the numbers written in the heavens will come to an end, and how much of eternity is then spent? nothing, for still infinitely more remains. Fuller's Sapientiam. WISDOM.-All the wisdom of man consists in this alone to know and worship God-this is our doctrine, this is our opinion; and this, with as loud a voice as I can, I testify, profess, and proclaim. This is what all the philosophers during their whole life sought, but could never find out, comprehend, nor attain to, because they either retained a corrupt religion, or had none at all. Let them all then be gone who do not instruct, but disturb human life. How can they teach others, who are not instructed themselves? how can they heal the sick or guide the blind? Lactantius; Millar's Hist. Christianity. Caution in crediting, reserve in speaking, and revealing one's self to very few, are the best securities both of peace and a good understanding with the world, and of the inward peace of our own minds. Stanhope's Thomas a Kempis. The duties of religion sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest, and to exercise the highest understanding. That mind will never be vacant which is frequently recalled by stated duties to meditations on eternal interests; nor can any hour be long which is spent in obtaining some new qualification for celestial happiness. Anon. To love an enemy is the distinguished characteristic of a religion which is not of man but of God. It could be delivered as a precept only by him who lived and died to establish it by his example. Anon. Truth is always consistent with itself, and needs nothing to help it out; it is always near at hand and sits upon our lips, and is ready to drop out before we are aware; whereas a lie is troublesome, and sets a man's invention on the rack, and one trick needs a great many more of the same kind to make it good. Ibid. Most of the miseries of life undoubtedly result from our straying from the path which leads to content.-Ibid. PHYSIC.-What contributed most to bring Esculapius into vogue as a physician, was his luckily meeting a man that his friends were going to inter, in whom he found some remains of life, and whom he restored to perfect health.-Rollin. Till Pliny's time, of all professions, that of physic, as gainful as it was, was the only one no Roman had followed, because they believed it below them. Ibid. GRATITUDE.Cicero calls gratitude the mother of virtues; reckons it the most capital of all duties; and uses the words grateful and good as synonymous terms and inseparably united in the same character. Middleton's Cicero. HONOUR.-True honour will pay treble damages, rather than justify one wrong by another. Wm. Penn's Works. THOUGHTS.He who thinks no man above him but for his virtue, none below him but for his vice, can never be obsequious or assuming in a wrong place, but will frequently emulate men in rank below him, and pity those above him.-Tatler. Those who without knowing us, think evil of us, do us no harm; it is not us they attack, it is the phantom of their own imagination.-La Bruyere. TIME. An Italian philosopher expresses in his motto, that time was his estate; an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly repay the labours of industry, and generally satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negligence, to be overrun with noxious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use.-Rambler. WILLS. There are two things in which men in other things wise enough, do usually miscarry; in putting off the making of their wills and their repentance, till it be too late-Tillotson's Sermons. If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then, they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.-Burke. It is observed, by a very ingenious Italian philosopher, that "governments generally take their character from the character of the people; that if the people are more ambitious than rational, the rulers will be the same; and that if the people perceive their mistake, the governments must in turn abandon their attempts to deceive. It is an error originating in ignorance, sloth, and popular delusion, to impute to governments the defects and crimes which are ascribable to the people themselves. The fact is, that if a people, of whom the greater part are poor and hood-winked, expect that their government will undeceive and benefit them, they will find themselves every day more deceived and wretched; and for the truth of this I appeal from the vulgar herd of politicians to experience which does not deceive." "There is," said Lord Chatham, "one plain maxim to which I have invariably adhered through life; that, in every question in which my liberty or my property was concerned, I should consult, and he determined by, the dictates of common sense. I confess (he added) that I am apt to mistrust the refinements of learning, because I have seen the ablest and most learned men equally liable to deceive themselves and mislead others. The condition of human nature would be lamentable, indeed, if nothing less than the greatest learning and talents, which fall to the share of so small a number of men, were sufficient to direct our judgment and our conduct. But Providence has taken better care of our happiness, and given us, in the simplicity of common sense, a rule for our direction by which we shall never be misled." FASHION.-Fashion is for the most part nothing but the ostentation of riches.-Locke. FLATTERY.-What a blot it is upon the memory of Alexander, that he could be so weak as to be pleased with his courtiers imitating his wry neck. Locke. Flattery is a sort of bad money to which our vanity gives currency.-Ibid. When Zeno was told that all his goods were drowned; why then, said he, fortune has a mind to make me a philosopher.-Seneca. When thou art tempted to throw a stone in anger, try if thou canst pick it up without crooking thy body; if not, stop thy hand.-Dillwyn. The atheist is a kind of Felo-de-se; for, according to his notion, his own existence is as much an uncertainty as any thing else.-Ibid. Contempt is one of enmity's domestics, of which pride is major domo, and envy its next door neighbour. Brotherly kindness and charity live on the opposite side of the way.-Ibid. Parlour feasts extinguish kitchen fires.-Ibid. DEATH. Cure of the miser's wish and coward's fear, Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.-Johnson's Russelas. |