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Better than grandeur, better than gold,
Than rank and title a thousandfold,
Is a healthy body, a mind at ease,
And simple manners that always please,
A heart that can feel for another's woe,
And share his joys with a genial glow,
With sympathies large enough to enfold
All men as brothers is better than gold."

One's chieftest duty here below
Is not the seeming great to do,
That the vain world may pause to see,
But in steadfast humility

To walk the common walk, and bear
The thousand things, the trifling care,
In love, with wisdom, patiently.
Thus each one in his narrow groove
The great world nearer God

may move. MATTHEW HUNT.

O Lord, we love to love Thee, Thy yoke is easy, Thy burden light. Bearing them we find rest for our souls. Thou forgivest our sins. Thou helpest our weakness, Thou rememberest that we are dust. We bless and magnify Thy name. But we know that prayer and praise are acceptable only as they lead to service. We can minister unto Thee only as we help the helpless, cheer the sorrowing, lift up the fallen. Oh, how good, how merciful, how gracious Thou art! May every knee bow and every tongue confess Thee! Amen.

DAVID H. Moore.

Be not much troubled about many things,
Fear often hath no whit of substance in it,
And lives but just a minute;

While from the very snow the wheat-blade springs.
And light is like a flower,

That bursts in full leaf from the darkest hour.
And He who made the night,

Made, too, the flowery sweetness of the light,
Be it thy task, through His good grace, to win it.
ALICE CARY.

Our Heavenly Father, the Father of lights, with whom there are no shadows, we thank Thee for our daylight in which to work and our night in which to rest. Graciously pardon our sins this day and guard our slumbers this night. As we enter shadows of discipline, teach us not to be afraid of the dark, for to Thee the darkness and the light are both alike. May perfect love take away all our fears. When placed in darkened rooms that our spiritual vision, diseased by sin, may be prepared for the coming glory, may we have with us the Great Physician to heal and to comfort us. In due season bring us to heaven's eternal day. Amen.

WILLARD T. PERRIN.

I think we are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's.

Be comforted!

And like a cheerful traveler, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge! What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod

To meet the flints? At least it may be said, "Because the way is short, I thank Thee, God." ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

We give Thee thanks, our Father, that it has been ours this day, to live "Where cross the crowded ways of life" and that Thou hast not put us here to play, to dream, to drift, but that we have hard work to do, loads to lift. Help us in the busy life we lead to keep ourselves open to the skies as did the Shepherds on Bethlehem's plain. We desire to be faithful in the performance of these daily tasks, yet not so closely bound by them as to miss the splendors of the upper world. Give to us wisdom so to order our lives that we shall neither fail to hear the Angel's song nor slight the Shepherd's task. In the name of Him who perfectly lived the earth life and yet obeyed the vision of heaven, we ask it. Amen.

JULIAN S. WADSWORTH.

If I had the time to find a place
And sit me down full face to face
With my better self, that cannot show
In my daily life that rushes so:
It might be then I would see my soul
Was stumbling still towards the shining goal,
I might be nerved by the thought sublime,-
If I had the time!

If I had the time to let my heart
Speak out and in my life take a part,
To look about and to stretch a hand
To a comrade quartered in no-luck land;
Ah, God! If I might but just sit still
And hear the note of the whip-poor-will,
I think that my wish with God's would rhyme,-
If I had the time!

RICHARD BURTON.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for the gift of the Holy Spirit, which has filled our hearts this day and enabled us to live in close touch with Thee, and so in close touch with humanity. Grant we beseech Thee a blessing upon every word we have spoken this day, that it may prove a message of cheer to some fainting soul, every smile we have given that it may come as a light of hope to a cheerless heart - every note that we have written to a friend in distant lands, longing for home and love of kindred souls. Take us all in Thy keeping, as the night closes about us and we are one day's journey nearer to that fair city where angels sing"There shall be no night there." Amen.

WINFIELD SCOTT.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true; I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Honest love, honest sorrow,

Honest work for the day, honest hope for the morrow, Are these worth nothing more than the hand they make

weary,

The heart they have saddened, the life they leave dreary? Hush! the sevenfold heavens to the voice of the Spirit Echo," He that o'ercometh shall all things inherit!" OWEN MEREDITH.

God of the still, cool darkness, after the labor and care of the hours of light, lay Thy soothing hand upon our tense and fevered spirits that we may relax from strain and allow the overtaxed pulse to subside to a peaceful rhythm. Have our endeavors and experiences this day wrought out profit or proved impotent for true gain? Thou alone knowest; our standards are so faulty we cannot tell. Of one thing alone are we humbly sure; in thought, in feeling, in purpose, we have striven to be nobly sincere, searchingly honest. The issue is Thine; we would leave it in Thy hands without misgiving, for there is a cheering whisper in our deeper hearts that even our halting, faulty best, because it is our best, is not in vain. Close our eyes! Good night! Thou watchest, and all is well. Amen.

THOMAS W. ILLMAN.