Dear Father in Heaven, good Giver of all, For birth in a land fair and free, For parents with pluck, if not the best luck, Who toiled and who suffered for me. Who never knew fear, though the scorners were near, Whom circumstance filled not with pride, I thank Thee! These gifts, more than all on the lists, Have mattered with me, and abide. While striving and struggling my manhood to build, To live like Thine own perfect Son, I find on Earth's face not just one single place Where such work so well can be done As in the fair land which from Thy gracious hand Comes to me a home to enjoy, Where man, who should grow, may all liberty know In seeking the soul's high employ. 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 nobly 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 passes._ RALPH WALDO EMERSON.