God of light and strength and beauty, for this day we thank Thee. The morning hours come to us freighted with messages of gladness. Thou, our Father, art refreshing our spirits, and home seems dearer, love more sacred and the way of duty clearer before our waiting feet. We thank Thee for life as it is given us, day by day. Help us to fill it with honest, cheerful, fruitful service. May we realize and rejoice in the nobility of labor, and may we learn how it is that a child of Thine, standing in his own place, giving himself to the tasks of the hour, imparts strength and courage to his fellow-worker, and helps the world forward in the path of righteousness and peace. So may Thy will be done in and through us. Amen. JOHN P. FORBES. May 20 _O the green things growing, the green things growing The faint sweet smell of the green things growing! I should like to live, whether I smile or grieve, Just to watch the happy life of my green things growing._ DINAH MULOCK CRAIG. _Not all these sweets, these sounds, this vernal blaze, Is but one joy, express'd a thousand ways; And honey from the flowers, and song of birds, Are from the poet's pen, his overflowing words._ LEIGH HUNT. O Thou who art the Creator of life in every form in which it is expressed in the earth, we thank Thee for the grass and the flowers, the trees and the shrubs, the music of the streams and the melody of the birds. As nature is ever vocal with Thy praise, so may our hearts be attuned to deepest joy that we are a part of Thy creation and made capable of constant exultation in the beauty and the beneficence of Thy purpose therein displayed. In this spirit may we rejoice and be glad in this new day which Thou hast made for us. Amen. I. J. MEAD. May 21 _As one familiar with the sonatas and the symphonies of Beethoven, while passing along the street in summer, gets, from out of the open window, a snatch of a song or a piece that is being played, catching a strain here and another there--and says to himself, "Ah, that is Beethoven. I recognize that: it is from such and such a movement of the Pastoral" or whatever it may be;--so men in life catch strains of God in the mother's disinterested and self-denying love, in the lover's glow, in the little child's innocent affections. Where did this thing come from? No plant ever brought out such fruit as this?_ HENRY WARD BEECHER.