Part 33

"We can recall occasions in which we have been impatient, inconsiderate, self-willed, self-asserting. We have sharply resented some want of good taste: we have made light of a scruple or of a difficulty which weighed heavily on another: we have yielded ungraciously a service which may have been claimed inopportunely: we have been exact in requiring conventional deference to our judgment: we have not checked the keen word, or the smile which might be interpreted to assert a proud superiority.

"In all this we may have been justifiable according to common rules of conduct; but we have given offence. We have not, that is, shewn, when we might have shewn, that Christian sympathy, devotion, fellowship, come down to little things; that the generosity of love looks tenderly, if by any means it may find the soul which has not revealed itself."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

"Seek the graces of God with all your strength; but above all seek the graces that specially belong to heaven. Try hard to be humble, to be free from all conceit, to question your own opinions, to give up your own way, to put simplicity first among all excellences of character, to be ready to think yourself in the wrong, to prefer others to yourself; for this character is nearest to God's heart, and to babes who are of this sort does God reveal His most secret mysteries."

Bishop TEMPLE.

The Spectrum of Love

May 10

"The spectrum of Love has nine ingredients:--

Patience--'Love suffereth long.'

Kindness--'And is kind.'

Generosity--'Love envieth not.'

Humility--'Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up.'

Courtesy--'Doth not behave itself unseemly.'

Unselfishness--'Seeketh not her own.'

Good Temper--'Is not easily provoked.'

Guilelessness--'Thinketh no evil.'

Sincerity--'Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth.'

Patience; kindness; generosity; humility; courtesy; unselfishness; good temper; guilelessness; sincerity--these make up the supreme gift, the stature of the perfect man. You will observe that all are in relation to men, in relation to life, in relation to the known to-day and the near to-morrow, and not to the unknown eternity. We hear much of love to God; Christ spoke much of love to man. We make a great deal of peace with heaven; Christ made much of peace on earth. Religion is not a strange or added thing, but the inspiration of the secular life, the breathing of an eternal spirit through this temporal world. The supreme thing, in short, is not a thing at all, but the giving of a further finish to the multitudinous words and acts which make up the sum of every common day."

The Greatest Thing in the World, HENRY DRUMMOND.

"My Duty to my Neighbour"

MAY 11

"There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbours good. One person I have to make good: myself. But my duty to my neighbour is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy--if I may."

Across the Plains, R. L. STEVENSON.

"Of all the weapons we wield against wrong, there is none more effective than pure and burning joy."

The Gospel of Joy, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behaviour, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us."

EMERSON.

Duty of giving Happiness