gh it may appear, this doing of one's duty embodies
the highest ideal of life and character. There may be nothing heroic
about it; but the common lot of men is not heroic.--SAMUEL SMILES.

Who escapes a duty avoids a gain.--THEODORE PARKER.

Let us do our duty in our shop or our kitchen, the market, the street,
the office, the school, the home, just as faithfully as if we stood in
the front rank of some great battle, and we knew that victory for
mankind depended upon our bravery, strength, and skill. When we do
that the humblest of us will be serving in that great army which
achieves the welfare of the world.--THEODORE PARKER.

In every profession the daily and common duties are the most useful.

Let men laugh when you sacrifice desire to duty, if they will. You
have time and eternity to rejoice in.--THEODORE PARKER.

Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world
may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power, and
consequently should not be any part of your concern.--EPICTETUS.

It is thy duty oftentimes to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty, too,
to leave undone that thou wouldst do.--THOMAS A KEMPIS.

There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the
consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It
is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of
the morning, and dwell in the utmost parts of the seas, duty
performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or
our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as
in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their
power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life,
will be with us at its close, and in that scene of inconceivable
solemnity which lies yet further onward we shall still find ourselves
surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has
been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace
to perform it.--WEBSTER.

EARLY RISING.--Whoever has tasted the breath of morning, knows that
the most invigorating and most delightful hours of the day are
commonly spent in bed; though it is the evident intention of Nature
that we should enjoy and profit by them.--SOUTHEY.

Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than nature craves; when ev'ry muse
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?