Let each day take thought
for what concerns it, liquidate its own
affairs, and respect the day
which is to follow, and then it shall
be ready.
—Amiel.
What does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrow; but ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil; it makes you unfit to cope with it if it comes.
—Ian Maclaren.
Be not anxious for your life,
what ye shall eat, or what ye shall
drink; nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on.
—Matthew 6. 25.
My Father, save me from the habit of borrowing. So often I borrow trouble and cannot use it, when the peace that I possess is all that I need. Help me, that I may not miss the glory of to-day, by anticipating the uncertainty of to-morrow; but may I discern my place and have delight in every day. Amen.
JULY FOURTEENTH
Bastille destroyed 1789.
Jane Baillie Welch Carlyle born 1801.
Owen Wister born 1860.
Sail fast, sail fast,
Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;
Sweep lordly o’er the drowned Past,
Fly glittering through the sun’s strange
beams;
Sail fast, sail fast.
Breath of new buds from off some drying lea,
With news about the Future scent the sea;
My brain is beating like the heart of Haste.
I’ll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;
Go, trembling song,
And stay not long; O, stay not long;
Thou art only a gray and sober dove,
But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.
—Sidney Lanier.
God speed thee, pretty bird; may
thy small nest,
With little ones all in good time be blest.
I love thee much;
For well thou managest that life of thine,
Well I!—O ask not what I do with mine!
Would I were such!
—Jane Welch Carlyle.
Behold the birds of the heaven,
that they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly
Father feedeth them.
Are not ye of much more value than they?
—Matthew 6. 26.
My Father, may I start this day with more faith in myself and greater love for thy world. May my soul be awakened to the highest and be ready for the joys of to-day. Amen.
JULY FIFTEENTH
Inigo Jones born 1573.
Rembrandt born 1607.
Henry Edward Manning born 1808.
William Winter born 1836.
His was the heart that overmuch
In human goodness
puts its trust,
And his the keen, satiric
touch
That shrivels
falsehood into dust.
Fierce for the right, he bore
his part
In strife with
many a valiant foe;
But laughter winged his polished
dart,
And kindness tempered
every blow.