Character and Conduct Part 2

Life, a School

January 10

"All life is a school, a preparation, a purpose: nor can we pa.s.s current in a higher college, if we do not undergo the tedium of education in this lower one."

_Tennyson--a Memoir_, by his Son.

"Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood."

EMERSON.

"We never know for what G.o.d is preparing us in His schools, for what work on earth, for what work in the hereafter. Our business is to do our work well in the present place, whatever that may be."

LYMAN ABBOTT.

Character and Service

January 11

"Never should we forget the close connection between character and service, between inward n.o.bleness and outward philanthropy. We are not here to dream, or even to build up in grace and beauty our individual life; we are responsible, each in our own little way, for trying to leave this sad world happier, this evil world better than we found it.

In this way slackness is infamy, and power to the last particle means duty. Each of us, in some degree, must have the ambition to be an 'Alter Christus'--another Christ, shouldering with the compa.s.sionate Son of G.o.d to lift our shadowed world from the gates of death."

"What men want is not talent, it is purpose; not the power to achieve, but the will to labour."

BULWER LYTTON.

"'Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.' This is the principle with which we should look forth upon the world and our own life at the beginning of this year. We look upon the world; it seems as if it were sleeping still, like Rome, as if it needed as much as ever to hear the shout, 'Awake, thou that sleepest.'"

STOPFORD BROOKE.

Present Circ.u.mstances

JANUARY 12

"Everywhere and at all times it is in thy power piously to acquiesce in thy present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about thee, and to exert thy skill upon thy present thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these: for instance, that where a man can live, there he can also live well. But he must live in a palace;--well then, he can also live well in a palace."

MARCUS AURELIUS.

"Of nothing can we be more sure than this: that, if we cannot sanctify our present lot, we could sanctify no other."

MARTINEAU.

Circ.u.mstances

JANUARY 13

"Occasion is the father of most that is good in us. As you have seen the awkward fingers and clumsy tools of a prisoner cut and fas.h.i.+on the most delicate little pieces of carved work; or achieve the most prodigious underground labours, and cut through walls of masonry, and saw iron bars and fetters; 'tis misfortune that awakens ingenuity, or fort.i.tude or endurance, in hearts where these qualities had never come to life but for the circ.u.mstance which gave them a being."

_Esmond_, W. M. THACKERAY.

"It always remains true that if we had been greater, circ.u.mstances would have been less strong against us."

G. ELIOT.

"A consideration of petty circ.u.mstances is the tomb of great things."

VOLTAIRE.

The Ifs of Life

JANUARY 14

"If it were--_if_ it might be--_if_ it could be--_if_ it had been. One portion of mankind go through life always regretting, always whining, always imagining. _As_ it is--this is the way in which the other cla.s.s of people look at the conditions in which they find themselves. I venture to say that if one should count the _ifs_ and the _ases_ in the conversation of his acquaintances, he would find the more able and important persons among them--statesmen, generals, men of business--among the _ases_, and the majority of conspicuous failures among the _ifs_."

_Over the Teacups_, O. W. HOLMES.

"It is sad, indeed, to see how man wastes his opportunities. How many could be made happy, with the blessings which are recklessly wasted or thrown away! Happiness is a condition of Mind, not a result of circ.u.mstances; and, in the words of Dugald Stewart, the great secret of happiness is to accommodate ourselves to things external, rather than to struggle to accommodate external things to ourselves. Hume wisely said that a happy disposition was better than an estate of 10,000 a year.

Try to realise all the blessings you have, and you will find perhaps that they are more than you suppose. Many a blessing has been recognised too late."

Lord AVEBURY.

"The pleasure of life is according to the man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place."

EMERSON.

Harmony

JANUARY 15

"... Have good will To all that lives, letting unkindness die And greed and wrath; so that your lives be made Like soft airs pa.s.sing by.

... Govern the lips As they were palace-doors, the King within; Tranquil and fair and courteous be all words Which from that presence win.