OCTOBER FIFTH

Jonathan Edwards born 1703.

Denis Diderot born 1713.

Horace Walpole born 1717.

Nancy Hanks died 1818.

Chester A. Arthur, Vermont, twenty-first President
United States, born 1830.

H.R.  Guy de Maupassant born 1850.

    Earth gets its price for what earth 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.

    The free gift of God is eternal life.

    —­Romans 6. 23.

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

OCTOBER SIXTH

Jenny Lind Goldschmidt born 1820.

Harriet G. Hosmer born 1830.

Charles Stewart Parnell died 1891.

Alfred Tennyson died 1892.

    The heart which boldly faces death
      Upon the battlefield, and dares
    Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath
      The needle-points of frets and cares. 
    The stoutest spirits they dismay—­
    The tiny stings of every day.

    Ah! more than martyr’s aureole
      And more than hero’s heart of fire,
    We need the humble strength of soul
      Which daily toils and ills require. 
    Sweet patience, grant us, if you may
    An added grace for every day.

    —­Adelaide A. Procter.

    Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me! 
    And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea.

    —­Alfred Tennyson.

    Fret not thyself.

    —­Proverbs 24. 19.

My Father, I pray that I may not be dismayed over life, and its trifles.  Help me to master difficulties great and small, and give me patience through all until I reach the untroubled way.  Amen.

OCTOBER SEVENTH

Sir Philip Sidney died 1586.

Edgar Allan Poe died 1849.

Oliver Wendell Holmes died 1894.

Mary J. Holmes died 1907.

    Yet in opinions look not always back;
      Your wake is nothing, mind the coming track;
    Leave what you’ve done for what you have to do;
      Don’t be “consistent,” but be simply true.

    —­Oliver Wendell Holmes.