O Lord, we thank Thee for the special providence which is over everything which Thou hast created, and wherein Thou residest with all Thine infinite perfections. We thank Thee that Thou carest for us all, that in our day of joy we know it is Thou who fillest our cup, by giving us the faculties which make it run over at the brim. We thank Thee that Thou art with us in our days of hardship and of calamity, that when our own heart cries out against us, Thou art greater than our heart, and, understanding all things, blessest us in secret ways; and when we are cast down and go stooping and feeble, with hungering eyes and a failing heart, that Thou still art with us, and leadest us from strength to strength and blessest us continually. Amen.
July 10
Were any of us really disappointed or melancholy in a hayfield? Did we ever lie fairly back on a haycock and look up into the blue sky, and listen to the merry sounds, the whetting of scythes and the laughing prattle of women and children, and think evil thoughts of the world or our brethren? Not we! Or, if we have so done we ought to be ashamed of ourselves, and deserve never again to be out of town during hay-harvest.
Thomas Hughes.
Dear Heavenly Father, we devoutly thank Thee for the beautiful open face of Nature shining upon us; for the splendor of the fields where the birds wing their merry flight; for the breath of the flowers and the grass beneath the scythe, like the odor of incense; and most of all, for the merry shouts of women and children and men in the meadow, in the heyday of happiness, as they fill their souls with the freedom of the children of God, and live in the open where no evil breath can come. Grant that we may live spiritually forever in the fragrant hayfields of life, where the birds sing and the children shout, and where no covering or roof can ever shut out the sunshine of life's eternal bliss. Amen.
July 11
A story is told of a king who went into his garden one morning and found everything withering and dying. He asked an oak that stood near the gate what the trouble was. He found that it was sick of life and determined to die, because it was not tall and beautiful like the pine. The pine was out of heart because it could not bear grapes like the vine; the vine was going to throw its life away, because it could not stand erect and have as fine fruit as the pomegranate; and so on throughout the garden. Coming to the heart'sease, the king found its bright face uplifted, as full of cheerfulness as ever. Said the king, "Well, heart'sease, I am glad to find one brave little flower in this general discouragement and dying. You don't seem one bit disheartened." "No, your majesty. I know I am of small account; but I concluded you wanted a heart'sease when you planted me. If you had wanted an oak, or a pine, or a vine, or a pomegranate, you would have set one out. So I am bound to be the best heart'sease that ever I can."
William Moodie.