Leaves of Life by Margaret Bird Steinmetz

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LEAVES OF LIFE

FOR DAILY INSPIRATION

BY

MARGARET BIRD STEINMETZ

1914

The Bible text used in this book is taken from the American Standard
Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson &
Sons, and is used by permission.

DEDICATED

TO THOSE WHO HAVE HELPED IN GATHERING THESE LEAVES--AND TO THOSE WHO
MAY GATHER SOMETHING FROM THEM.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Macmillan Company, New York, N.Y.
Shailer Mathews, Jane Addams, Newell Dwight Hillis,
Marion Crawford.

The Century Company, New York, N.Y.
S. Weir Mitchell, Theodore Roosevelt, John Kendrick
Bangs, Richard Watson Gilder, Edith Thomas.

Oxford University Press, London, E.C.
Annie Matheson.

The Saalfield Publishing Company, Akron, Ohio.
Joseph Jefferson.

Mitchell Kennerley, New York.
Theodosia Garrison: My Litany.

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, N.Y.
Charles W. Eliot: The Durable Satisfactions of Life.
J.R. Miller.

The Pilgrim Press, Boston, Mass.
Henry Ward Beecher.

Harper & Brothers, New York, N.Y.
Will Carleton: Farm Legends.
Margaret E. Sangster: Easter Bells.

Elbert Hubbard, Roycroft Shop, East Aurora, N.Y.
Printed by special permission of the publishers.

W.B. Conkey, Hammond, Ind.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, copyrighted 1912.

National W.C.T.U., Evanston, Ill.
Frances E. Willard.

American Baptist Publication Society, Philadelphia, Pa.
W.E. Winks.

Rand, McNally & Company, Chicago, Ill.
Marie Bashkirtseff.

Tennesseean and American, Nashville, Tenn.
G. Rice.

Cosmopolitan Magazine, New York, N.Y.
O. Henry.

The H.M. Rowe Company, Baltimore, Md.
Edwin Leibfreed: Poems.

Permission from President Wilson for the excerpts from his speeches.

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, Mass.
Kate Douglas Wiggin, Richard Watson Gilder, Josephine
Peabody, John Hay, Hugo Muensterberg, Edith Thomas,
Lyman Abbott, John Burroughs, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps,
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Julia Ward Howe, Harriet
Beecher Stowe, Joel Chandler Harris, Lucy Larcom,
Bret Harte, Bayard Taylor, Alice Freeman Palmer,
Thomas W. Higginson.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, N.Y.
Henry van Dyke: Music and Other Poems.
Maltbie D. Babcock: Thoughts for Every Day Living.
Sidney Lanier: Poems of Sidney Lanier.
Robert Bridges: Robert Bridges' Poems.
George Meredith: Last Poems.
James Anthony Froude: Short Studies on Great Subjects.
Robert Louis Stevenson: Poems and Works.
W.E. Henley: Poems.
Eugene Field: Western Verse.

G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London.
Arthur Christopher Benson: Along the Road, Silent Isle,
From a College Window, Joyous Gard, Lord Vyet and Other Poems.

Little, Brown & Company, Boston, Mass.
Emily Dickinson, Laura E. Richards, Edward Everett Hale.

George H. Doran Company, New York, N.Y.
Sir Oliver Lodge, Arnold Bennett, J. Stalker, A.H. Begbie.

Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, N.Y.
Percy C. Ainsworth, E.H. Divall, Margaret E. Sangster,
J.H. Jowett, George Matheson.

Longmans, Green & Company, New York and London.
William James.

Dodd, Mead & Company, New York, N.Y.
Maurice Maeterlinck, Hamilton Mabie, Ian Maclaren,
Jerome K. Jerome, G.K. Chesterton, Paul Laurence Dunbar.

Small, Maynard & Company, Boston, Mass.
Mrs. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, John B. Tabb, Ernest Crosby.

Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company, Boston, Mass.
Paul Hamilton Hayne.

Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York
Charles Wagner, Edwin Markham, Helen Keller.

E.P. Dutton Company, New York.
George Macdonald.

JANUARY

Janus am I; oldest of potentates;
Forward I look, and backward, and below
I count, as god of avenues and gates,
The years that through my portals come and go.

I block the roads, and drift the fields with snow;
I chase the wild fowl from the frozen fen;
My frosts congeal the rivers in their flow,
My fires light up the hearths and hearts of men.

--Henry W. Longfellow.

JANUARY FIRST

Bartolome Esteban Murillo, baptized 1618.

Paul Revere born 1735.

Betsy Ross born 1752.

Maria Edgeworth born 1767.

Arthur Hugh Clough born 1819.

Old things need not be therefore true,
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain,
And yet consider it again!

We! what do we see? each a space
Of some few yards before his face;
Does that the whole wide plan explain?
Ah, yet consider it again!

Alas! the great world goes its way,
And takes its truth from each new day;
They do not quit, nor can retain,
Far less consider it again.

--Arthur Hugh Clough.

There are two sorts of content; one is connected with exertion, the
other habits of indolence. The first is a virtue; the other a vice.

--Maria Edgeworth.

Oh send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me:
Let them bring me unto thy holy hill,
And to thy tabernacles.

--Psalm 43. 3.

Almighty God, lead me in the search for life. Teach me what is
important and what is unimportant; what is false, and what is true.
Remove the hindrances that keep me from the worthiest deeds, and grant
that I may have the peace that comes with surrender of self to thy
will. Amen.

JANUARY SECOND

General James Wolfe born 1727.

Colonial flag first raised 1776.

Mary Carey Thomas born 1857.

To what profit we could use the time for our present task that we
spend in impatient waiting and wondering over the future! So often
the future is just one step up from the present, but some of us miss
it by preferring to wait for an elevator.

--M. B. S.

Prepare to live by all means, but for heaven's sake do not forget to
live. You will never have a better chance than you have at present.
You may think you will have, but you are mistaken.

--Arnold Bennett.

He that riseth late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his
business at night; while laziness travels so slowly that poverty
soon overtakes him. He that lives on hope will die fasting.

--Benjamin Franklin.

Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there
is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, whither
thou goest.

--Ecclesiastes 9. 10.

Gracious Father, my heart burns with shame when I think how much I
claim, and how little I am. I pray that my body may not cast a shadow
to-day, and cloud the light of my life to-morrow. Cleanse the windows
of my soul that I may take in thy glory. Amen.

JANUARY THIRD

Marcus Tullius Cicero born B.C. 106.

Martin Luther excommunicated 1521.

Douglas Jerrold born 1803.

Charles Wagner (France) born 1852.

To be continually advancing in the paths of knowledge is one of the
most pleasing satisfactions of the human mind. These are pleasures
perfect consistent with every degree of advanced years.

--Cicero.

Fidelity in small things is at the base of every great achievement.
We too often forget this and yet no truth needs more to be kept in
mind particularly in the troubled eras of history and in the crises
of individual life. In shipwreck a splintered beam, an oar, any
scrap of wreckage saves us. To despise the remnants is
demoralization.

--Charles Wagner.

He that is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much and he
that is unrighteous in a very little is unrighteous also in much.

--Luke 16. 10

Almighty God, may I understand that thou art in everything and that I
cannot hide from thee, for thou boldest me though I know it not. Give
me the desire, and help me to learn of thy laws, that I may know that
even in the least of things, I have the liberty to obtain happiness by
obeying them. Amen.

JANUARY FOURTH

Archbishop Usher born 1580.

Jacob L. Carl Grimm born 1785.

Elizabeth Peabody died 1894.

Years rush by us like the wind, we see not whence the eddy comes,
nor whitherward it is tending, and we seem ourselves to witness
their flight without a sense that we are changed: and yet time is
beguiling man of his strength, as the winds rob the trees of their
foliage.

--Sir Walter Scott.

The bell strikes one. We take no note of Time
But from its loss. To give it, then a tongue
Is wise in man; as if an angel spoke
I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright
It is the knell of my departed hours:
Where are they?

--Edward Young.

Days should speak, And multitude of years should teach wisdom. And
the breath of the Almighty giveth them understanding. It is not the
great that are wise, Nor the aged that understand justice.

--Job 32. 7, 9.

Lord God, help me to see my mistakes, and bring me to the realization
of my life. Grant that I may no longer use the time that thou gavest
me to learn in, heedlessly, but to give it my best thought and care.
Amen.

JANUARY FIFTH

Stephen Decatur born 1779.

Robert Morrison born 1782.

Thomas Pringle born 1789.

Let me go where'er I will,
I hear a sky-born music still:
It sounds from all things old,
It sounds from all things young,
From all that's fair, from all that's foul,
Peals out a cheerful song.

It is not only in the rose,
It is not only in the bird,
Not only where the rainbow glows,
Nor in the song of woman heard,
But in the darkest, meanest things
There alway, alway something sings.

'Tis not in the high stars alone,
Nor in the cup of budding flowers,
Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone,
Nor in the bow that smiles in showers,
But in the mud and scum of things
There alway, alway something sings.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament showeth his
handiwork.

--Psalm 19. 1.

Almighty God, grant that my life may no longer be a noise, but be kept
in tune with the sublimest melodies, that wherever I am, there may be
no discords in the songs of my soul. Through thy loving-kindness may
my songs resound. Amen.

JANUARY SIXTH

Epiphany, or Twelfth-Day.

Joan d'Arc born 1412.

David Dale born 1739.

'Twas even so! and thou the shepherd's child,
Joanne, the lowly dreamer of the wild!
Never before and never since that hour
Hath woman, mantled with victorious power,
Stood forth as thou beside the shrine didst stand,
Holy amidst the knighthood of the land.

--Mrs. Felicia Hemans.

Every one must recognize the splendid work which has been done by
women in social and educational fields. And it will, I believe, come
more and more to be recognized that in some respects women are
specially fitted for government and for official-municipal life.

--Sir Oliver Lodge.

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel
at that time. And she dwelt under the palm tree of Deborah between
Ramah and Bethel in the hill-country of Ephraim: and the children of
Israel came up to her for judgment.

--Judges 4. 4, 5.

My Father, help me to be thoughtful and just. May I consider the great
truths and broader visions that may not be seen from where I stand.
May I be willing to accept a better view. Grant that I may realize
that the battle of life is not a sham battle, but a struggle for the
advancement of life. Amen.

JANUARY SEVENTH

General Putnam born 1718.

Robert Nicholl born 1814.

T. DeWitt Talmage born 1832.

Opportunities fly in a straight line, touch us but once and never
return, but the wrongs we do others fly in a circle; they come back
from the place they started.

--T. DeWitt Talmage.

Our share of night to bear,
Our share of morning,
Our blank is bliss to fill,
Our blank is scorning.

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way,
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards--day!

--Emily Dickinson.

Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your resting-place.

--Micah 2. 10.

Lord God, give me the desire to be persistent in service, while I have
health and strength. May I experience the sweetness that comes in
doing the thing that I ought to have done, as well as that in which I
took the most pleasure. Help me to so live that my days may be useful,
and be recalled with bright and happy recollections. Amen.

JANUARY EIGHTH

John Earl of Stair died 1707.

Sir William Draper died 1787.

Alfred Russel Wallace born 1823.

William Wilkie Collins born 1824.

Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema born 1836.

A blue bird built his nest
Here in my breast.
"O bird of Light! Whence comest thou?"
Said he, "From God above:
My name is Love."

A mate he brought one day,
Of plumage gray.
"O bird of Night! Why comest thou?"
Said she: "Seek no relief!
My name is Grief."

--Laurence Alma-Tadema.

It is not so much resolution as renunciation, not so much courage as
resignation, that we need. He that has once yielded thoroughly to
God will yield to nothing but God.

--John Ruskin.

Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, Neither will he uphold
the evildoers. He will yet fill thy mouth with laughter, And thy
lips with shouting.

--Job 8. 20, 21.

Almighty God, help me to understand that peace does not come in
rebellion or grieving, but is obtained through the calm of the soul.
Grant that if I may be perplexed or worried to-day, I may have the
power to control myself and wait in thy strength. Amen.

JANUARY NINTH

Dr. Thomas Brown born 1778.

Elizabeth O. Benger died 1822.

Caroline Lucretia Herschel died 1848, aged ninety-seven.

Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness altogether past calculation
its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be
uniformly joyous--a spirit of all sunshine.

--Thomas Carlyle.

Honest good humor is the oil and wine of a merry meeting.

--Washington Irving.

A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market.

--Charles Lamb.

A glad heart maketh a cheerful countenance; But by sorrow of heart
the spirit is broken.

Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is, Than a stalled ox and
hatred therewith.

--Proverbs 15. 13, 17.

Gracious Father, if I am sorrowing over disappointment and am
forgetful, grant that I may see the things thou hast made, for which I
should be thankful. Help me to so live that I may have a right to
claim a cheerful heart. Amen.

JANUARY TENTH

Dr. George Birkbeck born 1776.

Michel or Marshal Ney born 1769.

Karl von Linne, Linnaeus, died 1778.

Ethan Allen born 1737.

Shall I hold on with both hands to every paltry possession? All I
have teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson.

The practical weakness of the vast mass of modern pity for the poor
and the oppressed is precisely that it is merely pity; the pity is
pitiful but not respectful. Men feel that the cruelty to the poor is
a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is injustice
to equals; nay, it is treachery to comrades.

--G.K. Chesterton.

Be ye all like-minded, compassionate, loving as brethren,
tender-hearted, humble-minded: not rendering evil for evil, or
reviling for reviling; but contrariwise blessing.

--1 Peter 3. 8, 9.

God of justice, may I pause to remember that while I may do a mean act
and keep it hidden from others, I cannot keep it hidden from myself,
nor from thee. Help me to have a nobler sense of the quality of life,
and less anxiety for the quantity, that I may avoid harshness and
selfishness, and be given to tenderness and justice. Amen.

JANUARY ELEVENTH

Alexander Hamilton born 1757.

Bayard Taylor born 1825.

William James born 1842.

Alice Caldwell Regan Rice born 1870.

The paternal relation to man was the basis of that religion which
appealed directly to the heart; so the fraternity of each man with
his fellow was its practical application.

--Bayard Taylor.

It is indeed a remarkable fact that sufferings and hardships do not,
as a rule, abate the love of life; they seem on the contrary,
usually to give it a keener zest; and the sovereign source of
melancholy is repletion. Need and struggle are what excite and
inspire. Our hour of triumph is what brings the void.

--William James.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation; for when he hath been
approved, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord
promised to them that love him.

--James 1. 12.

Lord God, I come to thee for help that the small things may not force
themselves into my life, and keep me from pursuing the larger things
which are continually open to me. May I not be blind to what I may
have and be, through inspiration and work. Grant that I may not be
satisfied to remain in that in which I have triumphed, but climb to
greater endeavors. Amen.

JANUARY TWELFTH

Edmund Burke born 1729.

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi born 1746.

Francois Coppee born 1842.

John S. Sargent born 1856.

Show the thing you contend for to be reason; show it to be common
sense; show it to be the means of attaining some useful end. The
question with me is not whether you have a right to render your
people miserable, but whether it is your interest to make them
happy.

--Edmund Burke.

Like the star
That shines afar,
Without haste
And without rest,
Let each man wheel with steady sway
Round the task that rules the day,
And do his best.

--Goethe.

Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love vaunteth
not itself, is not puffed up.

--1 Corinthians 13. 4.

Gracious Father, cause me to be critical of my life, that I may not be
deceived in myself. Help me to look into my soul and see what thou
dost find there; and with humility may I acknowledge what I am to
thee, and seek thy wisdom and love. Amen.

JANUARY THIRTEENTH

George Fox, founder Society of Friends, died 1691.

Samuel Woodworth (Old Oaken Bucket) born 1785.

Order of King's Daughters founded 1886.

Have thy soul feel the universal breath
With which all nature's quick, and learn to be
Sharer in all that thou dost touch or see;
Break from thy body's grasp thy spirit's trance;
Give thy soul air, thy faculties expanse;
Love, joy, even sorrow,--yield thyself to all!
They make thy freedom, groveling, not thy thrall.
Knock off the shackles which thy spirit bind
To dust and sense, and set at large the mind!
Then move in sympathy with God's great whole,
And be like man at first, a _Living Soul_.

--Richard Henry Dana.

I was deeply impressed by what a gardener once said to me concerning
his work. "I feel, sir," he said, "when I am growing the flowers or
rearing the vegetables, that I am having a share in creation." I
thought it a very noble way of regarding his work.

--J.H. Jowett.

For we are God's fellow workers: ye are God's husbandry, God's
building.

--1 Corinthians 3. 9.

Creator of all, help me to see what there is for me to do; and help me
to know that I cannot be productive if I am hovering in the choice of
my work. May I learn from thy great works of heaven and earth the ways
of selection and steadfastness. Give me the desire to work and the
confidence that is needed to carry on my work. Amen.

JANUARY FOURTEENTH

Madame de Sevigne died 1696.

Edmund Halley died 1742.

Pierre Loti born 1850.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute
What you can do, or dream you can; begin it;
Boldness has genius, power magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin and then the work will be completed.

--Goethe.

Were half the power that fills the world with terror,
Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts,
Given to redeem the human mind from error,
There were no need of arsenals or forts.

--Henry W. Longfellow.

Choose you this day whom ye will serve;... but as for me and my
house, we will serve Jehovah.

--Joshua 24. 15.

Almighty God, help me to appreciate the sacredness of work while I
have it to do. Grant that I may be spared the wretchedness that comes
from working with fragments from idleness. May I do my part, even if
it be in obscurity and the night overtakes me before it is done. Amen.

JANUARY FIFTEENTH

Moliere born 1622.

Dr. Samuel Parr born 1747.

Edward Everett died 1865.

The sun withholds his generous beam;
Athwart my soul the shadows stream;
The weird winds boisterously blow,
And drift the melancholy snow.

When I, in sorrow and despair,
Expect the storm, with tender care
He rends the clouds and through the blue
The glorious sun breaks forth anew.

--M.B.S.

So with the wan waste grasses on my spear,
I ride forever seeking after God.
My hair grows whiter than my thistle plume
And all my limbs are loose; but in my eyes
The star of an unconquerable praise;
For in my soul one hope forever sings,
That at the next white corner of the road
My eyes may look on Him.

--G.K. Chesterton.

He brought me forth also into a large place;
He delivered me, because he delighted in me.

--Psalm 18. 19.

Loving Father, if I may be discouraged to-day, strengthen my faith.
May I not weary of waiting for thee, but trust in thy promises. Amen.

JANUARY SIXTEENTH

Edmund Spenser died 1599.

Johann August Neander born 1789.

Edward Gibbon died 1794.

Sir John Moore died 1809.

But lovely concord, and most sacred peace,
Doth nourish vertue, and fast friendship breeds;
Weake she makes strong, and strong thing does increase,
Till it the pitch of highest praise exceeds.

--Edmund Spenser.

Perfect good-breeding is the result of nature and not of education;
for it may be found in a cottage, and may be missed in a palace.
'Tis the genial regard for the feeling of others that springs from
an absence of selfishness.

--Disraeli.

Can a fig tree, my brethren, yield olives, or a vine figs? neither
can salt water yield sweet.

--James 3. 12.

Heavenly Father, help me to value my thoughts, words, and deeds. If at
the close of the day, there may be one who has been wounded by my
injustice, may I be willing to make quick atonement. May I avoid the
ways and words that hurt; and not only wish rightly and work rightly,
but speak to enrich others with tenderness. Amen.

JANUARY SEVENTEENTH

John Ray died 1705.

Benjamin Franklin born 1706.

George Bancroft died 1891.

Employ thy time well if thou meanest to gain leisure; and since thou
art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour! Leisure is time
for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will
obtain, but the lazy man never; a life of leisure and a life of
laziness are two things.

--Benjamin Franklin.

There is nothing to gain and everything to lose by despising the
example of nature, and making arbitrary rules for oneself. Our
liberty wisely understood is but a voluntary obedience to the
universal laws of life.

--Amiel.

I will meditate on thy precepts,
And have respect unto thy ways.

--Psalm 119. 15.

My Father, help me to understand the power of nature, that I may be
willing to obey her laws. I pray that I may so live that my life will
proclaim itself without need of boasting or deception. Forbid that I
should spend my life in perfecting trifles, and have no leisure to
enjoy thy great gifts. Amen.

JANUARY EIGHTEENTH

Charles de Montesquieu born 1689.

John Gillies born 1747.

Daniel Webster born 1782.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall occupy our
places some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from our
fathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the
cause of good government and of civil and religious liberty; some
proof of a sincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which
may enlarge the understanding and improve the hearts of men.

--Daniel Webster.

Brother and friend, the world is wide,
But I care not whether there be
The soothing song of a summer tide
Or the thrash of a wintry sea,
If but through shimmer and storm you bide,
Brother and friend, with me.

--Percy C. Ainsworth.

Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the King.

--1 Peter 2. 17.

Almighty God, I thank thee for all the tender influences of life; for
all the gentleness and strength that may be given and received through
friendship. Help me to be careful of what I do, for my sake, and for
the sake of those who may follow me. Amen.

JANUARY NINETEENTH

Hans Sachs died 1576.

William Congreve died 1729.

James Watt born 1736.

Robert E. Lee born 1807.

Edgar Allan Poe born 1809.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! Yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God, can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

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