July Sixteenth

The Gain Of Self-Renunciation

One day, when great crowds of people were walking with Jesus, he turned and said to them:

“If any man comes to me and does not hate his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brothers, and sisters, yes, and his very life, he can be no disciple of mine. Whoever does not carry his own cross, and walk in my steps, can be no disciple of mine. Why, which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and reckon the cost, to see if he has enough to complete it?—for fear that, if he has laid the foundation and is not able to finish it, every one who sees it should begin to laugh at him, and say, ‘Here is a man who began to build and was not able to finish!’ Or what king, when he is setting out to fight another king, does not first sit down and consider if with ten thousand men he is able to meet one who is coming against him with twenty thousand? And if he cannot, then, while the other is still at a distance, he sends envoys and asks for terms of peace. And so with every one of you who does not bid farewell to all he has—be cannot be a disciple of mine.”

—Luke.

Barnacles

My soul is Bailing 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!
Old Past, let go, and drop i’ the sea
Till fathomless waters cover thee!
For I am living, but thou art dead;
Thou drawest back, I strive ahead
The day to find.
Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind;
I need must hurry with the wind
And trim me best for sailing.

—Sidney Lanier.

July Fifteenth

The Vanity Of Civilization

To suppose that arts and sciences are exhausted subjects, is doing them a kind of dishonor. The divine mechanism of creation reproves such folly, and shows us by comparison the imperfection of our most refined inventions. I cannot believe that this species of vanity is peculiar to the present age only. I have no doubt but that it existed before the Flood, and even in the wildest ages of antiquity. It is folly we have inherited, not created; and the discoveries which every day produces have greatly contributed to dispossess us of it. Improvement and the world will expire together; and till that period arrives, we may plunder the mine, but can never exhaust it! That “We have found out all things,” has been the motto of every age.

Let our ideas travel a little into antiquity, and we shall find larger portions of vanity than now; and so unwilling were our ancestors to descend from this mountain of perfection, that when any new discovery exceeded the common standard the discoverer was believed to be in alliance with the Devil. It was not the ignorance of the age only, but the vanity of it, which rendered it dangerous to be ingenious. The man who first planned and erected the first tenable hut, was perhaps called an able architect; but he who first improved it with a chimney could be no less than a prodigy: yet had the same man been so unfortunate as to have embellished it with glass windows, he might probably have been burnt for a magician.

Our fancies would be highly diverted could we look back and behold a circle of original Indians haranguing on the sublime perfection of the age; yet it is not impossible but future times may exceed us almost as much as we have exceeded them.

—Thomas Paine.

Home, in one form or another, is the great object of life.

—J. G. Holland.

Alternate Reading: Daniel 5.

July Fourteenth

For Everyone A Definite Work

No man is bom into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will;
And blessed are the horny hands of toil.

—James Russell Lowell.

The Service Of Man And Woman To Home And State

Generally we are under the impression that a man’s duties are public, and a woman’s private. But this is not altogether so. A man has a personal work or duty relating to his own home, and a public work or duty—which is the expansion of the other—relating to the state. So a woman has a personal work and duty relating to her own home, and a public work and duty which is also the expansion of that.

Now, the man’s work for his own home is, to secure its maintenance, progress, and defense; the woman’s to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness.

Expand both these functions The man’s duty as a member of a commonwealth is to assist in the maintenance, in the advance, in the defense of the State. The woman’s duty as a member of the commonwealth is to assist in the ordering, in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the State.

What the man is at his own gate,—defending it if need be against insult and spoil, that also,—not in less but in a more devoted measure, he is to be at the gate of his country; leaving his home, if need be, even to the spoiler, to do his more incumbent work there.

And in like manner, what the woman is to be within her gates, as the center of order, the balm of distress, and the mirror of beauty, that she is also to be without her gates, where order is more difficult, distress more imminent, loveliness more rare. A Lady has claim to her title only so far as she communicates that help to the poor representatives of her Master, which women once, ministering to Him of their substance, were permitted to extend to that Master Himself; and when she is known, as He Himself once was, in breaking of bread.

—John Ruskin.

Alternate Reading: John 11: 1-44.

July Thirteenth

Man And Woman

Let woman make herself her own
To give or keep, to live and learn and be
All that not harms distinctive womanhood.
For woman is not undeveloped man,
But diverse: could we make her as the man,
Sweet love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.

Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
The man be more of woman, she of man;
He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
She mental breadth, nor fail in child-ward care,
Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind;
Till at the last she set herself to man,
Like perfect music unto noble words.

—Alfred Tennyson.

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

—Goethe.

One In A Million

Here’s to one in a million,
The dearest, the best;
Like the sun in the heavens,
She outshines the rest!
Don’t frown when I tell you
This toast beats all others,
But here’s one more toast, boys—
A toast to Our Mothers!

—George Cooper.

Alternate Reading: Acts 5:12-16.

July Twelfth

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, Ancient Lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

—Emma Lazarus.

The Miraculous Power Of Kindness And Of Anger

Gaze thou in the face of thy brother, in those eyes where plays the lambent fire of kindness, or in those where rages the lurid conflagration of anger; feel how thy own so quiet soul is straightway involuntarily kindled with the like, and ye blaze and reverberate on each other, till it is all one limitless, confluent flame (of embracing love, or of deadly, grasping hate); and then say what miraculous virtue goes out of man into man.

—Thomas Carlyle.

Never correct a child when you are angry; for a child can readily see that your anger is a greater sin than its mistake.

Alternate Reading: I Corinthians 10: 23-33.

July Eleventh

The Glory Of God

The sapphire of the deep and placid lakes,
The pearfy radiance of the flying mists,
Shall be the mirrors of His smile; the fields
Shall clothe themselves with flowers, and the peaks
With snow, to imitate His glory.
The wild things of the forest and the air
From den and eyrie shall adore His name.
The silent caverns of the deep shall teem
With servants of His word. The sea itself
Shall pile its jeweled waves aloft to make
The thunderous altars of the choir of storms.
All growing things—the lofty pine, the moss
That clings about the desert rock—shall teach
His worship; Him the boundless main declares,
Receiving all the waters of the earth
To give them back in helpful rain as
He receives in adoration and gives back in bliss.

And this has ever been true since time
And movement of created things began.
For all things hold their being from His care.
Should He not care, chaos would mar the world.
This is the happy fear that sways the flowers,
The fear that tells the lily to grow pale
And brings a blush upon the rose.

He came
To see in man, creation’s prince, the best
Reflection of Himself. God-Man, He saw,
And loved the Godlike image of Himself.

—Sister Juana Ynez.

The Silence Of The Infinite

The Infinite always is silent:
It is only the Finite speaks.
Our words are the idle wave-caps
On the deep that never breaks.
We may question with wand of science,
Explain, decide, discuss;
But only in meditation
The Mystery speaks to us.

—John B. O’Reilly.

Alternate Reading: John 10: 1-21.

July Tenth

At Dinner With A Pharisee Jesus Befriends A Sick Man On The Sabbath

On one occasion, as Jesus was going, on a Sabbath, into the house of one of the leading Pharisees to dine, they were watching him closely. There he saw before him a man who was suffering from dropsy.

“Is it allowable,” said Jesus, addressing the Students of the Law and the Pharisees, “to work a cure on the Sabbath, or is it not?”

They remained silent. Jesus took hold of the man and cured him, and sent him away. And he said to them:

“Which of you, finding that his son or his ox has fallen into a well, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?”

And they could not make any answer to that.

Lessons On Humility And Hospitality

Observing that the guests were choosing the best places for themselves, Jesus told them this parable—

“When you are invited by any one to a wedding banquet, do not seat yourself in the best place, for fear that some one of higher rank should have been invited by your host; and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Make room for this man,’ and then you will begin in confusion to take the lowest place. No, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place, so that, when he who has invited you comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, come higher up’; and then you will be honored in the eyes of all your fellow-guests. For every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Then Jesus went on to say to the man who had invited him:

“When you give a breakfast or a dinner, do not ask your friends, or your brothers, or your relations, or rich neighbors, for fear that they should invite you in return, and so you should be repaid. No, when you entertain, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; and then you will be happy indeed, since they cannot recompense you; for you shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the good.”

—Luke.

The Elect Of Earth

He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, and whose spirit is entering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords and kings of the earth—they, and they only.

—John Ruskin.

July Ninth

The Salt Of The Earth

If childhood were not in the world,
But only men and women grown;
No baby-locks in tendrils curled,
No baby-blossoms blown;

Though men were stronger, women fairer,
And nearer all delights in reach,
And verse and music uttered rarer
Tones of more godlike speech;

Though the utmost life of life’s best hours
Found, as it cannot now find, words;
Though desert sands were sweet as flowers,
And flowers could sing like birds:

But children never heard them, never
They felt a child’s foot leap and run,—
This were a drearier star than ever
Yet looked upon the sun.

—A. C. Swinburne.

The Mother-Heart

No child can ever be so dear to me
As thou wert, sweet;
And yet all childhood is more dear to me
Since I have kissed thy feet,
My babe—who bode with me so brief a space
Yet left upon my life forevermore
The glory of God’s grace!

Thy childless mother, little son, I cry
To childhood motherless:
“Lo, here am I! My heart is open wide
To welcome and to bless!
One stands within, invisible but sweet,
True to his post.
He calls the children to me from the street,
Himself their host.”

—Myrta L. Avary.

Alternate Reading: John 8: 21-59.

July Eighth

Ever Look For New Revelation

You remember how John Bunyan describes this darkness of understanding and closing of the mind: “Diabolus thought not fit to let My Lord Understanding abide in his former luster and glory, because he was a seeing man. Wherefore he darkened it, not only by taking from him his office and power, but by building a high and strong tower just between the sun’s reflections and the windows of My Lord’s palace; by which means his house and all, and the whole of his habitation, were made as dark as darkness itself. And thus, being alienated from the light, he became as one that was born blind.” All of which means that darkness and disease are in deep and intimate partnership—”Darkness hath blinded their eyes.”

If we would preserve our sight, and be saved from the pestilence that walketh in darkness, we must keep a ready mind, a mind that is open toward the divine, ever expectant of new outpourings of the light of life. Our Master has yet many things to say unto us. When will the new revelation break? We do not know. How will the new light come? We cannot tell. Perhaps it will come through the winsome presence of a little child. Perhaps it will break upon us from the weakness and frailties of an old man. Perhaps it may come from a quarter that we have almost despised. The revelation may be enshrined in the speech of the foolish. It may dawn upon us in the mysterious presence of death. It may stream from an open grave. Let us cultivate a ready mind. Let us have all the watchfulness of love. Let us love His appearing.

—J. H. Jowett.

The Path To Happiness

The path of sorrow, and that path alone,
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown.

—William Cowper.

Alternate Reading: John 8:12-20.

July Seventh

The Narrow Door

Jesus went through towns and villages, teaching as he went, and making his way towards Jerusalem.

“Master,” some one asked, “are there but few in the path of Salvation? “

And Jesus answered:

“Strive to go in by the small door. Many, I tell you, will seek to go in, but they will not be able when once the master of the house has got up and shut the door, while you begin to say, as you stand outside and knock, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’ His answer will be—’I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say ‘We have eaten and drunk in your presence, and you have taught in our streets,’ and his reply will be—’I do not know where you come from. Leave my presence, all you who are living in wickedness.’

“There, there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the Prophets, in the Kingdom of God, while you yourselves are being driven outside. People will come from East and West, and from North and South, and take their places at the banquet in the Kingdom of God. There are some who are last now who will then be first, and some who are first now who will then be last!”

A Message To Herod Antipas

Just then some Pharisees came up to Jesus and said:

“Go away and leave this place, for Herod wants to kill you.”

But Jesus answered:

Go and say to that fox ‘Look you, I am driving out demons and shall be completing cures to-day and tomorrow, and on the third day I shall have done.’ But to-day and to-morrow and the day after I must go on my way, because it cannot be that a prophet should meet his end outside Jerusalem.

Jesus Laments The Fate Of Jerusalem

“Jerusalem! Jerusalem! she who slays the prophets and stones the messengers sent to her—Oh, how often have I wished to gather your children round me as a hen takes her brood under her wings, and you would not come! Verily your House is left to you desolate!”

—Luke.

Our country is the world—our countrymen are all mankind.

—William L. Garrison.