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ASCETICISM.

ASSOCIATION.

supplies whereon their self-righteousness may ASSIGNATION-Secret. fare sumptuously every day, and from the On the Rialto every night at twelve, spareness of their apparel abundant reason for I take my evening's walk of meditation ; compassing themselves with pride as with a There we two will meet. Shakspeare. garment. Their humility has been less that of the violet than that of the willow, which, while it bends its head with a graceful submissiveness, seems to be constantly employed in contemplating its image in the stream. Dr. Robert Vaughan.

ASPIRATIONS-after the Holy. Aspirations after the Holy-the only aspiration in which the human soul can be assured that it will never meet with disappointment. Maria M'Intosh.

As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so pauteth my soul after thee, O God.

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? David.

ASPIRATIONS-Realization of.

What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of the mind, for the moment realises itself. Mrs. Jameson.

O for a bliss unbounded! Far beneath
A soul immortal is a mortal joy;
Nor are our powers to perish immature,
But, after feeble effort here, beneath
A brighter sun, and in a nobler soil,
Transplanted from this sublunary bed,
Shall flourish fair and put forth all their bloom.
Young.
ASSASSINATION-Heinousness of.

Is there a crime

Francis.

An assignation sweetly made
With gentle whispers in the dark.
ASSISTANCE (Mutual)-Necessity of.
How beautifully is it ordered, that as many
thousands work for one, so must every indi-
vidual bring his labour to make the whole !
The highest is not to despise the lowest, nor
the lowest to envy the highest; each must
live in all and by all. Who will not work,
neither shall he eat. So God has ordered that
men, being in need of each other, should learn
to love each other, and bear each other's
burdens.
Sala.

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With the accustom'd garb of daily life—
Put on a lowly and a touching grace

Of more distinct humanity, that left
All genuine admiration unimpair'd. Coleridge.
ASSOCIATION-of Early Love.

There's not a wind but whispers of thy name,
And not a flow'r that grows beneath the moon,
But in its hues and fragrance tells a tale
Of thee, my love.
Barry Cornwall.

Beneath the roof of heaven, that stains the ASSOCIATION-Poetry of.

soul

With more infernal hue than damned
Assassination?

He whose heart is not excited upon the Cibber. spot which a martyr has sanctified by his sufferings, or at the grave of one who has largely benefited mankind, must be more inferior to the multitude in his moral, than he can possibly be raised above them in his intellectual nature. Southey.

'Tis bad enough when the assassin stabs
The perishable body, sending man
Unto his dread account all unprepared ;
But, oh! 'tis worse when he essays to pierce
The vital principle within the soul-
The principle of virtue, which alone
Could save, through grace divine, him from
perdition.

This, this, indeed, is dire assassination!

ASSEVERATION-Violent.

Egone.

Violent asseverations, or affected blunders, look not more suspicious than strained sanctity or over-offended modesty. Zimmerman.

ASSOCIATION-Power of.

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends, be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied

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Strong and many are the claims made upon tis by our mother Earth: the love of locality

-the charm and attraction which some one

homely landscape possesses to us, surpassing all stranger beauties, is a remarkable feature in the human heart. We who are not ethereal creatures, but of mixed and diverse nature; we who, when we look our clearest towards the skies, must still have our standing-ground of earth secure-it is strange what relations of personal love we enter into with the scenes of this lower sphere. How we delight to build our recollections upon some basis of reality-a place, a country, a local habitation; how the events of life, as we look back upon them, have grown into the well-remembered background of the places where they fell upon us: bere is some sunny garden or summer lane, beautified and canonized for ever with the flood of a great joy; and here are dim and silent places, rooms always shadowed and dark to us, whatever they may be to others, where distress or death came once, and since then dwells for evermore. Washington Irving.

There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or | airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connections. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man. They recall so many images of past happiness and past affections, they are connected with so many strong or valued emotions, and lead altogether to so long a train of feelings and recollections, that there is hardly any scene which one ever beholds with so much rapture. There are songs also that we have heard in our infancy, which, when brought to our remembrance in after-years, raise emotions for which we cannot well account; and which, though perhaps very indifferent in themselves, still continue, from this association, and from the variety of conceptions which they kindle in our minds, to be our favourites through life. The scenes which have been distinguished by the residence of any person whose memory we admire, produce a similar effect. The scenes themselves may be little beautiful; but the delight with which we recollect the traces of their lives, blends itself insensibly with the emotions which the scenery excites;

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and the admiration which these recollections afford seems to give a kind of sanctity to the place where they dwelt, and converts everything into beauty which appears to have beer connected with them. Alison.

society is the germ of all public affections." "To love the little platoon we belong to in

of childhood, the kind mother who taught us to whisper the first faint accents of prayer, and watched with anxious face over our slum

True, most true! The innocent associations

bers, the ground on which our little feet first trod, the pew in which we first sat during public worship, the school in which our first rudiments were taught, the torn Virgil, the dog-eared Horace, the friends and companions of our young days, the authors who first told us the history of our country, the songs that first made our hearts throb with noble and generous emotions, the burying-place of our fathers, the cradles of our children, are surely the first objects which nature tells us to love. Philanthropy, like charity, must begin at home. From this centre our sympathies may

extend in an ever-widening circle. ASTONISHMENT

Secret.

Lamb.

on Unfolding a

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ATHEIST.

ATHEISM-Folly of.

Atheist, use thine eyes,

And, having viewed the order of the skies, Think, if thou canst, how matter blindly hurl'd, Without a guide, could form this wondrous world. Creech.

ATHEISM-in the Life.

Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man. Bacon.

ATHEISM-a Moral Plague.

Atheism is the result of ignorance and pride; of strong sense and feeble reasons; of good eating and ill-living. It is the plague of society, the corrupter of manners, and the underminer of property. Jeremy Collier.

ATHEIST-Despicable.

His

An atheist, if you take his word for it, is a very despicable mortal. Let us describe him by his tenet, and copy him a little from his own original. He is, then, no better than a heap of organized dust, a stalking machine, a speaking head without a soul in it. thoughts are bound by the laws of motion, his actions are all prescribed. He has no more liberty than the current of a stream or the blast of a tempest; and where there is no choice there can be no merit. Ibid. ATHEIST-Doubts of the.

By night, an atheist half believes a God. Young. ATHEIST-an Enemy.

No atheist, as such, can be a true friend, an affectionate relation, or a loyal subject. Dr. Bentley.

ATHEIST-Laugh of the

An atheist's laugh is a poor exchange,
For Deity offended.

ATHEIST-Life of the.

Burns.

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ATHEIST-Superstition of the.

No one is so thoroughly superstitous as the godless man. The Christian is composed by the belief of a wise all-ruling Father, whose presence fills the void unknown with light and order; but to the man who has dethroned God, the spirit-land is, indeed, in the words of the Hebrew poet, "a land of darkness and the Ishadow of death." without any order, "where the light is as darkness." Life and death to him are haunted grounds, filled with goblin forms of vague and shadowy dread. Mrs. Store. ATHEIST-Unbelief of the.

The footprint of the savage traced in the sand is sufficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist who will not recognize God, whose hand is impressed upon the entire universe. Hugh Miller.

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ATTENTION-Advantages of.

Our minds are so constructed that we can keep the attention fixed on a particular object until we have, as it were, looked all around it; and the mind that possesses this faculty in the highest degree of perfection will take cognizance of relations of which another mind has no perception. It is this, much more than any difference in the abstract power of reasoning, which constitutes the vast difference between the minds of different individuals. This is the history alike of the poetic genius, and of the genius of discovery in science. "I keep the subject," said Sir Isaac Newton, "constantly before me, and wait until the dawnings open by little and little into a full he was led to the invention of fluxions, and light." It was thus that after long meditation to the anticipation of the modern discovery of the combustibility of the diamond. It was thus that Harvey discovered the circulation of the blood, and that those views were suggested by Davy which laid the foundation of that grand series of experimental researches which terminated in the decomposition of the earths and alkalis. Sir Benjamin Brodie. ATTENTION-Holy Impulses of.

Every earnest glance we give to the realities around us, with intent to learn, proceeds from a holy impulse, and is a song of praise.

Think

Maria McIntosh. ATTENTION-Rules for Directing the. We should accustom ourselves to make attention entirely the instrument of volition. Let the will be determined by the conclusions of reason-by deliberate conclusions, and then let attention be wielded by both. what is self-government; what is fittest to be done ought to be now done, and let will be subordinate to reason, and attention to will. In this way you will be always disengaged for present duty. Pleasures, amusements, inferior objects, will be easily sacrificed to the most important. You may have likings to inferior or trifling occupations; but if, to use the strong language of Scripture, you crucify these, oppose them, carry your intention beyond them, their power to molest and mislead you will decline. Dr. Ferrier. ATTORNEY-History and Character of

the.

An attorney's ancient beginning was a blue coat, since a livery, and his hatching under a lawyer; whence, though but pen-feathered, he hath now nested for himself, and with his hoarded pence purchased an office. Two desks and a quire of paper set him up, where he now sits in state for all comers. We can call him

ATTORNEY.

AUTHORSHIP.

There is nothing sooner overthrows a weak head than opinion of authority; like too strong a liquor for a frail glass. Sir Philip Sidney.

AUTHORITY-Exercise of.

They that govern most make least noise. You see when they row in a barge, they that do drudgery-work, slash, and puff, and sweat; but he that governs, sits quietly at the stern, and scarce is seen to stir. Selden.

AUTHORITY-Paternal.

no great author, yet he writes very much, AUTHORITY—Destructiveness of.
and with the infamy of the court is maintained
in his libels. He has some smatch of a scholar,
and yet uses Latin very hardly; and lest it
should accuse him, cuts it off in the midst,
and will not let it speak out. He is, contrary
to great men, maintained by his followers-
that is, his poor country clients, that worship
him more than their landlord; and be they
never such churls, he looks for their courtesy.
He first racks them soundly himself, and then
delivers them to the lawyer for execution.
His looks are very solicitous, importing much
haste and despatch; he is never without his
hands full of business, that is-of paper. His
skin becomes at last as dry as his parchment,
and his face as intricate as the most winding
cause. He talks statutes as fiercely as if he
had mooted seven years in the inns of court,
when all his skill is stuck in his girdle, or in | AUTHORITY-Power of.
his office window. Strife and wrangling have
made him rich, and he is thankful to his bene-
factor, and nourishes it. If he live in a
country village, he makes all his neighbours
good subjects; for there shall be nothing done AUTHORSHIP-Advice on.
but what there is law for. His business gives
him not leave to think of his conscience; and
when the time, or term, of his life is going
out, for doomsday he is secure; for he hopes
he has a trick to reverse judgment.

AUDACITY-Not Courage.

Bishop Earle.

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To you your father should be as a god ;
One that composed your beauties; yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax,
By him imprinted, and within his power
To leave the figure, or disfigure it. Shakspeare.

Authority bears a credent bulk,
That no particular scandal can touch,
But it confounds the breather.

Ibid.

On this point I have a piece of advice to offer to all young intellectual aspirants: they should keep their commodities to themselves: they should not produce their notions until they have wrought them into form. I did the contrary of this myself, and I smarted severely for it. In the first place, I used to confuse myself with the perplexity of my thoughts,half conceptions, abortions of truth, that came to the birth when my mind had not strength to bring them forth, - monsters begotten out of the cloud, like those in the old fable. With Cassio, I saw a mass of things, but nothing distinctly. I had chosen my own points of observation; I viewed many things differently until my eye was accustomed to the change, from the vulgar, but my visions for some time, were wont to float before me vaguely and inapprehensibly. I had rejected the hack notions, the uses of other men, and had as yet made none for myself that I could call properly my own. What, then, would have been my wisdom? Clearly, to reserve these rough sketches of my intellect for secret service, and not to set them forth for show; to veil from the vulgar eye the unseemliness of my mind, while in its rudiments; to employ its "airy portraiture" for exercise, in order that it might so learn to labour finally for use; just as the young painter will work off a hundred sketches for the fire, before he can finish one for public exhibition. In the meantime, I should have holden to the old adage, “Loquendum ut vulgus sentiendum ut docti." I should have talked I and demeaned myself like mere matter of-fact

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