There is no estate of life so happy in this world as to yield a Christian the perfection of content; and yet there is no state of life so wretched in this world, but a Christian must be content with it. Though I have nothing that may give me a true content, yet I will learn to be truly contented here with what I have. What care I, though I have not much? I have as much as I desire, if I have as much as I want; I have as much as the most. if I have as much as I desire.

6. COURTEOUSNESS.- - Leighton.

The roots of plants are hid under the ground, so that themselves are not seen, but they appear in their branches, and flowers, and fruits, which argue there is a root and life in them: thus the graces of the Spirit planted in the soul, though themselves invisible, yet discover their being and life, in the tract of a Christian's life, his words and actions, and the whole frame of his carriage.

7. EQUALITY OF MEN.- Bishop Horne. The different ranks and orders of mankind may be compared to so many streams and rivers of running water. All proceed from an original, small and obscure; some spread wider, travel over more countries, and make more noise in their passage than others; but all tend alike to an ocean. where distinction ceases, and where the largest and most celebrated rivers are equally lost. and absorbed with the smallest and most unknown streams.

8. ERROR AND IGNORANCE.

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than noninformation; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write ; but error is a scribbled one, from which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the backward direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one: the consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has farther to go before she can arrive at the truth than ignorance.

9. EVIL SPEAKING.- Warwick.

It is not good to speak evil of all whom we know bad; it is worse to judge evil of any who may prove good. To speak ill upon knowledge shows a want of charity; to speak ill upon suspicion shows a want of honesty. To know evil of others, and not speak it, is sometimes discretion; to speak evil of others, and not know it, is always dishonesty. He may be evil himself who speaks good of others upon knowledge, but he can never be good himself who speaks evil of others upon suspicion.

IO. FAITHFUL PRAYER.

Friend, thou must trust in Him who trod before

The desolate path of life:

Must bear in meekness, as He meekly bore,
Sorrow, and pain, and strife.

Think how the Son of God

These thorny paths hath trod;
Think how He longed to go,

Yet tarried out for thee, the appointed woe.
Think of his weariness in places dim.

Where no man comforted, or cared for Him.
Think of the blood-like sweat

With which his brow was wet,

Yet how He prayed, unaided and alone,

In that great agony--Thy will be done!"

Friend! do not thou despair,

Christ, from his heaven of heavens, will hear thy prayer.

II. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE.— - Berkeley.

Nothing is more natural than to make the things we know, a step towards those we do not know; and to explain, or represent things less familiar by others which are more so. We imagine before we reflect, and we perceive by sense before we imagine; and of all our senses sight is the most clear, distinct, various. agreeable, and comprehensive. Hence it is natural to assist the intellect by the imagination, the imagination by sense, and the other senses by sight. Hence figures, metaphors, and types. We illustrate spiritual things by corporeal; we substitute sounds for thoughts, and written letters for sounds; emblems. symbols. and hieroglyphics, for things too obscure to strike, and too various or too fleeting to be retained. We substitute things imaginable for things intelligible; sensible things for imaginable, smaller things for those that are too great to comprehend easily, and greater things for such as are too small to be discerned distinctly; present things for absent, permanent for perishing, and visible for invisible.

12. FLOWERS.- Mary Howitt.

God might have bade the earth bring forth enough for great and small,

The oak tree and the cedar tree. without a flower at all.
The ore within the mountain mine requireth none to grow;
Nor doth it need the lotus flower to make the river flow.

The clouds might give abundant rain, the nightly dews might fall, And the herb that keepeth life in man might yet have drunk them all;

Our outward life requires them not: then wherefore had they birth?

To minister delight to man,- to beautify the earth,

To whisper hope, to comfort man whene'er his faith is dim :— For who so careth for the flowers, will care much more for him.

13. FORGIVING DISPOSITION.

Sterne.

The brave only know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. Cowards have done good and kind actions; cowards have even fought, nay, sometimes even conquered; but a coward never forgave; it is not in his nature; the power of doing it flows only from a strength and greatness of soul, conscious of its own force and security, and above the little temptations of resenting every fruitless attempt to interrupt its happiness.

14. FRUITLESS RESOLUTIONS.— Shakespeare.
At thirty, man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty, chides his infamous delay,--
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;
In all the magnanimity of thought,

Resolves, and re-resolves, then dies the same.

Pope.

15. GRATEFUL RECOGNITION — ARGUS.
When wise Ulysses,-from his native coast,
Long kept by wars, and long by tempest tossed.--
Arrived at last, poor, old, disguised, alone,
To all his friends, and e'en his queen, unknown;--
Changed as he was, with age, and toils, and cares,
Furrowed his reverend face, and white his hairs,
In his own palace forced to ask his bread,
Scorned by those slaves his former bounty fed;
Forgot of all his own domestic crew ;--

The faithful dog alone his rightful master knew.
Unfed, unhoused, neglected. on the clay,
Like an old servant now cashiered he lay;
Touched with resentment of ungrateful man,
And longing to behold his ancient lord again.

Him, when he saw, he rose, and crawled to meet,--
'Twas all he could -- and fawned and kissed his feet--
Seized with dumb joy - then falling by his side,
Owned his returning lord, looked up, and died!

16. KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM.

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft-times no connexion. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom, in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge - a rude unprofitable mass,

The mere materials with which wisdom builds,—
Till smoothed, and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich:
Knowledge is proud, that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble, that he knows no more.

17. MAN.

Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are,-
Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,
Or silver drops of morning dew;
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood:
Even such is man, whose borrowed light
Is straight called in, and paid to night:-
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entombed in Autumn lies,-
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

18. ON LITERARY EXTRACTS.- Willmott.

Johnson condemns the belief that a poet can be introduced to a just reputation by select quotations; and compares a critic who should make the attempt, to the famous pedant in Hierocles, who, when he wished to sell his house, carried a specimen brick in his pocket. Such a sentiment was natural and appropriate upon the lips of an editor of a great dramatic poet; but that it did not extend to literary extracts, we know from Boswell, to whom Johnson often expressed his love of those little volumes of " Beauties," by which celebrated authors have been recommended to the vulgar. A thousand persons will read a page, who would never open a folio. A single flower may induce a wanderer to visit the garden; a single bunch of grapes may allure him into a land of promise.

19. POLITENESS.- - Lord Chatham.

As to politeness, many have attempted its definition. I believe it is best to be known by description; definition not being able to comprise it. I would, however, venture to call it benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves, in little, daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. A better place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table; what is it but sacrificing ourselves in such trifles to the convenience and pleasure of others? And this constitutes true politeness. Bowing, ceremonies, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, noble. And what will give this -but a mind benevolent and perpetually attentive to exert that amiable disposition towards all you converse and live with? Benevolence in great matters takes a higher name, and is the Queen of Virtue.

Thorwaldsen being found by a friend one day somewhat out of spirits, was asked whether anything had occurred to distress him; he answered, " My genius is decaying." "What do you mean?" said the visitor. Why, here is my statue of Christ;

it is the first of my works that I have ever felt satisfied with. Till now, my idea has always been far beyond what I could execute; but it is no longer so; I shall never have a great idea again."

21. TEMPER.—" Private Life."

There are persons who, on the subject of temper, plead a sort of prescriptive right to indulgence, on the ground of constitutional infirmity, or hereditary entailment; but before such pleas can be considered valid in the court of Conscience, let such persons ask themselves, whether there are no circumstances sufficiently powerful, whether there is no presence sufficiently august to awe them into self-control; whether in certain moments of their lives they have not found the most indignant feelings controllable, the fiercest blaze of passion repressible? If this be the case-and experience will generally attest that it is so- - the plea of necessity falls to the ground: for we should never forget that, in every moment of our lives, we are in a Presence the most august, under the vigilant observation of a Being, compared to whose glance, the gaze of an assembled world is powerless and insignificant.

22. TO THE BUTTERFLY.

Rogers.
Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight.
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light.
And where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold:
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky.
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy.

Yet, wert thou once a worm,—a thing that crept
On the bare earth. then wrought a tomb, and slept.
And such is man! soon from his cell of clay
To burst, a seraph, in the blaze of day.

23. TIME.

Time moveth not! our being 'tis that moves;
And we, swift gliding down life's rapid stream,
Dream of swift ages, and revolving years,
Ordained to chronicle our passing days:
So the young sailor, in the gallant bark
Scudding before the wind, beholds the coast
Receding from his eyes, and thinks the while,
Struck with amaze, that he is motionless.
And that the land is sailing.

24. VEGETATION.

Say what impels, amidst surrounding snow
Congealed, the crocus' flaming bud to glow?
Say what retards. amidst the summer's blaze,
The autumnal bulb, till pale declining days?