wn selfishness and infirmities. May I remember
that it is mostly for gratification that love is held to the base in
life; may I follow it to the summits, where it is divine. Amen.

MARCH SEVENTH

Sir Thomas Wilson died 1755.

Sir Edwin Landseer born 1802.

Luther Burbank born 1849.

Earth gets its price for what it gives us;
The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us,
We bargain for the graves we lie in;
At the devil's booth are all things sold,
Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking;
'Tis heaven alone that is given away,
'Tis only God may be had for the asking.

--James Russell Lowell.

We are our own fates. Our own deeds
Are our doomsmen. Man's life was made
Not for men's creeds,
But men's actions.

--Owen Meredith.

The free gift of God is eternal life.

--Romans 6. 23.

Gracious Father, may the world speak to me of thy love, and of thy
gifts of peace and power, which it freely offers. May I not pass by
its great values, and prefer to purchase at a great cost my indolence
and dissipation.

--Amen.

MARCH EIGHTH

Dr. John Fothergill born 1712.

C.P. Cranch born 1813.

Anna Letitia Barbauld died 1825.

O boundless self-contentment voiced
In flying air-born bubbles!
O joy that mocks our sad unrest,
And frowns our earth-born troubles!

The life that floods the happy fields
With song and light and color,
Will shape our lives to richer states
And heap our measures fuller.

--C.P. Cranch.

One may secure and preserve that repose in the turbulence of a great
city--as Shakespeare surely found and preserved it in the London of
the sixteenth century. For repose does not depend on external
conditions; it depends on sound adjustment to tasks, opportunities,
pleasures, and the general order of life.

--Hamilton Mabie.

That we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in godliness and gravity.

--1 Timothy 2.2.

Gracious Father, help me to understand that peace cannot abide in
misery, nor can it stay with every mood. May I be able to overcome the
depression that may keep me in sadness and isolation, and have delight
in the gladness of friends, and live in the peace of strong
resolutions. Amen.