Into all our lives, in many simple, familiar, homely ways, God infuses this element of joy from the surprises of life, which unexpectedly brighten our days, and fill our eyes with light. He drops this added sweetness into His children's cup, and makes it to run over. The success we were not counting on, the blessing we were not trying after, the strain of music, in the midst of drudgery, the beautiful morning picture or sunset glory thrown in as we pass to or from our daily business, the unsought word of encouragement or expression of sympathy, the sentence that meant for us more than the writer or speaker thought,--these and a hundred others that every one's experience can supply are instances of what I mean. You may call it accident or chance--it often is; you may call it human goodness--it often is; but always, always call it God's love, for that is always in it. These are the overflowing riches of His grace, these are His free gifts. S. LONGFELLOW. August 7 _If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth_.--MARK ix. 23. _Nothing shall be impossible unto you_.--MATT. xvii. 20. So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, _Thou must_, The youth replies, _I can_. R. W. EMERSON. Know that "impossible," where truth and mercy and the everlasting voice of nature order, has no place in the brave man's dictionary. That when all men have said "Impossible," and tumbled noisily elsewhither, and thou alone art left, then first thy time and possibility have come. It is for thee now: do thou that, and ask no man's counsel, but thy own only and God's. Brother, thou hast possibility in thee for much: the possibility of writing on the eternal skies the record of a heroic life. T. CARLYLE. In the moral world there is nothing impossible, if we bring a thorough will to it. Man can do everything with himself; but he must not attempt to do too much with others. WM. VON HUMBOLDT. August 8 _Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage_.--GAL. v. i. _I believed, and therefore have I spoken_.--2 COR. iv. 13. They are slaves who fear to speak For the fallen and the weak; They are slaves who will not choose Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, Rather than in silence shrink From the truth they needs must think; They are slaves who dare not be In the right with two or three. J. R. LOWELL. The real corrupters of society may be, not the corrupt, but those who have held back the righteous leaven, the salt that has lost its savor, the innocent who have not even the moral courage to show what they think of the effrontery of impurity,--the serious, who yet timidly succumb before some loud-voiced scoffer,--the heart trembling all over with religious sensibilities that yet suffers itself through false shame to be beaten down into outward and practical acquiescence by some rude and worldly nature.