THE most brilliant qualities become useless when they are not sustained by force of character. To me more dear, congenial to my heart, LOVE strong as death-nay, stronger, Love mightier than the grave, Than ocean's widest wave; This is the love that brought us To gladdest day from saddest night, Segur. Goldsmith From depths of death to life's fair height; Us to his table here, This is the love that spreadeth For us the royal cheer. You who keep account Of crisis and transition in this life, Set down the first time Nature says plain 'no' In gorgeous sweeps of scorn. By singing with the birds, and We all begin running fast With June days hand in hand; but, once for all, The dear name on the blade which bites at us. Elizabeth B. Browning. XXIX SUMMER DRIFTWOOD. ADVERSITY is the trial of principle. LIFE is a short day; but it is a working day. Fielding Hannah More. He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed. Socrates. JUST in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, of system-building, and hireling service, into the region of beneficent activities. It is well to think well; it is divine to act well. Horace Mann. REST not! Life is sweeping by; TALK not of talents; what hast tho to do? Thy duty, be thy portion five or two. Talk not of talents; is thy duty done? Goethe. Montgomery. THERE is transcendent power in example. We reform others unconsciously when we walk uprightly. Madame Swetchine. UNTIL reason be ripe, examples direct more than precepts. Quarles. We can do more good by being good than in any other way. Rowland Hill. EXAMPLE is more forcible than precept. People look at me six days in the week, to see what I mean on the seventh. Cecil. THOSE who give not till they die, show that they would not then, if they could keep it any longer. Ir happiness has not her seat And center in the breast, Bishop Hall. We may be wise, or rich, or great, Burns. CAST forth thy act, thy word, into the ever-living, everworking universe. It is a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day, it will be found flourishing as a banyangrove, perhaps, alas! as a hemlock-forest after a thousand years. Carlyle. GENUINE witticisms surprise those who say them as much as those who listen to them. Joubert. KNOWLEDGE is proud that he knows so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. Cowper. Too many people mistake impudence for independence. LABOR to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. Washington. JUSTICE is truth in action. FIDELITY is the sister of Justice. Horace. Nor only to say the right thing in the right place, but, far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. George A. Sala. JUDGE not; the workings of his brain Adelaide A. Procter. I HAVE no respect for that self-boasting charity, which neglects all objects of commiseration near and round it, but goes to the end of the earth in search of misery, for the purpose of talking about it. George Mason. THE charities that soothe, and heal and bless, are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers. Wordsworth. I NEVER knew a child of God being bankrupted by his benevolence. What we keep we may lose, but what we give to Christ we are sure to keep. Theo. L. Cuyler. LET thy alms go before, and keep heaven's gate open for thee, or both may come too late. Herbert. REAL glory springs from the silent conquest of ourselves. Thomson. NOTHING is so wholesome, nothing does so much for people's looks, as a little interchange of the small coin of benevolence. Ruffini. He sat among his bags, and, with a look I COUNT this thing to be grandly true: Pollock. Holland. How far that little candle throws its beams! Shakespeare. NOTHING, except what flows from the heart, can render even external manners truly pleasing. Blair. It is not money, nor is it mere intellect that governs the world; it is moral character; it is intellect associated with moral excellence. Ex-President Woolsey. To the generous mind, the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it. THESE are the great of earth Great, not by kingly birth, Great in their well-proved worth Firm hearts and true. Franklin. Pierpont. |