Our Father, we are nursed in Thine arms, we are rested in the heart of Jesus, so that we know no more the emptiness of earth and the poverty of time, for our citizenship is in heaven, already do we walk the streets of gold. Out of the highest rapture may we come to do earth's plainest work, earth's hardest toil, with patient hearts and willing hands, knowing that death can be but for a moment, that all things are meant, in the sovereignty of God to give themselves up to the rule of life. Thus may Thy children be loyal citizens, patient workers, honest merchantmen, wise parents. Be with all men who trust Thee; melt the mountains before their coming, and open the gates of difficulty ere they reach them, and give them to feel that the greatness of Thy mercy is the proof of its divinity. Amen. JOSEPH PARKER. July 31 _For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come._ _Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord._ ROMANS viii. 38-39. _These verses seem to me to express completely the remedial power of God's love. In this rough and tumble world of ours, of hard conditions, of disasters many, of untold misery, there are temptations enough for men to lose faith in God's love. It is well now and then to have an outburst of faith like this with the assurance that nothing can ever separate any child of God from the divine compassion and the divine care._ GEORGE L. PERIN. Our Heavenly Father, it is good for us to believe that through all storms and all darkness and all sickness and all infirmity, even through death itself, Thy love abides. As we enter upon this day, we know not whither we shall go, but we thank Thee for the assurance that we may not go away from Thee. Thou followest us with Thy care and wrappest us around with Thy love, as with a garment. In all that we do today may we know that Thou seest us, and if our way be steep, may we be sure that Thou lovest us. Amen. GEORGE L. PERIN. August 1 _Begin the morning by saying to thyself, I shall meet this day with the busybody, the ungrateful, the arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial. All these things happen to them by reason of their ignorance of what is good and evil. But I who have seen the nature of the good that it is beautiful, and of the bad that it is ugly, can neither be injured by any of them--for no one can fix on me what is ugly--nor can I be angry with my neighbor, nor hate him. We are made for coöperation; to act against one another, that is contrary to nature; and it is acting against one another to be vexed and turn away._