Our business is not to build quickly, but to build upon a right foundation, and in a right spirit. Life is more than a mere competition as between man and man; it is not who can be done first, but who can work best; it is not who can rise highest in the shortest time, but who is working most patiently and lovingly in accordance with the designs of God.--_Joseph Parker._ =July 8th.= _As thy days, so shall thy strength be. Deut. xxxiii. 25._ No day without its duty; no duty without strength to perform it.--_Selected._ =July 9th.= _Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. Gen. xxviii. 16._ "Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not." My soul, this is also thine experience! How often hast thou said in thy sorrow, "Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself!" How often hast thou slept for very heaviness of heart, and desired not to wake again! And when thou didst wake again, lo, the darkness was all a dream! Thy vision of yesterday was a delusion. God had been with thee all the night with that radiance which has no need of the sun. O my soul, it is not only after the future thou must aspire; thou must aspire to see the glory of thy past. Thou must find the glory of that way by which thy God has led thee, and be able even of thy sorrow to say, "This was the gate of heaven!"--_George Matheson._ =July 10th.= _My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me. John iv. 34._ The real secret of an unsatisfied life lies too often in an unsurrendered will.--_J. Hudson Taylor._ =July 11th.= _Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue. 2 Pet. i. 5._ You will find it less easy to unroot faults than to choke them by gaining virtues. Do not think of your faults, still less of others' faults; in every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; rejoice in it, and, as you can, try to imitate it; and your faults will drop off, like dead leaves, when their time comes.--_John Ruskin._ =July 12th.= _Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Song of Sol. iv. 16._ Sometimes God sends severe blasts of trial upon His children to develop their graces. Just as torches burn most brightly when swung violently to and fro; just as the juniper plant smells sweetest when flung into the flames; so the richest qualities of a Christian often come out under the north wind of suffering and adversity. Bruised hearts often emit the fragrance that God loveth to smell. Almost every true believer's experience contains the record of trials which were sent for the purpose of shaking the spice tree.--_Theodore Cuyler._ =July 13th.= _Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Song of Sol. iv. 16._