love I thy law!" May we find the liberty thou hast promised those who follow thee, through Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Father, we thank thee that thou dost prepare the way for us whithersoever thou dost direct our footsteps. We rejoice in the knowledge that we are not to go forward for a single hour without thy direction, unless we wilfully leave thee. In love thou dost permit us to attempt hard things for thee, and in love thou walkest with us in the way, bearing the weight of the burden for us, under which our scanty strength would utterly fail. Help us this day to look forward joyfully to this blessed, hourly, daily partnership with thee, in which we bear so little, and thou, in thy mercy, dost bear the brunt of the task. Strengthen our hands and hearts for the little that thou art asking us to do, and help us to do our part less unworthily. Amen.

Our Father, we remember with deep gratitude today that the disciples of thy Son Jesus were called by him his friends. In that uplifting name is our hope, for we too would be friends of his; friends in our readiness to love and serve to the end of all our strength. Teach us this day the high privilege of service in friendship for the Friend by whose life alone we are at all able to understand what true friendship is. Help us to forego any selfish gains in our friendship with others, and to count our friendships as opportunities to give out our best to others. Amen.

Lord of lords, and King of kings, by whose grace the rulers of the nations have power, we thank thee for thy care over thy people of old in providing leaders for their day of great need. Increasingly, with the onward march of the years, thou hast granted unto thy people in all the earth wider visions of opportunity, and men of vision to lead in crises of growth. Grant unto us in these days of national problems, men of wisdom, men of devotion, men who serve for the common good and not for self, who shall lead us by right paths to worthy ends. And may thy Kingdom come in very truth, we pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord. Amen.

Here in thy house, O God, we meet to study thy Word, to sing praises to thee. And our study and our praise are set about with thankfulness for so great privileges. How quiet it is within this room! What peace we have within these walls; what visions of thy love and mercy, what glad hopes and new courage come to us as we bow our heads in prayer before thee! Lord, grant that the soul life of our every day may be more filled with a sense of thy presence. O Jesus, Saviour, be with us in very truth here and in our daily walk, and cleanse us from the unworthiness that makes us less truly the temple of the Holy Spirit. May he come without hindrance to dwell in us, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Jesus, thou shepherd of the sheep, we rejoice in thy shepherding love. To thee we are not unknown. Our weaknesses are thy care. Our wanderings do not lead us away from thy yearning love. All we like sheep have indeed gone astray, but thou, the good shepherd, hast not shortened thine arm, or ceased to seek us for our enfolding in the security of thy presence. We remember today the still waters, reflecting thy face; the green pastures out of the abundance of the Father's provision for us; the courage that came to us in the valley. Lord Jesus, shepherd us yet a little while by the wayside, until all our follies and dulness of soul shall pass away with the ending of our pasture days, and we are gathered into the fold beyond the shadow, to thy presence at the right hand of God. And this we ask in glad knowledge of thy love. Amen.

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Lord Jesus, help us to be more gentle in our judgments, more tender in our consideration for others. May we not speak harsh words of others under the bitter impulse of hate or jealousy. Help us, we pray thee, to remember with humility how much we have tried thee with our petty meanness, our waywardness, our headstrong sinning. Grant us, we beseech thee, a readier interest in the needs of our brothers, and greater care in our words and ways, so that we shall not be unfair or hurtful, or in any way do wrong toward our brother. Make us valiant in the fight against every evil that besets us in these days of struggle for the right, and especially bless with power all who are striving to blot out the dreadful traffic in strong drink, and the use of it from among the sons and daughters of the earth. In thy name we ask it. Amen.

Lord of the Sabbath, we thank thee for rest in the heart of toil, for the quiet of this day. To thee we lift our songs of praise for all thy benefits, and before thee we bow in humble gratitude for all thy mercies. May we find rest this day in glad service for thee, in fellowship with one another in the home and in this thy house of prayer and worship. Relieve, we pray, the strain of the week-day work in the turning of our thought into quieter channels of worship. May this be no idle day, but a day of rest in loving service. May we give food to the hungry of soul, and take away the despair and distress of those who are bowed down with care and infirmity. May thy peace be upon us and upon Amen.

thy people everywhere on this thy holy day.

Our Father, we thank thee that we may always be sure of thee. When we discover in ourselves the willingness to deceive even in the least things, the cowardly desire to cover our misdoings with a lie, we turn away from these untrustworthy selves to find certainty and truth and perfect rightness in thee. Lord, may we come to hate a lie as an abomination unto thee, and may we be constantly testing our words and deeds by the pure truth which thou art. May we so dread the deadly refuge of a lie that we shall never seek security elsewhere than in the truth. We ask this in the name of thy Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Father, we thank thee for the voices that speak to us of thee, in sky and sea, in forest and field. We pray that our ears may not be dull to hear thy call to turn from empty and foolish things unto thee, the living God. Help us, our Father, to remember thy bounty, not in mere acceptance of it, but by carrying the gospel message to those who have not heard. May the sunshine and the flowers, the song of birds, the laughter of little children, the music of the wind in the trees, be in our hearts to the quickening of all our being into thankfulness to thee for thy manifold blessings: in Jesus' name. Amen.

Our Father, in thankfulness we come to thee, remembering the night of rest, and the new light of another day. Every day is the record of thy tender mercy, thy providing care, thy patient love. No need have we to put thy love to the test, for thou hast overwhelmed us with blessings beyond our most eager asking. Thou art in thyself promise and fulfillment, and we have found the yoke easy and the burden light in our co-work with thy Son, Jesus the Christ. Once more we renew our purpose to serve thee, for to us has come down the years the story of thy patient love to mankind everywhere, and the experience of it in our daily toil. Father, be with us in all that we do in the fulfilling of thy will, and save us for service in Jesus' name. Amen.

The above prayers are reprinted from "A Prayer Before the Lesson" by permission of The Sunday School Times Publishing Co.

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Give me clean hands, clean words, and clean thoughts; Help me to stand for the hard right against the easy wrong; Save me from habits that harm; Teach me to work as hard and play as fair in thy sight alone as if the whole world saw; Forgive me when I am unkind, and help me to forgive those who are unkind to me; Keep me ready to help others at some cost to myself; Send me chances to do a little good every day, and so grow more like Christ.—By President Wm. DeWitt Hyde.

By permission of "American Youth."

OUTDOOR PRAYERS

GEORGE H. MILLER

Help us, O Lord, to a kindly sense of humor. Today's rugged edges may furnish a smile for tomorrow. Yesterday's crosses are the refreshing memories of today. It may be that the bitter trials of now may yonder help to make the halls of Heaven ring with the glad laugh of the saints in Glory-bye and bye. Make us then to see the sunny side of clouds that rise up from the sea and form across the sky. And teach us the laugh that makes a love and leaves no sting nor stain!

Lord, teach us to pray! Keep us from the sins of presumption in prayer! Forbid that we should walk with irreverent steps before thy throne! Deliver us from the ingratitude of constant beggary at the Mercy Seat! Give to us such a sense of thy nearness that our wandering thoughts may be fixed on eternal things! Save us from our greedy clamor after the loaves and fishes! Teach us to talk less and listen more before thee! Show us wherein, by thy grace, we may help to answer our own petitions! Give to us much charity with each other, and some patience with ourselves! Grant to us a high ideal of duty, a loving enthusiasm for service, and a new vision of thy face!

We thank thee, O Lord, for the things that are out of doors; for the fresh air and the open sky and the growing grass and the tiny flowers and the setting sun and the wooded hill and the rolling surf and the brown earth beneath our feet. They are all good and they all speak the truth, and we rest ourselves and get new strength to go back to the world of restless men and women. Keep us ever like thy good world, rugged and wholesome and true.

Help us, O Lord, to live out on the open sea of God's all-reaching love, and to move with the currents of divine power; to fill life's sails with the fresh winds of spiritual truth and freedom; to sail up and down time's glorious coast carrying a Heaven-scented cargo of better life to men; to be conscious less of effort and more of power; to see the needy men on the shore and bring to them the bread of life; trusting always that when the sails grow gray and the spars and planks begin to groan in the gale, Heaven's safe harbor may welcome in peace the captain of the Abundant Life!

Give us a spirit of fellowship with all living things, O Lord! The singing bird and the buzzing bee and all the humming swarm of a summer evening are busy and useful and after their mind happy at their work. Thou hast filled the forests with things that breathe and move and call across the tree-tops. The grass hides a host of hurrying creatures, each intent upon filling its own little life with toil and depending utterly upon the sun and the wind and the season's Page Eighty-three

change. If thou hast endowed the smallest ant with industry and instinct more marvellous than man's, if the firefly's lamp and the cricket's chirp and the sparrow's fall are of interest to thee, help us to learn from these thy creatures their lesson of trust and service.

We thank Thee, O Lord, for thy first great temples! With lofty cedar and branching oak thou hast reared the living frame and stretched the vaulted arches! With tapestries of wondrous hue are hung the patterned walls! Through the leafy windows stream the golden rays of holy sunlight! With weave of flowering green thou hast covered floor of aisle and nave! 'Mid shadows of mighty pillars we wait the breath of angel wings and anthem song from feather throated choir! With all the birds and flowers and morning stars, we praise thee, O God! Before the unhewn altar rock, we offer our oblation of hearts contrite and humble, and in thy hush of holy benediction we lift again our eyes, and in these thy first-built shrines, we find thee close beside us!

We thank Thee, O Lord, for the stormy days! When the rain falls and the wind blows, and the clouds move in regiments across the sky, they somehow seem to say the thing that cries in us for utterance and cannot be expressed! The glittering lights of a rainy night shine so weird and wonderful that we leave the dusty day and narrow earth and find a world of flash and gleam and shadow! The fresh and cool air of the storm soothes to rest our troubled spirits! The shock of thunder breaks the tension of tired spirits and jars us free again! The patter of the raindrops on the roof lulls us to a sleep both strong and sweet! The home seems more filled with comfort and content because the storm beats without! And when the clouds break and the king of the heavens comes forth in splendor to drive his, frowning foes from the sky, he paints a gorgeous glory in the west and bids us take one rapturous glimpse through Heaven's gate while we catch our breath and think of glories unrevealed! Reprinted by permission of Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

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