All things are engaged in writing their history. The planet, the pebble, goes attended by its shadow. The rolling rock leaves its scratches on the mountain; the river, its channel in the soil; the animal, its bones in the stratum; the fern and leaf, their modest epitaph in the coal. The falling drop makes its sculpture in the sand or the stone. Not a foot steps into the snow or along the ground, but prints, in characters more or less lasting, a map of its march. Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memory of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds, the sky of tokens, the ground is all memoranda and signatures, and every object covered over with hints which speak to the intelligent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Our Father, who art in Heaven and in every manifestation of living nature, we turn our thoughts to Thee with the rising of each new sun. We hear Thy voice in the singing of every summer bird. We realize Thy presence in the shifting shadows of the clouds. In the arching blue above us we realize something of the depth and breadth of the love that arches over the horizon of our life and stretches like the radiant bow of promise from the green hills of childhood to the sombre mountains of old age. We beseech Thee to give us thoughts so beautiful and ennobling that even amid the sods and clods of life's daily drudgery we can always face the morning light of some new hope which comes like the old song sung in the new land. Amen.
February 10
First, when I feel that I am become cold and indisposed to prayer, by reason of other business and thoughts, I take my psalter and run into my chamber, or, if day and season serve, into the church to the multitude, and begin to repeat to myself—just as children used—the ten commandments, the creed, and, according as I have time, some sayings of Christ or of Paul, or some Psalms. Therefore it is well to let prayer be the first employment in the early morning, and the last in the evening. Avoid diligently those false and deceptive thoughts which say, Wait a little, I will pray an hour hence; I must first perform this or that. For with such thoughts a man quits prayer for business that lays hold of and entangles him, so that he comes not to pray the whole day long.
Martin Luther.
O Lord, our Heavenly Father, who keepest covenant and loving kindness with Thy servants, who walk humbly with Thee, and who hast been attentive to the prayers of our fathers when they lifted up their hearts and their hands to Thee, teach us to pray, and to love to pray. Visit us in the night season and before the morning watch. Touch our spirits with the flame of Thy Spirit, before the day's business lays hold upon us and entangles us, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
February 11