We rise by the things that are under our feet,
      By what we have mastered of good or gain,
      By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
    And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.

    —­Richard Watson Gilder.

    No Apostle of Liberty much to my heart ever found I;
    License each for himself, this was at bottom their want. 
    Liberator of many! first dare to be Servant of many;
    What a business is that, would’st thou know it, go try!

    —­Goethe.

    Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

    —­1 Thessalonians 5. 21.

Gracious Father, if I may be beginning this day with an unclean purpose in my heart, help me to clear it away; if I may be trying to avoid some urgent duty, make me ashamed to resist it.  Keep away the desires that harm my life, and that withhold the enjoyment of my common work.  Amen.

AUGUST FIFTEENTH

Jeremy Taylor baptized 1613.

Napoleon Bonaparte born 1769.

Sir Walter Scott born 1771.

Thomas de Quincey born 1785.

    And do our loves all perish with our frames? 
    Do those that took their root and put forth buds,
    And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth
    Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty,
    Then fade and fall, like fair, unconscious flowers?

      O, listen, man! 
    A voice within us speaks the startling word,
    “Man, thou shalt never die!”

    —­Richard Henry Dana.

I am drawing near to the close of my career; I am fast shuffling off the stage.  I have been perhaps the most voluminous author of the day; and it is a comfort to me to think I have tried to unsettle no man’s faith, to corrupt no man’s principle, and that I have written nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted.

    —­Sir Walter Scott.

    But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write
    unto you:  for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another.

    —­1 Thessalonians 4. 9.

Almighty God, may I have that faith in eternal life which will make me careful of what I choose for my own and more careful of what I put in the lives of others.  Amen.

AUGUST SIXTEENTH

Ralph Thoresby born 1658.

Dr. Thomas Fuller died 1661.

Dr. Matthew Tindal died 1733.

    The secret of goodness and greatness is in choosing whom you will
    approach and live with, in memory or imagination, through the
    crowding obvious people who seem to live with you.

    —­Robert Browning.

    Fair Nature’s book together read,
    The old wood-paths that knew our tread,
    The maple shadows overhead—­

    Where’er I look, where’er I stray,
    Thy thought goes with me on my way,
    And hence the prayer I breathe to-day.