Part 13

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous,--a spirit all sunshine; graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright."

CARLYLE.

"Every joy is gain, and gain is gain, however small."

BROWNING.

Duty

FEBRUARY 15

"In Life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained: know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee 'I find thee worthy; do this thing for me'?"

LOWELL.

"Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires but according to our powers."

Amiel's Journal.

"I'll bind myself to that which, once being right, Will not be less right when I shrink from it."

KINGSLEY.

"There's life alone in duty done, And rest alone in striving."

WHITTIER.

Duty

FEBRUARY 16

"A duty is no sooner divined than from that very moment it becomes binding upon us."

Amiel's Journal.

"Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours or ages that follow it."

EMERSON.

"The toppling crags of duty scaled Are close upon the shining table-lands To which our God Himself is moon and sun."

TENNYSON.

The Iron Chains of Duty

FEBRUARY 17

"... One conviction I have gained from the experience of the last years--life is not jest and amusement; life is not even enjoyment ... life is hard labour. Renunciation, continual renunciation--that is its secret meaning, its solution. Not the fulfilment of cherished dreams and aspirations, however lofty they may be--the fulfilment of duty, that is what must be the care of man. Without laying on himself chains, the iron chains of duty, he cannot reach without a fall the end of his career."

A Lear of the Steppes, IVAN TURGENEV.

"Granted that life is tragic to the marrow, it seems the proper function of religion to make us accept and serve in that tragedy, as officers in that other and comparable one of war. Service is the word, active service, in the military sense; and the religious man is he who has a military joy in duty--not he who weeps over the wounded."