DECEMBER THIRTEENTH

William Drummond born 1585.

Dr. Samuel Johnson died 1784.

Joseph Noel Paton born 1821.

Phillips Brooks born 1835.

Hamilton Mabie born 1846.

When the clouds of sorrow gather over us, we see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they can be dispelled; yet a new day succeeded to the night, and sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease.

    —­Dr. Samuel Johnson.

The fountains of joy and sorrow are for the most part locked up in ourselves....  There come to great, solitary, and sorely smitten souls moments of clear insight, of assurance of victory, of unspeakable fellowship with truth and life and God, which outweigh years of sorrow and bitterness.

    —­Hamilton Mabie.

    And ye therefore now have sorrow:  but I will see you again, and your
    heart shall rejoice, and your joy no one taketh away from you.

    —­John 16. 22.

My Father, may I remember that the days of my life that I give over to grief can never be reclaimed.  Help me that I may not want to keep sorrow in my life, but with faith may I believe that “weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”  Amen.

DECEMBER FOURTEENTH

Daniel Neal born 1678.

Rev. Charles Wolfe born 1791.

George Washington died 1799.

Frances Ridley Havergal born 1836.

    Seldom can the heart be lonely,
      If it seek a lonelier still;
    Self-forgetting, seeking only
      Emptier cups of love to fill.

—­Frances R. Havergal.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought. 
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste

* * * * *

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored, and sorrows end.

—­William Shakespeare.

The Lord Jehovah hath given me the tongue of them that are taught,
that I may know how to sustain with words him that is weary.

—­Isaiah 50. 4.

Gracious Father, keep me cheerful and courageous, that I may not be given to weary murmurings.  May my hours of solitude be spent profitably as they pass.  Grant that I may be a help to those who are in need of sympathy and encouragement, and through the peace that is given to me help them to a tranquil life.  Amen.

DECEMBER FIFTEENTH

Catherine of Aragon born 1485.

George Romney born 1734.

Franklin B. Sanborn born 1831.

    Yet frequent visitors shall kiss the shrine,
      And ever keep its vestal lamp alight;
    All noble thoughts, all dreams divinely bright,
      That waken or delight this soul of mine.