MAY 9.

The history of the first three centuries is a history of a contest. The Church and the Empire started side by side. They met in the market, in the house, in the school, in the institutions of government. In each Christianity triumphed, asserting its power over common life, over thought, over civil organization. These victories contain the promise of all that later ages have to reap. The victory of common life was first. It was wrought out in silence, in patience, in nameless agonies. It was the victory of the soldiers, not of the captains of Christ's army.

Brooke Foss Westcott.

MAY 10.

That America marks the highest level, not only of material well-being, but of intelligence and happiness, which the race has yet attained, will be the judgment of those who look not at the favored few, for whose benefit the world seems hitherto to have framed its institutions, but at the whole body of the people.

James Bryce, born May 10, 1838.

MAY II.

Those despised as ignorant, and set down as fools, no sooner commit themselves to the teachings of Jesus, than far from defiling themselves in shameless passion, they, in many cases, keep themselves, like priests for whom such pleasures have no charm, in act and thought in a state of purity. They do so for no human honors, for no fee or reward, from no motive of vain glory, but as they choose to retain God in their knowledge, they are preserved in a spirit well-pleasing to Him in the discharge of every duty, being filled with all goodness. Origen, 185-254.

MAY 12.

The highest honor of any nation is to preserve peace, even under provocations which might justify war; the deepest disgrace is to plunge into war under circumstances which leave the honorable alternative of peace.

Robert C. Winthrop, born May 12, 1809.

MAY 13.

The greater message which Christ came into the world to declare was the love of God to man. He told men that their Father in heaven was more ready to hear than they were to ask; that He never cast out any who came, only they must renounce their sins; they could not be the friends of God and hate their brethren; they could not worship God in spirit and truth when they sought to be observed of men; they could not see God when their minds were darkened with impurity. But let them break through the hardness of heart which divided them from God, the veil of passion which hid Him from them, let them receive the word of Christ, and they too would become sons of God. They must forgive if they would be forgiven, do as they would be done by. So he sought to bring men back to that true image of humanity by which he was to reconcile them with one another and with God. This is the message of Christ to all mankind. B. Jowett.

MAY 14.

Older than the New Testament is that custom of public worship on Sundays, which after the example of Christ and Paul we continue. For more than eighteen hundred years there has never been a Sunday in which Christians have not met together; sometimes when the doors were shut for fear of the Jews, sometimes in edifices filled with worshippers. B. Jowett.

MAY 15.

Columbia! Columbia! to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies;
Let the crimes of the east ne'er crimson thy name,
Be freedom and science and virtue thy fame,
While the ensigns of union, in triumph unfurled,
Hush the tumult of war, and give peace to the world.
Timothy Dwight, born May 14, 1752.

MAY 16.

No government ever did for a long period act out all the virtue of its original constitution. Hence every nation must perpetually renew its constitution, or perish. It is a great excellence of our system that sovereignty resides not in Congress and the President, nor in the governments of the States, but in the people of the United States. If the sovereign be just and uncorrupted, the government can be brought back from any aberration, and the constitution, if imperfect, can be amended. This idea of the sovereignty of the people over their government glimmers in the British system, while it fills our own with a broad and glowing light William H. Seward, born May 16, 1801.

MAY 17.

We know the vast resources of the continent, the goodwill that is in the people, their conviction of the advantages of freedom, social equality, education, religious culture, and their determination to penetrate every square mile of the country with American civilization.

R. W. Emerson.

MAY 18.

All knowledge from reason is as really from God as revelation is.

To preside and govern, from the constitution of man, belongs to the conscience. Had it strength as it has right, had it power as it has authority, it would absolutely govern the world.

Love and charity is plainly the thing in which our Saviour hath placed his religion; in which, therefore, as we have any pretense to the name of Christians, we must place ours. He hath enjoined it upon us by way of command, and by his example, having undertaken the work of our salvation out of pure love and good will to mankind.

Joseph Butler, born May 12, 1692.