Scripture texts illustrated by general literature

When Achan the son of Zerah committed a trespass in the accursed thing, wrath fell not alone upon Achan, but upon all the congregation of Israel; “and that man perished not alon...

Miss Procter sings the praises of a true comforter in little Effie,—“just I think that she does not try,—only looks with a wistful wonder why grown people should ever cry.” It i...

Horace Walpole, on being complimented by letter on the patience with which he bore an acute attack of his chronic malady, replies: “If people of easy fortunes cannot bear illnes...

In Landor’s Parable of Asabel, the angel’s gentleness wrought upon that turbulent, refractory spirit, “even as the quiet and silent water wins itself an entrance where tempest a...

The psalmist felt that he was praying in accordance with the Divine will, when he prayed that the ungodly might fall into their own nets together, while he ever escaped them. So...

A story is told of Farinelli, the famous singer, being sent for express to Madrid, to try the effect of his magical voice on the king of Spain, who was then buried in the profou...

“Law does not put the least restraint Upon our freedom, but maintain’t; Or if it does, ’tis for our good, To give us freer latitude; For wholesome laws preserve us free By stint...

In a feeling paragraph on the pains of a first separation, Miss Ferrier observes, or rather asks, if in the long and dreary interval that ensues, it were foreseen what griefs we...

“How sad a sight is human happiness To those whose thoughts can pierce beyond an hour! —Know, smiler! at thy peril thou art pleased: Thy pleasure is the promise of thy pain.”

Have we not, again, heard Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, indignantly brand, as the outcome of current materialism, such a “practical suggestion” as that of a certain...

By way of introducing his elaborate narrative of Darnley’s fate, Mr. Froude tells us of Mary Stuart, that on the political stage she was “a great actress. The ‘woman’ had a dram...

“But the next day, even the common people, as well as their betters, appeared in their usual state of indifference. They drank, they swore, they lied, they cheated, they quarrel...

In the Journal to Stella, Swift hails with cordiality—for the Dean could be cordial on occasion—the appreciation in polite English circles, by ministers and scholars, of Parnell...

Chateaubriand’s most sentimental of melancholy-mad heroes, overwhelmed, as he flatters himself, with imaginary sufferings, offers up a prayer for some real calamity to overtake...

To have written it ultra-Protestant, would mislead into an expectation of polemical matter, offensive to Orangeism, and entirely alien from the purpose. For who is the hyper-pro...

Shadow-hunted shadows is the very text for Mr. Carlyle. World’s memory is very whimsical now and then, he says, in recording the forgotten exploits of Johann, King of Bohemia, “...

To pardon those absurdities in ourselves which we cannot suffer in others, is neither better nor worse, says Dean Swift, than to be more willing to be fools ourselves than to ha...

The psalmist’s enemies were speaking evil of him: when should he die, and his name perish? All that hated him were whispering together against him, and devising hurt. But this h...

Dunsford the essayist’s objection to all hasty judgment of our fellow-creatures is based on the ground of its being “such an unscientific proceeding.” You comment, he says, upon...

In Mr. Thackeray’s instance, exception has been taken, on ethical grounds, by no vulgar critic, to his habit of shrinking from moral estimate as well as moral judgment, in deali...

Mr. Carlyle made a picturesque application of the royal Dane’s injunction to the waves, in his survey of the advancing tide of the French Revolution—grim host marching on, the b...

The haste and hurry of modern English civilization, it has been elsewhere observed, ever increasing and carrying us more impetuously forward, tend to deaden all capacity for sim...

A clerical essayist on “Future Years,” “can well believe,” he tells us, “that many a man, could he have a glimpse in innocent youth of what he will be twenty or thirty years aft...

So thought Sunderland, in that “agony of terror,” almost over-wrought or over-coloured, perhaps, by Macaulay, which impelled him to resign office, in a sort of frenzied haste. H...

“Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep, the innocent sleep; Sleep, that knits up the ravell’d sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, so...

“My sin, Ismenus, has wrought all this ill: And I beseech thee to be warned by me, And do not lie, if any man should ask thee But how thou dost, or what o’clock ’tis now; Be sur...

When Mr. Thackeray propounds the query, Who can foresee everything, and always? and returns his own answer (a sufficiently safe one), Not the wisest amongst us,—he does so in re...

Light in darkness—light springing up out of darkness—the blessedness of this is emphatically recognised both by signal example and in special promise, in Holy Writ. When the han...

The autobiographer in a modern work of fiction, having occasion to acknowledge, after being thrust amongst strangers to sicken, and all but die, that among strangers he received...

When Nelson told the King of Naples, in plain terms, that he had his choice—either to advance, trusting to God for His blessing on a just cause, and prepared to die sword in han...

Frederick Robertson glowingly expatiates on the glory of womanhood, as surely one which, if woman rightly comprehended her place on earth, might enable her to accept its apparen...

One of, and not the least fearful of, the curses denounced against Byron’s Manfred is, that to him shall Night deny all the quiet of her sky; and the day shall have a sun which...

From that state of struggle many a victor emerges with honourable scars, but deep. Famous and significant is the story of the physiognomist who detected in the features of Socra...

Horace uses the expressive phrase, _bibit aure_, in one of his odes—literally, “drink in with the ear”—a phrase admired by the commentators for its lyric boldness. “I was all fi...

[12] In the book called “God’s Acre; or, Historical Notices relating to Churchyards,” there is a loathsome story of a Mr. Thompson, of Worcester, who baited his angling-hook wit...

Order, Heaven’s first law, 273; human not to be compared with Divine, 274; obedience to, the stay of the world, 275; to be found in all God’s handiwork, 276; man should be the s...