Making the Most of Life

"Then welcome each rebuff, That turns earth's smoothness rough, Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand nor go. Be our joys three parts pain! Strive, and hold cheap the strain; L...

"The sun may shine upon the clod till it is warm, Warm for its own poor darkling self to live. He smites the diamond, and oh, how glows the gem, Chilling itself, irradiant, to g...

"So much we miss If love is weak; so much we gain If love is strong; God thinks no pain Too sharp or lasting to ordain To teach us this." --HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

"Before the monstrous wrong he sets him down-- One man against a stone walled city of sin. * * * * * * When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier Stands with strange thou...

"My life is not my own, but Christ's, who gave it, And he bestows it upon all the race; I lose it for his sake, and thus I save it; I hold it close, but only to expend it; Accep...

"Our feeble frame he knoweth, Remembereth we are dust; And evermore his face is kind, His ways are ever just. In evil and in blindness, Through darkened maze we rove, But still...

The shutting of a door is a little thing and yet it may have infinite meaning. It may fix a destiny for weal or for woe. When God shut the door of the ark the sound of its closi...

"Let me not die before I've done for thee My earthly work, whatever it may be. Call me not hence, with mission unfulfilled; Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled; Impress...

"Ask and receive--'tis sweetly said; Yet what to plead for know I not, For wish is worsted, hope o'ersped, And aye to thanks returns my thought. If I would pray I've naught to s...

There was wonderful power in the touch of Christ when he was on the earth. Wherever he laid his hand, he left a blessing, and sick, sad, and weary ones received health, comfort,...

If people's first thoughts were but as good and wise as their after-thoughts, life would be better and more beautiful than it is. We can all see our errors more clearly after we...

"We need--each and all--to be needed, To feel we have something to give Towards soothing the moan of earth's hunger; And we know that then only we live When we feed one another,...

"The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that sooth and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers. * * * * The smoke ascends To heaven as ligh...

"Measure thy life by loss instead of gain; Not by the wine drunk, but the wine poured forth; For love's strength standeth in love's sacrifice, And whoso suffers most hath most t...

"I think we are too ready with complaint In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope Indeed beyond the zenith and the slope Of yon gray blank sky, we might grow faint To muse up...

"We can best minister to him by helping them Who dare not touch his hallowed garment's hem; Their lives are even as ours--one piece, one plan. Him know we not, him shall we neve...

"So still, dear Lord, in every place Thou standest by the toiling folk With love and pity in thy face, And givest of thy help and grace To those who meekly bear the yoke."

"Like the star That shines afar, Without haste And without rest, Let each man wheel, with steady sway, Round the task that rules the day, And do his best." --GOETHE.

"Souls are built as temples are,-- Based on truth's eternal law, Sure and steadfast, without flaw, Through the sunshine, through the snows, Up and on the building goes; Every fa...

Every one of us casts a shadow. There hangs about us a sort of penumbra,--a strange, indefinable something,--which we call personal influence, which has its effect on every othe...

Many good people are very slow. They do their work well enough, perhaps, but so leisurely that they accomplish in their brief time only a fraction of what they might accomplish....

"The lives which seem so poor, so low, The hearts which are so cramped and dull, The baffled hopes, the impulse slow, Thou takest, touchest all, and lo! They blossom to the beau...

"The wind that blows can never kill The tree God plants; It bloweth east; it bloweth west; The tender leaves have little rest, But any wind that blows is best. The tree God plan...

"Faithful servant" will be the commendation on the judgment-day of those who have lived well on the earth. Not great deeds will be commended, but faithfulness. The smallest mini...

"As we meet and touch each day The many travellers on our way, Let every such brief contact be A glorious, helpful ministry; The contact of the soil and seed, Each giving to the...