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

us, and always in benediction; that even the strokes of His hands are blessings, and among the chiefest we have ever received. When this feeling is awakened, the heart beats with a pulse of thankfulness. Every gift has its return of praise. It awakens an unceasing daily converse with our Father,--He speaking to us by the descent of blessings, we to Him by the ascent of thanksgiving. And all our whole life is thereby drawn under the light of His countenance, and is filled with a gladness, serenity, and peace which only thankful hearts can know.

H. E. MANNING.

January 19

Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.--PS. cv. 3.

The joy of the Lord is your strength.--NEH. viii. 10.


Be Thou my Sun, my selfishness destroy, Thy atmosphere of Love be all my joy; Thy Presence be my sunshine ever bright, My soul the little mote that lives but in Thy light.

GERHARD TERSTEEGEN.

I do not know when I have had happier times in my soul, than when I have been sitting at work, with nothing before me but a candle and a white cloth, and hearing no sound but that of my own breath, with God in my soul and heaven in my eye... I rejoice in being exactly what I am,--a creature capable of loving God, and who, as long as God lives, must be happy. I get up and look for a while out of the window, and gaze at the moon and stars, the work of an Almighty hand. I think of the grandeur of the universe, and then sit down, and think myself one of the happiest beings in it.

A POOR METHODIST WOMAN, 18TH CENTURY.

January 20

_The Lord taketh pleasure In His people: He will beautify the meek with salvation_.--PS. cxlix. 4.

Long listening to Thy words, My voice shall catch Thy


tone, And, locked in Thine, my hand shall grow All loving like Thy own.

B. T.

It is not in words explicable, with what divine lines and lights the exercise of godliness and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenance, neither to what darkness their departure will consign the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which, even momentarily, will not impress a new fairness upon the features; neither on them only, but on the whole body the moral and intellectual faculties have operation, for all the movements and gestures, however slight, are different in their modes according to the mind that governs them--and on the gentleness and decision of right feeling follows grace of actions, and, through continuance of this, grace of form.

J. RUSKIN.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

R. W. EMERSON.


January 21

_Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint_.--ISA. xl. 30, 31.

Lord, with what courage and delight I do each thing, When Thy least breath sustains my wing! I shine and move Like those above, And, with much gladness Quitting sadness, Make me fair days of every night.

H. VAUGHAN.

Man, by living wholly in submission to the Divine Influence, becomes surrounded with, and creates for himself, internal pleasures infinitely greater than any he can otherwise attain to--a state of heavenly Beatitude.

J. P. GREAVES.

By persisting in a habit of self-denial, we shall, beyond what I can express, increase the inward powers of the mind, and shall produce that cheerfulness and greatness of spirit as will fit us for all good purposes;


and shall not have lost pleasure, but changed it; the soul being then filled with its own intrinsic pleasures.

HENRY MORE.

January 22

Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.--HOSEA vi. 3.

And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making a merit of his coward dread,-- But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as one to pleasant service led; Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in mine, but in His strength alone!

J. G. WHITTIER.

It is by doing our duty that we learn to do it. So long as men dispute whether or no a thing is their duty, they get never the nearer. Let them set ever so weakly about doing it, and the face of things alters. They find in themselves strength which they knew not of. Difficulties which it seemed to them they could not get


over, disappear. For He accompanies it with the influences of His blessed Spirit, and each performance opens our minds for larger influxes of His grace, and places them in communion with Him.

E. B. PUSEY.

That which is called considering what is our duty in a particular case, is very often nothing but endeavoring to explain it away.

JOSEPH BUTLER.

January 23

_If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday; and the Lord shall guide thee continually_.--ISA. lviii. 10, 11.

If thou hast Yesterday thy duty done, And thereby cleared firm footing for To-day, Whatever clouds make dark To-morrow's sun, Thou shall not miss thy solitary way.

J. W. VON GOETHE.


O Lord, who art our Guide even unto death, grant us, I pray Thee, grace to follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. In little daily duties to which Thou callest us, bow down our wills to simple obedience, patience under pain or provocation, strict truthfulness of word and manner, humility, kindness; in great acts of duty or perfection, if Thou shouldest call us to them, uplift us to self-sacrifice, heroic courage, laying down of life for Thy truth's sake, or for a brother. Amen.

C. G. ROSSETTI.

January 24

I will bless the Lord, who bath given me counsel.--PS. xvi. 7.

Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord.--ROM. xii. 11.

Mine be the reverent, listening love That waits all day on Thee, With the service of a watchful heart Which no one else can see.

A. L. WARING.


Nothing is small or great in God's sight; whatever He wills becomes great to us, however seemingly trifling, and if once the voice of conscience tells us that He requires anything of us, we have no right to measure its importance. On the other hand, whatever He would not have us do, however important we may think it, is as nought to us.

How do you know what you may lose by neglecting this duty, which you think so trifling, or the blessing which its faithful performance may bring? Be sure that if you do your very best in that which is laid upon you daily, you will not be left without sufficient help when some weightier occasion arises. Give yourself to Him, trust Him, fix your eye upon Him, listen to His voice, and then go on bravely and cheerfully.

JEAN NICOLAS GROU.

January 25

If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.--JOHN xiii. 17.

_Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin_.--JAMES iv. 17.


We cannot kindle when we will The fire that in the heart resides, The spirit bloweth and is still, In mystery our soul abides: But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Hurt not your conscience with any known sin.

S. RUTHERFORD.

Deep-rooted customs, though wrong, are not easily altered; but it is the duty of all to be firm in that which they certainly know is right for them.

JOHN WOOLMAN.

He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only he who does a certain thing.

MARCUS ANTONINUS.

Every duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known.

JOHN RUSKIN.


January 26

_O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His--ways past finding out_!--ROM. xi. 33.

It doth not yet appear what we shall be.--I JOHN iii. 2.

No star is ever lost we once have seen, We always may be what we might have been. Since Good, though only thought, has life and breath, God's life--can always be redeemed from death; And evil, in its nature, is decay, And any hour can blot it all away; The hopes that lost in some far distance seem, May be the truer life, and this the dream.

A. A. PROCTER.

St. Bernard has said: "Man, if thou desirest a noble and holy life, and unceasingly prayest to God for it, if thou continue constant in this thy desire, it will be granted unto thee without fail, even if only in the day or hour of thy death; and if God should not give it to thee then, thou shalt find it in Him in eternity: of this be assured." Therefore do not relinquish your desire, though it be not fulfilled immediately, or though ye may


swerve from your aspirations, or even forget them for a time.... The love and aspiration which once really existed live forever before God, and in Him ye shall find the fruit thereof; that is, to all eternity it shall be better for you than if you had never felt them.

J. TAULER.

January 27

_For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones_.--ISA. lvii. 15.

Without an end or bound Thy life lies all outspread in light; Our lives feel Thy life all around, Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright; Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea, But the calm gladness of a full eternity.

F. W. FABER.

O truth who art Eternity! And Love who art Truth! And Eternity who art Love! Thou art my God, to Thee do I


sigh night and day. When I first knew Thee, Thou liftedst me up, that I might see there was somewhat for me to see, and that I was not yet such as to see. And Thou streaming forth Thy beams of light upon me most strongly, didst beat back the weakness of my sight, and I trembled with love and awe: and I perceived myself to be far off from Thee in the region of unlikeness.

ST. AUGUSTINE.

January 28

_O fear the Lord, ye His saints: for there is no want to them that fear Him_--PS. xxxiv. 9.

_Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfies the desire of every living thing_.--PS. cxlv. 16.

What Thou shalt to-day provide, Let me as a child receive; What to-morrow may betide, Calmly to Thy wisdom leave. 'Tis enough that Thou wilt care; Why should I the burden bear?

J. NEWTON.


Have we found that anxiety about possible consequences