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Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul

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Title: Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul

Editor: James Mudge


        
Release date: April 22, 2009 [eBook #28591]

Language: English

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Transcriber's note:

   Spelling mistakes have been left in the text to match the original,
   except for obvious typographical errors, which have been corrected.





POEMS WITH POWER TO STRENGTHEN THE SOUL

Compiled and Edited by

JAMES MUDGE

Revised and Enlarged Edition







The Abingdon Press
New York        Cincinnati        Chicago

Copyright, 1907, 1909, by
Eaton & Mains

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition Printed November, 1907
Second Printing, March, 1909
Third Printing, October, 1911
Fourth Printing, July, 1915
Fifth Printing, May, 1919
Sixth Printing, January, 1922
Seventh Printing, April, 1925
Eighth Printing, March, 1928
Ninth Printing, October, 1930
Tenth Printing, September, 1934




                       TO ALL
              WHO ARE AT THE SAME TIME
  LOVERS OF GOOD POETRY AND LOVERS OF GOOD CHARACTER,
  DEVOTED TO GOD AND THEIR FELLOW-MEN, AS WELL AS TO
     LITERATURE, THE COMPILER, WHO CLAIMS A LITTLE
            PLACE IN THIS LARGE COMPANY,
      DEDICATES THE RESULT OF HIS PLEASANT LABORS




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
PREFACE                                                              vii

SUBJECTS:

HEROISM--CHIVALRY, NOBILITY, HONOR, TRUTH                              1

COURAGE--CONSTANCY, CONFIDENCE, STRENGTH, VALOR                       14

INDEPENDENCE--MANHOOD, FIRMNESS, EARNESTNESS, RESOLUTION              22

GREATNESS--FAME, SUCCESS, PROGRESS, VICTORY                           28

DUTY--LOYALTY, FAITHFULNESS, CONSCIENCE, ZEAL                         41

SERVICE--USEFULNESS, BENEVOLENCE, LABOR                               50

BROTHERHOOD--CHARITY, SYMPATHY, EXAMPLE, INFLUENCE                    66

CONSECRATION--SUBMISSION, DEVOTION, PURITY                            79

PEACE--REST, CALM, STILLNESS                                          88

HUMILITY--MEEKNESS, WEAKNESS, SELFLESSNESS                            95

CONTENTMENT--RESIGNATION, PATIENCE, COMPENSATION                     103

ASPIRATION--DESIRE, SUPPLICATION, GROWTH                             115

PRAYER--WORSHIP, COMMUNION, DEVOTION                                 123

JOY--PRAISE, CHEERFULNESS, HAPPINESS                                 138

AFFLICTION--CONSOLATION, TRIAL, ENDURANCE                            149

LOVE--DIVINE GOODNESS, UNSELFISHNESS                                 163

HOPE--PROGRESS, OPTIMISM, ENTHUSIASM                                 170

FAITH--ASSURANCE, DOUBT, UNBELIEF                                    177

TRUST--GUIDANCE, SAFETY, GLADNESS                                    187

GOD'S CARE--PROVIDENCE, GOD'S KNOWLEDGE AND BENEFICENCE              199

GOD'S WILL--OBEDIENCE, DIVINE UNION                                  209

GOD'S PRESENCE--POSSESSION, SATISFACTION, REFLECTION                 221

JESUS--HIS PRECIOUSNESS, AND BEAUTY, AND LOVE                        233

LIFE--TIME, OPPORTUNITY, EXPERIENCE, CHARACTER                       250

AGE AND DEATH--MATURITY, VICTORY, HEAVEN                             267

APPENDIX--MISCELLANEOUS SELECTIONS                                   278

INDEX TO AUTHORS                                                     288

INDEX TO TITLES                                                      292

INDEX TO FIRST LINES                                                 298




PREFACE


This is not like other collections of religious verse; still less is it
a hymnal. The present volume is directed to a very specific and wholly
practical end, the production of high personal character; and only those
poems which have an immediate bearing in this direction have been
admitted. We know of no other book published which has followed this
special line. There are fine hymnals, deservedly dear to the Church, but
they are necessarily devoted in large measure to institutional and
theological subjects, are adapted to the wants of the general
congregation and to purposes of song; while many poetical productions
that touch the heart the closest are for that very reason unsuited to
the hymnal. There are many anthologies and plentiful volumes of
religious poetry, but not one coming within our ken has been made up as
this has been. We have sought far and wide, through many libraries,
carefully conning hundreds of books and glancing through hundreds more,
to find just those lines which would have the most tonic and stimulating
effect in the direction of holier, nobler living. We have coveted verses
whose influence would be directly on daily life and would help to form
the very best habits of thought and conduct, which would have intrinsic
spiritual value and elevating power; those whose immediate tendency
would be to make people better, toughening their moral fibre and helping
them heavenward; those which they could hardly read attentively without
feeling an impulse toward the things which are pure and true and
honorable and lovely and of good report, things virtuous and
praiseworthy.

It is surprising to one who has not made the search how very many poets
there are whose voluminous and popular works yield nothing, or scarcely
anything, of this sort. We have looked carefully through many scores of
volumes of poetry without finding a line that could be of the slightest
use in this collection. They were taken up altogether with other topics.
They contained many pretty conceits, pleasant descriptions, lovely or
lively narrations--these in abundance, but words that would send the
spirit heavenward, or even earthward with any added love for humanity,
not one. On the other hand, in papers and periodicals, even in books,
are great multitudes of verses, unexceptionable in sentiment and helpful
in influence, which bear so little of the true poetic afflatus, are so
careless in construction or so faulty in diction, so imperfect in rhyme
or rhythm, so much mingled with colloquialisms or so hopelessly
commonplace in thought, as to be unworthy of a permanent place in a book
like this. They would not bear reading many times. They would offend a
properly educated taste. They would not so capture the ear as to linger
on the memory with compelling persistence, nor strike the intellect as
an exceptional presentation of important truth. The combination of fine
form and deep or inspiring thought is by no means common, but, when
found, very precious. We will not claim that this has been secured in
all the poems here presented. Not all will approve our choice in all
respects. There is nothing in which tastes more differ than in matters
of this kind. And we will admit that in some cases we have let
in--because of the important truth which they so well voiced--stanzas
not fully up to the mark in point of poetic merit. Where it has not been
possible to get the two desirable things together, as it has not always,
we have been more solicitous for the sentiment that would benefit than
for mere prettiness or perfection of form. Helpfulness has been the test
oftener than a high literary standard. The labored workmanship of the
vessel has not weighed so much with us as its perfect fitness to convey
the water of life wherewith the thirsty soul of man has been or may be
refreshed. If poets are properly judged, as has been alleged, by the
frame of mind they induce, then some who have not gained great literary
fame may still hold up their heads and claim a worthy crown.

Some poems fully within the scope of the book--like Longfellow's "Psalm
of Life"--have been omitted because of their exceeding commonness and
their accessibility. Many hymns of very high value--like "Jesus, Lover
of my soul," "My faith looks up to thee," "Nearer, my God, to thee,"
"When all thy mercies, O my God," "How firm a foundation"--have also
been omitted because they are found in all the hymnals, and to include
them would unduly swell the size of the book. A few others, although
similarly familiar, like "Jesus, I my cross have taken," and "God moves
in a mysterious way," have been inserted from a feeling that even yet
their depth and richness are not properly appreciated and that they can
never be sufficiently pondered. A few poems we have been unable to
procure permission to use; but in nearly all cases we have met with most
generous treatment from both authors and publishers owning copyrights,
and we take this occasion to express our hearty thanks for the kindness
afforded in the following instances:

     Houghton, Mifflin & Company, for the use of the poems and stanzas
     here found from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell,
     John Greenleaf Whittier, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Oliver Wendell
     Holmes, Edward Rowland Sill, Celia Thaxter, Caroline Atherton
     Mason, Edna Dean Proctor, Edmund Clarence Stedman, John Burroughs,
     John Hay, William Dean Howells, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lucy Larcom,
     Margaret E. Sangster, Francis Bret Harte, James Freeman Clarke,
     Samuel Longfellow, Samuel Johnson, Christopher Pearse Cranch,
     Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and John Vance
     Cheney.

     Little, Brown & Company, for poems by Helen Hunt Jackson, Louise
     Chandler Moulton, William Rounseville Alger, "Susan Coolidge"
     [Sarah Chauncey Woolsey], and John White Chadwick.

     Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, for poems by Sam Walter Foss.

     D. Appleton & Company, for poems by William Cullen Bryant.

     T. Y. Crowell & Company, for poems by Sarah Knowles Bolton.

     Charles Scribner's Sons, for poems by Josiah Gilbert Holland.

     The Century Company, for poems by Richard Watson Gilder.

     The Bobbs-Merrill Company, for poems by James Whitcomb Riley.

     Harper & Brothers, for poems by Edward Sandford Martin.

     Small, Maynard & Co., for poems by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

     The Rev. D. C. Knowles, for poems by Frederic Lawrence Knowles,
     especially from "Love Triumphant," published by Dana, Estes &
     Company.

     The Rev. Frederic Rowland Marvin, for poems from his "Flowers of
     Song from Many Lands."

     Professor Amos R. Wells, for poems from his "Just to Help."

     Mr. Nixon Waterman, for poems from "In Merry Mood," published by
     Forbes & Co., of Chicago.

The selections from the above American authors are used by special
arrangements with the firms mentioned, who are the only authorized
publishers of their works. Many other poems used have been found in
papers or other places which gave no indication of the original source.
In spite of much effort to trace these things it is quite likely we have
failed in some cases to give due credit or obtain the usual permission;
and we hope that if such omissions, due to ignorance or inadvertence,
are noticed they will be pardoned. Many unknown writers have left behind
them some things of value, but their names have become detached from
them or perhaps never were appended. Many volumes consulted have been
long out of print.

We are glad to record our large indebtedness to the custodians of the
Boston, Cambridge, Malden, Natick, Brookline, Jamaica Plain, Somerville,
and Newton Public Libraries, the Boston Athenaeum, the Congregational
Library, the General Theological Library, and the Library of Harvard
College, for free access to their treasures.

By far the greater part of the contents are from British and other
foreign authors, such as William Wordsworth, Alfred Tennyson, Robert
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, Mrs.
S. F. Adams, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Mrs. Charles, Frances Ridley
Havergal, Anna Letitia Waring, Jean Ingelow, Adelaide Anne Procter, Mme.
Guyon, Theodore Monod, Matthew Arnold, Edwin Arnold, William
Shakespeare, John Milton, George Gordon Byron, Robert Burns, William
Cowper, George Herbert, Robert Herrick, Francis Quarles, Frederick W.
Faber, John Keble, Charles Kingsley, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison,
John Gay, Edward Young, Thomas Moore, John Newton, John Bunyan, H. Kirke
White, Horatius Bonar, James Montgomery, Charles Wesley, Richard Baxter,
Norman Macleod, George Heber, Richard Chenevix Trench, Henry Alford,
Charles Mackay, Gerald Massey, Alfred Austin, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Arthur Hugh Clough, Henry Burton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Hartley
Coleridge, Joseph Anstice, George Macdonald, Robert Leighton, John Henry
Newman, John Sterling, Edward H. Bickersteth, Dante Gabriel Rossetti,
and many others. Of German authors there are not a few, including Johann
W. von Goethe, Johann C. F. Schiller, George A. Neumarck, Paul Gerhardt,
Benjamin Schmolke, S. C. Schoener, Scheffler, Karl Rudolf Hagenbach, S.
Rodigast, Novalis, Wolfgang C. Dessler, L. Gedicke, Martin Luther, and
Johann G. von Herder.

The number of American poets drawn upon is small compared with this
list. It is the case in all such collections. According to an analysis
of the hymns contained in the most widely used American hymnals down to
1880 the average number of hymns of purely American origin was not quite
one in seven; the proportion would be a little larger now. And the
number of Methodist poets is almost nil, in spite of the fact that the
compiler is a Methodist and the volume is issued from the official
Methodist Publishing House. But if we thought that this would be any
barrier to its wide circulation in Methodist homes we should be deeply
ashamed for our church. We are confident it will not be. For mere
denominational tenets do not at all enter into these great matters of
the soul's life. A book like this speaks loudly for the real oneness,
not only of all branches of the Christian Church, but of all religions,
in some respects. Not only do we find the various Protestant
denominations amply represented here; not only have we most inspiring
words from Roman Catholic writers like Francis Xavier, Madame Guyon,
Alexander Pope, John Henry Newman, Frederick W. Faber, and Adelaide Anne
Procter; but from Mohammedan sources, from Sufi saints of Persia, and
the Moslem devotees of Arabia, and even from Hinduism, there are
utterances of noblest truth which we cannot read without a kindling
heart. These are all brought together from the ends of the earth into a
delightful "upper chamber," where the warring discords of opinion cease
and an exceedingly precious peace prevails.

It should be said, though it is perhaps hardly necessary, that this is
by no means a book to be read at a sitting. It furnishes very
concentrated nourishment. It can be taken with largest profit only a
little at a time, according as the mood demands and circumstances
appoint. There should be very much meditation mingled with the perusal,
an attempt to penetrate the deep meaning of the lines and have them
enter into the soul for practical benefit. Some of these hymns have
great histories: they are the war cries of combatants on hard-fought
battle fields; they are living words of deep experience pressed out of
the heart by strong feeling; they are the embodiment of visions caught
on some Pisgah's glowing top. Here will be found and furnished hope for
the faint-hearted, rest for the weary, courage for the trembling, cheer
for the despondent, power for the weak, comfort for the afflicted,
guidance in times of difficulty, wise counsel for moments of perplexity,
a stimulant to faithfulness, a cure for the blues, exhilaration,
jubilation. Everything of a depressing nature has been scrupulously
ruled out. The keynote, persistently followed through all the pages, is
optimistic, bright, buoyant. Trumpet calls and bugle notes are furnished
in abundance, but no dirges or elegies. Large space, it will be seen, is
given to such topics as Heroism, True Greatness, the Care and Presence
of God, the blessings of Brotherliness, the privilege of Service, the
path of Peace, the secret of Contentment, the mission of Prayer, the joy
of Jesus, the meaning of Life, the glory of Love, the promise of Faith,
the happy aspect of old Age and Death; for these subjects come very
close home to the heart, and are illustrated in daily experience. Anyone
who feels a special need in any of these directions is confidently
recommended to turn to the proper sections and read the selections.

Very much that is here may easily and suitably be committed to memory,
that thus it may the more permanently penetrate into the inmost depth of
being. It may be used with most telling effect in sermons to give point
and pungency to the thought of the preacher. Alike in popular discourse
and public testimony or in private meditation these gems of sentiment
and thought will come into play with great advantage. The benefit which
may be derived from them can scarcely be overestimated. President Eliot,
of Harvard University, has said: "There are bits of poetry in my mind
learned in infancy that have stood by me in keeping me true to my ideas
of duty and life. Rather than lose these I would have missed all the
sermons I have ever heard." Many another can say substantially the same,
can trace his best deeds very largely to the influence of some little
stanza or couplet early stored away in his memory and coming ever
freshly to mind in after years as the embodiment of truest wisdom.

We cannot guarantee in all cases the absolute correctness of the forms
of the poems given, though much pains have been taken to ensure
accuracy; but authors themselves make changes in their productions at
different times in different editions. Nor have we always been able to
trace the poem to its source. Slips and errors of various kinds can
hardly be avoided in such matters. Even so competent an editor as John
G. Whittier, in his "Songs of Three Centuries," ascribes "Love divine,
all love excelling" to that bitter Calvinist, Augustus M. Toplady,
giving it as the sole specimen of his verse; when it was really written
by the ardent Arminian, Charles Wesley, with whom Toplady was on
anything but friendly terms. If Whittier could make a blunder of this
magnitude we may be pardoned if possibly a keen-eyed critic spies
something in our book almost as grossly incorrect. In some cases we have
been obliged to change the titles of poems so as to avoid reduplication
in our index, or to adapt them the better to the small extract taken
from the much longer form in the original. In a few cases we have made
(indicated) alterations in poems to fit them more fully to the purpose
of the book.

The volume will be found not only a readable one, we think, but also an
uncommonly useful one for presentation by those who would do good and
give gratification to their serious-minded friends with a taste for
religious poetry and a love for wandering in the "holy land of song." He
who would put before another the essential elements of religion would do
better to give him such a book as this than a treatise on theology. He
who would himself get a clear idea of what the religious life really is
will do better to pore over these pages than to dip into some
philosophical discussion. Here the best life is expressed rather than
analyzed, exhibited rather than explained. Mrs. Browning has well said,
"Plant a poet's word deep enough in any man's breast, looking presently
for offshoots, and you have done more for the man than if you dressed
him in a broadcloth coat and warmed his Sunday pottage at your fire." We
who, by preparing or circulating such volumes, aid the poets in finding
a larger circle to whom to give their message, may claim a part of the
blessing which comes to those who in any way aid humanity. George
Herbert has said,

    "A verse may find him who a sermon flies,
    And turn delight into a sacrifice."

He himself most excellently illustrated the sentiment by bequeathing to
the world many beautiful verses that are sermons of the most picturesque
sort.

One definition of poetry is "a record of the best thoughts and best
moments of the best and happiest minds." This in itself would almost be
sufficient to establish the connection between poetry and religion. It
is certain that the two have very close and vital relations. Dr.
Washington Gladden has admirably remarked, "Poetry is indebted to
religion for its largest and loftiest inspirations, and religion is
indebted to poetry for its subtlest and most luminous interpretations."
No doubt a man may be truly, deeply religious who has little or no
development on the aesthetic side, to whom poetry makes no special
appeal. But it is certain that he whose soul is deaf to the "concord of
sweet sounds" misses a mighty aid in the spiritual life. For a hymn is a
wing by which the spirit soars above earthly cares and trials into a
purer air and a clearer sunshine. Nothing can better scatter the devils
of melancholy and gloom or doubt and fear. When praise and prayer, trust
and love, faith and hope, and similar sentiments, have passed into and
through some poet's passionate soul, until he has become so charged with
them that he has been able to fix them in a form of expression where
beauty is united to strength, where concentration and ornamentation are
alike secured, then the deepest needs of great numbers are fully met.
What was vague and dim is brought into light. What was only half
conceived, and so but half felt, is made to grip the soul with power.
Poetry is of the very highest value for the inspiration and guidance of
life, for calling out the emotions and opening up spiritual visions. It
carries truths not only into the understanding, but into the heart,
where they are likely to have the most direct effect on conduct.

In the language of Robert Southey, I commit these pages to the Christian
public, with a sincere belief that much benefit will result to all who
shall read them:

    "Go forth, little book, from this my solitude;
      I cast thee on the waters,--go thy ways;
    And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,
      The world will find thee after many days.
    Be it with thee according to thy worth;
    Go, little book! in faith I send thee forth."

                                                  JAMES MUDGE.
  Malden, Mass.




HEROISM

CHIVALRY, NOBILITY, HONOR, TRUTH


THE INEVITABLE

    I like the man who faces what he must,
      With step triumphant and a heart of cheer;
      Who fights the daily battle without fear;
    Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust
    That God is God; that somehow, true and just,
      His plans work out for mortals; not a tear
      Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear,
    Falls from his grasp: better, with love, a crust
      Than living in dishonor: envies not,
    Nor loses faith in man; but does his best,
      Nor ever murmurs at his humbler lot,
    But, with a smile and words of hope, gives zest
      To every toiler: he alone is great
      Who by a life heroic conquers fate.

    --Sarah Knowles Bolton.


DEFEATED YET TRIUMPHANT

      They never fail who die
    In a great cause. The block may soak their gore;
    Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
    Be strung to city gates and castle walls;
    But still their spirit walks abroad.
      Though years
    Elapse and others share as dark a doom,
    They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
    Which overpower all others and conduct
    The world, at last, to freedom.

    --George Gordon Byron.


A HERO GONE

    He has done the work of a true man--
      Crown him, honor him, love him;
    Weep over him, tears of woman,
      Stoop, manliest brows, above him!

    For the warmest of hearts is frozen;
      The freest of hands is still;
    And the gap in our picked and chosen
      The long years may not fill.

    No duty could overtask him,
      No need his will outrun:
    Or ever our lips could ask him,
      His hands the work had done.

    He forgot his own life for others,
      Himself to his neighbor lending.
    Found the Lord in his suffering brothers,
      And not in the clouds descending.

    And he saw, ere his eye was darkened,
      The sheaves of the harvest-bringing;
    And knew, while his ear yet hearkened,
      The voice of the reapers singing.

    Never rode to the wrong's redressing
      A worthier paladin.
    He has heard the Master's blessing,
      "Good and faithful, enter in!"

    --John Greenleaf Whittier.


THE CHARGE

    They outtalked thee, hissed thee, tore thee?
    Better men fared thus before thee;
    Fired their ringing shot and pass'd,
    Hotly charged--and sank at last.
    Charge once more, then, and be dumb!
    Let the victors, when they come,
    When the forts of folly fall,
    Find thy body by the wall!

    --Matthew Arnold.


THE REFORMER

    Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down--
    One man against a stone-walled city of sin.
    For centuries those walls have been abuilding;
    Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass
    The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink,
    No crevice, lets the thinnest arrow in.
    He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts
    A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him.
    Let him lie down and die: what is the right,
    And where is justice, in a world like this?
    But by and by earth shakes herself, impatient;
    And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash
    Watch-tower and citadel and battlements.
    When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier
    Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly stars.

    --Edward Rowland Sill.


LIFE AND DEATH

    So he died for his faith. That is fine--
      More than most of us do.
    But, say, can you add to that line
      That he lived for it, too?
    In his death he bore witness at last
      As a martyr to truth.
    Did his life do the same in the past
      From the days of his youth?
    It is easy to die. Men have died
      For a wish or a whim--
    From bravado or passion or pride.
      Was it harder for him?
    But to live--every day to live out
      All the truth that he dreamt,
    While his friends met his conduct with doubt
      And the world with contempt.
    Was it thus that he plodded ahead,
      Never turning aside?
    Then we'll talk of the life that he lived.
      Never mind how he died.

    --Ernest Crosby.


THE RED PLANET MARS

    The star of the unconquered will,
      He rises in my breast,
    Serene, and resolute, and still,
      And calm, and self-possessed.

    And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
      That readest this brief psalm,
    As one by one thy hopes depart,
      Be resolute and calm.

    Oh, fear not in a world like this,
      And thou shalt know erelong,--
    Know how sublime a thing it is
      To suffer and be strong.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS PRAISE THEE

    Not they alone who from the bitter strife
      Came forth victorious, yielding willingly
    That which they deem most precious, even life,
      Content to suffer all things, Christ, for Thee;
    Not they alone whose feet so firmly trod
      The pathway ending in rack, sword and flame,
    Foreseeing death, yet faithful to their Lord,
      Enduring for His sake the pain and shame;
    Not they alone have won the martyr's palm,
    Not only from their life proceeds the eternal psalm.

    For earth hath martyrs now, a saintly throng;
      Each day unnoticed do we pass them by;
    'Mid busy crowds they calmly move along,
      Bearing a hidden cross, how patiently!
    Not theirs the sudden anguish, swift and keen,
      Their hearts are worn and wasted with small cares,
    With daily griefs and thrusts from foes unseen;
      Troubles and trials that take them unawares;
    Theirs is a lingering, silent martyrdom;
    They weep through weary years, and long for rest to come.

    They weep, but murmur not; it is God's will,
      And they have learned to bend their own to his;
    Simply enduring, knowing that each ill
      Is but the herald of some future bliss;
    Striving and suffering, yet so silently
      They know it least who seem to know them best.
    Faithful and true through long adversity
      They work and wait until God gives them rest;
    These surely share with those of bygone days
    The palm-branch and the crown, and swell their song of praise.


THE HAPPY WARRIOR

    'Tis, finally, the man, who, lifted high,
    Conspicuous object in a nation's eye,
    Or left unthought of in obscurity,
    Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
    Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not,--
    Plays, in the many games of life, that one
    Where what he most doth value must be won;
    Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
    Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
    Who, not content that former work stand fast,
    Looks forward, persevering to the last,
    From well to better, daily self-surpast;
    Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
    Forever, and to noble deeds give birth,
    Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
    And leave a dead, unprofitable name--
    Finds comfort in himself and in his cause,
    And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
    His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
    This is the happy warrior; this is he
    That every man in arms should wish to be.

    --William Wordsworth.


    Aground the man who seeks a noble end
    Not angels but divinities attend.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


ROBERT BROWNING'S MESSAGE

    Grow old along with me!
    The best is yet to be,
    The last of life, for which the first was made;
    Our times are in His hand
    Who saith, "A whole I planned,
    Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

    Poor vaunt of life indeed,
    Were man but formed to feed
    On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
    Such feasting ended, then
    As sure an end to men:
    Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

    Then welcome each rebuff
    That turns earth's smoothness rough,
    Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, but go!
    Be our joys three parts pain!
    Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
    Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

    For thence--a paradox
    Which comforts while it mocks--
    Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
    What I aspired to be,
    And was not, comforts me:
    A brute I might have been, but would not sink i' the scale.

    * * * * *

    Not on the vulgar mass
    Called "work" must sentence pass,
      Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
    O'er which, from level stand,
    The low world laid its hand,
      Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

    But all, the world's coarse thumb
    And finger failed to plumb,
      So passed in making up the main account;
    All instincts immature,
    All purposes unsure,
      That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:

    Thoughts hardly to be packed
    Into a narrow act,
      Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
    All I could never be,
    All, men ignored in me,
      This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

    * * * * *

    Fool! All that is, at all,
    Lasts ever, past recall;
      Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
    What entered into thee
    _That_ was, is, and shall be:
      Time's wheel runs back or stops; Potter and clay endure.

    --From "Rabbi Ben Ezra."


TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD

    Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
    In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
    Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
    Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
    And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.

    Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
    One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
    Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne--
    Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
    Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch, above his own.

    Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
    Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and 'tis prosperous to be just;
    Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
    Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
    And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.

    Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes--they were souls that stood alone
    While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone;
    Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
    To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
    By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.

    By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
    Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
    And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
    One new word of that grand _Credo_ which in prophet-hearts hath burned
    Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven
      upturned.

    For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
    On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
    Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
    While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
    To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

    'Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
    Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves;
    Worshipers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;--
    Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their
      time?
    Turn those tracks toward Past or Future that make Plymouth Rock
      sublime?

    They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
    Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires;
    Shall we make their creed our jailer? shall we in our haste to slay,
    From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
    To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?

    New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
    They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
    Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
    Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter
      sea,
    Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key.

    --James Russell Lowell.


COLUMBUS

    Behind him lay the gray Azores,
      Behind the Gates of Hercules;
    Before him not the ghost of shores,
      Before him only shoreless seas.
    The good mate said: "Now, we must pray,
      For lo! the very stars are _gone_,
    Speak, Admiral, what shall I say?"
      "Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

    "My men grow mutinous day by day;
      My men grow ghastly wan and weak."
    The stout mate thought of home; a spray
      Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek.
    "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say,
      If we sight naught but seas at dawn?"
    "Why, you shall say at break of day,
      'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!'"

    They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
      Until at last the blanched mate said:
    "Why, now not even God would know
      Should I and all my men fall dead.
    These very winds forget their way,
      For God from these dread seas is gone.
    Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say--"
      He said, "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

    They sailed. They sailed. Then spoke the mate:
      "This mad sea shows its teeth to-night.
    He curls his lip, he lies in wait,
      With lifted teeth, as if to bite!
    Brave Admiral, say but one good word.
      What shall we do when hope is gone?"
    The words leapt as a leaping sword,
      "Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!"

    Then, pale and worn, he kept his deck,
      And peered through darkness. Ah, that night
    Of all dark nights! And then a speck--
      A light! A light! A light!
    It grew, a starlit flag unfurled!
      It grew to be Time's burst of dawn:
    He gained a world; he gave that world
      Its grandest lesson: "On, and on!"

    --Joaquin Miller.


THE CHOSEN FEW

    The Son of God goes forth to war,
      A kingly crown to gain;
    His blood-red banner streams afar;
      Who follows in his train.

    Who best can drink His cup of woe,
      And triumph over pain,
    Who patient bears His cross below--
      He follows in His train.

    A glorious band, the chosen few,
      On whom the Spirit came;
    Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew,
      And mocked the cross and flame.

    They climbed the dizzy steep to heaven
      Through peril, toil and pain;
    O God! to us may grace be given
      To follow in their train!

    --Reginald Heber.


HOW DID YOU DIE?

    Did you tackle that trouble that came your way
      With a resolute heart and cheerful,
    Or hide your face from the light of day
      With a craven soul and fearful?
    O, a trouble is a ton, or a trouble is an ounce,
      Or a trouble is what you make it,
    And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,
      But only--how did you take it?

    You are beaten to earth? Well, well, what's that?
      Come up with a smiling face.
    It's nothing against you to fall down flat,
      But to lie there--that's disgrace.
    The harder you're thrown, why, the higher you bounce;
      Be proud of your blackened eye!
    It isn't the fact that you're licked that counts;
      It's how did you fight--and why?

    And though you be done to the death, what then?
      If you battled the best you could.
    If you played your part in the world of men,
      Why, the Critic will call it good.
    Death comes with a crawl or comes with a pounce,
      And whether he's slow or spry,
    It isn't the fact that you're dead that counts,
      But only--how did you die?

    --Edmund Vance Cooke.


LUTHER

    That which he knew he uttered,
      Conviction made him strong;
    And with undaunted courage
      He faced and fought the wrong.
    No power on earth could silence him
      Whom love and faith made brave;
    And though four hundred years have gone
      Men strew with flowers his grave.

    A frail child born to poverty,
      A German miner's son;
    A poor monk searching in his cell,
      What honors he has won!
    The nations crown him faithful,
      A man whom truth made free;
    God give us for these easier times
      More men as real as he!

    --Marianne Farningham.


THE MARTYRS

    Flung to the heedless winds,
      Or on the waters cast,
    The martyrs' ashes, watched,
      Shall gathered be at last;
    And from that scattered dust,
      Around us and abroad,
    Shall spring a plenteous seed
      Of witnesses for God.

    The Father hath received
      Their latest living breath;
    And vain is Satan's boast
      Of victory in their death;
    Still, still, though dead, they speak,
      And, trumpet-tongued, proclaim
    To many a wakening land,
      The one availing name.

    --Martin Luther, tr. by John A. Messenger.


    Stainless soldier on the walls,
      Knowing this--and knows no more--
    Whoever fights, whoever falls,
      Justice conquers evermore,
      Justice after as before;
    And he who battles on her side,
      God, though he were ten times slain,
    Crowns him victor glorified,
      Victor over death and pain.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


ETERNAL JUSTICE

    The man is thought a knave, or fool,
      Or bigot, plotting crime,
    Who, for the advancement of his kind,
      Is wiser than his time.
    For him the hemlock shall distil;
      For him the axe be bared;
    For him the gibbet shall be built;
      For him the stake prepared.
    Him shall the scorn and wrath of men
      Pursue with deadly aim;
    And malice, envy, spite, and lies,
      Shall desecrate his name.
    But Truth shall conquer at the last,
      For round and round we run;
    And ever the Right comes uppermost,
      And ever is Justice done.

    Pace through thy cell, old Socrates,
      Cheerily to and fro;
    Trust to the impulse of thy soul,
      And let the poison flow.
    They may shatter to earth the lamp of clay
      That holds a light divine,
    But they cannot quench the fire of thought
      By any such deadly wine.
    They cannot blot thy spoken words
      From the memory of man
    By all the poison ever was brewed
      Since time its course began.
    To-day abhorred, to-morrow adored,
      For round and round we run,
    And ever the Truth comes uppermost,
      And ever is Justice done.

    Plod in thy cave, gray anchorite;
      Be wiser than thy peers;
    Augment the range of human power,
      And trust to coming years.
    They may call thee wizard, and monk accursed,
      And load thee with dispraise;
    Thou wert born five hundred years too soon
      For the comfort of thy days;
    But not too soon for human kind.
      Time hath reward in store;
    And the demons of our sires become
      The saints that we adore.
    The blind can see, the slave is lord,
      So round and round we run;
    And ever the Wrong is proved to be wrong
      And ever is Justice done.

    Keep, Galileo, to thy thought,
      And nerve thy soul to bear;
    They may gloat o'er the senseless words they wring
      From the pangs of thy despair;
    They may veil their eyes, but they cannot hide
      The sun's meridian glow;
    The heel of a priest may tread thee down
      And a tyrant work thee woe;
    But never a truth has been destroyed;
      They may curse it and call it crime;
    Pervert and betray, or slander and slay
      Its teachers for a time.
    But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,
      As round and round we run;
    And the Truth shall ever come uppermost,
      And Justice shall be done.

    And live there now such men as these--
      With thoughts like the great of old?
    Many have died in their misery,
      And left their thought untold;
    And many live, and are ranked as mad,
      And are placed in the cold world's ban,
    For sending their bright, far-seeing souls
      Three centuries in the van.
    They toil in penury and grief,
      Unknown, if not maligned;
    Forlorn, forlorn, bearing the scorn
      Of the meanest of mankind!
    But yet the world goes round and round,
      And the genial seasons run;
    And ever the Truth comes uppermost,
      And ever is Justice done.

    --Charles Mackay.


    We cannot kindle when we will
      The fire which in the heart resides.
    The spirit bloweth and is still;
      In mystery our soul abides:
    But tasks in hours of insight willed
    Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

    With aching hands and bleeding feet
      We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
    We bear the burden and the heat
      Of the long day, and wish 'twere done.
    Not till the hours of light return,
    All we have built do we discern.

    --Matthew Arnold.


WHAT MAKES A HERO?

    What makes a hero?--not success, not fame,
    Inebriate merchants, and the loud acclaim
      Of glutted avarice--caps tossed up in air,
      Or pen of journalist with flourish fair;
    Bells pealed, stars, ribbons, and a titular name--
      These, though his rightful tribute, he can spare;
    His rightful tribute, not his end or aim,
      Or true reward; for never yet did these
      Refresh the soul, or set the heart at ease.
    What makes a hero?--An heroic mind,
    Expressed in action, in endurance proved.
      And if there be preeminence of right,
      Derived through pain well suffered, to the height
    Of rank heroic, 'tis to bear unmoved
    Not toil, not risk, not rage of sea or wind,
    Not the brute fury of barbarians blind,
      But worse--ingratitude and poisonous darts,
      Launched by the country he had served and loved.
    This, with a free, unclouded spirit pure,
    This, in the strength of silence to endure,
      A dignity to noble deeds imparts
      Beyond the gauds and trappings of renown;
      This is the hero's complement and crown;
    This missed, one struggle had been wanting still--
    One glorious triumph of the heroic will,
      One self-approval in his heart of hearts.

    --Henry Taylor.


    As the bird trims her to the gale
      I trim myself to the storm of time;
    I man the rudder, reef the sail,
      Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime;
    "Lowly faithful banish fear,
      Right onward drive unharmed;
    The port, well worth the cruise, is near,
      And every wave is charmed."

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


DEMAND FOR MEN

    The world wants men--large-hearted, manly men;
    Men who shall join its chorus and prolong
    The psalm of labor, and the psalm of love.
    The times want scholars--scholars who shall shape
    The doubtful destinies of dubious years,
    And land the ark that bears our country's good
    Safe on some peaceful Ararat at last.
    The age wants heroes--heroes who shall dare
    To struggle in the solid ranks of truth;
    To clutch the monster error by the throat;
    To bear opinion to a loftier seat;
    To blot the era of oppression out,
    And lead a universal freedom on.
    And heaven wants souls--fresh and capacious souls;
    To taste its raptures, and expand, like flowers,
    Beneath the glory of its central sun.
    It wants fresh souls--not lean and shrivelled ones;
    It wants fresh souls, my brother, give it thine.
    If thou indeed wilt be what scholars should;
    If thou wilt be a hero, and wilt strive
    To help thy fellow and exalt thyself,
    Thy feet at last shall stand on jasper floors;
    Thy heart, at last, shall seem a thousand hearts--
    Each single heart with myriad raptures filled--
    While thou shalt sit with princes and with kings,
    Rich in the jewel of a ransomed soul.


    Blessed are they who die for God,
      And earn the martyr's crown of light;
    Yet he who lives for God may be
      A greater conqueror in his sight.


    Better to stem with heart and hand
      The roaring tide of life than lie,
    Unmindful, on its flowery strand,
      Of God's occasions drifting by!


TRUTH

    Truth will prevail, though men abhor
      The glory of its light;
    And wage exterminating war
      And put all foes to flight.

    Though trodden under foot of men,
      Truth from the dust will spring,
    And from the press--the lip--the pen--
      In tones of thunder ring.

    Beware--beware, ye who resist
      The light that beams around,
    Lest, ere you look through error's mist,
      Truth strike you to the ground.

    --D. C. Colesworthy.


TO A REFORMER

    Nay, now, if these things that you yearn to teach
      Bear wisdom, in your judgment, rich and strong,
    Give voice to them though no man heed your speech,
      Since right is right though all the world _go_ wrong.

    The proof that you believe what you declare
      Is that you still stand firm though throngs pass by;
    Rather cry truth a lifetime to void air
      Than flatter listening millions with one lie!

    --Edgar Fawcett.


TEACH ME THE TRUTH

    Teach me the truth, Lord, though it put to flight
      My cherished dreams and fondest fancy's play;
    Give me to know the darkness from the light,
        The night from day.

    Teach me the truth, Lord, though my heart may break
      In casting out the falsehood for the true;
    Help me to take my shattered life and make
        Its actions new.

    Teach me the truth, Lord, though my feet may fear
      The rocky path that opens out to me;
    Rough it may be, but let the way be clear
        That leads to thee.

    Teach me the truth, Lord. When false creeds decay,
      When man-made dogmas vanish with the night,
    Then, Lord, on thee my darkened soul shall stay,
        Thou living Light.

    --Frances Lockwood Green.


HEROISM

    It takes great strength to train
    To modern service your ancestral brain;
    To lift the weight of the unnumbered years
    Of dead men's habits, methods, and ideas;
    To hold that back with one hand, and support
    With the other the weak steps of the new thought.

    It takes great strength to bring your life up square
    With your accepted thought and hold it there;
    Resisting the inertia that drags back
    From new attempts to the old habit's track.
    It is so easy to drift back, to sink;
    So hard to live abreast of what you think.

    It takes great strength to live where you belong
    When other people think that you are wrong;
    People you love, and who love you, and whose
    Approval is a pleasure you would choose.
    To bear this pressure and succeed at length
    In living your belief--well, it takes strength,

    And courage, too. But what does courage mean
    Save strength to help you face a pain foreseen?
    Courage to undertake this lifelong strain
    Of setting yours against your grand-sire's brain;
    Dangerous risk of walking lone and free
    Out of the easy paths that used to be,
    And the fierce pain of hurting those we love
    When love meets truth, and truth must ride above.

    But the best courage man has ever shown
    Is daring to cut loose and think alone.
    Dark are the unlit chambers of clear space
    Where light shines back from no reflecting face.
    Our sun's wide glare, our heaven's shining blue,
    We owe to fog and dust they fumble through;
    And our rich wisdom that we treasure so
    Shines from the thousand things that we don't know.
    But to think new--it takes a courage grim
    As led Columbus over the world's rim.
    To think it cost some courage. And to go--
    Try it. It takes every power you know.

    It takes great love to stir the human heart
    To live beyond the others and apart.
    A love that is not shallow, is not small,
    Is not for one or two, but for them all.
    Love that can wound love for its higher need;
    Love that can leave love, though the heart may bleed;
    Love that can lose love, family and friend,
    Yet steadfastly live, loving, to the end.
    A love that asks no answer, that can live
    Moved by one burning, deathless force--to give.
    Love, strength, and courage; courage, strength, and love.
    The heroes of all time are built thereof.

    --Charlotte Perkins Stetson.


TO TRUTH

    O star of truth down shining
      Through clouds of doubt and fear,
    I ask but 'neath your guidance
      My pathway may appear.
    However long the journey
      How hard soe'er it be,
    Though I be lone and weary,
      Lead on, I'll follow thee.

    I know thy blessed radiance
      Can never lead astray,
    However ancient custom
      May trend some other way.
    E'en if through untried deserts,
      Or over trackless sea,
    Though I be lone and weary,
      Lead on, I'll follow thee.

    The bleeding feet of martyrs
      Thy toilsome road have trod.
    But fires of human passion
      May light the way to God.
    Then, though my feet should falter,
      While I thy beams can see,
    Though I be lone and weary,
      Lead on, I'll follow thee.

    Though loving friends forsake me,
      Or plead with me in tears--
    Though angry foes may threaten
      To shake my soul with fears--
    Still to my high allegiance
      I must not faithless be.
    Through life or death, forever,
      Lead on, I'll follow thee.

    --Minot J. Savage.


NOBLESSE OBLIGE

    Not ours nobility of this world's giving
      Granted by monarchs of some earthly throne;
    Not this life only which is worth the living,
      Nor honor here worth striving for alone.

    Princes are we, and of a line right royal;
      Heirs are we of a glorious realm above;
    Yet bound to service humble, true, and loyal,
      For thus constraineth us our Monarch's love.

    And looking to the joy that lies before us,
      The crown held out to our once fallen race;
    Led by the light that ever shineth o'er us,
      Man is restored to nature's noblest place.

    _Noblesse oblige_--(our very watchword be it!)
      To raise the fallen from this low estate,
    To boldly combat wrong whene'er we see it,
      To render good for evil, love for hate.

    _Noblesse oblige_--to deeds of valiant daring
      In alien lands which other lords obey,
    And into farthest climes our standard bearing,
      To lead them captive 'neath our Master's sway.

    _Noblesse oblige_--that, grudging not our treasure,
      Nor seeking any portion to withhold,
    We freely give it, without stint or measure,
      Whate'er it be--our talents, time, or gold.

    _Noblesse oblige_--that, looking upward ever,
      We serve our King with courage, faith, and love,
    Till, through that grace which can from death deliver,
      We claim our noble heritage above!


OUR HEROES

    The winds that once the Argo bore
      Have died by Neptune's ruined shrines,
    And her hull is the drift of the deep sea floor,
      Though shaped of Pelion's tallest pines.
    You may seek her crew in every isle,
      Fair in the foam of Aegean seas,
    But out of their sleep no charm can wile
      Jason and Orpheus and Hercules.

    And Priam's voice is heard no more
      By windy Illium's sea-built walls;
    From the washing wave and the lonely shore
      No wail goes up as Hector falls.
    On Ida's mount is the shining snow,
      But Jove has gone from its brow away,
    And red on the plain the poppies grow
      Where Greek and Trojan fought that day.

    Mother Earth! Are thy heroes dead?
      Do they thrill the soul of the years no more?
    Are the gleaming snows and the poppies red
      All that is left of the brave of yore?
    Are there none to fight as Theseus fought,
      Far in the young world's misty dawn?
    Or teach as the gray-haired Nestor taught?
      Mother Earth! Are thy heroes gone?

    Gone?--in a nobler form they rise;
      Dead?--we may clasp their hands in ours,
    And catch the light of their glorious eyes,
      And wreathe their brows with immortal flowers.
    Whenever a noble deed is done,
      There are the souls of our heroes stirred;
    Whenever a field for truth is won,
      There are our heroes' voices heard.

    Their armor rings in a fairer field
      Than Greek or Trojan ever trod,
    For Freedom's sword is the blade they wield,
      And the light above them the smile of God!
    So, in his Isle of calm delight,
      Jason may dream the years away,
    But the heroes live, and the skies are bright,
      And the world is a braver world to-day.

    --Edna Dean Proctor.


    The hero is not fed on sweets,
    Daily his own heart he eats;
    Chambers of the great are jails,
    And head winds right for royal sails.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


TRIUMPH OF THE MARTYRS

    They seemed to die on battle-field,
      To die with justice, truth, and law;
    The bloody corpse, the broken shield,
      Were all that senseless folly saw.
    But, like Antaeus from the turf,
      They sprung refreshed, to strive again,
    Where'er the savage and the serf
      Rise to the rank of men.

    They seemed to die by sword and fire,
      Their voices hushed in endless sleep;
    Well might the noblest cause expire
      Beneath that mangled, smouldering heap;
    Yet that wan band, unarmed, defied
      The legions of their pagan foes;
    And in the truths they testified,
      From out the ashes rose.


WORTH WHILE

    I pray thee, Lord, that when it comes to me
    To say if I will follow truth and Thee,
    Or choose instead to win, as better worth
    My pains, some cloying recompense of earth--

    Grant me, great Father, from a hard-fought field,
    Forspent and bruised, upon a battered shield,
    Home to obscure endurance to be borne
    Rather than live my own mean gains to scorn.

    --Edward Sandford Martin.


WILL

    O, well for him whose will is strong!
    He suffers, but he will not suffer long;
    He suffers, but he cannot suffer wrong.
    For him nor moves the loud world's random mock,
    Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound,
    Who seems a promontory of rock,
    That, compassed round with turbulent sound,
    In middle ocean meets the surging shock,
    Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


NOBLE DEEDS

    Whene'er a noble deed is wrought,
    Whene'er is spoken a noble thought,
        Our hearts in glad surprise,
        To higher levels rise.

    The tidal wave of deeper souls
    Into our inmost being rolls,
        And lifts us unawares
        Out of all meaner cares.

    Honor to those whose words or deeds
    Thus help us in our daily needs,
        And by their overflow
        Raise us from what is low!

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


GOD'S HEROES

    Not on the gory field of fame
      Their noble deeds were done;
    Not in the sound of earth's acclaim
      Their fadeless crowns were won.
    Not from the palaces of kings,
      Nor fortune's sunny clime,
    Came the great souls, whose life-work flings
      Luster o'er earth and time.

    For truth with tireless zeal they sought;
      In joyless paths they trod--
    Heedless of praise or blame they wrought,
      And left the rest to God.
    The lowliest sphere was not disdained;
      Where love could soothe or save,
    They went, by fearless faith sustained,
      Nor knew their deeds were brave.

    The foes with which they waged their strife
      Were passion, self, and sin;
    The victories that laureled life
      Were fought and won within.
    Not names in gold emblazoned here,
      And great and good confessed,
    In Heaven's immortal scroll appear
      As noblest and as best.

    No sculptured stone in stately temple
      Proclaims their rugged lot;
    Like Him who was their great example,
      This vain world knew them not.
    But though their names no poet wove
      In deathless song or story,
    Their record is inscribed above;
      Their wreaths are crowns of glory.

    --Edward Hartley Dewart.


WORLDLY PLACE

    "Even in a palace, life may be led well!"
    So spoke the imperial sage, purest of men,
    Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
    Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
    Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
    And drudge under some foolish master's ken,
    Who rates us if we peer outside our pen--
    Matched with a palace, is not this a hell?
    "Even in a palace!" On his truth sincere,
    Who spoke these words no shadow ever came;
    And when my ill-schooled spirit is aflame
    Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
    I'll stop and say: "There were no succor here!
    The aids to noble life are all within."

    --Matthew Arnold.


THE VICTORY

    To do the tasks of life, and be not lost;
      To mingle, yet dwell apart;
    To be by roughest seas how rudely tossed,
      Yet bate no jot of heart;

    To hold thy course among the heavenly stars,
      Yet dwell upon the earth;
    To stand behind Fate's firm-laid prison bars,
      Yet win all Freedom's worth.

    --Sydney Henry Morse.


    'Twere sweet indeed to close our eyes
      with those we cherish near,
    And wafted upward by their sighs soar
      to some calmer sphere;
    But whether on the scaffold high or
      in the battle's van
    The fittest place where man can die
      is where he dies for man.

    --Michael Joseph Barry.


A TRUE HERO

(James Braidwood of the London Fire Brigade; died June, 1861.)

    Not at the battle front, writ of in story,
    Not in the blazing wreck, steering to glory;

    Not while in martyr-pangs soul and flesh sever,
    Died he--this Hero now; hero forever.

    No pomp poetic crowned, no forms enchained him;
    No friends applauding watched, no foes arraigned him;

    Death found him there, without grandeur or beauty.
    Only an honest man doing his duty;

    Just a God-fearing man, simple and lowly,
    Constant at kirk and hearth, kindly as holy;

    Death found--and touched him with finger in flying--
    Lo! he rose up complete--hero undying.

    Now all men mourn for him, lovingly raise him,
    Up from his life obscure, chronicle, praise him;

    Tell his last act; done 'midst peril appalling,
    And the last word of cheer from his lips falling;

    Follow in multitudes to his grave's portal;
    Leave him there, buried in honor immortal.

    So many a Hero walks unseen beside us,
    Till comes the supreme stroke sent to divide us.

    Then the Lord calls his own--like this man, even,
    Carried, Elijah-like, fire-winged, to heaven.

    --Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.


    Unless above himself he can
    Erect himself, how poor a thing is man.

    --Samuel Daniel.


BATTLES

    Nay, not for place, but for the right,
      To make this fair world fairer still--
    Or lowly lily of the night,
      Or sun topped tower of a hill,
    Or high or low, or near or far,
      Or dull or keen, or bright or dim,
    Or blade of grass, or brightest star--
      All, all are but the same to him.

    O pity of the strife for place!
      O pity of the strife for power!
    How scarred, how marred a mountain's face!
      How fair the face of a flower!
    The blade of grass beneath your feet
      The bravest sword--aye, braver far
    To do and die in mute defeat
      Than bravest conqueror of war!

    When I am dead, say this, but this:
      "He grasped at no man's blade or shield.
    Or banner bore, but helmetless,
      Alone, unknown, he held the field;
    He held the field, with sabre drawn,
      Where God had set him in the fight;
    He held the field, fought on and on,
      And so fell, fighting for the right!"

    --Joaquin Miller.


    While thus to love he gave his days
    In loyal worship, scorning praise,
    How spread their lures for him in vain,
    Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!
    He thought it happier to be dead,
    To die for Beauty than live for bread.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


    Whether we climb, whether we plod,
      Space for one task the scant years lend,
    To choose some path that leads to God,
      And keep it to the end.

    --Lizette Woodworth Reese.


    Bravely to do whate'er the time demands,
      Whether with pen or sword, and not to flinch,
    This is the task that fits heroic hands;
      So are Truth's boundaries widened, inch by inch.

    --James Russell Lowell.




COURAGE

CONSTANCY, CONFIDENCE, STRENGTH, VALOR


THE BATTLEFIELD

    Once this soft turf, this rivulet's sands,
      Were trampled by a hurrying crowd,
    And fiery hearts and armed hands
      Encountered in the battle cloud.

    Ah! never shall the land forget
      How gushed the life-blood of her brave--
    Gushed, warm with life and courage yet,
      Upon the soil they fought to save.

    Now all is calm and fresh and still,
      Alone the chirp of flitting bird,
    And talks of children on the hill,
      And bell of wandering kine are heard.

    No solemn host goes trailing by
      The black-mouthed gun and staggering wain;
    Men start not at the battle-cry;
      Oh, be it never heard again!

    Soon rested those who fought; but thou
      Who minglest in the harder strife
    For truths which men receive not now,
      Thy warfare only ends with life.

    A friendless warfare! lingering long
      Through weary day and weary year;
    A wild and many-weaponed throng
      Hang on thy front, and flank, and rear.

    Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof.
      And blench not at thy chosen lot;
    The timid good may stand aloof,
      The sage may frown--yet faint thou not.

    Nor heed the shaft too surely cast,
      The foul and hissing bolt of scorn;
    For with thy side shall dwell at last
      The victory of endurance born.

    Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again;
      The eternal years of God are hers;
    But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
      And dies among his worshipers.

    Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
      When they who helped thee flee in fear,
    Die full of hope and manly trust,
      Like those who fell in battle here.

    Another hand thy sword shall wield,
      Another hand the standard wave,
    Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed,
      The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.

    --William Cullen Bryant.


DARE YOU?

    Doubting Thomas and loving John,
    Behind the others walking on:

    "Tell me now, John, dare you be
    One of the minority?
    To be lonely in your thought,
    Never visited nor sought,
    Shunned with secret shrug, to go
    Through the world esteemed its foe;
    To be singled out and hissed,
    Pointed at as one unblessed,
    Warned against in whispers faint,
    Lest the children catch a taint;
    To bear off your titles well,--
    Heretic and infidel?
    If you dare, come now with me,
    Fearless, confident and free."

    "Thomas, do you dare to be
    Of the great majority?
    To be only, as the rest,
    With Heaven's common comforts blessed;
    To accept, in humble part,
    Truth that shines on every heart;
    Never to be set on high,
    Where the envious curses fly;
    Never name or fame to find,
    Still outstripped in soul and mind;
    To be hid, unless to God,
    As one grass-blade in the sod;
    Underfoot with millions trod?
    If you dare, come with us, be
    Lost in love's great unity."

    --Edward Rowland Sill.


SENSITIVENESS

    Time was I shrank from what was right,
      From fear of what was wrong;
    I would not brave the sacred fight
      Because the foe was strong.

    But now I cast that finer sense
      And sorer shame aside;
    Such dread of sin was indolence,
      Such aim at heaven was pride.

    So when my Saviour calls I rise,
      And calmly do my best;
    Leaving to Him, with silent eyes
      Of hope and fear, the rest.

    I step, I mount, where He has led;
      Men count my haltings o'er;
    I know them; yet, though self I dread,
      I love His precept more.

    --John Henry Newman.


COURAGE

    Because I hold it sinful to despond,
      And will not let the bitterness of life
    Blind me with burning tears, but look beyond
      Its tumult and its strife;

    Because I lift my head above the mist,
      Where the sun shines and the broad breezes blow,
    By every ray and every raindrop kissed
      That God's love doth bestow;

    Think you I find no bitterness at all?
      No burden to be borne, like Christian's pack?
    Think you there are no ready tears to fall
      Because I keep them back?

    Why should I hug life's ills with cold reserve,
      To curse myself and all who love me? Nay!
    A thousand times more good than I deserve
      God gives me every day.

    And in each one of these rebellious tears
      Kept bravely back He makes a rainbow shine;
    Gratefully I take His slightest gift, no fears
      Nor any doubts are mine.

    Dark skies must clear, and when the clouds are past
      One golden day redeems a weary year;
    Patient I listen, sure that sweet at last
      Will sound his voice of cheer.

    Then vex me not with chiding. Let me be.
      I must be glad and grateful to the end.
    I grudge you not your cold and darkness,--me
      The powers of light befriend.

    --Celia Thaxter.


DO AND BE BLEST

    Dare to think, though others frown;
      Dare in words your thoughts express;
    Dare to rise, though oft cast down;
      Dare the wronged and scorned to bless.

    Dare from custom to depart;
      Dare the priceless pearl possess;
    Dare to wear it next your heart;
      Dare, when others curse, to bless.

    Dare forsake what you deem wrong;
      Dare to walk in wisdom's way,
    Dare to give where gifts belong,
      Dare God's precepts to obey.

    Do what conscience says is right,
      Do what reason says is best,
    Do with all your mind and might;
      Do your duty and be blest.


A PLACE WITH HIM

    O tired worker, faltering on life's rugged way,
      With faithful hands so full they may not rest,
    Forget not that the weak of earth have one sure stay,
      And humblest ones by God himself are blest,
            Who work for Him!

    Then courage take, faint heart! and though the path be long
      God's simple rule thy steps will safely guide:--
    "Love Him, thy neighbor as thyself, and do no wrong";
      In calm content they all shall surely bide
            Who walk with Him!

    So banish every fear, each daily task take up,
      God's grace thy failing strength shall build anew;
    His mercy, in thy sorrows, stay the flowing cup:
      And His great love keep for thy spirit true
            A place with him!

    --J. D. Seabury.


GOD A FORTRESS

    A mighty fortress is our God,
      A bulwark never failing:
    Our Helper, he, amid the flood
      Of mortal ills prevailing.
    For still our ancient foe
    Doth seek to work us woe;
    His craft and power are great,
    And, armed with cruel hate,
      On earth is not his equal.

    Did we in our own strength confide,
      Our striving would be losing;
    Were not the right man on our side,
      The man of God's own choosing.
    Dost ask who that may be?
    Christ Jesus, it is he;
    Lord Sabaoth is his name,
    From age to age the same,
      And he must win the battle.

    And though this world, with devils filled,
      Should threaten to undo us;
    We will not fear, for God hath willed
      His truth to triumph through us.
    The Prince of darkness grim--
    We tremble not for him;
    His rage we can endure,
    For lo! his doom is sure,
      One little word shall fell him.

    That word above all earthly powers--
      No thanks to them--abideth;
    The Spirit and the gifts are ours
      Through him who with us sideth.
    Let goods and kindred go,
    This mortal life also;
    The body they may kill:
    God's truth abideth still,
      His kingdom is forever.

    --Martin Luther, tr. by Frederick H. Hedge.


STRENGTH

    Be strong to hope, O heart!
      Though day is bright,
    The stars can only shine
      In the dark night.
    Be strong, O heart of mine,
      Look toward the light.

    Be strong to bear, O heart!
      Nothing is vain:
    Strive not, for life is care,
      And God sends pain.
    Heaven is above, and there
      Rest will remain.

    Be strong to love, O heart!
      Love knows not wrong;
    Didst thou love creatures even,
      Life were not long;
    Didst thou love God in heaven
      Thou wouldst be strong.


    Why comes temptation but for man to meet
    And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
    And so be pedestaled in triumph? Pray,
    "Lead us into no such temptation, Lord!"
    Yea, but, O thou whose servants are the bold,
    Lead such temptations by the head and hair,
    Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,
    That so he may do battle and have praise.

    --Robert Browning.


BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

    Speak thou the truth. Let others fence,
      And trim their words for pay:
    In pleasant sunshine of pretense
      Let others bask their day.

    Guard thou the fact; though clouds of night
      Down on thy watch tower stoop:
    Though thou shouldst see thine heart's delight
      Borne from thee by their swoop.

    Face thou the wind. Though safer seem
      In shelter to abide:
    We were not made to sit and dream:
      The safe must first be tried.

    Where God hath set His thorns about,
      Cry not, "The way is plain":
    His path within for those without
      Is paved with toil and pain.

    One fragment of His blessed Word,
      Into thy spirit burned,
    Is better than the whole half-heard
      And by thine interest turned.

    Show thou thy light. If conscience gleam,
      Set not thy bushel down;
    The smallest spark may send his beam
      O'er hamlet, tower, and town.

    Woe, woe to him, on safety bent,
      Who creeps to age from youth,
    Failing to grasp his life's intent
      Because he fears the truth.

    Be true to every inmost thought,
      And as thy thought, thy speech:
    What thou hast not by suffering bought,
      Presume thou not to teach.

    Hold on, hold on--thou hast the rock,
      The foes are on the sand:
    The first world tempest's ruthless shock
      Scatters their drifting strand:

    While each wild gust the mist shall clear
      We now see darkly through,
    And justified at last appear
      The true, in Him that's True.

    --Henry Alford.


COURAGE DEFINED

    The brave man is not he who feels no fear,
    For that were stupid and irrational;
    But he whose noble soul its fear subdues,
    And bravely dares the danger nature shrinks from.
    As for your youth whom blood and blows delight,
    Away with them! there is not in their crew
    One valiant spirit.

    --Joanna Baillie.


DEMAND FOR COURAGE

    Thy life's a warfare, thou a soldier art;
    Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart
    Thy two-edged weapon; patience is thy shield,
    Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field.
    To be afraid to die, or wish for death,
    Are words and passions of despairing breath.
    Who doth the first the day doth faintly yield;
    And who the second basely flies the field.

    --Francis Quarles.


    When falls the hour of evil chance--
      And hours of evil chance will fall--
    Strike, though with but a broken lance!
      Strike, though you have no lance at all!

    Shrink not, however great the odds;
      Shrink not, however dark the hour--
    The barest possibility of good
      Demands your utmost power.


    They are slaves who fear to speak
    For the fallen and the weak;
    They are slaves who will not choose
    Hatred, scoffing and abuse,
    Rather than in silence shrink
    From the truth they needs must think;
    They are slaves who dare not be
    In the right with two or three.

    --James Russell Lowell.


TRUST IN GOD AND DO THE RIGHT

    Courage, brother, do not stumble,
      Though thy path be dark as night;
    There's a star to guide the humble--
      Trust in God and do the right.
    Though the road be long and dreary,
      And the end be out of sight;
    Foot it bravely, strong or weary--
      Trust in God and do the right.

    Perish "policy" and cunning,
      Perish all that fears the light;
    Whether losing, whether winning,
      Trust in God and do the right.
    Shun all forms of guilty passion,
      Fiends can look like angels bright;
    Heed no custom, school, or fashion--
      Trust in God and do the right.

    Some will hate thee, some will love thee,
      Some will flatter, some will slight;
    Cease from man and look above thee,
      Trust in God and do the right.
    Simple rule and safest guiding--
      Inward peace and shining light--
    Star upon our path abiding--
      TRUST IN GOD AND DO THE RIGHT.

    --Norman Macleod.


THE PRESENT CRISIS

    We are living, we are dwelling, in a grand and awful time.
    In an age on ages telling to be living is sublime.
    Hark! the waking up of nations; Gog and Magog to the fray.
    Hark! what soundeth? 'Tis creation groaning for its latter day.

    Will ye play, then, will ye dally, with your music and your wine?
    Up! it is Jehovah's rally; God's own arm hath need of thine;
    Hark! the onset! will ye fold your faith-clad arms in lazy lock?
    Up! O up, thou drowsy soldier! Worlds are charging to the shock.

    Worlds are charging--heaven beholding; thou hast but an hour to fight;
    Now the blazoned cross unfolding, on, right onward for the right!
    On! let all the soul within you for the truth's sake go abroad!
    Strike! let every nerve and sinew tell on ages; tell for God!

    --Arthur Cleveland Coxe.


BRAVERY

    We will speak on; we will be heard;
      Though all earth's systems crack,
    We will not bate a single word,
      Nor take a letter back.

    We speak the truth; and what care we
      For hissing and for scorn
    While some faint gleaming we can see
      Of Freedom's coming morn!

    Let liars fear; let cowards shrink;
      Let traitors turn away;
    Whatever we have dared to think,
      That dare we also say.

    --James Russell Lowell.


NO ENEMIES

    He has no enemies, you say?
      My friend, your boast is poor;
    He who hath mingled in the fray
      Of duty, that the brave endure,
    Must have made foes. If he has none
    Small is the work that he has done.
    He has hit no traitor on the hip;
    He has cast no cup from tempted lip;
    He has never turned the wrong to right;
    He has been a coward in the fight.


    One deed may mar a life,
      And one can make it.
    Hold firm thy will for strife,
      Lest a quick blow break it!
    Even now from far, on viewless wing,
    Hither speeds the nameless thing
      Shall put thy spirit to the test.
    Haply or e'er yon sinking sun
      Shall drop behind the purple West
    All shall be lost--or won!

    --Richard Watson Gilder.


    In spite of sorrow, loss, and pain,
      Our course be onward still;
    We sow on Burmah's barren plain,
      We reap on Zion's hill.

    --Adoniram Judson.


    I find no foeman in the road but Fear.
    To doubt is failure and to dare success.

    --Frederic Lawrence Knowles.


DARE TO DO RIGHT

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    You have a work that no other can do,
    Do it so bravely, so kindly, so well,
    Angels will hasten the story to tell.

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    Other men's failures can never save you;
    Stand by your conscience, your honor, your faith;
    Stand like a hero, and battle till death.

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    God, who created you, cares for you too;
    Treasures the tears that his striving ones shed,
    Counts and protects every hair of your head.

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    Keep the great judgment-seat always in view;
    Look at your work as you'll look at it then--
    Scanned by Jehovah, and angels, and men.

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    Cannot Omnipotence carry you through?
    City, and mansion, and throne all in sight--
    Can you not dare to be true and do right?

    Dare to do right! dare to be true!
    Prayerfully, lovingly, firmly pursue
    The path by apostles and martyrs once trod,
    The path of the just to the city of God.

    --George Lansing Taylor.


PLUCK WINS

    Pluck wins! It always wins! though days be slow,
    And nights be dark 'twixt days that come and go,
    Still pluck will win; its average is sure,
    He gains the prize who will the most endure;
    Who faces issues; he who never shirks;
    Who waits and watches, and who always works.


BE NEVER DISCOURAGED

    Be never discouraged!
      Look up and look on;
    When the prospect is darkest
      The cloud is withdrawn.
    The shadows that blacken
      The earth and the sky,
    Speak to the strong-hearted,
      Salvation is nigh.

    Be never discouraged!
      If you would secure
    The earth's richest blessings,
      And make heaven sure,
    Yield not in the battle,
      Nor quail in the blast;
    The brave and unyielding
      Win nobly at last.

    Be never discouraged!
      By day and by night
    Have glory in prospect
      And wisdom in sight;
    Undaunted and faithful,
      You never will fail,
    Though kingdoms oppose you
      And devils assail.

    --D. C. Colesworthy.


NEVER SAY FAIL

    Keep pushing--'tis wiser than sitting aside
    And dreaming and sighing and waiting the tide.
    In life's earnest battle they only prevail
    Who daily march onward, and never say fail.

    With an eye ever open, a tongue that's not dumb,
    And a heart that will never to sorrow succumb,
    You'll battle--and conquer, though thousands assail;
    How strong and how mighty, who never say fail.

    In life's rosy morning, in manhood's firm pride,
    Let this be the motto your footsteps to guide:
    In storm and in sunshine, whatever assail,
    We'll onward and conquer, and never say fail.


ONLY ONE WAY

    However the battle is ended,
      Though proudly the victor comes,
    With fluttering flags and prancing nags
      And echoing roll of drums,
    Still truth proclaims this motto,
      In letters of living light:
    No question is ever settled
      Until it is settled right.

    Though the heel of the strong oppressor
      May grind the weak in the dust,
    And the voices of fame with one acclaim
      May call him great and just,
    Let those who applaud take warning,
      And keep this motto in sight:
    No question is ever settled
      Until it is settled right.

    Let those who have failed take courage;
      Though the enemy seemed to have won,
    Though his ranks are strong, if in the wrong
      The battle is not yet done.
    For, sure as the morning follows
      The darkest hour of the night,
    No question is ever settled
      Until it is settled right.


FORTITUDE AMID TRIALS

    O, never from thy tempted heart
    Let thine integrity depart!
    When Disappointment fills thy cup,
    Undaunted, nobly drink it up;
    Truth will prevail and Justice show
    Her tardy honors, sure, though slow.
          Bear on--bear bravely on!

    Bear on! Our life is not a dream,
    Though often such its mazes seem;
    We were not born for lives of ease,
    Ourselves alone to aid and please.
    To each a daily task is given,
    A labor which shall fit for Heaven;
    When Duty calls, let Love grow warm;
    Amid the sunshine and the storm,
    With Faith life's trials boldly breast,
    And come a conqueror to thy rest.
          Bear on--bear bravely on!


    He that feeds men serveth few;
    He serves all who dares be true.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


PLUCK

    Be firm. One constant element in luck
    Is genuine, solid, old Teutonic pluck.
    See yon tall shaft? It felt the earthquake's thrill,
    Clung to its base, and greets the sunlight still.

    Stick to your aim; the mongrel's hold will slip,
    But only crow-bars loose the bulldog's grip;
    Small as he looks, the jaw that never yields
    Drags down the bellowing monarch of the fields.

    Yet, in opinions look not always back;
    Your wake is nothing,--mind the coming track;
    Leave what you've done for what you have to do,
    Don't be "consistent," but be simply true.

    --Oliver Wendell Holmes.


    Do thy little; do it well;
    Do what right and reason tell;
    Do what wrong and sorrow claim:
    Conquer sin and cover shame.
    Do thy little, though it be
    Dreariness and drudgery;
    They whom Christ apostles made
    Gathered fragments when he bade.


    Is the work difficult?
      Jesus directs thee.
    Is the path dangerous?
      Jesus protects thee.

    Fear not and falter not;
      Let the word cheer thee:
    All through the coming year
      He will be near thee.


    Well to suffer is divine.
    Pass the watchword down the line
      Pass the countersign, Endure!
    Not to him who rashly dares,
    But to him who nobly bears,
      Is the victor's garland sure.

    --John Greenleaf Whittier.


    If thou canst plan a noble deed
    And never flag till thou succeed,
    Though in the strife thy heart shall bleed,
    Whatever obstacles control,
    Thine hour will come; go on, true soul!
    Thou'lt win the prize; thou'lt reach the goal.


    I honor the man who is willing to sink
    Half his present repute for freedom to think;
    And when he has that, be his cause strong or weak,
    Will risk t'other half for freedom to speak.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    The word is great, and no deed is greater
      When both are of God, to follow or lead;
    But alas! for the truth when the word comes later,
      With questioned steps, to sustain the deed.

    --John Boyle O'Reilly.


    Stand upright, speak thy thought, declare
      The truth thou hast that all may share;
    Be bold, proclaim it everywhere;
      They only live who dare.

    --Lewis Morris.


    There is no duty patent in the world
    Like daring try be good and true myself,
    Leaving the shows of things to the Lord of show
    And Prince o' the power of the air.

    --Robert Browning.


    Tender-handed stroke a nettle,
    And it stings you for your pains;
    Grasp it like a man of mettle,
      And it soft as silk remains.

    --Aaron Hill (1685-1750).


    On the red rampart's slippery swell,
    With heart that beat a charge, he fell
      Foeward, as fits a man;
    But the high soul burns on to light men's feet
    Where death for noble ends makes dying sweet.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    I do not ask that Thou shalt front the fray.
      And drive the warring foeman from my sight:
    I only ask, O Lord, by night, by day,
      Strength for the fight!


    No coward soul is mine,
    No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere;
    I see Heaven's glories shine,
      And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

    --Emily Bronte.


      You will find that luck
      Is only pluck
    To try things over and over;
      Patience and skill,
      Courage and will,
    Are the four leaves of luck's clover.


                    The chivalry
    That dares the right and disregards alike
    The yea and nay o' the world.

    --Robert Browning.


    God has his best things for the few
      Who dare to stand the test;
    He has his second choice for those
      Who will not have his best.


    Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie;
    A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.

    --George Herbert.




INDEPENDENCE

MANHOOD, FIRMNESS, EARNESTNESS, RESOLUTION


WANTED

    God give us men! A time like this demands
    Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and ready hands;
    Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
      Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
    Men who possess opinions and a will;
      Men who have honor--men who will not lie.
    Men who can stand before a demagogue
      And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
    Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
      In public duty and in private thinking;
    For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
    Their large professions and their little deeds,
    Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
    Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps.

    --Josiah Gilbert Holland.


TO THINE OWN SELF BE TRUE

    By thine own soul's law learn to live,
      And if men thwart thee take no heed;
    And if men hate thee have no care;
      Sing thou thy song, and do thy deed;
    Hope thou thy hope, and pray thy prayer,
      And claim no crown they will not give,
    Nor bays they grudge thee for thy hair.

    Keep thou thy soul-won, steadfast oath,
      And to thy heart be true thy heart;
    What thy soul teaches learn to know,
      And play out thine appointed part,
    And thou shalt reap as thou shalt sow,
      Nor helped nor hardened in thy growth,
    To thy full stature thou shalt grow.

    Fix on the future's goal thy face,
      And let thy feet be lured to stray
    Nowhither, but be swift to run,
      And nowhere tarry by the way,
    Until at last the end is won,
      And thou mayst look back from thy place
    And see thy long day's journey done.

    --Pakenham Beatty.


LORD OF HIMSELF

    How happy is he born and taught
      That serveth not another's will;
    Whose armor is his honest thought,
      And simple truth his utmost skill.

    Whose passions not his masters are,
      Whose soul is still prepared for death;
    Not tied unto the world with care
      Of public fame or private breath.

    Who envies none that chance doth raise,
      Or vice; who never understood
    How deepest wounds are given by praise,
      Nor rules of state but rules of good.

    Who hath his life from rumors freed,
      Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
    Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
      Nor ruin make accusers great.

    Who God doth late and early pray
      More of his grace than gifts to lend;
    And entertains the harmless day
      With a well-chosen book or friend.

    This man is freed from servile bands,
      Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
    Lord of himself, though not of lands,
      And having nothing, yet hath all.

    --Henry Wotton.


    High above hate I dwell;
    O storms, farewell!


UNCONQUERED

    Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

    Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the horror of the shade,
    And yet the menace of the years
      Finds and shall find me unafraid.

    In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud;
    Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is bloody, but unbowed.

    It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll;
    I am the master of my fate,
      I am the captain of my soul.

    --William Ernest Henley.


RELIGION AND DOCTRINE

    He stood before the Sanhedrim:
    The scowling rabbis gazed at him.
    He recked not of their praise or blame;
    There was no fear, there was no shame,
    For one upon whose dazzled eyes
    The whole world poured its vast surprise.
    The open heaven was far too near
    His first day's light too sweet and clear,
    To let him waste his new-gained ken
    On the hate-clouded face of men.

    But still they questioned, Who art thou?
    What hast thou been? What art thou now?
    Thou art not he who yesterday
    Sat here and begged beside the way,
    For he was blind.
                            "_And I am he;
    For I was blind, but now I see._"

    He told the story o'er and o'er;
    It was his full heart's only lore;
    A prophet on the Sabbath day
    Had touched his sightless eyes with clay,
    And made him see who had been blind,
    Their words passed by him like the wind
    Which raves and howls, but cannot shock
    The hundred-fathom-rooted rock.

    Their threats and fury all went wide;
    They could not touch his Hebrew pride.
    Their sneers at Jesus and his band,
    Nameless and homeless in the land,
    Their boasts of Moses and his Lord,
    All could not change him by one word.

    "_I know not what this man may be,
    Sinner or saint; but as for me
    One thing I know: that I am he
    Who once was blind, and now I see._"

    They were all doctors of renown,
    The great men of a famous town
    With deep brows, wrinkled, broad, and wise
    Beneath their wide phylacteries;
    The wisdom of the East was theirs,
    And honor crowned their silvery hairs.
    The man they jeered, and laughed to scorn
    Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born;
    But he knew better far than they
    What came to him that Sabbath day;
    And what the Christ had done for him
    He knew, and not the Sanhedrim.

    --John Hay.


THE OLD STOIC

    Riches I hold in light esteem,
      And Love I laugh to scorn;
    And lust of fame was but a dream,
      That vanished with the morn.

    And, if I pray, the only prayer
      That moves my lips for me
    Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
      And give me liberty!"

    Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
      'Tis all that I implore,
    In life and death a chainless soul
      And courage to endure.

    --Emily Bronte.


    Keep to the right, within and without,
      With stranger and pilgrim and friend;
    Keep to the right and you need have no doubt
      That all will be well in the end.
    Keep to the right in whatever you do,
      Nor claim but your own on the way;
    Keep to the right, and hold on to the true,
      From the morn to the close of life's day!


FOR A' THAT

    Is there for honest poverty
      That hangs his head, and a' that?
    The coward slave, we pass him by,
      We dare be poor for a' that;
      For a' that and a' that;
      Our toils obscure and a' that;
    The rank is but the guinea-stamp,
      The man's the gowd for a' that.

    What though on hamely fare we dine,
      Wear hodden gray, and a' that:
    Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine,
      A man's a man for a' that;
      For a' that and a' that,
      Their tinsel show, and a' that,
    The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
      Is king o' men, for a' that.

    You see yon birkie ca'd a lord,
      Wha struts and stares, and a' that:
    Though hundreds worship at his word
      He's but a coof for a' that.
      For a' that and a' that,
      His riband, star, and a' that,
    The man of independent mind,
      He looks and laughs at a' that.

    A prince can mak a belted knight,
      A marquis, duke, and a' that;
    But an honest man's aboon his might,
      Guid faith, he mauna fa' that,
      For a' that and a' that,
      Their dignities, and a' that,
    The pith of sense and pride o' worth,
      Are higher ranks than a' that.

    Then let us pray that come it may,
      As come it will, for a' that,
    That sense and worth o'er a' the earth,
      May bear the gree and a' that;
      For a' that and a' that,
      It's comin' yet for a' that,
    That man to man, the warld o'er,
      Shall brothers be, for a' that.

    --Robert Burns.


    Stone walls do not a prison make,
      Nor iron bars a cage;
    Minds innocent and quiet take
      That for a hermitage;
    If I have freedom in my love,
      And in my soul am free,
    Angels alone, that soar above,
      Enjoy such liberty.

    --Richard Lovelace.


"A MAN'S A MAN FOR A' THAT"

(A new song to an old tune.)

    "A man's a man," says Robert Burns,
      "For a' that and a' that";
    But though the song be clear and strong
      It lacks a note for a' that.
    The lout who'd shirk his daily work,
      Yet claim his wage and a' that,
    Or beg when he might earn his bread,
      Is _not_ a man for a' that.

    If all who "dine on homely fare"
      Were true and brave and a' that,
    And none whose garb is "hodden gray"
      Was fool or knave and a' that,
    The vice and crime that shame our time
      Would disappear and a' that,
    And plowmen be as great as kings,
      And churls as earls for a' that.

    But 'tis not so; yon brawny fool,
      Who swaggers, swears, and a' that,
    And thinks because his strong right arm
      Might fell an ox, and a' that,
    That he's as noble, man for man,
      As duke or lord, and a' that,
    Is but an animal at best
      But _not_ a man for a' that.

    A man may own a large estate,
      Have palace, park, and a' that,
    And not for birth, but honest worth,
      Be thrice a man for a' that.
    And Sawnie, herding on the moor,
      Who beats his wife and a' that,
    Is nothing but a brutal boor,
      Nor half a man for a' that.

    It comes to this, dear Robert Burns,
      The truth is old, and a' that,
    The rank _is_ but the guinea's stamp,
      The man's the gowd for a' that.
    And though you'd put the self-same mark
      On copper, brass, and a' that,
    The lie is gross, the cheat is plain,
      And will not pass for a' that.

    "For a' that and a' that"
      'Tis soul and heart and a' that
    That makes a king a gentleman,
      And not his crown for a' that.
    And whether he be rich or poor
      The best is he, for a' that,
    Who stands erect in self-respect,
      And acts the man for a' that.

    --Charles Mackay.


ESSE QUAM VIDERI

    The knightly legend on thy shield betrays
      The moral of thy life; a forecast wise,
      And that large honor that deceit defies,
    Inspired thy fathers in the elder days,
    Who decked thy scutcheon with that sturdy phrase,
      _To be, rather than seem._ As eve's red skies
      Surpass the morning's rosy prophecies,
    Thy life to that proud boast its answer pays,
    Scorning thy faith and purpose to defend.
      The ever-mutable multitude at last
    Will hail the power they did not comprehend--
    Thy fame will broaden through the centuries;
      As, storm and billowy tumult overpast,
    The moon rules calmly o'er the conquered seas.

    --John Hay.


THE HIGHER LAW

    Man was not made for forms, but forms for man,
      And there are times when law itself must bend
    To that clear spirit always in the van,
      Outspeeding human justice. In the end
    Potentates, not humanity, must fall.
      Water will find its level, fire will burn,
    The winds must blow around the earthly ball,
      The earthly ball by day and night must turn;
    Freedom is typed in every element,
      Man must be free, if not through law, why then
    Above the law, until its force be spent
      And justice brings a better. But, O, when,
    Father of Light, when shall the reckoning come
    To lift the weak, and strike the oppressor dumb.

    --Christopher Pearse Cranch.


    What I am, what I am not, in the eye
    Of the world, is what I never cared for much.

    --Robert Browning.


I RESOLVE

    To keep my health;
    To do my work;
    To live;
    To see to it that I grow and gain and give;
    Never to look behind me for an hour;
    To wait in meekness, and to walk in power;
    But always fronting onward, to the light,
    Always and always facing toward the right.
    Robbed, starved, defeated, fallen, wide-astray--
    On, with what strength I have--
    Back to the way.

    --Charlotte Perkins Stetson.


IN MYSELF

    I do not ask for any crown
      But that which all may win;
    Nor try to conquer any world
      Except the one within.
    Be thou my guide until I find
      Led by a tender hand,
    The happy kingdom in myself
      And dare to take command.

    --Louisa May Alcott.


HIDE NOT THY HEART

    This is my creed,
    This is my deed:
    "Hide not thy heart!"
    Soon we depart;
    Mortals are all;
      A breath, then the pall;
    A flash on the dark--
    All's done--stiff and stark.
    No time for a lie;
    The truth, and then die.
    Hide not thy heart!

    Forth with thy thought!
    Soon 'twill be naught,
    And thou in thy tomb.
    Now is air, now is room.
    Down with false shame;
    Reck not of fame;
    Dread not man's spite;
    Quench not thy light.
    This be thy creed,
    This be thy deed:
    "Hide not thy heart!"

    If God is, he made
    Sunshine and shade,
    Heaven and hell;
    This we know well.
    Dost thou believe?
    Do not deceive;
    Scorn not thy faith--
    If 'tis a wraith
    Soon it will fly.
    Thou who must die,
    Hide not thy heart!

    This is my creed,
    This be my deed:
    Faith, or a doubt,
    I shall speak out--
    And hide not my heart.

    --Richard Watson Gilder.


A GENTLEMAN

(Psa. XV.)

    'Tis he whose every thought and deed
      By rule of virtue moves;
    Whose generous tongue disdains to speak
      The thing his heart disproves.

    Who never did a slander forge
      His neighbor's fame to wound;
    Nor hearken to a false report
      By malice whispered round.

    Who vice in all its pomp and power
      Can treat with just neglect;
    And piety, though clothed in rags,
      Religiously respect.

    Who to his plighted word of truth
      Has ever firmly stood;
    And, though he promised to his loss,
      Still makes his promise good.

    Whose soul in usury disdains
      His treasure to employ;
    Whom no reward can ever bribe
      The guiltless to destroy.


    I hold it as a changeless law,
      From which no soul can sway or swerve,
    We have that in us which will draw
      Whate'er we need or most deserve.


BE TRUE THYSELF

    Thou must be true thyself
      If thou the truth wouldst teach;
    Thy soul must overflow if thou
      Another's soul wouldst reach.
    It needs the overflow of heart
      To give the lips full speech.

    Think truly, and thy thoughts
      Shall the world's famine feed;
    Speak truly, and each word of thine
      Shall be a fruitful seed;
    Live truly, and thy life shall be
      A great and noble creed.

    --Horatius Bonar.


    Keep pure thy soul!
    Then shalt thou take the whole
    Of delight;
    Then, without a pang,
    Thine shall be all of beauty whereof the poet sang--
    The perfume and the pageant, the melody, the mirth,
    Of the golden day and the starry night;
    Of heaven and of earth.
    Oh, keep pure thy soul!

    --Richard Watson Gilder.


    Somebody did a golden deed;
    Somebody proved a friend in need;
    Somebody sang a beautiful song;
    Somebody smiled the whole daylong;
    Somebody thought, "'Tis sweet to live."
    Somebody said, "I'm glad to give";
    Somebody fought a valiant fight;
    Somebody lived to shield the right;
      Was it you?


    Then draw we nearer, day by day,
      Each to his brethren, all to God;
    Let the world take us as she may,
      We must not change our road;
    Not wondering, though in grief, to find
    The martyr's foe still keep her mind;
    But fixed to hold Love's banner fast,
    And by submission win at last.

    --John Keble.


    Knowing, what all experience serves to show,
    No mud can soil us but the mud we throw.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    Be no imitator; freshly act thy part;
      Through this world be thou an independent ranger;
    Better is the faith that springeth from thy heart
      Than a better faith belonging to a stranger.

    --From the Persian.


    None but one can harm you,
    None but yourself who are your greatest foe,
    He that respects himself is safe from others,
    He wears a coat of mail that none can pierce.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


    And some innative weakness there must be
    In him that condescends to victory
    Such as the _present_ gives, and cannot wait--
    Safe in himself as in a fate.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    To be the thing we seem,
    To do the thing we deem
      Enjoined by duty;
    To walk in faith, nor dream
    Of questioning God's scheme
      Of truth and beauty.


    To live by law, acting the law we live by without fear,
    And, because right is right, to follow right,
    Were wisdom, in the scorn of consequence.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


    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."

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


    Whatever you are--be that;
    Whatever you say--be true;
      Straightforwardly act--
      Be honest--in fact
    Be nobody else but you.


    If thou _hast_ something, bring thy goods;
      A fair exchange be thine!
    If thou _art_ something, bring thy soul,
      And interchange with mine.

    --Schiller, tr. by Edward Bulwer Lytton.


    However others act toward thee,
      Act thou toward them as seemeth right;
    And whatsoever others be,
      Be thou the child of love and light.


    This above all: to thine own self be true,
    And it must follow, as the night the day,
    Thou canst not then be false to any man.

    --William Shakespeare.


    My time is short enough at best,
      I push right onward while I may;
    I open to the winds my breast,
      And walk the way.

    --John Vance Cheney.


    Not in the clamor of the crowded street,
      Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng,
    But in ourselves are triumph and defeat.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


    It becomes no man to nurse despair,
    But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms
    To follow up the worthiest till he die.

    --Alfred Tennyson.




GREATNESS

FAME, SUCCESS, PROGRESS, VICTORY


A GREAT MAN

    That man is great, and he alone,
    Who serves a greatness not his own,
      For neither praise nor pelf;
    Content to know and be unknown:
      Whole in himself.

    Strong is that man, he only strong,
    To whose well-ordered will belong,
      For service and delight,
    All powers that, in the face of Wrong,
      Establish Right.

    And free is he, and only he,
    Who, from his tyrant passions free,
      By Fortune undismayed,
    Hath power upon himself, to be
      By himself obeyed.

    If such a man there be, where'er
    Beneath the sun and moon he fare,
      He cannot fare amiss;
    Great Nature hath him in her care,
      Her cause is his;

    Who holds by everlasting law
    Which neither chance nor change can flaw,
      Whose steadfast course is one
    With whatsoever forces draw
      The ages on;

    Who hath not bowed his honest head
    To base Occasion; nor, in dread
      Of Duty, shunned her eye;
    Nor truckled to loud times; nor wed
      His heart to a lie;

    Nor feared to follow, in the offense
    Of false opinion, his own sense
      Of justice unsubdued;
    Nor shrunk from any consequence
      Of doing good;

    He looks his Angel in the face
    Without a blush; nor heeds disgrace
      Whom naught disgraceful done
    Disgraces. Who knows nothing base
      Fears nothing known.

    Not morseled out from day to day
    In feverish wishes, nor the prey
      Of hours that have no plan,
    His life is whole, to give away
      To God and man.

    For though he live aloof from ken,
    The world's unwitnessed denizen,
      The love within him stirs
    Abroad, and with the hearts of men
      His own confers.

    The judge upon the justice-seat;
    The brown-backed beggar in the street;
      The spinner in the sun;
    The reapers reaping in the wheat;
      The wan-cheeked nun

    In cloisters cold; the prisoner lean
    In lightless den, the robed queen;
      Even the youth who waits,
    Hiding the knife, to glide unseen
      Between the gates--

    He nothing human alien deems
    Unto himself, nor disesteems
      Man's meanest claim upon him.
    And where he walks the mere sunbeams
      Drop blessings on him.

    Because they know him Nature's friend,
    One whom she doth delight to tend
      With loving kindness ever:
    Helping and heartening to the end
      His high endeavor.

    --Edward Bulwer Lytton.


FAME AND DUTY

    What shall I do lest life in silence pass?
      "And if it do,
    And never prompt the bray of noisy brass,
      What need'st thou rue?
    Remember, aye the ocean-deeps are mute--
      The shallows roar;
    Worth is the ocean--fame is but the bruit
      Along the shore."

    What shall I do to be forever known?
      "Thy duty ever!"
    This did full many who yet slept unknown.
      "O never, never!
    Think'st thou perchance that they remain unknown
      Whom thou know'st not?
    By angel trumps in heaven their praise is blown--
      Divine their lot."

    What shall I do, an heir of endless life?
      "Discharge aright
    The simple dues with which each day is rife,
      Yea, with thy might.
    Ere perfect scheme of action thou devise
      Will life be fled,
    While he who ever acts as conscience cries,
      Shall live, though dead."

    --Johann C. F. Schiller.


NOBLE LIVES

    There are hearts which never falter
      In the battle for the right;
    There are ranks which never alter
      Watching through the darkest night;
    And the agony of sharing
      In the fiercest of the strife
    Only gives a nobler daring,
      Only makes a grander life.

    There are those who never weary
      Bearing suffering and wrong;
    Though the way is long and dreary
      It is vocal with their song,
    While their spirits in God's furnace,
      Bending to His gracious will,
    Are fashioned in a purer mold
      By His loving, matchless skill.

    There are those whose loving mission
      'Tis to bind the bleeding heart;
    And to teach a calm submission
      When the pain and sorrow smart.
    They are angels, bearing to us
      Love's rich ministry of peace,
    While the night is nearing to us
      When life's bitter trials cease.

    There are those who battle slander,
      Envy, jealousy and hate;
    Who would rather die than pander
      To the passions of earth's great;
    No earthly power can ever crush them,
      They dread not the tyrant's frown;
    Fear or favor cannot hush them,
      Nothing bind their spirits down.

    These, these alone are truly great;
    These are the conquerors of fate;
    These truly live, they never die;
    But, clothed with immortality,
    When they lay their armor down
    Shall enter and receive the crown.


THE HIGHER LIFE

    To play through life a perfect part,
      Unnoticed and unknown;
    To seek no rest in any heart
      Save only God alone;
    In little things to own no will.
      To have no share in great;
    To find the labor ready still
      And for the crown to wait.

    Upon the brow to bear no trace
      Of more than common care;
    To write no secret in the face
      For men to read it there;
    The daily cross to clasp and bless
      With such familiar zeal
    As hides from all that not the less
      The daily weight you feel;

    In toils that praise will never pay,
      To see your life go past;
    To meet in every coming day
      Twin sister of the last;
    To hear of high heroic things,
      And yield them reverence due,
    But feel life's daily sufferings
      Are far more fit for you;

    To own no secret, soft disguise
      To which self-love is prone,
    Unnoticed by all other eyes,
      Unworthy in your own;
    To yield with such a happy art,
      That no one thinks you care,
    And say to your poor bleeding heart,
      "How little you can bear!"

    O 'tis a pathway hard to choose,
      A struggle hard to share;
    For human pride would still refuse
      The nameless trials there.
    But since we know the gate is low
      That leads to heavenly bliss,
    What higher grace could God bestow
      Than such a life as this?

    --Adelaide Anne Procter.


NOBILITY OF GOODNESS

    My fairest child, I have no song to give you;
    No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
    Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you,
      For every day.
    Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;
    Do noble things, not dream them all day long;
    And so make life, death, and that vast forever,
      One grand, sweet song!

    --Charles Kingsley.


THE GLORY OF FAILURE

    We who have lost the battle
      To you who have fought and won:
    Give ye good cheer and greeting!
      Stoutly and bravely done!

    Reach us a hand in passing,
      Comrades--and own the name!
    Yours is the thrill and the laurel:
      Ours is the smart and shame.

    Though we were nothing skillful,
      Pity us not nor scorn!
    Send us a hail as hearty--
      "Stoutly and bravely borne!"

    Others may scorn or pity;
      You who are soldiers know.
    Where was the joy of your battle
      Save in the grip with the foe?

    Did we not stand to the conflict?
      Did we not fairly fall?
    Is it your crowns ye care for?
      Nay, to have fought is all.

    Humbled and sore we watch you,
      Cheerful and bruised and lamed.
    Take the applause of the conquered--
      Conquered and unashamed!

    --Alice Van Vliet.


    He is brave whose tongue is silent
    Of the trophies of his word.
    He is great whose quiet bearing
    Marks his greatness well assured.

    --Edwin Arnold.


THE LOSING SIDE

    Helmet and plume and saber, banner and lance and shield,
    Scattered in sad confusion over the trampled field;
    And the band of broken soldiers, with a weary, hopeless air,
    With heads in silence drooping, and eyes of grim despair.
    Like foam-flakes left on the drifting sand
      In the track of a falling tide,
    On the ground where their cause has failed they stand,
      The last of the losing side.

    Wisdom of age is vanquished, and generous hopes of youth,
    Passion of faith and honor, fire of love and truth;
    And the plans that seemed the fairest in the fight have not prevailed,
    The keenest blades are broken, and the strongest arms have failed.
    But souls that know not the breath of shame,
      And tongues that have never lied,
    And the truest hearts, and the fairest fame,
      Are here--on the losing side.

    The conqueror's crown of glory is set with many a gem,
    But I join not in their triumph--there are plenty to shout for _them;_
    The cause is the most applauded whose warriors gain the day,
    And the world's best smiles are given to the victors in the fray.
    But dearer to me is the darkened plain,
      Where the noblest dreams have died,
    Where hopes have been shattered and heroes slain
      In the ranks of the losing side.

    --Arthur E. J. Legge.


IO VICTIS

    I sing the hymn of the conquered, who fell in the battle of life,
    The hymn of the wounded and beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife;
    Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim
    Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame,
    But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary and broken in heart,
    Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;
    Whose youth bore no flower on its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes
      away,
    From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at, who stood at
      the dying of day
    With the wreck of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded,
      alone,
    With death swooping down o'er their failure, and all but their faith
      overthrown.

    While the voice of the world shouts its chorus--its pean for those who
      have won;
    While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and
      the sun
    Glad banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet
    Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of
      defeat,
    In the shadow, with those who are fallen, and wounded, and dying, and
      there
    Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, breathe
      a prayer,
    Hold the hand that is helpless, and whisper, "They only the victory
      win,
    Who have fought the good fight and have vanquished the demon that
      tempts us within;
    Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world
      holds on high;
    Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight--if need be,
      to die."

    Speak, History! who are Life's victors? Unroll thy long annals and say,
    Are they those whom the world called the victors? who won the success
      of a day?
    The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylae's tryst,
    Or the Persians and Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate, or Christ?

    --William M. Story.


    He makes no friend who never made a foe.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


THE TRUE KING

    'Tis not wealth that makes a king,
    Nor the purple coloring;
    Nor the brow that's bound with gold,
    Nor gate on mighty hinges rolled.

    The king is he who, void of fear,
    Looks abroad with bosom clear;
    Who can tread ambition down,
    Nor be swayed by smile or frown,
    Nor for all the treasure cares,
    That mine conceals or harvest wears,
    Or that golden sands deliver
    Bosomed in the glassy river.

    What shall move his placid might?
    Not the headlong thunder's light,
    Nor all the shapes of slaughter's trade,
    With onward lance or fiery blade.
    Safe, with wisdom for his crown,
    He looks on all things calmly down,
    He welcomes Fate when Fate is near,
    Nor taints his dying breath with fear.

    No; to fear not earthly thing,
    That it is that makes the king;
    And all of us, whoe'er we be,
    May carve us out that royalty.

    --Seneca, tr. by Leigh Hunt.


    With comrade Duty, in the dark or day,
      To follow Truth--wherever it may lead;
      To hate all meanness, cowardice or greed;
    To look for Beauty under common clay;
    Our brothers' burden sharing, when they weep,
      But, if we fall, to bear defeat alone;
      To live in hearts that loved us, when we're gone
    Beyond the twilight (till the morning break!)--to sleep--
              That is Success!

    --Ernest Neal Lyon.


    The common problem, yours, mine, every one's,
    Is, not to fancy what were fair in life
    Provided it could be, but, finding first
    What may be, then find out how to make it fair
    Up to our means; a very different thing.

    --Robert Browning.


BETTER THAN GOLD

    Better than grandeur, better than gold,
    Than rank and titles a thousandfold,
    Is a healthy body, a mind at ease,
    And simple pleasures that always please;
    A heart that can feel for another's woe,
    That has learned with love's deep fires to glow,
    With sympathy large enough to enfold
    All men as brothers, is better than gold.

    Better than gold is a conscience clear,
    Though toiling for bread in a humble sphere;
    Doubly blest is content and health
    Untried by the lusts and the cares of wealth.
    Lowly living and lofty thought
    Adorn and ennoble the poor man's cot;
    For mind and morals in nature's plan
    Are the genuine tests of the gentleman.

    Better than gold is the sweet repose
    Of the sons of toil when labors close;
    Better than gold is the poor man's sleep
    And the balm that drops on his slumbers deep.
    Bring sleeping draughts to the downy bed,
    Where luxury pillows its aching head;
    The toiler a simple opiate deems
    A shorter route to the land of dreams.

    Better than gold is a thinking mind
    That in the realm of books can find
    A treasure surpassing Australian ore,
    And live with the great and good of yore;
    The sage's lore and the poet's lay;
    The glories of empires passed away;
    The world's great dream will thus unfold
    And yield a pleasure better than gold.

    Better than gold is a peaceful home,
    Where all the fireside characters come,
    The shrine of love, the heaven of life,
    Hallowed by mother or by wife.
    However humble the home may be,
    Or tried with sorrow by heaven's decree,
    The blessings that never were bought or sold
    And center there, are better than gold.

    --Abram J. Ryan.


    When success exalts thy lot
    God for thy virtue lays a plot.

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


MAXIMUS

    I hold him great who, for Love's sake,
      Can give with generous, earnest will;
    Yet he who takes for Love's sweet sake
      I think I hold more generous still.

    I bow before the noble mind
      That freely some great wrong forgives;
    Yet nobler is the one forgiven,
      Who bears that burden well and lives.

    It may be hard to gain, and still
      To keep a lowly, steadfast heart;
    Yet he who loses has to fill
      A harder and a truer part.

    Glorious it is to wear the crown
      Of a deserved and pure success;
    He who knows how to fail has won
      A crown whose luster is not less.

    Great may he be who can command
      And rule with just and tender sway;
    Yet is Diviner wisdom taught
      Better by him who can obey.

    Blessed are those who die for God,
      And earn the martyr's crown of light;
    Yet he who lives for God may be
      A greater conqueror in his sight.

    --Adelaide Anne Procter.


    'Tis phrase absurd to call a villain great:
    Who wickedly is wise, or madly brave,
    Is but the more a fool, the more a knave.
    Who noble ends by noble means obtains,
    Or, failing, smiles in exile or in chains;
    Like good Aurelius, let him reign, or bleed
    Like Socrates--that man is great indeed.
    One self-approving hour whole years outweighs
    Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas;
    And more true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
    Than Caesar with a senate at his heels.

    --Alexander Pope.


    Though world on world in myriad myriads roll
    Round us, each with different powers,
    And other forms of life than ours,
    What know we greater than the soul?
    On God and Godlike men we build our trust.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


THE GOOD, GREAT MAN

    How seldom, friend, a good, great man inherits
      Honor and wealth, with all his worth and pains!
    It seems a story from the world of spirits
    When any man obtains that which he merits,
      Or any merits that which he obtains.

    For shame, my friend; renounce this idle strain!
    What would'st thou have a good, great man obtain?
    Wealth, title, dignity, a golden chain,
    Or heap of corses which his sword hath slain?
    Goodness and greatness are not means, but ends.
    Hath he not always treasurer, always friends,
    The great, good man? Three treasures--love, and light,
      And calm thoughts, equable as infants' breath;
    And three fast friends, more sure than day or night--
      Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

    --Samuel Taylor Coleridge.


THE POEM OF THE UNIVERSE

    The poem of the universe
      Nor rhythm has nor rhyme;
    For God recites the wondrous song
      A stanza at a time.

    Great deeds is he foredoomed to do--
      With Freedom's flag unfurled--
    Who hears the echo of that song
      As it goes down the world.

    Great words he is compelled to speak
      Who understands the song;
    He rises up like fifty men,
      Fifty good men and strong.

    A stanza for each century:
      Now heed it all who can!
    Who hears it, he, and only he,
      Is the elected man.

    --Charles Weldon.


    When faith is lost, when honor dies,
      The man is dead!

    --John Greenleaf Whittier.


FAILURE AND SUCCESS

    He fails who climbs to power and place
    Up the pathway of disgrace.
    He fails not who makes truth his cause,
    Nor bends to win the crowd's applause.
    He fails not, he who stakes his all
    Upon the right, and dares to fall;
    What though the living bless or blame,
    For him the long success of fame.

    --Richard Watson Gilder.


WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

    It matters little where I was born,
      Or if my parents were rich or poor;
    Whether they shrunk at the cold world's scorn,
      Or walked in the pride of wealth secure.
    But whether I live an honest man
      And hold my integrity firm in my clutch
    I tell you, brother, as plain as I can,
      It matters much.

    It matters little how long I stay
      In a world of sorrow, sin, and care;
    Whether in youth I am called away
      Or live till my bones and pate are bare.
    But whether I do the best I can
      To soften the weight of Adversity's touch
    On the faded cheek of my fellow man,
      It matters much.

    It matters little where be my grave--
      Or on the land or in the sea,
    By purling brook or 'neath stormy wave,
      It matters little or naught to me;
    But whether the Angel Death comes down,
      And marks my brow with his loving touch,
    As one that shall wear the victor's crown,
      It matters much.

    --Noah Barker.


    For I am 'ware it is the seed of act
    God holds appraising in his hollow palm,
    Not act grown great thence in the world below;
    Leafage and branchage vulgar eyes admire.

    --Robert Browning.


OBSCURE MARTYRS

"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."

    They have no place in storied page;
      No rest in marble shrine;
    They are past and gone with a perished age,
      They died and "made no sign."
    But work that shall find its wages yet,
    And deeds that their God did not forget,
      Done for their love divine--
    These were their mourners, and these shall be
    The crowns of their immortality.

    O, seek them not where sleep the dead,
      Ye shall not find their trace;
    No graven stone is at their head,
      No green grass hides their face;
    But sad and unseen is their silent grave;
    It may be the sand or the deep sea wave,
      Or a lonely desert place;
    For they needed no prayers and no mourning-bell--
    They were tombed in true hearts that knew them well.

    They healed sick hearts till theirs were broken,
      And dried sad eyes till theirs lost light;
    We shall know at last by a certain token
      How they fought and fell in the fight.
    Salt tears of sorrow unbeheld,
    Passionate cries unchronicled,
      And silent strifes for the right--
    Angels shall count them, and earth shall sigh
    That she left her best children to battle and die.

    --Edwin Arnold.


THY BEST

    Before God's footstool to confess
      A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
      "I failed," he wailed. The Master said,
    "Thou did'st thy best--that is success."

    --Henry Coyle.


          Aspire, break bounds, I say;
    Endeavor to be good and better still,
    And best! Success is naught, endeavor's all.

    --Robert Browning.


FAILURE

    He cast his net at morn where fishers toiled,
      At eve he drew it empty to the shore;
    He took the diver's plunge into the sea,
      But thence within his hand no pearl he bore.

    He ran a race, but never reached his goal;
      He sped an arrow, but he missed his aim;
    And slept at last beneath a simple stone,
      With no achievements carved about his name.

    Men called it failure; but for my own part
      I dare not use that word, for what if Heaven
    Shall question, ere its judgment shall be read,
      Not, "Hast thou won?" but only, "Hast thou striven?"

    --Kate Tucker Goode.


THE BEGGAR'S REVENGE

    The king's proud favorite at a beggar threw a stone.
    He picked it up as if it had for alms been thrown.

    He bore it in his bosom long with bitter ache,
    And sought his time revenge with that same stone to take.

    One day he heard a street mob's hoarse, commingled cry:
    The favorite comes!--but draws no more the admiring eye.

    He rides an ass, from all his haughty state disgraced;
    And by the rabble's mocking gibes his way is traced.

    The stone from out his bosom swift the beggar draws,
    And flinging it away, exclaims: "A fool I was!

    'Tis madness to attack, when in his power, your foe,
    And meanness then to strike when he has fallen low."

    --From the Persian.


A THOUGHT

    Hearts that are great beat never loud;
      They muffle their music, when they come;
    They hurry away from the thronging crowd
      With bended brows and lips half dumb.

    And the world looks on and mutters--"Proud."
      But when great hearts have passed away,
    Men gather in awe and kiss their shroud,
      And in love they kneel around their clay.

    Hearts that are great are always lone;
      They never will manifest their best;
    Their greatest greatness is unknown,
      Earth knows a little--God the rest.

    --Abram J. Ryan.


HIS MONUMENT

    He built a house, time laid it in the dust;
      He wrote a book, its title now forgot;
      He ruled a city, but his name is not
    On any tablet graven, or where rust
    Can gather from disuse, or marble bust.

    He took a child from out a wretched cot;
    Who on the State dishonor might have brought;
      And reared him in the Christian's hope and trust.
    The boy, to manhood grown, became a light
      To many souls and preached to human need
    The wondrous love of the Omnipotent.
    The work has multiplied like stars at night
      When darkness deepens; every noble deed
    Lasts longer than a granite monument.

    --Sarah Knowles Bolton.


    It is not the wall of stone without
      That makes a building small or great,
    But the soul's light shining round about,
    And the faith that overcometh doubt,
      And the love that stronger is than hate.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


THE NOBLY BORN

    Who counts himself as nobly born
      Is noble in despite of place;
    And honors are but brands to one
      Who wears them not with nature's grace.

    The prince may sit with clown or churl
      Nor feel himself disgraced thereby;
    But he who has but small esteem
      Husbands that little carefully.

    Then, be thou peasant, be thou peer,
      Count it still more thou art thine own.
    Stand on a larger heraldry
      Than that of nation or of zone.

    Art thou not bid to knightly halls?
      Those halls have missed a courtly guest:
    That mansion is not privileged
      Which is not open to the best.

    Give honor due when custom asks,
      Nor wrangle for this lesser claim;
    It is not to be destitute
      To have the thing without the name.

    Then, dost thou come of gentle blood,
      Disgrace not thy good company;
    If lowly born, so bear thyself
      That gentle blood may come of thee.

    Strive not with pain to scale the height
      Of some fair garden's petty wall;
    But climb the open mountain side
      Whose summit rises over all.


    And, for success, I ask no more than this:
    To bear unflinching witness to the truth.
    All true whole men succeed; for what is worth
    Success's name unless it be the thought,
    The inward surety, to have carried out
    A noble purpose to a noble end,
    Although it be the gallows or the block?
    'Tis only Falsehood that doth ever need
    These outward shows of gain to bolster her.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    Greatly begin! though thou have time
    But for a line, be that sublime--
    Not failure, but low aim is crime.

    --James Russell Lowell.


THE BURIAL OF MOSES

    By Nebo's lonely mountain,
      On this side Jordan's wave,
    In a vale in the land of Moab,
      There lies a lonely grave.
    But no man dug that sepulchre,
      And no man saw it e'er;
    For the angels of God upturned the sod,
      And laid the dead man there.

    That was the grandest funeral
      That ever passed on earth;
    But no man heard the trampling,
      Or saw the train go forth.
    Noiselessly as the daylight
      Comes when the night is done,
    And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
      Grows into the great sun--

    Noiselessly as the springtime
      Her crest of verdure weaves,
    And all the trees on all the hills
      Open their thousand leaves--
    So, without sound of music,
      Or voice of them that wept,
    Silently down from the mountain crown
      The great procession swept.

    Perchance some bald old eagle
      On gray Beth-peor's height,
    Out of his rocky eyrie
      Looked on the wondrous sight.
    Perchance some lion, stalking,
      Still shuns the hallowed spot,
    For beast and bird have seen and heard
      That which man knoweth not.

    But when the warrior dieth
      His comrades in the war,
    With arms reversed and muffled drums
      Follow the funeral car;
    They show the banners taken,
      They tell his battles won,
    And after him lead his matchless steed
      While peals the minute gun.

    Amid the noblest of the land
      They lay the sage to rest;
    And give the bard an honored place,
      With costly marble drest,
    In the great minster's transept height,
      Where lights like glory fall,
    While the sweet choir sings and the organ rings
      Along the emblazoned wall.

    This was the bravest warrior
      That ever buckled sword;
    This the most gifted poet
      That ever breathed a word;
    And never earth's philosopher
      Traced, with his golden pen,
    On the deathless page, truths half so sage
      As he wrote down for men.

    And had he not high honor?
      The hillside for his pall;
    To lie in state while angels wait
      With stars for tapers tall;
    And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes,
      Over his bier to wave;
    And God's own hand, in that lonely land,
      To lay him in his grave;

    In that deep grave without a name,
      Whence his uncoffined clay
    Shall break again--most wondrous thought!--
      Before the judgment day,
    And stand, with glory wrapt around,
      On the hills he never trod,
    And speak of the strife that won our life
      Through Christ, the incarnate God.

    O lonely tomb in Moab's land,
      O dark Beth-peor's hill,
    Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
      And teach them to be still.
    God hath his mysteries of grace--
      Ways that we cannot tell;
    He hides them deep, like the secret sleep
      Of him he loved so well.

    --Cecil Frances Alexander.


    O, blessed is that man of whom some soul can say,
    "He was an inspiration along life's toilsome way,
    A well of sparkling water, a fountain flowing free,
    Forever like his Master, in tenderest sympathy."


    Truths would you teach, or save a sinking land?
    All fear, none aid you, and few understand.
    Painful pre-eminence!--yourself to view
    Above life's weakness, and its comforts too.

    --Alexander Pope.


EMIR HASSAN

    Emir Hassan, of the prophet's race,
    Asked with folded hands the Almighty's grace,
    Then within the banquet-hall he sat,
    At his meal, upon the embroidered mat.

    There a slave before him placed the food,
    Spilling from the charger, as he stood,
    Awkwardly upon the Emir's breast
    Drops that foully stained the silken vest.

    To the floor, in great remorse and dread,
    Fell the slave, and thus, beseeching, said:
    "Master, they who hasten to restrain
    Rising wrath, in paradise shall reign."

    Gentle was the answer Hassan gave:
    "I am not angry." "Yet," pursued the slave,
    "Yet doth higher recompense belong
    To the injured who forgives a wrong."

    "I forgive," said Hassan. "Yet we read,"
    So the prostrate slave went on to plead,
    "That a higher seat in glory still
    Waits the man who renders good for ill."

    "Slave, receive thy freedom; and, behold,
    In thy hand I lay a purse of gold.
    Let me never fail to heed, in aught,
    What the prophet of our God hath taught."


TRUE GREATNESS

    Who is as the Christian great?
      Bought and washed with sacred blood,
    Crowns he sees beneath his feet.
      Soars aloft and walks with God.

    Lo, his clothing is the sun,
      The bright sun of righteousness;
    He hath put salvation on,
      Jesus is his beauteous dress.

    Angels are his servants here;
      Spread for him their golden wings;
    To his throne of glory bear,
      Seat him by the King of kings.

    --Charles Wesley.


    The glory is not in the task, but in
    The doing it for Him.

    --Jean Ingelow.


MENCIUS

    Three centuries before the Christian age
      China's great teacher, Mencius, was born;
      Her teeming millions did not know that morn
    Had broken on her darkness; that a sage,
    Reared by a noble mother, would her page
      Of history forevermore adorn.
    For twenty years, from court to court, forlorn
    He journeyed, poverty his heritage,
    And preached of virtue, but none cared to hear.
      Life seemed a failure, like a barren rill;
      He wrote his books, and lay beneath the sod:
    When, lo! his work began; and far and near
      Adown the ages Mencius preaches still:
      Do thy whole duty, trusting all to God.

    --Sarah Knowles Bolton.


    He stood, the youth they called the Beautiful,
    At morning, on his untried battle-field,
    And laughed with joy to see his stainless shield,
    When, with a tender smile, but doubting sigh,
              His lord rode by.

    When evening fell, they brought him, wounded sore,
    His battered shield with sword-thrusts gashed and rent,
    And laid him where the king stood by his tent.
    "Now art thou Beautiful," the master said,
              And bared his head.

    --Annie M. L. Hawes.


    Great men grow greater by the lapse of time;
      We know those least whom we have seen the latest;
    And they, 'mongst those whose names have grown sublime,
      Who worked for human liberty are greatest.

    --John Boyle O'Reilly.


        It is enough--
          Enough--just to be good;
    To lift our hearts where they are understood;
    To let the thirst for worldly power and place
    Go unappeased; to smile back in God's face
    With the glad lips our mothers used to kiss.
        Ah! though we miss
        All else but this,
          To be good is enough!

    --James Whitcomb Riley.


    He who ascends to mountain tops shall find
      Their loftiest peaks most wrapped in clouds and snow;
    He who surpasses or subdues mankind
      Must look down on the hate of those below.
      Though high above the sun of glory glow,
    And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
      Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
    Contending tempests on his naked head.

    --George Gordon Byron.


    Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
    Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
    Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
    Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
    But he that filches from me my good name
    Robs me of that which not enriches him,
    And makes me poor indeed.

    --William Shakespeare.


    That man may last, but never lives,
    Who much receives but nothing gives;
    Whom none can love, whom none can thank;
    Creation's blot; creation's blank!

    But he who marks, from day to day,
    In generous acts his radiant way
    Treads the same path his Saviour trod:
    The path to glory and to God.


    The eye with seeing is not filled,
      The ear with hearing not at rest;
    Desire with having is not stilled,
      With human praise no heart is blest.

    Vanity, then, of vanities,
      All things for which men grasp and grope!
    The precious things in heavenly eyes
      Are love, and truth, and trust, and hope.


    A gem which falls within the mire will still a gem remain;
    Men's eyes turn downward to the earth and search for it with pain.
    But _dust_, though whirled aloft to heaven, continues dust alway,
    More base and noxious in the air than when on earth it lay.

    --Saadi, tr. by James Freeman Clarke.


    It was not anything she said;
      It was not anything she did;
    It was the movement of her head,
      The lifting of her lid.
    And as she trod her path aright
      Power from her very garments stole;
    For such is the mysterious might
      God grants a noble soul.


    True worth is in being, not seeming;
      In doing, each day that goes by,
    Some little good, not in dreaming,
      Of great things to do by and by.
    For whatever men say in their blindness,
      And spite of the fancies of youth,
    There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
      And nothing so royal as truth.

    --Alice Cary.


    The wisest man could ask no more of Fate
      Than to be simple, modest, manly, true,
      Safe from the Many, honored by the Few;
    To count as naught in world of church or state
    But inwardly in secret to be great.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
    And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame;
    But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
    Shall draw the Thing as he sees it, for the God of Things as they are.

    --Rudyard Kipling.


    In life's small things be resolute and great
    To keep thy muscle trained; knowest thou when Fate
    Thy measure takes? or when she'll say to thee,
    "I find thee worthy; do this deed for me"?

    --James Russell Lowell.


    'Tis a lifelong toil till our lump be leaven.
      The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
    Things learned on earth we shall practice in heaven.
      Work done least rapidly Art most cherishes.

    --Robert Browning.


    Let come what will, I mean to bear it out,
    And either live with glorious victory
    Or die with fame, renowned in chivalry.
    He is not worthy of the honey-comb
    That shuns the hive because the bees have stings.

    --William Shakespeare.


    One by one thy duties wait thee,
      Let thy whole strength go to each.
    Let no future dreams elate thee,
      Learn thou first what these can teach.

    --Adelaide Anne Procter.


    Give me heart-touch with all that live
      And strength to speak my word;
    But if that is denied me, give
      The strength to live unheard.

    --Edwin Markham.


    Honor and shame from no condition rise;
    Act well your part, there all the honor lies

    --Alexander Pope.


    How wretched is the man with honors crowned,
    Who, having not the one thing needful found,
    Dies, known to all, but to himself unknown.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


    He fought a thousand glorious wars,
      And more than half the world was his,
    And somewhere, now, in yonder stars,
      Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.

    --William Makepeace Thackeray.


    Howe'er it be, it seems to me
      'Tis only noble to be good;
    Kind hearts are more than coronets,
      And simple faith than Norman blood.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


    I've learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed,
    Not the applauding thunder at its heels
    Which men call fame.

    --Alexander Smith.


    It is worth while to live!
      Be of good cheer;
      Love casts out fear;
    Rise up, achieve.

    --Christina G. Rossetti.


    No endeavor is in vain;
      Its reward is in the doing,
      And the rapture of pursuing
    Is the prize the vanquished gain.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


    Far better in its place the lowliest bird
      Should sing aright to Him the lowliest song,
    Than that a seraph strayed should take the word
      And sing His glory wrong.

    --Jean Ingelow.


    Often ornateness
    Goes with greatness.
    Oftener felicity
    Comes of simplicity.

    --William Watson.


    A jewel is a jewel still, though lying in the dust,
    And sand is sand, though up to heaven by the tempest thrust.

    --From the Persian.


    Vulgar souls surpass a rare one in the headlong rush;
    As the hard and worthless stones a precious pearl will crush.

    --From the Persian.


    Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
    In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
    Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    The mean of soul are sure their faults to gloss,
    And find a secret gain in others' loss.

    --John Boyle O'Reilly.


    Ah, a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
    Or what's heaven for?

    --Robert Browning.


    Though thy name be spread abroad,
      Like winged seed, from shore to shore,
    What thou art before thy God,
      That thou art and nothing more.


    My business is not to remake myself,
    But make the absolute best of what God made.

    --Robert Browning.


    For never land long lease of empire won
    Whose sons sat silent when base deeds were done.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    He that would free from malice pass his days
    Must live obscure and never merit praise.

    --John Gay.


    Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,
    Before a thousand peering littlenesses.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


    The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life,
    Try to be Shakespeare--leave the rest to fate.

    --Robert Browning.


    Unblemished let me live, or die unknown;
    O, grant an honest fame, or grant me none.

    --Alexander Pope.


    With fame in just proportion envy grows;
    The man that makes a character makes foes.

    --Edward Young.


    'Tis not what man does which exalts him,
    But what man would do.

    --Robert Browning.


    Better have failed in the high aim, as I,
    Than vulgarly in the low aim succeed.

    --Robert Browning.


    The simple, silent, selfless man
    Is worth a world of tonguesters.

    --Alfred Tennyson.




DUTY

LOYALTY, FAITHFULNESS, CONSCIENCE, ZEAL


ODE TO DUTY

    Stern daughter of the voice of God!
      O Duty! if that name thou love
    Who art a light to guide, a rod
      To check the erring and reprove;
    Thou who art victory and law
    When empty terrors overawe;
    From vain temptation dost set free;
    And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

    There are who ask not if thine eye
    Be on them; who, in love and truth,
    Where no misgiving is, rely
    Upon the genial sense of youth;
    Glad hearts, without reproach or blot,
    Who do thy work and know it not:
    Oh! if through confidence misplaced
    They fail, thy saving arms, dread Power, around them cast.

    Serene will be our days, and bright
    And happy will our nature be,
    When love is an unerring light,
    And joy its own security;
    And they a blissful course may hold
    Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
    Live in the spirit of this creed;
    Yet seek thy firm support according to their need.

    I, loving freedom, and untried,
    No sport of every random gust,
    Yet being to myself a guide,
    Too blindly have reposed my trust;
    And oft, when in my heart was heard
    Thy timely mandate, I deferred
    The task, in smoother walks to stray;
    But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

    Through no disturbance of my soul,
    Or strong compunction in me wrought,
    I supplicate for thy control,
    But in the quietness of thought.
    Me this unchartered freedom tires;
    I feel the weight of chance desires:
    My hopes no more must change their name,
    I long for a repose that ever is the same.

    Stern Lawgiver! Yet thou dost wear
    The Godhead's most benignant grace;
    Nor know we anything so fair
    As is the smile upon thy face:
    Flowers laugh before thee on their beds
    And fragrance in thy footing treads;
    Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
    And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

    To humbler functions, awful Power!
    I call thee; I myself commend
    Unto thy guidance from this hour;
    Oh, let my weakness have an end!
    Give unto me, made lowly wise,
    The spirit of self-sacrifice;
    The confidence of reason give;
    And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live.

    --William Wordsworth.


THE LADDER OF SAINT AUGUSTINE

    Saint Augustine! well hast thou said,
      That of our vices we can frame
    A ladder, if we will but tread
      Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

    All common things, each day's events,
      That with the hour begin and end,
    Our pleasures and our discontents,
      Are rounds by which we may ascend.

    The longing for ignoble things;
      The strife for triumph more than truth;
    The hardening of the heart, that brings
      Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

    All thoughts of ill, all evil deeds
      That have their root in thoughts of ill;
    Whatever hinders or impedes
      The action of the nobler will;--

    All these must first be trampled down
      Beneath our feet, if we would gain
    In the bright fields of fair renown
      The right of eminent domain.

    We have not wings, we cannot soar;
      But we have feet to scale and climb
    By slow degrees, by more and more,
      The cloudy summits of our time.

    The heights by great men reached and kept
      Were not attained by sudden flight,
    But they while their companions slept
      Were toiling upward in the night.

    Standing on what too long we bore
      With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
    We may discern--unseen before--
      A path to higher destinies,

    Nor deem the irrevocable Past
      As wholly wasted, wholly vain,
    If, rising on its wrecks, at last
      To something nobler we attain.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


REWARD OF FAITHFULNESS

    The deeds which selfish hearts approve
      And fame's loud trumpet sings
    Secure no praise where truth and love
      Are counted noblest things;
    And work which godless folly deems
      Worthless, obscure, and lowly,
    To Heaven's ennobling vision seems
      Most godlike, grand, and holy.

    Then murmur not if toils obscure
      And thorny paths be thine;
    To God be true--they shall secure
      The joy of life divine
    Who in the darkest, sternest sphere
      For Him their powers employ;
    The toils contemned and slighted here
      Shall yield the purest joy.

    When endless day dispels the strife
      Which blinds and darkens now,
    Perchance the brightest crown of life
      Shall deck some lowly brow.
    Then learn, despite thy boding fears,
      From seed with sorrow sown,
    In love, obscurity and tears
      The richest sheaves are grown.

    --Edward Hartley Dewart.


"DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE"

    From an old English parsonage
      Down by the sea,
    There came in the twilight
      A message to me;
    Its quaint Saxon legend
      Deeply engraven,
    Hath as it seems to me
      Teaching for heaven;
    And on through the hours
      The quiet words ring,
    Like a low inspiration,
      "Doe the nexte thynge."

    Many a questioning,
      Many a fear,
    Many a doubt,
      Hath guiding here.
    Moment by moment
      Let down from heaven,
    Time, opportunity,
      Guidance are given.
    Fear not to-morrow,
      Child of the King;
    Trust it with Jesus,
      "Doe the nexte thynge."

    O He would have thee
      Daily more free,
    Knowing the might
      Of thy royal degree;
    Ever in waiting,
      Glad for his call,
    Tranquil in chastening,
      Trusting through all.
    Comings and goings
      No turmoil need bring:
    His all thy future--
      "Doe the nexte thynge."

    Do it immediately,
      Do it with prayer,
    Do it reliantly,
      Casting all care:
    Do it with reverence,
      Tracing His hand
    Who hath placed it before thee
      With earnest command.
    Stayed on Omnipotence,
      Safe, 'neath his wing,
    Leave all resultings,
      "Doe the nexte thynge."

    Looking to Jesus,
      Ever serener,
    Working or suffering,
      Be thy demeanor!
    In the shade of his presence,
      The rest of his calm,
    The light of his countenance,
      Live out thy psalm:
    Strong in his faithfulness.
      Praise him and sing,
    Then as he beckons thee,
      "Doe the nexte thynge."


ZEAL IN LABOR

    Go, labor on; spend and be spent,
      Thy joy to do the Father's will;
    It is the way the Master went;
      Should not the servant tread it still?

    Go, labor on; 'tis not for naught;
      Thine earthly loss is heavenly gain;
    Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not;
      The Master praises--what are men?

    Go, labor on; your hands are weak;
      Your knees are faint, your soul cast down;
    Yet falter not; the prize you seek
      Is near--a kingdom and a crown!

    Toil on, faint not; keep watch, and pray!
      Be wise the erring soul to win;
    Go forth into the world's highway;
      Compel the wanderer to come in.

    Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice:
      For toil comes rest, for exile home;
    Soon shalt thou hear the Bridegroom's voice,
      The midnight peal, "Behold, I come!"

    --Horatius Bonar.


THE EVANGELIST

    Walking with Peter, Christ his footsteps set
    On the lake shore, hard by Gennesaret,
    At the hour when noontide's burning rays down pour.
    When they beheld at a mean cabin's door,
    A fisher's widow in her mourning clad,
    Who, on the threshold seated, silent, sad,
    The tear that wet them kept her lids within,
    Her child to cradle and her flax to spin;
    Near by, behind the fig-trees' leafy screen,
    The Master and His friend could see, unseen.

    An old man ready for his earthly bed,
    A beggar with a jar upon his head,
    Came by, and to the mourning spinner there
    Said, "Woman, I this vase of milk should bear
    Unto a dweller in the hamlet near;
    But I am weak and bent with many a year;
    More than a thousand paces yet to go
    Remain, and, without help, I surely know
    I cannot end my task and earn its fee."

    The woman rose, and not a word said she,
    Without a pause her distaff laid aside,
    And left the cradle where the orphan cried,
    Took up the jar, and with the beggar went.

    "Master, 'tis well to be benevolent,"
    Said Peter, "but small sense that woman showed,
    In leaving thus her child and her abode
    For the chance-comer that first sought her out;
    The beggar some one would have found, no doubt,
    To ease him of his load upon the way."

    The Lord made answer unto Peter, "Nay,
    Thy Father, when the poor assists the poorer,
    Will keep her cot, and her reward assure her.
    She went at once, and wisely did in that."

    And Jesus, having finished speaking, sat
    Down on a bench was in the humble place,
    And with His blest hands for a moment's space,
    He touched the distaff, rocked the little one.
    Rose, signed to Peter, and they gat them gone.

    When she to whom the Lord had given this proof
    Of good-will came back to her humble roof,
    She found, nor knew what Friend the deed had done,
    The baby sleeping and the flax all spun!

    --Francois Coppee.


THE BEST THAT I CAN

    "I cannot do much," said a little star,
      "To make the dark world bright;
    My silver beams cannot struggle far
      Through the folding gloom of night:
    But I am a part of God's great plan,
    And I'll cheerfully do the best that I can."

    "What is the use," said a fleecy cloud,
      "Of these dew-drops that I hold?
    They will hardly bend the lily proud,
      Though caught in her cup of gold;
    Yet I am a part of God's great plan,
    My treasures I'll give as well as I can."

    A child went merrily forth to play,
      But a thought, like a silver thread,
    Kept winding in and out all day
      Through the happy, busy head,
    "Mother said, 'Darling, do all you can,
    For you are a part of God's great plan.'"

    So she helped a younger child along,
      When the road was rough to the feet;
    And she sang from her heart a little song,
      A song that was passing sweet;
    And her father, a weary, toil-worn man,
      Said, "I too will do the best that I can."


WORK LOYALLY

    Just where you stand in the conflict,
      There is your place!
    Just where you think you are useless
      Hide not your face!
    God placed you there for a purpose,
      Whate'er it be;
    Think He has chosen you for it--
      Work loyally.

    Gird on your armor! Be faithful
      At toil or rest,
    Whiche'er it be, never doubting
      God's way is best.
    Out in the fight, or on picket,
      Stand firm and true;
    This is the work which your Master
      Gives you to do.


    Who does the best his circumstance allows,
    Does well, acts nobly; angels could no more.

    --Edward Young.


LOYALTY

    When courage fails and faith burns low,
      And men are timid grown,
    Hold fast thy loyalty and know
      That Truth still moveth on.

    For unseen messengers she hath,
      To work her will and ways,
    And even human scorn and wrath
      God turneth to her praise.

    She can both meek and lordly be,
      In heavenly might secure;
    With her is pledge of victory,
      And patience to endure.

    The race is not unto the swift,
      The battle to the strong,
    When dawn her judgment-days that sift
      The claims of right and wrong.

    And more than thou canst do for Truth
      Can she on thee confer,
    If thou, O heart, but give thy youth
      And manhood unto her.

    For she can make thee inly bright,
      Thy self-love purge away,
    And lead thee in the path whose light
      Shines to the perfect day.

    Who follow her, though men deride,
      In her strength shall be strong;
    Shall see their shame become their pride,
      And share her triumph song!

    --Frederick Lucian Hosmer.


LIBERTY

    I am Liberty--God's daughter!
      My symbols--a law and a torch;
    Not a sword to threaten slaughter,
    Nor a flame to dazzle or scorch;
    But a light that the world may see,
    And a truth that shall make men free.

    I am the sister of Duty,
      And I am the sister of Faith;
    To-day adored for my beauty,
      To-morrow led forth for death.
    I am she whom ages prayed for;
    Heroes suffered undismayed for;
    Whom the martyrs were betrayed for.

    --John Boyle O'Reilly.


THE NEAREST DUTY

    My soul was stirred; I prayed, "Let me
      Do some great work, so purely,
    To right life's wrongs, that I shall know
      That I have loved Thee surely."
    My lips sent forth their eager cry,
      The while my heart beat faster,
    "For some great deed to prove my love
      Send me; send me, my Master!"

    From out the silence came a voice,
      Saying: "If God thou fearest,
    Rise up and do, thy whole life through,
      The duty that lies nearest.
    The friendly word, the kindly deed,
      Though small the act in seeming,
    Shall in the end unto thy soul
      Prove mightier than thy dreaming.

    The cup of water to the faint,
      Or rest unto the weary,
    The light thou giv'st another's life,
      Shall make thine own less dreary.
    And boundless realms of faith and love
      Will wait for thy possessing;
    Not creeds, but deeds, if thou wouldst win
      Unto thy soul a blessing."

    And so I wait with peaceful heart,
      Content to do His pleasure;
    Not caring if the world shall mock
      At smallness of the measure
    Of thoughts or deeds or daily life.
      He knows the true endeavor--
    To do His will, to seek His face--
      And He will fail me never.

    --Sarah A. Gibbs.


THE ONE TALENT

    Hide not thy talent in the earth;
      However small it be,
    Its faithful use, its utmost worth,
      God will require of thee.

    The humblest service rendered here
      He will as truly own
    As Paul's in his exalted sphere,
      Or Gabriel's near the throne.

    The cup of water kindly given,
      The widow's cheerful mites,
    Are worthier in the eye of heaven
      Than pride's most costly rites.

    His own, which He hath lent on trust,
      He asks of thee again;
    Little or much, the claim is just,
      And thine excuses vain.

    Go, then, and strive to do thy part--
      Though humble it may be;
    The ready hand, the willing heart,
      Are all heaven asks of thee.

    --William Cutler.


ONE TALENT

(Matt. XXV. 18)

    In a napkin smooth and white,
    Hidden from all mortal sight,
    My one talent lies to-night.

    Mine to hoard, or mine to use;
    Mine to keep, or mine to lose;
    May I not do what I choose?

    Ah! the gift was only lent
    With the Giver's known intent
    That it should be wisely spent.

    And I know he will demand
    Every farthing at my hand,
    When I in his presence stand.

    What will be my grief and shame
    When I hear my humble name
    And cannot repay his claim!

    One poor talent--nothing more!
    All the years that have gone o'er
    Have not added to the store.

    Some will double what they hold,
    Others add to it tenfold
    And pay back the shining gold.

    Would that I had toiled like them!
    All my sloth I now condemn;
    Guilty fears my soul o'erwhelm.

    Lord, oh teach me what to do.
    Make me faithful, make me true,
    And the sacred trust renew.

    Help me, ere too late it be,
    Something yet to do for Thee,
    Thou who hast done all for me.


    Art thou little? Do thy little well;
      And for thy comfort know
    Great men can do their greatest work
      No better than just so.

    --Johann W. von Goethe.


RESPONSIBILITY FOR TALENTS

    Thou that in life's crowded city art arrived, thou knowest not how--
    By what path or on what errand--list and learn thine errand now.

    From the palace to the city on the business of thy King
    Thou wert sent at early morning, to return at evening.

    Dreamer, waken; loiterer, hasten; what thy task is understand:
    Thou art here to purchase substance, and the price is in thine hand.

    Has the tumult of the market all thy sense confused and drowned?
    Do its glittering wares entice thee, or its shouts and cries confound?

    Oh, beware lest thy Lord's business be forgotten, while thy gaze
    Is on every show and pageant which the giddy square displays.

    Barter not his gold for pebbles; do not trade in vanities;
    Pearls there are of price and jewels for the purchase of the wise.

    And know this--at thy returning thou wilt surely find the King
    With an open book before Him, waiting to make reckoning.

    Thus large honors will the faithful, earnest service of one day
    Reap of Him; but one day's folly largest penalties will pay.

    --Richard Chenevix Trench.


    Not once or twice in our fair island-story
    The path of duty was the way to glory.
    He, that ever following her commands,
    On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
    Thro' the long gorge to the far light has won
    His path upward, and prevailed,
    Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
    Are close upon the shining table-lands
    To which our God himself is moon and sun.

    --Alfred Tennyson.


GO RIGHT ON WORKING

    Ah, yes! the task is hard, 'tis true,
      But what's the use of sighing?
    They're soonest with their duties through
      Who bravely keep on trying.
    There's no advantage to be found
      In sorrowing or shirking;
    They with success are soonest crowned
      Who just go right on working.

    Strive patiently and with a will
      That shall not be defeated;
    Keep singing at your task until
      You see it stand completed.
    Nor let the clouds of doubt draw near,
      Your sky's glad sunshine murking;
    Be brave, and fill your heart with cheer,
      And just go right on working.

    --Nixon Waterman.


JUSTICE ONLY

    Be not too proud of good deeds wrought!
      When thou art come from prayer, speak truly!
    Even if he wrongeth thee in aught,
      Respect thy Guru. Give alms duly.

    But let none wist! Live, day by day,
      With little and with little swelling
    Thy tale of duty done--the way
      The wise ant-people build their dwelling;

    Not harming any living thing;
      That thou may'st have--at time of dying--
    A Hand to hold thee, and to bring
      Thy footsteps safe; and, so relying,

    Pass to the farther world. For none
      Save Justice leads there! Father, mother,
    Will not be nigh; nor wife, nor son,
      Nor friends, nor kin; nor any other

    Save only Justice! All alone
      Each entereth here, and each one leaveth
    This life alone; and every one
      The fruit of all his deeds receiveth

    Alone--alone; bad deeds and good!
      That day when kinsmen, sadly turning,
    Forsake thee, like the clay or wood,
      A thing committed to the burning.

    But Justice shall not quit thee then,
      If thou hast served her, therefore never
    Cease serving; that shall hold thee when
      The darkness falls which falls forever,

    Which hath no star, nor way and guide.
      But Justice knows the road; and midnight
    Is noon to her. Man at her side
      Goes, through the gloom, safe to the hid light.

    And he who loved her more than all,
      Who purged by sorrow his offenses,
    Shall shine, in realms celestial,
      With glory, quit of sins and senses.

    --Edwin Arnold, from the Sanskrit.


GOD'S VENGEANCE

    Saith the Lord, "Vengeance is mine;"
      "I will repay," saith the Lord;
    Ours be the anger divine,
      Lit by the flash of his word.

    How shall his vengeance be done?
      How, when his purpose is clear?
    Must he come down from the throne?
      Hath he no instruments here?

    Sleep not in imbecile trust,
      Waiting for God to begin;
    While, growing strong in the dust,
      Rests the bruised serpent of sin.

    Right and Wrong--both cannot live
      Death-grappled. Which shall we see?
    Strike! Only Justice can give
      Safety to all that shall be.

    Shame! to stand faltering thus,
      Tricked by the balancing odds;
    Strike! God is waiting for us!
      Strike! for the vengeance is God's!

    --John Hay.


    Bear a lily in thy hand;
    Gates of brass cannot withstand
    One touch of that magic wand.

    Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth,
    In thy heart the dew of youth,
    On thy lips the smile of truth.

    --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.


A SINGLE STITCH

    One stitch dropped as the weaver drove
      His nimble shuttle to and fro,
    In and out, beneath, above,
      Till the pattern seemed to bud and grow
    As if the fairies had helping been;
    One small stitch which could scarce be seen,
    But the one stitch dropped pulled the next stitch out,
    And a weak place grew in the fabric stout;
    And the perfect pattern was marred for aye
    By the one small stitch that was dropped that day.

    One small life in God's great plan,
      How futile it seems as the ages roll,
    Do what it may or strive how it can
      To alter the sweep of the infinite whole!
    A single stitch in an endless web,
    A drop in the ocean's flood and ebb!
    But the pattern is rent where the stitch is lost,
    Or marred where the tangled threads have crossed;
    And each life that fails of its true intent
    Mars the perfect plan that its Master meant.

    --Susan Coolidge.


THE BLESSINGS

    An angel came from the courts of gold,
    With gifts and tidings manifold;
    With blessings many to crown the one
    Whose work of life was the noblest done.

    He came to a rich man's gilded door;
    Where a beautiful lady stood before
    His vision, fair as the saints are fair,
    With smile as sweet as the seraphs wear.

    He needed not to be told her life--
    The pure young mother, the tender wife;
    He needed not to be told that she,
    In home of sorrow and poverty,

    Was giving wealth with a lavish hand;
    He thought her worthy in heaven to stand.
    "No! no!" a voice to the angel heart
    Spoke low: "Seek on in the busy mart."

    He found a door that was worn and old;
    The night was damp and the wind was cold.
    A pale-faced girl at her sewing bent;
    The midnight lamp to her features lent

    A paler look as she toiled the while,
    But yet the mouth had a restful smile.
    Doing her duty with honest pride;
    Breasting temptation on every side.

    "For her the blessings," the angel said,
    And touched with pity the girlish head.
    "No time nor money for alms has she,
    But duty is higher than charity."

    --Sarah Knowles Bolton.


DUTIES

    I reach a duty, yet I do it not,
      And therefore see no higher; but, if done,
    My view is brightened and another spot
      Seen on my moral sun.

    For, be the duty high as angels' flight,
      Fulfill it, and a higher will arise
    E'en from its ashes. Duty is infinite--
      Receding as the skies.

    And thus it is the purest most deplore
      Their want of purity. As fold by fold,
    In duties done, falls from their eyes, the more
      Of duty they behold.

    Were it not wisdom, then, to close our eyes
      On duties crowding only to appal?
    No; duty is our ladder to the skies,
      And, climbing not, we fall.

    --Robert Leighton (1611-1684).


WHAT SHE COULD

    "And do the hours step fast or slow?
      And are ye sad or gay?
    And is your heart with your liege lord, lady,
      Or is it far away?"

    The lady raised her calm, proud head,
      Though her tears fell, one by one:
    "Life counts not hours by joy or pangs,
      But just by duties done.

    "And when I lie in the green kirkyard,
      With the mould upon my breast,
    Say not that 'She did well--or ill,'
      Only, 'She did her best.'"

    --Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.


UNWASTED DAYS

    The longer on this earth we live
      And weigh the various qualities of men,
    Seeing how most are fugitive
      Or fitful gifts at best, of now and then--
      Wind-favored corpse-lights, daughters of the fen--
    The more we feel the high, stern-featured beauty
    Of plain devotedness to duty,
      Steadfast and still, nor paid with mortal praise,
        But finding amplest recompense
        For life's ungarlanded expense
      In work done squarely and unwasted days.

    --James Russell Lowell.


TRIFLES THAT MAKE SAINTS

    A tone of pride or petulance repressed
      A selfish inclination firmly fought,
      A shadow of annoyance set at naught,
    A measure of disquietude suppressed;
    A peace in importunity possessed,
      A reconcilement generously sought,
      A purpose put aside, a banished thought,
    A word of self-explaining unexpressed:
    Trifles they seem, these petty soul-restraints,
      Yet he who proves them so must needs possess
      A constancy and courage grand and bold;
    They are the trifles that have made the saints.
      Give me to practice them in humbleness
      And nobler power than mine doth no man hold.


    The world is full of beauty,
      As other worlds above;
    And if we did our duty
      It might be full of love.

    --Gerald Massey.


    What stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?
    Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;
    And he but naked, though locked up in steel,
    Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

    --William Shakespeare.


    I slept, and dreamed that life was Beauty;
    I woke, and found that life was Duty.
    Was thy dream then, a shadowy lie?
    Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
    And thou shalt find that dream to be
    A noonday light and truth to thee.

    --Ellen Sturgis Hooper.


    Do thy duty; that is best;
    Leave unto thy Lord the rest.

    --James Russell Lowell.


    While I sought Happiness she fled
      Before me constantly.
    Weary, I turned to Duty's path,
      And Happiness sought me,
    Saying, "I walk this road to-day,
      I'll bear thee company."


    So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
      So near is God to man,
    When Duty whispers low, "Thou must,"
      The youth replies, "I can."

    --Ralph Waldo Emerson.


    Faithfully faithful to every trust,
      Honestly honest in every deed,
    Righteously righteous and justly just;
      This is the whole of the good man's creed.


    Find out what God would have you do,
      And do that little well;
    For what is great and what is small
      'Tis only he can tell.




SERVICE

USEFULNESS, BENEVOLENCE, LABOR


WAKING

    I have done at length with dreaming;
      Henceforth, O thou soul of mine!
    Thou must take up sword and buckler,
      Waging warfare most divine.

    Life is struggle, combat, victory!
      Wherefore have I slumbered on
    With my forces all unmarshaled,
      With my weapons all undrawn?

    O how many a glorious record
      Had the angels of me kept
    Had I done instead of doubted,
      Had I warred instead of wept!

    But begone, regret, bewailing!
      Ye had weakened at the best;
    I have tried the trusty weapons
      Resting erst within my breast.

    I have wakened to my duty,
      To a knowledge strong and deep,
    That I recked not of aforetime,
      In my long inglorious sleep.

    For the end of life is service,
      And I felt it not before,
    And I dreamed not how stupendous
      Was the meaning that it bore.

    In this subtle sense of being,
      Newly stirred in every vein,
    I can feel a throb electric--
      Pleasure half allied with pain.

    'Tis so sweet, and yet so awful,
      So bewildering, yet brave,
    To be king in every conflict
      Where before I crouched a slave!

    'Tis so glorious to be conscious
      Of a growing power within
    Stronger than the rallying forces
      Of a charged and marshaled sin!

    Never in those old romances
      Felt I half the thrill of life
    That I feel within me stirring,
      Standing in this place of strife.

    O those olden days of dalliance,
      When I wantoned with my fate;
    When I trifled with the knowledge
      That had well-nigh come too late.

    Yet, my soul, look not behind thee;
      Thou hast work to do at last;
    Let the brave toil of the present
      Overarch the crumbling past.

    Build thy great acts high and higher;
      Build them on the conquered sod
    Where thy weakness first fell bleeding,
      And thy first prayer rose to God.

    --Caroline Atherton Mason.


SMALL BEGINNINGS

    A traveler through a dusty road strewed acorns on the lea;
    And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree.
    Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breathe its early vows;
    And age was pleased, in heat of noon, to bask beneath its boughs;
    The dormouse loved its dangling twigs the birds sweet music bore;
    It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore.

    A little spring had lost its way amid the grass and fern,
    A passing stranger scooped a well where weary men might turn;
    He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink;
    He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink.
    He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried,
    Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues, and saved a life beside.

    A dreamer dropped a random thought; 'twas old, and yet 'twas new;
    A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true.
    It shone upon a genial mind, and lo! its light became
    A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame.
    The thought was small; its issue great; a watchfire on the hill,
    It shed its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still!

    A nameless man, amid the crowd that thronged the daily mart,
    Let fall a word of Hope and Love, unstudied, from the heart;
    A whisper on the tumult thrown--a transitory breath--
    It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death.
    O germ! O fount! O word of love! O thought at random cast!
    Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last!

    --Charles Mackay.


THE CHOIR INVISIBLE

    O may I join the choir invisible
    Of those immortal dead who live again
    In minds made better by their presence; live
    In pulses stirred to generosity,
    In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
    For miserable aims that end with self,
    In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
    And with their mild persistence urge man's search
    To vaster issues.
                So to live is heaven:
    To make undying music in the world,
    Breathing as beauteous order that controls
    With growing sway the growing life of man.
    So we inherit that sweet purity
    For which we struggled, failed and agonized,
    With widening retrospect that bred despair.
    Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
    A vicious parent shaming still its child
    Poor, anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
    Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
    Die in the large and charitable air.
    And all our rarer, better, truer, self,
    That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
    That watched to ease the burden of the world,
    Laboriously tracing what must be,
    And what may yet be better--saw within
    A worthier image for the sanctuary,
    And shaped it forth before the multitude
    Divinely human, raising worship so
    To higher reverence more mixed with love--
    That better self shall live till human Time
    Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
    Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,
    Unread forever.
                This is life to come,
    Which martyred men have made more glorious
    For us who strive to follow. May I reach
    That purest heaven, be to other souls
    The cup of strength in some great agony,
    Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love,
    Beget the smiles that have no cruelty--
    Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
    And in diffusion ever more intense.
    So shall I join the choir invisible
    Whose music is the gladness of the world.

    --George Eliot.


MY TASK

    To love some one more dearly ev'ry day,
    To help a wandering child to find his way,
    To ponder o'er a noble thought, and pray,
      And smile when evening falls.

    To follow truth as blind men long for light,
    To do my best from dawn of day till night,
    To keep my heart fit for His holy sight,
      And answer when He calls.

    --Maude Louise Ray.


"IT IS MORE BLESSED"

    Give! as the morning that flows out of heaven;
    Give! as the waves when their channel is riven;
    Give! as the free air and sunshine are given;
      Lavishly, utterly, joyfully give!
    Not the waste drops of thy cup overflowing;
    Not the faint sparks of thy hearth ever glowing;
    Not a pale bud from the June roses blowing:
      Give as He gave thee who gave thee to live.

    Pour out thy love like the rush of a river,
    Wasting its waters, forever and ever,
    Through the burnt sands that reward not the giver:
      Silent or songful, thou nearest the sea.
    Scatter thy life as the summer's shower pouring;
    What if no bird through the pearl rain is soaring?
    What if no blossom looks upward adoring?
      Look to the life that was lavished for thee!

    So the wild wind strews its perfumed caresses:
    Evil and thankless the desert it blesses;
    Bitter the wave that its soft pinion presses;
      Never it ceaseth to whisper and sing.
    What if the hard heart give thorns for thy roses?
    What if on rocks thy tired bosom reposes?
    Sweeter is music with minor-keyed closes,
      Fairest the vines that on ruin will cling.

    Almost the day of thy giving is over;
    Ere from the grass dies the bee-haunted clover
    Thou wilt have vanished from friend and from lover:
      What shall thy longing avail in the grave?
    Give as the heart gives whose fetters are breaking--
    Life, love, and hope, all thy dreams and thy waking;
    Soon, heaven's river thy soul-fever slaking,
      Thou shalt know God and the gift that he gave.

    --Rose Terry Cooke.


ALONG THE WAY

    There are so many helpful things to do
      Along life's way
    (Helps to the helper, if we did but know),
      From day to day.
    So many troubled hearts to soothe,
    So many pathways rough to smooth,
    So many comforting words to say,
    To the hearts that falter along the way.

    Here is a lamp of hope gone out
      Along the way.
    Some one stumbled and fell, no doubt--
      But, brother, stay!
    Out of thy store of oil refill;
    Kindle the courage that smoulders still;
    Think what Jesus would do to-day
    For one who had fallen beside the way.

    How many lifted hands still plead
      Along life's way!
    The old, sad story of human need
      Reads on for aye.
    But let us follow the Saviour's plan--
    Love unstinted to every man;
    Content if, at most, the world should say:
    "He helped his brother along the way!"


SAVED TO SERVE

    Is thy cruse of comfort failing?
      Rise and share it with another,
    And through all the years of famine
      It shall serve thee and thy brother.

    Love divine will fill thy storehouse
      Or thy handful still renew;
    Scanty fare for one will often
      Make a royal feast for two.

    For the heart grows rich in giving--
      All its wealth is living gain;
    Seeds which mildew in the garner
      Scattered fill with gold the plain.

    Is thy burden hard and heavy?
      Do thy steps drag wearily?
    Help to bear thy brother's burden;
      God will bear both it and thee.

    Numb and weary on the mountains,
      Wouldst thou sleep amidst the snow?
    Chafe that frozen form beside thee,
      And together both shall glow.

    Art thou stricken in life's battle?
      Many wounded round thee moan:
    Lavish on their wounds thy balsam,
      And that balm shall heal thine own.

    Is thy heart a well left empty?
      None but God the void can fill.
    Nothing but the ceaseless Fountain
      Can its ceaseless longings still.

    Is the heart a living power?
      Self-entwined its strength sinks low.
    It can only live in loving,
      And by serving love will grow.


BY DOING GOOD WE LIVE

    A certain wise man, deeply versed
      In all the learning of the East,
    Grew tired in spirit, and athirst
      From life to be released.

    So to Eliab, holy man
      Of God he came: "Ah, give me, friend,
    The herb of death, that now the span
      Of my vain life may end."

    Eliab gently answered: "Ere
      The soul may free itself indeed,
    This herb of healing thou must bear
      To seven men in need;

    "When thou hast lightened each man's grief,
      And brought him hope and joy again,
    Return; nor shalt thou seek relief
      At Allah's hands in vain."

    The wise man sighed, and humbly said:
      "As Allah willeth, so is best."
    And with the healing herb he sped
      Away upon his quest.

    And as he journeyed on, intent
      To serve the sorrowing in the land
    On deeds of love and mercy bent,
      The herb bloomed in his hand,

    And through his pulses shot a fire
      Of strength and hope and happiness;
    His heart leaped with a glad desire
      To live and serve and bless.

    Lord of all earthly woe and need,
      Be this, life's flower, mine!
    To love, to comfort, and to heal--
      Therein is life divine!

    --Josephine Troup.


FOR STRENGTH WE ASK

    For strength we ask
    For the ten thousand times repeated task,
      The endless smallnesses of every day.

    No, not to lay
      My life down in the cause I cherish most,
      That were too easy. But, whate'er it cost,

    To fail no more
    In gentleness toward the ungentle, nor
      In love toward the unlovely, and to give,

    Each day I live,
      To every hour with outstretched hand, its meed
      Of not-to-be-regretted thought and deed.

    --Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald.


MARTHA OR MARY?

    I cannot choose; I should have liked so much
    To sit at Jesus' feet--to feel the touch
    Of his kind gentle hand upon my head
    While drinking in the gracious words he said.

    And yet to serve Him!--Oh, divine employ--
    To minister and give the Master joy;
    To bathe in coolest springs his weary feet,
    And wait upon Him while He sat at meat!

    Worship or service--which? Ah, that is best
    To which he calls us, be it toil or rest;
    To labor for Him in life's busy stir,
    Or seek His feet, a silent worshiper.

    --Caroline Atherton Mason.


    This is the gospel of labor--ring it, ye bells of the kirk--
    The Lord of Love came down from above to live with the men who work.
    This is the rose that he planted, here in the thorn-cursed soil;
    Heaven is blest with perfect rest, but the blessing of earth is toil.

    --Henry van Dyke.


MARTHA

    Yes, Lord, Yet some must serve!
      Not all with tranquil heart,
    Even at Thy dear feet,
    Wrapped in devotion sweet,
      May sit apart!

    Yes, Lord! Yet some must bear
      The burden of the day,
    Its labor and its heat,
    While others at Thy feet
      May muse and pray.

    Yes, Lord! Yet some must do
      Life's daily task-work; some
    Who fain would sing must toil
    Amid earth's dust and moil,
      While lips are dumb!

    Yes, Lord! Yet man must earn
      And woman bake the bread;
    And some must watch and wake
    Early for others' sake,
      Who pray instead!

    Yes, Lord! Yet even thou
      Hast need of earthly care;
    I bring the bread and wine
    To Thee a Guest divine--
      Be this my prayer!

    --Julia Caroline Ripley Dorr.


    If we sit down at set of sun
    And count the things that we have done,
      And counting, find
    One self-denying act, one word
    That eased the heart of him who heard,
      One glance most kind,
    That fell like sunshine where it went,
    Then we may count the day well spent.

    But if through all the livelong day
    We've eased no heart by yea or nay;
      If through it all
    We've nothing done that we can trace
    That brought the sunshine to a face,
      No act most small
    That helped some soul, and nothing cost,
    Then count that day as worse than lost.


    This for the day of life I ask:
    Some all-absorbing, useful task;
    And when 'tis wholly, truly done,
    A tranquil rest at set of sun.


SERVICE

    Ah! grand is the world's work, and noble, forsooth,
      The doing one's part, be it ever so small!
    You, reaping with Boaz, I, gleaning with Ruth,
      Are honored by serving, yet servants of all.

    No drudge in his corner but speeds the world's wheels;
      No serf in the field but is sowing God's seed--
    More noble, I think, in the dust though he kneels,
      Than the pauper of wealth, who makes scorn of the deed.

    Is toil but a treadmill? Think not of the grind,
      But think of the grist, what is done and to do,
    The world growing better, more like to God's mind,
      By long, faithful labor of helpers like you.

    The broom or the spade or the shuttle, that plies
      Its own honest task in its own honest way,
    Serves heaven not less than a star in the skies--
      What more could the Pleiades do than obey?

    --James Buckham.


SUMMER AND WINTER

    If no kindly thought or word
      We can give, some soul to bless,
    If our hands, from hour to hour,
      Do no deeds of gentleness;
    If to lone and weary ones
      We no comfort will impart--
    Tho' 'tis summer in the sky,
      Yet 'tis winter in the heart!

    If we strive to lift the gloom
      From a dark and burdened life;
    If we seek to lull the storm
      Of our fallen brother's strife;
    If we bid all hate and scorn
      From the spirit to depart--
    Tho' 'tis winter in the sky,
      Yet 'tis summer in the heart!


THE ELEVENTH-HOUR LABORER

    Idlers all day about the market-place
      They name us, and our dumb lips answer not,
    Bearing the bitter while our sloth's disgrace,
      And our dark tasking whereof none may wot.

    Oh, the fair slopes where the grape-gatherers go!--
      Not they the day's fierce heat and burden bear,
    But we who on the market-stones drop slow
      Our barren tears, while all the bright hours wear.

    Lord of the vineyard, whose dear word declares
      Our one hour's labor as the day's shall be,
    What coin divine can make our wage as theirs
      Who had the morning joy of work for Thee?

    --L. Gray Noble.


"THY LABOR IS NOT IN VAIN"

    "I have labored in vain," a preacher said,
      And his brow was marked with care;
    "I have labored in vain." He bowed down his head,
    And bitter and sad were the tears he shed
      In that moment of dark despair.

    "I am weary and worn, and my hands are weak,
      And my courage is well-nigh gone;
    For none give heed to the words I speak,
    And in vain for a promise of fruit I seek
      Where the seed of the Word is sown."

    And again with a sorrowful heart he wept,
      For his spirit with grief was stirred,
    Till the night grew dark, and at last he slept,
    And a silent calm o'er his spirit crept,
      And a whisper of "peace" was heard.

    And he thought in his dream that his soul took flight
      To a blessed and bright abode;
    He saw a throne of dazzling light,
    And harps were ringing, and robes were white--
      Made white in a Saviour's blood.

    And he saw such a countless throng around
      As he never had seen before,
    Their brows with jewels of light were crowned,
    And sorrow and sighing no place had found--
      The troubles of time were o'er.

    Then a white-robed maiden came forth and said,
      "Joy! Joy! for the trials are passed!
    I am one that thy gentle words have led
    In the narrow pathway of life to tread--
      I welcome thee home at last!"

    And the preacher gazed on the maiden's face--
      He had seen that face on earth,
    Where, with anxious heart, in his wonted place
    He had told his charge of a Saviour's grace,
      And their need of a second birth.

    Then the preacher smiled, and the angel said,
      "Go forth to thy work again;
    It is not in vain that the seed is shed--
    If only ONE soul to the cross is led,
      Thy labor is not in vain."

    And at last he woke, and his knee he bent
      In grateful, childlike prayer,
    And he prayed till an answer of peace was sent,
    And Faith and Hope as a rainbow bent
      O'er the clouds of his earthly care.

    And he rose in joy, and his eye was bright.
      His sorrow and grief had fled,
    And his soul was calm and his heart was light,
    For his hands were strong in his Saviour's might
      As forth to his work he sped.


    Whatever dies, or is forgot--
    Work done for God, it dieth not.


FOLLOWING THE MASTER

    I asked the Lord that I might worthier be,
    Might grow in faith and hope and charity;
    And straight, "Go feed my lambs!" he answered me.

    "Nay, Lord!" I cried. "Can outward deeds avail
    To cleanse my spirit? Heart and courage fail
    And sins prevent, and foes and fears assail."

    And still, "Go, feed my lambs!" was all I heard.
    But should I rest upon that simple word?
    Was that, indeed, my message from my Lord?

    Behold, I thought that he his hand would lay
    On my sick soul, and words of healing say,
    And charm the plague-spot from my heart away.

    Half wroth, I turned to go; but oh! the look
    He on me cast--a gaze I could not brook;
    With deep relentings all my spirit shook.

    "O dearest Lord," I cried, "I will obey,
    Say what thou wilt! only lead thou the way;
    For, following thee, my footsteps shall not stray."

    He took me at my word. He went before;
    He led me to the dwellings of the poor,
    Where wolf-eyed Want keeps watch beside the door.

    He beckoned me, and I essayed to go
    Where Sin and Crime, more sad than Want and Woe,
    Hold carnival, and Vice walks to and fro.

    And when I faltered at the sight, He said,
    "Behold, I died for such! These hands have bled,
    This side for such has pierced been," he said.

    "Is the disciple greater than his Lord?
    The servant than his Master?" Oh, that word!
    It smote me like a sharp, two-edged sword!

    And since that hour, if any work of mine
    Has been accepted by my Lord as sign
    That I was following in his steps divine;

    If, serving others (though imperfectly),
    My own poor life has worthier come to be,
    And I have grown in faith and charity,

    Dear Lord, be thine the glory! Thou hast wrought,
    All unaware, the blessing that I sought.
    O that these lips might praise thee as they ought!


BE ALWAYS GIVING

    The sun gives ever; so the earth--
    What it can give so much 'tis worth;
    The ocean gives in many ways--
    Gives baths, gives fishes, rivers, bays;
    So, too, the air, it gives us breath.
    When it stops giving, comes in death.
      Give, give, be always giving;
      Who gives not is not living;
        The more you give
        The more you live.

    God's love hath in us wealth unheaped
    Only by giving it is reaped;
    The body withers, and the mind
    Is pent up by a selfish rind.
    Give strength, give thought, give deeds, give pelf,
    Give love, give tears, and give thyself.
      Give, give, be always giving,
      Who gives not is not living;
        The more we give
        The more we live.


    Slightest actions often meet the sorest needs,
    For the world wants daily little kindly deeds;
    O, what care and sorrow you may help remove
    With your song and courage, sympathy and love.


NOT LOST

    The look of sympathy; the gentle word
    Spoken so low that only angels heard;
    The secret act of pure self-sacrifice,
    Unseen by men, but marked by angels' eyes;
      These are not lost.

    The silent tears that fall at dead of night
    Over soiled robes that once were pure and white;
    The prayers that rise like incense from the soul,
    Longing for Christ to make it clean and whole;
      These are not lost.

    The happy dreams that gladdened all our youth,
    When dreams had less of self and more of truth;
    The childhood's faith, so tranquil and so sweet,
    Which sat like Mary at the Master's feet;
      These are not lost.

    The kindly plans devised for others' good,
    So seldom guessed, so little understood;
    The quiet, steadfast love that strove to win
    Some wanderer from the ways of sin;
      These are not lost.

    Not lost, O Lord! for in Thy city bright
    Our eyes shall see the past by clearer light,
    And things long hidden from our gaze below
    Thou wilt reveal, and we shall surely know
      They were not lost.


    There's never a rose in all the world
      But makes some green spray sweeter;
    There's never a wind in all the sky
      But makes some bird wing fleeter;
    There's never a star but brings to heaven
      Some silver radiance tender;
    And never a rosy cloud but helps
      To crown the sunset splendor;
    No robin but may thrill some heart,
      His dawn like gladness voicing;
    God gives us all some small sweet way
      To set the world rejoicing.


A BROADER FIELD

    O thou who sighest for a broader field
      Wherein to sow the seeds of truth and right--
    Who fain a fuller, nobler power would wield
      O'er human souls that languish for the light--

    Search well the realm that even now is thine!
      Canst not thou in some far-off corner find
    A heart sin-bound, like tree with sapping vine,
      Waiting for help its burdens to unbind?

    Some human plant, perchance beneath thine eyes,
      Pierced through with hidden thorns of idle fears;
    Or drooping low for need of light from skies
      Obscured by doubt-clouds raining poison tears?

    Some bruised soul the balm of love would heal;
      Some timid spirit faith would courage give;
    Or maimed brother, who, though brave and leal,
      Still needeth thee, to rightly walk and live?

    O while one soul thou findest which hath not known
      The fullest help thy soul hath power to give,
    Sigh not for fields still broader than thine own,
      But, steadfast in thine own, more broadly live.

    --Julia Anna Wolcott.


    Be it health or be it leisure,
      Be it skill we have to give,
    Still in spending it for others
      Christians only really live.

    Not in having or receiving,
      But in giving, there is bliss;
    He who has no other pleasure
      Ever may rejoice in this.


WHAT CHRIST SAID

    I said, "Let me walk in the fields."
      He said, "No, walk in the town."
    I said, "There are no flowers there."
      He said, "No flowers, but a crown."

    I said, "But the skies are black;
      There is nothing but noise and din."
    And He wept as he sent me back;
      "There is more," He said; "there is sin."

    I said, "But the air is thick,
      And fogs are veiling the sun."
    He answered, "Yet souls are sick,
      And souls in the dark undone."

    I said, "I shall miss the light,
      And friends will miss me, they say."
    He answered, "Choose to-night
      If _I_ am to miss you, or they."

    I pleaded for time to be given.
      He said, "Is it hard to decide?
    It will not seem hard in heaven
      To have followed the steps of your Guide."

    I cast one look at the fields,
      Then set my face to the town;
    He said, "My child, do you yield?
      Will you leave the flowers for the crown?"

    Then into His hand went mine,
      And into my heart came He;
    And I walk in a light divine
      The path I had feared to see.

    --George Macdonald.


MY SERVICE

    I asked the Lord to let me do
      Some mighty work for Him;
    To fight amid His battle hosts,
      Then sing the victor's hymn.
    I longed my ardent love to show,
    But Jesus would not have it so.

    He placed me in a quiet home,
      Whose life was calm and still,
    And gave me little things to do,
      My daily round to fill;
    I could not think it good to be
    Just put aside so silently.

    Small duties gathered round my way,
      They seemed of earth alone;
    I, who had longed for conquests bright
      To lay before His throne,
    Had common things to do and bear,
    To watch and strive with daily care.

    So then I thought my prayer unheard,
      And asked the Lord once more
    That He would give me work for Him
      And open wide the door;
    Forgetting that my Master knew
    Just what was best for me to do.

    Then quietly the answer came,
      "My child, I hear thy cry;
    Think not that mighty deeds alone
      Will bring the victory.
    The battle has been planned by Me,
    Let daily life thy conquests see."


PASS IT ON

    Have you had a kindness shown?
            Pass it on.
    It was not given to you alone,
            Pass it on.
    Let it travel through the years;
    Let it wipe another's tears;
    Till in heaven the deed appears,
            Pass it on.

    Have you found the heavenly light?
            Pass it on.
    Souls are groping in the night,
            Daylight gone.
    Lift your lighted lamp on high,
    Be a star in some one's sky,
    He may live who else would die.
            Pass it on.


GIVING AND TAKING

    Who gives, and hides the giving hand,
      Nor counts on favor, fame, or praise,
      Shall find his smallest gift outweighs
    The burden of the sea and land.

    Who gives to whom hath naught been given,
      His gift in need, though small indeed
      As is the grass-blade's wind-blown seed,
    Is large as earth and rich as heaven.

    --John Greenleaf Whittier, from Tinnevaluna of India.


ONE PATH TO LIGHT

    What is the world? A wandering maze,
    Where sin hath tracked a thousand ways
      Her victims to ensnare.
    All broad and winding and aslope,
    All tempting with perfidious hope,
      All ending in despair.
    Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
    Bearing their baubles or their loads
      Down to eternal night.
    One only path that never bends,
    Narrow and rough and steep, ascends
      Through darkness into light.
    Is there no guide to show that path?
    The Bible. He alone that hath
      The Bible need not stray.
    But he who hath and will not give
    That light of life to all that live,
      Himself shall lose the way.


IF WE COULD ONLY SEE

    It were not hard, we think, to serve Him
      If we could only see!
    If he would stand with that gaze intense
    Burning into our bodily sense,
    If we might look on that face most tender,
    The brows where the scars are turned to splendor,
    Might catch the light of his smile so sweet,
    And view the marks on his hands and feet,
      How loyal we should be!

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