And when this dust falls to the urn,

In that state I came, return.

Henry Vaughan.

When a thought is too weak to be with simplicity expressed, it is a proof that it should be rejected.

Vauvenargues.

The spirit of simplicity is a great magician. It softens asperities, bridges chasms, draws together hands and hearts. The forms which it takes in the world are infinite in number; but never does it seem to us more admirable than when it shows itself across the fatal barriers of position, interest, or prejudice.

Charles Wagner.

Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

J. G. Whittier.

The thing aimed at by all great souls has been to bring men and races back to the simplicity and purity of childhood-back to reality.

Booker T. Washington.

With little here to do or see

Of things that in the great world be,
Sweet Daisy! oft I talk to thee
For thou art worthy,

Thou unassuming commonplace
Of Nature, with that homely face,
And yet with something of a grace

Which love makes for thee!

William Wordsworth.

We are apt to forget, in praising the multiplication of wants, that mere multiplication is not a benefit, unless at the same time that wants are multiplied, they are also integrated. Pastor Wagner admits that the multiplication of wants is conducive to the advance of civilization; he does not wish to turn the hands on the dial backward; he is no eulogist of asceticism.

What he says is that we are too heavily loaded, that we are carrying too much baggage, that we would better discharge our burdens, or a

part of them. This complex civilization has

put so many cares, so many unnecessary anxieties upon us that we walk bent and stooping. He cries out that we are spending our precious lives in trying to get no end of things which we really do not care for, and that we miss the things for which at heart we do care.

Felix Adler.

There is doubt whether the simplicity that becomes a fad is simplicity at all. Gluttony and extravagant houses and the weary dissipations of the inane rich are bad diseases of a small section of American society; but, bad as they are, they startle one less than the making of simplicity a sort of cult; for whosoever seeks it in any way but in modesty and by personal habit cannot find it. It begins in a state of mind, the very state of mind that abhors a fad. To go about acquiring simplicity with great ado that justifies the jibes of all our enemies. Must we seek our very silences noisily?

Walter H. Page.

The cowslip startles in meadows green,
The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,
And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean
To be some happy creature's palace;
The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives; His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and

sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nestIn the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

James Russell Lowell.

There are certain occasions when, in art, simplicity is an audacious originality.

Achilles Poincelot.

Simplicity is the pure white light of a life lived from within. It is destroyed by any attempt to live in harmony with public opinion.

William George Jordan.

The most pathetic thing about our modern life is the revelation which it gives of multitudes who are overburdened, who are tired even of good and great things. The message that has come to us as if it were a gospel is the great word, all things are yours."

66

"All the good the past has had,

Remains to make our own time glad,"

we say. But does it make our own time glad, this haunting sense of a good we have not personally grasped, of the wisdom and truth all around us, but disorderly to our mind? Does this make us glad, does it not bring rather the feeling of those who labour and are heavy laden, and who long, above all things on earth, for simplicity, directness, peace?

Samuel M. Crothers.

Why dream of lands of gold and pearl,
Of loving knight and lady,

When farmer boy and barefoot girl

Were wandering there already?

J. G. Whittier : "Burns."

Teach me, Father, how to go
Softly as the grasses grow;
Hush my soul to meet the shock
Of the wild world as a rock;
But my spirit, propt with power,
Make as simple as a flower;
Let the dry heart fill its cup,
Like a poppy looking up;

Let Life lightly wear her crown,
Like the poppy looking down,
When its heart is filled with dew,
And its life begins anew.

Teach me, Father, how to be
Kind and patient as a tree;
Joyfully the crickets croon
Under shady oak at noon;
Beetle, on his mission bent,
Tarries in that cooling tent;
Let me, also, cheer a spot,
Hidden field or garden grot

Place where passing souls can rest

On the way and be their best.

Edwin Markham.