Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: APRIL. I. What house will ye build me ? saith the Lord. - Acts vii. 49. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be; now put foundations under them. Thoreau. Build up, Soul, a lofty stair; Build a room in healthier air. Here there is no rest; Better climbs to best. Thy friends shall be the eternal stars; They greet thee through thy casement bars; Thy homesick feet they lead Where thou no house wilt need. Lucy Larcom. 2. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne. — Rev. iii. 21. Our times of greatest pleasure are when we have won some higher peak of difficulty, trodden under foot some evil, and felt day by day, so sure a growth of moral strength within us that we cannot conceive of an end of growth. Stopford Brooke. Nor can I count him happiest who has never Been forced with his own hand his chains to sever, And for himself find out the way divine; He never knew the aspirer's glorious pains, He never earned the struggle's priceless gains. Lowell 58 3. Is not this the fast that I have chosen ? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and that ye break every yoke ? — Is. lviii. 6. . This is our Lenten task — the utterance of penitence and the opening of doors to God. It must be very sacred ; not formal, but al1ve and glorified with motive. . . . It must be very reasonable ; not unfitting the body for any good work, but making it a more and more perfect instrument for the soul. Phillips Brooks. 'Tis a fast to dole Thy sheaf of wheat And meat Unto the hungry soul. To show a heart grief-rent; To starve thy sin, Not bin; And that's to keep thy Lent. Herbert. 4. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall 7. flee from thy presence? — Ps. cx...