¶ Instead of the Venite, the following shall
be said or sung.
O PRAISE the LORD, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto
our God; * yea, a joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful.
The LORD doth build up Jerusalem, * and gather together the outcasts
of Israel.
He healeth those that are broken in heart, * and giveth medicine
to heal their sickness.
O sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving; * sing praises upon the
harp unto our God:
Who covereth the heaven with clouds, and prepareth rain for the
earth; * and maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains, and
herb for the use of men;
Who giveth fodder unto the cattle, * and feedeth the young ravens
that call upon him.
Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem; * praise thy God, O Sion.
For he hath made fast the bars of thy gates, * and hath blessed
thy children within thee.
He maketh peace in thy borders, * and filleth thee with the flour
of wheat.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, * and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, * world
without end. Amen.
The Collect.
O MOST merciful Father, who hast blessed the labours of the
husbandman in the returns of the fruits of the earth; We give
thee humble and hearty thanks for this thy bounty; beseeching
thee to continue thy loving-kindness to us, that our land may
still yield her increase, to thy glory and our comfort; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle. St. James i. 16.
DO not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every
perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of
lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should
be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Wherefore, my beloved
brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow
to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness
of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of
naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which
is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and
not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a
hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding
his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth
his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work,
this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem
to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his
own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled
before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from
the world.
The Gospel. St. Matthew vi. 25.
JESUS said, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat,
or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall
put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth
them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you by being
anxious can add one cubit unto the measure of his life? And why
are ye anxious for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field,
how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I
say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the
field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven,
shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore
be not anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we
drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the
kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall
be added unto you. Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for
the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient
unto the day is the evil thereof.