If a man ought and is willing to lie still under God's hand, he must and ought also to be still under all things, whether they come from God himself or the creatures, nothing excepted. And he who would be obedient, resigned, and submissive to God, must and ought to be also resigned, obedient, and submissive to all things, in a spirit of yielding and not of resistance, and take them in silence, resting on the hidden foundations of his soul, and having a secret inward patience, that enableth him to take all chances or crosses willingly, and whatever befalleth, neither to call for nor desire any redress or deliverance, or resistance, or revenge, but always in a loving sincere humility to cry, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Theologia Germanica.

Be not offended with mankind, should any mischief assail thee, for neither pleasure nor pain originate with thy fellow-being. Though the arrow may seem to issue from the bow, the intelligent can see that the archer gave it its aim. Sadi.

As charity requires forgetfulness of evil deeds, so patience requires forgetfulness of evil accidents.

Bishop Hall.

There are two modes of judging of any thing: one, by the test of what has actually been done in the same way before; the other, by what we can conceive may be done in that way. Now this latter method of mere imaginary

EACH VIRTUE HAS A SEPARATE SPHERE.

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excellence can hardly be a just criterion, because it may be impossible to reduce to practice what it is perfectly easy to conceive. Fastidious men are always judging by the former standard; and as the rest of the understanding cannot fill up in a century what the imagination can sketch out in a moment, they are always in a state of perpetual disappointment, and their conversation one uniform tenor of blame. At the same time that I say this, I lift up both my hands against that pernicious facility of temper, in the estimation of which every thing is charming and delightful. Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. Sidney Smith.

An infinitely nice division between two fixed points The infinity which urges us beyond all

narrows us

points enlarges.

It is a misfortune to see with excessive distinctness, if our vision is very narrow.

We undervalue those who have a wider range, but on whom hair-lines make less impression.

Does exactness in trifles forward or hinder the higher virtues?

The moment that we attempt to substitute the relations of benevolence for those of justice, both the scales and the sword fall from the hands of the image. Benevolence

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EACH VIRTUE HAS A SEPARATE SPHERE.

can regulate nothing, and enforce nothing. First let me know what is mine, and then inculcate the duties and the pleasures of benevolence.

All the rules of justice are radically negative or restrictive, and present themselves in the form "Thou shalt not do." All the rules of benevolence are positive or expansive, and present themselves under the form "Thou shalt do, or thou oughtest to do."

Theory of Human Progression.

When one virtue intrudes into the sphere of another, we must suspect it to be quickened by envy or unchecked by love. When justice insists upon settling other people's merits, it becomes ungenerous criticism, or at least painful "vivisection."

Love has its truths as well as the conscience and the reason. Neither set can be neglected with impunity; nor will the presence of one set in the least make good the absence of the other. Each bears its own harvest of blessings, and can bear no other.

Let not order be the only law, or you will have the sunfish instead of the human face.

My constant effort would be to have such a character that Truth could come into my presence - that no one should, for any reason, soften or suppress it.

There is the love of the good for the good's sake, and the love of the truth for the truth's sake. I have known many, especially women, love the good for the good's sake; but very few indeed, and scarcely one woman, love the truth for the truth's sake. To see clearly that the love of the good and the true is ultimately identical, is given only to those who love both sincerely and without any foreign ends. Coleridge.

Finish, exactness, refinement, are commonly desired in the works of man, owing both to their difficulty of accomplishment, and consequent expression of care and power, and from their greater resemblance to the working of God, whose absolute exactness," says Hooker, "all things imitate, by tending to that which is most exquisite in every particular." This finish is not a part or constituent of beauty, but the full and ultimate rendering of it, so that it is an idea connected only with the works of men, for all the works of the Deity are finished with the same, that is, infinite care and completion; and so what degrees of beauty exist among them can in no way be dependent upon this source, inasmuch as there are between them no degrees of care.

But the least appearance of violence or extravagance, of the want of moderation and restraint, is, I think, destructive of all beauty whatsoever in every thing,color, form, motion, language, or thought-giving rise to that which in color we call glaring, in form inelegant, in

motion ungraceful, in language coarse, in thought undisciplined, in all unchastened.

Ruskin.

I do not mean to suggest that truth and right are always to be found in middle courses; or that there is any thing particularly philosophic in concluding that "both parties are in the wrong," and that there is a great deal to be said on both sides of the question, phrases which may belong to indolence as well as to charity and candor. Let a man have a hearty, strong opinion, and strive by all fair means to bring it into action, if it is in truth an opinion, and not a thing inhaled like some infectious disorder. Helps.

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as in Love or in Faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in any way but as it ought. And with respect to things in which there may be excess, it does not mean imperfect enjoyment of them; but the regulation of their quantity, so that the enjoyment of them shall be greatest. Ruskin.

Modesty is the appendage of sobriety, and is to chastity, to temperance, and to humility, as the fringes are to a garment. It is a grace of God that moderates the overactiveness and curiosity of the mind, and orders the pas