"Are they not ministering spirits?" -HEB. i. 14.
MAY I reach
That the purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Be sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invinsible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.
-GEORGE ELIOT
CERTAINLY, in our own little sphere, it is not the most active people to whom we owe the most. Among the common people whom we know, it is not necessarily those who are busiest, not those who, meteor-like, are ever on the rush after some visible charge and work. It is the lives, like the stars, which simply pour down on us the calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to which we look and out of which we gather the deepest calm and courage. It seems to me that there is reassurance here for many of us who seem to have no chance for active usefulness. We can do nothing for our fellow-men. But still it is good to know that we can do something for them; to know (and this we may know surely) that no man or womanof the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness.
-PHILLIPS BROOKS
