WHY ARE NOT MORE GEMS FROM OUR GREAT AUTHORS SCATTERED OVER THE COUNTRY? GREAT BOOKS ARE NOT IN EVERY BODY'S REACH; AND THOUGH IT IS BETTER TO KNOW THEM THOROUGHLY THAN TO KNOW THEM ONLY HERE AND THERE, YET IT IS A GOOD WORK TO GIVE A LITTLE TO THOSE WHO HAVE NOT THE TIME NOR MEANS TO GET MORE.

-S. T. COLERIDGE.

IT IS EXCELLENT DISCIPLINE FOR AN AUTHOR TO FEEL THAT HE MUST SAY ALL THAT HE HAS TO SAY IN THE FEWEST POSSIBLE WORDS, OR HIS READER IS SURE TO SKIP THEM; AND IN THE PLAINEST POSSIBLE WORDS, OR HIS READER WILL CERTAINLY MISUNDERSTAND THEM. GENERALLY, ALSO, A DOWNRIGHT FACT MAY BE TOLD IN A PLAIN WAY; AND WE WANT DOWNRIGHT FACTS AT THE PRESENT MORE THAN ANY THING ELSE.

PREFACE.

IN

N making this collection of brief and pointed selections "from the religious literature of all ages," it has been the aim of the compiler:

I. To use only such extracts as clearly and forcibly express or apply some religious truth.

II. To make the character of the book "evangelical."

III. To avoid all denominational tendencies. Indeed it has been one object to show the essential unity of the faith of the different sects composing the Christian church.

IV. To present doctrine, not so much as a complete system of theology, as the frame-work—the sustaining principle of holy living.

V. To give especial prominence to American authors.

All the subjects are arranged alphabetically, with the exception of the subdivisions of the topic "Christ," which are grouped in two classes in what seems to be the natural order: first, "The Historic Christ," on pages 54 to 77 inclusive; and second, "The Living Christ," pages 78 to 102 inclusive.

As all matter of the book is selected, quotation marks are not generally used, whether the author's name is given or omitted.

J. H. G.

HE THAT LAYS DOWN PRECEPTS FOR GOVERNING OUR LIVES, AND MODERATING OUR PASSIONS, OBLIGES HUMANITY NOT ONLY IN THE PRESENT, BUT IN ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS.

- SENECA.

IF YOU WOULD BE PUNGENT, BE BRIEF; FOR IT IS WITH WORDS AS WITH SUNBEAMS THE MORE THEY ARE CONDENSED, THE DEEPER THEY BURN.

SOUTHEY.

THE PROVERB ANSWERS WHERE THE SERMON FAILS.

-W. G. SIMMS.

BURNING WORDS OF BRILLIANT WRITERS.

A.

ABILITY.

Ability involves responsibility. Power to its last particle is

make the man." But they make him only in the sense and degree that he permits them to make him.

– G. D. BOARDMAN.

What we do upon a great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are; what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline, under the grace of Christ or the absence of it.

-H. P. LIDDON.

ACCOUNTABILITY.

Moral conduct includes every thing in which men are active and for which they are accountable. They are active in their desires, their affections, their designs, their intentions, and in every thing they say and do of choice; and for all these things they are accountable to God.

- EMMONS.

When illusions are over, when the distractions of sense, the vagaries of fancy, and the tumults of passion have dissolved even before the body is cold, which once they so thronged and agitated, the soul merges into intellect, intellect into conscience, conscience into the unbroken, awful solitude of its own personal accountability; and though the inhabitants of the universe were within the spirit's ken, this personal accountability is as strictly alone and unshared, as if no being were throughout immensity but the spirit and its God.

- HENRY GILES.

ACTION.

The end of man is an action, and not a thought, though it were the noblest. - THOMAS CARLYLE.

Existence was given us for action, rather than indolent and aimless contemplation; our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. They greatly mistake, who suppose that God cares for no other pursuit than devotion.

-E. L. MAGOON.

Christian life is action: not a speculating, not a debating, but a doing. One thing, and only one, in this world has eternity stamped upon it. Feelings pass; resolves and thoughts pass; opinions change. What you have done lasts—lasts in you. Through ages, through eternity, what you have done for Christ, that, and only that, you are.

-F. W. ROBERTSON.

It is well to think well; it is divine to act well.