the suggestion, and the result is that ingoing and outgoing liners may follow well-defined lanes of traffic. Separate paths are laid out for vessels of high power. Slow vessels, freighters and the like, have their special steaming zones. Since that time no collision on the high seas between two liners has occurred.
If every man would be equally careful
to keep in his own territory moral
collisions and many of life's catastrophes
would be avoided.
(2313)
PATIENCE
Edward Collins Downing bids us to wait through earth's night for the coming day of God's accomplishments:
To those who sit and watch at night
And look to God alone for strength,
There will arise, I know, at length,
A foregleam of eternal light.
The morning does not hesitate;
The glory of its hour is fixt,
Tho sorrow has been strangely mixt
In all our lives, there is no fate
That can retard the coming day.
Be patient. In His perfect time
God's purpose will unfold, sublime,
And light and joy shall have their way.
(Text.)
(2314)
Lady Henry Somerset has told how her attention was first called to the work of relieving the sufferings of poor city children.
"I was moved in that direction by the rare
patience and imagination of one little boy.
His example convinced me that patience was
one of the qualities I needed most, and in
seeking it I grew into that work. I was
in a hospital on visiting day while the
doctors were changing a plaster-cast which
held the crippled boy's limb. The operation
was exceedingly painful, I was told. To my
surprize the little sufferer neither stirred nor
winced, but made a curious buzzing sound
with his mouth. After the doctors left him,
I said:
"'How could you possibly stand it?'
"'That's nothin',' he answered; 'why, I just made believe that a bee was stingin' me. Bees don't hurt very much, you know. And I kept buzzin' because I was afraid I'd forget about its being a bee if I didn't.'"
(2315)
When the quality most needed in a prime minister, who should be fully master of the situation, was the subject of conversation in the presence of Mr. Pitt, one of the speakers said it was eloquence, another said it was knowledge, a third said it was toil. "No," said Pitt, "it is patience." And patience is undoubtedly a prime quality of mastery in any situation."—James T. Fields.
(2316)
See Wait and See; Waiting.
Patriot, Acting the Part of a—See Pretense.
PATRIOTISM
The spirit of Lincoln, who struck hard blows at the Southern cause but always spoke charitably of the Southern people, is embodied in this poem:
The foe that strikes thee,
For thy country's sake
Strike him with all thy might;
But while thou strikest,
Forget not still to love him. (Text.)
—His Majesty the Emperor Mutsu Hito
of Japan. Translated by Arthur Lloyd.
(2317)
A Japanese mother had given her three sons to the war. The first was reported slain. She smiled and said, "It is well. I am happy." The second lay dead upon the field. She smiled again and said, "I am still happy." The third gave up his life and they said to her, "At last you weep!" "Yes," she said, "but it is because I have no more sons to give to my beloved country!"—Marshall P. Wilder, "Smiling 'Round the World."
(2318)
See Fidelity; Home Where the Heart is;
Symbol, Power of a.
PATRIOTISM, DISINTERESTED
A rather refreshing sight for this year of
our Lord would be a repetition of the office
seeking the man as in "Saul's" case, where it
was said, "They sought him (to make him
king) but he could not be found."
It is said of Abraham Lincoln that, fully expecting, owing to the meager success of the Union armies up to that time, that he would fail of reelection as President, he
