This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.

Sir Henry Wotton,

ESSENTIALS

The things here named are essential to a happy and successful life. They may not be the only essentials.

ROLL up your sleeves, lad, and begin;

Disarm misfortune with a grin;

Let discontent not wag your chin—
Let gratitude.

Don't try to find things all askew;
Don't be afraid of what is new;
Nor banish as unsound, untrue,
A platitude.

If folks don't act as you would choose,
Remember life is varied; use

Your common sense; don't get the blues;
Show latitude.

Sing though in quavering sharps and flats,
Love though the folk you love are cats,
Work though you're worn and weary-that's
The attitude.

St. Clair Adams.

THE STONE REJECTED

The story here poetically retold of the great Florentine sculptor shows how much a lofty spirit may make of unpromising material.

'OR years it had been trampled in the street

Of Florence by the drift of heedless feetThe stone that star-touched Michael Angelo Turned to that marble loveliness we know.

You mind the tale-how he was passing by
When the rude marble caught his Jovian eye,
That stone men had dishonored and had thrust
Out to the insult of the wayside dust.
He stooped to lift it from its mean estate,
And bore it on his shoulder to the gate,
Where all day long a hundred hammers rang.
And soon his chisel round the marble sang,
And suddenly the hidden angel shone:
It had been waiting prisoned in the stone.

Thus came the cherub with the laughing face
That long has lighted up an altar-place.

Edwin Markham.

From "The Gates of Paradise, and Other Poems,"
Doubleday, Page & Co.

GOOD DEEDS

The influence of good deeds usually extends far beyond the limits we can see or trace; but as well not have the power to do them as not use it.

OW far that little candle throws his beams!

How far fines a good deed in a naughty world.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do;

Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike

As if we had them not.

William Shakespeare,

YOU MAY COUNT THAT DAY

A class of little settlement girls besought Mrs. George Herbert Palmer, one insufferable summer morning, to tell them how to be happy. "I'll give you three rules," she said, "and you must keep them every day for a week. First, commit something good to memory each day. Three or four words will do, just a pretty bit of poem, or a Bible verse. Do you understand?" A girl jumped up. "I know; you want us to learn something we'd be glad to remember if we went blind." Mrs. Palmer was relieved; these children understood. She gave the three rules-memorize something good each day, see something beautiful each day, do something helpful each day. When the children reported at the end of the week, not a single day had any of them lost. But hard put to it to obey her? Indeed they had been. One girl, kept for twenty-four hours within squalid home-walls by a rain, had nevertheless seen two beautiful things-a sparrow taking bath in the gutter, and a gleam of sunlight on a baby's hair.

sun

IF you sit down at set of you have done,

And, counting, find

One self-denying deed, one word
That eased the heart of him who heard-
One glance most kind,

That fell like sunshine where it went—
Then you may count that day well spent.

But if, through all the livelong day,
You've cheered no heart, by yea or nay→→→
If, through it all

You've nothing done that you can trace
That brought the sunshine to one face-
No act most small

That helped some soul and nothing cost-
Then count that day as worse than lost.

George Eliot,

SADNESS AND MERRIMENT

(ADAPTED FROM "The Merchant of VENICE")

In this passage Antonio states that he is overcome by a sadness he cannot account for. Salarino tells him that the mental attitude is everything; that mirth is as easy as gloom; that nature in her freakishness makes some men laugh at trifles until their eyes become mere slits, yet leaves others dour and unsmiling before jests that would convulse even the venerable Nestor. Gratiano maintains that Antonio is too absorbed in worldly affairs, and that he must not let his spirits grow sluggish or irritable.

ANT; wearies me; you say it wearies you;

NT. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:

It

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn.

Salar Then let's say you are sad

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry,
Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time:
Some that will evermore peep through their eyes
And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper,
And other of such vinegar aspéct

That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio;
You have too much respect upon the world:
They lose it that do buy it with much care:
Believe me, you are marvelously changed.

Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

Gra.

Let me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come,
And let my liver rather heat with wine

Than my heart cool with mortifying groans.

Why should a man whose blood is warm within
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
Sleep when he wakes, and creep into a jaundice
By being peevish? Fare ye well awhile:
I'll end my exhortation after dinner.

William Shakespeare.

APPRECIATION

LIFE'S a bully good game with its kicks and cuffs

Some smile, some laugh, some bluff;

Some carry a load too heavy to bear

While some push on with never a care,

But the load will seldom heavy be

When I appreciate you and you appreciate me.

He who lives by the side of the road
And helps to bear his brother's load
May seem to travel lone and long

While the world goes by with a merry_song,
But the heart grows warm and sorrows flee

When I appreciate you and you appreciate me.

When I appreciate you and you appreciate me,
The road seems short to victory;

It buoys one up and calls "Come on,"

And days grow brighter with the dawn; There is no doubt or mystery

When I appreciate you and you appreciate me,

It's the greatest thought in heaven or earth~~
It helps us know our fellow's worth;
There'd be no wars or bitterness,

No fear, no hate, no grasping; yes,

It makes work play, and the careworn free
When I appreciate you and you appreciate me.
William Judson Kibby,

Permission of the Author.