Knowing ourselves, our world, our task so great,
    Our time so brief, ’tis clear if we refuse
    The means so limited, the tools so rude
    To execute our purpose, life will fleet,
    And we shall fade, and leave our task undone.

    —­Robert Browning.

    Study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with
    your hands.

    —­1 Thessalonians 4. 11.

Lord God of life, give me the desire to learn, and the wisdom to live in my best.  May I not fail to culture my mind and heart and make life productive and worthy.  Help me to see the mistakes that I have made in the past, and in the year that is approaching not only try to avoid them, but try to make amends for them.  Amen.

DECEMBER TWENTY-EIGHTH

Catherine M. Sedgwick born 1789.

Woodrow Wilson, Virginia, twenty-seventh President
United States, born 1856.

Thomas B. Macaulay died 1859.

The government might be serviceable for many things.  It might assist in a hundred ways to safeguard the lives and the health and promote the comfort and happiness of the people; but it can do these things only if they respond to public opinion, only if those who lead government see the country as a whole, feel a deep thrill of intimate sympathy with every class and every interest in it.

    —­Woodrow Wilson.

    The hearts of men are their books; events are their tutors; great
    actions are their eloquence.

    —­Thomas B. Macaulay.

    Be of good courage, and let us play the man for our people, and for
    the cities of our God:  and Jehovah do that which seemeth him good.

    —­2 Samuel 10. 12.

Lord God, I pray that my estimate of life may not be as I take it, but as thou hast given it for peace and prosperity.  Teach me my duty to my country, and make me useful in uplifting and serving humanity.  Amen.

DECEMBER TWENTY-NINTH

Thomas a Becket died 1170.

Andrew Johnson, Tennessee, seventeenth President
United States, born 1808.

William E. Gladstone born 1809.

Margaret Bottome born 1827.

Pauline O. Louise, Queen of Roumania (Carmen
Sylva), born 1843.

Christina G. Rossetti died 1894.

    One example is worth a thousand arguments.

    —­William E. Gladstone.

    One day at a time!  That’s all it can be
      No faster than that is the hardest of fate,
    And days have their limit, however we
      Begin them too early or stretch them late.

    —­J.R.  Miller.

    He lives happy and master of himself
    Who can say, as each day passes on,
    I have lived! no matter whether to-morrow
    The great Father shall give us a clouded sky or a clear day.