Have thy soul feel the universal breath
    With which all nature’s quick, and learn to be
    Sharer in all that thou dost touch or see;
    Break from thy body’s grasp thy spirit’s trance;
    Give thy soul air, thy faculties expanse;
    Love, joy, even sorrow,—­yield thyself to all! 
    They make thy freedom, groveling, not thy thrall. 
    Knock off the shackles which thy spirit bind
    To dust and sense, and set at large the mind! 
    Then move in sympathy with God’s great whole,
    And be like man at first, a Living Soul.

    —­Richard Henry Dana.

I was deeply impressed by what a gardener once said to me concerning his work.  “I feel, sir,” he said, “when I am growing the flowers or rearing the vegetables, that I am having a share in creation.”  I thought it a very noble way of regarding his work.

    —­J.H.  Jowett.

    For we are God’s fellow workers:  ye are God’s husbandry, God’s
    building.

    —­1 Corinthians 3. 9.

Creator of all, help me to see what there is for me to do; and help me to know that I cannot be productive if I am hovering in the choice of my work.  May I learn from thy great works of heaven and earth the ways of selection and steadfastness.  Give me the desire to work and the confidence that is needed to carry on my work.  Amen.

JANUARY FOURTEENTH

Madame de Sevigne died 1696.

Edmund Halley died 1742.

Pierre Loti born 1850.

    Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute
    What you can do, or dream you can; begin it;
    Boldness has genius, power magic in it. 
    Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
    Begin and then the work will be completed.

    —­Goethe.

    Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
    Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
    Given to redeem the human mind from error,
      There were no need of arsenals or forts.

    —­Henry W. Longfellow.

    Choose you this day whom ye will serve;... but as for me and my
    house, we will serve Jehovah.

    —­Joshua 24. 15.

Almighty God, help me to appreciate the sacredness of work while I have it to do.  Grant that I may be spared the wretchedness that comes from working with fragments from idleness.  May I do my part, even if it be in obscurity and the night overtakes me before it is done.  Amen.

JANUARY FIFTEENTH

Moliere born 1622.

Dr. Samuel Parr born 1747.

Edward Everett died 1865.

    The sun withholds his generous beam;
    Athwart my soul the shadows stream;
    The weird winds boisterously blow,
    And drift the melancholy snow.

    When I, in sorrow and despair,
    Expect the storm, with tender care
    He rends the clouds and through the blue
    The glorious sun breaks forth anew.