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It is a wise arrangement of Infinite love, which provides the necessity of change, to prevent too close attention to any given pursuit of mind or muscle.

Variety is not less pleasing in the mental than in the physical world.

A private education, although it preserves one from early contamination from vulgar minds, yet is it wanting in the healthful stimulus of comparison and a knowledge of human nature, which may be learned in maturer years only after painful experience.

Experience is the elixir of success, no less than of failure.

We often inflict upon our persons unnecessary injury by the use of some powerful anodyne for the alleviation of pain, when the result might be obtained by the application of some simple remedy within our ready grasp. Thus with our mental necessities, we overstrain our intellect in our search after subtle and intricate deductions of truth, when the plain, simple truths of the Gospel, which a child may understand, are just what our case demands.

The great salvation is, to be saved from sin. Sin is hell.

It is a cheering thought, that however intricate and entangled the threads of our life may become, the ends are held by the hand of our Heavenly Father.

It is the tears shed in secret that God puts in His bottle. Woe to him that has been the occasion of their bitterness.

"Come through the gloom of clouded skies,

The slow, dim rain and fog athwart,
Through east winds keen with wrong and lies,
Come, and revive the hopeless heart.

Come through the sickness and the pain,
The sore unrest that tosses still,
The aching dark that hides the gain,
Come, and arouse the fainting will.

Come through the prate of foolish words,
The science with no God behind;
Through all the pangs of untuned chords,
Speak wisdom to the shaken mind.

Through all the fears that spirits bow,
Of what hath been or may befall,
Come down and talk with us, for thou
Canst tell us all about them all.

Lord, hear the sad lone heart entreat,

Heart of all joys below, above!

One minute let us kiss thy feet,

And name the name of those we love."

George MacDonald.

The sins of devotedly pious persons appear more

hideous from contrast.

Envy is the cankerworm of society.

Worldly good is fast slipping from our grasp, or our capacity for its enjoyment. If the heavenly has not superseded it, we are poor indeed.

Speak what you think, but beware how you think.

God will not suffer the faithful, trusting soul, however humble, to be deluded any farther than it may be for a necessary discipline.

It is easier to resist other people's temptations than

our own.

It is difficult to trace the source of the current of strife.

Stand by the truth, if it fail thee thou doest well to fall, for there is nought else worth standing for.

A faithful analysis of character is not slander.

It is difficult to disentangle the threads of gossip.

It is the grasp of a hand that is warm, kind and true, that will cause a hopeful vibration in the desponding soul. A word of sympathy to such is of more value than gold, and is never lost.

"The look of sympathy, the gentle word

Spoken so low that only angels heard,

The secret act of pure self-sacrifice,

Unseen by men, but marked by angels' eyes-
These are not lost.

The kindly plans devised for other's good,
So seldom guessed, so little understood;
The quiet, steadfast love that strove to win
Some wanderer from the ways of sin-
These are not lost.

The sacred music of a tender strain

Wrung from a poet's heart by grief and pain,
And chanted timidly with doubt and fear,
To busy crowds, who scarcely pause to hear-
These are not lost.

The silent tears at dead of night,

Over soiled robes that once were pure and white;
The prayers that rise like incense from the soul,
Longing for Christ to make it clean and whole-
These are not lost.

The happy dreams that gladdened all our youth,
When dreams had less of self and more of truth;
The childhood's faith, so tranquil and so sweet,
Which sat like Mary at the Master's feet—
These are not lost.

Not lost, oh Lord! for in thy city bright
Our eyes shall see the past by clearer light,
And things long hidden from our gaze below
Thou wilt reveal, and we shall surely know
These are not lost."

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No individual's religious experience can be the of another's. God's inward dicipline of souls is as unlike as His outward; but He never errs; and we may

rest assured it is always in accordance with His knowledge of our varied dispositions, and His infinite design concerning us.

It is better to believe, and embrace the Christian religion, although we may have misapprehended some of its tenets, than not to have believed in any of them. We have everything to gain, and nothing to lose, by the transaction; while if it be true, by its rejection we lose everything that is worth retaining. He that is wise in this matter is wise for himself. If foolish, he alone must bear it.

If good desires or resolutions were sufficient for our salvation, then the majority of persons were secure; but on the contrary, they too often prove the soul's destruction, as they quiet its demands, and foster a false security. A mere intention to do well will not answer the demand.

Persons often seek advice when they most desire approbation.

The singing of a hymn at the commencment of a religious service is in effect like the gentle rain upon the arid soil, which mellows its hardened surface and permits the truth to find a lodgment.

A religion with no Christ in it is like the crystallized trees of the forest, cold and stark; beautiful, it may be, but lifeless as a stiffened corpse.

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