living to-day who has not experienced or will not experience an actual prolongation of life due to discoveries of the last fifty years."
(1806)
LIFE PURPOSE
A story is told of Rubens that during his
sojourn as ambassador to the Court of Philip
in Spain, he was detected at work upon a
painting by a courtier, who, not knowing
much about his true fame, exclaimed in surprize,
"What! does an ambassador to his
Catholic Majesty amuse himself with painting
pictures?" "No," replied Rubens, "the
painter sometimes amuses himself with
diplomacy."
The serious business of life is the producing
of a good character; all else is
pastime. (Text.)
(1807)
These noble ambitions for a true life are put in verse by H. H. Barston:
To face each day of life
Nor flinch from any task;
To front the moment's strife
And only courage ask.
To be a man unawed
By aught but heaven's command;
Tho men revile or plaud,
To take a stand—and stand.
To fill my life with toil,
With God's free air and light;
To shun the things that spoil,
That hasten age and night;
To sweat beneath my hod,
Nor ask a better gift
From self or man or God
Than will and strength to lift.
To keep my spirit sweet
Tho head and hand be tired;
Each brother man to greet,
Nor leave him uninspired;
To keep my spirit fed
On God unceasingly,
That none may lack his bread
Who walk this way with me. (Text.)
<poem>
(1808)
LIFE RECRUDESCENT
Edith M. Thomas is the author of the lines below, found in the Canadian Presbyterian:
The apple-tree said,
"You think I'm dead,"
"Because I have never a leaf to show,
Because I stoop,
And my branches droop,
And the dull, gray mosses over me grow;
But I'm alive in trunk and shoot,
The buds of next May
I fold away,
But I pity the withered grass at my root."
"You think I'm dead,"
The quick grass said,
"Because I have parted with stem and blade,
But under the ground
I'm safe and sound,
With the snow's thick blanket over me laid.
I'm all alive and ready to shoot
Should the spring of the year
Come dancing here,
But I pity the flower without branch or root."
"You think I'm dead,"
A soft voice said,
"Because not a branch or root I own.
I never have died
But close I hide
In a plump seed that the wind has sown,
Patient I wait through the long winter hours.
You will see me again,
I shall laugh at you then
Out of the eyes of a hundred flowers."
(1809)
LIFE, RESPONSE OF
The touch of God upon men is not answered unless the soul be spiritually alive:
The sun shines down upon the dead twig
that has fallen from the tree. All his rich
and marvelous powers are exerted. He
wraps it about with his mighty arms. He
kisses it and bathes it in tides of summer
warmth, and smiles upon it and beckons it
to come—but it lies there a dead twig to the
last. But a vine has peeped through the soil.
The sun discovers it and whispers the
secrets of the sky to its tiny quivering
leaves, and out go the filmy tendrils, and up
and up goes the loving plant, climbing the
golden trellis of the sunbeam toward its
lover, the sun.—John K. Willey.
(1810)
LIFE-SAVING
Every man should try to be as alert and well prepared for helping and saving men as the steamers here described:
All Pacific mail-steamers are carefully pro-
