"Amen" to what the
world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul
alive.

--Robert Louis Stevenson.

There is precious instruction to be got by finding we were wrong.
Let a man try faithfully, manfully to be right. He will grow daily
more and more right.

--Thomas Carlyle.

The hero is the man who is immovably centered.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience: and having our body washed
with pure water.

--Hebrews 10. 22.

Gracious Father, grant that I may not be content to follow through
ignorance and indolence and be led to the lowly paths of life. Make my
Hie positive; and from my surroundings may I look out and struggle to
mount to the highest ideals, that I may be qualified to select the
best in life. Amen.

DECEMBER FOURTH

Cardinal Richelieu died 1642.

William Drummond died 1649.

Madame Recamier born 1777.

Thomas Carlyle born 1795.

John Kitto born 1804.

It is with a man's soul as it is with nature: the beginning of
Creation is--Light. Till the eye have visions the whole members are
in bonds. Divine moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once
over the wild-weltering Chaos, it is spoken: Let there be Light!

--Thomas Carlyle.

What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support;
That to the light of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to men.

--John Milton.

For thou art my lamp, O Jehovah; And Jehovah will lighten my
darkness.

--2 Samuel 22. 29.

My Lord, forgive me if I have allowed bitterness and misery to darken
my life, for my soul yearns continually for the light. In thy
compassion lead me to the "sunny side of the road where the beautiful
flowers grow," that my path may be made bright and cheerful all the
rest of the way. Amen.

DECEMBER FIFTH

Martin Van Buren, New York, eighth President
United States, born 1782.

Christina G. Rossetti born 1830.

Alice Brown born 1857.

A cold wind stirs the blackthorn
To burgeon and to blow,
Besprinkling half-green hedges
With flakes and sprays of snow.

Through coldness and through keenness,
Dear hearts take comfort so:
Somewhere or other doubtless
These make the blackthorn blow.

--Christina