—­Unknown.

    Behold now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of
    salvation.

    —­2 Corinthians 6. 2.

Lord God, teach me this day to know that the veriest trifle often keeps happiness alive, and that the smallest trifle often may kill it.  I pray that now thou wilt put within my heart that touch of love, which brings consideration for others, and the care that brings the greatest happiness.  Amen.

MARCH SIXTH

Michael Angelo Buonarroti born 1475.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning born 1806.

George du Maurier born 1831.

      Beloved, let us love so well
    Our work shall still be better for our love,
    And still our love be sweeter for our work: 
    And both commended for the sake of each
      By all true workers and true lovers born.

    —­Elizabeth B. Browning.

    Earth saddens, never shall remove,
      Affections purely given;
    And e’en that mortal grief shall prove
      The immortality of love,
    And heighten it with heaven.

    —­Elizabeth B. Browning.

    And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body
    to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

    —­1 Corinthians 13. 3.

Loving Father, I pray that I may not try to change the standard of love by grafting on my own selfishness and infirmities.  May I remember that it is mostly for gratification that love is held to the base in life; may I follow it to the summits, where it is divine.  Amen.

MARCH SEVENTH

Sir Thomas Wilson died 1755.

Sir Edwin Landseer born 1802.

Luther Burbank born 1849.

    Earth gets its price for what it gives us;
      The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,
    The priest has his fee who comes and shrives us,
      We bargain for the graves we lie in;
    At the devil’s booth are all things sold,
      Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;
    For a cap and bells our lives we pay,
      Bubbles we buy with a whole soul’s tasking;
    ’Tis heaven alone that is given away,
    ’Tis only God may be had for the asking.

    —­James Russell Lowell.

    We are our own fates.  Our own deeds
    Are our doomsmen.  Man’s life was made
    Not for men’s creeds,
    But men’s actions.

    —­Owen Meredith.

    The free gift of God is eternal life.

    —­Romans 6. 23.

Gracious Father, may the world speak to me of thy love, and of thy gifts of peace and power, which it freely offers.  May I not pass by its great values, and prefer to purchase at a great cost my indolence and dissipation.

—­Amen.

MARCH EIGHTH