Part 62

"Love is the first and the last and the strongest bond in experience. It conquers distance, outlives all changes, bears the strain of the most diverse opinions."

The Mind of the Master, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

"Say never, ye loved once! God is too near above, the Grave, beneath: And all our moments breathe Too quick in mysteries of life and death, For such a word. The eternities avenge Affections light of range; There comes no change to justify that change, Whatever comes,--Loved once."

E. B. BROWNING.

Unrequited Love

September 1

"It was the old problem, of love that may not even spend itself for those it loves. Some hold that the purpose of such privation--as bitter to the spirit as the loss of light, and warmth, and air to the body--is to teach men to love God, and not their fellow-men. Rather, it is to teach them to love human beings more, with love not separate from the love of God, but near to His own heart. Such love is never fruitless, though it may seem to be. Our longing to serve personally is often only longing for the personal reward of service; and love that serves in finite fashion often misses the mark. We hurt where we desire to heal: we bind a greater burden on the life whose load we only strive to lighten. God's cross is always a crown: our crowns are often crosses. The cup of water that we put to our friend's lips is from a poisoned spring. Only the cup that we give God to bear to him, is always pure and cool."

Turkish Bonds, MAY KENDALL.

Unrequited Love

SEPTEMBER 2

"Infancy? What if the rose-streak of morning Pale and depart in a passion of tears? Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning: Love once: e'en love's disappointment endears, A moment's success pays the failure of years."

R. BROWNING.

"It looks like a waste of life, that mowing down of our best years by a relentless passion which itself falls dead on the top of them. But it is not so. Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime 'let out all the length of the reins.'"

Red Pottage, MARY CHOLMONDELEY.

Bereavement

SEPTEMBER 3

"If we still love those we lose, can we altogether lose those we love?"

The Newcomes, THACKERAY.

"They that love beyond the World cannot be separated by it.

"Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can Spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle; the Root and Record of their Friendship.

"If Absence be not Death, neither is it theirs.

"Death is but Crossing the World, as Friends do the Seas; they live in one another still.

"For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent.

"In this Divine Glass they see Face to Face; and their converse is Free as well as Pure.

"This is the Comfort of Friends, that though they may be said to Die, yet their Friendship and Society are, in the best Sense, ever present, because Immortal."

WILLIAM PENN.

Bereavement

SEPTEMBER 4