_This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it_.–PS. cxviii. 24.
Why stand ye here all the day idle?–MATT. xx. 6.

So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away? Out of eternity this new day is born; Into eternity at night will return.
T. CARLYLE.
Small cares, some deficiencies in the mere arrangement and ordering of our lives, daily fret our hearts, and cross the clearness of our faculties; and these entanglements hang around us, and leave us no free soul able to give itself up, in power and gladness, to the true work of life. The severest training and self-denial,–a superiority to the servitude of indulgence,–are the indispensable conditions even of genial spirits, of unclouded energies, of tempers free from morbidness,–much more of the practised and vigorous mind, ready at every call, and thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
J. H. THOM.
True, we can never be at peace till we have performed the highest duty of all,–till we have arisen, and gone to our Father; but the performance of smaller duties, yes, even of the smallest, will do more to give us temporary repose, will act more as healthful anodynes, than the greatest joys that can come to us from any other quarter.
G. MACDONALD.