare say 
 people do not know generally what this infliction is ; 
 although they themselves probably bear one always about 
 witli them, sprouting out of their brains. 
 
 An Art Student in Mujtich. 
 
 I DO not wonder at the superstition of the ancient 
 Magians, who, in the morning of the world, went up to 
 the hill-tops of Central Asia, and, ignorant of the true 
 God, adored the most glorious work of his hand. But I 
 am filled with amazement, when I am told, that in this 
 enlightened age, and in the heart of the Christian world, 
 there are persons who can witness this daily manifestation 
 of the power and wisdom of the Creator, and yet say 
 in their hearts, " There is no God." 
 
 Edward E^'cro**.
 
 October 12. 
 
 Sculptors of life are we, as we stand, 
 
 With our souls uncarved before us, 
 Waiting the hour when at God's command, 
 
 Our life-dream passes o'er us. 
 If we carve it yet on the yielding stone. 
 
 With many a sharp incision, 
 Its heavenly beauty shall be our own. 
 
 Our lives, — that angel vision. 
 
 Bishop Doane. 
 
 There is a beautiful spirit breathing now 
 Its mellow richness on the clustered trees, 
 And, from a beaker full of richest d3'es, 
 Pouring new glory on the autumn woods. 
 
 Lcngfellow.
 
 October 13. 
 
 AUTUMN SONG. 
 
 Red leaf, gold leaf, 
 
 Flutter down the wind : 
 Life is brief, oh ! life is brief. 
 But Mother Earth is kind ; 
 From her dear bosom ye shall spring 
 To new blossoming. 
 
 The red leaf, the gold leaf, 
 They have had their way ; 
 Love is long if life be brief, — 
 Life is but a day ; 
 And Love from Grief and Death shall spring 
 To new blossoming. 
 
 Ellen Mackay HiitcJiitison,
 
 October 14. 
 
 "And there shall be no night there; and they need no 
 candle, neither light of the sun." 
 
 Religion is a cheerful thing : so far from being always 
 
 at cuffs with good-humor, that it is inseparably united 
 
 to it. 
 
 Marquis of Halifax, 
 
 Is Christ in us? be ours the glorious dower, 
 
 To show the Saviour shining in our face, 
 And, through our eyes forth-putting his sweet power, 
 
 To help the weak and wayward with his grace : 
 
 Oh ! let not sin in us those windows dim. 
 
 Through which the world might catch some glimpse of 
 
 him. 
 
 R. Wilton.
 
 October 15. 
 
 My heart glows with hope for the welfare of man ; 
 
 I pray for my fellows, and help when I can ; 
 I see through the distance of ages to be, 
 The many grown wiser, made happy and free, 
 
 When Jones, interrupting, says, " Man is a knave, 
 
 And, if not a tyrant, a fool or a slave." 
 
 I answer, "There's kind human flesh on my bones 
 Get out of my sunshine, cadaverous Jones." 
 
 Charles Mackay. 
 
 We rise by things that are 'neath our feet, 
 By what we have mastered of good and gain, 
 By the pride deposed and passion slain. 
 
 And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. 
 
 J. G. Hclland.
 
 October 16. 
 
 COURTESY. 
 
 William Wirt's letter to his daughter on the "small, 
 sweet courtesies of life," contains a passage from which a 
 deal of happiness might be learned : " I want to tell you 
 a secret. The way to make yourself pleasing to others, is 
 to show that you care for them. The world is like the 
 miller at Mansfield, ' who cared for nobody, no, not he, 
 because nobody cared for him.' And the whole world 
 will serve you so if you give them the same cause. Let 
 every one, therefore, see that you do care for them, by 
 showing them what Sterne so happily calls ' the small, 
 sweet courtesies,' in which there is no parade ; whose 
 voice is to still, to ease ; and which manifest themselves 
 by tender and affectionate looks, and little kind acts of 
 attention, giving others the preference in every little 
 enjoyment at the table, in the field, walking, sitting, or 
 standin;:."
 
 October 17. 
 
 There are no times in life when opportunity, the 
 chance to be and do, gathers so richly about the soul as 
 when it has to suffer. Then every thing depends on 
 whether the man turns to the lower or the higher helps. 
 If he resorts to mere expedients and tricks, the opportu- 
 nity is lost. He comes out no richer nor greater; nay, 
 he comes out harder, poorer, smaller, for his pain. But, 
 if he turns to God, the hour of suffering is the turning- 
 hour of his Hfe. 
 
 Pliillips Brooks 
 
 What is mind? No matter. 
 What is matter? Never mind. 
 What is soul? It is immaterial. 
 
 Many people find their only happiness in forcing them- 
 selves to be unhappy.
 
 October 18. 
 
 October glows on every cheek, 
 
 October shines in every eye ; 
 While up the hill and down the dale 
 
 Her crimson banners fly. 
 
 Elaine Goodale. 
 
 Cheerfulness in large doses is the best medicine one 
 
 can take along in his out-door tramps. 
 
 J. T. Fields. 
 
 Next to the rhinoceros, there is nothing in the world 
 armed like a woman. And she knows it. 
 
 yerrold. 
 
 The October day is a dream, bright and beautiful as 
 the rainbow, and as brief and fugitive. 
 
 W. H. Gibson.
 
 October 19. 
 
 Of all the bores whom man in his folly hesitates to 
 
 hang, and Heaven in its mysterious wisdom suffers to 
 
 propagate their species, the most insufferable is the teller 
 
 of "good stories." 
 
 De Quincey. 
 
 An opportunity is like a pin in the sweepings : you 
 
 catch sight of it just as it flies away from yju, and gets 
 
 buried again. 
 
 Mrs. Whitti£y. 
 
 Coin^ each affliction, whether light or grave, 
 God's messenger sent down to thee. 
 
 Aubrey de Vere.
 
 October 20. 
 
 We often fail by searching far and wide 
 
 For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn 
 
 We ask fair wind and favorable tide : 
 
 From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn 
 
 To make occasion not to be denied. 
 
 Against the sheer, precipitous mountain side, 
 Thorwaldsen carved his lion of Lucerne. 
 
 There is many a thmg which the world calls disap- 
 pointment, but there is no such word in the dictionary 
 of faith. What to others are disappointments are to 
 behevers intimations of the will of God. 
 
 N^ewton. 
 
 Most of our comforts grow up between crosses.
 
 October 21. 
 
 We can never go back, but there is not a point from 
 which we may not go upward. 
 
 Man without rehgion is the creature of circumstances ; 
 but religion is above all circumstances, and will lift him 
 up above them. 
 
 Archdeacon Hare. 
 
 We can never be too careful 
 
 What the seed our hands shall sow : 
 Love from love is sure to ripen, 
 
 Hate from hate is sure to grow. 
 Seed of good or ill we scatter 
 
 Heedlessly along our way, 
 But a glad or grievous fruitage 
 
 Waits us at the harvest day.
 
 October 22. 
 
 Dear reader, in a world made by a loving Father, we 
 are all of us children of good-fortune, if we only have wit 
 enough to find it out as we stroll along. 
 
 E. E. Hale. 
 
 SCATTER BLESSINGS ROUND. 
 
 Sure they of many blessings 
 
 Should scatter many blessings round, 
 As laden boughs in autumn fling 
 
 Their ripe fruit to the ground. 
 
 If God made the world, you need not fear that he can't 
 take care of so small a part as yourself. It is better, there- 
 fore, to trust than to grumble.
 
 October 23. 
 
 But it may be, in a diviner air 
 
 Transfigured and made pure, 
 
 The harvest that we deemed as wholly lost, 
 
 Waits perfect and mature ; 
 
 And the faint heart, that now defeated grieves, 
 
 May yet stand smiling 'mid abundant sheaves. 
 
 Mary L. Ritter. 
 
 A SACRED burden is this life ye bear: 
 Look on it, lift it, bear it solemnly, 
 Stand up and walk beneath it steadfastly. 
 Fail not for sorrow, falter not for sin. 
 But onward, upward, till the goal ye win. 
 
 Frances Ketnble.
 
 October 24. 
 
 In this the art of living lies : 
 
 To want no more than may suffice, 
 
 And make that little do. 
 
 Cotton. 
 
 The gods give nothing really good and beautiful without 
 
 labor and diligence. 
 
 XenopJion. 
 
 Many persons sigh for death when it seems far off; but 
 the inclination vanishes when the boat upsets, or the loco- 
 motive runs off the track, or the measles set in. 
 
 T. IV. Ili'^niison. 
 
 There never comes a shadow 
 That the sunshine hath not made.
 
 October 25. 
 
 It takes a touch of adversity to show whether a man is 
 a man at all, just as it needs the touch of frost to bring 
 out the glories of the trees. Even on a dark day in Octo- 
 ber, how royally the woods flame out ! Under what glorious 
 banners they march to meet the winter ! \Vhat unmatclied 
 splendors, rich as sunset skies, tender as the rainbow, shine 
 out over the whole earth ! Those splendors are the treas- 
 ures that the trees were silently laying up when the sum- 
 mer's sun flooded them all day long ; and shall a man in 
 his time of prosperity lay up no store of sunshine in his 
 inner self, whereby, when darker days come on, he shall 
 be luminous with courage and good cheer ? 
 
 One of those October days, when to breathe the air is 
 like drinking wine, and every touch of the wind against 
 one's face is a caress ; you have a sense of companion- 
 ship ; it is a day that loves you. 
 
 Sara/i ycwett.
 
 October 26. 
 
 There is one sin which, it seems to me, is everywhere and 
 by everybody underestimated, tolerated with undue toler- 
 ance, and quite too much overlooked in our valuations of 
 character. It is the sin of fretting. 
 
 He who frets is never the one who mends. And when 
 the fretter is one who is beloved, whose nearness of relation 
 to us makes his fretting at the weather seem almost like a 
 personal reproach to us, then the misery of it becomes 
 indeed insupportable. Most men call fretting a minor 
 fault, — a foible, and not a vice. 
 
 There is no vice, except drunkenness, which can so 
 utterly destroy the peace, the happiness, of a home. 
 
 H. H. 
 
 It takes a heroine to be economical. 
 
 Miss Muloch.
 
 October 27. 
 
 The hills are bright with maples yet; 
 
 But down the level land 
 The beech-leaves rustle in the wind, 
 
 As dry and brown as sand. 
 The clouds in bars of rusty red 
 
 Along the hill-tops glow; 
 
 And in the still, sharp air the frost 
 
 Is like a dream of snow. 
 
 Alice Cary. 
 
 Fire ! fire ! upon the maple-bough 
 
 The red flames of the frost. 
 Fire 1 fire ! by burning woodbine, see, 
 
 The cottage-roof is crossed. 
 The hills are hid by smoky haze ; 
 Look, how the roadside sumachs blaze ; 
 And on the withered leaves below, 
 The fallen leaves like bonfires glow. 
 
 Marian Douglas.
 
 October 28. 
 
 MY CREED. 
 
 I HOLD that Christian grace abounds 
 Where charity is seen ; that when 
 
 We cHmb to heaven, 'tis on the rounds 
 Of love to men. 
 
 'Tis not the wide phylactery, 
 
 Nor stubborn fast, nor stated prayers. 
 That make us saints : we judge the tree 
 
 By what it bears. 
 
 And when a man can live apart 
 From works, on theologic trust, 
 
 I know the blood about his heart 
 Is dry as dust. 
 
 Alice Cary.
 
 October 29. 
 
 A GOOD heart is the sun and the moon, — or, rather, 
 the sun ; for it shines bright, and never changes. 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 " Lawics ! " exclaimed Mrs. Partington, " what monsters 
 these master-builders must be ! I am told some on 'em 
 have as many as a hundred hands ! " 
 
 "Tommy," said a mother to her seven-year-old boy, "you 
 must not interrupt me when I am talking with ladies. You 
 must wait till we stop, and then you can talk." 
 
 " But you never stop," retorted the boy.
 
 October 30. 
 
 No sorrow upon the landscape weighs, 
 No grief for the vanished summer days, 
 But a sense of peaceful and calm repose, 
 Like that which age in its autumn knows. 
 
 The spring-time longings are past and gone, 
 The passions of summer no longer are known, 
 The harvest is gathered ; and Autumn stands 
 Serenely thoughtful, with folded hands. 
 
 O glorious autumn ! thus serene. 
 
 Thus living, and loving all that has been 1 
 
 Thus calm and contented let me be 
 
 When the autumn of age shall come to me. 
 
 A non.
 
 October 31. 
 
 Bright yellow, red, and orange, 
 
 The leaves come down in hosts ; 
 The trees are Indian princes, 
 
 But soon they'll turn to ghosts; 
 The leathery pears and apples 
 
 Hang russet on the bough : 
 It's autumn, autumn, autumn late ; 
 
 'Twill soon be winter now. 
 
 William Allinsham. 
 
 In the clime of the spirit alone, Love ! 
 
 Life's seasons are darksome or bright. 
 Encompassed with joy, like the sunshine. 
 
 Or shadowed with grief, like the night ! 
 
 Paul H. Hayne.
 
 November 1. 
 
 No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthy ease, 
 
 No comfortable feel in any member. 
 No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees, 
 No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds, 
 November ! 
 
 Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a 
 distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. 
 
 Carlyle. 
 
 It is well ! 
 God's ways are always right ; 
 And love is o'er them all. 
 Though far above our sic;ht..
 
 November 2. 
 
 Wrung with barren grief, November lies, 
 An angry tumult raging in her brain, 
 
 Catching her broken breath in shuddering sighs, 
 With clenched hands, tossing in convulsive pain. 
 
 Elaine Goodale. 
 
 There are nettles everywhere, 
 But smooth green grasses are more common still 
 The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 
 
 Mrs. Brownins'. 
 
 Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past. 
 And neither fear nor wish the approaches of the last 
 
 Cowley.
 
 November 3. 
 
 Why not adopt from Japan, with her pottery and her 
 more trivial quaintnesses, that poetic siniphcity which 
 makes yearly holidays of the "flower-viewing"? It is 
 easy, amid the hills, to mark the season with flowers. 
 Nay, we need but lend our eyes, and they themselves 
 will_ gently lead us on. Unbidden they come. Fiom the 
 arbutus, awakening from her winter-sleeping buds, purer 
 by contrast with the rusted evergreen of her leaves ; the 
 apple-blossoms, nature's bounty, though man's possession ; 
 the mountain laurel, flushing the very highest hill-tops ; 
 the gay field-flowers, daisies and buttercups, and nodding 
 spikes of airy purple grasses ; the lilies, of the field and 
 of the wood, — on to the innumerable clouds of the 
 asters, and the utter lavishness of golden-rod, — there is 
 scarcely a pause. For these are but a few : their name 
 is legion ; and scarcely can one choose between them, 
 save that we love the best the one that is here. 
 
 When the fringed gentian lifts her eye to heaven in 
 still, secluded spots amid the woods, a summer will have 
 come and gone. 
 
 D. H. R. Goodale.
 
 November 4. 
 
 '" What shall I do to be forever known ? " 
 
 Thy duty ever. 
 "This did full many who yet sleep unknown." 
 
 Oh, never, never ! 
 Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown 
 
 Whom thou know'st not ? 
 By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown ; 
 
 Divine their lot. 
 
 " What shall I do to gain eternal life ? 
 
 Discharge aright 
 The simple dues with which each day is rife ?" 
 
 Yea, with thy might. 
 Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise 
 
 Will life be fled ; 
 AVhile he who ever acts as conscience cries. 
 
 Shall live, though dead. 
 
 Schiller.
 
 November 5. 
 
 And should the twihght darken into night, 
 
 And sorrow grow to anguish, be thou strong ; 
 
 Thou art in God, and nothing can go wrong 
 Which a fresh life-pulse cannot set aright : 
 That thou dost know the darkness, proves the light. 
 
 Weep if thou wilt, but weep not all too long ; 
 
 Or weep and work, for work will lead to song. 
 
 And do not fear to hope. 
 
 Each time we smell the autumn's dying scent. 
 We know the primrose time will come again : 
 Not more we hope, nor less would soothe our pain. 
 
 Be bounteous in thy faith, for not misspent 
 
 Is confidence unto the Father lent : 
 
 Thy need is sown and rooted for his rain. 
 
 Work on. One day, beyond all thoughts of praise, 
 A sunny joy will crown thee with its rays, — 
 No other than thy need, thy recompense. 
 
 Geonre Macdonald.
 
 November 6. 
 
 TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 
 
 Thou waitest late, and com'st alone, 
 When woods are bare, and birds are flown, 
 And frosts and shortening days portend 
 The aged year is near its end. 
 
 Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye 
 Look through its fringes to the sky. 
 Blue, blue as if that sky let fall 
 A flower from its cerulean wall. 
 
 I would that thus, when I shall see 
 The hour of death draw near to me, 
 Hope, blossoming within my heart. 
 May look to heaven as I depart. 
 
 Bryant.
 
 November 7. 
 
 THE FEAST-TIME OF THE YEAR. 
 
 This is the feast-time of tlie year, 
 
 Wlien hearts grow warmer, and home more dear; 
 
 When autumn's crimson torch expires, 
 
 To flash again in winter fires ; 
 
 And they who tracked October's flight, 
 
 In charmed circle sit and praise 
 
 The goodly logs' triumphant blaze. 
 
 HaiTtct McEwen Kimball. 
 
 We have had a slight frost, the first tender touch of Win- 
 ter's jewelled finger : a premonition, — no more. How 
 kindly the old dame moves in the country — how orderly ! 
 How cleverly she lays every thing to sleep, and then folds 
 over all her delicate drapery ! 
 
 F. S. Cozzens.
 
 November 8. 
 
 'Tis the Sabbath-rest 
 Of Nature ere she yields to Winter's power. 
 
 Street. 
 
 Better to weave in the web of hfe 
 
 A bright and golden filling, 
 
 And to do God's will with a ready heart, 
 
 And hands that are ready and willing, 
 
 Than to snap the delicate, minute threads 
 
 Of our curious lives asunder, 
 
 And then blame Heaven for the tangled ends. 
 
 And sit and grieve and wonder. 
 
 You may know mock modesty as you do mock turtle, 
 from its being the product of a calf's head.
 
 November 9. 
 
 Wh\', O man ! do you vituperate the world ? The world 
 is most beautiful, framed by the best and most perfect rea- 
 son ; though to you indeed it may be unclean and evil, 
 because you are unclean and evil in a good world. 
 
 A far si I ins Ficimis. 
 
 "W , do you know why you are like a donkey?" — 
 
 "Like a donkey?" echoed W , opening his eyes wide: 
 
 " No, I don't." — " Do you give it up ? " — " I do." — " Be- 
 cause your better half is stubbornness herself." — " That's not 
 bad. Ha, ha ! I'll give that to my wife when I get home." 
 
 " Mrs. W ," he asked, as he sat down to supper, " do 
 
 you know why I am like a donkey?" He waited a mo- 
 ment, expecting his wife to give it up. But she didn't. 
 She looked at him somewhat commiseratingly, as she an- 
 swered, " I suppose because you were born so."
 
 November lO. 
 
 I'm all hunk on savin' nickels ; 
 But a little taste o' fun 
 Now and then don't hurt a feller, 
 Helps to make the old thing run ; 
 Makes the days more flush o' sunshine ; 
 Makes yer work go off more gay : 
 Ef you're goin' to grind an organ, 
 Have a monkey, — that's my way. 
 
 D. L. Proudfit. 
 
 I AM not earth-born, though I here delay. 
 
 Hope's child, I summon infiniter powers, 
 And laugh to see the mild and sunny day 
 
 Smile on the shrunk and th-in autumnal hours : 
 I laugh, for hope hath happy place with me ; 
 If my bark sinks, 'tis to another sea. 
 
 William Ellery Channing.
 
 November U. 
 
 What if a river should say to a rill, 
 
 " If you weren't too lazy, you'd turn a mill : 
 
 Study my method, and try to be 
 
 A rushing, roaring river like me ! " 
 
 What if a goose should teach a wren. 
 Or an eagle try to follow a hen ! 
 What if the monkeys should all agree 
 That there ought to be uniformity ! 
 
 What if a man should say to another, 
 
 " Differ with me, and you're not my brother : 
 
 I have the truth as oracles tell ; 
 
 Go with me, or — you'll go to hell ! " 
 
 M. F. Btitis.
 
 November 12. 
 
 CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 
 
 Ye come, the heart to gladden with your smile, — 
 A gleam of brightness ere the winter near, — 
 Chasing our sadness with your magic will. 
 Happy their lot, like you, who soothe and cheer, 
 And life's November brighten and beguile. 
 
 The year grows old : summer's wld crown of roses 
 Has fallen and faded in the woodland ways. 
 
 On all the earth a tranquil light reposes 
 Through the still, dreamy days. 
 
 And from the garden-lawn comes, soft and clear, 
 The robin's warble from the leafless spray, — 
 
 The low, sweet Angelus of the dying year, 
 Passing in light away.
 
 November 13. 
 
 TAKE HEART. 
 
 All day the stormy wind has blown 
 From off the dark and rainy sea ; 
 
 No bird has past the window flown ; 
 
 The only song has been the moan 
 The wind made in the willow-tree. 
 
 This is the Summer's burial time : 
 
 She died when dropped the earliest leaves; 
 And cold upon her rosy prime 
 Fell down the Autumn's frosty rime, — 
 
 Yet I am not as one that grieves. 
 
 R. T. F. 
 
 Labor, the symbc^ of man's punishment ; 
 Labor, the secret of man's happiness. 
 
 ya/nes Montgomery.
 
 November 14. 
 
 'Tis ever wrong to say a good man dies. 
 
 Callimachus. 
 
 And, as she looked around, she saw how Death, the con- 
 soler, 
 
 Laying his hand upon many a heart, had healed it for- 
 ever. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 O THOU by winds of grief o'erblown, 
 Beside some golden summer's bier. 
 Take heart ! Thy birds are only flown, 
 Thy blossoms sleeping, tearful sown. 
 To greet thee in the immortal year ! 
 
 Edna Dean Proctor.
 
 November 15. 
 
 An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness, 
 to serve God with. 
 
 Fuller. 
 
 The habit of looking on the best side of every event is 
 
 worth more than a thousand pounds a year, 
 
 Johnson. 
 
 He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the 
 
 loom, and will find the flaw when he may have forgotten 
 
 its cause. 
 
 H. W. Beecher. 
 
 'Tis sweet, as year by year we lose 
 Friends out of sight, in faith to muse 
 How grows in Paradise our store. 
 
 Keble.
 
 November 16. 
 
 Those who are afflicted, and do not afflict in return, 
 who suffer every thing for the love of God, and bear their 
 burdens with a cheerful heart, shall be, according to the 
 promise, invincible as the rising sun in his might. 
 
 The Tabmid. 
 
 Death's but a path that must be trod. 
 If man would ever pass to God. 
 
 Panicll. 
 
 The tree 
 Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enriched 
 By its own fallen leaves ; and man is made. 
 In heart and spirit, from deciduous hopes. 
 And things that seem to perish, 
 
 Hciiiy Taylor.
 
 November 17. 
 
 Hannah INIore says, " In my judgment, one of the best 
 proofs that sorrow has had any right effect upon the mind, 
 is, that it has not incapacitated you from business, — your 
 business being your duty." 
 
 AGAINST IMPATIENCE. 
 
 Be not impatient, O Soul ! 
 
 Thou movest on to thy goal. 
 
 Be not full of care : 
 
 In the universe thou hast thy share. 
 
 Be not afraid, but trust : 
 
 Thou wilt suffer nothing unjust. 
 
 Anon. 
 
 In tracing the shade, I shall find out the sun. 
 
 Owen Meredith.
 
 November 18. 
 
 HIDDEN IN LIGHT. 
 
 When first the sun dispels the cloudy night, 
 The glad hills catch the radiance from afar, 
 And smile for joy. We say, " How fair they are. 
 Tree, rock, and heather-bloom so clear and bright ! " 
 But when the sun draws near in westering night, 
 Infolding all in one transcendent blaze 
 Of sunset glow, we trace them not, but gaze 
 And wonder at the glorious, holy light. 
 Come nearer. Sun of righteousness ! that we, 
 Whose swift, short hours of day so swiftly run. 
 So overflowed with love and light may be, 
 Lost in the glory of the nearing sun. 
 That not our light, but thine, may brightly shine, 
 New praise to thee through our poor lives be won ! 
 
 Frances Ruiley Havergal.
 
 November 19. 
 
 Boughs are daily rifled 
 By the gusty thieves, 
 
 And the book of nature 
 Getteth short of leaves. 
 
 Round the tops of houses, 
 Swallows, as they flit, 
 
 Give, like yearly tenants, 
 Notices to quit. 
 
 So November endeth, 
 
 Cold, and most perverse ; 
 
 But the month that follows, 
 Sure will pinch us worse. 
 
 T. Hood. 
 
 Be lighted from within by unseen Guest, 
 
 Send out warm rays of love to all distrest, 
 
 And lure them, by your shining, into rest. 
 
 K. H. J.
 
 November 20. 
 
 Forenoon and afternoon and night ; 
 Forenoon and afternoon and night ; 
 Forenoon and afternoon, — the empty rhyme 
 Repeats itself. No more ? Yes : this is hfe. 
 Make this forenoon subhme, this afternoon 
 A psahn, this night a prayer, and hfe 
 Is conquered, and thy crown is won. 
 
 So brief the time to smile, 
 Why darken we the air 
 
 With frowns and tears, the while 
 We nurse despair? 
 
 Stand in the sunshine sweet, 
 And treasure every ray. 
 
 Nor seek with stubborn feet 
 The darksome way. 
 
 Celia Thaxter.
 
 November 21. 
 
 A THANKSGIVING. 
 
 Lord, for the erring thought 
 Not into evil wrouglit ; 
 Lord, for the wicked will 
 Betrayed and baffled still ; 
 For the heart from itself kept, — 
 Our thanksgiving accept. 
 
 For ignorant hopes that were 
 Broken to our blind prayer; 
 For pain, death, sorrow, sent 
 Unto our chastisement ; 
 For all loss of seeming good, — 
 Quicken our gratitude. 
 
 Williaiii Dean Howells.
 
 November 22. 
 
 More welcome than voluptuous gales 
 This keen, crisp air as conscience clear : 
 
 November breathes no flattering tales, — 
 The plain truth-teller of the year. 
 
 Who wins her heart, and he alone. 
 Knows she has sweetness all her own. 
 
 This is the month of sunrise skies, 
 Intense with molten mist and flame. 
 
 Out of the purple deeps arise 
 
 Colors no painter yet could name. 
 
 Gold lilies and the cardinal flower 
 Were pale against this gorgeous hour. 
 
 Lucy Larcom. 
 
 The sun, — God's crest upon his azure shield, the heavens. 
 
 Bailey.
 
 November 23. 
 
 Yet will I try to keep the heart with diligence, nor ever 
 fear that the sun is gone out because I shiver in the cold 
 and dark. 
 
 Marm7-et Fuller. 
 
 Upwards steals the life of man, 
 As the sunshine from the wall, 
 From the wall into the sky, 
 From the roof along the spire. 
 Ah ! the souls of those that die, 
 Are but sunbeams lifted higher. 
 
 LongfcUmn. 
 
 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the 
 kingdom of their Father. 
 
 I\[attlicii) xiii. 43.
 
 November 24. 
 
 It is a little thing to speak a phrase 
 
 Of common comfort, which by daily use 
 
 Has almost lost its sense ; yet on the ear 
 
 Of him who thought to die unmoumed, 'twill fall 
 
 Like choicest music. 
 
 Tal/ourd. 
 
 It was only a glad "good-morning," 
 As she passed along the way; 
 
 But it spread the morning's glory 
 Over the livelong day. 
 
 Carlotia Perry. 
 
 On this earth there are many roads to heaven, and 
 
 each traveller supposes his own to be the best. But 
 
 they must all unite in one road at last. It is only 
 
 Omniscience can decide. 
 
 Eliza Leslie.
 
 November 25. 
 
 Old, — we are growing old ; 
 Going on through a beautiful road, 
 Finding earth a more blessed abode. 
 Nobler work by our hands to be wrought, 
 Freer paths for our hope and our thought. 
 
 Because of the beauty the years unfold, 
 
 We are cheerfully growing old. 
 
 Old, — we are growing old. 
 Going up where the sunshine is clear, 
 Watching grander horizons appear 
 Out of clouds that enveloped our youth, 
 Standing firm on tlie mountains of truth. 
 
 Because of the glory the years unfold, 
 
 We are joyfully growing old. 
 
 Lucy Larcom.
 
 November 26. 
 
 SONG. 
 
 O SPIRIT of the summer-time i 
 
 Bring back the roses to the dells, 
 The swallow from her distant clime, 
 
 The honey-bee from drowsy cells. 
 Bring back the friendship of the sun ; 
 
 The gilded evenings calm and late, 
 When merry children homeward run. 
 
 And peeping stars bid lovers wait. 
 Bring back the singing and the scent 
 
 Of meadow-lands at dewy prime ; 
 Oh, bring again my heart's content, 
 
 The spirit of the summer-time ! 
 
 IV. A. 
 
 Heaven never helps the men who will not act. 
 
 Sophocles
 
 November 27. 
 
 Suns may fall 
 
 Or flash, dear heart ! I speak, and call 
 
 Your soul unto its fate. 
 
 Tread bravely down life's evening slope, 
 
 Before the night comes, — do not grope. 
 
 Forever shines some small, sweet hope ; 
 
 And God is not too late. 
 
 E. S. Phelps. 
 
 The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 Montaisne. 
 
 If there is a virtue in the world at which we should 
 
 always aim, it is cheerfulness. 
 
 Bnlwer Lytton.
 
 November 28. 
 
 HOPE. 
 
 Oh ! hope's not a simple, a meaningless name, 
 
 Within the fool's brains generated : 
 The heart ever burns in loud "notes to proclaim 
 
 For purposes grand we're created. 
 Whenever the innermost voice aught repeats, 
 The soul, in its longings, that voice never cheats. 
 
 ScJiille7\ 
 
 Why shouldst thou feel with sorrow 
 About to-morrow, 
 
 My heart? 
 One watches all with care most true : 
 Doubt not that He will give thee, too, 
 
 Thy part. 
 
 Paul Fleming.
 
 November 29. 
 
 He comes, — he comes, — the Frost Spirit comes ! let us 
 
 meet him as we may, 
 And turn with the light of the parlor-fire his evil power 
 
 away ; 
 And gather closer the circle round, when that firelight 
 
 dances high, 
 And laugh at the shriek of the bafiled Fiend as his 
 
 sounding wing goes by ! 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 Soul, be but inly bright, 
 All outer things must smile, must catch 
 The strong, transcendent light. 
 
 T. H. Gill. 
 
 " The liglit shall shine upon thy ways."
 
 November 30. 
 
 THE LAST DAY OF AUTUMN. 
 
 Like a spirit glorified, 
 The angel of the year departs, lays down 
 His robes once green in spring. 
 Or bright with summer's blue ; 
 
 And having done his mission on the earth. 
 Filling ten thousand vales with golden corn, 
 Orchards with rosy fruit. 
 And scattering flowers around. 
 
 He lingers for a moment in the west. 
 
 With the declining sun sheds over all 
 
 A pleasant farewell smile. 
 
 And so returns to God. 
 
 From the German.
 
 December 1. 
 
 With his ice and snow and rime, 
 
 Let bleak Winter sternly come : 
 
 There is not a sunnier clime 
 
 Than the love-lit winter home. 
 
 A lark A. Watts. 
 
 There is a charm in the sudden and total disappear- 
 ance even of the grassy green. All " the old familiar 
 faces " of Nature are for a while out of sight and out of 
 mind. That white silence shed by heaven over earth 
 carries with it, far and wide, the pure peace of another 
 region, — almost another life. We are glad to feel our 
 whole being complexioned by the passionless repose. 
 
 Though Winter howleth at the gate. 
 
 In our hearts 'tis summer still. 
 
 Epes Sargent.
 
 December 2. 
 
 You ask to conquer in the strife : 
 
 Take, then, your chosen part. 
 I'd rather fold within my Hfe 
 
 The sunshine of the heart. 
 
 I'd rather know how thus to win 
 
 A bahii from every pain ; 
 Thus, even from the shade of sin, 
 
 Some purer strength to gain ; 
 To hve in hope, to trust in right. 
 
 To smile when shadows start. 
 To walk through darkness as through light. 
 
 With sunshine in the heart. 
 
 Mary E. Blake. 
 
 Men should not think too much of themselves, and 
 jet a man should always be careful not to forget himself.
 
 December 3. 
 
 I HAVE always noticed, that, if you want people to laugh, 
 you had better make a bad old joke than a good new one : 
 for, in the first place, every one knows the point of the 
 former ; and, in the second, people laugh out of pure com- 
 passion for the perpetrator, because by experience they know 
 how painful is the position of one, who, after having delivered 
 himself of a Joe Miller, is disappointed of the expected 
 
 titter. 
 
 '■'■Angelina GushingtonP 
 
 This man might have been a Counsellor of State till 
 
 he spoke. 
 
 Ben yonson. 
 
 Wh.\t would have become of you if it had pleased 
 Providence to make the weather unchangeable, 
 
 Sydney Smith.
 
 December 4. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 Sad soul, dear heart, and why repine? 
 
 The melancholy tale is plain : 
 The leaves of spring, the summer flowers, 
 
 Have bloomed and died again. 
 
 Sad soul, dear heart, no more repine. 
 
 The tale is beautiful and plain : 
 Surely as winter taketh all, 
 
 The spring shall bring again. 
 
 T. B. Read. 
 
 A FRESH mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the 
 ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday. As to the 
 morrow, time enough to consider it when it becomes 
 to-day. 
 
 Bidwer Lytton.
 
 December 5. 
 
 "What she could" — not what she could not do — 
 
 not what she thought might be done — not what she 
 
 would like to do — not what she would do if she had 
 
 more time — not what somebody else thought she ought 
 
 to do — but "what she could." 
 
 IV. A. Shipf/ian. 
 
 Ah ! more than martyr's aureole, 
 And more than hero's heart of fire, 
 
 We need the humble strength of soul 
 Which daily toils and ills require. 
 
 Sweet Patience ! grant us, if you may, 
 
 An added grace for every day. 
 
 Elisabeth Akers Allen. 
 
 We ask advice, but we mean approbation. 
 
 CoLTON : Lacon.
 
 December 6. 
 
 THE GOLDEN CALENDAR. 
 
 Count not the years that hoarding Time has told, 
 Save by the starry memories in their train ; 
 Not by the vacant moons that wax and wane, 
 Not all the seasons' changing robes infold : 
 Look on the life whose record is unrolled ! 
 
 Bid thought, word, action, breathe, burn, strive again. 
 
 O. IF. Holmes. 
 
 You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheer- 
 ful people. Why not make that earnest effort to confer 
 that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is 
 gained if you never allow yourself to say any thing gloomy. 
 
 Mrs. L. M. Child. 
 
 You will find poetry nowhere unless you bring some 
 
 with you. 
 
 yoiibert.
 
 December 7. 
 
 Dear old songs forever new; 
 
 Some true love, and laughter too ; 
 Pleasant wit, and harmless fun, 
 And a dance when day is done ; 
 
 Music, friends so true and tried, 
 
 Whispered love by home fireside ; 
 Mirth at all times, — all together 
 Make sweet May of winter weather. 
 
 Alfred Domett. 
 
 In winter a fire is better than a muscat rose. 
 
 Persian. 
 
 The fire is winter's fruit. 
 
 Arabian.
 
 December 8. 
 
 Employment iz the grate boon ov life : a man with 
 nothing to do iz not haff so interesting a sight as a 
 ripening turnip. 
 
 Hunting for happiness iz like hunting for hens' eggs 
 under the barn : haff the time they are addled after yu 
 hav found them. 
 
 yosh Billings. 
 
 Have a purpose. A worthy purpose will speedily free the 
 
 mind and spirit of the mumps and measles, dyspepsia and 
 
 languor. 
 
 P. S. Boyd. 
 
 It has been said, and very truly, "Reputation is what 
 men think of us ; character is what God knows of us."
 
 December 9. 
 
 If sin be in tlie heart, 
 The fairest sky is foul, and sad the summer weather. 
 The eye no longer sees the lambs at play together, 
 The dull ear cannot hear the birds that sing so sweetly, 
 And all the joy of God's good earth is gone completely. 
 
 If sin be in the heart. 
 
 If peace be in the heart, 
 The wildest winter storm is full of solemn beauty. 
 The midnight lightning-flash but shows the path of duty, 
 Each living creature tells some new and joyous story. 
 The very trees and stones all catch a ray of glory, 
 
 If peace be in the heart. 
 
 Charles Fraticis Rkhanhon. 
 
 Conceit may puff a man up, but never prop him up. 
 
 Riiskiii.
 
 December lO. 
 
 It is a great and a noble thing to cover the blemishes 
 
 and to excuse the failings of a friend ; to draw a curtain 
 
 before his stains, and to display his perfections ; to bury 
 
 his weaknesses in silence, but to proclaim his vhtues 
 
 upon the housetop. 
 
 South. 
 
 This is the law of benefits between men : the one 
 ought to forget at once what he has given, and the other 
 ought never to forget what he has received. 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 "Some people," says Alphonse Karr, "are always find- 
 ing fault with Nature for putting thorns on roses : I 
 always thank her for having put roses on thorns."
 
 December 11. 
 
 So each shall mourn, in life's advance, 
 
 Dear hopes, dear friends, untimely killed, - 
 Shall grieve for many a forfeit chance. 
 
 And longing passion unfulfilled. 
 Amen, whatever fate be sent. 
 
 Pray God the heart may kindly glow, 
 Although the head with cares be bent, 
 
 And whitened with the winter snow. 
 
 Thackeray. 
 
 A CONTENTED Spirit is the sweetness of existence. 
 
 Dickens, 
 
 He is richly endowed who is cheaply diverted. 
 
 Italian Proverb.
 
 December 12. 
 
 The well-informed philosopher 
 Rejoices with a wholesome fear, 
 
 And hopes in spite of pain : 
 If Winter bellow from the north, 
 Soon the sweet Spring comes dancing forth, 
 
 And Nature laughs again. 
 
 If hinderances obstruct thy way. 
 
 
 Thy magnanimity display, 
 
 
 And let thy strength be seen ; 
 
 
 But, oh ! if fortune fill thy sail 
 
 
 With more than a propitious gale. 
 
 
 Take half thy canvas in. 
 
 
 
 Cowper. 
 
 Hope rules a land forever green. 
 
 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 »• 

 
 December 13. 
 
 No wonder that old age to-day draws his chair from 
 the fireside to the threshold, as if ready to go, wondering 
 why improvement and refinement should progress so 
 rapidly as to deprive the world of its sweetest and purest 
 pleasures. Yes : the philosopher's stone is buried in the 
 ashes of our fathers' firesides ; and yet we endure the 
 heated breath of Stygian furnaces and blank - looking 
 stoves, that have taken the place of genial hearthstones. 
 " Is the world," says Hawthorne, " so very bright that we 
 can afford to choke up such a domestic fountain of 
 gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened source, with- 
 out being conscious of a gloom?" 
 
 We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a 
 
 picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of 
 
 a good light. 
 
 Emerson.
 
 December 14. 
 
 All God's angels come to us disguised. 
 Sorrow and sickness, poverty and death, 
 One after other Uft their frowning masks ; 
 And we behold the seraph's face beneath, 
 All radiant with the glory and the calm, 
 Of having looked upon the front of God. 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 Stars lying in God's hand. 
 
 We know ye were not planned 
 
 Merely to light men on their midnight way. 
 
 Shine on, ye fiery stars ! 
 
 It may be through your bars 
 
 We shall pass upwards to eternal day. 
 
 Hamilton Aide.
 
 December 15. 
 
 Oh ! what concerns it him, whose way 
 Lies upward to the immortal dead, 
 
 That a few hairs are turning gray, 
 Or one more year of life has fled? 
 
 Swift years ! but teach me how to bear, 
 To feel and act with strength and skill, 
 
 To reason wisely, nobly dare, 
 
 And speed your courses as ye will. 
 
 Andrews Norton. 
 
 Oh ! dear old year, I wronged a Father's kindness ; 
 
 I would not trust him with my load of care ; 
 I stumbled on in weariness and blindness ; 
 
 And, lo ! he blessed me with an answered prayer. 
 
 Sarah Doudney.
 
 December 16. 
 
 Find us a better answer to the questionings of our 
 spirits than Christ has furnished ! Sliow us a better 
 ideal of manhood than he has given ! Bring us a better 
 testimony to the hfe beyond the grave than he has 
 borne ! Ah ! for four thousand years the world tried in 
 vain to return to God ; and, now that he has come him- 
 self to be the way, we will not give him up for any 
 negation. 
 
 William M. Taylor. 
 
 I WOULD rather dwell in the dim fog of superstition, 
 than in air rarefied to nothing by the air-pump of un- 
 belief; in which the panting breast expires, vainly and 
 
 convulsively gasping for breath. 
 
 Richter. 
 
 The noblest mind the best contentment has. 
 
 Spenser.
 
 December 17. 
 
 In December ring 
 
 Every day the chimes; 
 Loud the gleemen sing 
 
 In the streets their merry rhymes. 
 Let us sing by the fire 
 Ever higher, 
 Sing them till the night expire. 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 "Always pay as you go," said an old man to his 
 nephew. " But, uncle, suppose I have nothing to pay 
 with?" — "Then, don't go." 
 
 Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, 
 
 die for it ; any thing but — live for it. 
 
 Colton.
 
 December 18. 
 
 THE SUN-DIAL. 
 
 Only the sunny hours 
 
 Are numbered here, — 
 No winter-time that lowers, 
 
 No twihght drear; 
 But from a golden sky, 
 
 When sunbeams fall, 
 Though the bright moments fly, 
 
 They're counted all. 
 
 No Past the glad heart cowers. 
 
 No memories dark : 
 Only the sunny hours, 
 
 The dial mark. 
 
 E. C. Stediiian. 
 
 Whatsoever is brought upon thee, take cheerfully.
 
 December 19. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 A WRINKLED, crabbed man they picture thee, 
 
 Old Winter, with a rugged beard as gray 
 
 As the long moss upon the apple-tree ; 
 
 Blue-lipt, an ice-drop at thy sharp blue nose, 
 
 Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way 
 
 Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows. 
 
 They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth, 
 
 Old Winter, seated in thy great armed chair, 
 
 Watching the children at their Christmas mirth, 
 
 Or circled by them as thy lips declare 
 
 Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire. 
 
 Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night, 
 
 Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire, 
 
 Or taste the old October brown and bright. 
 
 Southcy.
 
 December 20. 
 
 If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there 
 were particles of iron in it, I might look with my eyes for 
 them, and search for them with my clumsy fingers, and be 
 unable to find them ; but let me take a magnet and sweep 
 it, and how it would draw to itself the most invisible parti- 
 cles by the power of attraction ! The unthankful heart, like 
 my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies ; but let the 
 thankful heart sweep through the day, and, as the magnet 
 finds the iron, so it will find in every hour some heavenly 
 blessings : only, the iron in God's sand is gold. 
 
 O. JV. Holmes. 
 
 A MAN may be thought clever while he is seeking 
 
 for wisdom ; but, if he imagines he has found it, he is a 
 
 fool. 
 
 Persian.
 
 December 21. 
 
 Wild was the day : the wintry sea 
 
 Moaned sadly on New-England's strand, 
 
 When first the thoughtful and the free, 
 Our fathers, trod the desert land. 
 
 Bryant. 
 
 The Pilgrim spirit has not fled : 
 
 It walks in noon's broad light ; 
 And it watches the bed of the glorious dead, 
 
 With their holy stars by night ; 
 It watches the bed of the bra\e who have bled, 
 
 And shall guard this ice-bound shore, 
 Till the waves of the bay, where the Mayflower lay, 
 
 Shall foam and freeze no more. 
 
 Joint Picpront,
 
 December 22. 
 
 FOREFATHER'S DAY. 
 
 Find me the men on earth who care 
 
 Enough for faith or creed to-day 
 To seek a barren wilderness 
 
 For simple liberty to pray. 
 
 Despise their narrow creed who will ! 
 
 Pity their poverty, who dare. 
 Their lives knew joys, their lives wore crowns, 
 
 We do not know, we cannot wear. 
 
 And if so be that it is saved. 
 
 Our poor Republic, stained and bruised, 
 'Twill be because we lay again 
 
 Their corner-stones which we refused. 
 
 Helen Hutit yackson.
 
 December 23. 
 
 DECEMBER, 
 
 Come, tonic blasts ! 
 Arouse my courage, stir my tiiought, 
 Give nerve and spring, that as I ought 
 I give my strength to what is wrought, 
 
 While duty lasts. 
 
 Glow, arctic light ! 
 And let my heart with burnished steel, 
 That bright magnetic flame reveal 
 Which kindles purpose, faith, and zeal 
 
 For truth and right. 
 
 Shine, winter skies ! 
 That when each brave day's work is done, 
 I wait in peace, from sun to sun. 
 To meet unshamed, through victory won. 
 
 Your starry eyes. 
 
 Louisa P. Hopkins.
 
 December 24. 
 
 The things we do at Christmas are touched with a 
 certain grain of extravagance, as beautiful in some of its 
 aspects as the extravagance of Nature in June. 
 
 Still, I think it is not hard to see how we may spare, 
 even at the Christmas-tide, and yet do more and better 
 than if we spend. 
 
 If a man spends the money he ought to save to pay 
 his debts, when he knows very well he can only pay his 
 debts by saving, he may give what he buys right and 
 lef* tvith an open hand, and it will be to his own shame. 
 
 Robert Collyer. 
 
 Presents endear absents. 
 
 Charles Lamb. 
 
 Fear not the future, weep not for the past. 
 
 Shelley,
 
 December 25. 
 
 . MERRY CHRISTMAS! 
 
 It is the Xmas time : 
 
 And up and down, 'tvvixt heaven and earth, 
 
 In glorious grief and solemn mirth, 
 The shining angels climb ; 
 
 And unto every thing 
 That lives and moves, for heaven, on earth, 
 
 The shininj^ angels sing. 
 
 Mrs. Craik. 
 
 Without the door let sorrow lie ; 
 And, if for cold it hap to die, 
 We'll bury't in a Xmas pie. 
 And evermore be merry. 
 
 George Wither.
 
 December 26. 
 
 A Christmas day, to be perfect, should be clear and 
 cold, with holly branches in berry, a blazing fire, a 
 dinner with mince-pies, and games and forfeits in the 
 evening. You cannot have it in perfection, if you are 
 very fine and fashionable. A Christmas evening should, 
 if possible, finish with music. It carries off the excite- 
 ment without abruptness, and sheds a repose over the 
 conclusion of enjoyment. 
 
 Leigh Hunt. 
 
 Through every web of life the dark threads run. 
 
 Oh ! why and whither? God knows all. 
 
 I only know that he is good. 
 
 And that whatever may befall, 
 
 Or here or there, must be the best that could. 
 
 Whittier.
 
 December 27. 
 
 If a sunset were as rare as a comet, the people would all 
 be out upon the hill-tops, — astronomers with their telescopes, 
 poets with their pens, artists with their brushes, — to capture 
 wliat they could of it, and give it immortality. Or, if only 
 once in a year the eastern skies held sunrise, we should be 
 out of bed betimes, that morning, to watch the gold and 
 crimson pageant passing up the sky. But, because these 
 glories face us every day, we are color-blind to them. 
 
 W. C. Gannett. 
 
 Make the best of every thing ; 
 Tliink the best of everybody ; 
 Hope the best for yourself: 
 Do as I have done, — persevere. 
 
 George Stephenson.
 
 December 28. 
 
 The year was old that day. The patient year had 
 Hved through the reproaches and misuses of its slan- 
 derers, and faithfully performed its work. 
 
 Spring, summer, autumn, winter, it had labored through 
 the destined round, and now laid down its weary head 
 to die. Shut out from hope, high impulse, active 
 happiness itself, but messenger of many joys to others, 
 it made appeal, in its decline, to have its toiling days 
 and patient hours remembered, and to die *in peace. 
 
 Dickens. 
 
 Think that day lost whose low descending sun 
 Views from thy hand no noble action done. 
 
 Bobart. 
 
 The Year will write, " Fruits gleaned, and rest is near. 
 I am grown old : my work is almost done."
 
 December 29. 
 
 Death is the portal and portico of " our Father's 
 house." As we stand under the porch, the archway over 
 our head projects a shadow. We are for a moment out 
 of hfe's sunshine. But the next, the door opens ; and 
 better than the blaze of earthly sun is ours. The dark- 
 ness is past, and the true light shineth ! 
 
 EVERY-DAY RELIGION. 
 
 EvERY-DAY religion is the foundation of thoroughness, 
 which is another word for truthfulness or honesty. Work- 
 men that slight their work, whether they make shirts for 
 a living, or sermons, build houses or ships, raise flocks or 
 raise families, will be some day or other found out. We 
 want clothes that will not rip, vessels that will not leak, 
 and bridges that will not break down. So we want 
 characters that will stand temptation, and not snap 
 asunder under the sudden pressures of life. 
 
 New-York Evangelist.
 
 December 30. 
 
 Say not, the struggle naught availeth, 
 The labor and the wounds are vain, 
 
 The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 
 
 And as things have been they remain. 
 
 If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars : 
 It may be, in yon smoke concealed. 
 
 Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 
 And, but for you, possess the field. 
 
 And not by eastern windows only. 
 
 When daylight comes, comes in the light : 
 
 In front the sun climbs slow, now slowly ; 
 But westward, look ! the land is bright. 
 
 Arthur Htigh C lough. 
 
 Serve the Lord with gladness.
 
 December 31. 
 
 FAREWELL TO THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 Stay yet, my friends, a moment stay, 
 
 Stay, for the good old year, 
 So long companion of our way, 
 
 Shakes hands, and leaves us here. 
 Even while we sing he smiles his last, 
 
 And leaves our sphere behind. 
 The good old year is with the past : 
 
 Oh, be the new as kind ! 
 
 Bryajit. 
 
 I STAND to-night on the threshold 
 
 Of a strange, mysterious door. 
 That silently opes from the year just gone. 
 
 To the one that lies before. 
 
 F. J. D.
 
 MOVABLE FEASTS 
 
 SPECIAL DAYS.
 
 iFirst Suntrag in iLent* 
 
 Thou loving Maker of mankind, 
 
 Before thy throne we pray and weep : 
 
 Oh, strengthen us with grace divine 
 Duly this sacred Lent to keep ! 
 
 Sackcloth is a girdle good : 
 
 Oh, bind it round thee still ! 
 Fasting, it is angel's food ; 
 
 And Jesus loved the night-air chill : 
 Yet think not prayer and fast were given 
 
 To make one step 'twixt earth and heaven.
 
 jFtrst IBontias tit Untt 
 
 A TRUE LENT. 
 
 Is it to fast an houre, 
 Or rag'd to go, 
 Or show 
 A downcast look, and soNvre ? 
 
 It is to fast from strife, 
 From old debate. 
 And hate, 
 To circumcise thy life. 
 
 To shew a heart grief-rent ; 
 To starve thy sin. 
 Not bin ; 
 And that's to keep thy Lent. 
 
 Robert Hcrrick.
 
 Samour, when in dust to thee 
 Low we bend the adoring knee ; 
 When, repentant, to the skies 
 Scarce we lift our weeping eyes, — 
 Oh, by all thy pain and woe 
 Suffered once for man below. 
 Bending from tliy throne on high, 
 Hear our solemn litany ! 
 
 Sir Robert Gnnit.
 
 Palm ^untrag* 
 
 "And a very great multitude spread their garments in 
 the way ; others cut down branches from the trees, and 
 strawed them in the way." 
 
 The Sunday garment ghttering gay, 
 
 The Sunday-heart will steal away. 
 
 Then haste thee, ere the fond glance stray, 
 
 Thy precious robes unfold, 
 And cast before thy Saviour's feet : 
 Him spare not with thy best to greet, 
 Nor dread the dust of Sion's sheet, 
 Tis jewels all and gold.
 
 He is despised and rejected of men." 
 
 Is it not strange, the darkest hour 
 
 That ever dawned on sinful earth 
 Should touch the heart with softer power 
 
 For comfort than an angel's mirth? 
 That to the cross the mourner's eye should turn 
 
 Sooner than where the stars of Christmas burn? 
 
 Keble.
 
 ^aturtiau Ijcforc lEaster* 
 
 Sing, children, sing j 
 
 The lilies white you bring 
 
 In the joyous Easter morning for hope are blossoming; 
 
 And, as the earth her shroud of snow from off her breast 
 doth fling, 
 
 So may we cast our fetters off in God's eternal spring, 
 
 So may we find release at last from sorrow and from 
 pain, 
 
 So may we find our childhood's calm, delicious dawn 
 again. 
 
 Sweet are your eyes, O little ones, that look with smil- 
 ing grace. 
 
 Without a shade of doubt or fear, into the Future's face ! 
 
 Sing, sing in happy chorus, with joyful voices tell 
 
 That death is fife, and God is good, and all things shall 
 be well ; 
 
 That bitter days shall cease 
 
 In warmth and light and peace ; 
 
 That winter yields to spring : 
 
 Sing, little children, sing ! 
 
 Cdia T/iaxter.
 
 35aster .Suntiag, 
 
 How did the Lord keep Easter? With his own. 
 Back to meet Mary where she grieved alone, 
 With face and mien all tenderly the same, 
 Unto the very sepulchre he came. 
 
 And I do think, as he came back to her, 
 The many mansions may be all astir 
 With tender steps that hasten in the way. 
 Seeking their own upon this Easter day. 
 
 Parting the veil that hideth them about, 
 I think they do come softly, wistful out 
 From' homes of heaven, that only seem so far, 
 And walk in gardens where the new tombs are.
 
 lEastcr IHontiau, 
 
 And perched the glittering, icy boughs among, 
 One httle bird was pouring out his song, 
 An Easter carol full of faith and cheer, 
 Under the leaden sky so sad and drear. 
 
 Dear little songster, braver thou than we ! 
 Surely our clouded hearts are shamed by thee : 
 So easy 'tis to sing when skies are fair. 
 And the spring gladness waketh in the air. 
 
 But still to keep sweet music in the heart 
 When wintry storms bid brightest hopes depart, 
 When skies are dark and springtime waiteth long, 
 This is the true, the perfect, Easter song. 
 
 G. //. D.
 
 Oh, the glorious Thanksgivings 
 
 Of the days that are no more ! 
 How, with each recurring season, 
 
 Wakes their mem'ry o'er and o'er, 
 When the hearts of men were simpler. 
 
 And the needs of life were less, 
 And its mercies were not reckoned 
 
 By the measure of excess. 
 
 Heaven send the glad Thanksgiving 
 
 Of that older, simpler time ! 
 Tarry with us, not in fancy, 
 
 Not in retrospective rhyme ; 
 But in true and living earnest 
 
 May the spirit of that day, 
 Artless, plain, and unpretending, 
 
 Once again resume its sway ! 
 
 E. A. Sviuller.
 
 Pause, then, a moment, and think what Whitsunday was 
 the first Whitsunday ! 
 
 And what that first Whitsunday was to all the world, 
 one certain day becomes to any man, — the day when 
 the Holy Spirit comes to him. God enters into him, and 
 he sees all things with God's vision. Truths which were 
 dead spring into life, and are as real to him as they are 
 to God. 
 
 Oh, in this world of shallow believers, and weary, dreary 
 workers, how we need that Holy Spirit ! 
 
 Phillips Brooks.
 
 ^^1 
 ^3^ 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW.
 
 '^■''-^^^- 
 
 
 ^- -^^ ~ v^^u^^^E^B^S' 
 
 
 '^ '^3i^SSESaiJ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 %v^^^ 
 
 
 ^^^m 
 
 
 W^^^m 
 
 
 ^K^^ 
 
 
 3 1205 02385 3433 
 
 ?ii 
 
 i 
 
 ^S^ 
 
 ^i^ 
 
 m 
 
 ^^^^^s§?oR 
 
 w 
 
 -'■-- 
 
 UC SOUTHERM REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 AA 001041389 6