This is how the busy blacksmith spends his life—toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing. Every morning he begins some fresh task and he works so hard that by evening he has finished it. He has attempted something and he has completed something—surely he has well earned his night's rest.
We may all learn a useful lesson from the life of the village blacksmith. Let us try to live as honestly, as uprightly, and as laboriously as he, so that one day we may deserve to hear the words, "Well done, My good and faithful servants!" Let us try so to live that each action of our lives shall be a good and shapely thing, a help and a benefit to others, like the horseshoes made by the honest blacksmith are to our four-footed friends.
Golden Legend
he land of Germany has always been famous for its store of wonderful songs and legends. Its poets of olden days, who were known as the Minnesinger, used to wander round the country singing or reciting these tales and everywhere they went they were sure of a warm welcome. The "Golden Legend" is one of these old stories, and runs as follows:
Lucifer, who was once one of the good angels, had been cast out of Heaven for the sin of pride. He gathered all the spirits of evil around him and made himself their leader. His one desire now was to do harm to all mankind and, by putting wicked thoughts into men's minds, make them themselves do evil so that he might grieve the good angels and thus take revenge for the punishment which had been inflicted on him.