Shall I hold on with both hands to every paltry possession? All I have teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. --Ralph Waldo Emerson. The practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is pitiful but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades. --G.K. Chesterton. Be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren, tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing. --1 Peter 3. 8, 9. God of justice, may I pause to remember that while I may do a mean act and keep it hidden from others, I cannot keep it hidden from myself, nor from thee. Help me to have a nobler sense of the quality of life, and less anxiety for the quantity, that I may avoid harshness and selfishness, and be given to tenderness and justice. Amen. JANUARY ELEVENTH Alexander Hamilton born 1757. Bayard Taylor born 1825. William James born 1842. Alice Caldwell Regan Rice born 1870. The paternal relation to man was the basis of that religion which appealed directly to the heart; so the fraternity of each man with his fellow was its practical application. --Bayard Taylor. It is indeed a remarkable fact that sufferings and hardships do not, as a rule, abate the love of life; they seem on the contrary, usually to give it a keener zest; and the sovereign source of melancholy is repletion. Need and struggle are what excite and inspire. Our hour of triumph is what brings the void. --William James. Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to them that love him. --James 1. 12. Lord God, I come to thee for help that the small things may not force themselves into my life, and keep me from pursuing the larger things which are continually open to me. May I not be blind to what I may have and be, through inspiration and work. Grant that I may not be satisfied to remain in that in which I have triumphed, but climb to greater endeavors. Amen. JANUARY TWELFTH Edmund Burke born 1729. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi born 1746. Francois Coppee born 1842. John S. Sargent born 1856. Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end. The question with me is not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is your interest to make them happy. --Edmund Burke.