Golden Hope

“ A true hope we can touch somehow through all the lights and shadows of life. It is a prophecy fulfilled in part—God's earnest money paid into our hands, that he will be ready with the whole when we are ready for it. It is the sunlight on the hill-top when the valley is dark as death; the spirit touching us, all through our pilgrimage, and then soaring away with us into the blessed life where we may expect either that the fruition will be entirely equal to the hope, or that the old glamour will come over us again, and beckon us on forever as the choicest gift heaven has to give. ”

“ This is always the case where the heart fails to accept the lesson taught. By submission to sorrow the sweetest traits of character are developed, as some fruits are brought to perfection only by frost. Misfortune should act upon us or upon our feelings like fire upon old tenements, which are consumed only to be rebuilt with greater perfection. The winds of adversity sweep over the soul and scatter the fairest blossoms of hope. But the blossoms fall that the fruit may appear. So with us, when the flowers of hope are gone, there come the fruits of long-suffering, patience, faith, and love. ”

“ There is no one so fallen but that he may have hopes; nor is any so exalted as to be beyond the reach of fears. "When faith, temperance, and other celestial powers left the earth," says one of the ancient writers, "Hope was the only goddess that stayed behind."
The man who carries a lantern in a dark night can have friends walking safely by the light of its rays, and not be defrauded himself. So he who is of cheerful disposition, and has the light of hope in his breast, can help on many others in this world's darkness, not to his own loss, but to their gain. ”

“ It is not surprising when we reflect on the nature of hope that we find it to be such a mainspring to human action. It is the parent of all effort and endeavor, and "every gift of noble origin is breathed upon by hope's perpetual breath." It may be said to be the moral engine that moves the world and keeps it in action. Every true hope which has for its object some great and noble design is an unexpressed prayer, which flies on angel's wings to the throne of God, and returns to the struggling one a precious benison of inspiration to go forth on his errand of good. ”

“ Bear up with patient courage—"the bird that flutters least is longest on the wing." "Duty is the stern daughter of the voice of God."
Let us then, upon entering this stately Temple of Life, cast into the Golden Censer our courage, our hope, our energy, our love, our industry, and all those qualities which go to make the air around us redolent with the fragrance of the achievements of life. It cannot then well be that we shall lack in allegiance to our Maker, our country, or ourselves. "Duties are ours; events are God's." ”

“ By a kind of fashionable discipline the eye is taught to brighten, the lip to smile, and the whole countenance to emanate the semblance of friendly welcome, while the bosom is unwarmed by a single spark of genuine kindness and good-will. Grief and anxiety lie hidden under the golden robes of prosperity, and the gloom of calamity is often cheered by the secret radiations of hope and comfort, as in the works of nature the bog is sometimes covered with flowers and the mine concealed in barren crags. Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by the outward appearance. ”

“ Hope is an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, that will restrain our frail bark and enable us to outride the storms of time.
There are so many humiliations in this world! The secret is to rise above them, to throw off dissatisfaction, and to grasp some pleasing hope, grateful and beneficial to the mind. ”

“ To see two rational creatures, in the glow of youth and hope which invests life in a halo of happiness, appear together and acknowledge their preference for each other, voluntarily enter into a league of perpetual friendship and amity, and call on all to witness the sanctity of their vows, awakens deep feeling in the hearts of all beholders. A holy influence is felt to pervade the place ”

“ Emits a brighter ray.—Goldsmith.
ope is the best part of our riches. For it alone reaches further than any other—off into the world which is to come. But I am speaking to you of the practical advantages of hope. Bacon says: "Hope is leaf-joy, which may be beaten out to a great extension, like gold." It has been most beautifully said by Hillard that the shadow of human life is traced upon a golden ground of immortal hope. ”

“ And, on the other hand, it is not only the valor, which meets a thousand enemies upon the battlefield, or scales the walls in a forlorn hope, that is of true gold. It may be, but often it is a mere greed of fame, fear of shame, or lust of plunder. No, it is the spirit that gives itself for others—the temper that for the sake of religion, of country, of duty, of kindred, nay, of pity even to a stranger, will dare all things, risk all things, endure all things, meet death in one moment, or wear life away in slow, persevering tendance and suffering. ”

“ How consoling her tears of sympathy to the mourning! How fresh her spirit of hope to the discouraged! How balmy the breath of her love to the oppressed! Man, too, appears in his best light and grandest aspect when he appears as the practical follower of Him who went about doing good. He who does these works of practical benevolence is educating his moral powers in the school of earnest and glorious life. He is laying the foundation for a noble and useful career. He is planting the seeds of a charity that will grow to bless and save the sufferings of our fellow-men. ”

“ They have health, competency, and happiness. They are ambitious of every good. When the true principles of temperance are established in early life and made the controlling power through life, they insure health, {252} freedom from pain, competency, respectability, honor, virtue, usefulness, and happiness—all for which true men have or hope in this life. Happy would it be if they were general and all youths would practice them. Then would religion assert her mild and gentle sway, peace plant her olive wreath in every nation, wisdom, divine and time-honored, shed every-where her glorious light. ”

“ Used with a due prudence hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The vision of future triumph, which at first animates exertion, if dwelt upon too strongly, will usurp the place of the reality, and noble objects will be contemplated, not for their own inherent worth, or with a design of compassing their execution, but for the day-dreams they engender. ”

“ It was a golden summer's evening when I, to whom the golden world was all a hell, came by tryst to the park of Quinton Manor, there to bid Cydaria farewell. Mother and sisters had looked askance at me, the village gossiped, even the Vicar shook a kindly head. What cared I? By Heaven, why was one man a nobleman and rich, while another had no money in his purse and but one change to his back? Was not love all in all, and why did Cydaria laugh at a truth so manifest? ”

“ Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that teach us to look behind the dark clouds of to-day for the golden beams that are to gild the morrow. ”

“ The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom
Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue,
Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life
running through;
And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me
Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be. ”

“ A dirge for the fall of thy warrior love.
"Alas! that ever," Leila said,
"The fond should mourn above the dead,
Thus all too early desolate,
Without one hope or wish from fate;
Save death, what can the maiden crave
Who weeps above her lover's grave?" ”

“ A sound at which th' untutor'd maid turns pale;
Her soft eyes languish, and her bosom heaves,
And Hope delights as Fancy's dream deceives.
Thus speaks the heart which cold disgust invades,
When time instructs, and Hope's enchantment fades;
Through life's wide stage, from sages down to kings,
The puppets move, as art directs the strings:
Imperious beauty bows to sordid gold,
Her smiles, whence heaven flows emanent, are sold ”

“ Hope calculates its schemes for a long and durable life, presses forward to imaginary points of bliss, and grasps at impossibilities, and, consequently, very often ensnares men into beggary, ruin, and dishonor. Hope is a great calculator, but a poor mathematician. ”

“ It falls on the heart like the dew on the flower, — An infinite essence from tropic to pole, The promise, the home, and the heaven of Soul. Hope happifies life, at the altar or bower, And loosens the fetters of pride and of power; It comes through our tears, as the soft summer rain, To beautify, bless, and make joyful again, The harp of the minstrel, the treasure of time; A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine; The God-given mandate that speaks from above, — No place for earth's idols, but hope thou, and love. ”

“ To share with others those impassion'd thoughts,
Like light, or hope, or love, in their effects.
When I have watch'd the stars write on the sky
In characters of light, have seen the moon
Come like veiled priestess from the east,
While, like a hymn, the wind swell'd on mine ear,
Telling soft tidings of eve's thousand flowers,
Has it not been the transport of my lute
To find its best delight in sympathy?
Alas! the idols which our hopes set up,
They are Chaldean ones, half gold, half clay;
We trust, we are deceived, we hope, we fear,
Alike without foundation ”

“ There is a cheering prospect about this people, for whose salvation I have devoted my life, that when Christ enters into the heart of a Greek, there is very little hope left for the devil to induce him to be a backslider. A truly converted Greek soul is worthy of all the joy that the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. ”

“ Some one loves this poor soul."
Then, staid by the love of those dear ones at home,
I steady myself and go swimming along;
I brave the hard life of a dark dungeon cell
And I come out victorious, all perfect and well—
Then I meet them again and go home there to dwell.
'T is well! Ah, 't is well!
HOPE. BY SAM LAW.
The world may change from old to new,—
From new to old again,—
Yet Hope and Heaven, forever true,
Within man's heart remain.
The dreams that bless the weary soul,
The struggle of the strong,
Are steps toward some happy goal,
The story of Hope's song. ”

“ Thou always hast thy way.
I have no cares, O blessed will!
For all my cares are thine;
I live in triumph, Lord, for thou
Hast made thy triumphs mine.
And when it seems no chance or change
From grief can set me free,
Hope finds its strength in helplessness,
And gayly waits on thee.
Man's weakness waiting upon God
Its end can never miss,
For man on earth no work can do
More angel-like than this.
Ride on, ride on triumphantly,
Thou glorious Will! ride on;
Faith's pilgrim sons behind thee take
The road that thou hast gone.
He always wins who sides with God,
To him no chance is lost ”

“ No good ever comes of going from the truth. That's my notion!"
Jan stood up very straight as he finished, and sitting as Karin was, he seemed to her in every way high above her.
"You are right, Jan," she answered sorrowfully. "I suppose I must do as you say. I did so want him to be really my own, just like my little Gustaf."
"Your little Gustaf, our little Gustaf, is in a good place, and I hope Nono will be there too sometime," said Jan.
"Not Nono in heaven yet!" said Karin, pressing the dark baby to her breast. "I cannot spare him, and I don't believe God will take him." ”

“ Hope waits on Fortune. After many years
I saw my early idol once again:
How changed, yet still how very beautiful!
Pride sat upon her brow, a reckless scorn
Mingled with bitterness in each light word,
And sorrow, ill concealed, seemed at her heart:
Yet had she wedded, and won rank and wealth,
But once we met; how deep the tenderness
That softened her so lovely countenance,
When, with a voice half music and half sorrow,
She gently said, "The seared heart doth not break." ”

“ Hope goes to her dungeon vaults, her beds of sickness, her chambers of bereavement and sorrow. To take Faith or Hope to heaven, would be to take the Physician to the sound man, or to offer crutches to the strong, or to help to light the meridian sun with a tiny candle; Faith is then changed to sight, and Hope to full fruition. Love alone holds on her infinite mission. Faith and Hope are her two soaring pinions. She drops them as she enters the gates of glory. The watcher puts out his beacon when the sun floods the ocean—the miner puts out his lamp when he ascends to the earth. ”

“ The fountain of my fortune, which now stops, Repressed and bound by some malicious star, Will soon in joy play forth from all its pipes. GORDON. And yet remember I the good old proverb, "Let the night come before we praise the day." I would be slow from long-continued fortune To gather hope: for hope is the companion Given to the unfortunate by pitying heaven. Fear hovers round the head of prosperous men, For still unsteady are the scales of fate. ”

“ And now came Hope, that most blessed and beneficent spirit that lifteth the fallen from the slough, that bindeth up the broken heart, that cheereth the sad and downcast and maketh the oft-defeated bold and courageous to attempt Fortune yet again. ”

“ Give thoughts of cheer,
Of courage and success, to friend and stranger.
And from a thousand sources, far and near,
Strength will be sent thee in thy hour of danger.
Give words of comfort, of defense, and hope,
To mortals crushed by sorrow and by error.
And though thy feet through shadowy paths may grope,
Thou shalt not walk in loneliness or terror.
Give of thy gold, though small thy portion be.
Gold rusts and shrivels in the hand that keeps it.
It grows in one that opens wide and free.
Who sows his harvest is the one who reaps it. ”