Nathaniel P. Willis born 1806.

    How like a mounting devil in the heart
    Rules the unreigned ambition!  Let it once
    But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
    Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
    And unthrones peace forever.  Putting on
    The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns
    The heart to ashes.

    —­Nathaniel P. Willis.

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as love or in faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in any way but as it ought.

    —­John Ruskin.

    And thy gentleness hath made me great.

    —­Psalm 18. 35.

Gracious Father, I pray that I may be willing to profit by the experience of great teachers, and appreciate the value of strong principles.  May I too live for the higher ideals of life, and through a sympathetic response add power and virtue to other lives, while gaining strength for my own.  Amen.

JANUARY TWENTY-FIRST

Miles Coverdale died 1568.

John Fitch born 1743.

John C. Fremont born 1813.

Thomas Erskine born 1750.

Thomas Jonathan (Stonewall) Jackson born 1824.

    So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others I
    would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless
    while he has a friend.

    —­Robert L. Stevenson.

    So to the calmly gathered thought
    The innermost of life is taught,
    The mystery dimly understood,
    That love of God is love of good: 
    That to be saved is only this—­
    Salvation from our selfishness.

    —­John Greenleaf Whittier.

Love worketh no ill to his neighbor:  love therefore is the fulfillment of the law.  And this, knowing the season, that already it is time for you to awake out of sleep:  for now is salvation nearer to us than when we first believed.

    —­Romans 13. 10, 11.

Tender Father, may I not attempt to serve life for my own gratification.  May I not interpret love through vanity, but from reality.  Make me worth while, that I may be relied upon for my pledges, and needed for my services.  Amen.

JANUARY TWENTY-SECOND

Andrea del Sarto died 1531.

Francis Bacon born 1561.

Lord George Byron born 1788.

Queen Victoria died 1901.

    Father of light! to thee I call,
      My soul is dark within: 
    Thou who canst mark the sparrow’s fall,
      Avert the death of sin,
    Thou who canst guide the wandering star,
    Who calm’st the elemental war,
    Whose mantle is yon boundless sky,
      My thoughts, my words, my crimes forgive;
      And since I soon must cease to live,
    Instruct me how to die.