The Choicest Thing This World Has For

The Faculty Of Self-help Is That Which Distinguished Man From Animals; That It Is The Godlike Element, Or Holds Within Itself The Godlike Element, Of His Constitution.

The Pleasant Converse Of The Fireside, The Simple Songs Of Home, The Words Of Encouragement As I Bend Over My School-tasks, The Kiss As I Lie Down To Rest, The Patient Bearing With The Freaks Of My Restless Nature, The Gentle Counsels Mingled With Reproofs And Approvals, The Sympathy That Meets And Assuages Every Sorrow, And Sweetens Every Little Success--all These Return To Me Amid The Responsibilities Which Press Upon Me Now, And I Feel As If I Had Once Lived In Heaven, And, Straying, Had Lost My Way.

There Are Crowds Who Trample A Flower Into The Dust Without Thinking Once That They Have One Of The Sweetest Thoughts Of God Under Their Heel.

I Stand By My Kind; And I Thank God For The Temptations That Have Brought Me Into Sympathy With Them, As I Do For The Love That Urges Me To Efforts For Their Good. I Hail The Great Brotherhood Of Trial And Temptation In The Name Of Humanity, And Give Them Assurance That From The Divine Man, And Some, At Least, Of His Disciples, There Goes Out To Them A Flood Of Sympathy That Would Fain Sweep Them Up To The Firm Footing Of The Rock Of Safety.

I Account The Office Of Benefactor, Or Almoner, To Which God Appoints All Those Whom He Has Favored With Wealth, One Of The Most Honorable And Delightful In The World. He Never Institutes A Channel For The Passage Of His Bounties That Those Bounties Do Not Enrich And Beautify.