SEPTEMBER FOURTEENTH

Alighieri Dante died 1321.

Alexander Baron von Humboldt born 1769.

Julia Magruder born 1854.

Charles Dana Gibson born 1867.

Since it is Providence that determines the fates of men, their inner nature is thus brought into unison.  There is such harmony, as in all things of nature, that one might explain the whole without referring to a higher Providence.  But this only proves the more clearly and certainly this higher Providence, which has given existence to this harmony.

    —­Wilhelm von Humboldt.

    The good mariner, when he draws near the port, furls his sails and
    enters it softly; so ought we to lower the sails of our worldly
    operations, and turn to God with all heart and understanding.

    —­Dante.

    Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God;
    Thy judgments are a great deep: 
    O Jehovah, thou preservest man and beast.

    —­Psalm 36. 6.

My Father in heaven, may I hear thy voice to-day!  May I be quiet as I listen to thee.  Above the clamor of the crowd may I hear thee calling me.  May I hear thee in my joys and in my sorrows; in my work and in my leisure.  May I listen to thee oftener, that I may be familiar with thy ways.  Amen.

SEPTEMBER FIFTEENTH

James Fenimore Cooper born 1789.

Louis Joseph Martel born 1813.

Porfirio Diaz born 1830.

William Howard Taft, Ohio, twenty-sixth President United States, born 1857.

Friendship is one of the cheapest and most accessible of pleasures; it requires no outlay and no very serious expenditure of time or trouble.  It is quite easy to make friends, if one wants to...  There is surely no greater pleasure in the world than to feel one is needed, welcomed, missed, and loved.

    —­Arthur C. Benson.

    “Friendship is love without his wings.”

    —­William H. Taft (from Byron).

    Without sympathy, in the highest sense of intellectual penetration,
    kindness may be a folly, and intended aid, oppression.

    —­John Ruskin.

    He that maketh many friends doeth it to his own destruction; but
    there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

    —­Proverbs 18. 24.

My Father, may I know the delight of true friendship which is responsive and sincere.  May I never feel so secure in myself that I will cease to want friends, or be so dependent on others that I will be continually seeking them.  May I understand the value of having a stanch friend and of being one.  Amen.

SEPTEMBER SIXTEENTH

Gabriel D. Fahrenheit died 1736.

W. Augustus Muhlenberg born 1796.