Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. GALATIANS vi. 7. Except the Lord build the house, PSALM CXXVii. 1. All nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see. TH ALEXANDER POPE HERE are three great principles in life which weave its warp and woof, apparently incompatible with each other, yet they harmonize, and in their blending create this strange life of ours. The first is our fate is in our own hands, and our blessedness and misery the exact result of our own acts. The second is, "There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will." The third is, "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; but time and chance happeneth to them all." Accident, human will, the shaping will of Deity,these things make up life. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON It The storm looks like riot: it is a kind of quiet. It looks like chaos: it is makes us think of chance; really think of it, resolves depths on depths of law. perfect cosmos. and chance, when we itself into unknown WILLIAM C. GANNETT Now it is high time for you to awake out of sleep : for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed. ROMANS xiii. II. Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse. EDWIN ARNOLD HERE are times when the pulse lies low in the bosom and beats low in the veins; when the spirit sleeps the sleep which, apparently, knows no waking in its house of clay, and the window shutters are closed, and the door is hung with the invisible crape of melancholy; when we wish the golden sunshine pitchy darkness, and are very willing to "fancy clouds where no clouds be." What shall raise the sleeping Lazarus ? What shall make the heart beat music again, and the pulses dance to it through all the myriad-thronged halls in our house of life? What shall make the sun kiss the eastern hills again for us, with all his old awakening gladness, and the night overflow with "moonlight, music, love, and flowers?" Love itself is the great stimulant, the most intoxicating of all, and performs all these miracles; but it is a miracle itself, and is not at the drug store, whatever they say. The counterfeit is in the market, but the winged god is not a money-changer, we assure you. Men have tried many things, but still they ask for stimulants the stimulants we use, but require the use of more. Men try to drown the floating dead of their own souls in the wine cup, but the corpse will rise. We see their faces in the bubbles. The intoxication of drink sets the world whirling again, and the pulses playing music, and the thoughts galloping, but the fast clock runs down sooner, and the unnatural stimulation only leaves the house it fills with the highest revelry more silent, more sad, more deserted, more dead. There is only one stimulant that never fails, and yet never intoxicates — duty. Duty puts a blue sky over every man his heart may be into which the skylark happiness always goes singing.* - up in GEORGE D. PRENTICE The noble motto of the Associated Charities Organization is, "Not Alms but a friend," and this, with Mr. Mangasarian's "Administration of all that we are," holds a suggestion of the best, broadest, sweetest charity that we can strive for. JUNIATA STAFFORD We shall one day forget all about duty, and do everything from the love of the loveliness of it, the satisfaction of the rightness of it. GEORGE MACDONALD *Written out of the depths of personal experience. Mr. Prentice was himself addicted to the use of intoxicating liquor to a hurtful degree. Week Twentieth THE UNDERSTANDING HEART NEEDED ABOVE ALL ELSE Prelude OMNIPRESENCE OF LOVE Sweet are his ways who rules above, What though I take to me the wide What though the tents foregone I roam, He wills that I shall sleep to see The great gold stairs to his sweet home. What though the press I pass before And climb the branch,- he lifts his face: What though denied with murmuring deep The nether depths, the heights above, HOLY SONGS, CAROLS, AND SACRED BALLADS |