Daily Strength for Daily Needs | Page 6

in my soul and heaven in my eye... I rejoice in being
exactly what I am,--a creature capable of loving God, and who, as long as God lives,
must be happy. I get up and look for a while out of the window, and gaze at the moon and
stars, the work of an Almighty hand. I think of the grandeur of the universe, and then sit
down, and think myself one of the happiest beings in it.
A POOR METHODIST WOMAN, 18TH CENTURY.

January 20
_The Lord taketh pleasure In His people: He will beautify the meek with salvation_.--PS.
cxlix. 4.
Long listening to Thy words, My voice shall catch Thy tone, And, locked in Thine, my
hand shall grow All loving like Thy own.
B. T.
It is not in words explicable, with what divine lines and lights the exercise of godliness
and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenance, neither to what
darkness their departure will consign the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise
of which, even momentarily, will not impress a new fairness upon the features; neither on
them only, but on the whole body the moral and intellectual faculties have operation, for
all the movements and gestures, however slight, are different in their modes according to
the mind that governs them--and on the gentleness and decision of right feeling follows
grace of actions, and, through continuance of this, grace of form.
J. RUSKIN.
There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and
not pain around us.
R. W. EMERSON.

January 21
_Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as
eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint_.--ISA. xl. 30,

31.
Lord, with what courage and delight I do each thing, When Thy least breath sustains my
wing! I shine and move Like those above, And, with much gladness Quitting sadness,
Make me fair days of every night.
H. VAUGHAN.
Man, by living wholly in submission to the Divine Influence, becomes surrounded with,
and creates for himself, internal pleasures infinitely greater than any he can otherwise
attain to--a state of heavenly Beatitude.
J. P. GREAVES.
By persisting in a habit of self-denial, we shall, beyond what I can express, increase the
inward powers of the mind, and shall produce that cheerfulness and greatness of spirit as
will fit us for all good purposes; and shall not have lost pleasure, but changed it; the soul
being then filled with its own intrinsic pleasures.
HENRY MORE.

January 22
Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord.--HOSEA vi. 3.
And, as the path of duty is made plain, May grace be given that I may walk therein, Not
like the hireling, for his selfish gain, With backward glances and reluctant tread, Making
a merit of his coward dread,-- But, cheerful, in the light around me thrown, Walking as
one to pleasant service led; Doing God's will as if it were my own, Yet trusting not in
mine, but in His strength alone!
J. G. WHITTIER.
It is by doing our duty that we learn to do it. So long as men dispute whether or no a thing
is their duty, they get never the nearer. Let them set ever so weakly about doing it, and
the face of things alters. They find in themselves strength which they knew not of.
Difficulties which it seemed to them they could not get over, disappear. For He
accompanies it with the influences of His blessed Spirit, and each performance opens our
minds for larger influxes of His grace, and places them in communion with Him.
E. B. PUSEY.
That which is called considering what is our duty in a particular case, is very often
nothing but endeavoring to explain it away.
JOSEPH BUTLER.

January 23
_If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light
rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday; and the Lord shall guide thee
continually_.--ISA. lviii. 10, 11.
If thou hast Yesterday thy duty done, And thereby cleared firm footing for To-day,
Whatever clouds make dark To-morrow's sun, Thou shall not miss thy solitary way.
J. W. VON GOETHE.
O Lord, who art our Guide even unto death, grant us, I pray Thee, grace to follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest. In little daily duties to which Thou callest us, bow down our
wills to simple obedience, patience under pain or provocation, strict truthfulness of word
and manner, humility, kindness; in great acts of duty or perfection,