Chapter 15

That man is to be accounted poor, of whatever rank he be, and suffers the pains of poverty, whose expenses exceed his resources; and no man is, properly speaking, poor, but he.--PALEY.

That some of the indigent among us die of scanty food is undoubtedly true; but vastly more in this community die from eating too much than from eating too little.--CHANNING.

Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in supporting it.--RICHTER.

POWER.--Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.--COLTON.

The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall.--BACON.

Even in war, moral power is to physical as three parts out of four. --NAPOLEON.

The less power a man has, the more he likes to use it.--J. PETIT-SENN.

The greater a man is in power above others, the more he ought to excel them in virtue. None ought to govern who is not better than the governed.--PUBLIUS SYRUS.

It is an observation no less just than common, that there is no stronger test of a man's real character than power and authority, exciting, as they do, every passion, and discovering every latent vice.--PLUTARCH.

PRAISE.--Words of praise, indeed, are almost as necessary to warm a child into a genial life as acts of kindness and affection. Judicious praise is to children what the sun is to flowers.--BOVEE.

Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth; a stranger, and not thine own lips.--PROVERBS 27:2.

For if good were not praised more than ill, None would chuse goodness of his own free will. --SPENSER.

Praise has different effects, according to the mind it meets with; it makes a wise man modest, but a fool more arrogant, turning his weak brain giddy.--FELTHAM.

Solid pudding against empty praise.--POPE.

It is always esteemed the greatest mischief a man can do to those whom he loves, to raise men's expectations of them too high by undue and impertinent commendations.--SPRAT.

Speak not in high commendation of any man to his face, nor censure any man behind his back; but if thou knowest anything good of him, tell it unto others; if anything ill, tell it privately and prudently to himself.--BURKITT.

As the Greek said, "Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise."--WENDELL PHILLIPS.

It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how patient of overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no injury, while the other may be their ruin.--LOWELL.

Good things should be praised.--SHAKESPEARE.

He hurts me most who lavishly commends.--CHURCHILL.

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, Reigns more or less and glows in every heart. --YOUNG.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.--DR. JOHNSON.

It is the greatest possible praise to be praised by a man who is himself deserving of praise.--FROM THE LATIN.

He who praises you for what you have not, wishes to take from you what you have.--MANUEL.

Thou may'st be more prodigal of praise when thou writest a letter than when thou speakest in presence.--FULLER.

Those who are greedy of praise prove that they are poor in merit. --PLUTARCH.

What a person praises is perhaps a surer standard, even than what he condemns, of his own character, information and abilities.--HARE.

Allow no man to be so free with you as to praise you to your face. --STEELE.

Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord.--PSALM 150:6.

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.--STEELE.

PRAYER.--The first petition that we are to make to Almighty God is for a good conscience, the next for health of mind, and then of body. --SENECA.

Prayers are heard in heaven very much in proportion to our faith. Little faith gets very great mercies, but great faith still greater. --SPURGEON.

When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life; every petition to God is a precept to man. Look not, therefore, upon your prayers as a short method of duty and salvation only, but as a perpetual monition of duty; by what we require of God we see what He requires of us.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

How happy it is to believe, with a steadfast assurance, that our petitions are heard even while we are making them; and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the effectual and actual grant of them.--COWPER.

We have assurance that we shall be heard in what we pray, because we pray to that God that heareth prayer, and is the rewarder of all that come unto Him; and in His name, to whom God denieth nothing; and, therefore, howsoever we are not always answered at the present, or in the same kind that we desire, yet, sooner or later, we are sure to receive even above that we are able to ask or think, if we continue to sue unto Him according to His will.--ARCHBISHOP USHER.

The best answer to all objections urged against prayer is the fact that man cannot help praying; for we may be sure that that which is so spontaneous and ineradicable in human nature has its fitting objects and methods in the arrangements of a boundless Providence.--CHAPIN.

So much of our lives is celestial and divine as we spend in the exercise of prayer.--HOOKER.

Leave not off praying to God: for either praying will make thee leave off sinning; or continuing in sin will make thee desist from praying. --FULLER.

Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening; let our days begin and end with God.--CHANNING.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, Uttered or unexpressed, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. --MONTGOMERY.

If He prayed who was without sin, how much more it becometh a sinner to pray!--ST. CYPRIAN.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.--EMERSON.

He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small. --COLERIDGE.

More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of. --TENNYSON.

It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.

Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.

No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.

Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.

Holy beginning of a holy cause, When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might, Call down its blessing on that coming fight. --MOORE.

It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals. --WELLINGTON.

It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod. --WASHINGTON IRVING.

I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.

In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.--BUNYAN.

Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers. The only password is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.

Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.

Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.

We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.--COLTON.

PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.

Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.

A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without taking the life.--FÉNELON.

We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.

The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean when in it.--CECIL.

I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men. --BAXTER.

Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people, of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching, should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors, then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.

It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.

To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age, sex, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the same key.--J. PETIT-SENN.

Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.--EMERSON.

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.

I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.--MASSILLON.

PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.

He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.--SENECA.

Precept must be upon precept.--ISAIAH 28:10.

PREJUDICE.--Prejudice is the child of ignorance.--HAZLITT.

As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.--DUCHESS D'ABRANTES.

Human nature is so constituted that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.--TERENCE.

To all intents and purposes, he who will not open his eyes is, for the present, as blind as he who cannot.--SOUTH.

The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.--BANCROFT.

Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which offends them.--BUTLER.

Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.--G.D. PRENTICE.

Remember, when the judgment is weak the prejudice is strong.--KANE O'HARA.

Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.--ADDISON.

How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed.--MADAME NECKER.

PRESENT.--Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.--HORACE.

Make use of time, if thou lovest eternity; know yesterday cannot be recalled, to-morrow cannot be assured: to-day is only thine; which if thou procrastinate, thou losest; which lost, is lost forever: one to-day is worth two to-morrows.--QUARLES.

He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.--SCHILLER.

Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.--HORACE.

If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate.--T.C. UPHAM.

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come.--COLTON.

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,--as though that time should be of another make from this, which has already come and is ours.--FULLER.

Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.--CORNEILLE.

We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present.--MISS EDGEWORTH.

Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you. It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and to-morrow we may never see.--VICTOR HUGO.

Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy to-day that which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me, and to-morrow belongs to no one.--MANCROIX.

One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.--EMERSON.

What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored.--WHITTIER.

PRESS.--In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day.--CHAPIN.

Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights.--JUNIUS.

The liberty of the press is the true measure of all other liberty; for all freedom without this must be merely nominal.--CHATFIELD.

The invention of printing added a new element of power to the race. From that hour, in a most especial sense, the brain and not the arm, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, were to rule the world; and weapons, forged in the mind, keen-edged and brighter than the sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and the battle-axe.--WHIPPLE.

PRETENSION.--It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others.--WHATELY.

Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.--LAVATER.

When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.--SPURGEON.

True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.--CICERO.

It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.--PLUTARCH.

He who gives himself airs of importance, exhibits the credentials of impotence.--LAVATER.

The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so. --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint. --LAVATER.

PRIDE.--Without the sovereign influence of God's extraordinary and immediate grace, men do very rarely put off all the trappings of their pride, till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet. --CLARENDON.

Pride and weakness are Siamese twins.--LOWELL.

Of all the causes that conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. --POPE.

It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves but by undervaluing our neighbors.--CLARENDON.

The sin of pride is the sin of sins; in which all subsequent sins are included, as in their germ; they are but the unfolding of this one. --ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.

Some people are proud of their humility.--BEECHER.

Pride requires very costly food--its keeper's happiness.--COLTON.

Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault, Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought. --ROSCOMMON.

If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.--STERNE.

There is this paradox in pride,--it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.--COLTON.

In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.--FRANKLIN.

Men say, "By pride the angels fell from heaven." By pride they reached a place from which they fell!--JOAQUIN MILLER.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.--FRANKLIN.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. --PROVERBS 16:18.

If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime. --LEGOUVÉ.

I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.--BEECHER.

When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely.--LOUIS XI.

How can there be pride in a contrite heart? Humility is the earliest fruit of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.

In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. --LYTTON.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.--DR. JOHNSON.

An avenging God closely follows the haughty.--SENECA.

Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.--QUARLES.

The proud man is forsaken of God.--PLATO.

PROCRASTINATION.--Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse for man's perdition.--REV. DR. CHEEVER.

To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.--TILLOTSON.

By the streets of "By and By" one arrives at the house of "Never." --CERVANTES.

By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.--L'ESTRANGE.

Procrastination is the thief of time.--YOUNG.

For Yesterday was once To-morrow.--PERSIUS.

Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.--FRANKLIN.

Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--CHARLES BUXTON.

PROGRESS.--He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.--RUSKIN.

"Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always something different from what is expected. Everything new is received with contempt, for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power unobserved.--FEUERBACH.

Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.--E.E. HALE.

I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully.--HOSEA BALLOU.

Human improvement is from within outwards.--FROUDE.

An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.--EMERSON.

Let us labor for that larger and larger comprehension of truth, that more and more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.--HORACE MANN.

We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the progressiveness of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which we start toward a perfection of being.--SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.

By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.--BURKE.

We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.

It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin grammar, and one of those tow-head boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands. --EMERSON.

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.--LYTTON.