Do not spoil the chime of this morning's bells by ringing one half a peal! Do not say, "Hold thou me up," and stop there, or add, "But all the same I shall stumble and fall!" Finish the peal with God's own music, the bright words of faith that He puts into your mouth: "Hold thou me up, _and I shall be safe!_"--_Frances Ridley Havergal._ =July 20th.= _Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy. Matt. viii. 6._ We, in this age of the church, are in the position of that sick servant at Capernaum. To the eye of sense we are separated from the Savior. We see Him not--we can touch Him not--the hand cannot steal amid the crowd to catch His garment hem--we cannot hear His loved footsteps as of old on our threshold; but faith penetrates the invisible; the messenger--prayer--meets Him in the streets of the New Jerusalem; and faith and prayer together, the twin delegates from His church below, He has never yet sent empty away.--_Macduff._ =July 21st.= _Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure. Phil. ii. 12, 13._ What a staggering weight of thought is excited by these words! Stay, my soul, and wonder that the Eternal God should stoop to work within thy narrow limits. Is it not a marvel indeed, that He, whom the heavens cannot contain, and in whose sight they are not clean, should trouble Himself to work on such material, so unpromising, and amidst circumstances so uncongenial? How careful should we be to make Him welcome, and to throw no hindrance in His way! How eager to garner up all the least movements of His gracious operation, as the machinist conserves the force of his engine; and as the goldsmith, with miserly care, collects every flake of gold leaf! Surely we shall be sensible of the _fear_ of holy reverence and the _trembling_ of eager anxiety; as we "work out," into daily act and life, all that God our Father is "working in."--_F. B. Meyer._ =July 22nd.= _. . . Sinners of whom I am chief. . . . Now unto the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Tim. i. 15, 17._ Only those who have struck the deepest note of penitence can reach the highest note of praise.--_A. J. Gordon._ =July 23rd.= _Blessed is the man . . . that keepeth the Sabbath. Isa. lvi. 2._ The Sabbath is the savings-bank of human life, into which we deposit one day in seven to be repaid in the autumn of life with compound interest.--_Selected._ =July 24th.= _Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Psa. xix. 12._