GRAINS OF GOLD

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 2, 14 January 1909, Page 43

GRAINS OF GOLD

CONTEMPLATION. Happy who stands from all the rush aside, Who quits this eager life of deep unrest/ Where men seek things which never are possessed, Btit like fast-flowing waters from them glide, To devouring seas that open wide; Happy who turns away, and on the breast Of the slow Nile moves on calm and at rest To regions where repose and peace abide. Where earth and sky through ages are the same; And man, knowing the little he can do, The emptiness, of pleasure, power and fame, Like the calm earth and sky grows tranquil too, And makes sweet contemplation his sole aim, Gazing from palm-tree's shade on heaven's blue. — Bishop J. L. Spalding.

We know the truth not only by the reason, but also by the heart. — Pascal. No fact in science has ever discredited a fact in religion. — Henry Drummond. Occasionally a listener hears good of himself — after talking into a phonograph. What matter is it to us of genera and species? , He to whom the Eternal Word speaketh is delivered from a multitude of opinions. — St. Thomas a Kempis. Action repeated becomes habit. Habit long continued becomes second nature. We are to-day what we were ac customed to do yesterday and the day, before. The lob of Ihe virtuous is affliction. The Patriarchs, were virtuoxis, and their wandering lives were a series of miseries, threatened or experienced; the prophets were virtuous, and see the tortures they endured and the deaths • they died ; the Apostles were Christ's own, and St. Paul . tells us they were treated as the refuse of this world and the offscouring of mankind ; and as' for Christ, the God of virtue — the crucifix is the history of His life. ' Know this weighty truth : It is not enough that chances come ; they come in vain to them who are not ready. Opportunity for noble life, service, achievement will surely come, but if you are not ready you will either not understand its facts and character, or you will recoil from its front in timid fear, or, recklessly seizing it withuntrained hand and tindisciplined heart, you will shamefully fail in its use. Chance means nothing to the untrained soul.— Dr. W. W. Dame.