XI. REVIEW OF LIFE.

URELY you will say, if there is anything in this life which a man may depend upon, and to the knowledge of which he is capable of arriving upon the most indisputable evidence, it must be this very thing, — whether he has a good conscience, or no.

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If a man thinks at all, he can not well be a stranger to the true state of this account. In other matters we may be deceived by false appearances. -STERNE, Sermons.

No longer wander at hazard; for neither wilt. thou read thy own memoirs, nor the acts of the ancient Romans and Hellenes, and the selections from books which thou wast reserving for thy old age. Hasten then to the end which thou hast before thee, and, throwing away idle hopes, come to thy own aid, if thou carest at all for thy own self, while it is in thy power.

Look within. Within is the fountain of good;

and it will ever bubble up if thou wilt ever dig. --M. ANTONINUS, translated by G. Long.

He lamented that all serious and religious conversation was banished from the society of men, and yet great advantages might be derived from it. All acknowledged, he said, what hardly any body practised, the obligations we were under of making the concerns of eternity the governing principles of our lives. Every man, he observed, at last wishes for retreat: he sees his expectations frustrated in the world, and begins to wean. himself from it, and to prepare for everlasting separation. — JOHNSON, Boswell's Life.

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If thy neighbor should sin, old Christoval said, oh, never unmerciful be;

but remember it is through the mercy of God that thou art not as sinful as he.

At sixty and seven the hope of Heaven

is my comfort through God's grace;

my summons, in truth, had I perished in youth, must have been to a different place.

SOUTHEY.

For though, seduc'd and led astray,
thou'st travel'd far and wander'd long:
thy God hath seen thee all the way,
and all the turns that led thee wrong.

CRABBE, Hall of Justice.

Somehow the sermons we preach to ourselves, in which by the way we can be sure of taking the most apt illustrations from the store of our own follies, are always interesting.-SIR A. HELPS, Friends in Council.

We are far more proud of confessing our secret sins, than of recalling the recollection of our open follies. Quarterly Review, vol. lxxiii.

Sorrow occupies a larger space in our minds than it does in our existence. Quarterly Review, vol.

lxxxv.

The truth is that enjoyment forms an exceedingly small element in the life of most men. Saturday Review, December, 1859.

A man is too apt to forget, that in this world he can not have everything. A choice is all that is left him. H. MATTHEWS, Diary of an Invalid.

Prosperous old age often pleases itself with exaggerating the difficulties of youth. — Quarterly Review, vol. lxxiv.

'We should like to see the best places of the world, as they were when we left them,' said W..... L**.

When the evening calls us to rest, the dangers which we have escaped, the business which we have finished, the experience which we have

acquired, the improvement which we have made, require a return of acknowledgment and praise. - ARCHDEACON JORTIN, Sermons.

'What is there you do not find you can do better as you grow older,' — said Mr. W ****

I see by every fresh trial, that the time of sickness is seldom the season for religious improvement. This great work should be done in health, or it will seldom be done well. HANNAH MORE, quoted by Combe, The Constitution of Man, &c.

A deathbed repentance seldom extends to restitution. JUNIUS, Letters.

The maxim that nothing but good should be spoken of the dead, does them little honor; for it implies that their reputation could not survive the truth. The Times newspaper, April 1865.

But, in fact, it is a very great effort both to heart and reason to take up new ideas at this period. Earth may be slipping away from the dying man, but yet it may be the solidest footing he has. He is seeing the last of his fellow-men; but it may be the most earnest wish he is capable of, to stand well with them. In fact, habit holds its sway here, as elsewhere. Saturday Review, March 1864.

The habit of the man shows itself in everything,' said W... L...

For, here, resistless Demonstration dwells;

a deathbed's a detector of the heart. ·

YOUNG, Night Thoughts.

Education and position in society modify our tastes and sentiments and habits: but they do not alter the essential qualities of human nature, the observation of which in one class of persons can not fail to teach us much of what we want to know as to others. SIR B. BRODIE, Autobiography.

I told the King, that in the course of my life, I had never observed men's natures to alter by age or fortunes; but that a good boy made a good man; and a young coxcomb, an old fool; and a young fripon, an old knave; and that quiet spirits were so, young as well as old, and unquiet ones would be so old as well as young. SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE, Memoirs of what Past in Christendom &c. 1709.

To be able to contemplate with complacency either issue of a disorder which the great Author of our being may in his kindness have intended as a warning to us to prepare for a better existence, is of prodigious advantage to recovery, as well as to comfort; and the retrospect of a well-spent life is a cordial of infinitely more efficacy than all the resources of the medical art. - SIR H. HALFORD, Essays.