Ebenezer Elliott died 1849.

    We would fill the hours with the sweetest things,
      If we had but a day: 
    We should drink alone at the purest springs,
      In our upward way: 
    We should guide our wayward or wearied will,
      By the clearest light: 
    We should keep our eyes on the heavenly hills,
      If they lay in sight: 
    We should be from our clamorous selves set free,
      To work and pray: 
    And be what the Father would have us to be,
      If we had but a day.

    —­Margaret E. Sangster.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

    —­Philippians 4. 8.

Gracious Father, help me to understand that my life grows out of what I put into my days.  Forgive me for the unspoken words and the kind deeds which I kept for rare days, and had so few occasions to use.  May I be as useful in kindness as I am in work, remembering that to thee every day is a golden day.  Amen.

DECEMBER SECOND

David Masson born 1822.

John Brown hanged, Charlestown, West Virginia 1859.

Hugh Miller died 1856.

    The solitude of life is known to us all; for the most part we are
    alone, and the voices of friends come only faint and broken across
    the impassable gulfs which surround every human soul.

    —­Hamilton Mabie.

To have an ideal or to have none, to have this ideal or that—­this is what digs gulfs between men, even between those who live in the same family circle, under the same roof, or in the same room.  You must love with the same love, think with the same thoughts as some one else if you are to escape solitude.

    —­Amiel.

    The plans of the heart belong to man;
    But the answer of the tongue is from Jehovah.

    —­Proverbs 16. 1.

Lord God, help me to take in the glory of life, that my spirit may never be lonely, even though I may have to be much alone.  I pray that thou wilt spare me the loneliness and the solitude that may be brought on by selfishness.  Make me considerate of others.  May I soar above the disappointments and losses that may come to me, and stay where I may have thy companionship.  Amen.

DECEMBER THIRD

Samuel Crompton born 1753.

Sir Frederick Leighton born 1830.

Robert Louis Stevenson died 1894.

    To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the
    world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul
    alive.

    —­Robert Louis Stevenson.