THINGS THOUGHTFUL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 78, 3 July 1943, Page 6

THINGS THOUGHTFUL

FOLLOWING AN IDEAL I am better for having an ideal and following it, though I shall never catch it up.—Baring Gould. HELPING THINGS TO TURN UP Things cannot be expected to turn up of themselves. We must in a measure assist them to turn up. —Charles Dickens. NATURAL TALENTS Talents are bestowed by nature impartially, regardless of the receiver’s pedigree.—Frederick the Great. WHEN A KINDNESS IS BESTOWED The man who confers a kindness should be silent concerning it; he who receives it should proclaim it. —Seneca. GOD IN NATURE Behind the cloud the starlight lurks, Through showers the sunbeams fall; For God, Who loveth all His works, Has left His hope with all. —Whittier. FIRM-WILLED He who is firm in will moulds the world to himself.—Goethe. HUMANITY Humanity is life’s trustee for any further progress that is to be made in the future.—Julian Huxley. MEN’S JUDGMENTS Men’s judgments are A parcel of their fortunes; and things outward Do draw the inward quality after them. —Shakespeare. SWEET, BE NOT PROUD Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies; Nor be you proud that you can see All hearts your captives, yours yet free; Be you not proud of that rich hair Which wantons with the love-sick air; When as that ruby which you wear, Sunk from the tip of your soft ear, Will last to be a precious stone When all your world of beauty’s gone. —Robert Herrick. • LOVE YOUR ADVERSARY To hate your adversary will not help you; to kill him will not help you; nothing in the compass of the universe can help you but to love him.—Orville Denney. CHARACTER BUILDING Each is building his own world. We both build from within and we attract from without. Thought is the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces. Like builds like, and like attracts like. In the degree that thought is spiritualised does it become more subtle and powerful in its working.—R. W. Trine. OUR PRIMAL DUTIES The primal duties shine aloft like stars; The charities that soothe and heal and bless Are scattered at the feet of men like flowers.—Wordsworth. THE SUN OF FRIENDSHIP. The lightsome countenance of a friend giveth such an inward decking to the house where it lodgeth, as that proudest palaces have cause to envy the gilding.—Sir Philip Sidney. THE SHELTER OF FRIENDSHIP What is the best a friend can be To any soul, to you or me? Not only shelter, comfort, rest— Inmost refreshment unexpressed; Not only a beloved guide To tread life’s labyrinth at our side, Or with love’s touch lead on before: Though these be much, there yet is more.—L. Larcom. AT HEAVEN’S GATE WITH THE LARK We make the light through which we see The light, and make the dark; To hear the larks sing, we must be At heaven’s gate with the lark. —A. Cary. HUMAN IMPROVEMENT Every advanced life, every life of sickness or misfortune, affords materials for virtuous feelings. In a word, I am persuaded that there is no state whatever of Christian trial, varied and various as it is, in which there will not be found matter and room for improvement; in which a true Christian will not be incessantly striving, month by month’ and year by year, through divine help, to grow sensibly better and better; and in which his endeavours, if sincere, and assisted by God’s grace, will not be rewarded with success.—Paley. GRACE IN WOMEN Grace in women has more effect than beauty. We sometimes see a certain fine self-possession, an habitual voluptuousness of character, which reposes on its own sensations, and derives pleasure from all round it, that is more irresistible than any other attraction. There is an air of languid enjoyment in such persons “in their eyes, in their arms and their hands and their face” which robs us of ourselves, and draws us by a secret sympathy towards them. Their minds are a shrine where pleasure reposes. Their smile diffuses a sensation like the breath of spring.—Hazlitt. OF HUMILIATION Repent, forsooth, of swaggering at your inn •With drunken homage to a dimpled chin— Repentant lips and hearts on mischief bent— Grant, Lord, of such repentance we repent.—From the Persian. IN THE TIDEWAY Though wrong may win, its victory is brief. The tides of good at first no passage find; Each surge breaks, shattered, on the sullen reef— Yet still the infinite ocean comes behind!—Priscilla Leonard. HAVE PATIENCE Days change so many things—yes, hours— We see so differenty in suns and showers: Mistaken words to-night May be so cherished by to-morrow’s light! We may be patient, for we know There’s such a little way to go. —George Klingle. THE WATCHER’S PRAYER As Thou has found me ready to Thy call, Which stationed me to watch the outer wall, And, quittir joys and hopes that once were mine, To pace with patient steps the narrow line, O may it be that, coming soon or late, Thou still shalt find Thy soldier at the gate. Who then may follow Thee till sight needs not to prove, And faith shall be dissolved in knowledge of Thy love. THE LOWEST THING National hatred is a curious thing. You will always find it strongest and most passionate on the lowest level of civilisation. There is a stage where it disappears altogether, where, in a sense, we rise above the nations, and feel the joys and sorrows of a neighbouring people as though they had come to our own.—Goethe. •