Part 13

Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.--CHATEAUBRIAND.

Had I children, my utmost endeavors would be to make them musicians. --HORACE WALPOLE.

Next to theology I give to music the highest place and honor. And we see how David and all the saints have wrought their godly thoughts into verse, rhyme, and song.--LUTHER.

NATURE.--Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.--WHIPPLE.

Everything made by man may be destroyed by man; there are no ineffaceable characters except those engraved by nature; and nature makes neither princes nor rich men nor great lords.--ROUSSEAU.

It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable. Let us begin where she begins, go her pace, and close always where she ends, and we cannot miss of being good naturalists.--WILLIAM PENN.

O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.--PSALM 104:24.

The laws of nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the laws of man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the laws of nature,--were man as unerring in his judgments as nature.--LONGFELLOW.

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts; the sight of the deep-blue sky and the clustering stars above seems to impart a quiet to the mind.--T. EDWARDS.

Nature never did betray The heart that loved her. --WORDSWORTH.

The works of nature and the works of revelation display religion to mankind in characters so large and visible, that those who are not quite blind may in them see and read the first principles and most necessary parts of it, and from thence penetrate into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.--LOCKE.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body nature is, and God the soul. --POPE.

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value.--HUME.

Read nature; nature is a friend to truth; Nature is Christian, preaches to mankind; And bids dead matter aid us in our creed. --YOUNG.

Lavish thousands of dollars on your baby clothes, and after all the child is prettiest when every garment is laid aside. That becoming nakedness, at least, may adorn the chubby darling of the poorest home.--T.W. HIGGINSON.

Our old mother nature has pleasant and cheery tones enough for us when she comes in her dress of blue and gold over the eastern hill-tops; but when she follows us upstairs to our beds in her suit of black velvet and diamonds, every creak of her sandals and every whisper of her lips is full of mystery and fear.--HOLMES.

Nature ever faithful is To such as trust her faithfulness. --EMERSON.

What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge! --BEECHER.

Nature is God's Old Testament.--THEODORE PARKER.

To him who in the love of nature holds Communion with her visible forms, she speaks A various language; for his gayer hours She has a voice of gladness, and a smile And eloquence of beauty, and she glides Into his darker musings, with a mild And healing sympathy, that steals away Their sharpness, ere he is aware. --BRYANT.

Nature and wisdom never are at strife.--JUVENAL.

Those who devote themselves to the peaceful study of nature have but little temptation to launch out upon the tempestuous sea of ambition; they will scarcely be hurried away by the more violent or cruel passions, the ordinary failings of those ardent persons who do not control their conduct; but, pure as the objects of their researches, they will feel for everything about them the same benevolence which they see nature display toward all her productions.--CUVIER.

"Behold the lilies of the field; they toil not, neither do they spin, yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on a single flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be at the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature.--DR. CHALMERS.

Who loves not the shady trees, The smell of flowers, the sound of brooks, The song of birds, and the hum of bees, Murmuring in green and fragrant nooks, The voice of children in the spring, Along the field-paths wandering? --T. MILLAR.

You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters.--ST. BERNARD.

NOBILITY.--He who is lord of himself, and exists upon his own resources, is a noble but a rare being.--SIR E. BRYDGES.

If a man be endued with a generous mind, this is the best kind of nobility.--PLATO.

A noble life crowned with heroic death, rises above and outlives the pride and pomp and glory of the mightiest empire of the earth.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

Nature makes all the noblemen; wealth, education, or pedigree never made one yet.--H.W. SHAW.

Be noble! and the nobleness that lives In other men, sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. --LOWELL.

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 'Tis only noble to be good. --TENNYSON.

OBEDIENCE.--The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.--HARE.

To obey is better than sacrifice.--1 SAMUEL 15:22.

Look carefully that love to God and obedience to His commands be the principle and spring from whence thy actions flow; and that the glory of God and the salvation of thy soul be the end to which all thy actions tend; and that the word of God be thy rule and guide in every enterprise and undertaking. "As many as walk by this rule, peace be unto them, and mercy."--BURKITT.

Obedience is not truly performed by the body of him whose heart is dissatisfied. The shell without a kernel is not fit for store.--SAADI.

He praiseth God best that serveth and obeyeth Him most: the life of thankfulness consists in the thankfulness of the life.--BURKITT.

No principle is more noble, as there is none more holy, than that of a true obedience.--HENRY GILES.

"His kingdom come!" For this we pray in vain, Unless He does in our affections reign. How fond it were to wish for such a King, And no obedience to his sceptre bring, Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light; His service freedom, and His judgments right. --WALLER.

Obedience, we may remember, is a part of religion, and therefore an element of peace; but love which includes obedience is the whole.--GEORGE SEWELL.

The virtue of Christianity is obedience.--J.C. HARE.

Prepare thy soul calmly to obey; such offering will be more acceptable to God than every other sacrifice.--METASTASIO.

OBSTINACY.--Obstinacy is ever most positive when it is most in the wrong.--MADAME NECKER.

People first abandon reason, and then become obstinate; and the deeper they are in error the more angry they are.--BLAIR.

An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him.--POPE.

Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their suffering and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.--THOMAS PAINE.

Narrowness of mind is often the cause of obstinacy; we do not easily believe beyond what we see.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

Obstinacy and vehemency in opinion are the surest proofs of stupidity.--BARTON.

OCCUPATION.--Cheerfulness is the daughter of employment; and I have known a man come home in high spirits from a funeral, merely because he has had the management of it.--DR. HORNE.

Employment, which Galen calls "nature's physician," is so essential to human happiness that indolence is justly considered as the mother of misery.--BURTON.

Occupation alone is happiness.--DR. JOHNSON.

It is observed at sea that men are never so much disposed to grumble and mutiny as when least employed. Hence an old captain, when there was nothing else to do, would issue the order to "scour the anchor." --SAMUEL SMILES.

The great happiness of life, I find, after all, to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty.--SCHILLER.

The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.--EMERSON.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. He has a work, a life purpose. Labor is life.--CARLYLE.

One only "right" we have to assert in common with mankind--and that is as much in our hands as theirs--is the right of having something to do.--MISS MULOCK.

OPINION.--Opinions should be formed with great caution, and changed with greater.--H.W. SHAW.

Do not think of knocking out another person's brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.--HORACE MANN.

He who has no opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave.--KLOPSTOCK.

To maintain an opinion because it is thine, and not because it is true, is to prefer thyself above the truth.--VENNING.

We should always keep a corner of our heads open and free, that we may make room for the opinions of our friends. Let us have heart and head hospitality.--JOUBERT.

No liberal man would impute a charge of unsteadiness to another for having changed his opinion.--CICERO.

Who observes not that the voice of the people, yea of that people that voiced themselves the people of God, did prosecute the God of all people, with one common voice, "He is worthy to die." I will not, therefore, ambitiously beg their voices for my preferment; nor weigh my worth in that uneven balance, in which a feather of opinion shall be moment enough to turn the scales and make a light piece go current, and a current piece seem light.--ARTHUR WARWICK.

It is not only arrogant, but it is profligate, for a man to disregard the world's opinion of himself.--CICERO.

In the minds of most men, the kingdom of opinion is divided into three territories,--the territory of yes, the territory of no, and a broad, unexplored middle ground of doubt.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.

The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion.--LOWELL.

Public opinion, though often formed upon a wrong basis, yet generally has a strong underlying sense of justice.--ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

OPPORTUNITY.--Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it go by him.--BAYARD TAYLOR.

Many do with opportunities as children do at the seashore; they fill their little hands with sand, and then let the grains fall through, one by one, till all are gone.--REV. T. JONES.

Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good actions; try to use ordinary situations.--RICHTER.

The best men are not those who have waited for chances, but who have taken them,--besieged the chance, conquered the chance, and made the chance their servitor.--CHAPIN.

There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows, and in miseries: And we must take the current when it serves, Or lose our ventures. --SHAKESPEARE.

The opportunity to do mischief is found a hundred times a day, and that of doing good once a year.--VOLTAIRE.

There is an hour in each man's life appointed to make his happiness, if then he seize it.--BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.

There is no man whom fortune does not visit once in his life; but when she does not find him ready to receive her, she walks in at the door and flies out at the window.--CARDINAL IMPERIALI.

Nothing is so often irrevocably neglected as an opportunity of daily occurrence.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.

Give me a chance, says Stupid, and I will show you. Ten to one he has had his chance already, and neglected it.--HALIBURTON.

That policy that can strike only while the iron is hot will be overcome by that perseverance which, like Cromwell's, can make the iron hot by striking; and he that can only rule the storm must yield to him who can both raise and rule it.--COLTON.

Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again.--SENECA.

OPPOSITION.--The effects of opposition are wonderful. There are men who rise refreshed on hearing of a threat; men to whom a crisis which intimidates and paralyzes the majority--demanding, not the faculties of prudence and thrift, but comprehension, immovableness, the readiness of sacrifice,--comes graceful and beloved as a bride. --EMERSON.

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.--BURKE.

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against and not with the wind. Even a head wind is better than none. No man ever worked his passage anywhere in a dead calm. Let no man wax pale, therefore, because of opposition.--JOHN NEAL.

It is not ease, but effort,--not facility, but difficulty, that makes men. There is, perhaps, no station in life in which difficulties have not to be encountered and overcome before any decided measure of success can be achieved.--SAMUEL SMILES.

To make a young couple love each other, it is only necessary to oppose and separate them.--GOETHE.

ORDER.--Order is heaven's first law.--POPE.

Order is to arrangement what the soul is to the body, and what mind is to matter.--JOUBERT.

Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the State. As the beams to a house, as the bones to the microcosm of man, so is order to all things.--SOUTHEY.

The heavens themselves, the planets, and this centre, Observe degree, priority, and place, Insisture, course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom, in all line of order. --SHAKESPEARE.

Fretfulness of temper will generally characterize those who are negligent of order.--BLAIR.

Let all things be done decently and in order.--1 CORINTHIANS 14:40.

PARADISE.--Every man has a paradise around him till he sins, and the angel of an accusing conscience drives him from his Eden.--LONGFELLOW.

Gentleness and kindness will make our homes a paradise upon earth. --BARTOL.

PARENTS.--The sacred books of the ancient Persians say: "If you would be holy instruct your children, because all the good acts they perform will be imputed to you."--MONTESQUIEU.

Of all hardness of heart there is none so inexcusable as that of parents toward their children. An obstinate, inflexible, unforgiving temper is odious upon all occasions; but here it is unnatural.--ADDISON.

Children, honor your parents in your hearts; bear them not only awe and respect, but kindness and affection: love their persons, fear to do anything that may justly provoke them; highly esteem them as the instruments under God of your being: for "Ye shall fear every man his mother and his father."--JEREMY TAYLOR.

Next to God, thy parents.--WILLIAM PENN.

Whoever makes his father's heart to bleed, Shall have a child that will revenge the deed. --RANDOLPH.

How pleasant it is for a father to sit at his child's board. It is like the aged man reclining under the shadow of the oak which he has planted.--SCOT'S MAGAZINE.

With joy the parent loves to trace Resemblance in his children's face: And, as he forms their docile youth To walk the steady paths of truth, Observes them shooting into men, And lives in them life o'er again. --LLOYD.

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.--EXODUS 20:12.

PASSION.--The passions are the gales of life; and it is religion only that can prevent them from rising into a tempest.--DR. WATTS.

Strong as our passions are, they may be starved into submission, and conquered without being killed.--COLTON.

The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still. --POPE.

Men spend their lives in the service of their passions, instead of employing their passions in the service of their lives.--STEELE.

The art of governing the passions is more useful, and more important, than many things in the search and pursuit of which we spend our days. Without this art, riches and health, and skill and knowledge, will give us little satisfaction; and whatsoever else we be, we can be neither happy, nor wise, nor good.--JORTIN.

Hold not conference, debate, or reasoning with any lust; 'tis but a preparatory for thy admission of it. The way is at the very first flatly to deny it.--FULLER.

In the human breast two master-passions cannot coexist.--CAMPBELL.

The passions act as winds to propel our vessel, our reason is the pilot that steers her; without the winds she would not move, without the pilot she would be lost.--FROM THE FRENCH.

Even virtue itself, all perfect as it is, requires to be inspirited by passion; for duties are but coldly performed which are but philosophically fulfilled.--MRS. JAMESON.

Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God. --CONFUCIUS.

Men will always act according to their passions. Therefore the best government is that which inspires the nobler passions and destroys the meaner.--JACOBI.

The passions should be purged; all may become innocent if they are well directed and moderated. Even hatred maybe a commendable feeling when it is caused by a lively love of good. Whatever makes the passions pure, makes them stronger, more durable, and more enjoyable. --JOUBERT.

The most common-place people become highly imaginative when they are in a passion. Whole dramas of insult, injury, and wrong pass before their minds,--efforts of creative genius, for there is sometimes not a fact to go upon.--HELPS.

As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds, and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks, they fertilized and enriched; so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues, to which they may be very serviceable whilst they keep within their bounds.--BOYLE.

Passion costs too much to bestow it upon every trifle.--REV. THOMAS ADAM.

Words may be counterfeit, false coined, and current only from the tongue, without the mind; but passion is in the soul, and always speaks the heart.--SOUTHERN.

A genuine passion is like a mountain stream; it admits of no impediment; it cannot go backward; it must go forward.--BOVEE.

Passion is the drunkenness of the mind.--SOUTH.

Exalted souls Have passions in proportion violent, Resistless, and tormenting; they're a tax Imposed by nature on pre-eminence, And fortitude and wisdom must support them. --LILLO.

One master-passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows up the rest. --POPE.

Oh how the passions, insolent and strong, Bear our weak minds their rapid course along; Make us the madness of their will obey; Then die and leave us to our griefs a prey! --CRABBE.

A great passion has no partner.--LAVATER.

When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.--THOMAS PAINE.

He who is passionate and hasty is generally honest. It is your cool, dissembling hypocrite of whom you should beware.--LAVATER.

The passions are like fire, useful in a thousand ways and dangerous only in one, through their excess.--BOVEE.

It is not the absence, but the mastery, of our passions which affords happiness.--MME. DE MAINTENON.

PAST.--The past is utterly indifferent to its worshipers.--WILLIAM WINTER.

Not to know what happened before we were born is always to remain a child; to know, and blindly to adopt that knowledge as an implicit rule of life, is never to be a man.--CHATFIELD.

No hand can make the clock strike for me the hours that are passed. --BYRON.

The present is only intelligible in the light of the past.--TRENCH.

Study the past if you would divine the future.--CONFUCIUS.

The best of prophets of the future is the past.--BYRON.

Many classes are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the area of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the springtide of their hopes!--C. BINGHAM.

Some are so very studious of learning what was done by the ancients that they know not how to live with the moderns.--WILLIAM PENN.

The past and future are veiled; but the past wears the widow's veil; the future, the virgin's.--RICHTER.

PATIENCE.--He that can have patience can have what he will.--FRANKLIN.

Patience! why, it is the soul of peace; of all the virtues, it is nearest kin to heaven; it makes men look like gods. The best of men that ever wore earth about him was a sufferer,--a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit; the first true gentleman that ever breathed. --DECKER.

Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience, and we soon shall see them in their proper figures.--ADDISON.

If we could have a little patience, we should escape much mortification; time takes away as much as it gives.--MADAME DE SÉVIGNÉ.

Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience is genius.--BUFFON.

There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.--BURKE.

We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait for.--MARIE EBNER-ESCHENBACH.

No school is more necessary to children than patience, because either the will must be broken in childhood or the heart in old age.--RICHTER.

We have only to be patient, to pray, and to do His will, according to our present light and strength, and the growth of the soul will go on. The plant grows in the mist and under clouds as truly as under sunshine; so does the heavenly principle within.--CHANNING.

He that will have a cake of the wheat must needs tarry the grinding. --SHAKESPEARE.

Patience is a nobler motion than any deed.--C.A. BARTOL.