GRAINS OF GOLD A MORNING PRAYER.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 19, 14 May 1908, Page 3

GRAINS OF GOLD

A MORNING PRAYER.

Who needs me, Lord, to-day ? I will for Thee be kind ; The lonely way, the wind, The snow, I shall not mind. Is >it a foe, a friend ? A stranger ?;one astray ? I'm waiting, Lord, to lenow. Who needs me much to-day. —' The Monitor.'

It is easy to attribute to foes the failures due to ' our own faults. The major blessings often come from what we call the manor Virtues. The best cure for a destroying love of the world is the divine love of the world. Be slow to take offence and be slower yet to give offence ; for it *is a fact worth remembtering that it does not take half as long to make a wound as to heal one. Cheerfulness is like music to the soul ; it excites to the duty ; it oils the wheels of affliction, makes duties light, and relirion ride swiftly on the wings of delight. Work is no humiliation ; on the contrary, it is greatly to a man's credit to maintain himself and others by his own exertions. Unbridled passions and vice alone degrade a. man. He who serves his* fellowman, 'because he recognises it to be the will of God, really serves God, and, if he does so in the state of grace, merits eternal reward. He who "is the servant of anothier man is more to be respected than one who is the slave of a passion. Work tends to make man healthy, virtuous, and cheerful. If a man does* not amply himself to de-Ins? something good, he will turn to - evil. Vice and idleness always go hand in ■ hand. Those, however, who conscientiously accomplish, the diuties of their calling. are always conscientious in all things. _^