Shaker Commonplace Book

Lord let me see the beauty here The sky above me bright & clear, The smile upon a friendly face, The charm of health & all its grace, The roses blooming every where, In spite of hurt and grief and care.

Lord strengthen me that I may keep My faith, though bitterly I weep. Grant me undaunted to remain Thro every storm of care and pain Lord let me do my little part With courage and a willing heart.

Easter Thought. I prayed that God would give to me Some new and holy power To send an Easter Greeting Which would cheer your every hour; And as I waited long in faith For message from above Into my soul the answer came, Remember, [u]God is Love[u]. Sent to us, by sister Ann Cummings

Prayer. I would not pray for gifts or common things For fortune's smile or even victory sweet; I would not ask that I be spared the stings And cares of life which every man must meet.

I would not pray to be relieved from wrong However keen its pain, but I would ask When comes the test, that God shall make me strong And grant me courage to complete my task.

Grant me the faith to trust & still keep on Despite the darkness and the fearful doubt; To bear life's bitterness, but when tis gone To keep no bitter memories about.

This I would ask: Not that I shall be spared Trials of disappointment, loss, or pain, But that my soul with courage be prepared, To meet the conflict, & to stand the strain. Edgar A. Guest.

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[TOP LEFT CLIPPING] CULTIVATE A PLEASING VOICE

There is no power of love so hard to get and to keep as a kind voice. A kind hand is deaf and dumb. It may be rough in flesh and blood, yet do the work of a soft heart, and do it with a soft touch. But there is no one thing that love so much needs as a sweet voice to tell what it means and feels, and it is hard to get and keep it in the right tone.

One must start in youth and be on the watch night and day at work and at play, to get and keep a voice that shall speak at all times the thoughts of a kind heart. It is often in youth that one gets a voice or a tone that is sharp, and it sticks to him through life, and stirs up ill-will and grief, and falls like a drop of gall on the sweets of home.

Watch it day by day as a pearl of great price, for it will be worth more to you in days to come than the best pearl hid in the seas. A kind voice is to the heart what a light is to the eye. It is a light that sings as well as shines.

[TOP RIGHT CLIPPING] FAITH

I will not learn to doubt my kind. If bread is poison, what is food? If man is evil, what is good? I'll cultivate a friendly mind.

I see not far, but this I see - If man is false, then naught is true; If faith is not the golden clew, To life then all is mystery.

I know not much, but this I know - That not in hermit's calm retreat, But in the thronged and busy street, The angels most do come and go.

Who to the Infinite would rise Should Know this one thing ere he starts - That all its steps are human hearts; To love mankind is to be wise.

I will not learn to doubt my kind. If man is false then false am I; If on myself I can't rely, Then where shall faith a foothold find? -Christian Register.

[MIDDLE LEFT CLIPPING] I Bide My Time.

By Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

I bide my time. Whenever shadows darken Along my path I do but lift mine eyes, And faith reveals fair shores beyond the skies; And through earth's harsh, discordant sounds hearken And hear divinest music from afar. Sweet sounds from lands where half my loved one[s] are. I bide - I bide my time.

I bide my time. Whatever foes assail me, I know that strife is only for a day; A friend waits me farther on the way; A friend too faithful and too true to fail me, Who will bid all life's jarring turmoil cease, And lead me to realms of perfect peace, I bide - I bide my time.

I bide my time. This conflict of resistance, This drop of rapture in a cup of pain, This wear and tear of body and of brain, But fits my spirit for the new existence Which waits me in the happy by-and-by, So, come what may, I'll lift my eyes and cry: "I bide - I bide my time."

[BOTTOM RIGHT CLIPPING] TAKE LIFE AS IT COMES.

Worry Will Only Give You Wrinkles and Make You Old.

There is one sin which is everywhere, and by everybody is underestimated and quite too much overlooked in valuations of character. It is the sin of fretting. It is as common as air, as speech; so common that unless it arises above its usual monotone, we do not even observe it. Watch an ordinary coming together of people and we see how many minutes it will be before somebody frets - that is, makes more or less complaining statements of something or other, which most probably every one in the room or the car, or on the street corner, knew before, and which most probably nobody can help. Why say anything about it?

It is cold, it is hot; it is wet, it is dry; somebody has broken an appointment, illcooked a meal; stupidity or bad faith somewhere has resulted in discomfort. There are plenty of things to fret about. It is simply astonishing how much annoyance and discomfort may be found in the course of every day's living, even at the simplest, if only one keeps a sharp eye on that side of things. Even holy writ says we are so born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.

But even to the sparks flying upward in the blackest smoke, there is a blue sky above, and the less time they waste on the road the sooner they will reach it. Fretting is all time wasted on the road.

Not only does fretting worry us and those around us, but remember that nothing brings the wrinkles more quickly.

[BOTTOM LEFT CLIPPING] The Value of Laughter.

Laughter has an important place in hygiene Learn to laugh and smile. Have a cheery word for all comers and you will be liked by everybody. Laugh out loud, if you please. It may be artificial at first, but it gets to be natural after awhile. Hide your pains and aches under that laugh. The world has troubles of its own and can't stop to coddle yours. The good-humored man or woman is always welcome, but the dyspeptic or hypochondriac is not [wanted] anywhere, and is considered a public nuisance.

[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 crucified 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 limitatiom of power, and to provoke its consequent resentment. It is curious to see how people of this habit will take anything that first comes to handgood, 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 irritated feeling in consequence of it, get the upperhand 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 gratuitously puts an immense amount of wear and tear uponn the nervous system without in the slightest degree obtaining in return any compensatory satisfaction. It is neither a duty nor a pleasure; and yet men almost invite, certainly entertain 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."