LORD, enlighten us to see the beam that is in our own eye, and blind us to the mote that is in our brother’s. Let us feel our offences with our hands, make them great and bright before us like the sun, make us eat them and drink them for our diet. Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories, take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity: touch us with fire from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city: in the name and by the method of him in whose words of prayer we now conclude. FOR SELF-FORGETFULNESS LORD, the creatures of thy hand, thy disinherited children, come before Thee with their incoherent wishes and regrets: Children we are, children we shall be, till our mother the earth hath fed upon our bones. Accept us, correct us, guide us, thy guilty innocents. Dry our vain tears, wipe out our vain resentments, help our yet vainer efforts. If there be any here, sulking as children will, deal with and enlighten him. Make it day about that person, so that he shall see himself and be ashamed. Make it heaven about him, Lord, by the only way to heaven, forgetfulness of self, and make it day about his neighbours, so that they shall help, not hinder him. FOR RENEWAL OF JOY WE are evil, O God, and help us to see it and amend. We are good, and help us to be better. Look down upon thy servants with a patient eye, even as Thou sendest sun and rain; look down, call upon the dry bones, quicken, enliven; recreate in us the soul of service, the spirit of peace; renew in us the sense of joy. * * * * * A LOWDEN SABBATH MORN BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON I THE clinkum-clank o’ Sabbath bells Noo to the hoastin’ rookery swells, Noo faintin’ laigh in shady dells, Sounds far an’ near, An’ through the simmer kintry tells Its tale o’ cheer. II An’ noo, to that melodious play, A deidly awn the quiet sway— A’ ken their solemn holiday, Bestial an’ human, The singin’ lintie on the brae, The restin’ plou’man. III He, mair than a’ the lave o’ men, His week completit joys to ken; Half-dressed, he daunders out an’ in, Perplext wi’ leisure; An’ his raxt limbs he’ll rax again Wi’ painfü’ pleesure. IV The steerin’ mither strang afit Noo shoos the bairnies but a bit; Noo cries them ben, their Sinday shüit To scart upon them, Or sweeties in their pouch to pit, Wi’ blessin’s on them. V