I think I find most help in trying to look on all interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by God to help one against getting selfish over one's work. Then one can feel that perhaps one's true work--one's work for God--consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one's day. It is not waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day,--the part one can best offer to God. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and keep a quiet heart about it. ANNIE KEARY. August 12 _Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life_?--LUKE x. 25. _Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might_.--ECCLES. ix. 10. "What shall I do to gain eternal life?" "Discharge aright The simple dues with which each day is rife, Yea, with thy might." F. VON SCHILLER. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work, and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise, shall give him no peace. R. W. EMERSON. Be diligent, after thy power, to do deeds of love. Think nothing too little, nothing too low, to do lovingly for the sake of God. Bear with infirmities, ungentle tempers, contradictions; visit, if thou mayest, the sick; relieve the poor; forego thyself and thine own ways for love; and He whom in them thou lovest, to whom in them thou ministerest, will own thy love, and will pour His own love into thee. E. B. PUSEY. August 13 _In your patience possess ye your souls_.--LUKE xxi. 19. What though thy way be dark, and earth With ceaseless care do cark, till mirth To thee no sweet strain singeth; Still hide thy life above, and still Believe that God is love; fulfil Whatever lot He bringeth. ALBERT E. EVANS. The soul loses command of itself when it is impatient. Whereas, when it submits without a murmur it possesses itself in peace, and possesses God. To be impatient, is to desire what we have not, or not to desire what we have. When we acquiesce in an evil, it is no longer such. Why make a real calamity of it by resistance? Peace does not dwell in outward things, but within the soul. We may preserve it in the midst of the bitterest pain, if our will remains firm and submissive. Peace in this life springs from acquiescence even in disagreeable things, not in an exemption from bearing them. FRANÇOIS DE LA MOTHE FÉNELON. The chief pang of most trials is not so much the actual suffering itself, as our own spirit of resistance to it. JEAN NICOLAS GROU. August 14 _I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help_.--PS. cxxi. 1. _My grace is sufficient for thee_.--2 COR. xii. 9. I look to Thee in every need, And never look in vain; I feel Thy touch, Eternal Love, And all is well again: The thought of Thee is mightier far Than sin and pain and sorrow are.