There’s a Land, a Dear Land

This magnificent song has long been popular in England.  It was sung by Adelina Patti[1], and Madame Albani, and later by Melba and other famous singers.

There’s a land, a dear land, where the rights of the free,

Though firm as the earth are wide as the sea;

Where the primroses bloom, and the nightingales sing,

And the honest poor man is as good as a king.

Show’ry, flow’ry!  Cheerful, tearful!

England, wave-guarded, and green, to the shore!

West land!  Best land!  Thy land; My land!

Glory be with her and peace evermore.

There’s a land, a dear land, where our vigor of soul

Is fed by the tempests that blow from the pole;

Where the people love peace, but at sound of the drum,

A myriad of soldiers and heroes become.

Sea-land!  Free-land!  Fairest!  Rarest!

Home of the brave men and the maids they adore.

Fearless!  Peerless!  Thy land! My land!

Glory be with her and peace evermore.

- Charles Mackay[2]

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[1] Adelina Juana Maria Patti was born to a Sicilian father and Italian mother in 1843 in Madrid. She was the fourth of six children and the family was relatively poor. Her parents were both involved in opera and they moved to New York in 1847, where there were better employment opportunities for a show business family. She made her first appearance on the stage at the age of seven. In 1859, at the age of sixteen, she made her operatic debut as Donizetti’s Lucia and her vocal range, bell-like clarity and professionalism won her critical acclaim. She was soon being offered leading soprano roles. The large Italian community in American cities helped to elevate her to star status in just a few short years.         

In 1861, at the age of eighteen, Adelina was invited to Covent Garden in London to take the soprano role of Amina in Bellini’s La Sonnambula. She bought a house in Clapham, South of London. In 1862 she sang Home Sweet Home at the White House for Abraham and Mary Lincoln who were in mourning for their son Willie, who had recently died. The Lincolns were moved to tears and requested an encore. The song became associated with her and she performed it many times by popular request.

She toured as far as Leningrad and Buenos Aires but continued to make Europe her base, marrying the Marquis de Caux, Equerry to Napoleon the third of France in 1868. In the same year she sang at Rossini’s funeral in Paris. Ten years later she bought Craig-y-Nos, a large early Victorian house and surrounding park beside the river Tawe near Abercrave in South Wales. There she took up residence, not with her husband, but with the tenor Ernesto Nicolini with whom she had been touring. In 1886 she obtained her divorce and married Ernesto. By the 1890s Adelina Patti was one of the most famous women in the world and certainly one of the highest paid. She was one of the first “international superstars.” (Source: opera-singer.co.uk)       

[2] Charles Mackay, the son of a navy lieutenant, was born in Scotland in 1814. His mother died when he was young and so he was brought up by foster parents. At the age of sixteen he was employed as the private secretary to William Cockerill, an ironmaster based in Belgium. In his spare-time he wrote articles for the local newspaper.

Mackay returned to Britain in 1832 and for the next three years contributed to several newspapers. In 1835 he obtained his first permanent post in journalism when he was appointed as an assistant to George Hogarth, the sub-editor of the Morning Chronicle. Other journalists working for the newspaper at the time included Charles Dickens and William Hazlitt. Mackay eventually was promoted to the post of assistant editor.

In 1844 Mackay left the Morning Chronicle and became editor of the Glasgow Argus. While in Scotland he also contributed articles and poetry to the Daily News, a newspaper established by Charles Dickens in 1846. After four years in Glasgow, Mackay returned to London and joined the staff of the London Illustrated News, the successful journal owned by Herbert Ingram.

In 1849 Henry Mayhew suggested to John Douglas Cook, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, that the newspaper should carry out an investigation into the condition of the labouring classes in England and Wales. Cook agreed and recruited Mackay, Angus Reach and Shirley Brooks to help Mayhew collect the material. Mackay was given the task of surveying the situation in Liverpool and Birmingham.

Mackay’s poetry was not collected together until the title Voices from the Crowd. Some of his poems were set to music by his friend Henry Russell. These were very successful and one songsheet, The Good Time Coming, sold over 400,000 copies. Mackay published his two volume autobiography, Forty Years Recollections and Through the Long Day two years before his death in 1889.  (Source: Spartacus Educational - spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk)

The Looker Ahead

(By J. G. Holland)[1]

The wheels of progress do not stop.  The world advances toward and into a better life, and will advance, until, leaving the hard, clumsy and jarring pavements of the marts of selfishness behind, it will strike off joyously into the broad avenue of the millennium.  No man can be a true worker for human good who does not believe that the cobblestone pavement has an end.  He believes that the time is coming when what he is doing, and has done, will be accepted at its true value.  He may be laughed at now; he may be scoffed at and scorned; his motives may be maligned; he may be hammered by opposition and barked by popular clamor; but he knows that sometime in the future it will be his turn to laugh, and he is confident that he will laugh last and best.

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[1] Josiah Gilbert Holland was born in 1819. His family was of the oldest Puritan stock.  During a considerable part of his childhood the family, pursued by misfortune, led a sort of roving life, as the unprosperous father was able to find work. The promising son, Josiah, had little chance for learning, getting but a few months in the public schools in winter. At length, while the family lived at Northampton, Massachusetts, Josiah entered high school, where he pursued his studies with great eagerness and ability. Later, he taught penmanship from town to town, and used to recite his own poems to his intimate friends. He tried daguerreotypy and district school teaching.

Finding it impossible to obtain a classical education, Holland decided to study medicine. In 1844 he was graduated at the Berkshire Medical College with honor. In 1845 Doctor Holland formed a partnership with his classmate, Doctor Bailey, and commenced his medical practice at Springfield, Massachusetts. In the same year he married Miss Elizabeth Chapin, of Springfield. His married life was one of unusual happiness.

After some time in medical practice, Holland decided he did not like it. Attracted to journalism, he started the Bay State Weekly Courier at Springfield, but it survived only for six months. He relocated to Richmond, Virginia, where he taught. In 1849 he returned to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he became assistant editor of the Republican. With tireless energy and research, he gathered local and general matter for his paper. His work made a difference, and he began to succeed as a journalist.  His writing ranged from poems and proverbs to advice and history. His Life of Abraham Lincoln, written the year Lincoln was assassinated, was sold by subscription and was immensely popular. He began authoring novels as well.  The climax of his fame and popular success as an author of books was attained in 1868, when Katrina appeared. In addition to his other literary labors he was one of the most popular of American lecturers.

In 1868 Josiah went to Europe, where he remained two years. While there, he proposed to his friend Roswell Smith the founding of Scribner’s Monthly, which became one of the most important magazines of its day. All this success allowed him a comfortable lifestyle; he had his home in New York and a beautiful country place in the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence, and was able to pass the closing hours of his life in thorough enjoyment of the world. He died in 1881. (Source: 2020site.org)

A Life of Peace

To have known one good old man—one man, who, through the chances and mischances of a long life, has carried his heart in his hand, like a palm branch, waving all discords into peace—helps our faith in God, in ourselves, and in each other, more than many sermons.

-       G. W. Curtis[1]

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[1] George William Curtis was born in Providence in 1824.  His mother died when he was two. At six he was sent with his elder brother to school in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, where he remained for five years. Then, his father having again married happily, the boys were brought home to Providence, where they stayed til, in around 1839, their father moved to New York. Three years later, Curtis, given his independence, and being in sympathy with the spirit of the so-called Transcendental movement, became a boarder at the community of Brook Farm. He remained there for two years, and met many interesting men and women. Then came two years, passed partly in New York, partly in Concord in order mainly to be in the friendly neighborhood of Emerson, and then followed four years spent in Europe, Egypt and Syria.

Curtis returned from Europe in 1850, attractive, accomplished, and ambitious for literary distinction. He settled on Staten Island and instantly plunged into the whirl of life in New York, obtained a post on the Tribune, became a popular lecturer, started work on Nile Notes of a Howadji (1851), and became a favorite in society. He wrote for Putnam’s Magazine, of which he was George Palmer Putnam’s associate editor; and a number of volumes, composed of essays written for that publication and for Harper’s Monthly, came in rapid succession from his pen.  In 1855 he married Anna Shaw, daughter of abolitionist Francis Shaw and brother of Robert Gould Shaw of the famed 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.

In the period just preceding the Civil War, other interests became subordinate to those of national concern. He was involved in the founding of the Republican Party, and made his first important speech on the questions of the day at Wesleyan University in 1856; he engaged actively in John C. Fremont’s presidential campaign of that year and was soon recognized not only as an effective public speaker, but also as one of the ablest, most high-minded, and most trustworthy leaders of public opinion.

In 1863 he became the political editor of Harper’s Weekly, which was highly influential in shaping public opinion. Curtis’s writing was always clear and direct, displaying fairness of mind and good temper. He had high moral standards. From month to month he contributed to Harper’s Monthly, under the title of "The Easy Chair," brief essays on topics of social and literary interest, charming in style, touched with delicate humour and instinct with generous spirit.

In 1871 he was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to chair the commission on the reform of the civil service. Its report was the foundation of every effort since made for the purification and regulation of the service and for the destruction of political patronage. From that time Curtis was the leader in this reform, and its progress is mainly due to him. In 1884 he refused to support James G Blaine as candidate for the presidency, and thus broke with the Republican party, of which he had been a founder and leader. From that time he stood as the typical independent in politics. He passed away in August of 1892. (Source: Wikipedia)

Did You?

Did you give him a lift?  He’s a brother of man,

And bearing about all the burdens he can.

Did you give him a smile?  He was downcast and blue,

And the smile would have helped him to battle it through.

Did you give him your hand?  He was slipping downhill.

And the world, so he fancied, was using him ill.

Did you give him a word?  Did you show him the road,

Or did you just let him go on with his load?

Don’t you know it’s the part of a brother of man

To find what the grief is and help when you can?

Did you stop when he asked you, to give him a lift

Or were you so busy you left him to shift?

Oh, I know what you meant—what you say may be true—

But the test of your manhood is—What did you do?

Did you reach out your hand?  Did you find him the road,

Or did you just let him go by with his load?

Keep Your Vision

To each of us is vouchsafed at some time of our life, the vision of ourselves as we would wish to be, and as God wants us to be.

It is He who has raised that possibility into our minds, and it should be our earnest endeavor, when we have once received this vision, to make it more and more beautiful, and to live up to it by every act of our daily life.

The power of a noble, uplifting ideal in one’s life is immense: It cannot be measured.  It will mould us to all that is beautiful and true; It will make our life supremely satisfying, but we must keep true to that ideal, we must never lower it by thought, word, or action, for if we do we have damaged the highest part of ourselves.  Knowing this, how earnestly shall we henceforth take all care that our ideal shall be the most beautiful we can imagine, and that each day we find time to sit still and make that vision more beautiful, laying it at God’s feet that He may bless and purify it.  Thus our life will become noble, lovely, true; for we shall ever have beckoning us unto greater heights still, the vision of the bright beautiful selves we shall yet attain to.

-       Mary Yeates

Wishing

Do you wish the world were better?

Let me tell you what to do.

Set a watch upon your actions,

Keep them always straight and true.

Rid you mind of selfish motives,

Let your thought be clean and high;

You can make a little Eden

Of the sphere you occupy.

Do you wish the world were wiser?

Well, suppose you make a start

By accumulating wisdom

In the scrapbook of your heart.

Do not waste one page on folly,

Live to learn and learn to live;

If you want to give men knowledge

You must get it ere you give.

Do you wish the world were happy?

Then remember day by day

Just to scatter seeds of kindness

As you pass along the way

For the pleasures of the many

May be ofttimes traced to one,

As the hand that plants the acorn

Shelters many from the sun.

-       Selected

Life’s Balance Sheet

If when the joyous day is gone,

I count the deeds that I have done,

And find one act, though small—

A loving word, a song, a smile—

That did some gladdened heart beguile,

Or to a soul recall

The sunlight of the Father’s love,

Then I will thank my God above.

If when the weary day is gone,

I count the deeds that I have done,

And find one act, though small—

A thoughtless word, a look of scorn,

That made a brother more forlorn,

Or caused his feet to fall,

Then I will pray my God above,

For more and more of His Pure love.

And when life’s toilsome journey’s done,

Its deeds complete, its songs all sung,

If I can truly say,

With heart and voice I did my best—

To point the Father’s Heavenly rest

To all who will obey;

Then I will praise my God above

And ever dwell in His pure love.

My Task

To probe my depths of soul and curb my will,

To yield me to my elders and be still,

To fairly play my part—

And strive when falls my heart—

This is my task!

To curb my tongue, set on my lips a seal,

To keep within my soul the things I feel,

To gentle be—not curt—

And smile away all hurt—

This is my task!

To forget my wrong, think of the pain I give,

To generous be and free from envy live,

To lift up those who fall

And kindly deal with all—

This is my task!

To love all men, yet hold no one too dear,

To keep my faith when injuries appear,

And none to loudly laud

But live my trust to God—

This is my task!

To make this world through love a bit more glad,

To give myself in service for the sad,

To lighten doubts and fears

And learn to dry the tears—

This is my task!

To live these things above with all my might,

To face success and failure every night,

To bravely then repair

And smile against despair—

This is my task!

To love my Christ more dearly every day,

To let Him guide my steps along the way,

To smile when evening falls

And answer when He calls—

This is my task!

-       Vera Madeline Crider

The Call to Action

The test of life is action.  The reason why some fail where and when others succeed is because some go forward to new and untried experiments in the art of living, while others—those who do not succeed—stay inside their customary limits.

In these prophetic days there have been some startling revelations.  Men and women who have never done anything, and did not suppose they could do anything that was not habitual and commonplace, have been startled into activity and surprised into successful enterprise.  When all the world was in motion they were compelled to move, and when their one talent was demanded they threw it into the common treasury, and lo! It became two.

The Rubicon

(Written in 1908)

One other bitter drop to drink,

And then—no more!

One little pause upon the brink

And then—go o’er!

One sigh, and then the vibrant morn

Of perfect day

When my free spirit, newly born,

Will soar away!

One pang and I shall rend the thrall

Where grief abides,

And generous Death will show me all

That he now hides;

And lucid in that second birth,

I shall discern

What all the sages of the earth

Have died to learn.

One motion and the stream is crost,

So dark, so deep!

And I shall triumph, or be lost

In endless sleep,

Then onward!  Whatsoe’er my fate,

I shall not care!

Nor Sin, nor Sorrow, Love nor Hate

Can touch me there.[1]

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[1] This poem, untitled and unattributed in the clipping is “The Rubicon” by William Winter. Winter was born on July 15, 1836 in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Winter graduated from Harvard Law School in 1857.

Winter wore many literary hats during his long, illustrious career: theater critic, biographer, poet, essayist, among them. He is known for his Romantic-style poetry, and for his long career as an editor and writer for some of New York City's great papers. He was a tour de force in the original Bohemian scene of Greenwich Village, going on to become one of the most influential men of letters of the last half of the 19th century and the pre-eminent drama critic and biographer of the times. In 1860 Winter married Scottish poet and novelist Elizabeth Campbell, raising their five children in Staten Island, New York.

Winter went on to a stellar writing and editorial career at some of New York City's most influential papers, working as a dramatic and literary critic for the Albion and Harper’s Weekly, as well as Horace Greeley’s Tribune for more than 40 years. His piercing wit and brilliant writing made him the leading stage historian and theater critic of the 19th century.

In the 1880s he began publishing biographies of thespians like the Jefferson family and Edwin Booth. Winter opposed the modernist theater of playwrights like Ibsen, and maintained that drama should be a moral force. 

Winter died in New Brighton, Staten Island on June 30, 1917 after a bout of angina pectoris. He was buried at Silver Mount Cemetery (Wikipedia).

Jesus is near

It is a commonplace thought, and yet it tastes like nectar to the weary heart—Jesus was tempted as I am.  You have heard that truth many times; have you grasped it?  He was tempted to the very same sins into which we fall.

Do not dissociate Jesus from our common manhood.  It is a dark room which you are going through, but Jesus went through it before.  It is a sharp fight which you are waging, but Jesus has stood foot to foot with the same enemy.  Let us be of good cheer, Christ has borne the load before us, and the blood-stained footsteps of the King of glory may be seen along the road which we traverse at this hour.  Fears are needless, for Christ is with us, armed for our defense.

Perhaps we are tempted just now in order to drive us nearer to Him.  Blessed be any wind that blows us into the port of our Saviour’s love!  Ye tempted ones, come to your tempted Saviour, for He can be touched with a feeling of your infirmities, and will succor every tried and tempted one.

-       Spurgeon[1]

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[1] The most widely popular of English preachers in the nineteenth century was without question, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England in 1834. Both his father and grandfather being pastors, young Spurgeon was raised in the knowledge and understanding of the Christian gospel, but it was not until a stormy January night in 1850 that he was converted. In August of the same year, Spurgeon preached his first sermon to a small gathering of farmers.

A year later he was called to pastor a village church; in 1854, in his nineteenth year, he was installed as shepherd over the flock of the New Park Street Chapel, Southwark, London, later to become the Metropolitan Tabernacle. In 1855 Spurgeon published his first sermon; his last was not published until 1916, 24 years after his death. During his pastorate at London, Spurgeon ministered to a congregation of almost 6,000 people each Sunday, published his sermons weekly, wrote a monthly magazine, and founded a college for pastors, two orphanages, an old-folks home, a colportage society, and several mission stations.

His body wracked by pain in the later years, and his ministry attacked by his opponents, Spurgeon continued to preach the gospel until his death in 1892. (Source: C. H. Spurgeon: an audio archive – mountzion.org)

Christ’s Companionship in Sorrow

Do not keep this sacred thought of Christ’s companionship in sorrow for the larger trials of life.  If the mote in the eye be large enough to annoy you, it is large enough to bring out His sympathy; and if the grief be too small for Him to compassionate and share, it is too small for you to be troubled by it.

If you are ashamed to apply that divine thought, “Christ bears this grief with me,” to those petty molehills that you magnify into mountains sometimes, think to yourself that then it is a shame for you to be stumbling over them.  But, on the other hand, never fear to be irreverent or too familiar in the thought that Christ is willing to bear, and help you to bear, the pettiest, the minutest, and most insignificant of the daily annoyances that may come to ruffle you.  He will do more, he will bear it with you, for if so be that we may suffer with Him, He suffers with us.

-       Alexander MacLaren[1]

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[1] Alexander MacLaren was a Baptist minister. Born in Glasgow in 1826 to Baptist parents, he was baptized in 1840 and trained at Stepney College. He died in 1910. Ian Sellers,  in the New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, describes his life:

He ministered successfully at Portland Chapel, Southampton (1846-58), and Union Chapel, Manchester (1858-1903), where he acquired the reputation of “the prince of expository preachers.” His sermons drew vast congregations and his methods of subdivision and analogies drawn from nature and life have been widely imitated ever since. In the pulpit he expounded evangelical certainties, yet his writings and private conversations show him prepared to accept a critical position. His attitudes are thus ambiguous, though Spurgeon excepted him from the ‘Downgraders.’ MacLaren was twice president of the Baptist Union and chairman of its Twentieth Century Fund and the first president of the Baptist World Alliance (1905). He strove unsuccessfully to unite the Baptist and Congregational denominations, but saw the establishment of many “Union” churches at a local level.

Keep Smiling

Keep smiling and hope on,

These are my watchwords true;

I’ve found them pay and so today,

I pass them on to you.

Of war I know we’re sick,

But still unto the dawn

Of peace and Right we’ve got to fight,

Keep smiling and hope on.

Keep smiling and hope on.

Let not your courage shrink;

It’s better far, where’er you are,

To say you’re in the pink.

Just think of what we owe

Our comrades who have gone;

And, till the test has given us best,

Keep smiling and hope on.

Contagion of Character

In some measure, and perhaps in a much larger measure than we conceive, we are all the setters of moral and spiritual fashions.  We speak of the force of example, but perhaps the force is far deeper, and far more subtle and energetic, than we commonly believe.  It is more than probable that the emanations of character are like a secret army which cannot be stayed.  The insincere man emits perverting energies which tend to make society crooked.  His insincerity works to make everybody insincere.  He is the secret ally of our worst selves.

But, blessed be God, the converse of this is true.  One absolutely sincere man in any company tends to make everybody true.  His views are vital and vitalizing.  He may be the most silent member in the fellowship, but his very presence is a second conscience to the entire circle.  His spiritual emanations form an alliance with all that is honorable and inspiring in our own lives.  His contagion is the contagion of health.

The Ledger of Heaven

O, the wonderful ledger the angels keep!

And the watchful eyelids that never sleep,

And the tireless penmen that watch and weep

Over the words they write!

How oft are the hearts of the angels pained,

And how oft are the pages soiled and stained!

How much is lost and how little gained

In struggling for the right!

‘Tis thus I mused, in the twilight gray,

In the deep’ning gloom at the close of day,

Ere I rev’rently knelt by my couch to pray,

And laid me down to rest.

And I dreamed that a glorious angel fair

Had borne me away through the boundless air,

To the pearly gates of that city where

Dwelt the good and blest.

O, the peace I felt, as my mortal tongue

Joined in the songs that the seraphs sung,

As back were the massive portals flung

At the touch of the angel’s hand!

We stood on the banks of the river wide,

Which flows from the throne in a crystal tide,

And I safely followed my shining guide

Over that blissful land.

Still on through the ambient air we sped,

Till he laid his hand on my trembling head;

“Behold the ledger of heaven,” he said,

And quick on my wond’ring view

There seemed to flash, like a ray of light,

The mystic pen of an angel bright,

As he wrote in the ledger pure and white

The record of life—so true!

And every deed of my life was there—

The careless word and the honest prayer;

And some of the pages were white and fair,

And others were soiled with sin.

And the thoughts of my heart that were long concealed

Were written down and all revealed.

And, O, how I wished that the book were sealed,

And the record were hid within!

And my cheek was crimson as, one by one,

I read the record of deeds I’d done,

And of victories lost that I might have won,

In the hour of mortal strife,

And of gentle words that I might have said;

But, ah! There were hasty words instead;

And now were the golden moments fled,

And mine was a misspent life!

“O, had I but known!” in my grief I cried,

And weeping turned to the angel’s side.

“I bring thee hope,” said the angel guide,

“Thy Saviour has prayed for thee;

And thou shalt return to the earth again,

And dwell once more ‘mong the sons of men.

But, O, remember the angel’s pen!

Ah! What shall thy record be?”

With tears of joy at length I woke,

And rose from my couch, for the morn had broke.

“The Lord be praised!” were the words I spoke,

“For the beautiful lesson given.

I will guard my lips with a jealous care,

I will keep my heart from the tempter’s snare,

Lest sin be found on the pages fair

Of the record book of heaven.”

My soul, how oft have the angels wept

Over the shameful record kept,

While the daughters of Zion have idly slept,

Nor dreamed of their fearful doom!

O, haste, for the moments are passing fast,

Ere the summer is ended, the harvest past,

And the ledger of heaven is read at last,

And the King of kings shall come!

            - Mrs. L. D. Avery-Smith

Contentment

If it be my lot to crawl, I will crawl contentedly; if to fly, I will fly with alacrity, but as long as I can avoid it, I will never be unhappy.

-       Sydney Smith[1]

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[1]William Sidney Smith (1764-1840) was an individualist with a flair for guerrilla warfare. He was frigate captain at the start of the French Revolutionary War and in 1795 was captured on the coast of France during a cutting-out expedition and imprisoned in Paris until early 1798, largely because the French thought he was also engaged in espionage: at this he was also accomplished, aided by his fluent French. He was then sent to the Mediterranean where he clashed with both Nelson and Lord Keith, neither of whom appreciated his high-handed independence and failure to consult. He nonetheless won fame in supporting a Turkish force that repulsed Napoleon’s siege of Acre in 1799, ending his march north from Egypt on Syria. However, after Napoleon’s escape to France, a subsequent convention he made with the French at El Arish in 1800 to evacuate Egypt was repudiated by the British government. The French were subsequently defeated in 1801 at Aboukir by Abercromby, an action in which Smith assisted in the British landings.

Smith was too much of a maverick to be greatly appreciated by the Navy, even though he was a popular hero. He continued to be employed in unusual tasks until 1814: a blockade of the Dutch coast in 1803-04; an early but unsuccessful use of rockets against Boulogne. Originally knighted by the Swedes in the 1792 for (unauthorized) service against the Russians, he was eventually made a British KCB in 1815, and rose to full admiral in 1821 during his long retirement—in Paris, where he is buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery.  (Source: National Maritime Museum – nmm.ac.uk)

Conflict with Duty

Our antagonist is our helper.  This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations.  It will not suffer us to be superficial.

-       Edmund Burke[1]

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[1] Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to Great Britain, served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the Whig party (which he dubbed the “Old Whigs”), in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution “New Whigs,” led by Charles James Fox. Burke also published a philosophical work where he attempted to define emotions and passions, and how they are triggered in a person. Burke worked on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. He is often regarded as the philosophical founder of Anglo-American conservatism.  (Source: Wikipedia)

Memories

Let us forget the things that vexed and tried us,

The worrying things that caused our souls to fret;

The hopes that, cherished long, were still denied us.

Let us forget.

Let us forget the little slights that pained us,

The greater wrongs that rankle sometimes yet;

The pride with which some lofty one disdained us,

Let us forget.

Let us forget our brother’s fault and failing,

The yielding to temptations that beset,

That he, perchance, though grief be unavailing,

Cannot forget.

But blessings manifold, past all deserving,

Kind words and helpful deeds, a countless throng,

The fault o’ercome, the rectitude unswerving,

Let us remember long.

The sacrifice of love, the generous giving,

When friends were few, the handclasp warm and strong,

The fragrance of each life of holy living,

Let us remember long.

Whatever things were good and true and gracious,

Whate’er of right has triumphed over wrong,

What love of God or man has rendered precious,

Let us remember long.

-       Selected

What Have We Done Today?

We shall do so much in the years to come,

But what have we done today?

We shall give our gold in a princely sum,

But what did we give today?

We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,

We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,

We shall speak the words of love and cheer,

But what did we speak today?

We shall be so kind in the after while,

But what have we done today?

We shall bring each lonely life a smile,

But what have we brought today?

We shall give to truth a grander birth,

And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,

We shall feed the hungering souls of earth,

But whom have we fed today?

We shall reap such joy in the by and by,

But what have we sown today?

We shall build us mansions in the sky,

But what have we built today?

‘Tis sweet in idle dreams to bask,

But here and now do we the task?

Yes, this is the thing our souls must ask—

“What have we done today?”

            - Nixon Waterman[1]

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[1] Nixon Waterman was born in Newark, Kendall County, Illinois in 1859. He was a newspaper writer and poet. He was a lecturer in the Chatauqua movement, that program of rural adult education so popular in those days. Nixon rose to prominence in the 1890s. His verse has a homely quality that was popular in its day, but which drew scathing comments from learned reviewers. He died in 1944 in Canton, Massachusetts