FAITH is the flame that lifts the sacrifice to As heaven. Montgomery. S in nature, as in art, so in grace, it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their lustre. The more a diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles, and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect his people. Dr. Guthrie. HAS it never occurred to us when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the cages of birds when we wish to teach them to sing? Richter. BE neither too early in the fashion nor too long out of it, nor too precisely in it; what custom hath civilised is become decent, till then ridiculous; where the eye is the jury, the apparel is the evidence. Quarles. TILL shines the light of holy lives, STILL Like star-beams over doubt; Each sainted memory, Christ-like, drives 25252 Whittier. PRECEPT is instruction written in the sand, the tide flows over it and the record is gone. Example is engraven on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost. IT LO, the lilies of the field, Channing. How their leaves instruction yield! Hark to nature's lesson given By the blessed birds of heaven! Every bush and tufted tree, Warbles sweet philosophy: "Mortal fly from doubt and sorrow, God provideth for the morrow!" Reginald Heber. is not work that kills men, it is worry. Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear. Worry is rust upon the blade. It is not the revolution that destroys the machinery, but the friction. H. W. Beecher. WORDS are things; and a small drop of ink, Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Byron. 256 THE word that once escapes the tongue cannot be recalled; as the arrow cannot be detained which has once sped from the bow. Metastatio. WOMAN, contented, in silent repose, Enjoys in its beauty life's flower as it blows, Schiller. THE HE atonement is but one kind of husbandry, the seed of which is the sacrifice of Christ, the harvest of which is the redemption of the world. Oh, is not this a beautiful figure to take with you in your study of the gospels? The four evangelists, what are they but the chroniclers of the seed-time, of which the Book of the Revelation records for us the harvest? Christopherson. 252525252525252525252525 IF F faith produce no works, I see HE Whittier. EAVEN is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich ripe fruit, of which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court. TH Dr. Guthrie. HERE is a magic in the little word home. It is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits. Southey. 25252 To Adam, paradise was home. To the good among his descendants home is paradise. Hare. LOWLINESS is the base of every virtue, and he who goes the lowest builds the safest. P. J. Bailey. WE all hope, by-and-by, to have new nerves, not subject to complaint. In the meantime, if the Lord is pleased to sanctify the infirmities to which our mortal frame is subject, we shall have cause to praise him at last, no less for the bitter than the sweet. I am convinced in my judgment that a cross or a pinch somewhere or other is so necessary to us that we cannot go on well for a considerable time without one. We live on an enchanted ground, are surrounded by snares, and if not quickened by trials are very prone to sink into formality or carelessness. It is a shame it should be so, but so it is, that a long course of prosperity always makes us drowsy. Trials, therefore, are medicines which our gracious and wise physician prescribes because we need them; and he proportions the frequency and the weight of them to what 5257 |