Amen.

FREDERICK C. PRIEST.

July 25

_Don't object that your duties are so insignificant; they are to be reckoned of infinite significance, and alone important to you. Were it but the more perfect regulation of your apartments, the sorting away of your clothes and trinkets, the arranging of your papers,--"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might," and all thy worth and constancy. Much more, if your duties are of evidently higher, wider scope; if you have brothers, sisters, a father, a mother, weigh earnestly what claim does lie upon you on behalf of each, and consider it as the one thing needful, to pay them more and more honestly and n.o.bly what you owe.

What matter how miserable one is if one can do that? That is the sure and steady disconnection and extinction of whatsoever miseries one has in this world._

THOMAS CARLYLE.

Creator of things, Father of Spirits, standing at the dawn of a new day we seek Thy blessing. We know not what awaits us, Thou knowest, grant us guidance! Help us to see all our duties in the light of Thy countenance.

Thou hast made the little and the large, help us to see our duties in their relation to Thy plans. Whatsoever we do, help us to do all to Thy glory. Help us to sweep our floors as to Thy laws, right our rooms as a part of Thy universe, care for our clothes as gifts from Thee. Help us to see Thee in the souls Thou hast sent into the world, to treat them as thinking-thoughts of Thine, expressions of Thy life. May we owe no man anything but to love, may the sun never set on an unpaid bill. For Thy name's sake. Amen.

O. P. GIFFORD.

July 26

_Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.

No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is doomsday. Today is a king in disguise. Today always looks mean to the thoughtless, in the face of an uniform experience that all good and great and happy actions are made up precisely of these blank todays. Let us not be so deceived, let us unmask the king as he pa.s.ses._

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

Our Father, we thank Thee for this morning that ushers in the only day of which we have promise. Whether it proves to be a day of sunshine or of clouds,--of joy or of sorrow,--may we live it with thankfulness, with perfect confidence that Thou wilt always give us that which is for our own good. Help us to spend this day in doing well what our hands find to do; may our souls breathe the spirit of love and helpfulness to all, and may we have abundantly the influence of Thy divine spirit to keep us pure. Amen.

LUTHER F. MCKINNEY.

July 27

_I like the man who faces what he must With heart triumphant and a step of cheer; Who fights the daily battle without fear; Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust That G.o.d is G.o.d; that somehow, true and just, His plans work out for mortals; not a tear Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear, Falls from his grasp; better, with love, a crust Than living in dishonor; envies not, Nor loses faith in man; but does his best, Nor even murmurs at his humbler lot; But with a smile and words of hope, gives zest To every toiler; he alone is great Who by a life heroic conquers fate._

SARAH KNOWLES BOLTON.

Gracious Father, last night we laid ourselves down in peace to sleep, but it was Thou who madest us to dwell in safety, and when we awoke this morning we found ourselves still with Thee. Thy loving favor was keeping faithful watch and ward while we slumbered. We thank Thee for Thy kindly care of our lives during the darkness and danger of the night. Confident of Thy continued presence and armed with Thy unfailing strength, we would go forth to meet the duties and delights of the new day. G.o.d with us, we will overcome every temptation, endure every trial, bear every burden, and improve every opportunity of character-building and service-rendering, in the trustful and courageous spirit of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

RALPH E. CONNER.

July 28

_How large a part of our G.o.dward life is travelled, not by clear landmarks seen far off in the promised land, but as travellers climb a mountain peak, by putting footstep after footstep, slowly and patiently, into the prints which someone going before us, with keener sight, with stronger nerves, tied to us by the cord of saintly sympathy, has planted deep into the pathless snow of the bleak distance that stretches up between humanity and G.o.d.... So we ascend by one another. We live by one another's blessings._

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Our Father, we thank Thee for the light of a new day. May a new spirit and new courage come to our hearts. We thank Thee for all those who by patient toil and self-forgetting effort have made life as sweet and precious to us as it is. If we can no longer hear the voices nor see the faces of those we love or have reason to revere, may we be able to see their foot-prints and to take the way they trod, though that way seem steep and hard. May we be a.s.sured that the upward way leads to the expanding view and brings us to the splendor of the setting sun or of the still more glorious dawn. Amen.

HILARY BYGRAVE.

July 29

_A prince went into the vineyard to examine it. He came to a peach tree, and said, "What are you doing for me?" The tree said, "In the spring I give my blossoms and fill the air with fragrance, and on my boughs hangs the fruit which men will gather and carry into the palace for you." "Well done!" said the prince. To the chestnut he said, "What are you doing?" "I am making nests for the birds, and shelter cattle with my leaves and spreading branches." And the prince said, "Well done!" Then he went down to the meadow and asked the gra.s.s what it was doing. "We are giving our lives for others, for your sheep and cattle that they may be nourished." And the prince said, "Well done!" Last of all he asked the tiny daisy what it was doing, and the daisy said, "Nothing, nothing. I cannot make a nesting-place for the birds, and I cannot give shelter for the cattle, and I cannot send fruit into the palace, and I cannot even give food for the sheep and cows,--they do not want me in the meadow. All I can do is to be the best little daisy I can be." And the prince bent down and kissed the daisy, and said, "There is none better than thou."_

ANONYMOUS.

Help us, O Father, not to wait for the great opportunities which may never come. Help us to do with faithfulness the duties which lie close at hand. In our homes this day and wherever we may be--at school or on the street or at our work--fill our hearts with the spirit of Christ and let that spirit speak in every word which pa.s.ses our lips and shine from our faces and work with our hands. Amen.

WALTER A. TUTTLE.

July 30

_I will be glad all day for this cool draught And the clear drops I dash upon my brow; For the fresh glint of sunlight on the tree And the bird singing on the bough._

_I will be glad for that stored strength of life Which lasts the day because the spirit wills; For the live air that wings from far and breathes The vigor of the everlasting hills._

_What scope of toil, what loss or what reward, I do not know. It is enough that now I pledge the day's good cheer with this cool draught And the drops dashed upon my brow._

CHARLES P. CLEAVES.

Our Father, we are nursed in Thine arms, we are rested in the heart of Jesus, so that we know no more the emptiness of earth and the poverty of time, for our citizenship is in heaven, already do we walk the streets of gold. Out of the highest rapture may we come to do earth's plainest work, earth's hardest toil, with patient hearts and willing hands, knowing that death can be but for a moment, that all things are meant, in the sovereignty of G.o.d to give themselves up to the rule of life.

Thus may Thy children be loyal citizens, patient workers, honest merchantmen, wise parents. Be with all men who trust Thee; melt the mountains before their coming, and open the gates of difficulty ere they reach them, and give them to feel that the greatness of Thy mercy is the proof of its divinity. Amen.

JOSEPH PARKER.

July 31

_For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor princ.i.p.alities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come._

_Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of G.o.d which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._

ROMANS viii. 38-39.

_These verses seem to me to express completely the remedial power of G.o.d's love. In this rough and tumble world of ours, of hard conditions, of disasters many, of untold misery, there are temptations enough for men to lose faith in G.o.d's love. It is well now and then to have an outburst of faith like this with the a.s.surance that nothing can ever separate any child of G.o.d from the divine compa.s.sion and the divine care._

GEORGE L. PERIN.

Our Heavenly Father, it is good for us to believe that through all storms and all darkness and all sickness and all infirmity, even through death itself, Thy love abides. As we enter upon this day, we know not whither we shall go, but we thank Thee for the a.s.surance that we may not go away from Thee. Thou followest us with Thy care and wrappest us around with Thy love, as with a garment. In all that we do today may we know that Thou seest us, and if our way be steep, may we be sure that Thou lovest us. Amen.

GEORGE L. PERIN.

August 1

_Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet this day with the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, can neither be injured by any of them--for no one can fix on me what is ugly--nor can I be angry with my neighbor, nor hate him. We are made for cooperation; to act against one another, that is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and turn away._