LITMIR.BIZ

      Published by Good Press, 2019

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Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       MAY 23

       AUGUST 11

PREFACE

       Table of Contents

      This little book of brief selections in prose and verse, with accompanying texts of Scripture, is intended for a daily companion and counsellor. These words of the goodly fellowship of wise and holy men of many times, it is hoped may help to strengthen the reader to perform the duties and to bear the burdens of each day with cheerfulness and courage.

      MARY WILDER TILESTON.

      January 1

      They go from strength to strength.—PS. lxxxiv. 7.

      First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear.—MARK. iv. 28.

      Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

       As the swift seasons roll!

       Leave thy low-vaulted past!

       Let each new temple, nobler than the last,

       Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

       Till thou at length art free,

       Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

      O. W. HOLMES.

      High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams; and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service. And, looking higher still, we find those who never wait till their moral work accumulates, and who reward resolution with no rest; with whom, therefore, the alternation is instantaneous and constant; who do the good only to see the better, and see the better only to achieve it; who are too meek for transport, too faithful for remorse, too earnest for repose; whose worship is action, and whose action ceaseless aspiration.

      J. MARTINEAU.

      January 2

      The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.—PS. cxxi. 8.

      Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.—PS. xc. 1.

      With grateful hearts the past we own;

       The future, all to us unknown,

       We to Thy guardian care commit,

       And peaceful leave before Thy feet.

      P. DODDRIDGE.

      We are like to Him with whom there is no past or future, with whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, when we do our work in the great present, leaving both past and future to Him to whom they are ever present, and fearing nothing, because He is in our future as much as He is in our past, as much as, and far more than we can feel Him to be, in our present. Partakers thus of the divine nature, resting in that perfect All-in-all in whom our nature is eternal too, we walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it in.

      G. MACDONALD.

      January 3

      As thy days, so shall thy strength be.—DEUT. xxxiii. 25.

      Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.—MATT. vi. 34.

      Oh, ask not thou, How shall I bear

       The burden of to-morrow?

       Sufficient for to-day, its care,

       Its evil and its sorrow;

       God imparteth by the way

       Strength sufficient for the day.

      J. E. SAXBY.

      He that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day only is ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. But if we look abroad, and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable.

      JEREMY TAYLOR.

      January 4

      If we sin, we are Thine, knowing Thy power: but—we will not sin, knowing that we are counted Thine. For to know Thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know Thy power is the root of immortality.—WISDOM OF SOLOMON xv. 2, 3.

      Oh, empty us of self, the world, and sin,

       And then in all Thy fulness enter in;

       Take full possession, Lord, and let each thought

       Into obedience unto Thee be brought;

       Thine is the power, and Thine the will, that we

       Be wholly sanctified, O Lord, to Thee.

      C. E. J.

      Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.

      Fix, by God's help, not only to root out this sin, but to set thyself to gain, by that same help, the opposite grace. If thou art tempted to be angry, try hard, by God's grace, to be very meek; if to be proud, seek to be very humble.

      E. B. PUSEY.

      January 5

      That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.—EPH. v. 27.

      Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.—I PETER ii. 5.

      One holy Church of God appears

       Through every age and race,

       Unwasted by the lapse of years,

       Unchanged by changing place.

      S. LONGFELLOW.

      A temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones; a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls; a Temple with God for its light, and Christ for the high priest; with wings of angels for its arches, with saints and teachers for its pillars, and with worshippers for its pavement. Wherever there is faith and love, this Temple is.

      J.

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