Chapter VII: Part 7

True politeness is the spirit of benevolence showing itself in a refined way. It is the expression of good-will and kindness. It promotes both beauty in the man who possesses it, and happiness in those who are about him. It is a religious duty, and should be a part of religious training.--BEECHER.

Politeness induces morality. Serenity of manners requires serenity of mind.--JULIA WARD HOWE.

To the acquisition of the rare quality of politeness, so much of the enlightened understanding is necessary that I cannot but consider every book in every science, which tends to make us wiser, and of course better men, as a treatise on a more enlarged system of politeness.--MONRO.

Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?--CHATHAM.

As charity covers a multitude of sins before God, so does politeness before men.--GREVILLE.

The polite of every country seem to have but one character. A gentleman of Sweden differs but little, except in trifles, from one of any other country. It is among the vulgar we are to find those distinctions which characterize a people.--GOLDSMITH.

When two goats met on a bridge which was too narrow to allow either to pass or return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over it was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield.--CECIL.

Good-breeding is not confined to externals, much less to any particular dress or attitude of the body; it is the art of pleasing, or contributing as much as possible to the ease and happiness of those with whom you converse.--FIELDING.

POPULARITY.--Avoid popularity, if you would have peace.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

Avoid popularity, it has many snares, and no real benefit.--WILLIAM PENN.

Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you!--LUKE 6:26.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.--KANT.

Those men who are commended by everybody must be very extraordinary men; or, which is more probable, very inconsiderable men.--LORD GREVILLE.

POVERTY.--Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.--DR. JOHNSON.

In one important respect a man is fortunate in being poor. His responsibility to God is so much the less.--BOVEE.

Morality and religion are but words to him who fishes in gutters for the means of sustaining life, and crouches behind barrels in the street for shelter from the cutting blasts of a winter night.--HORACE GREELEY.

Poverty is the only burden which is not lightened by being shared with others.--RICHTER.

We should not so much esteem our poverty as a misfortune, were it not that the world treats it so much as a crime.--BOVEE.

Poverty is the test of civility and the touchstone of friendship. --HAZLITT.

There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich; in pomp, show, and opinion there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfactions of life: they enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich.--SHERLOCK.

Want is a bitter and a hateful good,
Because its virtues are not understood;
Yet many things, impossible to thought,
Have been by need to full perfection brought.
The daring of the soul proceeds from thence,
Sharpness of wit, and active diligence;
Prudence at once, and fortitude it gives;
And, if in patience taken, mends our lives.
--DRYDEN.

Few things in this world more trouble people than poverty, or the fear of poverty; and, indeed, it is a sore affliction; but, like all other ills that flesh is heir to, it has its antidote, its reliable remedy. The judicious application of industry, prudence and temperance is a certain cure.--HOSEA BALLOU.

That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, and suffers the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man is, properly speaking, poor, but he.--PALEY.

That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than from eating too little.--CHANNING.

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in supporting it.--RICHTER.

POWER.--Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.--COLTON.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.--BACON.

Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. --NAPOLEON.

The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.--J. PETIT-SENN.

The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent vice.--PLUTARCH.

PRAISE.--Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.--BOVEE.

Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.--PROVERBS 27:2.

For if good were not praised more than ill,
None would chuse goodness of his own free will.
--SPENSER.

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.--FELTHAM.

Solid pudding against empty praise.--POPE.

It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and impertinent commendations.--SPRAT.

Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any man behind his back; but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to himself.--BURKITT.

As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise."--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin.--LOWELL.

Good things should be praised.--SHAKESPEARE.

He hurts me most who lavishly commends.--CHURCHILL.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less and glows in every heart.
--YOUNG.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.--DR. JOHNSON.

It is the greatest possible praise to be praised by a man who is himself deserving of praise.--FROM THE LATIN.

He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what you have.--MANUEL.

Thou may'st be more prodigal of praise when thou writest a letter than when thou speakest in presence.--FULLER.

Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit. --PLUTARCH.

What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.--HARE.

Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. --STEELE.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.--PSALM 150:6.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.--STEELE.

PRAYER.--The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body. --SENECA.

Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater. --SPURGEON.

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of God we see what He requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.--COWPER.

We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.

So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.

Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying. --FULLER.

Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening; let our days begin and end with God.--CHANNING.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
--MONTGOMERY.

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
--COLERIDGE.

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of.
--TENNYSON.

It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.

Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.

No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.

Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.

Holy beginning of a holy cause,
When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause
Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might,
Call down its blessing on that coming fight.
--MOORE.

It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals. --WELLINGTON.

It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod. --WASHINGTON IRVING.

I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.--BUNYAN.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers. The only password is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.

Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.--COLTON.

PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.

Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.

A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without taking the life.--FÉNELON.

We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.

The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean when in it.--CECIL.

I preached as never sure to preach again,
And as a dying man to dying men.
--BAXTER.

Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people, of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching, should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors, then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.

To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age, sex, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the same key.--J. PETIT-SENN.

Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.--EMERSON.

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.

I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.--MASSILLON.

PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.

He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.--SENECA.

Precept must be upon precept.--ISAIAH 28:10.

PREJUDICE.--Prejudice is the child of ignorance.--HAZLITT.

As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.--DUCHESS D'ABRANTES.

Human nature is so constituted that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.--TERENCE.

To all intents and purposes, he who will not open his eyes is, for the present, as blind as he who cannot.--SOUTH.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.--BANCROFT.

Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which offends them.--BUTLER.

Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.--G.D. PRENTICE.

Remember, when the judgment is weak the prejudice is strong.--KANE O'HARA.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.--ADDISON.

How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed.--MADAME NECKER.

PRESENT.--Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.--HORACE.

Make use of time, if thou lovest eternity; know yesterday cannot be recalled, to-morrow cannot be assured: to-day is only thine; which if thou procrastinate, thou losest; which lost, is lost forever: one to-day is worth two to-morrows.--QUARLES.

He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.--SCHILLER.

Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.--HORACE.

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate.--T.C. UPHAM.

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come.--COLTON.

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,--as though that time should be of another make from this, which has already come and is ours.--FULLER.

Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.--CORNEILLE.

We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present.--MISS EDGEWORTH.

Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you. It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and to-morrow we may never see.--VICTOR HUGO.

Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy to-day that which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me, and to-morrow belongs to no one.--MANCROIX.

One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.--EMERSON.

What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored.--WHITTIER.

PRESS.--In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day.--CHAPIN.

Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights.--JUNIUS.

The liberty of the press is the true measure of all other liberty; for all freedom without this must be merely nominal.--CHATFIELD.

The invention of printing added a new element of power to the race. From that hour, in a most especial sense, the brain and not the arm, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, were to rule the world; and weapons, forged in the mind, keen-edged and brighter than the sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and the battle-axe.--WHIPPLE.

PRETENSION.--It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others.--WHATELY.

Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.--LAVATER.

When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.--SPURGEON.

True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.--CICERO.

It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.--PLUTARCH.

He who gives himself airs of importance, exhibits the credentials of impotence.--LAVATER.

The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so. --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint. --LAVATER.

PRIDE.--Without the sovereign influence of God's extraordinary and immediate grace, men do very rarely put off all the trappings of their pride, till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet. --CLARENDON.

Pride and weakness are Siamese twins.--LOWELL.

Of all the causes that conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
--POPE.

It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves but by undervaluing our neighbors.--CLARENDON.

The sin of pride is the sin of sins; in which all subsequent sins are included, as in their germ; they are but the unfolding of this one. --ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

Some people are proud of their humility.--BEECHER.

Pride requires very costly food--its keeper's happiness.--COLTON.

Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault,
Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought.
--ROSCOMMON.

If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.--STERNE.

There is this paradox in pride,--it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.--COLTON.

In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.--FRANKLIN.

Men say, "By pride the angels fell from heaven." By pride they reached a place from which they fell!--JOAQUIN MILLER.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.--FRANKLIN.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. --PROVERBS 16:18.

If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime. --LEGOUVÉ.

I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.--BEECHER.

When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely.--LOUIS XI.

How can there be pride in a contrite heart? Humility is the earliest fruit of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.

In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. --LYTTON.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.--DR. JOHNSON.

An avenging God closely follows the haughty.--SENECA.

Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.--QUARLES.

The proud man is forsaken of God.--PLATO.

PROCRASTINATION.--Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse for man's perdition.--REV. DR. CHEEVER.

To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.--TILLOTSON.

By the streets of "By and By" one arrives at the house of "Never." --CERVANTES.

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.--L'ESTRANGE.

Procrastination is the thief of time.--YOUNG.

For Yesterday was once To-morrow.--PERSIUS.

Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.--FRANKLIN.

Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--CHARLES BUXTON.

PROGRESS.--He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.--RUSKIN.

"Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always something different from what is expected. Everything new is received with contempt, for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power unobserved.--FEUERBACH.

Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.--E.E. HALE.

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Human improvement is from within outwards.--FROUDE.

An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.--EMERSON.

Let us labor for that larger and larger comprehension of truth, that more and more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.--HORACE MANN.

We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the progressiveness of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which we start toward a perfection of being.--SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.--BURKE.

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin grammar, and one of those tow-head boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands. --EMERSON.

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.--LYTTON.

The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.--COLTON.

PROSPERITY.--Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity.--BEECHER.

Prosperity seems to be scarcely safe, unless it be mixed with a little adversity.--HOSEA BALLOU.

The increase of a great number of citizens in prosperity is a necessary element to the security, and even to the existence, of a civilized people.--BURET.

Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.--TACITUS.

Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity. --CICERO.

We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.--LANDOR.

He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity. --COLTON.

Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too dear.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Prosperity, in regard of our corrupt inclination to abuse the blessings of Almighty God, doth prove a thing dangerous to the soul of man.--HOOKER.

It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex, instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.--BEECHER.

Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.--VAUVENARGUES.

They who lie soft and warm in a rich estate seldom come to heat themselves at the altar.--SOUTH.

Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one in adversity.--ZIMMERMAN.

PROVIDENCE.--The Providence of God is the great protector of our life and usefulness, and under the divine care we are perfectly safe from danger.--SPURGEON.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
--WHITTIER.

The decrees of Providence are inscrutable. In spite of man's short-sighted endeavors to dispose of events according to his own wishes and his own purposes, there is an Intelligence beyond his reason, which holds the scales of justice, and promotes his well-being, in spite of his puny efforts.--MORIER.

Divine Providence tempers his blessings to secure their better effect. He keeps our joys and our fears on an even balance, that we may neither presume nor despair. By such compositions God is pleased to make both our crosses more tolerable and our enjoyments more wholesome and safe.--W. WOGAN.

He who ruleth the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to His Holy Will. O Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but Him.--RACINE.

Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only can he securely lay down his head and close his eyes.--CECIL.

Yes, thou art ever present, power supreme!
Not circumscribed by time, nor fixt to space,
Confined to altars, nor to temples bound.
In wealth, in want, in freedom or in chains,
In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee!
--HANNAH MORE.

We must follow, not force Providence.--SHAKESPEARE.

Go, mark the matchless working of the power
That shuts within the seed the future flower;
Bids these in elegance of form excel.
In color these, and those delight the smell;
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes.
--COWPER.

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps. --PROVERBS 16:9.

PRUDENCE.--Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.--COLTON.

Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.--MILTON.

When any great design thou dost intend,
Think on the means, the manner, and the end.
--SIR J. DENHAM.

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best of hearts.--FIELDING.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.--JEREMY COLLIER.

No other protection is wanting, provided you are under the guidance of prudence.--JUVENAL.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.--BURKE.

The rules of prudence, like the laws of the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. "Thou shalt not" is their characteristic formula.--COLERIDGE.

PUNCTUALITY.--I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will never be respected or successful in life.--REV. W. FISK.

I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.--LORD NELSON.

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. --HORACE MANN.

It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point.--LA FONTAINE.

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.--EMMONS.

PURITY.--Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.--MATTHEW 5:8.

God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.--J.G. HOLLAND.

While our hearts are pure,
Our lives are happy and our peace is sure.
--WILLIAM WINTER.

Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.--COLTON.

I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.--SOCRATES.

QUARRELS.--Quarrels would never last long if the fault was only on one side.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

The quarrels of lovers are like summer storms; everything is more beautiful when they have passed.--MADAME NECKER.

I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal, doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of unquietness.--BISHOP HALL.

He that blows the coals in quarrels he has nothing to do with has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.--FRANKLIN.

Those who in quarrel interpose,
Must often wipe a bloody nose.
--GAY.

Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
--SHAKESPEARE.

READING.--Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.--HORACE MANN.

We never read without profit if with the pen or pencil in our hand we mark such ideas as strike us by their novelty, or correct those we already possess.--ZIMMERMANN.

When what you read elevates your mind and fills you with noble aspirations, look for no other rule by which to judge a book; it is good, and is the work of a master-hand.--LA BRUYÈRE.

When in reading we meet with any maxim that may be of use, we should take it for our own, and make an immediate application of it, as we would of the advice of a friend whom we have purposely consulted. --COLTON.

We should accustom the mind to keep the best company by introducing it only to the best books.--SYDNEY SMITH.

If I were to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading.--SIR JOHN HERSCHEL.

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.... Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtile; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.--BACON.

Nothing, in truth, has such a tendency to weaken not only the powers of invention, but the intellectual powers in general, as a habit of extensive and various reading without reflection.--DUGALD STEWART.

Mr. Johnson had never, by his own account, been a close student, and used to advise young people never to be without a book in their pocket, to be read at bye-times, when they had nothing else to do. "It has been by that means," said he to a boy at our house one day, "that all my knowledge has been gained, except what I have picked up by running about the world with my wits ready to observe, and my tongue ready to talk."--MRS. PIOZZI.

Reading without purpose is sauntering, not exercise. More is got from one book on which the thought settles for a definite end in knowledge, than from libraries skimmed over by a wandering eye. A cottage flower gives honey to the bee, a king's garden none to the butterfly.--LYTTON.

Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.--COLLECT.

Much reading is like much eating,--wholly useless without digestion. --SOUTH.

REASON.--Reason is the glory of human nature, and one of the chief eminences whereby we are raised above the beasts, in this lower world.--DR. WATTS.

Let our reason, and not our senses, be the rule of our conduct; for reason will teach us to think wisely, to speak prudently, and to behave worthily.--CONFUCIUS.

Though reason is not to be relied upon as universally sufficient to direct us what to do, yet it is generally to be relied upon and obeyed where it tells us what we are not to do.--SOUTH.

He that will not reason is a bigot, he that cannot reason is a fool, and he that dares not reason is a slave.--SIR W. DRUMMOND.

Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; and beasts, by nature.--CICERO.

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, he has one good reason for letting it alone.--WALTER SCOTT.

One can never repeat too often, that reason, as it exists in man, is only our intellectual eye, and that, like the eye, to see, it needs light,--to see clearly and far, it needs the light of Heaven.

The language of reason, unaccompanied by kindness, will often fail of making an impression; it has no effect on the understanding, because it touches not the heart. The language of kindness, unassociated with reason, will frequently be unable to persuade; because, though it may gain upon the affections, it wants that which is necessary to convince the judgment. But let reason and kindness be united in a discourse, and seldom will even pride or prejudice find it easy to resist. --GISBORNE.

Good reasons must, of force, give place to better.--SHAKESPEARE.

There is a just Latin axiom, that he who seeks a reason for everything subverts reason.--EPES SARGENT.

REBUKE.--In all reprehensions, observe to express rather thy love than thy anger; and strive rather to convince than exasperate: but if the matter do require any special indignation, let it appear to be the zeal of a displeased friend, rather than the passion of a provoked enemy.--FULLER.

RECONCILIATION.--Wherein is it possible for us, wicked and impious creatures, to be justified, except in the only Son of God? O sweet reconciliation! O untraceable ministry! O unlooked-for blessing! that the wickedness of many should be hidden in one godly and righteous man, and the righteousness of one justify a host of sinners!--JUSTIN MARTYR.

God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.--BEECHER.

As thro' the land at eve we went,
And pluck'd the ripen'd ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
We fell out I know not why,
And kiss'd again with tears.

And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!

For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kiss'd again with tears.
--TENNYSON.

Oh, my dear friends,--you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day,--if you only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do!--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

REFINEMENT.--Refinement is the delicate aroma of Christianity. --CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.

That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God's refinement.--BEECHER.

If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.--HUME.

Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.--DE QUINCEY.

REFORM.--He who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.--LAVATER.

He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.--COLTON.

Time yet serves, wherein you may redeem your tarnished honors, and restore yourselves into the good thoughts of the world again. --SHAKESPEARE.

Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good.--FRANKLIN.

Reform, like charity, must begin at home.--CARLYLE.

Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in yourself.--SPRAT.

He who reforms, God assists.--CERVANTES.

REGENERATION.--Content not thyself with a bare forbearance of sin, so long as thy heart is not changed, nor thy will changed, nor thy affections changed; but strive to become a new man, to be transformed by the renewing of thy mind, to hate sin, to love God, to wrestle against thy secret corruptions, to take delight in holy duties, to subdue thine understanding, and will, and affections, to the obedience of faith and godliness.--BP. SANDERSON.

He that is once "born of God shall overcome the world," and the prince of this world too, by the power of God in him. Holiness is no solitary, neglected thing; it hath stronger confederacies, greater alliances, than sin and wickedness. It is in league with God and the universe; the whole creation smiles upon it; there is something of God in it, and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant thing.--CUDWORTH.

Regeneration is the ransacking of the soul, the turning of a man out of himself, the crumbling to pieces of the old man, and the new moulding of it into another shape; it is the turning of stones into children, and a drawing of the lively portraiture of Jesus Christ upon that very table that before represented only the very image of the devil.... Art thou thus changed? Are all old things done away, and all things in thee become new? Hast thou a new heart and renewed affections? And dost thou serve God in newness of life and conversation? If not,--what hast thou to do with hopes of heaven? Thou art yet without Christ, and so consequently without hope.--BISHOP HOPKINS.

REGRET.--A wrong act followed by just regret and thoughtful caution to avoid like errors, makes a man better than he would have been if he had never fallen.--HORATIO SEYMOUR.

The business of life is to go forward; he who sees evil in prospect meets it in his way, but he who catches it by retrospection turns back to find it. That which is feared may sometimes be avoided, but that which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow.--DR. JOHNSON.

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
--LONGFELLOW.

The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his hand wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it,--in degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness. --MISS MULOCK.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--WHITTIER.

RELIGION.--A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never suffice to save him; that which does not sufficiently distinguish one from a wicked world will never distinguish him from a perishing world.--HOWE.

Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace.
--YOUNG.

A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy; mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations of the weak-minded.--HOSEA BALLOU.

The source of all good and of all comfort.--BURKE.

You may depend upon it, religion is, in its essence, the most gentlemanly thing in the world. It will _alone_ gentilize, if unmixed with cant; and I know nothing else that will _alone_.--S.T. COLERIDGE.

If we traverse the world, it is possible to find cities without walls, without letters, without kings, without wealth, without coin, without schools and theatres; but a city without a temple, or that practiseth not worship, prayer, and the like, no one ever saw.--PLUTARCH.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.
--COWPER.

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith.--SHELLEY.

Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions; keep the Church and the State forever apart.--U.S. GRANT.

Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.--GUTHRIE.

All belief which does not render more happy, more free, more loving, more active, more calm, is, I fear, an erroneous and superstitious belief.--LAVATER.

Never trust anybody not of sound religion, for he that is false to God can never be true to man.--LORD BURLEIGH.

A man devoid of religion, is like a horse without a bridle.--FROM THE LATIN.

It is a great disgrace to religion, to imagine that it is an enemy to mirth and cheerfulness, and a severe exacter of pensive looks and solemn faces.--WALTER SCOTT.

Nowhere would there be consolation, if religion were not.--JACOBI.

A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe in such terse but terrific language, as living "without God in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation.--WEBSTER.

All who have been great and good without Christianity, would have been much greater and better with it.--COLTON.

There are a good many pious people who are as careful of their religion as of their best service of china, only using it on holy occasions, for fear it should get chipped or flawed in working-day wear.--DOUGLAS JERROLD.

Wonderful! that the Christian religion, which seems to have no other object than the felicity of another life, should also constitute the happiness of this.--MONTESQUIEU.

Pour the balm of the Gospel into the wounds of bleeding nations. Plant the tree of life in every soil, that suffering kingdoms may repose beneath its shade and feel the virtue of its healing leaves, till all the kindred of the human family shall be bound together in one common bond of amity and love, and the warrior shall be a character unknown but in the page of history.--THOMAS RAFFLES.

There are three modes of bearing the ills of life; by indifference, which is the most common; by philosophy, which is the most ostentatious; and by religion, which is the most effectual.--COLTON.

A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering. --MASON.

Religion is the best armor in the world, but the worst cloak.--BUNYAN.

A good name is better than precious ointment.--ECCLESIASTES 7:1.

I have lived long enough to know what I did not at one time believe--that no society can be upheld in happiness and honor without the sentiment of religion.--LA PLACE.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.--WASHINGTON.

"When I was young, I was sure of many things; there are only two things of which I am sure now; one is, that I am a miserable sinner; and the other, that Jesus Christ is an all sufficient Saviour." He is well taught who gets these two lessons.--JOHN NEWTON.

If we make religion our business, God will make it our blessedness. --H.G.J. ADAM.

The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. Religion is relative to the individual. --BEECHER.

REMEMBRANCE.--Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away.--RICHTER.

You can't order remembrance out of the mind; and a wrong that was a wrong yesterday must be a wrong to-morrow.--THACKERAY.

I cannot but remember such things were
That were most precious to me.
--SHAKESPEARE.

REMORSE.--Remorse is the punishment of crime; repentance, its expiation. The former appertains to a tormented conscience; the latter to a soul changed for the better.--JOUBERT.

Remorse, the fatal egg by pleasure laid,
In every bosom where her nest is made,
Hatched by the beams of truth, denies him rest,
And proves a raging scorpion in his breast.
--COWPER.

We can prostrate ourselves in the dust when we have committed a fault, but it is not best to remain there.--CHATEAUBRIAND.

There is no man that is knowingly wicked but is guilty to himself; and there is no man that carries guilt about him but he receives a sting in his soul.--TILLOTSON.

REPENTANCE.--Repentance, without amendment, is like continually pumping without mending the leak.--DILWYN.

Repentance is but another name for aspiration.--BEECHER.

If you would be good, first believe that you are bad.--EPICTETUS.

Repentance is a goddess and the preserver of those who have erred. --JULIAN.

Some well-meaning Christians tremble for their salvation, because they have never gone through that valley of tears and of sorrow, which they have been taught to consider as an ordeal that must be passed through before they can arrive at regeneration. To satisfy such minds, it may be observed, that the slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient, if it produce amendment, and that the greatest is insufficient, if it do not.--COLTON.

Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish.--DR. JOHNSON.

Our hearts must not only be broken with sorrow, but be broken from sin, to constitute repentance.--DEWEY.

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.--GOLDSMITH.

I will to-morrow, that I will,
I will be sure to do it;
To-morrow comes, to-morrow goes,
And still thou art to do it.
Thus still repentance is deferred.
From one day to another:
Until the day of death is come,
And judgment is the other.
--DREXELIUS.

As it is never too soon to be good, so it is never too late to amend: I will, therefore, neither neglect the time present, nor despair of the time past. If I had been sooner good, I might perhaps have been better; if I am longer bad, I shall, I am sure, be worse.--ARTHUR WARWICK.

Repentance is heart's sorrow, and a clear life ensuing.--SHAKESPEARE.

REPOSE.--Power rests in tranquillity.--CECIL.

Have you known how to compose your manners? You have done a great deal more than he who has composed books. Have you known how to take repose? You have done more than he who has taken cities and empires.--MONTAIGNE.

Repose without stagnation is the state most favorable to happiness. "The great felicity of life," says Seneca, "is to be without perturbations."--BOVEE.

There is no mortal truly wise and restless at once; wisdom is the repose of minds.--LAVATER.

REPROOF.--If you have a thrust to make at your friend's expense, do it gracefully, it is all the more effective. Some one says the reproach that is delivered with hat in hand is the most telling.--HALIBURTON.

The severest punishment suffered by a sensitive mind, for injury inflicted upon another, is the consciousness of having done it.--HOSEA BALLOU.

No reproach is like that we clothe in a smile, and present with a bow.--LYTTON.

Reproof is a medicine like mercury or opium; if it be improperly administered, it will do harm instead of good.--HORACE MANN.

He had such a gentle method of reproving their faults that they were not so much afraid as ashamed to repeat them.--ATTERBURY.

Reprove thy friend privately; commend him publicly.--SOLON.

REPUTATION.--The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.--SOCRATES.

How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made!--HOLMES.

O, reputation! dearer far than life,
Thou precious balsam, lovely, sweet of smell,
Whose cordial drops once spilt by some rash hand,
Not all the owner's care, nor the repenting toil
Of the rude spiller, ever can collect
To its first purity and native sweetness.
--SEWELL.