of relief, is weak and flexible, but when no succor remains, is fearless and stubborn: angry alike at those that injure, and at those that do not help; careless to please where nothing can be gained, and fearless to offend when there is nothing further to be dreaded.—JOHNSON, note to K. John, iii. 1.

All the history of man's decay is but one manifold exhibition of being without God. All his pursuits, arts, inventions, ambition, aggrandizements, passions, lusts, wars, amusements, are in themselves but varied forms of godlessness. * * Restlessness, busy schemes, ambition, luxury, gluttony, worldliness, study of man's praise, selfdeceit, are but man's conscious or unconscious contrivances, to cast a mist about him, so that the glorious light of God should not break in upon him, and shine upon his darkness. All are but varied tokens of one deep disease. — DR. PUSEY, Sermons, Advent to Whitsuntide, 1848, Serm. iv.

The self-interest of the many sets limits to the self-indulgence of the one. * * Not sin, because sinful, but crime because inconvenient, is the object of the world's prohibition. Selfishness by selfishness is not cast out, but driven in. Youth, manhood, age, are selfish still. Am I my Brother's keeper? is the ready answer to the remonstrance which reminds us of responsibility. What is that to us? see thou to that, is the sinner's heartless rejoinder to the victim of his passion, or the tool of his crime. - C. J. VAUGHAN, D. D., Christ satisfying the Instincts of Humanity, Serm. vi, vii.

En disant ces mots, said the Pariah, - les larmes vinrent aux yeaux: et, tombant à genoux, je remerciai le ciel qui, pour m'apprendre a supporter mes maux, m'en avait montrè le plus intolerables que les miens. - ST. PIERRE, La Chaumiere Indienne.

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As things at present stand, there are great numbers of men, many more than are taken notice of in the noise and hurry of the most busy part of the world, who, upon the foundation of a firm and well-seated belief in the gospel of Christ, go on regularly and constantly in the course of a sober, honest, and virtuous life, with a perpetual, uniform sense of God upon their minds, and an assured expectation of a future judgement. S. CLARKE, D.D., Sermons, Wickedness of Christians no argument against Christianity.

'We have all had our disappointments,' said W..... L **; 'the question is, who lives over them?'

*

The wings of man's life are plumed with the feathers of death. Uncertain Writer, Froude, Hist. of England, chap. xxv.

Behold a pen always writing over your head, and making up the great record of your thoughts, words and actions, from which at last you are to be judged. BLAIR, quoted, Caldwell, Results of Reading, p. 216.

You often accuse me of never being satisfied with the weather. So I would have you observe

that this present 31st of March 1813, has been, and is, exactly the very day that I should like from the first of January to the last of December; -rain enough to lay the dust; wind enough to dry the rain; and sun enough to warm the wind. -MISS MITFORD, Saturday Review, 4 Dec. 1869.

Climate, if it do not constitute the happiness, is a very important ingredient in the comforts of life.- MATTHEWS, Diary of an Invalid, ch. ix.

A Gentleman talked of retiring. "Never think of that," said Johnson. The Gentleman said, "I should then do no ill."-J. "Nor no good, either. It would be a civil suicide."- BOSWELL, 17 May 1783.

It is neither so easy a thing, nor so agreeable a one as men commonly expect, to dispose of leisure when they retire from the business of the world. Their old occupations cling to them, even when they hope that they have emancipated themselves. -SOUTHEY, The Doctor, ch. 70.

Talking with Mr. W... in his new garden, of the pleasure of his having nothing to do: but it is well not to retire. "A man is best," said he, "having employment: but with a moderate amount of work of which he is thoroughly master."-May 1875.

186

X.

LOSS OF FRIENDS, AND RELATIONS.

F the griefs that can happen to a man, the three greatest,- some Writer (I forget who,) tells us, - are, when young to lose your Father, when middle-aged to lose your Wife, and when old to lose your Son.

Rightly, as long as we cherish the feelings given us, do we stand in awe of a Church-yard. We reverence it, because although good and bad lie there, yet there are bodies there, which shall rise to everlasting life. Bodies there at rest, even while dissolved, are awaiting the Resurrection. They have been "sown in dishonor, to be raised in Glory, sown in weakness to be raised in Power, sown natural bodies to be raised Spiritual bodies." The dust there is full of Life. We see it not, though we know it.-DR. PUSEY, Sermons, Serm. xvi.

It seems as if Death looked out the most promising plants in this great nursery, to plant them in a better soil.-SOUTHEY, Letter; Saturday Review, April 1856.

In this affliction it is amiable as well as natural to exaggerate our loss; and, in truth, if we may believe the tomb-stones, all the virtues lie buried. in the Church-yard. There, however, the living may learn many a useful lesson, which the youngest should read with awe, and the proudest with humiliation.-R. SHARP, Letters and Essays, p. 134.

... But these tomb-stones, - how fully they tell the deeds of this world, 'how little they speak of our hopes of the next.' And within the Holy Building, how seldom does the "Monument" set before us "the last appearance of the Christian in the House of Prayer."

Our dying friends come o'er us like a cloud, to damp our brainless ardors, and abate that glare of life, which often blinds the wise. Our dying friends are pioneers, to smoothe our rugged pass to Death; to break those bars. of terror, and abhorrence, Nature throws 'cross our obstructed way; and, thus, to make welcome, as safe, our port from every storm. Each friend by Fate snatch'd from us, is a plume pluck'd from the wing of Human Vanity, which makes us stoop from our aerial heights, and, damp'd with omen of our own decease, on drooping pinions of Ambition lower'd, just skim Earth's surface, ere we break it up, o'er putrid earth to scratch a little dust, and save the world a nuisance. Smitten friends are Angels sent on errands full of love;