Daily Strength for Daily Needs, Mary W. Tileston [good book recommendations .TXT] 📗

in His good pleasure an inexhaustible source of peace and consolation.

FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON.

May 4

_Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, out of weakness were made strong_.--HEB xi. 33, 34.

She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look That altered not beneath the frown they wore, And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took, Meekly, her gentle rule, and frowned no more. Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath, And calmly broke in twain The fiery shafts of pain, And rent the nets of passion from her path. By that victorious hand despair was slain; With love she vanquished hate, and overcame Evil with good, in her great Master's name.

W. C. BRYANT.

As to what may befall us outwardly, in this confused state of things, shall we not trust our tender Father, and rest satisfied in His will? Shall anything hurt us? Can tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword, come between the love of the Father to the child, or the child's rest, content, and delight in His love? And doth not the love, the rest, the peace, the joy felt, swallow up all the bitterness and sorrow of the outward condition?

I. PENINGTON.

May 5

_If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then how canst thou contend with horses? and if in the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan_?--JER. xii. 5.

How couldst thou hang upon the cross, To whom a weary hour is loss? Or how the thorns and scourging brook, Who shrinkest from a scornful look?

J. KEBLE.

A heart unloving among kindred has no love towards God's saints and angels. If we have a cold heart towards a servant or a friend, why should we wonder if we have no fervor towards God? If we are cold in our private prayers, we should be earthly and dull in the most devout religious order; if we cannot bear the vexations of a companion, how should we bear the contradiction of sinners? if a little pain overcomes us, how could we endure a cross? if we have no tender, cheerful, affectionate love to those with whom our daily hours are spent, how should we feel the pulse and ardor of love to the unknown and the evil, the ungrateful and repulsive?

H. E. MANNING.

May 6

Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love.--ROM. xii. 10.

In her tongue is the law of kindness.--PROV. xxxi. 26.

Since trifles make the sum of human things, And half our misery from our foibles springs; Since life's best joys consist in peace and ease, And though but few can serve, yet all can please; Oh, let the ungentle spirit learn from hence, A small unkindness is a great offence.

HANNAH MORE.

All usefulness and all comfort may be prevented by an unkind, a sour, crabbed temper of mind,--a mind that can bear with no difference of opinion or temperament. A spirit of fault-finding; an unsatisfied temper; a constant irritability; little inequalities in the look, the temper, or the manner; a brow cloudy and dissatisfied--your husband or your wife cannot tell why--will more than neutralize all the good you can do, and render life anything but a blessing.

ALBERT BARNES.

You have not fulfilled every duty, unless you have fulfilled that of being pleasant.

CHARLES BUXTON.

May 7

_He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names_.--PS. cxlvii. 3, 4.

Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving on space no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die.

R. W. EMERSON.

I looked up to the heavens once more, and the quietness of the stars seemed to reproach me. "We are safe up here," they seemed to say; "we shine, fearless and confident, for the God who gave the primrose its rough leaves to hide it from the blast of uneven spring, hangs us in the awful hollows of space. We cannot fall out of His safety. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold! Who hath created these things--that bringeth out their host by number? He calleth them all by names. By the greatness of His might, for that He is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob! and speakest, O Israel! my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?"

G. MACDONALD.

May 8

_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it_.--PS. cxviii. 24.

Why stand ye here all the day idle?--MATT. xx. 6.

So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night will return.

T. CARLYLE.

Small cares, some deficiencies in the mere arrangement and ordering of our lives, daily fret our hearts, and cross the clearness of our faculties; and these entanglements hang around us, and leave us no free soul able to give itself up, in power and gladness, to the true work of life. The severest training and self-denial,--a superiority to the servitude of indulgence,--are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness,--much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

J. H. THOM.

True, we can never be at peace till we have performed the highest duty of all,--till we have arisen, and gone to our Father; but the performance of smaller duties, yes, even of the smallest, will do more to give us temporary repose, will act more as healthful anodynes, than the greatest joys that can come to us from any other quarter.

G. MACDONALD.

May 9

_The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord_.--JOB i. 21.

What Thou hast given, Thou canst take, And when Thou wilt new gifts can make. All flows from Thee alone; When Thou didst give it, it was Thine; When Thou retook'st it, 't was not mine. Thy will in all be done.

JOHN AUSTIN.

We are ready to praise when all shines fair; but when life is overcast, when all things seem to be against us, when we are in fear for some cherished happiness, or in the depths of sorrow, or in the solitude of a life which has no visible support, or in a season of sickness, and with the shadow of death approaching,--then to praise God; then to say, This fear, loneliness, affliction, pain, and trembling awe are as sure tokens of love, as life, health, joy, and the gifts of home: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;" on either side it is He, and all is love alike; "blessed be the name of the Lord,"--this is the true sacrifice of praise. What can come amiss to a soul which is so in accord with God? What can make so much as one jarring tone in all its harmony? In all the changes of this fitful life, it ever dwells in praise.

H. E. MANNING.

May 10

_The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants; and none of them that trust in Him shall be desolate_.--PS. xxxiv. 22.

Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.--JOB xiii. 15.

I praise Thee while my days go on; I love Thee while my days go on: Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost, With emptied arms and treasure lost, I thank Thee while my days go on.

E. B. BROWNING.

The sickness of the last week was fine medicine; pain disintegrated the spirit, or became spiritual. I rose,--I felt that I had given to God more perhaps than an angel could,--had promised Him in youth that to be a blot on this fair world, at His command, would be acceptable. Constantly offer myself to continue the obscurest 'and loneliest thing ever heard of, with one proviso,--His agency. Yes, love Thee, and all Thou dost, while Thou sheddest frost and darkness on every path of mine.

MARY MOODY EMERSON.

May 11

_Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil_?--JOB ii. 10.

_Thou hast dealt well with Thy servant, O Lord, according to Thy word_.--PS. cxix. 65.

Whatsoe'er our lot may be, Calmly in this thought we'll rest,-- Could we see as Thou dost see, We should choose it as the best.

WM. GASKELL.

It is a proverbial saying, that every one makes his own destiny; and this is usually interpreted, that every one, by his wise or unwise conduct, prepares good or evil for himself: but we may also understand it, that whatever it be that he receives from the hand of Providence, he may so accommodate himself to it, that he will find his lot good for him, however much may seem to others to be wanting.

WM. VON HUMBOLDT.

Evil, once manfully fronted, ceases to be evil; there is generous battle-hope in place of dead, passive misery; the evil itself has become a kind of good.

T. CARLYLE.

May 12

_Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer:... ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life_.--REV. ii. 10.

Then, O my soul, be ne'er afraid, On Him who thee and all things made Do thou all calmly rest; Whate'er may come, where'er we go, Our Father in the heavens must know In all things what is best.

PAUL FLEMMING.

Guide me, O Lord, in all the changes and varieties of the world; that in all things that shall happen, I may have an evenness and tranquillity of spirit; that my soul may be wholly resigned to Thy divinest will and pleasure, never murmuring at Thy gentle chastisements and fatherly correction. Amen.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

Thou art never at any time nearer to God than when under tribulation; which He permits for the purification and beautifying of thy soul.

M. DE MOLINOS.

Prize inward exercises, griefs, and troubles; and let faith and patience have their perfect work in them.

I. PENINGTON.

May 13

_I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil_.--JOHN xvii. 15.

In busy mart and crowded street, No less than in the still retreat, Thou, Lord, art near, our souls to bless, With all a Father's tenderness.

I. WILLIAMS.

Only the individual conscience, and He who is greater than the conscience, can tell where worldliness prevails. Each heart must answer for itself, and at its own risk. That our souls are committed to our own keeping, at our own peril, in a world so mixed as this, is the last reason we should slumber over the charge, or betray the trust. If only that outlet to the Infinite is kept open, the inner bond with eternal life preserved, while not one movement of this world's business is interfered with, nor one pulse-beat of its happiness repressed, with all natural associations dear and cherished, with all human sympathies fresh and warm, we shall yet be near to the kingdom of heaven, within the order of the Kosmos of God--in the world, but not of