'Tis the mind that makes the body rich,
And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,
So honor peereth in the meanest habit.
What, is the jay more precious than the lark,
Because his feathers are more beautiful?
Or is the adder better than the eel,
Because his painted skin contents the eye?
Shakespeare.
In this world of mingled good and evil, amid the ceaseless struggle of the better with the worse, grant unto us our Father, the cheerful assurance that we are enlisted in the service of the good, bound for the better, and destined for the best. Reveal to us each day some task that we can do for Thee, some chance to bear with Christ the burden of another, some call to take the side of the right against the wrong. Help us to conquer hardship by patience, despair by hope, fear by courage, and hate by love; and may we find the peace, the power, the glory of Thy perfect will and Thy great kingdom reflected and reproduced in our hearts and lives. Amen.
December 15
Call him not old, whose visionary brain
Holds o'er the past its undivided reign,
For him in vain the envious seasons roll
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
If yet the minstrel's song, the poet's lay,
Spring with her birds, or children at their play,
Or maiden's smile, or heavenly dream of art,
Stir the few life-drops creeping round his heart,
Turn to the record where his years are told,—
Count his gray hairs,—they cannot make him old!
Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Thou infinite Spirit of Life, in Thy sight, there is no old age. The step may grow feeble, the hair may whiten, the eye may grow dim, but each human soul is still Thy child. We gather about the tables of earth, families of children, some older, some younger, but all young in Thy sight. We pause for a moment this morning to pray for the spirit of youth. Let us cherish the power of hoping and of believing. Let us have that fine quality of the child life which keeps it facing the future with glad expectancy. Let us not give over our toils till we must. Let us not relinquish our interest in life till the evening shadows fall, and even at the last, let us lie down like the child who sleeps with his hand in the hand of his mother. Amen.
December 16