January 25

The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing; but the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.—PROV. xiii, 4.

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.—PROV. xii, 24.

Luck lies abed, in dreams to number

The coins of future riches vast;

Labor, arising from his slumber,

Earns pence that grow to pounds at last.

Golden Days.

As the Divine seems nearest when human, and men have loved to believe in the union of God and man, so religion is loveliest when it assumes the form of common life, when daily work is a daily sacrament, and life itself a psalm of gratitude and prayer of aspiration. . . . Genius is the father of a heavenly line; but the mortal mother, that is Industry. The act of prayer—that is the one great vital means of religious growth; the resolute desire and the unconquerable will to be the image of a perfect man; the comparison of your actual day with your ideal dream. Fast as you learn a truth, moral, affectional, or religious, apply the special truth to daily life, and you increase your piety; so the best school for religion is the daily work of common life, with its daily discipline of personal, domestic, and social duties—the daily work in field or shop, market or house, “the charities that soothe and heal and bless.” Nothing great is ever done without industry. Sloth sinks the idle boy to stupid ignorance, and vain to him are schools, and books, and all the appliances of the instructor’s art. It is industry in religion which makes the man a saint. Then nurse the tender plant of piety; one day its bloom will adorn your gloomy hour, and be a brightness in many a winter day which now you reck not of. THEODORE PARKER.