Part 54

N. HAWTHORNE.

"Others are affected by what I am, and say, and do. And these others have also their sphere of influence. So that a single act of mine may spread in widening circles through a nation or humanity."

CHANNING.

"A man who lives right, and is right, has more power in his silence than another has by his words. Character is like bells which ring out sweet music, and which, when touched accidentally even, resound with sweet music."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"Quench not the Smoking Flax"

JULY 31

"Make a great deal more of your right to praise the good than of your right to blame the bad. Never let a brave and serious struggle after truth and goodness, however weak it may be, pass unrecognised. Do not be chary of appreciation. Hearts are unconsciously hungry for it. There is little danger that appreciation shall be given too abundantly. Here and there, perhaps, in your shops and schools and households, there is some one who has too lazily sunk down upon the praise he has received for some good work, and rested in sluggish satisfaction on it; but such disasters hardly count among the unfulfilled lives which have lived meagrely and stuntedly for the lack of some simple cordial human approval of what they have honestly, however blunderingly, tried to do."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

"It is a great sign of mediocrity to be always praising moderately."

VAUVENARGUES.

"'Quench not the smoking flax'--to which I add, 'Never give unnecessary pain.' The cricket is not the nightingale; why tell him so? Throw yourself into the mind of the cricket--the process is newer and more ingenious; and it is what charity commands."

Amiel's Journal.

"Quench not the Smoking Flax"

AUGUST 1

"Christians are very often liable not, perhaps, to put obstacles into the way of efforts to do right so much as to refuse them the needful help, without which they have little chance of succeeding. To look coldly on while our fellows are struggling in the waves of this evil sea and never to hold out a hand or to say a word of encouragement, is very often most cruelly to depress all energy of repentance. The strong virtue that can go on its own way without being shaken by any ordinary temptation too often forgets the duty due to the weakness close to its side. By stern treatment of faults which were yet much struggled against, by cold refusal to acknowledge any except plainly successful efforts, by rejecting the approaches of those who have not yet learnt the right way, but are really wishing in their secret hearts to learn it, those who are strong not unfrequently do much harm to those who are weak."

Bishop TEMPLE.

"The best we can do for each other is to remove unnecessary obstacles, and the worst--to weaken any of the motives which urge us to strive."

The Standard of Life, Mrs. BERNARD BOSANQUET.

Influence

AUGUST 2

"Even in ordinary life, contact with nobler natures arouses the feeling of unused power and quickens the consciousness of responsibility."

Bishop WESTCOTT.

"Do we not all know how apt we are to become like those whom we see, with whom we spend our hours, and, above all, like those whom we admire and honour? For good and for evil, alas! For evil--for those who associate with evil or frivolous persons are too apt to catch not only their low tone, but their very manner, their very expression of face, speaking and thinking and acting.... But thank God, ... just in the same way does good company tend to make them high-minded.... I have lived long enough to see more than one man of real genius stamp his own character, thought, even his very manner of speaking, for good or for evil, on a whole school or party of his disciples. It has been said, and truly, I believe, that children cannot be brought up among beautiful pictures,--I believe, even among any beautiful sights and sounds--without the very expression of their faces becoming more beautiful, purer, gentler, nobler."

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

Influence

AUGUST 3

"Throw a stone into the stream, and the circles that propagate themselves are the beautiful type of all influence."