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Daily Strength for Daily Needs

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Title: Daily Strength for Daily Needs

Author: Mary W. Tileston

Release Date: July, 2005 [EBook #8534] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 20, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAILY STRENGTH FOR DAILY NEEDS ***

Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Tiffany Vergon, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

DAILY STRENGTH FOR DAILY NEEDS

By Mary Wilder Tileston


Selected by the Editor of "Joy and Strength for the Pilgrim's Day," "Quiet Hours," etc.

"As thy days, so shall thy strength be"

PREFACE

This little book of brief selections in prose and verse, with accompanying texts of Scripture, is intended for a daily companion and counsellor. These words of the goodly fellowship of wise and holy men of many times, it is hoped may help to strengthen the reader to perform the duties and to bear the burdens of each day with cheerfulness and courage.

MARY WILDER TILESTON.

January 1

They go from strength to strength.--PS. lxxxiv. 7.

_First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear_.--MARK. iv. 28.


Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low-vaulted past! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

O. W. HOLMES.

High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams; and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service. And, looking higher still, we find those who never wait till their moral work accumulates, and who reward resolution with no rest; with whom, therefore, the alternation is instantaneous and constant; who do the good only to see the better, and see the better only to achieve it; who are too meek for transport, too faithful for remorse, too earnest for repose; whose worship is action, and whose action ceaseless aspiration.

J. MARTINEAU.


January 2

_The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore_.--PS. cxxi. 8.

Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.--PS. xc. 1.

With grateful hearts the past we own; The future, all to us unknown, We to Thy guardian care commit, And peaceful leave before Thy feet.

P. DODDRIDGE.


We are like to Him with whom there is no past or future, with whom a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day, when we do our work in the great present, leaving both past and future to Him to whom they are ever present, and fearing nothing, because He is in our future as much as He is in our past, as much as, and far more than we can feel Him to be, in our present. Partakers thus of the divine nature, resting in that perfect All-in-all in whom our nature is eternal too, we walk without fear, full of hope and courage and strength to do His will, waiting for the endless good which He is always giving as fast as He can get us able to take it in.

G. MACDONALD.

January 3

As thy days, so shall thy strength be.--DEUT. xxxiii. 25.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.--MATT. vi. 34.

Oh, ask not thou, How shall I bear The burden of to-morrow? Sufficient for to-day, its care, Its evil and its sorrow; God imparteth by the way Strength sufficient for the day.

J. E. SAXBY.


He that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Enjoy the blessings of this day, if God sends them; and the evils of it bear patiently and sweetly: for this day only is ours, we are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born to the morrow. But if we look abroad, and bring into one day's thoughts the evil of many, certain and uncertain, what will be and what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable.

JEREMY TAYLOR.

January 4

_If we sin, we are Thine, knowing Thy power: but--we will not sin, knowing that we are counted Thine. For to know Thee is perfect righteousness: yea, to know Thy power is the root of immortality_.--WISDOM OF SOLOMON xv. 2, 3.

Oh, empty us of self, the world, and sin, And then in all Thy fulness enter in; Take full possession, Lord, and let each thought Into obedience unto Thee be brought; Thine is the power, and Thine the will, that we Be wholly sanctified, O Lord, to Thee.

C. E. J.

Take steadily some one sin, which seems to stand out before thee, to root it out, by God's grace, and every fibre of it. Purpose strongly, by the grace and strength of God, wholly to sacrifice this sin or sinful inclination to the love of God, to spare it not, until thou leave of it none remaining, neither root nor branch.

Fix, by God's help, not only to root out this sin, but to set thyself to gain, by that same help, the opposite grace. If thou art tempted to be angry, try hard, by God's grace, to be very meek; if to be proud, seek to be very humble.

E. B. PUSEY.

January 5

_That He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish_.--EPH. v. 27.

Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house.--I PETER ii. 5.

One holy Church of God appears Through every age and race, Unwasted by the lapse of years, Unchanged by changing place.

S. LONGFELLOW.


A temple there has been upon earth, a spiritual Temple, made up of living stones; a Temple, as I may say, composed of souls; a Temple with God for its light, and Christ for the high priest; with wings of angels for its arches, with saints and teachers for its pillars, and with worshippers for its pavement. Wherever there is faith and love, this Temple is.

J. H. NEWMAN.

To whatever worlds He carries our souls when they shall pass out of these imprisoning bodies, in those worlds these souls of ours shall find themselves part of the same great Temple; for it belongs not to this earth alone. There can be no end of the universe where God is, to which that growing Temple does not reach,--the Temple of a creation to be wrought at last into a perfect utterance of God by a perfect obedience to God.

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

January 6

_In all ages entering into holy souls, she [Wisdom] maketh them friends of God, and prophets_.--WISDOM OF SOLOMON vii. 27.


Meanwhile with every son and saint of Thine Along the glorious line, Sitting by turns beneath Thy sacred feet We 'll hold communion sweet, Know them by look and voice, and thank them all For helping us in thrall, For words of hope, and bright examples given To shew through moonless skies that there is light in heaven.

J. KEBLE.

If we cannot live at once and alone with Him, we may at least live with those who have lived with Him; and find, in our admiring love for their purity, their truth, their goodness, an intercession with His pity on our behalf. To study the lives, to meditate the sorrows, to commune with the thoughts, of the great and holy men and women of this rich world, is a sacred discipline, which deserves at least to rank as the forecourt of the temple of true worship, and may train the tastes, ere we pass the very gate, of heaven. We forfeit the chief source of dignity and sweetness in life, next to the direct communion with God, if we do not seek converse with the greater minds that have left their vestiges on the world.

J. MARTINEAU.


Do not think it wasted time to submit yourself to any influence which may bring upon you any noble feeling.

J. RUSKIN.

January 7

_The exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power_.--EPH. i. 19.

The lives which seem so poor, so low, The hearts which are so cramped and dull, The baffled hopes, the impulse slow, Thou takest, touchest all, and lo! They blossom to the beautiful.

SUSAN COOLIDGE.

A root set in the finest soil, in the best climate, and blessed with all that sun and air and rain can do for it, is not in so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as every man may be, whose spirit aspires after all that which God is ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun meets not the springing bud that stretches towards him with half that certainty, as God, the source of all good, communicates Himself to the soul that longs to partake of Him.

WM. LAW.

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate.

T. C. UPHAM.

January 8

As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.--GAL. vi. 10.

Let brotherly love continue.--HEB. xiii. 1.

I Ask Thee for a thoughtful love, Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes, And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize.

A. L. WARING.


Surely none are so full of cares, or so poor in gifts, that to them also, waiting patiently and trustfully on God for His daily commands, He will not give direct ministry for Him, increasing according to their strength and their desire. There is so much to be set right in the world, there are so many to be led and helped and comforted, that we must continually