Our Heavenly Father, help us this day to make good our privilege to feel and think of Thee as we do. Help us this day to make ourselves part of our brotherhood, and our brotherhood part of Thee. We know not what the day hath in store for us, but we pray Thee to help us have in store for it our better heart, our better hands. Send Thy holy spirit into our life to calm and to strengthen; that we may be steadfast and true; that we may give and be forgiven. Bless all Thy children this day, and may our labor end as it began, in Thee, with Thee, for Thee. Amen.
July 8
O Impatient Ones! Do the leaves say nothing to you as they murmur to-day? They are not fashioned this spring, but months ago; and the summer just begun will fashion others for another year. At the bottom of every leaf-stem is a cradle, and in it is an infant germ; and the winds will rock it, and the birds will sing to it all summer long, and next season it will unfold. So God is working for you and carrying forward to the perfect development all the processes of our lives.
Henry Ward Beecher.
O Eternal Father, giver of all spiritual grace, we thank Thee for Thy presence in our hearts. May we realize that Thou hast the best possible plan for every human life. Help us to be patient and joyful in the consciousness that Thou art carrying forward Thy blessed work in us. Thy love, O Lord, is equal to Thy wisdom, and Thou wilt always do what is best for us. May Thy holy will be our delight, so that we may each trust in Thee at all times and cheerfully say, Thy will, O Lord, not mine, be done. Thou who dost care for the birds and the lilies art ever mindful of us, Thy children. Deliver us from worry and may Thy peace guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
July 9
Let us hope that one day all mankind will be happy and wise; and though this day never should dawn to have hoped for it cannot be wrong. And in any event, it is helpful to speak of happiness to those who are sad, that thus at least they may learn what it is that happiness means. They are ever inclined to regard it as something beyond them, extraordinary, out of their reach. But if all who may count themselves happy were to tell, very simply, what it was that brought happiness to them, the others would see that between sorrow and joy the difference is but as between a gladsome, enlightened acceptance of life and a hostile gloomy submission; between a large and harmonious conception of life, and one that is stubborn and narrow.
Maeterlinck.