Part 78

"If what shone afar so grand Turn to nothing in thy hand, On again, the virtue lies In the struggle, not the prize."

R. M. MILNES.

"One would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping stones.... I am trying to teach myself that if one has been working, one has not necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time."

Mrs. Ewing's Letters.

"Rise ... as children learn, be thou Wiser for falling."

TENNYSON.

True Patience

NOVEMBER 5

"There are those who think it is Christian patience to sit down by the wayside to endure the storm, crying in themselves, 'God is hard on me, but I will bear His smiting'; but their endurance is only idleness which is ignoble, and hiding from the battle which is cowardice. Or they cry, 'I am the victim of Fate, but I will be patient'--as if any one could be a victim if God be love, or as if there were such a thing as blind fate, when the order of the world is to lead men into righteousness; when to be victor and not victim is the main word of that order. No, the severity of the battle is to force us into self-forgetfulness; and this lazy resignation, this wailing patience, is mere self-remembrance. The true patience is activity of faith and hope and righteousness in the cause of men for the sake of God's love of them; is in glad proclamation of the gospel; is in wielding the sword of the Truth of God against all that injures mankind."

The Gospel of Joy, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. What though the mast be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding anchor lost, And half our sailors swallowed in the flood-- Yet lives our Pilot still."

SHAKESPEARE.

The Appetite for Condolence

NOVEMBER 6

"It is right to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in speaking of our troubles, and not to let the appetite for condolence grow on us."

Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop PAGET.

"Carlyle says, 'My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate--he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past,' and my mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume."

The Story of my Life, AUGUSTUS HARE.

"Hacket's motto, 'Serve God and be cheerful.'"

"The Sharp Ferule of Calamity"

NOVEMBER 7

"It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God's scholars till we die."

The Life of R. L. Stevenson, GRAHAM BALFOUR.

"The best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely."

Lord AVEBURY.

The Essentials of Happiness

NOVEMBER 8

"We weigh ourselves down with burdens of sorrow which are the results of our selfish thoughts and selfish desires; and every one of these burdens lessens our power to live righteously in ourselves, and to live usefully for others."