"In general, we know the wise man will be better off than the fool. But for that reason, is the fool to be wretched, utterly crushed down, and left in all the suffering which his conduct and capacity naturally inflict? Not so! 

What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread upon them, and starve them, and get the better of them in every possible way? By no means! They were made that wise people might take care of them. That is the true and plain fact concerning the relations of every strong and wise man to the world about him. He has strength given him, not that he may crush or ignore the weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his own household he is to be the guide and support of his children; out of his household he is still to be the father, that is, the guide and support of the weak and the poor, not merely of the meritoriously weak and the innocently poor, but of the guiltily and punishably poor; of the men who out to have known better; of the poor who ought to be ashamed of themselves."  John Ruskin. 

 

 "But lo! Her twinkling eye is bright with love from heaven,’

In every look it beams with praise, as worshipping with angels;

What honeycomb is hived upon her lips, eloquent of gratitude and prayer, ---

What triumph shrined serene upon her brow,

What glory flickering transparent under those smiling cheeks,

What beauty in her face: --- Is it not the face of an angel?”

Martin F. Tupper.

I can't think of anything so captivating as virtue exuding joy.

Rare today, no doubt, but when one comes across it, I think Tupper's poetic description nearly describes it.

It's why we love children and they have so much power over us.

  

 

 "There are men who stalk about the world gloomy, stiff, and severe - self righteous embodiments of the mischievous heresy that the religion of peace and good-will to all mankind - the religion of love, and hope, and joy - the religion that bathes the universal human soul in the light of parental love, and opens to mankind the gates of immortality - is a religion of terror - men guilty of misrepresenting Christ to the world, and doing incalculable damage to His cause, yet, who find it in them to rebuke the carefree laughter that bubbles up from a maiden's heart that God has filled with life and gladness." 

Timothy Titcomb. 

 I’m no great scholar, prophet or priest,

But I can aid the last the lost and the least.

I may not understand demons, dragons and devils,

But I can apply His healing balm to broken vessels.

I own no church building, chapel or shrine

But I can help carry your burden as mine.

I cannot heal the sick or raise the dead,

But I can share my heart, time and bread.

I can share pure devotion to Christ in simplicity,

Regardless of age, gender, race or ethnicity.

Jesus, let me share your spirit abroad,

With your love, though mine be flawed.

Fred Blauer 11/20/2024

  "There is an enchanted middle ground between virtue and vice, where many a soul lives and feeds in secret, and takes its reward for the restraint and mortification of its outward life. 

Humanity has plenty of men and women who lead faultless outward lives, and have no intention to sin, yet who yield their judgment, if not their conscience, to the motives of restraint, but who, in secret, resort to the fields of temptation, and seek among its excitements for the flavor, at least, of the sins which they have discarded. 

In fact, I have sometimes thought there were men and women who were really more in love with temptation than with sin -- who, by genuine experience have learned that feasts of the imagination were sweeter than the feasts of sense. Whether this be the case or not, I have no doubt that the love of temptation, for the excitement which it brings, is very common, even with those whom we esteem as patterns of virtue."

Timothy Titcomb.