I HAVE sought to counsel you in your perplexities, to comfort you in your troubles, to soothe you in your sicknesses, and strengthen you amid your infirmities. I have knelt beside your beds of pain, coramending you to the God of all comfort; and have read to you from His blessed Book the words that brought you strength and help. When your precious ones were leaving you, I have tried to help them as they went down into the dark valley; said the last words over their cold forms, and in the after desolation in your darkened chambers, seated beside you in the loneliness of your empty homes, have sought to assuage your sorrow with the comfort where with I myself, in like trouble, was comforted of God.

Thomas R. Markham, D.D.

OUT of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it, seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it, taking facts as they are, and dealing with things as they show themselves in the world.

George McDonald.

We know our place and our portion; to give a witness and to be condemned; to be ill-used and to succeed. Such is the law which God has annexed to the promulgation of the truth; its preachers suffer, but its cause prevails.

Cardinal Newman.

AFTER all, it is the utterance of personal conviction that serious men want. The shortest way of coming at men's hearts, and sometimes the shortest way of coming at men's heads, is to tell what you, personally willing to take the leap into the unseen, are depending upon.

Joseph Cook.

CLERGYMEN while speaking in the pulpit have their own thoughts about certain toilets and faces down in the pews, and along with their arguments, that might seem to prove

the existence of heaven or hell, they cannot avoid the reflection that Mrs. Oleander has gotten a new shawl, or that Miss Columbine has returned from Europe or Long Branch; but the rules of public address demand that from this multiplicity of ideas in the brain, a judicious selection should be made by the speaker, and that in his assumed discourse on some theological theme he must suppress his views about Mrs. Oleander and Miss Columbine.

David Swing.

XV.

WATCH-FIRES.

ONE there is who has silently advanced through time from the beginning. Bloody ages-brilliantly splendid epochs -are merely dissimilar chambers, through which he has advanced, silently, calmly, becoming more and more distinct through the twilight veil, until he has reached the period on the threshold of which he now stands-contemplated by many with rapture, by many with fear. And if it is asked where is this form before whom thrones totter, crowns fall off, and earthly purples grow pale, the reply is-Man, man in his original Truth—man formed in the image of God. Frederika Bremer.

WHAT science calls the uniformity of nature, faith accepts as the fidelity of God. It is a wonderful sermon that science is all the while preaching to us from this text, "God is faithful." Let us lay to heart the lesson, and be thankful for the teaching that has brought it home to us with such power and impressiveness.

Martineau.

LET there be no more accursed races on the earth. Let every one act according to his conscience, and communicate freely with his God. Let thought be only corrected by the contradiction of thought. Let error be an infirmity, and not a crime. Let us agree in acknowledging that opinions sometimes take possession of our understanding quite independent of our will or desire. Let us be so just as to be enabled to see even to what degree each race has contribu ted to the universal education of humanity.

Castelar.

INSTINCT is a propensity prior to experience and independent of instruction.

Paley.

GOD, who keeps his word with the birds and fishes in their migratory instinct, will keep his word with man.

PHILOSOPHY has sometimes forgotten God, as a great people never did. The scepticism of the last century could not uproot Christianity, because it lived in the hearts of the millions. Do you think that infidelity is spreading? Christianity never lived in the hearts of so many millions as at this moment. The forms under which it is professed may decay, for they, like all that is the work of man's hands, are subject to the changes and chances of mortal being; but the spirit of truth is incorruptible; it may be developed, illus trated and applied; it can never die; it never can decline. No truth can perish-no truth can pass away. The flame is andying, though generations disappear. Wherever moral cruth has started into being, humanity claims and guards the bequest. Each generation gathers together the impershable children of the past, and increases them by the new ons of the light, alike radiant and immortal.

Bancroft

In the whole realm of nature there is never found an unanswerable instinct. The insect knows where to deposit its eggs so that its offspring, alone and unguided by parental touch, may find its necessary food. The bee and the bird work by rules that never change or fail. If, in these minor forms of life, no calculation is disappointed, no purposed end unaccomplished, how much more shall this universal human longing after immortality be answered in the final day?

Alexander Clark, D.D.

No candid observer will deny that whatever of good there may be in our American civilization is the product of Christianity. Still less, can he deny that the grand motives which are working for the elevation and purification of our society are strictly Christian. The immense energies of the Christian Church, stimulated by a love that shrinks from no obstacle, are all bent toward this great aim of universal purification. These millions of sermons and exhortations, which are a constant power for good, these countless prayers and songs of praise, on which the heavy-laden lift their hearts above the temptations and sorrows of the world, are all the product of faith in Jesus Christ. That which gives us protection by day and by night-the dwellings we live in, the clothes we wear, the institutions of social order—all these are the direct offspring of Christianity. All that distinguishes us from the Pagan world—all that makes us what we are, and all that stimulates us in the task of making ourselves better than we are--is Christian. A belief in Jesus Christ is the very fountain-head of everything that is desirable and praiseworthy in our civilization, and this civilization is the flower of time. Humanity has reached its noblest thrift, - its grandest altitudes of excellence, its high-water mark through the influence of this faith.

Springfield Republican.

FREE-LOVE is the tidal wave of hell.

John Chambers, D.D.

CHRIST was many ages in advance of the world, and in the effort to catch up with such a leader, the world is busy to-day, and will be busy for generations to come. Long is the distance to be passed over by mankind; but the result is worthy the long march. Each century will die a little nearer the feet of the Lord.

David Swing.

THE theological speculatists of Great Britain constitute a class of minds who have gone just far enough into German speculation to be dazzled by it, and not far enough to master it.

Christlieb.

LOVE would put a new face on this dreary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long; and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies and navies and lines of defense, would be superseded by this unarmed child. Emerson.

MANY groans arise from dying men, which we hear not. Many cries are uttered by widows and fatherless children, which reach not our ears; many cheeks are wet with tears, and faces sad with unutterable grief, which we see not. Cruel tyranny is encouraged. The hands of robbers are strengthened, and thousands are kept in helpless slavery, who never injured us.

John Woolman.

LIBERTY! Equality! Fraternity! There is nothing to add, nothing to retrench. They are the three steps of the supreme ladder. Liberty is right; equality is fact; fraternity is duty. All the man is there.

Victor Hugo.

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.

Blackstone.