The Home Council

Abraham Lincoln

Such was he, our Martyr-Chief,
Whom late the Nation he had led,
With ashes on her head,
Wept with the passion of an angry grief:
Forgive me, if from present things I turn
To speak what in my heart will beat and burn,
And hang my wreath on his world-honored urn.
Nature, they say, doth dote,
And cannot make a man
Save on some worn-out plan,
Repeating us by rote:
For him our Old-World moulds aside she threw,
And, choosing sweet clay from the breast
Of the unexhausted West,
With stuff untainted shaped a hero new,
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true.
How beautiful to see
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed,
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead;
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be,
Not lured by any cheat of birth,
But by his clear-grained human worth.
And brave old wisdom of sincerity!
They knew that outward grace is dust;
They could not choose but trust
In that sure-footed mind’s unfaltering skill,
And supple-tempered will
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust.
His was no lonely mountain-peak of mind,
Thrusting to thin air o’er our cloudy bars,
A sea-mark, now lost in vapors blind;
Broad prairie rather, genial level-lined,
Fruitful and friendly for all human kind,
Yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars.
Nothing of Europe here,
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still,
Ere any names of Serf and Peer
Could Nature’s equal scheme deface
And thwart her genial will;
Here was a type of the true elder race,
And one of Plutarch’s men talking with us face to face.
I praise him not; it were too late;
And some innative weakness there must be
In him who condescends to victory
Such as the present gives, and cannot wait,
Safe in himself as in a fate.
So always firmly he:
He knew to bide his time
And can his fame abide,
Still patient in his simple faith sublime,
Till the wise years decide.
Great captains, with their guns and drums,
Disturb our judgment for the hour,
But at last silence comes;
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower,
Our children shall behold his fame,
The kindly earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American.

—James Russell Lowell.

Alternate Reading: Acts 20:17-38.

Words from a Great Heart

Let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light that I have.

With malice towards none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds,—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of our nature.

—Abraham Lincoln.

Alternate Reading: Acts 17:16-31.

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mountain

On seeing the crowds of people, Jesus went up the hill; and, when he had taken his seat, his disciples came up to him; and he began to teach them as follows:

The Happy

“Blessed are the pure in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Blessed are the mourners, for they shall be comforted.

“Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall find mercy.

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

“Blessed are those who have been persecuted in the cause of righteousness, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

“Blessed are you when people taunt you, and persecute you, and say everything evil about you—untruly, and on my account. Be glad and rejoice, because your reward in Heaven will be great; for so men persecuted the prophets who lived before you.”

A Real Disciple of Jesus

“It is you who are the salt of the earth; but, if the salt should lose its strength, what will you use to restore its saltness? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown away, and trampled underfoot. It is you who are the light of the world.

Lesson from a Lamp

“A town that stands on a hill cannot be hidden. Men do not light a lamp and put it under a corn-measure, but on the lamp-stand, where it gives light to every one in the house. Let your light so shine before the eyes of your fellowmen, that, seeing your good actions, they may praise your Father who is in Heaven.”

—Matthew.

Sometime

Sometime when all life’s lessons have been learned.
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned,
The things o’er which we grieved with lashes wet
Will flash before us out of life’s dark night,
As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God’s plans were right,
And how what seemed reproof was love most true.

And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh,
God’s plans go on as best for you and me;
How, when we called, He heeded not our cry,
Because His wisdom to the end could see,
And ev’n as prudent parents disallow
Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,
So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now
Some wanted things because it seemeth good.

And if, sometimes, commingled with life’s wine,
We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine
Pours out this potion for our lips to drink;
And if someone we love is lying low,
Where human kisses cannot reach the face,
O do not blame the loving Father so,
But wear your sorrow with obedient grace!

And you will shortly know that lengthened breath
Is not the sweetest gift God gives His friend;
And that sometimes the sable pall of death
Conceals the fairest boon His love can send.
If we could push ajar the gates of life
And stand within, and all God’s workings see,
We could interpret all this doubt and strife,
And for each mystery could find a key.

But not today. Then be content, poor heart!
God’s plans, like lilies pure and white, unfold;
We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart,
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet with sandals loosed may rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,
I think that we shall say, “God knew the best.”

—May W. Smith.

Alternate Reading: Acts 14: 8-17.

Making a Home

To make a complete home you need a complete set of human relations, as per the following list prepared by Nature and endorsed by the best traditions: Husband and father, wife and mother, children, including babies and adolescents; sisters and brothers, grandfather, grandmother, guests, and a dash of neighbors and friends.

If you lack any one of these items you miss something—the home is not perfect. If there is one of these relationships you have never known, your life is by so much maimed. It is the fashion to speak disparagingly of relatives, but they art a part of the environment of Nature, and if you get nothing but annoyance from them something ails you. You might as well curse the sun and stars as hate relatives.

Blessed is the man, and thrice blessed the woman, that loves the people that ought to be loved. There are grandmother and grandfather, for example. The child that has them not has missed one of the sweetest elements that make memory happy. They understand children better than parents, for they have learned that so many things that worry parents are not much matter.

And plenty of brothers and sisters. A solitary child in a house is a lame soul. He can never get that sound view of the world that comes to the member of a full family. As for babies, it is only a sort of imitation family where there are none. The very best ingredients of our character come from dealing with babies.

And I love a houseful of young folks, of the courting age. The only wholesome, delightful, and cheering disease in or out of the medicine books is lovesickness. When we grow past its agonizing stages we still ought to see it in others around us.

Most cranks and dried-up folks and pessimists and disagreeable people are victims of small families. They have been deprived of that wholesome flow of humanities that comes from a full set of relations.

—Frank Crane.

Alternate Reading: Acts 13:1-12.

Christ, our Savior

If you take a cluster of flowers just as they are, with the dew upon them, how exquisite they are! But you tarnish them by just so much as you meddle with them. Every one who dissects a flower must make up his mind to lose it.

That sweetest flower of heaven, from which exhales perfume forever and forever; that dearest and noblest conception that the human imagination ever gathered out of father and mother, out of leader and benefactor, out of shepherd and protector, out of companion and brother and friend; all that ever was gracious in government—these various elements rising together, are an interpretation, in a kind of large and vague way, to the imagination, and through the imagination to the heart, that there is, at the center of universal authority toward which we are going, One who cares for us; One who bears our burdens; One who guides our career; One who hears our cry; and One, though He does not interpret Himself to us, who will at last make it plain that all things work together for the good of those that have trusted in Him.

Oh, my brothers, we are not far from the end of our journey. It matters very little what this world and time have for us. The other world is near to us, and it matters everything how we shall land there. We have our burdens, our crosses, our poignant sorrows, sickness, and death, embarrassments, bankruptcy, trials, and if not outward scourgings yet inward scourgings. We are not exempt from the great lot of mankind; and we go crying often with prone heads. Is it a comfort for you to know that there is a God who thinks of you? to know that there is One who is crying out in the silence, if you could only by your spiritual hearing listen, saying, “Come boldly to the throne of grace, and obtain mercy and help in time of need”?

O throne of iron, from which have been launched terrible lightnings and thunders that have daunted men! O throne of crystal, that has coldly thrown out beams upon the intellect of mankind! O throne of mystery, around about which have been clouds and darkness! O throne of Grace, where He sits regnant who was my brother, who has tasted of my lot, who knows my trouble, my sorrow, my yearning and longing for immortality! O Jesus, crowned, not for Thine own glory, but with power of love for the emancipation of all struggling spirits!—Thou are my God—my God!

—Henry Ward Beecher.

Alternate Reading: Acts 10: 23-43.

Prayer

Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o’er:
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
And lay my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.

—Henry W. Longfellow.

“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 friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.”

—Alfred Tennyson.

Farewell, farewell! I but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small:
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

—S. T. Colbridge.

The man that never prays for his home has a heart of stone.

Alternate Reading: Acts 9:1-19.

Jesus Puts Human Need Above Sabbath Law

About the same time Jesus walked through the cornfields one Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and began to pick some ears of wheat and eat them. But, when the Pharisees saw this, they said:

“Look! your disciples are doing what it is not allowable to do on a Sabbath!”

“Have not you read,” replied Jesus, “what David did when he and his companions were hungry—how he went into the House of God, and how they ate the consecrated bread, though it was not allowable for him or his companions to eat it, but only for the priests? And have not you read in the Law that, on the Sabbath, the priests in the Temple break the Sabbath and yet are not guilty? Here, however, I tell you, there is something greater than the Temple! And had you learnt the meaning of the words—

‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’

you would not have condemned those who are not guilty. For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”

Passing on, Jesus went into their Synagogue, and there he saw a man with a withered hand. Some people asked Jesus whether it was allowable to work a cure on the Sabbath—so that they might have a charge to bring against him. But Jesus said to them:

“Which of you, if he had only one sheep, and that sheep fell into a pit on the Sabbath, would not lay hold of it and pull it out? And how much more precious a man is than a sheep! Therefore it is allowable to do good on the Sabbath.” Then he said to the man:

“Stretch out your hand.”

The man stretched it out; and it had become as sound as the other. On coming out, the Pharisees plotted against Jesus, to put him to death.

Jesus, however, became aware of it, and went away from that place. A number of people followed him, and he cured them all.

—Matthew.

The Joy of a Pure Life

Happy are the pure in heart, for it is they who will see God.

—Jesus.

The Key to a New Earth and Heaven

O lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live;
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we ought behold of higher worth
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless, ever-anxious crowd—
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the earth;
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!

O pure of heart! thou need’st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be,
What and wherein it doth exist.
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power:
Joy, virtuous lady! Joy that ne’er was given
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and life’s effluence, cloud at once and shower—
Joy, lady, is the spirit and power
Which wedding nature to us, gives in dower
A new Earth and Heaven,
Undreamt-of by the sensual and the proud;
Joy is the sweet voice, joy the luminous cloud—
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colors a suffusion from that light.

—S. T. Colbridge.

Alternate Reading: Acts 8:14-25.