Our Father, we thank Thee for the light of a new day. May a new spirit and new courage come to our hearts. We thank Thee for all those who by patient toil and self-forgetting effort have made life as sweet and precious to us as it is. If we can no longer hear the voices nor see the faces of those we love or have reason to revere, may we be able to see their foot-prints and to take the way they trod, though that way seem steep and hard. May we be assured that the upward way leads to the expanding view and brings us to the splendor of the setting sun or of the still more glorious dawn. Amen. HILARY BYGRAVE. July 29 _A prince went into the vineyard to examine it. He came to a peach tree, and said, "What are you doing for me?" The tree said, "In the spring I give my blossoms and fill the air with fragrance, and on my boughs hangs the fruit which men will gather and carry into the palace for you." "Well done!" said the prince. To the chestnut he said, "What are you doing?" "I am making nests for the birds, and shelter cattle with my leaves and spreading branches." And the prince said, "Well done!" Then he went down to the meadow and asked the grass what it was doing. "We are giving our lives for others, for your sheep and cattle that they may be nourished." And the prince said, "Well done!" Last of all he asked the tiny daisy what it was doing, and the daisy said, "Nothing, nothing. I cannot make a nesting-place for the birds, and I cannot give shelter for the cattle, and I cannot send fruit into the palace, and I cannot even give food for the sheep and cows,--they do not want me in the meadow. All I can do is to be the best little daisy I can be." And the prince bent down and kissed the daisy, and said, "There is none better than thou."_ ANONYMOUS. Help us, O Father, not to wait for the great opportunities which may never come. Help us to do with faithfulness the duties which lie close at hand. In our homes this day and wherever we may be--at school or on the street or at our work--fill our hearts with the spirit of Christ and let that spirit speak in every word which passes our lips and shine from our faces and work with our hands. Amen. WALTER A. TUTTLE. July 30 _I will be glad all day for this cool draught And the clear drops I dash upon my brow; For the fresh glint of sunlight on the tree And the bird singing on the bough._ _I will be glad for that stored strength of life Which lasts the day because the spirit wills; For the live air that wings from far and breathes The vigor of the everlasting hills._ _What scope of toil, what loss or what reward, I do not know. It is enough that now I pledge the day's good cheer with this cool draught And the drops dashed upon my brow._ CHARLES P. CLEAVES.