Leaves of Life, for Daily Inspiration. Margaret Bird Steinmetz
help me to "Lift mine eyes unto the hills" that glorify the discouraging ways. May I appreciate thy great love, and from my limitations find the possibilities that are limitless. Amen. JANUARY THIRTY-FIRSTTable of Contents Cromwell dissolved Parliament 1655.Charles Edward (Young Pretender) died 1788.Franz Schubert born 1797.James G. Elaine born 1830. Nature demands that man be ever at the top of his condition. He who violates her laws must pay the penalty, though he sit on a throne. —James G. Elaine. Dig channels for the streams of love, Where they may broadly run; And love has overflowing streams To fill them every one.For we must share if we must keep The good things from above; Ceasing to give, we cease to have— Such is the law of love.—R. C. Trench.And thy life shall be clearer than the noonday; Though there be darkness, it shall be as the morning.—Job 11. 17. My Father, I would remember that it is mostly from my inspirations that I conceive life. Take away hatred and vanity that keep me in faults, and awake in me the thoughts that are responsible for visions that lead to high ideals. Amen. FEBRUARYTable of Contents 0102030405060708091011121314151617181920212223242526272829Then came old February, sitting In an old wagon, for he could not ride, Drawn of two fishes for the season fitting, Which through the flood before did softly slide And swim away; yet he had by his side His plow and harness fit to till the ground, And tools to prune the trees, before the pride Of hasting prime did make them bourgeon wide. —Edmund Spenser. FEBRUARY FIRSTTable of Contents Ben Jonson born 1574.John Philip Kemble born 1757.Arthur Henry Hallam born 1811.George Cruikshank died 1878.It is not growing like a tree In bulk, doth make man better be; Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: A lily of a day Is fairer far in May, Although it fall and die that night— It was the plant and flower of Light. In small proportions we just beauties see; And in short measure life may perfect be. —Ben Jonson. There are four things which are little upon the earth, But they are exceeding wise: The ants are a people not strong, Yet they provide their food in the summer; The conies are but a feeble folk, Yet make they their houses in the rocks; The locusts have no king, Yet go they forth all of them by bands; The lizard taketh hold with her hands, Yet is she in king's palaces. —Proverbs 30. 24–28. Creator of all, lead me to see the light, and instruct me that I may be able to reason. Guard me against spectacular endeavors, that I may be genuine. Amen. FEBRUARY SECONDTable of Contents Candlemas Day.Nell Gwynn born 1650.Hannah More born 1745.William Henry Burleigh born 1812.'Twas doing nothing was his curse— Is there a vice can plague us worse? The wretch who digs the mine for bread, Or plows, that others may be fed, Feels less fatigue than that decreed To him who cannot think, or read. Not all the peril of temptations, Not all the conflict of the passions, Can quench the spark of Glory's flame, Or quite extinguish Virtue's name. —Hannah More. Sound, sound the clarion, fill the fife! To all the sensual world proclaim, One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth an age without a name. —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 THIRDTable of Contents 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 FOURTHTable of Contents 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. Thy bars shall be iron and brass; And as thy days, so shall thy strength be.—Deuteronomy 33. 25. My Father, help me to choose the road that leads to my work, and may I not fail to reach it, by wandering away from it. Keep me in touch with the human side of life, holding in mind that "Truth and honesty are the noblest works of God." Amen. FEBRUARY FIFTHTable of Contents Sir Robert Peel born 1788.Ole Boreman Bull born 1810.John Muir born 1810.Dwight L. Moody born 1837. When a great man dies, then has the time come for putting us in mind that he was alive! —Thomas Carlyle. If I practice