Learn to admire rightly: the great pleasure of life is that. Note
what great men admired; they admired great things; narrow spirits
admire basely and worship meanly.

--W.M. Thackeray.

Our thoughts are often more than we are, just as they are often
better than we are. And God sees us as we are altogether, and not in
separate feelings or actions, as our fellow men see us. We are
always doing each other injustice, and thinking better or worse of
each other than we deserve, because we only hear separate feelings
or actions. We don't see each other's whole nature.

--George Eliot.

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; and the desert shall
rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

--Isaiah 35. 1.

Eternal God, may I become more like thee. Give me the desire to
associate myself with people and places where the divine spirit is
supreme. May my soul breathe in the influence of all that is good and
true; and may I use my life for thy honor and praise. Amen.

JULY NINETEENTH

John Martin born 1789.

Samuel Colt born 1814.

Charles Victor Cherbuliez born 1829.

In love, if love be love, if love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

It is the little rift within the lute
That by and by will make the music mute,
And ever widening slowly silence all.
The little rift within the lover's lute,
Or little pitted speck in garner'd fruit,
That rotting inward slowly molders all.

It is not worth the keeping: let it go:
But shall it? Answer, darling, answer no.
And trust me not at all or all in all.

--Alfred Tennyson.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes,
That spoil the vineyards;
For our vineyards are in blossom.

--Song of Solomon 2. 15.

Loving Father, help me to put away the distractions and cares that
make me discontented. Grant that I may not set myself in "gilded
pride" and keep out the precious things of life. Help me to abandon
doubt and suspicion, and keep the faith that is happy to believe and
willing to forgive. Amen.

JULY TWENTIETH

Petrarch born 1304.

Thomas Lovell Beddoes born 1803.

John Sterling born 1806.

Jean Ingelow died 1897.

Let thy day be to the night
A letter of good tidings! Let thy praise
Go up as birds go up--that when they awake,
Shake off the dew and soar.