codex002489-083r

[top left clipping]
MORTALITY.
How many times have I lain down at
night,
And longed to fall into the gulf of
sleep,
Whose dreamless deep
Is haunted by no memory of
The weary world above;
And thought myself most miserable
that I
Most impotently lie
So long upon the brink
Without the power to sink
Into the nothingness, and neither feel
nor think!

How many times when day brought
back the light,
After the merciful oblivion
Of such unbroken slumber,
And once again began to cumber
My soul with her forgotten cares and
sorrows,
And show in long perspective the gray
morrows,
Stretching monotonously on,
Forever narrowing, but never done,
Have I not loathed to live again and
said,
It would have been far better to be
dead.
And yet somehow, I know not why,
Remained afraid to die!
-WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS.

[top right clipping]
ENDURE.
(Written for the Boston Journal.)
What may we do, our Father, small we
are
Nor know we even how our cross to
bear?
Show us the way thy heavenly work to
share,
Speak from Thy heaven and tell us
what we may
Do for Thy sake as day succeeds to day;
Teach us to watch, Oh Lord, as well as
pray!

Endure, He answered, they who wait
serve best.
Cross they hands meekly, fold them on
thy breast;
Take up thy cross, leave unto Him the
rest,
Guard well they thoughts, with them the
soul is dyed;
Let them not lead thee from the cruci-
fied
Nor fear the breakers of the swelling
tide!

NELLY H. WOODWORTH

[middle left clipping]
TOLERATION
What matters it what faith or creed
My brother holds
If it to him through thought and deed
the truth unfolds?
What matters it what name he bears
If on his life's way of pain and cares
He bears "the sign?"
For his own soul must learn the right,
And his own eyes must see the light,
Not mine or thine.

The same sun shines on all men's ways
And chooses none.
How should I think he sheds his rays
On mine alone?
The life eternal dwells in all,
THe germ of power.
How shall I, then, pronounce his doom
When in my brother's heart may bloom
The "holy flower?"
-Unknown.

[bottom right clipping]
Worry.

Men and women five over to worry, will worry
about the stragerst, the most out-of-the-way, the
most unheard of, the most laughable things it is
possible to conceive. It matters very little what
are the outward circumstances- the will can find
something in them to remind it of its own limita-
tiom of power, and to provoke its consequent re-
sentment. It is curious to see how people of this
habit will take anything that first comes to hand-
good, bad or indifferent- and instantly begin to
find in it something to grow anxious and impatient
over, and to pull about first on this side and then
that, until an exciting consciousness of their own
inability to do anything in the matter, and an irri-
tated feeling in consequence of it, get the upper-
hand of their good sense.

What we have to say upon this subject by the way
of practical suggestion is just what everybody
says, and says to little or no purpose. Worry
doesn't do you the least good. It relieves from
nothing, it helps nothing, it qualifies for no work,
it conduces to no desirable result. It very gra-
tuitously puts an immense amount of wear and
tear uponn the nervous system without in the
slightest degree obtaining in return any compen-
satory satisfaction. It is neither a duty nor a
pleasure; and yet men almost invite, certainly en-
tertain it, as if it were both!

[bottom left clipping]
all to Heaven. He can say with the
poet:

"More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore let thy voice
Rise like a fountain both by night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats.
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friends."