"Accustom yourself gradually to let your mental prayer spread over all your daily external occupations. Speak, act, work quietly, as though you were praying, as indeed you ought to be. "Do everything without excitement, simply in the spirit of grace. So soon as you perceive natural activity gliding in, recall yourself quietly into the Presence of God. Hearken to what the leadings of grace prompt, and say and do nothing but what God's Holy Spirit teaches. You will find yourself infinitely more quiet, your words will be fewer and more effectual, and while doing less, what you do will be more profitable. It is not a question of a hopeless mental activity, but a question of acquiring a quietude and peace in which you readily advise with your Beloved as to all you have to do." FÉNÉLON. "A blessing such as this our hearts might reap, The freshness of the garden they might share, Through the long day an heavenly freshness keep, If, knowing how the day and the day's glare Must beat upon them, we would largely steep And water them betimes with dews of Prayer." TRENCH. Self-examination OCTOBER 14 "It is my custom every night to run all over the words and actions of the past day; for why should I fear the sight of my errors when I can admonish and forgive myself? I was a little too hot in such a dispute: my opinion might have been as well spared, for it gave offence, and did no good at all. The thing was true; but all truths are not to be spoken at all times." SENECA. RESOLVES. "To try to be thoroughly poor in spirit, meek, and to be ready to be silent when others speak. "To learn from every one. "To try to feel my own insignificance. "To believe in myself and the powers with which I am entrusted. "To try to make conversation more useful, and therefore to store my mind with facts, but to guard against a wish to shine. "To try to despise the principle of the day 'every man his own trumpeter,' and to feel it a degradation to speak of my own doings, as a poor braggart. "To speak less of self and to think less. "To contend one by one against evil thoughts. "To try to fix my thoughts in prayer without distraction. "To watch over a growing habit of uncharitable judgment." _F. W. Robertson's Life._ Confession of Sin OCTOBER 15 "An immense quantity of modern confession of sin, even when honest, is merely a sickly egotism which will rather gloat over its own evil than lose the centralisation of its interest in itself." _Ethics of the Dust_, JOHN RUSKIN.