And who but wishes to invert the laws

Of order, sins against th' Eternal cause.-Pope.

2871. PRIDE. Use of

PRIDE is of mighty use.

The affectation of a pompous name,
Has oft set wits and heroes in a flame:
Volumes, and buildings, and dominions wide,
Are oft the noble monuments of pride.-Crown.

2872. PRIEST. The only

ONE Priest alone can pardon me,

Or bid me go in peace,

Can breathe that word, 'Absolvo te,'
And make these heart-throbs cease:
My soul hath heard His priestly voice,
It said, 'I bore thy sins, rejoice!'

He show'd the spear-mark in His side,
The nail-print on His palm,
Said, 'Look on Me the crucified!
Why tremble thus? Be calm!
All power is mine,-I set thee free,—
Be not afraid,-" Absolvo te.""
By Him my soul is purified,

Once leprous and defiled!
Cleansed in the fountain from His side,
God sees me as a child:

No priest can heal or cleanse but He; No other say, 'Absolvo te.'

A girded Levite here below,

I willing service bring,

And fain would tell to all I know

Of Christ, the Priestly King:
Would win all hearts from sin to flee,
And hear Him say, 'Absolvo te.'

A little while, and He shall come
Forth from the inner shrine,

To call His pardon'd brethren home ;-
O bliss supreme, divine!
When every blood-bought child see
The Priest who said, 'Absolvo te.'

He robed me in a priestly dress,

That I might incense bring, Of prayer and praise and righteousness, To heaven's eternal King: And when He gave this robe to me, He smiled, and said, 'Absolvo te.'

In heaven He stands before the throne,

The great High Priest above,
'Melchisedec,'-that name alone

Can sin's dark stain remove :
To Him I look on bended knee,
And hear that sweet-'Absolvo te.'

2873. PRISON.

A PRISON is a house of care,

A place where none can thrive,
A touchstone true to try a friend,
A grave for one alive;
Sometimes a place of right,

Sometimes a place of wrong,

Sometimes a place of rogues and thieves,
And honest men among.

Inscription on Edinburgh Tolbooth.
How like

A prison's to a grave! when dead, we are
With solemn pomp brought thither; and our heirs,
Masking their joy in false dissembled tears,
Weep o'er the hearse: but earth no sooner covers
The earth brought thither, but they turn away
With inward smiles, the dead no more remember'd:
So enter'd into a prison.—Massinger.

A prison is in all things like a grave,
Where we no better privileges have

Than dead men; nor so good. The soul once fled
Lives freer now, than when she was cloist'red
In walls of flesh; and though she organs want
To act her swift designs, yet all will grant
Her faculties more clear, now separate,
Than if the same conjunction, which of late
Did marry her to earth, had stood in force;
Incapable of death, or of divorce;
But an imprison'd mind, though living, dies,
And, at one time, feels two captivities:
A narrow dungeon which her body holds,
But narrower body, which herself enfolds.—King.

And faint not, heart of man! though years wane slow!

There have been those that from the deepest caves,
And cells of night, and fastnesses below
The stormy dashing of the ocean waves,

Down, farther down than gold lies hid, have nursed A quenchless hope, and watch'd their time and burst

On the bright day, like wakeners from the grave.
Mrs Hemans.

2874. PROBATION. Man's
PLACED for his trial on this bustling stage,
From thoughtless youth to ruminating age,
Free in his will to choose or to refuse,
Man may improve the crisis, or abuse;
Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan,
Say to what bar amenable were man?

With nought in charge he could betray no trust,
And, if he fell, would fall because he must;

PROCRASTINATION

If love reward him, or if vengeance strike,
His recompense in both unjust alike.
Divine authority within his breast

Brings every thought, word, action to the test:
Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains,
As reason, or as passion, takes the reins.
Heaven from above, and conscience from within,
Cries in his startled ear, 'Abstain from sin!'
The world around solicits his desire,
And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire;
While, all his purposes and steps to guard,
Peace follows virtue as its sure reward;
And Pleasure brings as surely in her train
Remorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain.

Man, thus endued with an elective voice,
Must be supplied with objects of his choice.
Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight,
Or present, or in prospect, meet his sight:
These open on the spot their honey'd store;
Those call him loudly to pursuit of more.
His unexhausted mine the sordid vice
Avarice shows, and virtue is the price.
Here various motives his ambition raise-

Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise;

There beauty woos him with expanded arms;
E'en bacchanalian madness has its charms.

Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refined
Might well alarm the most unguarded mind,
Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth,
Or lead him devious from the path of truth;
Hourly allurements on his passions press,
Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess.

Cowper.

2875. PROCRASTINATION : a deceiver.

THERE'S a little mischief-maker,
That is stealing half our bliss;
Sketching pictures in a dream-land
That are never seen in this;
Dashing from the lips the pleasures
Of the present while we sigh:
You may know this mischief-maker,
For his name is By-and-By.
He is sitting by your hearthstones,

With his sly, bewitching glance,
Whispering of the coming morrow

As the social hours advance;
Loitering 'mid our calm reflections,
Hiding forms of beauty nigh:
He's a smooth deceitful fellow,
This enchanter, By-and-By.

You may know him by his winning,
By his careless, sportive air;

PRODIGALITY

By his sly, obtrusive presence,
That is straying everywhere;
By the trophies that he gathers
Where his sombre victims lie;
For a bold, determined fellow

Is this conqueror, By-and-By.
When the calls of duty haunt us,

And the present seems to be
All the time that ever mortals
Snatch from dark eternity,
Then a fairy hand seems painting
Pictures on a painted sky;
For a cunning little artist

Is the fairy, By-and-By.
'By-and-By,' the wind is singing,

'By-and-By,' the heart replies;
But the phantom just above us

Ere we grasp it ever flies.
List not to the idle charmer,

Scorn the very specious lie-
Do not e'er believe or trust in
This deceiver, By-and-By.

2876. PROCRASTINATION. Absurdity of
TO-MORROW, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.-Shakespeare.

2877. PROCRASTINATION. Habit of

Cornutus. UNHAPPY he who does his work adjourn,

And to to-morrow would the search delay:
His lazy morrow will be like to-day.

Pers. But is one day of ease too much to borrow?
Corn. Yes, sure; for yesterday was once to-

morrow.

That yesterday is gone, and nothing gain'd;
And all thy fruitless days will thus be drain'd:
For thou hast more to-morrows yet to ask,
And wilt be ever to begin thy task;
Who, like the hindmost chariot-wheels, art curst,
Still to be near, but ne'er to reach, the first.
Persius, tr. by Dryden.

2878. PRODIGALITY.

WHAT is a prodigal ? faith, like a brush,
That wears himself, to furbish others' clothes;

And having worn his heart even to the stump,
He's thrown away like a deformed lump.
Oh such am I! I have spent all the wealth'
My ancestors did purchase; made others brave
In shape and riches, and myself a knave:

For though my wealth raised some to paint their door, 'Tis shut against me, saying, I am poor.—Wilkins.

'Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy;
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Pope.

See!

The difference 'twixt the covetous and the prodigal :
The covetous man never has money,
And the prodigal will have none shortly!—Johnson.

That which made him gracious in your eyes,
And gilded o'er his imperfections,

Is wasted and consumed even like ice,
Which by the vehemence of heat dissolves,
And glides to many rivers; so his wealth,
That felt a prodigal hand, hot in expense,
Melted within his gripe, and from his coffers
Ran like a violent stream to other men's.-Cook.

Liberality

In some circumstances may be allow'd:
As when it has no end but honesty ;
With a respect of person, quantity,
Quality, time, and place: but this profuse,
Vain, injudicious spending makes him idiot;
And yet the best of liberality

Is to be liberal to ourselves: and thus
Your wisdom is most liberal, and knows
How fond a thing it is for discreet men
To purchase with the loss of their estate
The name of one poor virtue, liberality,
And that, too, only from the mouth of beggars!
One of your judgment would not, I am sure,
Buy all the virtues at so dear a rate.-Randolph.

There's a warmth about to glow,
There's a flower about to blow,
There's a midnight darkness changing
Into grey

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!

Once the welcome light has broken,
Who shall say

What the unimagined glories
Of the day-

What the evil that shall perish
In its ray?

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men!
Aid it, paper-aid it, type-
Aid it, for the hour is ripe,
And our earnest must not slacken
Into play.

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!

Lo! a cloud's about to vanish
From the day,

And a brazen wrong to crumble
Into clay.

Lo! the right's about to conquer,
Clear the way!

With that right shall many more
Enter smiling at the door;
With the giant wrong shall fall
Many others, great and small,
That for ages long have held us
For their prey.

Men of thought, and men of action,
Clear the way!-Mackay.

2881. PROGRESS. Omens of

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth
In her fair page; see, every season brings
New change to her, of everlasting youth;

Still the green soil with joyous living things
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings,
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep

Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings
The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep,
On His complacent arms, the earth, the air, the
deep.

Will then the merciful One, Who stamp'd our race
With His own image, and Who gave them sway
O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face,
Now that our swarming nations far away
Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the
day,

Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed

His latest offspring? will he quench the ray

WE weep when we are born, not when we die!
So was it destined; and thus came I here,
To walk the earth and wear the form of man,
To suffer bravely as becomes my state,
One step, one grade, one cycle nearer God.
And knowing these things, can I stoop to fret,
And lie, and haggle in the market-place;
Give dross for dross, or everything for nought?
No! let me sit above the crowd, and sing,
Waiting with hope for that miraculous change
Which seems like sleep; and though I waiting starve,

I cannot kiss the idols that are set

By every gate, in every street and park;
I cannot fawn, I cannot soil my soul:
For I am of the mountains and the sea,
The deserts and the caverns in the earth,
The catacombs and fragments of old worlds.

2886. PROPORTION.

SOME figures monstrous and misshaped appear
Consider'd singly, or beheld too near,
Which but proportion'd to their site or place,
Due distance reconciles to form and grace.-Pope.

2887. PROSPERITY: dangerous.

MORE ships in calms on a deceitful coast,
Or unseen rocks, than in high storms are lost.
Denham.

Daily and hourly proof

Tell us, prosperity is at highest degree
The fount and handle of calamity:
Like dust before a whirlwind those men fly
That prostrate on the ground of fortune lie;
And being great, like trees that broadest sprout,
Their own top-heavy state grubs up their root.
Chapman.

2888. PROSPERITY: destructive of piety.
BEHOLD, Sir Balaam, now a man of spirit,
Ascribes his gettings to his parts and merit;
What late he call'd a blessing, now was wit,
And God's good providence a lucky hit.
Things change their titles as their manners turn:
His counting-house employ'd the Sunday morn :
Seldom at church ('twas such a busy life),
But duly sent his family and wife.-Pope.

2889. PROSPERITY. Friendship and

BETWEEN a wise magician, whom fair Maia knew, And one of earth's poor sons, there once a friendship grew.

That friend his ear with protestations plied :

At length their truth the enchanter by his magic tried.
Within a meadow sits the friend in mild repose,
Sees how each flower, each blade of grass, in silence
grows.

At once in order rise the grass-blades, and appear
A host of helmed warriors, arm'd with pike and spear.
They throng around the friend and greet him as a
king,

And pearls and rubies at his feet profusely fling.
His heart beats strong with bliss: like a vast tent
unfurl'd,

The sky is pitch'd; and he is lord. of all the world. A breathless man then through the crowding courtiers press'd,

And straight the king as a familiar friend address'd. The monarch, with a look surprised, to him replied, 'My friend, I know you not,' and turn'd away in pride.

Thrice waved his Maia's staff that grieved magician's

hand,

And all the incantation faded from the land. The friend, now disenchanted, bitterly repents, Till thus the conjurer comforts him for his offence: "It is the world's low lusts that do our senses bind; Let Maia's veil but fall, we leave those snares behind. The splendid courtiers shrink to grass-blades in the field,

The pearls and rubies are but drops of dew congeal'd. Just now my art made shapes to you from out this mist:

And yet I never would your friendship have dismiss'd. The worst of the illusion was that it turn'd friend From friend, and therefore have I brought it to an end.

But doubtless, friend! had ine the same proud spell possess'd,

You would have seen me full as badly stand the test.'

2890. PROSPERITY: portentous.

Oriental.

OH how portentous is prosperity!
How, comet-like, it threatens while it shines!
Few years but yield us proof of Death's ambition
To cull his victims from the fairest fold,
And sheathe his shafts in all the pride of life.
When flooded with abundance, purpled o'er
With recent honours, bloom'd with every bliss,
Set up in ostentation, made the gaze,
The gaudy centre of the public eye;
When Fortune, thus, has toss'd her child in air,
Snatch'd from the covert of an humble state,
How often have I seen him dropp'd at once!
Our morning's envy! and our evening's sigh!
As if her bounties were the signal given,
The flowery wreath to mark the sacrifice,
And call death's arrows on the destined prey.
High Fortune seems in cruel league with Fate.
Ask you for what?-to give his war on man
The deeper dread, and more illustrious spoil;
Thus to keep daring mortals more in awe.-Young.

2891. PROSPERITY: should inspire caution.

WHO feels no ills Should therefore fear them; and when fortune smiles, Be doubly cautious, lest destruction come Remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.

Sophocles.

2892. PROSPERITY: why it is withheld.

THE man, perhaps,

Thou pitiest, draws his comfort from distress. That mind so poised, and centred in the good

Supreme, so kindled with devotion's flame, Might, with prosperity's enchanting cup Inebriate, have forgot the All-giving hand; Might on earth's vain and transitory joys Have built its sole felicity, nor e'er Wing'd a desire beyond.-Bally.

2893. PROTECTION. Divine'

OH troubled soul, why thus complain?
Why thus great Providence arraign?
Poor, feeble heart! thy troubles still,
And hide thyself in God's great will.

'Tis true, He now thy strength doth try,
Like birds, that teach their young to fly ;
But when thou sinkest, He will bring,
Beneath thy fall, His own great wing.—Upham.

2894. PROVIDENCE: all-embracing.
THIS is Thy work, Almighty Providence!
Whose power, beyond the reach of human thought,
Revolves the orbs of empire; bids them sink
Deep in the dead'ning night of Thy displeasure,
Or rise majestic o'er a wondering world.-Thomson.

Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Pope.

Yes, thou art ever present, Power Supreme!
Not circumscribed by time, nor fixt to space,
Confined to altars, nor to temples bound.
In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains,
In dungeons, or on thrones, the faithful find Thee!
Hannah More.

2895. PROVIDENCE: all-wise.
ETERNAL Providence, exceeding thought,
Where none appears, can make herself a way.
Spenser.

Providence, not niggardly but wise,
Here lavishly bestows, and there denies,
That by each other's virtues we may rise.

Granville.

Who finds not Providence all good and wise, Alike in what it gives and what denies ?-Pope.

All nature is but art unknown to thee;

All chance direction, which thou canst not see; All discord harmony not understood;

All partial evil universal good:

And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear, Whatever is, is right.-Pope.