How awful is the thought of the wonders underground, Of the mystic changes wrought in the silent, dark profound! How each thing upward tends by necessity decreed, And the world's support depends on the shooting of a seed! The summer's in her ark, and this sunny-pinioned day Is commissioned to remark whether Winter holds her sway: Go back, thou dove of peace, with myrtle on thy wing, Say that floods and tempests cease, and the world is ripe for Spring. --Horace Smith. I should never have made my success in life if I had not bestowed upon the least thing I have ever undertaken the same attention and care that I have bestowed upon the greatest. --Charles Dickens. Gather up the broken pieces which remain over, that nothing be lost. --John 6. 12. Loving Father, cause me to learn from nature that to have perfection I must be attentive at the beginning of growth. Help me to select with care the soil wherein I plant; and to weed and cultivate my life that it may grow to beauty and usefulness. Amen. MARCH TWENTY-SIXTH Konrad von Gesner born 1516. W. E. H. Lecky born 1838. Gustave Guillaumet born 1840. Walt Whitman died 1892. Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him, but a day comes when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun. --Ralph Waldo Emerson. He that is unacquainted with the nature of the world must be at a loss to know where he is. And he that cannot tell the ends he was made for is ignorant both of himself and the world too. --Marcus Aurelius. Give diligence to present thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, handling aright the word of truth. --2 Timothy 2. 15. Almighty God, may I not only approve of justice and kindness, but practice it. Grant that I may be attentive to the call of work and steadfast in completing it. May I be sincere to those who are dear to me, and never falter in my support to those who are dependent upon me. Amen. MARCH TWENTY-SEVENTH Alfred Vigny born 1799. General A. W. Greely born 1847. Sir Gilbert Scott died 1878. It takes great strength to bring your life up square With your accepted thought and hold it there: Resisting the inertia that drags it back From new attempts, to the old habit's track. It is so easy to drift back, to sink. So hard to live abreast of what you think. --Charlotte Perkins Stetson. If a person had delivered up your body to anyone whom he met in his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivering up your own mind to be disconcerted and confounded by anyone who happens to give you ill language. --Epictetus. Wherefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. --Acts 26. 19.