Just being our normal self!

Have you ever wondered if you are doing enough for God and humankind? Years ago a dear friend shared with me her frustration and feelings of inadequacy. I thought much about her comments, and decided she was short-changing God and herself. I also knew that, in her humanity and normalcy, she had verbalized what the rest of us were thinking! We think (let's change that to "feel") that if we aren't making a huge splash in the waters of life, we are on the edge of failure and anonymity. Not true! In reading and absorbing the message of the Gospels, there is one thought that leaps out: Jesus went about doing good, quietly, unobtrusively, and with incredible meekness. That should be good enough for us.

Robert Collyer penned it so well: "There is a great deal we never think of calling religion that is still fruit unto God, and garnered by Him in the harvest. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, patience, goodness. I affirm that if these fruits are found in any form, whether you show your patience as a woman nursing a fretful child, or as a man attending to the vexing detail of a business, or as a physician following the dark mazes of sickness, or as a mechanic fitting the joints and valves of a locomotive; being honest and true besides, you bring forth truth unto God." How wonderful! Whether we are mopping the kitchen, comforting a sick child, passing a bill in Congress, winning a case for an indigent client - whatever - we are walking in His path. God has such a large heart!

"The mistake of mistakes is to think that holiness consists in great or extraordinary things, beyond the reach of ordinary men. It has been well said, `Holiness does not consist in doing uncommon things well, but in doing common things uncommonly well.' Few can ever do great things, and the few who can do them can do but few. But every one can study the will of God, and can give great diligence to know it and to do what he knows. Your daily round of duty is your daily path to come nearer unto God" (E.B. Pusey).

This is such a wonderful reminder that we are doing God's work in the midst of common duties. I would much rather write, so I have to remind myself that cook, iron and dust are not dirty four-letter words!

Gracious Father, help us to remember that You are with us in the midst of duties, both low and high!

Human weeders

"`Do you want us to go and pull them up?' `No,' he answered, `because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest.'" (Matthew 13:28-30).

The lesson is explicit for us: we cannot possibly know who are the wheat and who are the tares. If ever there was a tare that tore mankind, it was Judas. Yet Jesus washed his feet and showed him every courtesy in a supreme and final effort to save Judas from himself. We are not weedless ourselves, so we cannot sift through or extract from another's garden or field."Have I not chosen you, the Twelve? Yet one of you is a devil!" (John 6:70). The tare among the wheat...! What possible reason could Jesus have to choose His very betrayer as one of His inner circle?

Was Jesus using Judas to teach us all one of His great lessons? Judas left all to become a follower, only to finally become the greatest blot on humanity. Yet Jesus even washed his feet! Surely Judas was given every opportunity to repent. One wonders how Judas' heart could have been so dark and hard as to not melt at Jesus' continued love and concern for him.

We ask, why did Jesus choose such a tare as Judas? Why did He choose us? Human weeders cannot be trusted to discern between good and evil. Good and bad are intermingled, just as it rains on the just and the unjust. We cannot destroy the evil of ourselves (we have a difficult enough time destroying the evil IN ourselves!) without ripping up the good with it. We are arrogant if we think we can gather up what is wrong with the world and thereby set the world right. If everyone felt they could do that, then none of us would be left, for we are all tares to somebody else. We would be assigning each other to our particular hells.

A sad letter!

Dear Michelle and Barack Obama:

This letter is very hard for me to write because I am not one to write things down, I'm more of a man that speaks from the heart. As I taught my three sons growing up, a man is most sincere when he speaks from the heart.

I am extremely sad, devastated and broken not just for what has been done to me, but what is being done to this country. I believe, as my son did, his joining the Marine Corp. was a positive thing for himself and for this country. If he would have lost his life in combat it would have devastated me. However, I would have been forced to accept it, but at no time will I be able to accept the fact that he was executed on his own base by an Afghani trainee armed with an AK-47, provided by OUR tax dollars.

As I write this, all I can think about is walking my son to the school bus on the first day. As I put him on the bus he said to me. "Are you going to be here when I come back?" I replied, "I will always be here for you." Those are the words that I repeat in my head, and that is why I can never let this go.

As one father to another I beg you to please allow these young men and women to come home to their families and friends and to a country that loves and respects them. They should not be used as pawns, or be executed by people that do not respect any of our values. The foundation of The United States is liberty and justice for all!! Where is the justice for the 50 soldiers that have lost their lives in the green on blue attacks this past year?

Why are you giving billions of dollars to countries that do not respect and appreciate us and our flag, the very flag my son lost his life for? I am extremely disheartened when I see the laughter on your face on talk shows or at fund raisers, or even playing basketball on the streets of New York.

Your main goal as president should be first and foremost: cut off all financial aid to countries that would allow our American flag to be burned. I am not a man of hate, but at the end of the day, I am a man that speaks the truth. At no time did any family ever receive a phone call or an apology from Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for allowing one of his own police officers to execute my son and his fellow soldiers. At no time did any of us receive a phone call from you, either.

As an American I am horrified and disgusted that your solution to these insider attacks is to ask our soldiers to be more courteous and polite to these murderers. We should give them what they want and  leave their country immediately.

Afghanis or any other immigrants that live in the United States should be respected as long as they respect us. Our military should be used to help countries that truly want and need our help, they should be safe-guarding our borders so we do not have to walk around in our own country on pins and needles.

Please tell the foreign people that are here now to open up their hearts and arms and embrace us and we will embrace them, but if they cannot be a positive force in our great country, the way immigrants have been before them, they should return to their own native land.

My son was a proud and brave Marine, a loving son and most importantly a loving brother. All Greg wanted was for everyone to love and respect each other and live in peace.

You have the power to see that my son, Lance Corporal Greg Buckley, and the 2,000 other United States soldiers who have died these past 11 years in Afghanistan did not die in vain. I'm begging you, in the name of my son Greg Jr., to bring our troops home NOW!

Respectfully,

Gregory Buckley Sr.

Twelve Great Reasons to Love a Great Country

Twelve Great Reasons to Love a Great Country By William J. Bennett & John T. E. Cribb December 6, 2010 4:00 A.M. Why should Americans love their country? Here are a dozen good reasons to be grateful and proud to live here. 1. The United States was the first nation in history created out of the belief that people should govern themselves. As James Madison said, this country’s birth was “a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society.” The U.S. constitution is the oldest written national constitution in operation. It has been a model for country after country as democracy has spread across the continents. 2. America really is the land of the free. There are large parts of the world where people can’t say what they think, learn what they’d like, or even dress the way they want. There are places where people spend years in jail or disappear if they question their rulers. Less than half of the world’s population lives in countries where people are truly free. In this nation, as George Washington put it, the love of liberty is interwoven with every ligament of American hearts. 3. No other country has done a better job of establishing equal rights for all citizens. Certainly there have been times when the United States has fallen tragically short of its founding principles. But especially in recent decades, no country has worked harder to eliminate discrimination and protect the rights of minorities. There are plenty of nations where people’s ethnicity, religion, or gender defines them as second-class citizens. In contrast, America has been a pioneer in striving toward the ideal that all are created equal. 4. This is the place where dreams can come true. U.S. newspapers are full of stories that read almost like fairy tales: the son of a laborer who grows up to be a doctor, the stay-at-home mom who turns a hobby into a flourishing business, the immigrant who becomes a movie star and governor. The United States has long been the country people flock to for the chance to make better lives. No other country has built a sturdier ladder for people to climb to success. 5. We enjoy one of the world’s highest standards of living. Americans live longer, have better health, and enjoy safer and more comfortable lives than the vast majority of the world’s people. Ours is one of the most prosperous nations in history. U.S. companies provide some of the best jobs in the world. They have also built countless hospitals, libraries, and parks; created great universities; filled museums with works of art; found cures for diseases; and improved human life in countless ways. 6. No other country has welcomed and united so many people from so many different shores. From its beginnings, the U.S. has been the world’s great melting pot. Never before have so many people from different backgrounds, races, nationalities, and religions lived and worked together so peacefully. In no other nation has the spirit of cooperation and brotherhood accomplished more than it has in the United States. 7. The U.S. military is the greatest defender of freedom in the world. Twice in the 20th century, the United States led the way in saving the world from tyranny — first from the Axis powers, then from Soviet totalitarianism. Throughout history, other superpowers have used armies to conquer territory and build empires by force. America, with its unrivaled military, has chosen a different course. The United States has liberated more people from tyranny than any other nation in history. 8. America is a world leader in scholarship and invention. The United States is home to the world’s finest collection of universities and research institutions. Name just about any subject — from ancient philosophy to quantum physics — and chances are good that leading authorities work here. The record of American inventions and discoveries goes on and on, from the mechanical reaper to the microchip. American medical research facilities are among the best in the world. The United States leads the world in space exploration. The computer revolution started here. 9. Americans are among the most generous people on earth. The United States has built the most extraordinary collection of charitable, philanthropic, and civic organizations in the world, and this country is the planet’s largest source of humanitarian aid. American government programs and private giving constitute one of the greatest efforts to help people in history. In 2009, Americans donated more than $300 billion to charities. When disasters strike overseas, Americans are among the first to offer help and support. 10. The United States is the world’s greatest marketplace for the free exchange of ideas and information. In some countries, governments shut down newspapers and broadcast stations they don’t like, and limit access to the Internet. Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are bedrock principles of American democracy. The staggering volume of information traded here every day — via books, newspapers, magazines, the Internet, TV, and radio — makes this country the liveliest center of thought and debate in history. 11. This nation possesses an amazing capacity for self-renewal. Time and again, Americans have been able to address the country’s problems and flaws. Think of those Americans at Philadelphia in 1787 who devised the most miraculous political document in history just as the young nation seemed to be falling apart. Or think of those Americans in the civil-rights movement prodding the country to right the wrongs of segregation. The American people have a genius for self-correction. Sometimes it takes a while, but in the end we find our way. 12. America is a nation that looks to God for guidance. It was founded to be a place where all are free to worship, or not to worship, as they please. Amid a diverse array of beliefs, the vast majority of Americans draw strength from faith in God’s goodness and wisdom. “In God We Trust” is our national motto, and we have never The above is an excerpt from the newly revised version of  The American Patriot’s Almanac.

Just being normal!

Have you ever wondered if you are doing enough for God and humankind? Years ago
a dear friend shared with me her frustration and feelings of inadequacy. I
thought much about her comments, and decided she was short-changing God and
herself. I also knew that, in her humanity and normalcy, she had verbalized what
the rest of us were thinking! We think (let's change that to "feel") that if we
aren't making a huge splash in the waters of life, we are on the edge of failure
and anonymity. Not true! In reading and absorbing the message of the Gospels,
there is one thought that leaps out: Jesus went about doing good, quietly,
unobtrusively, and with incredible meekness. That should be good enough for us.

Robert Collyer penned it so well: "There is a great deal we never think of
calling religion that is still fruit unto God, and garnered by Him in the
harvest. The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, long-suffering,
gentleness, patience, goodness. I affirm that if these fruits are found in any
form, whether you show your patience as a woman nursing a fretful child, or as a
man attending to the vexing detail of a business, or as a physician following
the dark mazes of sickness, or as a mechanic fitting the joints and valves of a
locomotive; being honest and true besides, you bring forth truth unto God." How
wonderful! Whether we are mopping the kitchen, comforting a sick child, passing
a bill in Congress, winning a case for an indigent client - whatever - we are
walking in His path. God has such a large heart!

"The mistake of mistakes is to think that holiness consists in great or
extraordinary things, beyond the reach of ordinary men. It has been well said,
`Holiness does not consist in doing uncommon things well, but in doing common
things uncommonly well.' Few can ever do great things, and the few who can do
them can do but few. But every one can study the will of God, and can give great
diligence to know it and to do what he knows. Your daily round of duty is your
daily path to come nearer unto God" (E.B. Pusey).

This is such a wonderful reminder that we are doing God's work in the midst of
common duties. I would much rather write, so I have to remind myself that cook,
iron and dust are not dirty four-letter words!

Gracious Father, help us to remember that You are with us in the midst of
duties, both lowly and highly!

Gems #3

Most of these quotes are from the 1900-1920s issues of a publication I indexed. Those with no attribution are anonymous.

"There can be no abiding power until that day comes when we keep our conduct abreast of our profession; there must be something back of profession; that something is a consistent life. It is a beautiful thing to hear one who is gifted in speech and in prayer in the prayer meeting, but I am persuaded that there is a something far more beautiful, and this is, for one to be able, from Monday morning to Saturday night, to live Christ. Here is a power infidelity cannot assail nor unbelief deny. If you are traveling through an orange country, you are sensible all the time of the fact that orange blossoms are about you; the fragrance is wafted to you the last thing at night; the first thing in the morning, and it even makes your sleep sweeter, and there is a sweetness like that about the life that is truly `hid with Christ in God.'" Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman.

"Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist, but by ascending a little you may afterwards look it over altogether. So it is with our moral improvements. We wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit which would have no hold upon us if ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. It is by adding to our purposes and nourishing the affections which are rightly placed, that we shall be able to combat the bad one."

"Beautiful souls often get put into plain bodies; but they cannot be hidden, and have a power all their own, the greater for the unconsciousness of the humility which gives it grace." Louisa M. Alcott.

"...If mistakes were hay stacks, there would be no poor horses in this world, except such as would not eat hay, or the hay was a poor quality."

"Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheerful words while their hearts can be thrilled by them. The things you mean to say when they are gone say before they go. The flowers you meant to send for their coffins send to sweeten and brighten their homes before they leave them. If my friends have alabaster boxes laid away full of perfumes of sympathy and affections, which they intend to break over my body, I would rather they would bring them out in my weary hours and open them that I may be refreshed and cheered while I need them. I would rather have a bare coffin without a flower and a funeral without a eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and sympathy." Fla. Christian Advocate. (1890 issue.)

"He is a wise man that can avoid evil; he is a patient man that can endure it; but he is a valiant man that can conquer it." Quarles.

"Be quiet and do your little duties. Do them for God, be they ever such little things, and then they will become great results. For every godly worker God has a worker together with him." Wm. Mountford.

"None of us can tell for what God is educating us. We fret and murmur at the narrow round and daily task of ordinary life, not realizing that it is only thus that we can be prepared for the high and holy office which awaits us. We must descend before we can ascend. We must suffer if we would reign. We must take the via crucis (way of the cross) submissively and patiently if we would tread the via lucis (way of light). We must endure the polishing if we would be shafts in the quiver of Emmanuel. God's will comes to thee and me in daily circumstances; in little things equally as in great; meet them bravely; be at your best always, though the occasion be one of the very least; dignify the smallest summons by the greatness of your response." B.F. Meyer.

"It is the lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to which we look and out of which we gather the deepest calm and courage. No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness." Phillips Brooks.

"We need to watch against a `grudging service'. The enemy is always trying to get in the word `duty' instead of the word `delight,' he says a stern `you must' instead of the loving `you may.' There is no slavery like the slavery of love, but its chains are sweet. It knows nothing of sacrifice, no matter what may be given up. It delights to do the will of the beloved one." Smith.

"False religion is clamorous, impatient, nervous and selfish, but a true faith gives strength, repose of spirit, and calm confidence, and impels to unselfish concern for others."

"If we charged so much a head for sunsets, or if God sent round a drum before the hawthorns came into flower, what a work we should make about their beauty! But these things, like good companions, stupid people early cease to observe." R.L. Stevenson.

"There is a grace of kind listening, as well as a grace of kind speaking. Some men listen with an abstracted air, which shows that their thoughts are elsewhere. Or they seem to listen, but by wide answers and irrelevant questions show that they have been occupied with their own thoughts, as being more interesting at least in their own estimation, than what you have been saying. Some interrupt, and will not hear you to the end, and then forthwith begin to talk to you about a similar experience which has befallen themselves, taking your case only as an illustration of their own. Some, meaning to be kind, listen with such a determined, lively, violent attention, that you are at once made uncomfortable, and the charm of conversation is at an end. Many persons, whose manners will stand the test of speaking, break down under the trial of listening. But all these things should be brought under the sweet influence of religion." Frederick Wm. Faber.

"A neglected Bible means a starved and strengthless spirit; a comfortless heart; a barren life; and a grieved Holy Ghost. If the people, who are now perpetually running about to meetings for crumbs of help and comfort, would only stay at home and search their Bibles, there would be more happiness in the church, and more blessing in the world. It is prosaic counsel; but it is true." F.B. Meyer.

"Think of the result of existence in the man or woman who has lived chiefly to gratify the physical appetites; think of its real emptiness, its real repulsiveness, when old age comes, and the senses are dulled, and the roses have faded, and the lamps at the banquet are smoking and expiring, and desire fails, and all that remains is the fierce, insatiable, ugly craving for delights which have fled forever more; think of the bitter, burning vacancy of such an end, and you must see that pleasure is not a good haven to seek in the voyage of life." Henry Van Dyke.

"It's good to have money, and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy." Lorimer.

"Every church is divided into two classes that may be called trees and posts. Plant a tree and it begins to grow. Stick out a post and it begins to rot. The difference between the tree and the post is simply a matter of life. The tree is alive, while the post is dead. The pastor enjoys the living trees of his church, watching them grow and bear fruit, while he is often perplexed to know what to do with posts that show no signs of life. It takes much time and strength to paint and prop up and finally have carried off the posts when they have fallen down." Dr. A.C. Dixon.

"The child is savior of the race. What we do for the child, for his protection, for his education, for his training for the duties of mankind, for securing the rights and prolonging the period of childhood, is a measure of what we shall accomplish for the race that is to be."

Gems #2

Gems from 1919:

*Lest we think the folks didn't know about tobacco years ago: "Tobacco injures heart, nerves, stomach and eyesight. Tobacco ruins the sexual system and causes cancer of lip, tongue and throat. Any form of tobacco habit may be easily, inexpensively overcome with nature's antidote, a pleasant Florida root I accidentally discovered. It's fine for indigestion, too." C.P. Stokes, 1919.

***"I would give nothing for that man's religion whose very dog and cat are not the better for it." Rowland Hill.

*"It is worth a thousand pounds a year to have the habit of looking on the bright side of things." Samuel Johnson.

*"We sleep, but the loom of life never stops; and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up tomorrow." Henry Ward Beecher.

THE SEVEN MISTAKES OF LIFE:

1. The delusion that individual advancement is made by crushing others down.

2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.

3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we ourselves cannot accomplish it.

4. Attempting to compel other person to believe and live as we do.

5. Neglect in developing and refining the mind by not acquiring the habit of reading fine literature.

6. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences, in order that important things may be accomplished.

7. The failure to establish the habit of saving money. Anonymous.

*"A man who is turning out careless, imperfect work, is turning out a careless, imperfect character for himself. He is touching deceit every moment; and this unseen thing rises up from his work like a subtle essence, and enters and poisons his soul." Henry Drummond.

*"A man whose intellect has been educated, while at the same time his moral education has been neglected, is only the more dangerous to the community because of the exceptional power which he has acquired." Theodore Roosevelt.

*"The little I have seen of the world, and know of the history of mankind, teaches me to look upon the errors of others in sorrow, not in anger. I fain leave the erring soul of my fellowman with Him from whose hands it came." Longfellow.

FOR PARENTS CAN YOU ANSWER YES?

1. Do you "make time" to play with your children, and teach them to play alone?

2. Do you read and tell stories to them?

3. Do you know what they study in school?

4. Do you use the public library so as to more wisely train your children?

5. Have you good books and magazines in your home?

6. Do you frequently visit your children's school?

7. Do you welcome their teachers in your home?

8. Do you heartily encourage worthy ambitions?

9. Do you develop self reliance in your children by trusting them to do right?

10. Do you give them opportunity for self development?

11. Do you teach your children the value of money by giving them a chance to make and spend their own?

12. Do you teach housekeeping to your daughter, and do you teach your son the dignity of honest toil?

13. Do you tell the story of life to your children?

14. Do you pray for divine help in training them?

15. Do you try to help other parents?

Parents should not make decisions for their boys and girls. Teach them to decide wisely for themselves. Parents are not to say, "I will conquer that child whatever it may cost me," but rather, "I will help him to conquer himself, whatever it may cost him." Learn to use your will power as you learn to swim by using it. Child Welfare Magazine.

*"Our danger is that we shall substitute the consciences of others for our own. All virtue lies in individual action, in inward energy, in self determination. There is no moral worth in being swept away by a crowd, even toward the best of objects. Nothing morally great or good springs from imitation." Channing.

*"I was ever more disposed to see the favorable than the unfavorable side of things, a turn of mind which is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of 10,000 a year." David Hume.

*"Every common day he who would be a live child of God has to fight the God-denying look of things, to believe that, in spite of their look, they are God's and God is in them, and working His saving will in them." George Macdonald.

*"Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny people; and the old are hungrier for love than for bread; and the oil of joy is very cheap; and if you can help the poor on with a garment of praise, it will be better for them then blankets." Henry Drummond.

*Addison says: "What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man and fix our attention on his infirmities." But that seems to be the habit. About the first thing we try to find in a man is his faults. They are apt to transcend his virtues, even if the virtues are mountain high. It is a deplorable habit; for it not only does great injustice to the person criticized, but it hurts the critic himself. It lowers his views of life and confirms the habit of seeing the worst side of human experience and losing sight of the bright side. No man can be a moral man or a religious man of any faith, who is constantly searching for the faults of people. The first duty a man owes to his neighbor is to look for the bright side, and he will then find in most cases, that the dark side is much smaller than he suspected. The thing to attack is sin, for we will discover that is greater than the man who is guilty of it. Ohio State Journal.

*"Put a seal upon your lips, and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself." Prof. Drummond.

*"The rewards of great living are not external things, withheld until the crowning hour of success arrives; they come by the way in the consciousness of growing power and worth, of duties nobly met and work thoroughly done." H.W. Mabie.

*"There is no finer chemistry than that by which the element of suffering is so compounded with spiritual forces that it issues to the world as gentleness and strength." G.S. Merriam.

***"We came into the world with clenched fists holding the world tightly. We pass out of it with hands released and let loose of it." Selected.

*"Every human being is intended to have a character of his own to be what no other is, to do what no other can." Channing.

*"You will notice that in the placid waters of a lake everything which is highest in reality is lowest in reflection. The higher the trees, the lower their image. This is the picture of the world; what is highest in this world is lowest in the other, and what is highest in that world is lowest in this. Gold is on top here; they pave the streets with it there. To serve is looked upon as ignoble here; there those that serve reign and the last are first." F.B. Meyer.

*"We are never to seek tasks according to our strength, but strength according to our tasks." Phillips Brooks.

*"The thing to value is not achievement, but fidelity. It is not what we accomplish, but the way we accomplish it. It is our ideals, our principles. It is not success that God looks at, but the struggle." J.I. Vance.

*"It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawns upon you." Phillips Brooks.

*"There is a sweet pleasure in bending to circumstances while superior to them." Mary Emerson Moody.

*"No matter what business the Christian is engaged in, he should make it the Lord's business." Anonymous.

*"You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb a little himself." Mr. Carnegie.

***"Faith knows that whenever she gets a black envelope from the heavenly post office, there is a treasure in it." Spurgeon.

*"We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done." Longfellow.

*"We can have the highest happiness only by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as for ourselves." George Eliot.

***"Put a seal upon your lips, and forget what you have done. After you have been kind, after love has stolen forth into the world and done its beautiful work, go back into the shade again and say nothing about it. Love hides even from itself." Prof. Drummond.

*"The rewards of great living are not external things, withheld until the crowning hour of success arrives; they come by the way in the consciousness of growing power and worth, of duties nobly met and work thoroughly done." H.W. Mabie.

*"He that sits nearest the dust sits nearest heaven." Andrew Grey.

*"We do not get rest by endeavoring to get to the top. Rest is at the bottom. Water rests when it reaches the lowest place. Mary found it at the feet of Jesus, and John found it on His bosom." Selected.

*"The poorest man I know has nothing but money, nothing else in the world upon which to devote his ambition and thought. That is the sort of man I consider the poorest in the world." John D. Rockefeller.

*"For all men, small as well as great, even for those who have succeeded, and conquered apparently all honors, it is true that the best is yet to be. Heroic Paul, earth's most intrepid and earth's sublimest spirit, standing forth in old age, with a thousand victories behind him, knew that he had not yet attained. No matter what your success, I appeal from the seed of the coming sheaf, from the acorn to the coming oak, from this little spring to the future river, from your ignorance to wisdom, from your fragmentary tool or law or custom to perfect virtue, from the broken arc to the full circle, from the white cloud to the stars that are above the clouds. Because life is in a series of ascending climaxes, and because it waxes ever richer and richer, for every man, whether young or old, it is better farther on, and the best is yet to be." Newell Dwight Hillis.

Gems #1

Years ago I indexed a publication that began publication in 1885. It was fascinating, and I was amazed at how up-to-date the articles were; they could have been written today. I would like to share these thoughts with you now and then. Most of these are from the 1923 issue:

*Never fancy you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. The very things that you most deprecate as fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably God's opportunities. Anonymous.

*There is no sense is always telegraphing to Heaven for God to send a cargo of blessings unless we are at the wharf to unload the vessel when it comes. F.B. Meyer.

*What have I done that I should be anathematized? Am I not strong and green and pleasant? Have I injured anyone? Have I done harm in any way? It is not what you have done, but what you have not done. You have received God's gift of sunshine and shower and returned nothing but leaves. The world of hungry people expected fruit from you. They found it not. Exchange.

*LET IT OUT - Not the harsh word. Not the prompt and perhaps justifiable censure. Not the sarcasm which bites and stings. These slip out all too easily. Ordinarily they were best kept in. We shall rarely reproach ourselves in after years for failing to say cutting things. But the kind word, the praise which cheers, the encouragement which everybody needs -- let it out. If there is any good you can say, say it eagerly. Where got we the heathenish idea that gracious words are to be saved as a miser saves pennies? Say the very best thing you can think of concerning your friends, or even your enemies. Better far to exaggerate his virtues than his faults. If we must err, let it be on the side of kindness. George Clark.

*THE THREE Cs

The three Cs will carry you, as an individual or as a class, through almost any situation.
I will be CHEERFUL. -- The grouch never gets anywhere. If he happens to have an idea no one is willing to help him work it out, and one cannot do much alone. It takes cheerfulness to grow success, just as it takes sunshine to grow flowers. Don't let the glums get a hold upon you or upon your class.
I will be COURAGEOUS. -- Courage begets confidence. Face one difficulty and you will gather confidence to face a greater one. And there is nothing to be afraid of, if we only knew it. If you, or your class, set out to do a thing that is right and worth doing, man cannot stop you unless you are a coward and let him.
I will be CREATIVE. -- This does not mean that you must paint a great picture, or write a great book, or build a great building. It means that you must think your own thoughts, plan your own plans, work out your own ideas. The individual or the class that never tries anything except what someone else has tried before will soon get into a hopeless rut. -- Exchange.

*The woman who is successful in making a true home, where peace and love dwell, in which the children whom God gives her feel the sacredness and holy meaning of life, where her husband renews his strength for the struggles and activities of his life, in which all unite to promote the happiness and highest welfare of each other -- that woman has won the best crown there is in life, and she has served the world in a very high degree. The union of man and woman for the creation of a home breathing an atmosphere of love is Christ's best parable of the highest possible spiritual union where the soul is the bride and he is the Eternal Bridegroom, and they are one. Exchange.

*Don't delude yourself into thinking there is any new morality. We are still bound by the old eternal values that have not changed and will not change, and that makes the Ten Commandments the only rule of life. Dorothy Dix.

*The first five books of the Bible are called Penteteuch. Moses is the writer. It covers one-third of human history. It starts in a garden and ends in a wilderness. The books are:
Genesis -- The way down. The Fall, the Flood and the famine.
Exodus -- The way out. Moses, miracles and morals.
Leviticus -- The way up. Compassion, Confession, Communion.
Numbers -- The way around. Wandering, wondering, wonderful.
Deuteronomy -- The way home. Reviewing, renewing, returning. Anonymous.

*(From a 1920 issue): BE STILL: "Life today is a mad, wild rush. This busy, bustling age is so set on doing things that we scarcely have time to eat or sleep, much less rest or think. Consequently many are old before their time, grow weary of the strife, and occasionally put an end to it all. And slow suicide accomplishes the same end as razors, pistols and poison. but we have no more right to destroy life gradually than we have to destroy it instantly. And the restless rush of the day counts against us spiritually as well as physically. Of course, He is present everywhere, but we feel Him more plainly and feel Him more sensibly in the quiet of the closet than in the stir of the street. Therefore, for body's sake, for the mind's sake, and for the soul's sake, sit down some time and think whence you came, what you are, and whither you are bound. `Be still and know that I am God.'--Psalm 46:10." Anonymous.

*"Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world; some people go through life creaking." Anonymous.

***THE MASTER'S REWARD (1912 issue): "The master commits five talents to the servant, and the trust is shrewdly managed. The five become ten, and the master is fully satisfied. What reward does he propose for his servant? Is it a release from labor and responsibility, a future in contrast with the past? No; the past shapes the future, and this servant having served his apprenticeship, becomes himself a master, `ruler over many things.' So he entered into the joy of his Lord. And the joy for which Jesus endured the cross is a patient and perpetual ministry. Life will be raised, not reversed; work will not be closed, it will be emancipated. The fret will be gone, not the labor; the disappointment, not the responsibility. Our disability shall be no more; our capacity shall be ours forever, and so the thorns shall be taken from our crown." Ian Maclaren.