—­Sir Walter Scott.

    He went out, and found others standing; and he saith unto them, Why
    stand ye here all the day idle?  They say unto him, Because no man
    hath hired us.  He saith unto them, Go ye also into the vineyard.

    —­Matthew 20. 6, 7.

Eternal God, who hath weighed the mountains and measured the seas, I pray that I may not be satisfied to wait in idleness, and let thy wisdom pass away from me as the days.  Steady me in my weakness, and reveal to me my strength as I draw near and ask of thee.  Amen.

FEBRUARY THIRD

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy born 1809.

Horace Greeley born 1811.

Frederick William Robertson born 1816.

Sidney Lanier born 1842.

    My soul is sailing through the sea,
    But the past is heavy and hindereth me. 
    The past hath crusted cumbrous shells
    That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells
      About my soul. 
    The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,
    Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole
    And hindereth me from sailing.

    —­Sidney Lanier.

To stand with a smile upon your face, against a stake from which you cannot get away—­that no doubt is heroic.  True glory is resignation to the inevitable.  But to stand unchained, with perfect liberty to go away held only by the higher chains of duty, and let the fire creep up to the heart—­that is heroism.

    —­F.W.  Robertson.

    We are pressed on every side, yet not straitened; perplexed, yet not
    unto despair; pursued, yet not forsaken; smitten down, yet not
    destroyed.

    —­2 Corinthians 4. 8, 9.

Gracious Father, thou knowest what I am and the condition of my life.  May I seek thy will for me.  Grant that I may never struggle for consolation through indulgence and indolence, but in my sorrow and failure may I reach out for thy enduring comfort.  Amen.

FEBRUARY FOURTH

Mark Hopkins born 1802.

W. Harrison Ainsworth born 1805.

Jean Richepin born 1849.

Thomas Carlyle died 1881.

Life is not a May-game, but a battle and a march, a warfare with principalities and powers.  No idle promenade through fragrant orange groves and green flowery spaces, waited on by coral muses, and the rosy hours; it is a stern pilgrimage through the rough, burning, sandy solitudes, through regions of thick-ribbed ice.

    —­Thomas Carlyle.

For all sweet and pleasant passages in the great story of life men may well thank God; for leisure and ease and health and friendship may God make us truly and humbly grateful; but our chief song of thanksgiving must be always for our kinship with him, with all that such divinity of greatness brings of peril, hardship, toil, and sacrifice.

    —­Hamilton Mabie.