“We hope, we aspire, we resolve, we trust,
When the morning calls to life and light;
But our hearts grow weary, and ere the night,
Our lives are trailing in sordid dust.
Wings for the angles, but feet for the men!
We must borrow the wings to find the way:
We may hope and aspire and resolve and pray,
But our feet must rise, or we fall again.”
If our best moods continually dominated our whole life, we should all live well. We all mean to live well: at least, there are times with all of us when we resolve to do so. New-Year’s days, birthdays, communion Sundays, and other times, when the realities of life stand out in clearer relief than ordinarily, and impress us with unusual vividness, start in most of us serious thoughts, and inspire in us lofty aspirations and noble intentions. We are apt then to make excellent resolutions, and to start off in new and higher planes of living. Now, it would be well for us if there were some way of perpetuating these better moods, and living up to these good intentions. Too often, however, the serious impressions are but transient, and there is too little vitality in the good intentions and resolutions to make them really potent impulses for many days, or to give them permanence among the motives and forces of our life.
Page 1