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Every day brings a ship,

Every ship brings a word;

Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings

Is the word they wish to hear.

-Emerson.

Would 'st shape a noble life? Then cast
No backward glances toward the past,

And though somewhat be lost and gone,
Yet do thou act as one new-born;

What each day needs, that shalt thou ask, Each day will set its proper task.

-Goethe.

THE FOOL'S PRAYER.

The royal feast was done; the King Sought some new sport to banish care, And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,

Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before;
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the painted grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose: “O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart

From red with wrong to white as wool; The rod must heal the sin: but Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool!

"Tis not by guilt the onward sweep

Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet, still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end; These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust Among the heart-strings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have kept-
Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung?
The word we had not sense to say-
Who knows how grandly it had rung?

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripes must cleanse them all; But for our blunders—oh, in shame Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will; but, Thou, O Lord, Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The King, and sought his gardens cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low,
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

-Edward Rowland Sill.

Beware of despairing about yourself.

-St. Augustine.

The exaltation of talent, as it is called, above virtue and religion, is the curse of the age.

Channing.

Live pure, speak truth, right wrong,

Else wherefore born?

-Tennyson.

No wind serves him who has no destined port.

-Montaigne.

Who is dumb? He who does not know how to say kind things at the proper time.

-Hindu.

"If you would have a happy family life, remember two things,—in matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current."

12

If you were born to honor, show it now:
If put upon you, make the judgment good
That thought you worthy of it.

-Shakespeare.

As in the silence of night the ear catches the least sound, so in the solitude of reflection the mind detects soft and delicate strains of thought, unheard in the bustle of the crowd. -Prentice Mulford.

Our high respect for a well read man is praise enough for literature.

-Emerson.

Let nothing disturb thee;

Nothing affright thee;

All things are passing;

God never changeth.

(Santa Teresa's Book-Mark.)

-Longfellow.

The only hope of preserving what is best, lies in the practice of an immense charity, a wide tolerance, a sincere respect for opinions that are not ours.

-Hamerton.

"They that on glorious ancestry enlarge Produce their debt instead of their discharge."

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