life is to help in some small way to reduce
the sum of ignorance, degradation, and misery on the face of this
beautiful earth.

--George Eliot.

Make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love,
being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through faction or
through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind each counting other
better than himself.

--Philippians 2. 2, 3.

My Father, take away the spirit, if I may be inclined to keep the
best, and to be always seeking my portion. May I have the desire to
share with those who have less, and to give to those who may have
more, whether it be of bread or love. Amen.

APRIL NINTH

Fisher Ames born 1758.

John Opie died 1807.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti died 1882.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips; they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech.
And all mankind is this at heart--
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man are all in each.

--Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some glory cloud;
Brightening the half-veil'd face of heaven afar;
So when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope! celestial influence round me shed,
Waving the silver pinions o'er my head.

--John Keats.

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing,
that ye may abound in hope, in the power of the Holy Spirit.

--Romans 15. 13.

Almighty God, may I ever know the generous glow that comes with an
overwhelming desire to cultivate the soul. With hope may I find the
way through the darkness that leads to immortality, even if I may have
to experience the weariness that may accompany it. Amen.

APRIL TENTH

Hugo Grotius born 1583.

William Hazlitt born 1778.

General Lew Wallace born 1827.

General William Booth born 1829.

The essence of happy living is never to find life dull, never to
feel the ugly weariness which comes of overstrain; to be fresh,
cheerful, leisurely, sociable, unhurried, well-balanced. It seems to
me impossible to be these things unless we have time to consider
life a little, to deliberate, to select, to abstain.

--Arthur C. Benson.

Four things come not back--the spoken word, the sped arrow, the past
life, the neglected opportunity.