THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 14 June 1930, Page 11

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

HOME Horne .is born of the Bible.—P. S. Henson. # • • THE TESTS OF LIFE The tests of life are to make, not break, us.—Aiion. • • • • THE GOODNESS OF GOD God is good, and gives new gladness, •when the old He takes away.—Anon. # # * * THE, BEST ORATOR Where judgment lias wit to express it, there is tilie best orator. —Penn. • • * • ADVERSITY Without £ diversity a. man .hardly knows whether lie is honest og not.— Fielding. • • « • CAN’T BE GOOD The doing evil to avoid ail evil cannot be good.—Coleridge. * * * * ENVY AND EMULATION Envy would hardly bo a vice at all if it led to sturdy emulation. —Anon. * * # * BETTER NOT TO BE ’Tis better not to be than be unhappy.—Drydem^ DISSENSIONS Nothing has driven people more into infidelity and indifference -than fche mutual hatred of Christian congregations. —Edmund Burke. * t* * * HUMILITY Humility, I think, consists in a man’s thinking "the tpuith about himself. — John Wesley. * f* \* * MORALITY A ND CHRISTIANITY 'Morality does, not make a Christian. Yet no man cani be a Christian without it.—Bishop Wils on. ■# .• 0 * RISK NOT, LOSE ALL It is. after all, the person who stakes the least who loses most. In the affections this is wholly true. He who risks nothing, loses everything—W. G. Simms. ....

FORTUNATE FOLK Fortunate are they whose hearts, so tried by suffer? dig, yet recover their health. Some ha ve illnesses from wlncli there is no recovery, and drag through life afterwards, maimed ancl invalided. —Thackeray.’ . * * ...” READING RULES

The three practical rules (for reading) which I Have to offer are: (1) Never read any book which is not a year old; (2) Never read any but famed books; (3) Never read any but what you like.—-Emerson.

GOOD CONVERSATION The marvellous thing about good conversation is that it brings to birth so many half-realised thoughts of our own, besides sowing the seed of innumerable other thought-plants.— David Grayson. •-* * *

DESIRE PEACE Let us make the coming of peace the «rreat desire of our hearts. Let us desire it, because desire is the creative force, the sole creative force throughout the universe. —Anatole France. * * * *

SMALL SERVICE Small service is true service while it Of friends, however humble, scorn not one. The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.—Wordsworth. * * * *

THE HUMAN HEART Thanks to the human heart by which we live, . . Tlianks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give . Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.—William Wordsworth. • * » * TEARS

Some tears belong to us because we are unfortunate; others because we are humane; many, because we are mortal. But most are caused by our being nowise. It is these last only that of necessity produce more.—Leigh Hunt. , . * GOD’S GIFT

We are not here to play, to dream, to We have hard work to do and loads to the struggle—Face it— ! ’tis God’s gift.—Goethe. ♦ * * *

PARLEYING WITH THE ENEMY The perils that'we well might shun We saunter forth to meet; The path into the road of sin We tread with careless feet.

The air that comes instinct with death — We bid it round us flow; And when our hands should bar the We parley with the^foe.— Bright.

WHEN—--0 God of mountains, stars, and boundless spaces! 0 God of freedom and joyous hearts When Thy face looketh forth from all men’s faces, There will be room enough in crowded marts; Brood Thou around me and the noise is o’er ; Thy universe my closet with shut door. —George MacDonald. » * * * PRAYER I try to make prayer the attitude of my mind always. I mean I try to be, and to do, and to think nothing that I could not make a subject of prayer at any time. But I do not think that a direct petition is the only or best way to pray. It seems to me that it is in a certain attitude of mind we find the highest form of prayer, a reverential attitude towards all things good and beautiful, by which wo attain to an inexpressible tenderness, that enemy of evil emotions, and also to rest and peace and a great, deep, solemn joy which is permanent.—Sarah Grand. * * * * ISAIAH 35—METRICAL , PARAPHRASE The wilderness and the solitude; they shall bo glad for those; And e’en the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Abundantly it blossom shall; uplift with joy its voice; Carmel and Lebnon’s glory share; in Sharon’s rose rejoice. The glory of the Lord most high; his matchless excellence; Unveiled these glories they behold in lowly reverence. To weakened hands impart ye strength; the feeble knees confirm; To those of fearful heart say ye “Courage! for naught can harm;” “Be strong! fear not! behold, your God

in judgment shall descend,” “Will save you, make you recompense, be your abiding friend.” In that great day the blind shall see; hearing the deaf be given: The lame shall leap, the dumb have speech, all by the grace of heaven. In wilderness shall waters rise; streams in tlie desert sand; The arid ground become a pool; springs love the thirsty land: In dragon’s lair shall grass grow up; and reeds and rushes green; Through these Elysian fields the way admits of naught unclean: . For a highway shall bo there; its name. “The Way of Holiness;’’ Pilgrims, though fools, direction find, shall ne’er be in distress: No ravenous beast shall go thereon; no lion shall be there; But God’s redeemed shall tread the path that leads to Zion fair: These ransomed shall return with songs; crowned with eternal joy; Gladness their lot for woe and tears shall for ever flee away. —Arthur Gcddcs. t • • • LOVE’S SECRET Never seek to tell thy love, Love that never told can be; For the gentle wind doth move Silently, invisibly. I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears All! she did depart. Soon after she was gone from me, A traveller came by. Silently, invisibly, _ . He took her with a sigh. —William Blake,