Almighty Father, we come to Thee for a Father's blessing, that this day we may go about Thy work and enter into Thy business, alive in Thy spirit and strong in Thy strength. We ask this for ourselves, each of us, that we may be knit to each other as brothers with brothers, to bear each other's burdens. We ask it most of all for home, that in home-life there always may be joy and peace and love, each seeking another's good, brothers and sisters with sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers with their children, that home may be the place of Thy holy spirit and the home of joy. Today we would come and go as Thy messengers, in our own lives welcoming the Father, who is with us seeking Thy strength and asking for Thy good will. Bless us today with Thy blessing. Amen. _Edward Everett Hale._ October 29 _We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrongdoing makes us irritable, and our heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamor within._ _In the conduct of life, habits count for more than maxims, because habit is a living maxim, become flesh and instinct. To reform one's maxims is nothing; it is but to change the title of the book. To learn new habits is everything, for it is to reach the substance of life. Life is but a tissue of habits._ HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that our daily life may take on that dignity and calmness and tranquillity which are the possession of those who truly and inwardly trust and confide in the eternal Goodness, who believe that our days are ordered by a Higher Power, and that through all there runs a thread,--a chain of Infinite Love, binding us all to Thee and to one common universal good and blessedness. In this faith, keep us, O Holy Father, and, filled with love to Thee and to our neighbor, may we pursue our way and do our work, anxious only to have Thee in all our thoughts. In Thy name, Amen. JOSHUA YOUNG. October 30 _Thus pass away the generations of men!--thus perish the records of the glory of nations! Yet, when every emanation of the human mind has faded, when in the storms of time the monuments of man's creative art are scattered to the dust, an ever new life springs from the bosom of the earth. Unceasingly prolific Nature unfolds her germs, regardless though sinful man, ever at war with himself, tramples beneath his foot the ripening fruit!_ ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.