Part 40

He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much.--LUKE xvi, 10.

The Lord preserveth the faithful.--PS. xxxi. 23

The trivial round, the common task, Would furnish all we ought to ask; Room to deny ourselves; a road To bring us, daily, nearer God.

J. KEBLE.

Exactness in little duties is a wonderful source of cheerfulness.

F. W. FABER.

The unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with honor, if need be, in the tumult or on the scaffold.

R. W. EMERSON.

We are too fond of our own will. We want to be doing what we fancy mighty things; but the great point is, to do small things, when called to them, in a right spirit.

R. CECIL.

It is not on great occasions only that we are required to be faithful to the will of God; occasions constantly occur, and we should be surprised to perceive how much our spiritual advancement depends on small obediences.

MADAME SWETCHINE.

May 28

Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness.--COL. I. 11.

God doth not need Either man's works or His own gifts; who best Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.

J. MILTON.

We cannot always be doing a great work, but we can always be doing something that belongs to our condition. To be silent, to suffer, to pray when we cannot act, is acceptable to God. A disappointment, a contradiction, a harsh word, an annoyance, a wrong received and endured as in His presence, is worth more than a long prayer; and we do not lose time if we bear its loss with gentleness and patience, provided the loss was inevitable, and was not caused by our own fault.

FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON.

May 29

Be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.--HEB. vi. 12.

Where now with pain thou treadest, trod The whitest of the saints of God! To show thee where their feet were set, The light which led them shineth yet.

J. G. WHITTIER.

LET us learn from this communion of saints to live in hope. Those who are now at rest were once like ourselves. They were once weak, faulty, sinful; they had their burdens and hindrances, their slumbering and weariness, their failures and their falls. But now they have overcome. Their life was once homely and common-place. Their day ran out as ours. Morning and noon and night came and went to them as to us. Their life, too, was as lonely and sad as yours. Little fretful circumstances and frequent disturbing changes wasted away their hours as yours. There is nothing in your life that was not in theirs; there was nothing in theirs but may be also in your own. They have overcome, each one, and one by one; each in his turn, when the day came, and God called him to the trial. And so shall you likewise.

H. E. MANNING.

May 30

And thus this man died, leaving his death for an example of a noble courage, and a memorial of virtue, not only unto young men, but unto all his nation.--2 MAC. vi. 31.

Zebulon and Naphtali were a people that jeoparded their lives unto the death in the high places of the field.--JUDGES v. 18.

Though Love repine, and Reason chafe, There came a voice without reply,-- 'Tis man's perdition to be safe, When for the truth he ought to die.