The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

A Calendar: March

For an explanation of how this calendar works, see the first article in the series.

Though at the commencement it was said that an attempt was being made to form a Calendar for the children of St. George, it seems unadvisable, as the work advances, to adapt the remembrance of great ones departed, in all cases to the comprehension of children. Some of the Readings must be unsuitable for them,or would convey a mere impression of something to be realized hereafter: and it is a question how far the enjoyment of words which express deep or solemn meaning is impaired by too early familiarity with them. It need scarcely be remarked in this Review, that parents will be the best judges as to what to reserve, and what to use with their children.

March.

1st.

2nd. Chad, Bishop of Lichfield, A.D. 669. Add verse to hymn as above.
For holy Chad of Lichfield, Thy holy name we praise,
Who lived to bless our people, in ruder earlier days;
Who built, baptized, instructed, in prayer did never cease
Until his fervent spirit was bid depart to peace.

Or, John Wesley died 1771. Sing or say hymn--
"Give to the winds Thy fears." John Wesley, from Paul Gerhardt.

3rd--9th.

10th. Mazzini died, A.D. 1872. Reading from his works:--
"Life is not the search after a well-being--a happiness which is impossible on earth. Life is a mission, or it has neither value nor meaning. Life is not our own--it is of God; it has, therefore, an aim and a law. To discover this law, to gradually ascertain this aim, and temper our thoughts and action in accordance with it, is our task. The holy formula of duty must rule it from on high. Man has no rights from nature, save only the one right of liberating himself from every obstacle impeding his consequences of our own actions: of the fulfillment of our duties. Material possessions, like intellectual possessions, are merely means of fulfilling these; the instruments by which to achieve our mission--the aim: and they also are sacred in view of that aim; by regarding them as the aim of life, we may possibly succeed in transporting the egotism of one class into another, but we shall never annihilate egotism for the general good. Whatsoever the law may be, whatsoever the aim assigned to us, and of which clearer glimpses are revealed to us from epoch to epoch, we can neither advance in the discovery of the first, nor the realization of the second, without calling all the forces of humanity into play. Our intimate union with our fellows is therefore a duty. Each of us lives, not for himself, but for all: and we cannot fulfill our own progress apart from that of the rest. The supreme virtue is sacrifice: to think, to act, and, if need be, to suffer, not for ourselves but for others--for the triumph of good over evil. The conditions of the problem remain the same; the achievement of the means of well-being for all, continues to be our task either way; but the spirit and intention in which the task is undertaken, the difference of the aim which those means are intended to realize, will produce different results, and educate mankind to love and virtue, not to the odious egotism which is the plague of the world at the present day."

11th.

12th. St. Gregory the Great, A.D. 604. Add verse to hymn as above.
Praise for the Church's fathers, and chiefly now for him
For Gregory the great and good, whose light no time can dim;
Who hated all oppression, and war, and slavery too,
Had pity for the British slave, and justice for the Jew.

13th--16th.

17th. St. Patrick. Add verse to hymn as above.
Now praise be given for Patrick, the saintly captive youth,
In bonds in Pagan Ireland, his heart was filled with ruth;
He afterwards returning, proclaimed the truth of God,
And left the country Christian, when laid beneath its sod.

18th.

19th. Bishop Ken died 1711. Sing his own morning hymn--
"Awake my soul and with the sun."

20th. St. Cuthbert died A.D. 686. Add verse to hymn as above--
We praise Thee now for Cuthbert, true bishop, preacher, seer,
Untired he strove to teach and help, to civilize, to cheer:
In Holy Island lingering, or Durham's stately fane,
Recall we him whose holy life, wrought out our people's gain.

Or, Sir Isaac Newton died, 1727. Pope's epitaph on Sir Isaac Newton--
"Nature and all her works lay hid in night,
God said, 'Let Newton be,'--and all was light."

21st. St. Benedict, Abbot, died 54. Add verse to hymn as above--
Now praise we for St. Benedict, of large and gifted mind,
Who sought in desert solitudes, the peace of heav'n to find:
Who taught his followers wisely, to worship and obey,
And with their hands to labor, for seven hours each day.

22nd. Goethe died, 1832. Reading. Carlyle wrote thus--
"We will march out of this Third Book with a rhythmic word of Goethe's on our lips; a word which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant: to me joyfully finding much in it and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German Man, sounds like a stanza in the grand Road-song and Marching songof our great Teutonic Kindred, wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time! He calls it Mason-Lodge--not Psalm or Hymn."

The Mason's ways are
A type of Existence,
And his persistence
Is as the days are
Of men in this world.

The future hides in it
Gladness and sorrow;
We press still thorow,
Nought that abides in it
Daunting us--onward.

And solemn before us
Veiled, the dark Portal,
Goal of all mortal:--
Stars silent rest o'er us,
Graves under us silent.

While earnest thou gazest,
Comes boding of terror,
Comes phantasm and error,
Perplexes the bravest
With doubt and misgiving.

But heard are the Voices
Heard are the Sages,
The Worlds and the Ages:
"Choose well; your choice is
Brief and yet endless.

Here eyes do regard you,
In Eternity's stillness;
Here is all fulness,
Ye brave, to reward you;
Work, and despair not.

23rd.

24th. Longfellow died, 1882. Read his own--"Curfew."

25th. Annunciation. Lady Day. Collect. Epistle &

26th--27th.

28th. St. Theresa, A.D. 1515. Read "Santa Teresa's Bookmark from the Spanish of Santa Teresa," by Longfellow.

"Let nothing disturb thee
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth:
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth."

29th. John Keble died, 1866. Read his own hymn, beginning--
"Sit down and take thy fill of joy
At God's right hand, a bidden guest."
           for St. James's day.

30th--31st.

JULIA FIRTH.

Typed by Bhooma, July 2018; Proofread by LNL, May 2021