m !:>., ' J S D Q_ GOLDEN GLEAMS OF THOUGHT, FROM THE WORDS OF LEADING ORATORS, DIVINES, PHILOSOPHERS, STATESMEN AND POETS. BY REV. S. P. LINN, Author of " Living Thoughts of Leading Thinkers. ' "Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." — Gray. C II I C A G : A. C. McCLURG & COMPANY 1891. TOP V right: JaXSEN. McCIXRG. & COMPAN'Y 1SS1. mi ■\* ^J TO ALL WHO REALIZE THAT LIFE IS EARNEST, AND WHO FEEL THE IB NEED OF MENTAL AND MORAL STIMULUS. (3) Remember that the secret studies of an author are the sunken piers upon which is to rest the bridge of his fame, spanning the dark toaters of oblivion. They are out of sight' but without them no superstructure can stand secure. Longfellow. (4) PEEFACE. Thk hearty welcome extended to " Living Thoughts of Leading Thinkers," and the many congratulations received from those who profess to have been not only entertained but helped by its perusal, have encouraged me, after so long an interval, to make another effort in the same direc- tion. I can only hope that the second attempt may meet with as cordial a reception. S. P. L. Cincinnati, Nov., 1881. (5) Our whitest pea?- 1 we never Jind. Holmes. It is with words as with sunbeams — the more they are eonde?ised i the deeper they bum. Soutiiey (6) CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Focused Rays 9 II. Diamond Flashes ....... 17 III. Clustered Sparkles 25 IV. Lighted Fagots 32 V. Live-Coals 39 VI. White-Heat 46 VII. Electric Sparks 53 VIII. Fire-Brands 64 IX. Signal Lights 82 X. Signal Lights (Continued) 88 XI. Signal Lights (Continued) 99 XII. Signal Lights (Continued) 107 XIII. Signal Lights (Concluded) 120 XIV. Pulpit Torches 132 XV. Watch Fires 145 XVI. Watch Fires (Continued) ..... 154 XVII. Watch Fires (Concluded) 164 XVIII. Violet-Flames 172 XIX. Violet-Flames (Concluded) 188 XX. Sunbursts ..,.,,.. 205 XXI. Echoes 221 (?) 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XXII. Fireflies 230 XXIII. Life-Mottoes 239 XXIV. Flying Embers 259 XXV. Nut-shells 2G7 XXVI. Keynotes 274 XXVII. Memory Gems 2 ; 4 XXVIII. Rare Brilliants 295 XXIX. Summer Driftwood 310 XXX. Smoldering Fragments 327 XXXI. Burning Glasses 314 XXXII. Golden Nuggets 361 XXXIII. Light Inextinguishable 381 XXXIV. Vesper Voices 388 XXXV. Evening Lamps 399 XXXVI. Parting Beacons 415 GOLDEN GLEAMS OF THOUGHT. Isdio inrptirit, meditatio inrenit; Oratio pulsat, eontemplatio degustat. (Reading seeks, meditation finds; Prayer asks, contemplation tastes). Augustine. I. FOCUSED RAYS. ' Tis his at last who says it best. Lowell. A verse may find him who a sermon flies. George Herbert. Thought is the property of those only who can entertain it. Emerson. I love to lose myself in other men's minds. Charles Lamb. Words only live when worthy to be said. Bulwer. Words are things, and a small drop of ink Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. Byron. (9) 10 GOLDEN GLEAMS. What gems of painting or statutary are in the world of art, or what flowers are in the world of nature, are gems of thought to the cultivated and thinking. Holmes. It is the masterful will that compresses a life-thought into a pregnant word or phrase, and sends it ringing through the centuries. William Mathews. The multiplicity of facts and writings is become so great that everything must now be reduced to extracts. Voltaire. As the highly colored birds do not fly around in the dull, leaden plains of a sandy desert, but amid all the settings of nature's leaves and blossoms, and lights and shades — na- ture's framework of their picture — so there are truths which do not appear well in arid fields of philosophic in- quiry, but which demand the colored air and the bowers of poetry to be the setting of their charms. David Swing. Ouk thoughts are ever forming our characters, and what- ever they are most absorbed in will tinge our lives. Phila. Ledger. Ideas strangle statutes. Wendell Phillips. Ideas go booming through the world louder than cannon; thoughts are mightier than armies. Rev. Dr. W. M. Paxion. Tdfas often reach the people just as they are leaving the schools, and often, on the other hand, the schools go on spinning their tough threads long after the people have lost all their interest. Guesses at Truth. FOCUSED RAYS. 11 Our great thoughts, our great affections, the truths of our life, never leave us. Surely they cannot separate from our consciousness, shall follow it whithersoever that shall go, and are of their nature divine and immortal. Thackeray. The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defy- ing though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which com- mands his own. Emerson. Every man is in one sense an historical production. The ideas which form his life have come to him through the course of development in which he moves. Neander. The restless mind of man cannot but press a principle to the real limit of its application, even though centuries should intervene between the premises and the conclusion. Liddon. In the end thought rules the world. There are times when impulses and passions are more powerful, but they soon expend themselves, while mind, acting constantly, is ever ready to drive them back and to work when their ener- gies are exhausted. AT Cosh. ' Man is but a reed, the weakest in nature; but he is a reed which thinks/ the universe need not rise in arms to crush him; a vapor, a drop of water suffices to kill him. But were the universe to crush him, man would still be greater than the power which killed him; for he Jcnoics that he dies, and of the advantage which the universe has over him, the universe knows nothing. Pascal. 112 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Ideas trouble us even more than men. Stopford A. Brooke. Ideas make their way in silence like the waters that, fil- tering behind the rocks of the Alps, loosen them from the mountain on which they rest. D^AvMgni. Events are only the shells of ideas, and often it is the fluent thought of ages that is crystallized in a moment by the stroke of a pen or the point of a bayonet. Chap in. The poems which have lingered in the ear of genera- tions have been clear-cut crystals, flashing here and there with varied brightness — ideas set in gold of cunning work- manship. H. W. Belloics. As cloud on clouds, snow on snow, as the bird on air, as the planet rests on space in its flight, so do nations of men and their institutions rest on thoughts. Emerson. They are never alone who are accompanied by noble thoughts. Sir Philip Sidney. The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones, but in the echoes of our hearts. Holmes. The whip of words — short, sharp, incisive words — chosen with care and knotted well together, is a terrible weapon. One brief, indignant couplet of such words, or a prophetic warning of three small syllables only, like " vae victis," will go round the globe, and man has no power to stop it. Rev. Br. James Clark. FOCUSED RAYS. 13 A broad-minded selection of noble passages, though it may not be able to do all we could wish in a moral way, can certainly do much to raise men to a high moral, political and social plane. I believe that gems of literature intro- duced into our schools, if properly taught, will be able to do this, partly by their own directive influence on the young mind, but particularly as being such a draft upon the foun- tain of higher literature as shall result in an abiding thirst for noble reading. Prof. John B. Peaslee. A book is a living voice. It is a spirit walking on the face of the earth. It continues to be the living thought of a person separated from us by space and time. Men pass away; monuments crumble into dust — what remains and survives is human thought. Samuel Smiles. Every reader has his favorite author and favorite passa- ges — texts to which he will turn in danger or sorrow with special expectation, and promises which will seem to have been expressly written for his personal use. llev. Dr. Joseph Parker. At the top of his mind the devout scholar has a holy of holies, a little pantheon set round with altars and the im- ages of the greatest men. Every day, putting on a priestly robe, he retires into this temple and passes before its shrines and shapes. Here he feels a thrill of awe; there he lays a burning aspiration; farther on he swings a censer of rever- ence. To one he lifts a look of love; at the feet of another he drops a grateful tear; and before another still, a flush of pride and joy suffuses him; they smile on him; sometimes thev speak and wave their solemn hands. Always they look up to the Highest. Purified and hallowed, he gathers his soul together, and comes away from the worshipful inter- course, serious, serene, glad, and strong. Alger. 14 GOLDEN GLEAMS. If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him. Benjamin Franklin. He is wise who knows the sources of knowledge — who knows who has written, and where it is to be found. Rev. Dr. A. A. Hodge. I hold it as a great point in self-education, that the stu- dent be continually engaged in forming exact ideas, and in expressing them clearly by language. Faraday. Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. Victor Hugo. When I open a noble volume I say to myself : " Now the only Croesus that I envy is he who is reading a better book than this." Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Read only the masterpieces in literature — the strongest men on their strong points. Prof. John Fraser. Insist on reading the great books, on marking the great events of the world. Then the little books may take care of themselves, and the trivial incidents of passing politics and diplomacy may perish with the using. Dean Stanley. A page digested is better than a book hurriedly read. Macau lay. I have sought for rest everywhere, but I have found it nowhere, except in a little corner with a little book. Thomas a Kempis. FOCUSED KAYS. 15 Society is a strong solution of hooks. It draws the vir- tue out of what is best worth reading, as hot water draws the strength of tea-leaves. Holmes. Choose your author as you choose your friend. Roscommon. A book is good company. It is full of conversation with- out loquacity. It comes to our longing with full instruc- tion, but pursues us never. It is not offended at our ab- sent-mindedness, nor jealous if we turn to other pleasures, of leaf, or dress, or mineral, or even of books. It silently serves the soul without recompense — not even for the hire of love. And, yet more noble, it seems to pass from itself and to enter the memory, and to hover in a silvery transfor- mation there, until the outward book is but a body and its soul and spirit are flown to you, and possess your memory like a spirit. JBeecher. Get into some good library and read. First read the Bihle and then William Shakespeare. It will do no harm to read one in the morning and the other at night. I am not speaking ridiculously to you now, for, with a complete knowledge of these two greatest delineators of human na- ture, you will have a key, and can, as it were, lift off the skull-cap and read a man's utmost thoughts. John A. Murphy, 3I.D. And while some books, like steps, are left behind us by the very help which they yield us, and serve only our child- hood or early life, some others go with us, in mute fidelity, to the end of life, a recreation for fatigue, an instruction for our sober hours, and solace for our sickness or sorrow. Ex- cept the great outdoors, nothing that has so much life of its own, gives so much life to us. Beecher. 16 GOLDEN GLEAMS. There is a kind of physiognomy in the titles of books no less than in the faces of men, by which a skilful observer will know as well what to expect from the one as the other. Bishop Butler. Of all the reproaches which arise against a man in his chamber of study, there is none more bitter than these two: the sight of his own books unread, and the sight of his own books read. The one accuses him of waste, the other ac- cuses him of inattention. We are slothful in not reading; we are slothful also in reading. Examine yourself, grapple with the demon of inattention, and make each book, each page, each sentence, give account of itself to you. Rev. C J. Vaughan, D.D. There are books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers and passionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary, so authoritative — books which are the work and the proof of faculties so comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world which they paint, that, though one shuts them with meaner ones, he feels his exclusion from them to accuse his way of living. ******* The three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are: 1. Never read any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed books. 3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakespeare's phrase, " No profit goes where is no pleasure ta en; In brief, sir, study what you most affect." Emerson. When a new book comes out, I read an old one. Samuel Rogers. Insipid books soon find the way to oblivion, but books that have life compel the world to read them, even though the reading lead to anger and hostility. Rev. Br. Joseph Parker. DIAMOND FLASHES. 17 Get at the root of things. The gold mines of Scripture are not the top soil; you must open a shaft. The precious diamonds of experience are not picked up in the roadway; their secret places are far down. Get down into the vitali- ty, the solidity, the veracity, the divinity of the Word of God, and seek to possess with it the inward work of the Spirit. There are passages of Scripture that glow with the poetry of heaven and immortality. Greyson Letters. You never get to the end of Christ's words. There is something in them always behind. They pass into proverbs, they pass into laws, they pass into doctrines, they pass into consolations; but they never pass away, and after all the use that is made of them, they are still not exhausted. Dean Stanley. II. DIAMOND FLASHES. Teach the children! it is painting in fresco. Emerson. Children have more need of models than of critics. Joubert. Begin with the infant in his cradle; let the first word he lisps be Washington! Mirabeau. We constantly underrate the capacity of children to un- derstand and to suffer. John B. Gough. 2 18 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Children keep us at play all our lives. Calvert. "Would God, some one had taught me, when young, the names of the grasses and constellations I Carlyle. Every first thing continues forever with the child; the first color, the first music, the first flower, paint the fore- ground of his life. The first inner or outer object of love, injustice, or such like, throws a shadow immeasurably far along his after years. Hichter. In the man whose childhood has known tender caresses, there is a fibre of memory which can be touched to gentle issues. George Eliot. In children, a great curiousness is well, Who have themselves to learn, and all the world. Tennyson. Happy the child who is suffered to be, and content to be, what God meant it to be — a child while childhood lasts. Happy the parent who docs not force artificial manners, pre- cocious feelings, premature religion. F. W. Robertson. You never know what child in rags and pitiful squalor that meets you in the street may have in him the germ of ers it as it was. Dickens. DIAMOND FLASHES. 19 Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives them all. Holmes. What if God should place in your hand a diamond, and tell you to inscribe on it a sentence which should be read at the last day, and shown there as an index of your own thoughts and feelings, what care, what caution would you exercise in the selection! Now this is what God has done. He has placed before you the immortal minds of your children, more imperishable than the diamond, on which you are to inscribe every day and every hour, by your instructions, by your spirit or by your example, something which will re- main and be exhibited for or against you at the judgment. Pay son. Never has one person forgotten his pure, right-educating mother. On the blue mountains of our dim childhood, towards which we ever turn and look, stand the mothers who marked out to us from thence our life. The teachers of children should lie held in highest honor; they are the allies of legislators; they have agency in the prevention of crime; they aid in regulating the atmosphere, whose incessant action and pressure cause the life-blood to circulate and to return pure and healthful to the heart of the nation. Mrs. Sigourney. The consciousness of duty performed gives us music at midnight. George Herbert. There is no sculpturing like that of character. Beech cr. Precedent is the terror of second-rate men. liev. Dr. Joseph Parker. 20 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Hold diligent converse with thy children. Have them Morning and evening round thee; love thou them, And win their love in these rare, beauteous years; For only while the short-lived dream of childhood Lasts are they thine — no longer ! The children's world is full of sweet surprises; Our common things are precious in their sight ; For them the stars shine, and the morning rises To show new treasures of untold delight. A dance of bluebells in the shady places; A crimson flush of sunset in the west; The cobwebs, delicate as fairy laces; The sudden finding of a wood-bird's nest. Their hearts and lips are full of simple praises To Him who made the earth divinely sweet; They dwell among the buttercups and daisies, And find His blessings strewn about their feet. But we, worn out by days of toil and sorrow, And sick of pleasures that are false and vain; Would freely give our golden hoards to bo: row One little hour of childhood's bliss again. Yet He who sees their joy beholds our sadness; And in the wisdom of a Father's love He keeps the secret of the heavenly gladness; Our sweet surprises wait for us above. Sarah Doudney. The human species is one family — the education of its youth should be equal and universal. Fanny Wright. It is no more possible to prevent thought from reverting to an idea than the sea from returning to the shore. Victor Hugo. DIAMOND FLASHES. 21 I will utter what I believe to-day, if it should contradict all I said yesterday. Wendell Phillips. Eccentricity is the privilege of an anomalous mind. Rev. Dr. R. S. Starrs. Obstinacy is the heroism of little minds. Consistency is a deadly foe to progress. Emerson. There is no rule, or catechism, or precedent, that is a £Ood substitute for thinking. N. Y. World. If a thousand old beliefs were ruined in our march to truth, we must still march on. Stopford A. Brooke. I do not regret having braved public opinion, when I kr.-w it was wrong and was sure it would be merciless. Horace Greeley. Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world. Carlyle. I prefer to belong to the intellectual rather than to the numerical majority. Benjamin B' Israeli. The highest atmospheres are the battle-fields of eagies. So it is with men. No two strong-winged thinkers soai near each other but they antagonize. Geo. Alfred Townsend. Common sense plays the game with the cards it has. It dot-s not ask an impossible chess-board, but takes the one before it and plays the game. Wendell Phillips. 22 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retract an inch, and I will be heard. Wm. Lloyd Garrison. Saxon cruelty! how it cheers my heart to think that you dare not attempt such a thing again! Daniel O'Connell. 1 have dared to lift up the banner that is fallen down. John Calvin. When bad men combine, the good must associate. B 11 rice. liberty ! how many crimes have been committed in thy name! Madame Rowland. 1 have wedded the cause of human improvement; I have staked upon it my life, my reputation, and my fortune. Fanny Wright. TnERE is no success without you work for it. You can- not extemporize success. James A. Garfield. It is of far less consequence, in any Divine estimate of things, how much a man suffers, than — what the man is. Austin Phelps. Whosoever is in love with cold, hunger, disease, death, let him follow me ! Garibaldi. One ages rapidly on the battle-field. Napoh na. There is little or nothing in this life worth living for, hut we can all of us go forward and do our duty. 'Wellington. DIAMOND FLASHES. 23 Even power itself hath not one-half the might of gentle- ness. Leigh Hunt. A laugh is worth a hundred groans in any market. Charles Lamb. You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one. Froude. May the realities of life dispel for you its illusions. Richter. Evkry man stamps his value on himself; the price we challenge for ourselves is given us. Schiller. Every cultivated mind carries a liturgy in its own re- fined taste. Rev. Br. E. It. Beadle. Turner could put infinite space into a square inch of sky. Buskin. What succeeds we keep, and it becomes the habit of mankind. Theo. Barker. After a spirit of discernment, the next rarest things in the world are diamonds and pearls. La Brio/ere. In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the su- preme excellence is simplicity. Longfellow. It is when you come close to a man in conversation that you discover what his real abilities are. Samuel Johnson. - GOLDEX GLEAMS. Life is a comedy to him who thinks, and a tragedy to him who feels. Horace Walpole. There is no fiercer hell than failure in a great attempt. Keats. Every man is great just because he is a man. ~W. E. Channing. Never mind where you work; care more about your work. Spur g eon. Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Shakespeare. My tastes are aristocratic; my actions democratic. Victor Hugo. Good company and good conversation are the sinews of virtue. Hon. Stephen Allen. Nothing can work me damage but myself; the harm that I sustain I carry about with me; and I am never a real sufferer but by my own fault. St. Bernard. Of all the agonies in life, that which is most poignant and harrowing — that which for the time annihilates reason, and leaves our whole organization one lacerated, man cried heart — is the conviction that we have been deceived where we placed all the trust of love. Auerbach. The golden age is not in the past, but in the future; not in the origin of human experience, but in its consummate flower; not opening in Eden, but out from Gethsemane. Chap hi. CLUSTERED SPARKLES. 25 The reason I beat the Austrians is, they did not know the value of five minutes. Napoleon. There is nothing that this age, from whatever standpoint we survey it, needs more, physically, intellectually and morally, than thorough ventilation. Rushin. Instead of saving that man is the creature of circum- stances, it would be nearer the mark to say that man is the architect of circumstances. It is character which builds an existence out of circumstances. Our strength is measured by our plastic power. George H. Lewes. Axr> we, poor waifs, whose life-term seems, When matched with After and Before, Brief as a Summer wind's or wave's, Breaking its frail heart on the shore, — We — human toys — that Fate sets up To smite or spare, I marvel how These souls shall fare, in what strange sphere, A thousand years from now. Paul Hamilton Hayne. III. CLUSTERED SPARKLES. Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds. Socrates. Tiikre is no killing the suspicion that deceit has once be- gotten. George Eliot. '2Q GOLDEN GLEAMS. We want downright facts at present more than anything else. Iiuskin. Actually, or ideally, we manage to live with superiors. Emerson. Evil is like the nightmare — the instant you bestir your- self, it has already ended. Richter. Pretension is nothing; power is everything. E. P. Whipple. Plagiarists, at least, have the merit of preservation. D 'Israeli. Live with thy inferiors as thou wouldst have thy supe- riors live with thee. Epictetus. I try to make my enmities transient, and my friendships eternal. Cicero. When God does his best work he needs the best men to help him. George Eliot. Our earth is as solemn in its continuance as it would be in its ending. David Swing. The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man. Hnmhohlt. It takes away much of the flavor of life to live amongst those with whom one has not anything like one's fair value. Helps. CLUSTERED SPARKLES. 27 The man in jest is the key to the man in earnest. French Proverb. The men who make history do not write it very well. Gen. Sherman. No man, with any true nobility of soul, can ever make his heart the slave of another's condescension. Ike Marvel. A good heart will at times betray the coolest head in the world. Fielding. There is no such thing as forgetting. DeQuincey. So act that your principle of action would bear to be made a law for the whole world. Kant. It is easy to see — hard to foresee. Franklin. Massexa was not himself until the battle began to go against him. Napoleon. Do not speak of your happiness to a man less fortunate than yourself. Plutarch. Give me an honest laugher. Walter Scott There is an aching that is worse than any pain. George McDonald. Be courageous and noble-minded; our own heart, sr.d not other men's opinion of us, forms our true honor. Sckillf. 28 GOLDEX GLEAMS. Volcanoes throw up stones, and revolutions cast up men. Victor Hugo. Society prepares the crime; the criminal commits it. JBuckle. No man needs money so much as he who despises it. Hie/tier. Plain living and high thinking are no more. Wordsworth. Modesty has its sins, and a kiss its innocence. Mirabeau. You do not know yet, my son, with how little wisdom the world is politically governed. Oxenstiern. Letters which are warmly sealed are often but coldly opened. Hichter. Things were worse at Areola ! Napoleon. Try to understand yourself and things generally. Goethe. A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes. Huxley. The passage from the physics of the brain to the corres- ponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Tyndall. We call this a Christian country, but the only offense we can never overlook is thu forgiveness of an injury. Theo. Tilton. CLUSTERED SPARKLES. 29 Take away the sword; States can be saved without it — bring the pen. Buhcer. In to-day already walks to-morrow. Coleridge. Make each day a critic on the last. Pope. His circumstances at present are the mixed result of young and noble impulses struggling under prosaic con- litions. George Eliot. Wishes at least are the easy pleasures of the poor. Jerrold. The public mind is educated quickly by events — slowly by arguments. N Y. World. There is no beautiful intercourse unless one feels oneself regarded with favor. Auerbach. When you see a man do a noble deed, date him from that. Bellows. Man is the hero of the eternal epic composed by the Di- vine intelligence. Schelling. Carlyle is a trip-hammer with an " ^Eolian attach- ment." Emerson, 1848. It is idle to attempt to legislate in advance of public opinion. N. T. Herald. 30 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Gratitude is the memory of the heart. 2y. P. Willis. A man's collective dispositions constitute his character. Rev. Dr. X. II. Atwater. Whatever is popular deserves attention. Thackeray. I was never happy till I gave up trying to be a great man, and was willing to be nobody. Payson. Be noble; and the nobleness that lies In other men sleeping, but never dead, Will rise in majesty to meet thine own. Lowell. A want of individuality is the most dangerous sign in modern civilization. John Stuart Mill. I have never seen anything in the world worth getting angry about. Henry J. Raymond. The greatest men of a nation are those whom it puts to death. Penan. Villainy, when detected, never gives up, but boldly adds impudence to imposture. Goldsmith. A heakt unspotted is not easily daunted. Shakespeare. Our dissatisfaction with any other solution, is the blazing evidence of our immortality. Emerson. CLUSTERED SPARKLES 31 Taking the first footstep with the good thought, the sec ond with the good word, and the third with the good deed, I entered paradise. Zoroaster. We have one thing, and only one, to do here on earth — to win the character of heaven before we die. F. W. Robertson. Good breeding is surface Christianity. Holmes. The human heart has a sigh lonelier than the cry of the bittern. W. R. Alger. The Proverbs of Solomon are the sanctification of com- mon sense. Dean Stanley. That sad refuge— the indifference of strange faces ! George Etiot. Economy is in itself a source of great revenue. Seneca. He conquers grief who makes a firm resolution. Goethe. The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame -Longfellow. "What troubles the man is a confusion of the head aris- ing from corruption of the heart. Robert Burns. Many a man who now lacks shoe-leather would wear golden spurs if knighthood were the reward of worth. J err old. •x~> GOLDEN GLEAMS. There cannot he a smile on the lips of the hopeless. The blow which crushes the life will shatter the smile. Holland. In the midst of much failure have the heart to begin again. Fear not so long as you have Christ with you as your friend and defender. Rev. Dr. John Hall. The rainbow of hope ever spans the Niagara of our earth- ly experience in its maddest, wildest plungings. Rev. A. B. Jack. God's love — forget it not, sorrowing one, lowest one, for- gotten one — God's iove is over all, yearning for all, endur- ing through all. Rev. Dr W. Rudder. God's greatness flows around our incompleteness ; Round our restlessness — His rest. Mrs. Browning. IV. LIGHTED FAGOTS. The best way for a man to get out of a lowly position is to be conspicuously effective in it. Rev. Dr. John Hall. Young gentlemen! have two pockets made; a large one to hold the insults, and a small one to hold the fees. Dr. Valentine Mott. Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. Burke. LIGHTED FAGOTS. 33 Tell me how much has been your patient toil in obscuri- ty, and I will tell you how far you will triumph in an emer- gency. William Mathews. The works of a man, bury them under what mountain you will, do not perish — cannot perish. Garlyle. The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes. J) y Israeli. Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning. Disraeli. Every noble crown is, and on earth will ever be, a crown of thorns. Garlyle. Whosoever sins against light kisses the lips of a blazing cannon. Jeremy Taylor. It is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to our- selves than to make our ability strike others. George Eliot. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be; now put foundations under them. Thoreau. Speak as though there were a pistol at your mouth ! Samuel Agnew. The truest help we can render to an afflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best streno-th that he may be able to bear the burden. Phillips Brook*. 3 34 GOLDEN GLEAMS. To abuse another man's piety is a sorry way to prove your own. Rev. W. II. H. Murray. To be famed for holiness is asgreata snare as to be in high repute for wisdom and eloquence. McCheyne. The truest view of life has always seemed to me to be that which shows that we are here not to enjoy, but to learn. F. W. Robertson. Harmonization with our environment is the indispens- able condition of peace of soul; our environment in this world and the next consists unalterably of God, conscience, and our own record. Joseph Cook. All the geniuses are usually so ill-assorted and sensitive that one is ever wishing them somewhere else. Emerson. I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba and say, " 'Tis all barren !" And so it is; and so is all the world to him who will not cultivate the fruits it offers. /Sterne. He that knows himself to be despised will always be en- vious; and still more envious and malevolent, if he is con- demned to live in the presence of those who despise him. Samuel Johnson. The benefit of an acquired fortune is not objective, but subjective; consisting, not in the value of the possession, but in the character acquired in its pursuit; just as in a gymnasium —the good to the athlete is not the weight lift- ed, but the muscular strength acquired. Rev. Dr. Chas. Wadsworth. LIGHTED FAGOTS. dO Our present love l'or our bodies is a prophecy of their im- mortality when clothed upon with glory. Rev. Stephen H. Tyng. Frank explanations with friends in case of affronts, some- times save a perishing friendship, and even place it on a firmer basis than at first; but secret discontentment always ends badly. Sydney Smith. The crowning fortune of a man is to be born with a bias to some pursuit which finds him in employment and happi- ness. Emerson. Every person has two educations — one which he receives from others, and one, more important, which he gives him- self. Gibbon. Every dav's experience shows how much more actively education goes on out of the school-room than in it. Burke. You might as well try to tell the amount of money in a safe by feeling the knobs, as to tell what is in a man's head by feeling his bumps. Holmes. It is good discretion not to make too much of any man at the first, because one cannot hold out that proportion. Lord Bacon. After all, the joy of success does not equal that which attends the patient working. Augusta Evans. Pleasure may fill up the interstices of life, but it is a poor material to build its frame- work out of. Rev. C W. Wendte. 36 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Whatever a man cannot amend, either in himself or in others, he ought to bear patiently until God orders things otherwise. Thomas a. Kempis. If your heart be right, then every creature is a mirror of life and a book of holy doctrine. St. Francis. Take from man Hope and Sleep, and you make him the most wretched being on earth. Kant. They who reject the testimony of the self-evident truths will find nothing surer on which to build. Aristotle. Catastrophes come when illusions and passions master public reason. Treitschke. Cant is the use of cooled cinders in place of glowing coals. Joseph Cook. Remember that what you believe will depend very large- ly upon what you are. President Noah Porter. Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius. D'Israeli. There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know my duty, or shall fail to do it. Mary Lyon. The excitement of perpetual speech-making is fatal to the exercise of the higher faculties. Froude. LIGHTED FAGOTS. O/ We work as much from antagonism as from inspiration. Emerson. Meetings like these are rare this side of heaven, and seem to me the best mementos left of Eden's hours. Holland. What doest thou here — here in this short life, here in this earnest world, here, where you have one chance and but one forever? F. W. Robertson. Nothing distinguishes great men from inferior more than their always knowing, whether in life or art, the way things are going. Ruskin. The setting of a great hope is like the setting of the sun — the brightness of our life is gone; shadows of the evening fall behind us, and the world seems but a dim re- flection itself — a broader shadow. We look forward into the coming lonely night; the soul withdraws itself; then the stars arise, and the night is holy. Longfellow. In the noise and tumult of the world, where every life is invaded and encroached upon by " the pride of man" and "the strife of tongues," we wrap around us the robe of God's eternal mercy in Christ Jesus, and look out un- daunted upon the dangers that cannot harm us there. Phillips Brooks. Whatever I have tried to do in my life, I have tried with all my heart to do well. What I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely. Never to put one hand to anything on which I would throw my whole self, and never to affect depreciation of my work, whatever it was, I find now to have been golden rules. Charles Dickens 38 GOLDEN GLEAMS. He shall be immortal who liveth till he can be stoned by one without a fault. Fuller Think on thy wants, on thy faults. Recollect all the pa- tience, all the kindness, all the tenderness, which has been shown thee. Think also on life — how short it is, how much unavoidable bitterness it possesses; how much which it is easy either to bear or chase away; and think how the power of affection can make all things right. Frederika Bremer. Sum up at night what thou hast done by day, And in the morning what thou hast to do. Dress and undress thy soul. George Herbert. Take hold, my son, of the toughest knots in life and try to untie them; try to be worthy of man's highest estate; have high, noble, manly honor. There is but one test of every- thing, and that is, is it right? If it is not, turn right away from it. Henry A. Wise. The most difficult thing in life is to keep the heights which the soul has reached. Rev. David Middle, Jr. We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look pas- sively at our future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. George Eliot. May all go well with you ! May life's short day glide on peaceful and bright, with no more clouds than may glisten in the sunshine, no more rain than may form a rainbow; and may the veiled one of heaven bring us to meet again. Rid iter. LIVE COALS. OV V. LIVE COALS. It is a great privilege to be present at the spectacle of life. George Eliot. I will tell you who the critics are — men who have failed in literature and art. D'Israeli. Ceitics are sentinels in the grand army of letters, sta- tioned at the corners of newspapers and reviews, to chal- lenge every new author. Longfellow. Certain critics resemble closely those people who, when they would laugh, show ugly teeth. Joubert. The instinctive feeling of a great people is often wiser than its wisest men. Kossuth. The subjective conscience must not be placed above the objective law. Bismarck. Contemporaries seldom render justice; so that in order to fulfill our mission, one must have faith in and conscien- tiously appreciate his duty. Louis Napoleon. To say that a thing good in itself is bad because some- times abused, is as absurd as to say that the beautiful Ohio river is an evil because it at times overflows its banks. Hon. Walter Forward. 40 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Impatience of study is the mental disease of the present generation. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Since I cannot govern my tongue, though -within my own teeth, how can I hope to govern the tongues of others. Franklin. Gratitude for the past, content in the present, and trust for the future, constitute the trinity of happiness. liev. Dr. A. A. Willits. The more you lose your isolated self, and the thoughts and feelings which cluster round it, and take, instead, into you the thoughts and feelings of others, the richer and the more varied, the more complex and the more interesting, and therefore the more vividly individual, becomes your being. Stopford A. Brooke. Human virtue should be equal to human calamity. Gen. R. E. Lee. Offended vanity is the great separator in social life. Helps. The silence often of pure innocence persuules when speaking fails. Shakespeare. Tiieke is a moral excellence attainable by all who have the will to strive after it; but there is an intellectual and physical superiority which is above the reach of our wishes, and is granted only to a few. Crabbe. Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything. Sidney Smith. LIVE COALS. 41 A man's hobby rides him a great deal oftener than he rides it. Rev. Br. Eurness. that we had spent one day in this world thoroughly well! Thomas d. Eempis. Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not. Bfv. Br. E. B. Beadle. Gray hairs are the only object of respect that can never excite envy. Bacon. Often the grand meanings of faces, as well as written words, may be chiefly in the impressions of those who look on them. George Eliot. "We know not how grateful we should be to those who take the trouble to bo rich for us. Benan. The house is spiritually empty so long as the pearl of great price is not there, although it may be hung with all the decorations of earthly knowledge. Br. Arnold. To form a correct judgment concerning the tendency of any doctrine, we should rather look at the forms it bears in the disciples than in the teacher, for he only made it — they are made by it- Hare. 1 confess that increasing years bring with them an in- creasing respect for men who do not succeed in life, as those words are commonly used. Hillard. 42 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Looking within us, we find in conscience an observatory higher than that of physical science ever was, from which to gaze upon the supreme harmonies of the universe. Joseph Cook. It is an excellent plan to have some place where we can go to be quiet when things vex or grieve us. There are a good many hard times in this life of ours, but we can al- ways bear them if we ask help in the right way. Miss Alcott. Much of the charm of life is ruined by the exacting de- mands of confidence. Respect the natural modesty of the soul ; its more delicate flowers of feeling close their petals when they are touched too rudely. Stopford A. Brooke. There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love. Helps. True dignity abides with him alone Who, in the patient hour of silent thought Can still suspect and still revere himself. Wordsrcorth. Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions. We find it difficult to think well of those l>y whom we are thwarted and depressed, and we are ready to admit every excuse for the vices of those who are useful or agreeable to us. Macaiday. Oh 1 the exquisite English in many parts of our version LIVE COALS. 43 of the Scriptures ! I sometimes think that the translators as well as the original writers, must have been inspired. Samuel li ogers. To try to suppress the human side of the Bible, in the in- terests of the purity of the Divine Word, is as great a folly as to think that a father's talk with his child can be best re- ported by leaving out everything which the child said, thought and felt. W. Robertson /Smith. How will my last day on earth find me ? — struggling in vain for more of this mortal life, or anticipating with seraph glow my entrance upon life eternal ? Rev. Samuel Dunn. All our other sorrows are storms that beat upon us from without ; but remorse, sorrow on account of sin, ever arises and haunts us from within. Rev. Br . W. Rudder. Young men who spend many years at school and college are too apt to forget the great end of life, which is to be and to do; not to read and brood over what other men have been and done. William Mathews. The code of society is stronger with some persons than that of Sinai, and many a man who would not scruple to thrust his fingers in his neighbor's pocket, would forego peas rather than use his knife as a shovel. James Russell Lowell. Style is only the frame to hold our thoughts. It is like the sash of a window — a heavy sash will obscure the light. Emmons. This is such a serious world that we should never speak at all unless we have something to say. Carlyle. 44 GOLDEX GLEAMS. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsus- tained I am, the more I will respect and rely upon myself. Charlotte Bronte. The mind can be emptied in a much shorter time than it is possible to fill it. It fills through an infinity of little tubes, many so small as to act by capillary attraction; but in writ- ing a book, an article, or a sermon, it empties itself through a twelve-inch pipe. Rev. A. K. H. Boyd. As the sky has a higher dome than St. Peter's, so has na- ture a greater architect than Angelo. David Swijig. The blood of man 'is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind; the rest is vanity — the rest is crime. Burl-e. Not only verify your references but verify your facts. This accuracy, this verification of facts, this sifting of things to the bottom, is a thing which all students ought to culti- vate. Do let me entreat of you to look facts in the face. Dean Stanley. Theke is no great working idea in histor}- which does not carry its own caricature along with it. Rev. Dr. B. M. Palmer. The world is shadowed or brightened by our own heart rather than by anything in itself. Our joy makes the cloud- iest day glad, and our grief finds night in the sunniest sky. Joseph Parlcer. People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. We can only see what we aru, and, if we misbehave, we suspect others. Emerson. LIVE COALS. 45 We must conform, to a certain extent, to the convention- alities of society, for they are the ripened results of a va- ried and long experience. Prof. A. A. Hodge. Before the birth of love, many fearful things took place through the empire of necessity; but when this god was born, all things arose to men. Socrates. We do not know to-day whether we are busy or idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have after- wards discovered that much was accomplished and much was begun in us. Emerson. The wicked ruler must feel and fear that public opinion which arises as silently as the frost and thaws like the spring. George Alfred Townsend. We cheat ourselves with our own lying eyes, We chase a fleeting mirage o'er the sand; Across a grave the smiling phantom flies, O'er which we fall with a vain-clutching hand. Alexander Smith. He was a- weary; but he fought his fight, And stood for simple Manhood; and was joyed To see the august broadening of the light, And new worlds heaving heavenward from the void. He loved his fellows — and their love was sweet: Plant daisies at his head and at his feet. Richard Realf. 4P GOLDEN GLEAMS. VI. WHITE HEAT. When For me the end has come and I am dead, And little, voluble, chattering daws of men Peck at me curiously, let it then be said By some one brave enough to speak the truth, Here lies a great soul killed by cruel wrong. Richard Real/. Better a day of strife Than a century of sleep. Father Ryan. I'm weary of my part, My torch is out; and the world stands before me, Like a black desert at the approach of night; I'll lay me down, and stray no farther on. Dryden. Whence:, and, oh heavens! whither? Carlyle. Get close to the seller of perfumes if you want to be fragrant. Arabian Proverb. Modern architecture is art assassinated by geometry. Auguste PrJault. A man should lose no time about getting down to earnest work in life. His aim should be to build up a happy home, and to surround himself with a family of noble childreu; and he should be content after these things are done. Robert Collyer. WHITE HEAT. 47 There is no Morrow. Though before our face The shadow named so stretches, we alway Fail to o'ertake it, hasten as we may; God only gives one island-inch of space Betwixt the Eternities, as standing place Where each may work — the inexorable To-day. M. J. Preston. Proofs of a people whose heroic aims Soared far above the little, selfish sphere Of doubting modern life. Thomson. Whatever career you embrace, propose to yourself an elevated aim, and put in its service an unalterable constancy. Victor Cousin. Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die to-morrow. Ansalus de Insults. Use the temporal ; desire the eternal. Thomas d Kempis. The present hour is always the solemn hour; the past has ceased to exist, the future is out of reach. Christian Index.. Success in life is a matter not so much of talent or op- portunity as of concentration and perseverance. Rev. C. W. Wendte. Somebody once said that Gladstone was the only man in Parliament who could talk in italics. Justin McCarthy. With irresolute finger he knocked at each one Of the doorways of life, and abided in none. Owen Meredith. 48 GOLDEN GLEAMS. What men want is not talent — it is purpose. Buhcer. Who shall be true to us when we are so unsecret to our- selves ? Shakespeare. Go on and work with all your will — uproot error. Carlyle. Thjj telegraph is the nervous system of civilization. N. Y. Herald. In our large cities there is a distance of a hundred miles between the fashionable and unfashionable side of a brick wall. Joseph Cook. A good speech is a good thing, but the verdict is the thing. Daniel CfConnell. Nothing proves so hurtful to a man's constitution as an undelivered speech. Panmur. Man of the world ! bad as we who are called Christians are — and none can know that badness as we do ourselves — your world would be worse if we were not in it. Rev. Dr. John Hall. A noble and attractive every-day bearing comes of good- ness, of sincerity, of refinement; and these are bred in years, not moments. Bishop F. D. Huntington. Immodest words admit of no defense, For want of decency is want of sense. Roscommon. WHITE HEAT. 49 The man who tells me an indelicate story does me an in- jury. James T. Fields. Right forever on the scaffold; wrong forever on the throne; But the scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own. Lowell. Having by the golden gift of God this glorious lot of liv- ing once for all, let us endeavor to live nobly. J. S. Blackie. We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial; We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. Bailey. Oh, keep me innocent — make others great ! Caroline Matilda, Queen of Denmark. When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is nevei our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. George Eliot. To draw inferences is the great business of life. John Stuart Mill. If you would imitate Christ, take sin by the throat and the sinner by the hand. W. H. H. Murray. I fear the man who talks too little, as much as the man who talks too much. Rev. Br. C. A. Dickey. 4 50 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A noble deed is a step towards heaven. Holland. The law commands; the gospel empowers. JRev. Dr. A. A. Hodge. Elevate the working class by keeping your children in it. Gladstone. There is always hope in a man that actually and earnest- ly works. In idleness alone is there perpetual despair. Carlyle. Young men ! do something in this busy, bustling, wide- awake world. Move about for the benefit of mankind, if not for yourselves. John B. Gout j h. To struggle and again and again to renew the conflict — this is life's inheritance. 3Irs. Grote. Genius will study; it is that in the mind which does studv, that is the very nature of it. Dev:ey. Genius has glue on its hands, and will take hold of a marble slab. Pro*. S. J. Wilson. It is of no consequence of what parents any man is born, so that he be a man of merit. Horace. We do not what we ought, What we ought not, we do, And lean upon the thought That chance will bring us through. 3Iattheic Arnold. WHITE HEAT. 51 Almost every great thing that has been done in the world's history, has been done in a place with an insignificant name. Rev. Dr. Deems. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas. Pope. Living movements do not come of committees — they come from individuals. John Henry Newman. The best teachers of humanity are the lives of great men. Prof. Fowler. Cultivate all things in moderation, but one thing in per- fection. Lady Morgan's Advice to Young Ladies. Goo hath yoked to guilt Her pale tormentor — misery. Bryant. A man he seems of cheerful yesterdays And confident to-morrows. Wordsworth. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. Moody. If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. Longfellow. I have pity for all unhappy ones, but most for those, who- soever they be, that languish in exile, and visit their coun- try only in dreams. Dante. OZ GOLDEN GLEAMS. Down, thou climbing sorrow! thy element is below! Shakespeare. We often do more good by our sympathy than by our labors, and render to the world a more lasting service by absence of jealousy and recognition of merit than we could ever render by the straining efforts of personal ambition. Farrar. If there is any common delusion of past days which may be taken as entirely exploded now, it is the idea that any man ever swayed vast masses of people, and became the idol and hero of a nation, by the strength of a conscious hypocrisy and imposture. Justin McCarthy. Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour; England hath need of thee; she is a fen Of stagnant waters; altar, sword and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men; Oh, raise us up, return to us again, And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power! Wordsworth. The wish falls often warm upon my heart, that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven. Richter. I will go forth 'mong men, not mailed in scorn, But in the armor of a pure intent; Great duties are before me, and great songs, And whether crowned or crownless when I fall, It matters not, so as God's work is done. Alexander Smith. ELECTRIC SPARKS. 5o Hope is a pleasant acquaintance, but an unsafe friend. Hope is not the man for your banker, but he may do very well for a traveling companion. Haliburton. VII. ELECTEIO SPARKS. I little thought to have lived to hear it said by the Whigs of 1839: "Let us rally round the Queen; never mind the House of Commons; never mind measures; throw principles to the dogs; leave pledges unredeemed; but for God's sake rally round the throne." Lord Brougham. When popular discontents are abroad, a wise govern- ment would put them in a hive of glass; you hid them. Curran. If the majority of the people of Ireland had their will and had the power, they would unmoor the island from its fastenings in the deep, and move it at least two thousand miles to the west. John Bright. When' the carcass of a nation lies dead, tainting the solar system, there will not want lightning to kindle its funeral pyre. Peter Bayne. We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithful- ness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. Grlmke. 54 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Ireland is the Gethsemane of Europe. In it there are more undeserved poverty and sinless crime than in any- other land on the face of the globe. England will give you reasons for it as plentiful as the tigers in the Indian jungle. She says it is because the inhabitants are Catholics; because they are lawless; because they are indolent; because they are drunken, and because they are extravagant. If you ask me lor a reason, I answer in one word — Landlordism! The trouble has its origin in the robbery of a race for the benefit of a class. James Redpath. I wol'LD have the Irish Government regulated by Irish notions and Irish prejudices; and 1 firmly believe, accord- ing to an Irish expression, that the more she is under Irish government, the more she will be bound to English inter- ests. Fox. A perfect traitor should have a face which vice can write no marks on; lips that will lie with a dimpled smile; eyes of such agate-like brightness and depth that no in- famy can dull them; cheeks that will rise from a murder and not look haggard. George Eliot. Woe to the country whose condition and institutions no longer produce great men to manage its affairs. Metternich. Is there not some chosen curse, Some hidden thunder in the stars of heaven, Red with uncommon wrath, to blast the man Who owes his greatness to his country's ruin? Addison. He serves his party best who serves his country best. Rutherford B. Hayes. ELECTRIC SPARKS. 55 If I thought that there was a stain upon the remotest hem of the garment of my country, I woulJ devote my utmost labor to wipe it off. Daniel Webster. The glory of a country is in its homes, which contain the true elements of national vitality, and are the embodied type of heaven. Beecher. I ask no favors and shrink from no responsibilities. Zachary Taylor. Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my great concern is to be on God's side; for God is always right. Abraham Lincoln. They [office-holders] rarely die and never resign. Jefferson. It is a principle of war that when you can use the thun- derbolt, you must prefer it to the cannon; earnestness is the thunderbolt. Napoleon. The material development of our country is immensely in advance of its legislation and jurisprudence. George Alfred Totcnsend, 1 SSI. The best way to secure the repeal of a bad or obnoxious law, is to rigidly enforce it. U. S. Grant. We worldly men, when we see friends and kinsmen Past hope sunk in their fortunes, lend no hand To lift them up, but rather set our feet Upon their heads to press them to the bottom. rSir Giles Overreach. 56 GOLDEX GLEAMS. A. weapon that comes down as still As snow-flakes fall upon the sod, But executes a Freeman's will As lightning does the will of God ; And from its force, nor doors nor locks Can shield you, — 'tis the ballot-box. The sword ! — a name of dread ; but when Upon the Freeman's thigh 'tis bound — When for our altar and our hearth, When for the land that gave us birth, The war-drums roll, the trumps resound, How sacred is it then ! Pier pout. War is dread when battle shock and fierce affray Perpetuate a tyrant's name, But, guarding Freedom's holy fane Confided to her valiant keeping, The sword from scabbard leaping, Flashes a heavenly light. Frank Birch. They never fail who die In a great cause ; the block may soak their gore, Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs Be strung to city-gates and castle walls, But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years Elapse, and others share as dark a doom, They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts Which o'erpower all others, and conduct The world at last to freedom. Byron. One crowded hour of glorious life Is worth a world without a name. Walter Scott. ELECTRIC SPARKS. 57 Breathes there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, "This is my own, my native land !" "Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, As home his footsteps he hath turned, From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well : For him no minstrel raptures swell, High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; Despite those titles, power and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down T<> the vile dust from which he sprung, Unwept, unhonored and unsung. Walter Scott. So many great Illustrious spirits have conversed with woe, Have in her school been taught, as are enough To consecrate distress, and make us E'en wish the frown beyond the smile Of fortune. Thomson. The glory of a true soldier or statesman, falling at his post of duty, is seen in this — that the cause of civil liberty is the cause of humanity, which is the cause of Christ. Rev. James J. Jones. Not alone when life flows still, do truth And power emerge, but also when strange chance Affects its current; in unused conjuncture, When sickness breaks the body — hunger, watching, Excess, or languor — oftenest death's approach — Peril, deep joy or woe. Robert Browning. 58 GOLDEN GLEAMS. But all through life I see a cross, "Where sons of God yield up their breath; There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death. There is no vision but by faith, No glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame; And that Eternal Passion saith, Be emptied of glory and right and name. Olrig Grange. Man is dear to man ; the poorest poor Long for some moments in a dreary life, When they can know and feel that they have been Themselves the fathers and the dealers-out Of some small blessings; have been kind to such As needed kindness, for the single cause, That we have all of us one human heart. WoriUirnrth. The highest of us is but a sentry at his post. Whyte-MelvWe. Standing by the river, gazing on the river, See it paved with starbeams; heaven is at their feet; Now the waves are troubled — now the rushes quiver, Vanished is the starlight — it was a deceit. Bulwer. I care nothing for passing renown. It is a popularity which rifles home of its sweets; and by elevating a man above his fellows, places him in a region of desolation, where he stands, a conspicuous mark for the shafts of malice, envy, and detraction; a popularity which, with its head among storms and its feet on the treacherous quicksands, has nothing to lull the, agonies of its tottering existence but the hosannas of a driving- ireneration. Cha/mers. ELECT KIC SPARKS. 59 The Manchester school introduced the agitation which appealed to reason and argument only; which stirred men's hearts with figures of arithmetic rather than figures of speech, and which converted mob meetings to political economy. Justin McCarthy. The soft blue sky did never melt Into his heart; he never felt The witchery of the soft blue sky. Wordsworth. We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light. Emerson. It is of very little account what men think of us, but it is of great importance what God thinks of us. Moody. When we step across the drawbridge of death, it is no foreign land we enter, but our native home. Stopford A. Brooke. Oxce I had friends, though by all forsaken; Once I had parents — they are now in heaven; I had a home once! S I hold him great, who for love's sake Can give with generous, earnest will; Yet him who takes for love's sweet sake I think I hold more generous still. I bow before the noble mind That freely some great wronq- forgives; Yet nobler is the one forgiven Who bears that burden well, and lives. It may be hard to gain, and still To keep a lowly, steadfast heart; Yet he who loses, has to fill A harder and a truer part. Glorious it is to wear the crown Of a deserved and pure success; He who knows how to fail, has won A crown whose luster is not less. Great may he be who can command And rule with just and tender sway; Yet is diviner wisdom taught Better by him who can obey. Blessed are they who die for God And earn the martyr's crown of light; Yet he who lives for God may be A greater conqueror in His sight. Adelaide Procter. Oh, yet we trust that somehow good "Will be the final goal of ill; To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood; That nothing walks with aimless feet, That not one life shall be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; ny t GOLDEN" GLEAMS. That not a worm is cloven in vain, That not a moth with vain desire Is shriveled in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another's gain. Behold, we know not anything: I can but trust that good shall fall At last — far off — at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. Tennyson. VIII. FIRE-BRANDS. I love clamor when there is an abuse. The alarm-bell disturbs the inhabitants, but saves them from being burnt in their beds. Burke. Dare to be true ; nothing can ever need a lie. George Herbert. Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door. Prof. Joicett. Coward's Castle is that pulpit or platform from which a man, surrounded by his friends, in the absence of his oppo- nents, secure of applause and safe from reply, denounces those who differ from him. F. W. Robertson. There is no use in sweeping a chamber if all the dust comes out of the broom. Whately. FIEE-BEAXDS. Go By and by, when the world has found out what church does the most good, it will know in what church to believe. Lessing. There are three difficulties in authorship : to write any- thing worth the publishing, to find honest men to publish it, and to get sensible men to read it. Literature has now become a game, in which the publishers and booksellers are the kings, the critics the knaves, the public the pack, and the poor author the mere table, or thing played upon. Colton, 1849. Three-fourths of the popular novels of the day enfee- ble the intellect, impoverish the imagination, vulgarize the taste and style, give false or distorted views of life and hu- man nature, and, which is worst of all, waste that precious time which should be given to solid mental improvement. G-reyson Letters. The sensation novel has had its day, and its day was but an episode, an interruption. Realism has now wellnigh done all it can. Its close details, its trivia! round of com- mon cares and ambitions, its petty trials and easy loves, seem now at least to have spent their attractive power, and to urs;e with their fading breath the need of some new de- parture for the novelist. Perhaps the one common want in the more modern novel may suggest the new source of sup- ply. Perhaps, in order to give a fresh life to our fiction, it will have to be dipped once again in the old holy well of romance. Justin McCarthy. In every matter that relates to invention — to use, or beau- ty, or form — we are borrower.--. Wendell Phillips. Newspapers are the teachers of disjointed thinking. Dr. Rush. QQ GOLDEN GLEAMS. In multitudes of cases, perhaps in the greater part of them, the household sorrow and the household wreck may be traced to the working of a poison distilled into the un- happy family through a literature which ought to be driven, like offscourings, from every respectable library and every circle of honest people. The teachings of a godless philos- ophy filter in, drop by drop; they make the whole head sick and the whole heart faint. Jlev. Morgan Dix, D.D. Rhetoric is the talent of decaying states. Wendell Phillips. Speaking against time has become one of the fine arts. Charles Sumner. Conversation should always be a selection. Sir William Hamilton. The habit of using words which belong to a higher state of feeling and experience than we ourselves have attained to, deadens the sense of truth, and causes a dismal rent in the soul. Guesses at Truth. It is a great mistake to think anything too profound or rich for a popular audience. No train of thought is too deep, or subtle, or grand; but the manner of presenting it to their untutored minds should be peculiar. It should be presented in anecdote or sparkling truism, or telling illustration, or stinging epithet; always in some concrete form — never in a logical, abstract, syllogistic shape. Rufus Choate. We should go through life as the traveler goes through the Swiss mountains; a hasty word may bring down an av- alanche — a misstep may plunge us over a precipice. The Presbyterian. FIRE-BRANDS. 6' The truest style of eloquence, secular or sacred, is prac- tical reasoning, animated by strong emotion. Gladstone. The man who fails in business but continues to live in luxury is a thief. Spectator. Many a college-student only succeeds in mastering a dis- qualifying culture. ITournans. The theater is the illumined and decorated gateway to ruin. Rev. P. U. Gurley, D.D. There is no more absurd cant than thatthe culture of the mind favors the culture of the heart. What do operas and theaters for the moral elevation of society? Does a senti- mental novel prompt to duty? Education seldom keeps people from folly when the will is not influenced by virtue. John Lord. The theater is neither moral nor immoral, but a passive thing which may be used to express moral or immoral ideas. There is no more harm in a dramatic composition, as such, than in a picture or statue. Whether there is any harm in it will depend on the drama itself, just as there are pure and obscene paintings. I am firmly convinced that the Church and theater should be allies, and that the Church is not guiltless of the divorce. God intended them to work together, and it was not without purpose that Shakespeare and the Reformation were born about the same time. But the methods are diverse, although the Church often uses theatrical methods which do not belong there any more than a sermon is in place in a theater. Incidentally the theater should teach morality, but its method is artistic, while the Church's method should be simple. Jtev. E. C. Sweetzer. 63 GOLDEX GLEAMS. Theological seminaries are in danger of turning out preachers as foundries turn out stoves — all of the same cast and pattern. Rev. Alexander Clarke. The practical way for Christians to reform the theater is to make it to the interest of the managers to present moral attractions. If they patronize refined plays and good actors, and withhold support from poor plays and indifferent actors, they will appeal so powerfully to the pocket nerve of the managers that they will strike their colors at once. So long, however, as they remain away from the theater alto- gether their influence one wav or the other will be simply nothing, and the ungodly will still continue to direct amusements. And the worst of it is that the latter have somehow won a reputation of knowing a good drama from a bad one. J3o Uimore A m e ricati. He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend; Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them. Henri/ Taylor. TnE opera is an experiment, bold even to the veri^e of absurdity. It is a musical drama. Inheritor of every ma- terial objection which lies against the drama, it further taxes common sense to witness a whole career, or, at ieast, an appreciable friction of a career, of man executed in mu- sic. To think of buying and selling and journevinir, of toiling and scolding and complaining, with love and hate, conspiracy and crime and shame, all addressed in panto- mime of sound to the car ! It changes our whole estimate of the celestial art of music. It transforms St. Cecilia to the veriest Cinderella. Mu-ic is a fine art, but music at the opera is music overloaded, out of place, degraded beyond recognition. Rev. Jonathan Edwards, JJ.D. FIRE-BRANDS. 09 When I think of the influence of the stage, I make a dis- tinction between the grand portraitures of life — the crea- tions of genius, there exhibited by the masters of the drama — and the diluted, questionable plays tha 1 : have now become so popular. Rev. B. 31. Palmer., D.D. We Americans make a God of our common-school sys- tem. It is treason to speak a word against it. A man is regarded as a foe to education who expresses any doubt of the value of it. But we may as well open our eyes to the fact that in preparing men for the work of life, especially for that work depending on manual skill, it is a hindrance and a failure. It is mere smatter, veneering and cram. Scribntr^x Monthly. We forgive men and women of great intellectuality a thousand times easier than ordinary people, yet the opposite should be practiced. We should hold to the highest ac- count those who know the most instead of those who know the least. R. G. Ingersoll. There are men whose independence of principle consists in having no principle on which to depend, whose free think- ing consists not in thinking freely, but in being free from thinking, and whose common sense is nothing more than the sense that is most common. 31. W. Jacobus. I cannot endure the thought that Christ's children should be less free, less joyful, less elastic, and less versa- tile, than anybody else. I want a Christian to be one that at heart is truly upright; but, more than this, I want that he should be one that shall go on with more amplitude of life, with more cheerfulness, with more happiness-producing power, than anybody else in the community. Beecher. 70 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Great God! I'd rather be A pagan, suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn. Wordstcorth. W ho -w>rves from innocence, who makes divorce Of that serene companion, a good name, Recovers not his loss; but walks with shame, With doubt, with fear, and haply with remorse. Wordsicorth. Weeping vaults are the longest weepers for our funeral. Jeremy Taylor. Superstition is the vengeance of Providence on skep- ticism. Hitchcock. But thoughtless follies laid him low And stained his name. Burns. I dare not drink for my own sake; I ought not to drink for my neighbor's sake. Theo. L. Cuyler. Intemperance wipes out God's imaa-e, and stamps it with the counterfeit die of the devil; intemperance smites a healthy body with disease from head to heel, and makes it more loathsome than the leprosy of Xaaman or the sores of Lazarus; intemperance dethrones man's reason, and hides her bright beams in the mystic clouds that roll round the shattered temple of the human soul, curtained by midnight. John JB. Gough. I can abstain, but I cannot be moderate. Dr. Samuel Johnson. FIBS-BRANDS. 71 Let us not despair of saving men addicted to strong drink. Drink is strong, but the Son of God is stronger than strong drink. Moody. God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, revel, pleasure and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! To be now a sensible man, by-and-by a fool, and presently a beast ! O strange ! Every inordinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil. Shakespeare. Men try to drown the floating dead of their own souls in the wine-cup, but the corpses will arise. We see their faces in the bubbles. The intoxication of drink sets the world whirling again, and the pulses playing music, and the thoughts galloping, but the fast clock runs down sooner, and the unnatural stimulation only leaves the house it fills with the wildest revelry more silent, more sad, more deserted, more dead. There is only one stimulant that never fails, and yet never intoxicates — Duty. Duty puts a blue sky over every man — up in his heart, maybe — into which the skylark, happiness, always goes singing. George D. Prentice. It is easy to make water run down hill, hard to make it run up hill. It requires a permanent, persistent force to do this, and so it is with the cause of temperance. There is no permanent, persistent agency to overthrow the evil of in- temperance but the Church of Christ. All other agencies are inefficient because they are ephemeral. liev. James W. Dale, D.D. Many a physician can only pour drugs of which lie knows little, into bodies of which he knows less. Voltaire. 72 GOLDEN GLEAMS. There are several sovereignties in this country. First, the sovereignty of the American people ; then the sover- eignty nearest to us all — the sovereignty of the family — the absolute right of each family to control its affairs in accord- ance with the conscience and convictions of duty of the heads of the family. I have no doubt the American people will always tenderly regard their household sovereignty, and however households may differ in their views and con- victions (as to meat and drink), I believe that those differ- ences will be respected. Each household, by following its own convictions and holding itself responsible to God, will, 1 think, be respected by the American people. James A. Garfield. Medicine is a collection of uncertain prescriptions, the re- sults of which, taken collectively, are more fatal than useful to mankind. Water, air, cleanliness are the chief articles in my pharmacopeia. Napoleon. Water ! look at it, ye thirsty ones ! See its purity ! How it glitters, as if a mass of liquid gems ! The Eternal Father of all has brewed it for his children. Not in the simmering still, with smoking fires, and choked with poi- sonous gases, does he prepare it ; but down, down in the deepest valleys, where the fountains murmur ; and in the grassy dell, where the red deer wanders ; or high on the mountain tops, where the storm-clouds brood, and thunder- storms crash ; and far out on the wide sea, where the hurri- cane howls music, and mighty waves swell the chorus — He brews this precious beverage of life — pure cold water. Ev- erywhere it is a thing of beauty, gieaming in the dew-drop, sparkling in the ice-gem, sporting in the cataract, spreading a golden vail over the setting-sun, or a white gauze around the midnight moon ; dancing in the hail-shower, ringing in the summer rain, and weaving that seraph-zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain-drop and woof the sunbeam. FIRE-BKAIS'DS. 7o The study of rational medicine is as far removed fiom the ancient allopathy, with its blood-letting and purgation, as from the recent delusions of homoeopathy, with its ridicu- lous infinitesimal doses and similia-similibus medication. Declaration of the Medical School of Naples. I was ill of an epidemic vile fever which killed hundreds about me. The physicians here are the arrantest charlatans in Europe, or the most ignorant of ali pretending fools. I withdrew what was left of me out of their hands and rec- ommended myself entirely to Dame Nature. She — gentle goddess — has saved me in fifty different pinching bouts, and I begin to have a kind of enthusiasm now in her favor, and in my own, that one or two more escapes will make me be- lieve I shall leave you all at last by translation, and not by death. Sterne. It is better to have recourse to a quack, if he can cure our disorder, although he cannot explain it, than to a physician, if he can explain our disease, but cannot cure it. Colton. It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and an- other thins: to wish to be on the side of truth. Every error is a truth abused. Whately. Bossuet. First, last, midst, and without end, honor every truth with use. Emerson. All truth undone becomes unreal. F. W. Robertson. A wise physician, skilled our wounds to heal, Is more than armies to the public weal. 74 GOLDEN GLEAMS. All errors spring 1 up in the neighborhood of some truth; they grow round about it, and for the most part derive their strength from such contiguity. liev. T. Binney. There is a brotherhood of error as close as the brother- hood of truth. Argyle. Truth, as humanity knows it, is not what the schoolmen call it, one and indivisible; it is like light, and splits not only into elementary colors, but into innumerable tints. Truth with Raphael is not the same as truth with Titian ; truth with Shakespeare is not the same as truth with Milton; truth with St. Xavier is not the same as truth with Luther ; truth with Pitt is not the same as truth with Fox. Each man takes from life his favorite truth, as each man takes from light his favorite color. Buhcer. Truths of all others the most awful and interesting are too often consMered as so true that they lose all the power of truth, and lie bedridden in the dormitory of the soul side by side with the most despised and exploded errors. Coleridge. The true and proper stimulant for the intellect is truth. There is no sin in being excited by truth. There is no mental injury in such excitement. Hence, buy the truth and sell it not. Shedd. Truth is not conquered : it is read. It comes to earnest, humble seekers. Prof. March. Truth is only got at by assaulting and hiving low the surroundings that throw it out of proportion and hide it from view. Bishop Butler. FIRE-BRANDS. 76 Truth is the apostle before whom every cowardly Felix trembles. Wendell Phillips. There are some faults slight in the sight of love, some errors slight in the estimate of wisdom: but truth forgives no insult, and endures no stain. Ruskin. What a man sees only in his best moments as truth, is truth in all moments. Joseph Cook. If the world goes against the truth, then Athanasius goes against the world. Athanasius. He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. And all are slaves beside. Couper. Truth hath a quiet breast. Shakespeare. Truth is by its very nature intolerant, exclusive ; for every truth is the denial of its opposing error. Tjuthardt. Truth is the gravitation principle of the universe by which it is supported, and in which it coheres. William Jf. Evarts. Truth, and a soul that is ready for truth, meet like the fuel and the flame. Phillips Brooks. Prose is truth looking on the ground, eloquence is truth looking up to heaven, poetry is truth flying upward toward God. Beecher. 76 GOLDEN GLEAMS. That man has lived to little purpose who has not learned that what the great world pities, and its teachers disallow, even though mixed with tokens of weakness, is many times deepest in truth and closest to the real sublimities of life and religion. Horace Bushnell. The greatest homage we can pay to truth is to use it. Emerson. Had the great truths waited until the majority voted in their favor, they would never have been heard of in the world. Had they not found the place from which they are proclaimed at all times as sufficiently grand, they would be silent to this hour. Unadorned and out of the way were the seats whence they were uttered, and yet they come like zephyrs, and though slight their rustlings, they up- rooted oaks and threw down palaces. Paul Cassel. If I held truth captive in my hand, I should open my hand and let it fiy, in order that I might again pursue and capture it. MalebrancJie. Did the Almighty, holding in his right hand truth, and in his left search after truth, deign to tender me the one I might prefer — in all humility, but without hesitation, I should request search after truth. Letting. The only thing I have any satisfaction in, as respects my- self, is the consciousness I have that I loved the truth, and, above all things, have desired to know it. Horace Bushnell. Beholding the bright countenance of truth in the quiet and still air of delightful studio*. Milton. FIRE-BRA.XDS. V / When a man has no design but to speak plain truth, he isn't apt to be talkative. George D. Prentice. To restore a commonplace truth to its first uncommon lustre, you need only translate it into action. Coleridge. Wheke truth and right are concerned, we must be firm as God. Guthrie. The truer we become the more unerringly we know the ring oi truth. F. W. Robertson. He who makes truth disagreeable, commits high treason against virtue. Miss Eclgeicorth. Old truths are always new to us, if they come with the smell of heaven upon them. John Bunyan. Ox a far shore my land swam far from my sight, But i could see familiar native stars; My home was shut from me by ocean bars, Yet home hung there above me in the night; Unchanged fell down on me Orion's light; As always, Venus rose, and fiery Mars; My own the Pleiades yet, and without jars, In wonted tones, sang all the heavenly height, So when in death from underneath my feet Rolls the round world, I then shall see the sky Of GocVs truth burning yet familiarly; My native constellations I shall greet; I lose the outer, not the inner eye, The landscape, not the soul's stars, when I die. 78 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Truth fears nothing but concealment. Guizot. There is nothing so strong or safe, in any emergency of life, as the simple truth. Dickens. Truth crushed to earth shall rise again; The eternal years of God are hers; But Error, wounded, writhes in pain, And dies amid his worshipers. Bryant. Falsehood may have its hour, but it has no future. Pressense'. The universality and the unity of law make our earth, although but an atom, immensity itself in its revelations of truth. Dana. Your attempt to base a great, enduring party on the hate and wrath necessarily engendered by a great civil war, is as though you should plant a colony on an iceberg, which has somehow drifted into a tropical sea. Horace Greeley. The bayonet is not the fittest instrument by which to col- lect the votes of freemen. Gen. TV. S. Hancock. One man with God on his side is a majority against the world. Frederick Douglass. Remember ! we are one country now. Dismiss from your minds all sectional feeling, and bring up your children to be, above all, Americans. Gen. E. E. Lee. FIRE-BRANDS. 79 Better be in shame now than at the day of judgment. Mohammed. I would rather be right than be President. Henry Clay. To guard the health of the people is the first duty of the statesman. D^Israeli. We are never without a pilot. When we know not how to steer, and cannot hoist a sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though we do not. Emerson. It is a sad thing when a man has either a reputation be- yond his merit, or an ambition beyond his ability. Rev. S. J. Beatty. The honorable gentleman is indebted to his memory for his wit, and to his imagination for his facts. Bur Ice. Dispatch is better than discourse; and the shortest ans- wer of all is — doing. Smiles. How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes ! Shakespeare. Each, after all, learns only what he can; Who grasps the moment as it flies, He is the real man. Goethe. The circumstances of the world are now so variable that an irrevocable resolution is aimost synonymous with a foolish one. William H. Seward. 80 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A bed watered with tears for the sins of the land, is rare to be found among us. Rutherford. The true pilot is the man who navigates the bed of the ocean even more than its surface. Victor Hugo. Do not talk about it ! One feels the best things without speaking of them. Auerbach. Surmises are not facts. Suspicions which may be unjust need not be stated. Abraham Lincoln. A healthy intellect which goes in search of its own in- tellectual food, must be the basis of all spontaneous education. Tulloch. I could never pour out mv inmost soul without reserve to anv human being, without danger of one day repenting my confidence. JBurns. 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, and ask them what report they bore to heaven. Young. Real friendship is of slow growth. It seldom arises at first sight. Nothing but our vanity will make us think so. It never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known d reciprocal merit. Chesterfield. ot what we think or say, but what we do, will have its ect upon the world. Let, therefore, the thinker do and doer think. Rob Roy McJSfulty. FIEE-BRANDS. 81 The proper motives to religion are the proper proofs of it. Bishop Butler. Our duties to others ought to be continually looked at from their standpoint. Essays on Social Subjects. The world does not require so much to be informed as to be reminded. Hannah More. Had I read as much as others, I might have been as ignorant. Hobbes. The great thinker is seldom a disputant. He answers other men's arguments by stating the truth as he sees it. Prof. March. The sad consequence of defection in principle is corrup- tion in practice. Dickens, Corrupt legislators are the offspring and index of a cor- rupt public opinion. G. W. Curtis. It is a bad thing for a man, in looking at himself, at his neighbors and at communities, to look at the side of fault, and failing, and meanness, and imperfection, and wicked- ness, and rottennesss. These things will force themselves upon his notice full enough— more than enough for his good. Beecher. The saddest thing that can befall a soul Is when it loses faith in God and woman. Lost I those gems, Though the world's throne stood empty in my path, I would go wandering back into my childhood, Searching for them with tears. Alexander Smith. 6 82 GOLDEN GLEAMS. IX. SIGNAL LIGHTS. The Scythians of old used to strike the cords of their bows at feasts, to remind themselves of danger. Bancroft. Let us beware of losing- our enthusiasms. Let us ever glory in something, and strive to retain our admiration for all that would ennoble, and our interest in all that would enrich and beautify our life. Phillips Brooks. If you want to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you, and what people think of you. Charles Kingsley. You go forth into the world at a time when the rushing current of modern life threatens to take every man from his feet, whose feet do not stand upon duty, and whose hands are not stretched forth toward God. Noah Porter. Young men ! let the nobleness of your mind impel you to its improvement. You are too strong to be defeated, save by yourselves. Refuse to live merely to eat and sleep. Brutes can do these, but you are men. Act the part of men. Resolve to rise; you have but to resolve; nothing can hinder your success if you determine to succeed. Do not waste your time by wishing and dreaming; but go earnestly to work. Let not a craven heart or a love of ease rob you of the inestimable benefit of self-culture, and you shall reap a harvest more valuable than gold or jewels. Rev. W. D. Howard, D.D. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 83 That subtle nothingness that ekes through the jeweled fingers of a bishop ! Rev. S. J. Nicholls, D.D. There is an apostolical succession. It is not the power conveyed by physical contact ; it is not a line of priests. It is a succession of prophets, a broken, scattered one, but a real one. John was the successor of Elias' spirit. In the spiritual birth, Luther was the offspring of the mind of Paul. Mind acts on mind, whether by ideas, or character; herein is the spiritual succession. Rev. Henry A. Boardman, D.D. It would be as difficult to take an inventory of the bene- fits the world receives from the sunshine, as to enumerate the blessings we derive from the Christian Sabbath. Rev. Hervey D. Ganse, D.D. Intellectually the difficulties of unbelief are as great as those of belief, while morally the argument is wholly on the side of belief. Dr. Arnold. If there were no other argument for a future life, sin would furnish one never to be refuted, for it tells of a cause standing over between the Judge and ourselves, for the hearing and decision of which a time must certainly come. Isaac Taylor. I think a great many professors of religion are just like backgammon boards. They look like stately books, and on the back of them is inscribed in large letters, " History of England," or " History of the Crusades " ; but when you open them you find nothing but emptiness, with the excep- tion of the dice and counters. And many men bear the name " Christian," who are inside all emptiness and rattling nothing. Bethune. .x GOLDEN GLEAMS. Epicureanism is human nature drunk; cynicism is human nature mad; and stoicism is human nature in despair. Prof. S. J. Wilson. The philosopher who recognizes a God has with him a crowd of probabilities equivalent to a certainty, while the atheist has nothing but doubts. Voltaire. There is no misery like that of a divided heart, and a spotted Christian robe. Prof. A. A. Hodge. Epicubeanism — the sparkling Sadduceeism of Greece. Princeton Review. Jesus Christ pours out a doctrine beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, and true as God. Theo. Parker. Nature — the Gentile's Bible. Goulburn. Evex should our feet for a moment stumble, it does not follow that we were not treading the highway of holiness. P. Pearsall Smith. It is a fine thing to ripen without shriveling ; to reach the calmness of age, yet keep the warm heart and ready sympathy of youth. Rev. A. K. H. Boyd. He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have either a very long head, or a very short creed. Colton. " Did I not believe," said a great man to me once, "that an Intelligence is at the heart of things, my life on earth would be intolerable." Tyndall. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 85 There are few signs in a soul's state more alarming than that of religious indifference ; that is, the spirit of thinking all religions equally true, the real meaning of which is, that all religions are equally false. F. W. Robertson. The dark possibility of being a castaway at last, must have a subjective validity and power in the consciousness even of the regenerate man, who experiences the hidden power of sin in the prevailing conflict of life, stern and unceasing, and who, under the sense of his own weakness, cannot but tremble for and mistrust himself. Bishop Martensen. Men can get along without science, but they cannot get along without religion. Rev. Dr. Hitchcock. Reason cannot show itself more reasonable than to cease reasoning on things above reason. Sir Philip Sidney. Many of our traditional constructions of Scripture are Japhetic interpretations of Semitic texts. Rev. Dr. Whedon. The world has turned the joyous Christmastide into a mere giddy transition from the Old Year to the New. Rev. Walter Q. Scott. Say what men may, it is doctrine that moves the world. He who takes no position will not sway the human intellect. Shedd. Heathenism was the seeking religion; Judaism the hoping religion; Christianity is the reality of what Heathen- ism sought, and Judaism hoped for. Luthardt. 8Q GOLDEN GLEAMS. What we see exclusively we are apt to see with some mistake of proportions. George Eliot. All men are frail, but thou shouldst reckon none so frail as thyself. Thomas a Keinpis. The hardest thing in the world, sir, is to get possession of a fact. Dr. Samuel Johnson. The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheer- fulness. Montaigne. Let us go down with bare arms into the lowest recesses of our souls, and there wrestle with sin and despair. Athanase Coquerel. Without the Bible man would be in the midst of a sandy desert, surrounded on all sides by a dark and impenetrable horizon. Daniel Webster. The New Testament is only the beginning of books, not a finished and sealed document, according to popular no- tions of finality, but the beginning of a literature punctuat- ed and paragraphed by tears and laughter, by battle and pestilence, and all the changes of a tumultuous yet pro- gressive civilization. Joseph Parker. Religion is often the most beautiful and sustaining in the humble, obscure walks of life, where, serving the Mas- ter with a quiet and contented mind, very many put more honor on the Gospel than do those whose names are her- alded to the world. Bishop Jaggar. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 87 You may believe the Gospel by simply reading it, but vou will never receive it in its fulness until it is told you by some one who has experienced it. J. B. Bitlinger, D.I). Religion is the human mind standing in reverence and inspiration before the infinite energy of the universe, asking to be lifted into it — opening itself to inspiration. Luthardt. In these days we not only need to emphasize sound doc- trine, but sound practice; for piety is a Bible-creed crystal- lized into Bible-conduct. Theo. L. Cuyler. All things, the pressure of reason, the disappointment of society over the results of a complex faith, the demand for noble men and women, the natural tendency of intellect toward simplicity, require that he who " gets religion " in these years, should secure one that shall stand close by the simplicity and broadness and Tightness of the central Christ. David Sic lag. With the results of Christianity before him and in him, the Christian may confidently say to all his enemies : " If a lie can do all this, then a lie is better than all your truth, for your truth does not pretend to do it; and if our lie is better in every possible legitimate result than your truth, then your truth is proved to be a lie, and our lie is the truth." Of all short methods with infidelity, this is the shortest. Holland. The gospel teaches a communism which is unselfish ; it says, "All mine is thine." But the world's communism is the very opposite. It says — "Stand and deliver — All thine is mine," and the difference is infinite. Doolittle. 88 GOLDEN GLEAMS. That Jesus, surrounded as he was, could have promul- gated a system of morals embodying all that is most valu- able in the prior life of the world, and to which nineteen centuries of civilization have not been able to add a thought or impart an ornament, is a fact not to be explained by any ridicule. Senator M. H. Carpenter. The real security of Christianity is to be found in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the hu- man heart, in the facility with which its scheme accommo- dates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourning, and in the light with which it brightens the great mystery of the grave. Macaulay. Though scoffers ask, where is your gain ? And mocking say your work is vain, Such scoffers die, and are forgot — Work done for God, it dieth not. Press on ! press on ! nor doubt, nor fear ; From age to age this voice shall cheer, Whato'er may die, and be forgot — Work done for God, it dieth not. Thomas Knox. X. SIGNAL LIGHTS. CONTINUED. Hell is as ubiquitous as condemning conscience. F. W. Robertson. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 89 Eternal punishment is not simply a voluntary infliction; it is the consolidation and perpetuation of evil character, projecting itself into the eternal world, and reaping its own sell-prepared results and consequences. R. S. Starrs, D.D. If an infinitely loving God permits untold suffering in this world, is there anything inconceivable in His permit- ting it in the world to come ? Rev. P. Lane. The highest punishment is not hell ; it is not the place of condemnation, where other guilty ones suffer with us. No — to be self-condemned and to stand by some pure, happy one, feeling perfect innocence — that is the hell of hells." Auerbach. I have never known the winter's blast, Or the quick lightning, or the pestilence, Make nice distinctions when let slip From God's right hand. Holland. Hell is the infinite terror of the soul, whatever that may be. It is the hell of having done wrong — the hell of hav- ing had a spirit from God, pure, with high aspirations, and to be conscious of having dulled its delicacy and degraded its desires — the hell of having quenched a light brighter than the sun's — of having done to another an injury that through time and through eternity never can be undone — infinite, maddening remorse — the hell of knowing that every chance of excellence, and every opportunity of good, has been lost forever. This is the infinite terror; this is the wrath to come. F. W. Robertson. Hell — that awful refuge of the will-less ! George McDonald. yO GOLDEN GLEAMS. There may be heaven; there must be hell; Meantime, there is our earth hero — well ! Robert Browning. To insist that the lost will be punished in material fire, is as irrational as to insist that the saved will dwell in a city paved with material gold. Rev. R. W. Dale. The torment of hell is bred of these two things — recol- lection, and the absence of hope. Of these two parents shall be born those twin-causes of suffering, remorse and despair. These are the worm that will not die and the fire that cannot be quenched. If you are lost, your suffering will not be so much an inflicti >n as a consequence, just as it is here and now. You will not be blasted as by a shaft of lightning ; the fire shall be within you, self-kindled, self-fed, making your immortality an immortality of ill. Rev. W. II II. Murray. Did you ever notice that while the Gospel sets before us a higher and more blessed heaven than any other religion, its hell is also deeper and darker than any other ? W. F. Warren, U.D. It is not the best way in which to teach the truth of fu- ture punishment to say that a man is punished forever and forever for the sins of that hand's-breadth of duration we call time. If the soul does not repent of these with contrition. and not merely with attrition, the nature of things forbids its peace. But the Biblical and the natural truth is, that prolonged dissimilarity of feeling with God may end in eternal sin. If there is eternal sin, there will be eternal punishment. Final permanence of character, under the laws of judicial blindness and the self-propagating power of sin, is the truth emphasized by both God's word and his works. Joseph Cook. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 91 There is a sacred dread of death Inwoven with the strings of life, And 'tis the eternal doom of heaven, That man must view the grave with fear. Bryant. "What is hell but an expression of God's infinite abhor- rence of sin and of everything that is hurtful to his crea- tures, and of his infinite regard to whatever tends to their benefit ? All sin, unrepented of, must be punished ; and even the most noxious criminals, the enemies of God and his creatures, are not useless in the universe, but answer the ter- rible but benevolent end of warning all other creatures against disobedience, which would involve them in the same misery, just as the execution of a few malefactors in human governments is of extensive service to the rest of the subjects. Lyman JBeecher. Fire in nature is not a substance. It was formerly thought to be, till science discovered that it was only the oxygen of the air we breathe, in contact, in chemical combi- nation, with combustible substances. "Whether this oxvsren shall serve you as the sustainer of life, as it comes to you in the atmosphere, or whether it shall blaze and flame in the conflagration, destroying you along with your goods, is sim- ply a question of conditions, and the observance of natural laws. And when it rages and burns with desolating sweep, it is only the lat -nt power of this bland and life-sustaining breath, roused into activity; the same element, only at dif- ferent temperatures, being endowed with such opposite and seemingly incompatible qualities. So is this mystery of the wrath of God. It is only the evolving of that dormant energy which exists in the very soft and balmy atmosphere of his love which we breathe, and which is life-sustaining to the believing soul. M. W. Jacobus, D.D. 92 GOLDEN GLEAMS. " Penalties!" quarrel not with the old phraseology, good reader; attend rather to the thing it means. The word was heard of old, with a right solemn meaning attached to it, from theological pulpits and such places, and may still be heard there, with a half-meaning, or with no meaning, thouo-h it has become rather obsolete to modern ears. But the thing should not have fallen obsolete; the thing is a grand and solemn truth, expressive of a silent law of heaven, which continues forever valid. Carlyle. The popular arguments against endless punishment are unsatisfactory as a sure ground of hope. R. S. Ddbney, D.D. No revelation has lifted the veil between time and eter- nity; but in shadowy figures we are warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good and the bad in the next world. Jeremiah S. Black. In the transformation of opinion which is imperceptibly affecting all our conceptions of the future state, and in the perplexities and doubts which this transformation excites, the idea that comes with the most solid force and abiding comfort to the foreground, is the belief that the whole of our human existence is an education — not merely, as Bishop Butler said, a probation for the future — but an education which will reach into the future. The possibilities that overcame the impossibilities in our actual experience, show us that there may be yet greater possibilities which shall overcome the yet more formidable impossibilities lying beyond our experiences, beyond our sight, beyond the last great change of all. Through all these changes, and toward that unseen goal, in the words of Burke, " Let us pass on — -for God's sake, let us pass on /" I)>:. Wealth was never more attractive and tempting than now. Luxury was never so various and so refined in its ministrations and appliances. Genius for science, art, or letters, was never so potent over cultivated minds. In short, man as an individual, and in organized masses, was never so strongly tempted to worship himself and to deny his Creator, to rely upon the inspirations of his own being, whether scientific, imaginative, or ethical, and to dispense with the Christ, of whom it has been said, it is true that before him every knee shall bow. No influence short of the living God and the redeeming Son of God can possi- blv hold an individual or a generation against the in-rush- ing tide of these insidious influences. No alt Porter. 102 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus Christ will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing; his legend will call forth tears with; out end; his sufferings will melt the noblest heart; all ages will proclaim that, among the sons of men, there is none born greater than Jesus. Ernest Renan. If I were called to point out the most alarming sins of to-day, those which are most deceitful in their influence, and most soul-destroying in their ultimate effects, I would not mention drunkenness, with all its fearful havoc, nor gam- bling, with its crazed victims, nor harlotry, with its hell- ish orgies; but the love of money on the part of men, and the love of display on the part of women. "While open vice sends its thousands, these fashionable and tavored indulgen- ces send, their tens of thousands to perdition. They sear the conscience, incrust the soul with an impenetrable shell of worldliness, debauch the affections from every high and heavenly object, and make man or woman the worshiper of self. While doing all this the poor victim is allowed by public opinion to think himself or herself a Christian, while the drunkard, the gambler and prostitute are not deceived by such a thought for a moment. Howard Crosby., D.J). The church in debt feels that prudence demands that the worldly rich should be gathered, both small and great, into the church. These men are counseled, placed in positions of trust, elected to office; and how often are men of wealth and influence in the world, and without religion, allowed to determine the question and say who is to feed the flock of Christ? Their opinions are preferred to those of the chil- dren of God, simpiy to secure their aid in supporting the man of their choosing. How many pulpits are to-day spiked by the devil in this very way? tiylvanus Stall. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 103 There are few people who will not be benefited by pon- dering over the morals of shopping. Beecher. Wealth has now all the respect paid to it which is due only to virtue and to talent, but we can see what estimate God places upon it, since he often bestows it upon the meanest and most unworthy of all his creatures. Dean Svnft. Wealth in our country must long be, and properly is, a great measure of force; and by force I mean character, talent, activity and mental leverage. But in heaven's name let us know it for what it is, and not for what it is not; most of all, let us avoid that particular fallacy which sees in wealth the essence, and not the provocative of refinement* Donald G. Mitchell. No one who is a lover of riches, or a lover of pleasure, or a lover of glory, can at the same time be a lover of men. Epictetus. Our greatest danger now in this country is corporative wealth. 'Wendell Phillips. Let us learn to be content with what we have, with the place we have in life. Let us get rid of our false estimates, let us throw down the god Money from its pedestal, trample that senseless idol under foot, set up all the higher ideals — a neat home, vines of our own planting, a few books full of the inspiration of genius, a few friends worthy of being loved, and able to love us in turn ; a hundred innocent pleasures that bring no pain or remorse, a devotion to the right that will never swerve, a simple religion empty of all bigotry, full of trust and hope and love, and to such a phil- osophy this world will give up all the joy it has. David Swing. 104 GOLDEN GLEAMS. If a man's mind be thoroughly alive, he cannot be con- tent with good health, good revenue and good dwelling. There are heart-achings and out-goings which waste the life, which cannot be soothed or appeased by bread alone. On the one hand you will find sad hearts surrounded by the highest personal and social advantages, and on the other you will find hearts glad with unspeakable joy in spite of circumstances the most untoward and harrassing. It is, therefore, in the opinion of Christian thinkers, a superficial and mocking theory of human happiness which concerns it- self mainly with circumstances. What is wanted is a prin- ciple which will put all accidental conditions in their right place, and persistently remind man that " the life is more than bread," and that apparent failure may be real success. Joseph Parker. Tiietce are necessities in our hearts which nothing human can supply; passions which nothing human can either sat- isfy or control; powers which nothing human can either ad- equately excite or occupy; and oh, there are sorrows, deep sorrows, which will not be assuaged; wounds which, if the balm that is in Gilead cannot heal, must fester forevermore; sins, far beyond the reach of all skill but that of the Great Physician of souls. Robert J. Breckinridge, D.D. Communism possesses a language which every people can understand. Its elements are hunger, envy and death. He inrich He i?i e. If you divorce capital and labor, capital is hoarded and labor starves. Daniel Webster. What is a communist ? One who has yearnings for equal division of unequal earnings. Elliott. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 105 Eveey day that I live I become less and less desirous of great wealth : but every day makes me more sensible of the importance of a competence. Without a competence it is not easy for a public man to be honest : it is almost impos- sible for him to be thought so. Macaulay. Property is the product of labor. It must be hewed out of the forest, plowed out of the field, blasted out of the mine, pounded out of the anvil, wrought out in the factory and furnace. Labor is at the bottom of it all; and the na- tion in which labor is the best cherished and cared for, must be the richest and most prosperous. Capital and labor are mutual allies. When vanished is this vapor we call life, And all the storms that vex us disappear — Sorrow's sharp thorn, the weary wheel of strife, And all the miseries we feel or fear — When of the "day far spent" a night is born, Before there dawns a day that knows no night, Shall we who see the glory of such a morn — Shall we recall, upon that dazzling height, One touch of this wild warfare of the earth ? The wounds that scarred us, or the tears we wept, The sin that so beset us from our birth, The woes, the wrongs, the cares that never slept ? Or will there be a gap betwixt that time And this eternity that numbs the sense, As after sudden ceasing of some chime A lengthened pause makes rest the more intense? Forbear to question, O mine idle thought! Where were our faith, if all were come to sight ! "Avoid vain babblings" — thus much we are taught. 'Twere vain to breathe them, yet I long for light. A. T. L. 106 GOLDEN GLEAMS. On the whole, there are much sadder ages than the early ones; not sadder in a noble and deep way, but in a dim, wearied way — the way of ennui, and jaded intellect, and un- comfortableness of soul and body. Not that we are without festivity, but festivity more or less forced, mistaken, embit- tered, incomplete, not of the heart; and the profoundest reason of this darkness of heart is, I believe, our want of faith. Huskin. Let me not die before I've done for Thee Some earthly work, whatever it may be; Call me not hence with mission unfulfilled, Let me not leave my space of ground unfilled; Impress this truth upon me, that not one Can do my portion that I leave undone, For each one in Thy vineyard hath a spot To labor in for life, and weary not. Then give me strength all faithfully to toil, Converting barren earth to fruitful soil. I long to be an instrument of Thine, To gather worshipers unto Thy shrine; To be the means one human soul to save From the dark terrors of a hopeless grave. Yet most I want a spirit of content, To work where'er Thou'lt wish my labor spent, Whether at home or in a stranger clime, In days of joy, or sorrow's sterner time. I want a spirit passive, to lie still, And by Thy power to do Thy holy will. And when the prayer unto my lips doth rise, Before a new home doth my soul surprise, " Let me accomplish some great work for Thee," Subdue it, Lord; let my petition be, "Oh! make me useful in this world of Thine, In ways according to Thy will, not mine. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 107 Let me not leave my space of ground untilled, Call me not hence with mission unfulfilled. Let me not die before I've done for Thee My earthly work, whatever that may be." Church of the living God! in vain thy foes Make thee, in impious mirth, their laughing stock, Contemn thy strength, thy radiant beauty mock; In vain their threats and impotent their blows — Satan's assault — Hell's agonizing throes! For thou art built upon th' Eternal Rock, Nor fear'st the thunder storm, the earthquake shock, And nothing shall disturb thy calm repose. All human combinations change and die, What'er their origin, form, design; But firmer than the pillars of the sky, Thou standest ever by a power Divine; Thou art endowed with immortality, And can'st not perish — God's own life is thine! Wm. Lloyd Garrison. XII. SIGNAL LIGHTS- CONTINUED. Envy is the yoke-fellow of eminence. Tupper. As there can be no jealousy without regard, so envy cannot exist in perfection without a secret esteem of the person envied. 108 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Base envy withers at another's joy, And hate's the excellence it cannot reach. Thompson. Slander is the solace of malignity. Joubert. We cannot control the evil tongues of others, but a good life enables us to despise them. Cato. Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the partic- ular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really be- longs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbor is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. George Eliot. To apply to others in charity the knowledge one has used against oneself in judgment — this is the hard thing. W. H. Mattock. There are calumnies against which even innocence loses courage. Napoleon. To persevere in one's duty and to be silent, is the first answer to calumny. Washington. There is nobody so weak of invention that cannot make some little stories to vilify his enemy. Addison. When one has learned to seek the honor that cometh from God only, he will take the withholding of the honor that comes from man very quietly indeed. George McDonald. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 109 Whoever has a good work to do must let the devil's tongue run as it pleases. Luther. When a man readily gives ear to a slander, he betrays fellow-feeling with the malice whence it sprang. Calvert. A large charity is the growth of years, the last result of many trials. Stopford A. Brooke. When a man is at the foot of the hill in his fortunes, he may stay a long while there in spite of professional accom- plishment. George Eliot. Censure and criticism never hurt anybody. If false, they cannot harm you, unless you are wanting in char- acter; and if true, they show a man his weak points, and forewarn him against failure and trouble. Gladstone. If there should spring up in any hospital a disposition of criticism, and men with fevers should gibe men with dropsies, and men with dropsies should revenge themselves by pointing over to men with ulcers and sores, it would fitly represent the harsh judgment of men upon each other. Beecher. Experience tells us that each man most keenly and un- erringly detects in others the vice with which he is most familiar himself. F. W. Robertson. Be not hasty to disprove every aspersion that is cast on you. Let them alone for a while, and, like mud on your clothes, they will rub off of themselves. Bev. Br. Murray. HO GOLDEN GLEAMS. It is impossible for human purity not to betray to an eye sharpened by malignity, some stains which lay concealed and unregarded when none thought it their interest to dis- cover them; nor can the most circumspect attention or steady rectitude escape blame from censors, who have no inclination to approve. Johnson's Rambler. Malice has a keen scent for blemishes. Punshon. My worst enemies are more valuable to me than my best friends. Luther. Beyond all doubt, the worst of our enemies are those which we carry about in our own hearts. Tholuck. Those who get through the world without enemies are commonly of three classes — the supple, the adroit, and the phlegmatic. The leaden rule surmounts obstacles by yield- ing to them; the oiled wheel escapes friction; the cotton sack escapes damage by its impenetrable elasticity. Whately. What a man's enemies say ought not to be taken as evi- dence. Olive Logan. The wise man always shows himself on the side of his assailants. It is more to his interest than it is to theirs to find out his weak points; the wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like the deer-skin, and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. So long as all is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success; but as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me, I feel as one lying unprotected before his enemies. Emerson. SIGNAL LIGHTS. Ill A man can bear A world's contempt, when he has that within Which says he's worthy. Alexander Smith. The world can pry out everything about us which it has a mind to know. But there is this consolation, which men will never accept in their own cases, that the world does n't care. Thackeray. Within a few years past it has become the fashion to pounce down upon every public man against whom a breath of suspicion is emitted, and treat him as a criminal, without permitting him the poor privilege of being heard. It is enough if somebody suspects him. He must be a criminal or he would not be charged with criminality! In the juris- prudence which guides this class of journalists, every pub- lic man is to be considered guilty, until he proves himself innocent, and even then he has to undergo a long quaran- tine, as having come from a suspected port. The Nation. That assasination by the slow poison of calumny, secretly infused into every vein of the society in which the calumi- nated character moves and is known, — that is the basest and vilest form of assassination. It has every degree of cowardice, every amount of malice, every wickedness of purpose, and every mischief of result. W. 31. Evarts. It is well, may be so, to bear losses, And to bend and bow down to the rod, If the scarlet-red bars and the crosses Be but rounds up the ladder to God, But this mocking of men! Ah! that enters The marrow ! Joaquin Miller. 112 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A great deal depends upon a man's courage when he is slandered and traduced. Weak men are crushed by de- traction, but the brave hold on and succeed. H. IS. Steveris. Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof, And blanch not at thy chosen lot; The timid good may stand aloof, The sage may frown, yet faint thou not, Nor heed the shaft too surely cast, The foul and hissing bolt of scorn; For with thy side shall dwell at last The victory of endurance born. Bryant. It was the exprobation of Athens that she suffered those men to die in exile, ignominy and oblivion, that with virtu- ous endeavors had raised her up on the pillars of her fame. Miltiades, Aristides, Solon, Phocion — where lived they? Where lie they? Thomas Adams. Well- nerved and stout be the arm that smiteth wrong, and sharp and swift the censure following knowledge of guilt; but that eagerness to condemn, so noticeable in some; that evil construction put on acts whose motive is unknown; that merciless remembrance, which treasureth up the minutest past delinquency, forgetful of after worth and probable repentance; that whispering suspiciousness, quick and pronged as a serpent's tongue — its prototype; that bigotry and assumption of superior sanctity; that hard, unfeminine punctiliousness which spurns the erring, and denies the possibility of cleansing to the stained; that clutching of stones to pelt one form of sin by hands not stainless of other forms — this is what I deplore; this is what I arraign as un-Christlike. Rev. W. U. IT. Murray. SIGNAL LIGHTS. US Fling forth a lie among the crowd, Let but the gossips vouch 'tis true; Then innocence may buy her shroud And guilt walk forth in garments new. Let every man be occupied, and occupied in the highest employment of which his nature is capable, and die with the consciousness that he has done his best. Sidney Smith. An idle word may be set mingly harmless in its utter- ance, but let it be fanned by passion, let it be fed with the fuel of misconception, of evil intention, of prejudice, and it will soon grow into a sweeping fire, that will melt the chains of human friendship, that will burn to ashes many cherished hopes, and blacken more fair names than one. Chas. A. Dickey, D.D. If you have gentle words and looks, my friends, To spare for me — if you have tears to shed That I have suffered — keep them not, I pray, Until I hear not, see not, being dead. If you have flowers to give — fair lily-buds, White roses, daisies, meadow-stars, that be Mine own dear namesakes — let them smile and make The air, while yet I breathe it, sweet for me. For loving looks, though fraught with tenderness And kindly tears, though they fall thick and fast, And words of praise, alas ! can naught avail To lift the shadows from a life that's past. And rarest blossoms — what can they suffice, Offered to one who can no longer gaze Upon their beauty ? Flowers on coffins laid Impart no sweetness to departed days. Sunday Magazine. 114 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Throw dirt enough, and^some will stick. Archbishop Whately. "Will stick, but not stain. John Henry Newman. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls ; "Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing ; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed. Shakespeare. You may get through the world, but 't will be very slow If you listen to all that is said as you go; You '11 be worried and fretted and kept in a stew, For meddlesome tongues will have something to do — For people will talk. If quiet and modest, you'll have it presumed That your humble position is only assumed; You "re a wolf in sheep's clothing, or else you're a fool; But don't get excited; keep perfectly cool — For people will talk. If generous and noble, they '11 vent out their spleen; You'll hear some loud hints that you are selfish and mean; If upright, honest and fair as the day, They'll call you a ro^ue in a sly, sneaking way — For people will talk. And then, if you show the least boldness of heart, Or a slight inclination to take your own part, They will call you an upstart, conceited and vain; But keep straight ahead, don't stop to explain — For people will talk. STGXAL LIGHTS. 115 If you dress in the fashion, don't think to escape, For they '11 criticise then in a different shape; You're ahead of your means, or your tailor's unpaid; But mind your own business, there's naught to be made — For people will talk. Now the best way to do is do as you please; For your mind, if you have one, will then be at ease; Of course you will meet with all sorts of abuse; But don't think to stop, then; it ain't any use — For people will talk. Washington Capitol. Not even a word may be uttered; a nervous shrug, a significant look, an enforced silence, may do the fiendish work, and the fair fame of your more righteous neighbor is blackened, and a heart far nobler than your own, it may be, is forever crushed. F. W. Robertson. The worst things are the perversions of good things. Abused intellectual gifts make the dangerous villain; abused sensibilities make the accomplished tempter; abused affeo- tions engender the keenest of all misery. McCosh. I will tell you what to hate. Hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate intolerance, oppression, injustice; hate pharisaism; hate them as Christ hated them, with a deep, living, godlike hatred. F. W. Robertson. There is a creature who ought to share with the clerical cheat the abuse of the people. I mean the clerical jester. He lays his hands on all sacred things. He is full of Bible jests, and he talks about the Bible with jests that have come down from generation to generation. The principles which, if they mean anything, mean life and death to the soul, he turns into material for jest. Phillips Brooks. 116 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Always think the best of a man. To think the worst is the sure mark of a mean spirit and a base soul. Lord Bolingbroke. Amoxg all the vices which it is necessary to subdue in order to build up the human character, there is none to be compared, in strength or in virulence, with that of impurity. It can outlive and kill a thousand virtu s; it can corrupt the most generous heart; it can madden the sternest intel- lect; it can debase the loftiest imagination. But besides being so poisonous to character, it is, above all others, the most difficult to conquer. Essays and Reviews. The essential guilt of suicide is unbelief — despair of God's love and goodness. F. W. Robertson. I could not waste myself. I had to make my own way in the world. Young men, if you intend to win, you must work. There is no easier road. Howl escaped the pitfalls set for the feet of such untaught boys as I was can only be explained one way. In it all the thought of my mother and her prayers had to my heart the force of a guardian angel's care. Gov. St. John. It is the quiet worker that succeeds. No one can do his best, or even do well, in the midst of badinage or worry or nagging. Therefore, if you work, work as cheerily as you can. If you do not work, do not put even a straw in the way of others. There are rocks and pebbles and holes and plenty of obstructions. It is the pleasant word, the hearty word, that helps, and a man who has these at his command is sure to be a helper to others in the highway of life, along which so many are travelers. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 117 Oh, my brethren, this self-confident, this hurrying', un- ripe, aspiring- character which makes nothing of meditation; this boldness without strength and ardor without depth — let us bring it to the touchstone of our perfect Lord, and see how His character rebukes it. JEx- President Woolsey. Ah, there be souls none understand; Like clouds, they cannot touch the land, Drive as they may o'er field or town; Then we look wise at this, and frown, And we cry " Fool! " and cry " Take hold Of earth, and fashion gods of gold." Call these not fools; the test of worth Is not the hold you have of earth; Lo, there be gentlest souls, sea-blown, That know not any harbor known; And it may be the reason is They touch on fairer shore than this. Joaquin 3 filler. God bless the cheerful people — man, woman or child, old or young, illiterate or educated, handsome or homely. Over and above every other social trait stands cheerfulness- What the sun is to nature, what God is to the stricken heart which knows how to lean upon Him, are cheerful per- sons in the house and by the wayside. They go unobtru- sively, unconsciously about their silent mission, brightening up society around them, with happiness beaming from their faces. We love to sit near them. We love the nature of their eye, the tone of their voice. Little children find them out, oh ! so quickly, amid the densest crowd, and passing by the knitted brow and compressed lip, glide near, and laying a confiding little hand on their knee, lift their clear young eyes to those loving faces. A. A. Will its, D.D. IIS GOLDEN GLEAMS. Throughout the entire word of God, we are taught the sacred duty of being happy. Be happy, cheerful, rejoice- ful as we can, we cannot go beyond the spirit of the Gospel, though we may go beyond the requirements of Calvin and Pascal. To the devout but narrow school of Christians, " the free and princely heart of innocence" may seem strange and forbidden, but not so to David or Paul. Not so to Christ, who, though "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," was happy and " rejoiced in spirit." Dean Stanley. The rarest attainment is to grow old happily and grace- fully. L. M. Child. Some murmur when their sky is clear And wholly bright to view, If one small speck of dark appear In their great heaven of blue; And some with thankful love are fill'd If but one streak of light — One ray of God's good mercy — gild The darkness of their night. In palaces are hearts that ask, In discontent and pride, Why life is such a dreary task, And all good things denied ? And hearts in poorest huts admire How love has, in their aid — Love that not ever seems to tire — Such rich provision made. Archbishop Trench. Gor> smiled when he put humor into the human disposi- tion and said, " That is good ! " Beecher. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 119 Kind looks, kind words, kind acts and warm hand- shakes — these are secondary means of grace, when men are in trouble and are fighting their unseen battles. John Hall, D.D. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low-vaulted past ! Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea ! Holmes. God can and does render sinners happy in spite of their sins, for Christ's sake, remitting to them its penalty, while its power is only partially broken, fostering them, and re- joicing over them until their restoration to spiritual health be complete. Anything that turns the sinner's regard in- ward on himself as a ground of hope, instead of bidding him look to Christ, must plunge him into despair, and de- spair is the portal of death. Charles Hodge, D.D. But when we in our viciousness grow hard, the wise gods seal our eyes; In our own slime drop our clear judgments, make us Adore our errors; laugh at us, while we strut To our confusion. Shakespeare. For your own sakes, brethren, for God's sake, let your thought rise. Bid it, force it to rise. Think of the face of Jesus, of your future home in heaven, of the loved ones who have gone before you. Think of all that has ever cheered, quickened, braced you. In such thoughts, to such thoughts, Jesus will assuredly and increasingly reveal himself. Liddon — to the Students of Oxford. 120 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Even this vein of laughing, as I could produce out of grave authors, hath oftentimes a strong and sinewy force in teaching and confuting. Milton. It is one of the heaviest penalties of wrong thinking and of wrong living, that they blur, if they do not obliterate, the very perception of good and evil. Mary Clemmer. Patience and strength are what we need ; an earnest use of what we have now; and all the time an earnest discon- tent until we come to what we ought to be. Phillips Brooks. XIII. SIGNAL LIGHTS. CONCLUDED. Count that day lost whose low, descending sun, Views from thy hand no worthy action done. The earth is fringed and carpeted, not with forests, but with grasses. Only see that you have enough of little vir- tues and common fidelities, and you need not mourn because you are neither a renowned hero nor a saint. Do what thou dost as if the stake wore heaven, And that thy last deed ere the judgment day. King shy. One day thou wilt be Most, So still obey the guiding hand that fends Thee safely through these wonders for sweet ends. Keats. SIGXAL LiGHTS. 121 Opposition may become sweet to a man when he has ohristened it persecution. George Eliot. Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive To strip them off, 'tis being flayed alive. Cowper. Choose that which is best, and custom will make it most agreeable. J. W. Scott, D.D. A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Tins world is a solemn fact; we are in it, passing through it. Let us try to understand its mysteries; let us think much of its responsibilities; let us ponder the thoughts of the inquiring minds of all ages; let us prize all the light we have from man, from God, so that we may be guided aright amid its perils and changing experiences. Alexander Reed, D.D. I have warred with you, I have been your enemy, but now, when war is over, we speak the same language, wor- ship the same God — and let us be friends. George the III. to John Adams. "We figure to ourselves The thing we like, and then we build it up As chance will have it, on the rock or sand; For thought is tired of wandering o'er the world, And home-bound fancy runs her bark ashore. Henry Taylor. A man's best things are nearest him — Lie close about his feet. Richard Moncton Jfibies. 122 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Lean not on one mind constantly, Lest where one stood before, two fall; Something hath God to say to thee Worth hearing from the lips of all. Owen Meredith. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her [Marie Antoinette] with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. Burke, on the French Revolution. There is no transaction which offers stronger temptations to fallacy and sophistication, than epistolary intercourse. Dr. Samuel Johnson. Twenty Christians can fight heroically, where one can Buffer greatly, and be strong and still. Theo. L. Cuyler, D.D. Good has but one enemy, the evil; but the evil has two enemies, the good and itself. Julius Muller. The wicked would be too well off if their evil deeds came to an end. Socrates. History proves that although woman, swayed by lofty impulses, approaches the angels, yet when yielding to a master-passion, she is capable of a refinement of wicked- ness which men never attain. Macaulay. A woman is naturally as different from a man as a flower from a tree; she has more beauty and more fragrance, but less strength; she will be fitted for the rough and thorny walk of the masculine professions when she has got a rough beard, a brazen front, and hard skin, but no sooner. Prof. J. S. Blachie. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 123 So far from wishing to give votes to women, I would fain take them away from most men. Huskin. Thi: heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night. Longfellow. Men always have strength given them to carry out their convictions; they have not strength given them to carry out their aspirations. Uo not complain that, because you can- not live up to your aspirations, you cannot live up to prin- ciples; that because your ideal vanishes on contact with the necessities of daily existence, therefore it is impossible to act on conviction. Leave the young hearts to nature and to God. Leave the young tendrils where they will to twine; "Where violets blossom, and white snowdrops nod, Fall April dews, where April's sunlights shine; Gathered the ripened corn, if yet some ears Are left for faltering hand and patient care; But for the darlings of decaying years, Leave them alone in all save love and prayer. All the Year Hound. There is no sadness so unutterable as that which comes of the self-destruction of our youthful prophecies; of the change of exultation, as years go on, into slothfulness and depression. It is a terrible thing to look back, an outworn man, upon the past and be ashamed of your early inspira- tion; to see our bright-haired youth go by us like a phan- tom, and to hide our face and cry, "That is what I was — what might I not have been ?" Stopford A. BrooJce. 124 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Women who can reign in monarchies ought to vote in re- publics. G. F. Train. True to the promise of thy far-off youth, When all who loved thee, for thee prophesied A grand, full life, devoted to the truth, A noble cause by suffering sanctified. True to all beauties of the poet thought Which made thy youth so eloquent and sweet; True to all duties which thy manhood brought To take the room of fancies light and fleet. True to the steadfast walk and narrow way, Which thy forefathers of the covenant trod ! True to thy friend in foul or sunny day, True to thy home, thy country and thy God ! True to the world, which still is false to thee, And true to all — as thou art true to me. All the Year Mound. We cannot say to any young man : " Do not play billiards — it is wrong to do so;" because we have no warrant to make such a statement. No one has. To affirm that to be wrong, which is not in itself wrong, which may be practised with the most perfect innocence, with the most warrantable enjoyment, is a dogmatism of the w^orst kind which can only breed that moral confusion in the minds of the yount:, which is a direct parent of vice. Whenever the moral vision is clouded and sees only in a maze, there is no secu- rity for right principle or consistent conduct. We do not venture to say this, therefore ; but we venture to say to every young man : "It is not good for you to indulge much in such an amusement. You can only do this at the expense of higher considerations. Many other amusements are bet- ter, more healthful in themselves, and more free from dan- gerous associations.'' Tulloch. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 125 How beautiful is youth! how bright it gleams With its illusions, aspirations, dreams! Book of beginning, story without end, Each maid a heroine, and each man a friendl Aladdin's Lamp, and Fortunatus' Purse That holds the treasures of the universe! All possibilities are in its hands, No danger daunts it. and no foe withstands; In its sublime audacity of faith, 'Be thou removed!' it to the mountain saith, And with ambitious feet, secure and proud, Ascends the ladder leaning on the cloud. Longfellow. Why are we so impatient of delay, Longing forever for the time to be? For this we live to-morrow in to-day, Yea, sad to-morrow we may never see. We are too hasty; are not reconciled To let kind nature do her work alone; We plant our seed, and like a foolish child We dig it up to see if it has grown. The good that is to be we covet now, We cannot wait for the appointed hour; Before the fruit is ripe we shake the bou^-h, And seize the bud that folds away the flower. When midnight darkness reigns we do not see That the sad night is mother of the morn; We cannot think our own sharp agony May be the birth pang of a joy unborn. Into the dust we see our idols cast, And cry that death hath triumphed, life is void! We do not trust the promise, that the last Of all our enemies shall be destroyed! 126 GOLDEN GLEAMS. With rest almost in sight the spirit faints, And heart and flesh grow weary at the last; Our feet would walk the city of the saints, Even before the silent gate is passed. Teach us to wait until Thou shalt appear — To know that all Thy ways and times are just : Thou seest that we do believe, and fear, Lord, make us also to believe and trust! Phebe Cory. The benefits of college training are five-fold: it gives a general survey of the broad fields of knowledge; it gives mental discipline; it excites, by rivalry, to exertion; it brings the student in contact with minds of the greatest culture and strength, representative minds, specialists, lead- ers, masters in every department of human thought; and it inspires a man to continued study. J. H. Vincent, I).D. There are two little words in our language which I al- ways admired — Try and Trust. You know not what you can or cannot effect until you try; and if you make your trials in the exercise of trust in God, mountains of imagin- ary difficulties will vanish as you approach them, and facili- ties will be afforded which you never anticipated. Samuel Smiles. It is said that at the battle of Shiloh, an Indiana colonel, seeing his regiment was becoming confused and demoral- ized, and was firing at random, ordered his men to fall into line, put them through a regular drill, and thus restored their aim and steadiness in battle. And so must we do in the battle of life. When pressed upon and confused by the noise and tumult of the conflict, we must return again to the simplest duties, and steady our hearts by humblest trust and hope in God. George C. Heckman, D.D. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 127 Strengthen the basis of the school system before you increase the superstructure. Teach fewer things, but teach them so they will be absolutely known. Make the course of study more compact and manageable; postpone the ac- complishments; banish even science and drawing, and first give the child what will be essential for the practical busi- ness of life, and a basis for self-improvement. White I arc Reid. " Froebelism:," or the Kindergarten system of education, starts with the idea that in the school-room there is nothing so valuable as the child himself. The child is more than all the books — than all the furniture. The child is the product of God, and there can be nothing better. It can see what the telescope and microscope never can see. "We can only unfold the child's mind according to the laws of nature. "We mar it if we attempt to push it. It is this fact that the present system of education overlooks. The " cramming " process is unscientific because it ignores the laws of devel- opment. J. B. Bitting er, D.B. The great end of education is not information, but per- sonal vigor and character. What makes the practical man is not the well-informed man, but the alert, disciplined, self- commanded man. There have been highly trained and ac- complished men in days when a knowledge of geography hardly went beyond the islands and mainland of the Levant. There were powerfid English writers long before Lindley Murray wrote his Latinized English grammar. What should be understood thoroughly is, that cramming is not education. It is a mistake to cover too much ground, and to seek to make youth conversant simply with the largest number of studies. Let them learn a few things and learn them well. Let the personal influence of the teacher be relied upon rather than books and elaborated methods. Philadelphia Press. 12S GOLDEN GLEAMS. Health is nerve, and nerve is man. The whole man- hood lies in the brain and nerve system. Besides that, there is nothing but animal; and whatever sucks it dry, whatever fevers it and whatever tends to carry it beyond the point of sober health, makes trouble where there is no trouble ; and makes trouble more burdensome; and makes burdens heavier; and disqualifies men for bearing things that are real troubles. Beecher. A collegiate education has this distinction and privilege: it is systematic education, education systematically contrived with a view to bring out and cultivate in the best manner all the faculties, neither neglecting any nor exaggerating any. Provided it does this eiFcctively, it accomplishes so far as it goes, the great purpose of a general and prepara- tory equipment. Here, then, is a sufficient answer to the shallow but popular objection that many things studied in colleges, have no direct bearing in after life. Theodore Woolsey. Nearly one hundred years ago, there was a day of re- markable gloom and darkness, still known as the Dark Day — a day when the light of the sun was slowly extinguished as if by an eclipse. The Legislature of Connecticut was in session, and as the members saw the unexpected and unac- countable darkness coming on, they shared in the general awe and terror. It was supposed by many that the last day, the day of judgment had come. Some one, in the conster- nation of the hour, moved an adjournment. Then there arose an old Puritan legislator, Davenport Stanford, who said that if the last day had come he desired to be found at his post of duty, and therefore moved that candles be brought so that the House could proceed with its business. So, my son, when in the conflict of life the cloud and the darkness come, stand unflinchingly by your post; remain faithful to the discharge of your duty. Gen. Robert E. Lee. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 129 Woe to the nation that leaves the education of its young to the professional teacher. Miss Mary F. Eastman. A masterpiece excites no sudden enthusiasm ; it must be studied much and long before it is fully comprehended; we must grow up to it, for it will not descend to us. Its influ- ence is less sudden, more lasting. Its emphasis grows with familiarity. We never become disenchanted; we ate more and more awe-struck at its infinite wealth. We discover no trick, for there is none to discover. Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, Mozart, never storm the judgment; but once fairly in possession, they retain it with increasing influence. Lewes (" Life of Goethe"). The best thoughts of the day ought to be in the daily papers. They are the educators of the age. They reach everybody. We do not want to make them religious, for then only religious people would read them. We want them to be, as they now are, mirrors of the times. But we want to try and get before them, and get them to reflect, that which is noblest, and not that which is basest, — that which is purest and not that which is vilest. E. 0. Babb, TJ.l). Sunday papers are now like huge carts, going about through the streets of our cities during the week, gathering up all the moral garbage and filth they can find, whether from the city or country, to pour it out, garnished with all the pungency of low wit, and prurient fancy, and perverted genius, to the gaze of the young and the old. Pittsburgh Catholic. Cheap books are a necessity, and a necessity which need bring, moreover, no loss to either authors or publishers. Michel Levy. 9 130 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A max cannot choose his own life. He cannot say : " I will take existence lightly, ;;nd keep out of the way of the wretched, mistaken, energetic creatures who fight so hearti- ly in the great battle." He cannot say : " I will stop in the tents while the strife is fought, and laugh at the fools who are trampled down in the useless struggle." He cannot do this. He can only do, humbly and fearfully, that which the Maker who created him has appointed for him to do. If he has a battle to fight, let him fight it faithfully. But woe betide him if he skulks when his name is called in the mighty muster-roll! woe betide him if he hides in the tents when the tocsin summons him to the scene of war! Miss M. E. Braddon. The power to converse well is a very great charm. You think anybody can talk ? How mistaken you are. Any- body can chatter. Anybody can exchange idle gossip. Anybody can recapitulate the troubles of the kitchen, the cost of the last new dress, and the probable doings of the neighbors. But to talk wisely, instructively, freshly and delightfully, is an immense acomplishment. it implies ex- ertion, observation, study of books and people, and recep- tivity of impression. Husk in. The honk-canvasser is a missionary of culture; his pro- spectus is more honorable than the sword. J. D. (f Connor. Tin-: fierce confederate storm Of sorrow barricadoed evermore Within the walls of cities. Words'i-orth. Christ should be the diamond in the bosom of every sermon. Thomas H. Skhxntr. D.D. SIGNAL LIGHTS. 131 Every calling is constantly making a silent, invisible draft on the talent and energy of the country, which is strong or weak in proportion to the attractiveness of the prizes which it offers, and men make up their minds whether to enter it or not at an age while choice is still free, and when ambition and hope are still free. They do not, how- ever, publish their reasons for going into any particular calling or put them on record anywhere; but everybody who knows young men knows what they are. Men begin- nii _r life do not ask for certainties, but they do ask for a :':; : r chance of pecuniary ease and social consideration if the prospect of wealth be wanting ; and year by year and gen- eration to generation the ability of the community turns away from professions in which this chance is small. The Nation. Remorse may disturb the slumbers of a man who is dabbling with his first experiences of wrong; and when the pleasure has been tasted and is gone, and nothing is left of the crime but the ruin which it has wrought, then too the furies take their seats upon the midnight pillow. But the meridian of evil is, for the most part, left unvexed; and when a man has chosen his road, he is left alone to follow it to the end. Froude. Hearts more or less, I suppose we have, but we keep them so close-cased and padlocked — we wear an outside so hard or dry — that little or none of the love that may be within escapes to gladden those around us. And so life passes without any of the sweetening to society that comes when affection is not only felt but expressed. And we are poorer, for love unexpressed brings no reward. The prin- ciple of the parable of the buried talent underlies this matter. B etcher. 132 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Looking over the world on a broad scale, do we not find that public entertainments have very generally been the sops thrown out by the engrossing upper classes to keep the lower classes from inquiring too particularly into their rights, and to make them satisfied with a stone, when it was not quite convenient to give them bread ? Wherever there is a class that is to be made content to be plundered of its rights, there is an abundance oi' fiddling and dancing; and amusements, public and private, are in great requisition. It may also be set down, I think, as a general axiom, that people feel the need of amusements less and less, precisely in proportion as they have solid reasons for being happy. Harriet Beecher Stowe. XIV. PULPIT TOKCHES. That a man stand and speak of spiritual things to men! It is beautiful; even in its great obscuration and decadence, it is among the beautifullest, most touching objects one sees on the earth. This speaking man has indeed, in these times, wandered terribly from the point; has, alas, as it were, totally lost sight of' the point! yet, at bottom, whom have we to compare with him? I wish he could find the point again, this speaking one, and stick to it with tenacity, with deadly energy, for there is need of him yet! Carlyle. Modern preaching has become, alas ! too often, a mere professional solemnity on the one hand, and a respectful non-attention on the other. Iiev. Dr. Hamilton. PULPIT TOECHES. 133 It is the province of the preachers of Christianity to de- velope the connection between this world and the next; to watch over the beginnings of a course which will endure forever, and to trace the broad shadows cast from imperish- able realities on the shifting scenery of earth. N. Y. Herald. Without treasures of thought, without solid convictions, without a feeling of strength, with nothing but feverish haste and that poorest of gifts, the gift of words flattering and belittling borrowed thoughts, some leap into the pulpit, as if it were heroic rather than foolhardy to take responsi- bilities to which they were not equal, as if a call consisted of bold desire. Ex-President Woolsey. The sermon is now the true poppy of literature. David Swing. Affectation is bad enough anywhere; in the pulpit it is intolerable. Edinburgh Review. If it has pleased God to save men by " the foolishness of preaching, " it has not been by choosing fools to be preachers. Gail Hamilton. On, it were a nobler triumph of the modern pulpit to see men of strong principles and self-controlling wisdom gath- ering round them the most boisterous elements of our social atmosphere, conducting the lightnings with which its dark- est thunder-clouds are charged, and showing to the nation they have saved that the preaching of the cross is still the power of God. Beecher. Reading sermons is official, pedantic, heartless. In speaking without notes there is earnestness, reality, power. Parker's " Ad Clemm." 134 GOLDEN GLEAMS. And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. Goldsmith. Preaching to the conscience appeals to the reason with- out falling into rationalism; to the fears without producing terrorism; to the feelings without falling into sentimental- ism; and arouses the intellect without leading to scholasti- cism. Man's conscience when rightly touched is always on the side of truth. Princeton Review. Harm is done by everything which tends to vulgarize re- ligion. Religion is the highest and most solemn concern of man. Anything like an adequate conception of God will inspire a religious assembly and a preacher with profound awe. Everything that savors of levity or flippancy in con- nection with this subject, ought to excite the deepest repug- nance. " Tis pitiful To court a grin when you should woo a smile," The intrusion of low wit into the teaching of religion is unspeakably disgusting to a reverent mind. Namby- pamby songs may not be offensive in the same degree, but they are offensive. Whatever tends to abase the majesty of religion, and invest the word of God and the truths of the Gospel with mean and vulgar associations, is not only re- volting in itself but is baneful in its influence. How plain and simple are the teachings of Christ! A child can under- stand Him. Yet the New Testament is in the highest style of thought. There is nothing low, nothing grotesque. What a divine seriousness and beauty belong to the beati- tudes, to the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount, to the oarables of our Lord! PULPIT TORCHES. 135 Send your audience away with a desire for, and an im- pulse towards, spiritual improvement, or your preaching will be a failure. Preach to the conscience. Goulburn. If a minister can convince the people in the first five minutes that he only aims to save their souls, he will kill all the critics in the house. Moody. Character in a preacher is the very force in the bow that launches the arrow. It is the latent heat behind the words that gives them direction and projectile force. Z. M. Humphrey, D.D. The great reason why we have so little good preaching is that we have so little piety. To be eloquent one must be earnest; he must not only act as if he were in earnest, or try to be in earnest — he must be in earnest, or he cannot be effective. J, W. Alexander, D.D. One word spoken in the pulpit when faith is strong and the heart is at peace with God, is worth a thousand words spoken in unbelief and sin. Spurgeon. Oh, if every one could put his arms round one other one, and save him from perdition, it would be worth a lifetime of exertion. If you can lie down upon the bed of death, and ask, of what avail has been my living? and only one re- deemed by your agency, only one shall stand before you, only one upon whom you can fix your dying eyes, and feel, God has given me that as a seal to my ministry, oh it were enough ! It were enough, for the redemption of one human soul — when we consider what man is — worth all God's ma- terial universe, is worth a lifetime of toil and self-denial to accomplish. John 13. Gough. 136 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Preaching may be compared to lightning, of which it is said there are three kinds — the flash, the zig-zag and the slant. The flash looks brilliant, lights up the sky, and peo- ple gaze at it with wonder. The zig-zag is here, and there, and everywhere, darting from cloud to cloud without any apparent object or effect. But the slant sends the bolt right down to the earth, and rives the gnarled oak, and is mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. Enoch Pond, D.D. Speak the truth; let it fall upon the hearts of men with all the imparted energy by which the spirit gives it power; but speak the truth in love. Jttev. William Morley Punshon. Pack your sermons. Let your introduction be a rifle- shot at the theme. Jump at once in medias res and say your best things first, and be sure to stop when you get through. Wm. 31. Paxton, D.D. It is a common saying that religion has nothing to do with politics, and particularly there is a strong feeling cur- rent against all interference with politics by the ministers of religion. But to say that religion has nothing to do with politics, is to assert that which is simply false. It wore as wise to say that the atmosphere has nothing to do with the principles of architecture. Religion is the vital air of every question. Directly, it determines nothing — indirectly, it conditions every problem that can arise. F. W. Robertson. Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The devil always builds a chapel there; And 'twill be found, upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation. Defoe. PULPIT TOECHES. 137 A man" may cry church ! church ! at every word, With no more piety than other people; A daw's not reckoned a religious bird Because it keeps a-cawing from the steeple. Hood. The pulpit plagiarist ruins his style. He is one man one week, another man the next. He is South the first Sun- day of the month, Barrow the second ; the third, he roars with Spurgeon; the fourth, he adopts the conversational method of Newman Hall ; he opens the next month with Robertson, then assumes the glitter and elaborate style of Bascomb, then attempts the description of Simpson, and clo- ses with Beecher or Talmage. "What personal style can he de- velop? What custom is he fitting to himself? None. He is a being of slabs, each from a separate quarry, and as di- verse as porphyry and gray free-stone. Sometimes he puts all these into one sermon. Rev. J. M. Buckley. I am sick of opinions. I weary to hear them. My soul loathes this frothy food. Give me solid and substantial religion. Give me an humble, gentle lover of God and man; a man full of mercy and good fruits, " without partiality and without hypocrisy;" a man laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, and the labor of love. Let my soul be with these Christians, wheresoever they are and whatsoever opinion they are of. John Wesley. Christ fits his ministers, through manifold experience of sorrow and pain, for the highest service. He writes their best sermons for them on their own hearts by the sharp stylus of trial. Such as he would make most eminent in his service, he takes farthest with him into Gethsemane. W. M. Taylor, D.D. 138 GOLDEN GLEAMS. There is an endless merit in a man's knowing when to have done. The stupidest man, if lie will be brief in pro- portion, may fairly claim some hearing from us; he, too, the stupidest man, has seen something, heard something which is his own, distinctly peculiar, never seen or heard by any man in this world before; let him tell us that — he, brief in proportion, shall be welcome. Carlyle. Ask you where the place of religious might is? Not the place of religious privileges — not where prayers are daily, and sacraments monthly — not where sermons are so abund- ant as to pall upon the pampered taste, but on the hillside with the Covenanter; in the wilderness with John the Bap- tist; in our own dependencies, where the liturgy is rarely heard and Christian friends meet at the end of months; there, amid manifold disadvantages, when the soul is thrown upon itself, a few kindred spirits and God, grow up those heroes of faith, like the centurion, whose linn conviction wins admiration even from the Son of God himself. F. W. Robertson. We want originality and authority in our preaching, and we can only get them by being deeply imbued with the Scriptures. We must master their structure and meaning and must drink deep of their inspiration. And to be effect- ive in this age of the world, when mind is so active and men's taste is so cultivated, our pulpit style must have the three great properties of plainness, beauty and force. Shedd. The preservation of the ministry in the face and in the midst of many trials, difficulties and discouragements, in the midst of want, perplexity, hardship and sorrow, is one of the most convincing proofs of the divinity of the Christian religion. Cyrus Dickson, D.D. PULPIT TORCHES. 139 It is a fitting opportunity to advert to the fact that a re- vival of religion has at length come to express but one sin- gle idea. The only idea that phrase suggests to most minds, is the idea of increase of numbers. There are important consequences distinctly traceable to this error. It has created in many minds a sort of mania for mere acquisition of numbers; it has created an artificial standard of judg- ment as to the value or efficiency of ministerial work, and has produced a new class of men whose specialty is to tramp over the country for the exclusive object of getting up revivals. But the revivalist mania has about run its course, as it has ceased to be sensational. The moral power and efficiency of the church is not always increased, but is often diminished by the accession of mere numbers. There is far greater need for a revival in quality, than for one of mere quantity. Sonthicestem Presbyterian. A genuine revival means a trimming of personal lamps. Theo. L. Cuyler. Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine. Savonarola. It is the property of the religious spirit to be the most re- fining of all influences. No external advantages, no cul- ture of the taste, no habit of command, no association with the elegant, or even depth of affection, can bestow that del- icacy and that grandeur of bearing which belong only to the mind accustomed to celestial conversation. All else is but gilt and cosmetics beside this, as expressed in every look and gesture. Emerson. If you ever saw a crow with a king-bird after him, you will get an image of a dull speaker and a lively listener. Holm-s. 140 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The listener is the natural enemy of the speaker. August Prtault. It is our hearers who inspire us. Vinet. A man's call to the ministry consists in his ability to preach the Gospel and the willingness of the people to hear him. Stephen H. Tyng, D.D. It is a great deal better to live a holy life than to talk about it. We are told to let our light shine, and if it does we won't need to tell anybody it does. The light will be its own witness. Light-houses don't ring bells and fire cannon to call attention to their shining — they just shine. D. L. Moody. The Sabbath-school is the church among the children, coming into closest contact with them, teaching them the Gospel and leading them to a personal knowledge of the Saviour. It is an adjunct of the church and family — not a substitute for either. Duryea. Go to work! Nothing is more salutary to the human soul than the direct work of saving men. Whatever your theory may be of this or that doctrine, there is man dying in his need, and there is a power which you may apply for his transformation. Therefore go to work upon men and with men. There is restorative influence in that work. I know that whatever doubts I may have, once let my heart and hand join together in working with men for their salva- tion, and my doubts disappear. The sweetest thought I ever had of God came to me in the act of laboring for my fellow-men. The most glorious views I ever had of man's interior life and of essential divine truths were ministered to me when I was working for the salvation of others. JBeecher. PULPIT TOUCHES. 141 "VVeary human nature lays its head on the bosom of the divine Word, or it has nowhere to lay its head. Tremblers on the verge of the dark and terrible valley which parts the land of the living from the untried hereafter, take this hand of human tenderness, yet of godlike strength, or they totter into the gloom without stop or stay. They who look their last look upon the beloved dead, listen to this voice of soothing and peace, or else death is no uplifting of ever- lasting doors, and no enfolding in everlasting arms, but an ending as appalling to the reason as to the senses — the usher to a charnel-house — whose highest faculties and no- blest feelings lie crushed with the animal wreck, and an in- finite tragedy, maddening and sickening — a blackness of darkness forever. Reply to Essays and Reviews. I would not for ten thousand worlds be that man, who, when God shall ask him at last how he has employed most of his time while he continued a minister of His Church and had the care of souls, shall be obliged to reply: "Lord, I have restored many corrupted passages in the classics, and illustrated many which were before obscure; I have cleared up many intricacies in chronology or geography; I have solved many perplexed cases in algebra; I have re- fined on astronomical calculations, and left behind me many sheets on these curious and difficult subjects; and these are the employments in which my life has been worn out, while preparations for the pulpit and ministrations in it did not demand my more immediate attention." Oh, sirs ! as for the waters that are drawn from these springs, how sweetly soever they may taste to the curious mind that thirsts after them, or to an ambitious mind that thirsts for the applause they sometimes procure, I fear there is too often reason to pour them out before the Lord, with rivers of penitential tears, as the blood of souls which have bee:; forgotten. whilst these trifles have been remembered and pursued. Doddridge. 142 GOLDEN GLEAMS. As things stand at present, our creeds and confessions have become effete, and the Bible a dead letter; and that orthodoxy, which was at one time the glory, by withering into the inert and lifeless, is now the shame and the reproach of all our churches. C It aimers. Events, with trumpet-call, summon us to our post, with every faculty awake, and every energy engaged. Amidst the din of business, of politics, of science, and of fashion; amidst the jests of laughers, the eloquence of orators, and the clamor of parties, the voice of the preacher will not be heard unless he speak loudly, nor listened to unless he speak earnestly; we shall gain no heed for our religion unless we put forth all our strength; it will be pushed aside, overborne, trampled clown in the jostling crowd, if we do not put forth our mightiest energies to bear it up, and to make way for it through the strife and the theory of abounding secularities. J. A. James. Luther rebelled against the Pope in behalf of the min- istry; Wesley rebelled against the ministry in behalf of the laity. The Pauline Church made every saint a worker. Tiiis was soon perverted and corrupted by Rome, and though Luther and Wesley have dune much, we are not out of the clutches of Rome yet. Woman should have her voice in the church. All forces should be utilized, and every one should have a right to serve God, as the grace of God has made him able. Rev. W. II. II. Murray. The men and women who deride the enthusiasm of a Christian heart, and affect to be cold and cynical as regards the rescue of a soul from death, are often the very ones who beggar the language in their raptures over some work of art, perhaps a "consummate " teacup or "precious" pic- ture. Sunday School Times. PULPIT TORCHES. 143 To return thanks for the operation of the Spirit of God in the conversion of sinners, is the most delightful part of a minister's duty. Christmas Evans. What is ministerial success? Crowded churches, full aisies, attentive congregations, the approval of the religious world, much impression produced ? Elijah thought so; and when he found out his mistake, and discovered that the ap- plause on Carmel subsided into hideous stillness, his heart wellnigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives and obedient, humble hearts; unseen work recognized in the judgment day. F. W. Robertson. Some people, judging from their reluctance to give a word of encouragement to their minister, seem to think it is better for him to die of depression than to run the risk of being inflated by a compliment. James M. Crowell, D.D. An ! languid hand, safe in some scented glove, Drop that bright prayer-book; catch at rock and thorn; Give alms of bread — give truer alms of love — To other hands whose stains and scars you scorn ! Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt. The increasing exactions of the church and the world upon ministers, make it necessary that they should be espe- cially honored and supported. In culture, in piety, in earn- est, self-sacrificing work, as reformers, as teachers, as leaders of society, they are now more than ever required to be in the front. But they are often crippled if not paralyzed by un- just depreciation and by inadequate support. The church has never done its full duty to its clergy. It must learn to do so, or else be satisfied with a weak and inefficient ministry. Rev. Lawrence M. Colfelt. 144 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I have sought to counsel you in your perplexities, to comfort you in your troubles, to soothe you in your sick- nesses, and strengthen you amid your infirmities. I have knelt beside your beds of pain, commending you to the God of all comfort; and have read to you from His blessed Book the words that brought you strength and help. When your precious ones were leaving you, I have tried to help them as they went down into the dark valley; said the last words over their cold forms, and in the after desolation in your darkened chambers, seated beside you in the loneliness of \ our empty homes, have sought to assuage your sorrow with the comfort wherewith I myself, in like trouble, was com- forted of God. Thomas 11. Ufarkham, D.D. Out of the pulpit I would be the same man I was in it, seeing and feeling the realities of the unseen; and in the pulpit I would be the same man I was out of it, taking facts as they are, and dealing with things as they show them- selves in the world. G c o rg e JIcDo n a Id. We know our place and our portion; to give a witness and to be condemned; to be ill-used and to succeed. Such is the law which God has annexed to the promulgation of the truth; its preachers suffer, but its cause prevails. Cardinal, Newman. After all, it is the utterance of personal conviction that serious men want. The shortest way of coming at men's hearts, and sometimes the shortest way of coming at men's heads, is to tell what you, personally willing to take the leap into the unseen, are depending upon. Joseph Cook. Clergymen" while speaking in the pulpit have their own thoughts about certain toilets and faces down in the pews, *q<1 along with their arguments, that might seem to prove WATCH-FIRES. 145 the existence of heaven or hell, they cannot avoid the re- flection that Mrs. Oleander has gotten a new shawl, or that Miss Columbine has returned from Europe or Long Branch; but the rules of public address demand that from this mul- tiplicity of ideas in the brain, a judicious selection should be made by the speaker, and that in his assumed discourse on some theological theme he must suppress his views about Mrs. Oleander and Miss Columbine. David Swing. XY. WATCH-FIRES. One there is who has silently advanced through time from the beginning. Bloody ages — brilliantly splendid epochs — are merely dissimilar chambers, through which he has advanced, silently, calmly, becoming more and more dis- tinct through the twilight veil, until he has reached the pe- riod on the threshold of which he now stands — contemplated bv many with rapture, by many with fear. And if it is asked where is this form before whom thrones totter, crowns fall off, and earthly purples grow pale, the reply is — Man, man in his original Truth — man formed in the image of God. Frederika Bremer. What science calls the uniformity of nature, faith accepts as the fidelity of God. It is a wonderful sermon that science is all the while preaching to us from this text, " God is faithful." Let us lay to heart the lesson, and be thankful for the teaching that has brought it home to us with such power and impressiveness. Martineau. 10 146 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Lkt there be no more accursed races on the earth. Let every one act according to his conscience, and communicate freely with his God. Let thought be only corrected by the contradiction of thought. Let error be an infirmity, and not a crime. Let us agree in acknowledging that opinions sometimes take possession of our understanding quite inde- pendent of our will or desire. Let us be so just as to be enabled to see even to what degree each race has contribu- ted to the universal education of humanity. Castelar. Ixstixct is a propensity prior to experience and inde- pendent of instruction. Pa ley. God, who keeps his word with the birds and fishes in their migratory instinct, will keep his word with man. Philosophy has sometimes forgotten God, as a great people never did. The scepticism of the last century could not uproot Christianity, because it lived in the hearts of the millions. Do you think that infidelity iss re in ;'.' Christiani- ty never lived in the hearts of so many millions as at this mo- ment. The forms under which it is professed may decay, for they, like all that is the work of man's hands, are sub- ject to the changes and chances of mortal being; but the spirit of truth is incorruptible; it may be developed, illus trated and applied; it can never die; it never can decline. No truth can perish — no truth can pass away. The flame is undying, though generations disappear. Wherever moral truth has started into being, humanity claims and guards the bequest. Each generation gathers together the imper- ishable children of the past, and increases them by the new sons of the light, alike radiant and immortal. Bancroft. WATCH-FIRES. 147 Ix the whole realm of nature there is never found an un- answerable instinct. The insect knows where to deposit its eggs so that its offspring, alone and unguided by paren- tal touch, may find its necessary food. The bee and the bird work by rules that never change or fail. If, in these minor forms of life, no calculation is disappointed, no pur- posed end unaccomplished, how much more shall this uni- versal human longing after immortality be answered in the final 'lay? Alexander Clark, D.D. No candid observer will deny that whatever of good there may be in our American civilization is the product of Chris- tianity. Still less, can he deny that the grand motives which are working for the elevation and purification of our society are strictly Christian. The immense energies of the Chris- tian Church, stimulated by a love that shrinks from no ob- stacle, are all bent toward this great aim of universal purifi- cation. These millions of sermons and exhortations, which are a constant power for good, these countless prayers and sings of praise, on which the heavy-laden lift their hearts above the temptations and sorrows of the world, are all the product of faith in Jesus Christ. That which gives us pro- tection by day and by night — the dwellings we live in, the clothes we wear, the institutions of social order — all these are the direct offspring of Christianity. All that distinguishes .is from the Pagan world — all that makes us what we are, and all that stimulates us in the task of making ourselves better than we are — is Christian. A belief in Jesus Christ is the very fountain-head of everything that is desirable and praiseworthy in our civilization, and this civilization is the flower of time. Humanity has reached its noblest thrift, its grandest altitudes of excellence, its high-water mark through the influence of this faith. Springfield Republican. Free-love is the tidal wave of hell. John Chambers, D.D. 148 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Christ was many ages in advance of the world, and in the effort to catch up with such a leader, the world is busy to-day, and will be busy for generations to come. Long is the distance to be passed over by mankind; but the result is worthy the long march. Each century will die a little nearer the feet of the Lord. David Swing. The theological speculatists of Great Britain constitute a class of minds who have gone just far enough into German speculation to be dazzled by it, and not far enough to mas- ter it. Christlit'i. Love would put a new face on this dreary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long; and it would warm the heart to see how fast the vain diplomacy of statesmen, the impotence of armies and navies and lines of defense, would be superseded by this unarmed child. Emerson. Ma\y groans arise from dying men, which we hear not. Many cries are uttered bv widows and fatherless children, which reach not our ears; many cheeks are wet with tears, and faces sad with unutterable grief, which we see not. Cruel tyranny is encouraged. The hands of robbers are strengthened, and thousands are kept in helpless slavery, who never injured us. John Woo/man. Liberty! Equality! Fraternity! There is nothing to add, nothing to retrench. They are the three steps of the su- preme ladder. Liberty is right; equality is fact; fraternity is duty. All the man is there. Victor Hugo. Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the peopie. fflackstone. WATCH-FIRES. 149 The sober second thought of the people is seldom wrong. President Van Buren. I have seen the sea lashed into i'ury and tossed into spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest man, but I remember that it is not the billows, but the calm level of the sea, from which all heights and depths are measured. When the storm has passed and the hour of calm settles on the ocean, when the sunlight bathes its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor take the level from which to measure all terrestrial heights and depths. Gentlemen of the convention, your present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our people when our enthusiasm has passed. When the emotions of this hour have subsided we shall find that calm level of public opinion below the storm, from which the thoughts of a mighty people are to be meas- ured, and by whi'" their final action will be determined. Not here in this brilliant circle, where fifteen thousand men and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republican party to be declared. Not here, where I see the faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates waiting to cast their votes in the urn and determine the choice of the republic, but by four million Republican firesides, where the thoughtful voters, with wives and children about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by the love of home and country, with the history of the past, the hopes of the future and a knowdedge of the great men who have adorned and blessed our nation in davs gone by, there God prepares the verdict that shall de- termine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in Chicago, in the heats of June, but in the sober quiet that comes to them between now and November; in the silence of delib- erate judgment will the great question be settled. James A. Garfield. We live in this worl i only for the favorable opinions of the good and noble. How crushing it must be to occupy with them a position of ambiguous respect ! Col. E. K. Kane. 150 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The plea of emotional insanity or transitory mania, or what- ever name may be given to the excuse, has become almost ridiculous. Our experiences in respect to this subject have led us to regard the present aspect which the insanity plea has assumed as repulsive to justice, and fatal to society. When it is not even pretended that a criminal is the unfor- tunate victim of congenital or hereditary insanity, yet he pleads moral irresponsibility simply because of bad habits, or " criminal proclivities," there are no grounds, in law or justice, shown for his immunity from punishment. Society, law, justice and common sense have been too often out- raged by the imbecile sentimentality which has recognized •' paroxysmal insanity. " Judge Hoffman, 1881. Pi'BLic opinion is the collective judgment of men upon any given event or action. It is the groat unwritten law of society, a law which both advertises and enforces itself. It has never been codified, never been printed in type, never been filed for safe keeping in the archives of the state or nation, yet it is recognized and felt as a judicial force in so- ciety. It is the unwritten, common law of humanity, per- petuated by tradition, by memory, by the moral sense of each generation. It holds no court, yet its sitting is con- stant. Its court-room is the parlor, the study, the office, the street, the public assembly; wherever men and women meet to discuss and to converse. It has no official exis- tence, yet it is stronger than all your judges, stronger than vour police, stronger than your rulers, stronger than your journals, which are controlled by, while they create and in- terpret it. Rev. W. II. H. Murray. Man lives apart but not alone; He walks amid his peers unread; The best of thoughts that he hath known, For lack of listeners are never said. J tan Iuqelow. WATCH-FIRES. 151 Public opinion employs no officers, yet it follows and captures men with unfailing certainty. It builds no pris- ons, it has need of none, for it makes the world a jail, and every man a detective, to watch and restrain the suspected person. Its sentence is final, except when reversed by new light and new proof. Public opinion is, therefore, when analyzed, the unwritten, common law of the soul ; the daily, unnoted exercise of the judicial element in human nature, which makes every man a judge. And it is right that man should judge. Society must discriminate between the evil and the good ; the line of moral rectitude must be kept white; a judicial standard must be acknowledged. When moral discriminations shall no longer be made, moral secu- rity will no longer be possible. Rev. W. H. II Murray. The only way to clear the track of life is to leave no en- emy behind, nothing half apprehended, or half done. We Americans pride ourselves on our nenius, on the fruitful- ness of our inventions, on the speed with which we travel nnd send our thoughts. We tunnel mountains; cover the States with a net-work of iron rails; fly streamers on mast- heads over all the lakes and rivers; stretch cables under- neath the seas; talk with men miles away; turn out profes- sionals at a fearful rate; seem to accomplish, do accomplish, an infinite variety of large results in strangely short inter- vals of time. But, after all, what we need especially to learn, is the gospel of thoroughness. Rev. Dr. Twitchell. No man ever sailed over exactly the same route that an- other sailed over before him. Every man who starts on the ocean of life arches his sails to an untried breeze. Like ColerMge's mariner, "he is the first that ever burst into that lunely sea." William 3Iathec:s. 152 GOLD EX GLEAMS. Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable in order tc break through that tyranny, that people should be eccen- tric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded ; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has always been proportioned to the amount of genius, mental vigor and moral courage which it contained. That so few men now dare to be eccen- tric, marks the chief danger of the time. John Stuart Mill. It should be remembered that every loathsome inmate of penitentiaries and state prisons was once a gentle, inoffen- sive and prattling child; and that every criminal who has " expiated his crimes upon the gallows," was once pressed to a mother's heart. Bad moral training and example trans- form endearing offspring into hardened men, who often, despite their brilliant talent, shock the world by the black- ness of their guilt and the audacity of their crimes. Enoch Wines, J). J). Bayard Taylor and the school he represents, hold that " too much stress has been laid by reformers on the moral se?ise, and that what men now most need is cultured intellect and strong self-discipline and self-control." This is the apotheosis of culture. A favorite maxim with this class of thinkers is, that "the human intellect contains within itself the germs of goodness which will generally increase with its intellectual growth." But this is contrary to all the facts of history and experience, and can find no footing in the divine word; for while Hellenism, the very flower of human culture, was conscienceless, Hebraism and Chris- tianity taught the supremacy of conscience, and by appeal- ing to and educating man's moral nature, have done more to elevate the world than all the acutencss of Greece, the power of Home, or the polish of modern Europe. WATCH-FIRES. 153 Six runs to passion: passion to tumult in character: and a tumultuous character tends to tempests and explosions, which scorn secrecies and disguises. Then the whole man comes to light. He sees himself, and others see him, as he is in God's sight. Those solemn imperatives and their aw- ful responses:— " Thou shalt not"—" I will;" " Thou shalt" — " I will not " — make up, then, all that the man knows of intercourse with God. This is sin, in the ultimate and fin- ished type of it. This is what it grows to in every sinner, if unchecked by the grace of God. Every man unre- deemed becomes a demon in eternity. Austin Phelps, D.D. Come, Howard, from the gloom of the prison and the taint of the lazar-house, and show us what philanthropy can do when imbued with the spirit of Jesus; come, Eliot, from the thick forest where the red man listens to the Word of Life; come, Penn, from thy sweet counsel and weaponless victory, and show us what Christian zeal and Christian love can accomplish with the rudest barbarians and the fiercest hearts. Come, Raikes, from thy labors with the ignorant and the poor, and show us with what an eye this faith re- gards the lowest and least of our race; and how diligently it labors — not for the body, not for the rank, but for the plastic soul that is to course the ages of immortality. And ye, who are a great number, ye nameless ones, who have done good in your narrow spheres, content to forego renown on earth, and seeking your reward in the record on high — come and tell us how T kindly a spirit, how lofty a purpose, or how strong a courage the religion ye professed can breathe into the poor, the humble, and the weak. Go forth, then, Spirit of Christianity, to thy great work of Reform! The past bears witness to thee in the blood of thy martyrs, and the ashes of thy saints and heroes; the present is hopeful be- cause of thee ; the future shall acknowledge thy omnipo- tence. Chapin. 15 i GOLDEN GLEAMS. Love thyself last; cherish thou hearts that hate thee; Corruption wins not more than honesty; Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not; Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy Country's, Thy God's and Truth's; then, if thou fallest, 6 Cromwell! Thou fallest a blessed martyr. Shakespeare. All the rich treasures of the past are appropriated by Christianity — the moral culture of the Hebrew, the poetry and philosophy of Greece, the jurisprudence of Rome. All these, in so far as they are pure and good, are absorbed by Christianity, and ennobled and baptized by the Christian spirit. In Christian Europe, poetry, philosophy, science, flourish as they never flourished in any preceding age; and they lay their richest tribute at the feet of Christ, the Divine king of the world. Prof. Cocker. What! rest, ease here, in the ministry, or in Christian work? There is no rest here. Now is the time for bat ! ., for work! Heaven will be our rest. Now is the time for steady, prayerful, unflinching work. Moody. XVI. WATCH-FIRES. CONTINUED. The proposed religious amendment to the Constitution of the United States is unnecessary, impracticable and un- desirable. Christian law is the corner-stone of the irovern- WA i CH-FIRES. 155 ment. In its recognition of the Sabbath and its requirement of an oath, God and the supremacy of Christ are indirectly and inferentially recognized and honored by the Constitu- tion as it is; so that Christianity in its various connections permeates the entire structure of the government, and is its underlying and informing spirit. Chaplains are appointed, fasts and thanksgivings are recommended, and one of the most beautiful features of the government is the quiet, un- ostentatious working through it of Christian ideas. F. A. Noble, JD.D. Burn and destroy the idols of party you have wor- shiped; banish politics from the municipality and county, limiting it to questions affecting principles in the State and Nation; place competency and integrity at every part of the public service; adorn your courts with judges worthiest to wield the attributes of God; elect representatives that will reflect the majority of a free people; send to the sen- ate statesmen whom history will immortalize and nations make their models. Americans! the countless generations who will dwell within the confines of this continent from now to eternity confide their liberties to you. Uphold them, I implore you, with a patriotism that will never tire; guard them with a vigilance that will never sleep. Daniel Dougherty. I am struck with the fact that Bismarck, the great states- man of Germany, probably the foremost man in Europe to- day, stated as an unquestioned principle, that the support, the defense and the propagation of the Christian Gospel is the central object of the German Government. Our fa- thers, though recognizing, in common with Germany and other Christian nations of the earth, the supreme importance of religion among men, deliberately turned to the great nation they were about to establish, and said: "You shall never make any law about religion;" and turning to the States, they said, virtually, to them : " Vou shall 156 GOLDEN GLEAMS. never make any law establishing any form of religion." In other words, here was a right, an interest, too precious to be trusted either to the Nation or to the States. Our fathers said : "This highest of all human interests we will reserve to the people themselves. We will not delegate our power over it to any organized government, State or National We will not allow any Legislature to make any law con- cerning it." James A. Garfield. My countrymen ! this at niversary lias gone by forever, and my task is done. While I have spoken the hour has passed from us; the hand has moved upon the dial, and the old century is dead ! The American Union hath endured an hundred years ! Here, on the threshold of the future, the voice of Humanity shall not plead to us in vain. There shall be darkness in the days to come, danger for our courage, temptation for our virtue, doubt for our faith, suffering for our fortitude, a thousand shall fall before us and tens of thousands at our right hand. The years shall pass beneath, and century follow century in quick succes- sion. The generations of men shall come and go; the greatness of yesterday shall be forgotten to-day, and the glories of this noon shall vanish before to-morrow's sun; but America shall not perish, but endure while the spirit of our fathers animates their sons. Henry Armitt Broxni. That motionless shaft will be the most powerful of speak- ers. Its speech will be of civil and religious liberty. It will speak of patriotism and of courage. It will speak of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind. De- crepit age will lean against its base, and ingenuous youth gather round it, while they speak to each other of the glo- rious events with which it is connected, and exclaim, "Thank God! I also am an American!" Daniel Webster. wATcn-Fiins 157 It may bo not unreasonably said that the preservation of the States and the maintenance of their governments are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the Na- tional government. The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestruct- ible States. Chief Justice Chase. My countrymen ! the moments are quickly passing, and we stand like some traveler upon a lofty crag that separate- two boundless seas. The century that is closing is com- plete. " The past," said your great statesman, "is secure. "' It is finished and beyond our reach. The hand of detrac- tion cannot dim its glories, nor the tears of repentance wipe away its stains. Its good and evil, its joy and sorrow, its truth and falsehood, its honor and its shame, we cannot touch. Sigh for them, blush for them, weep for them, if we will, we cannot change them now. The old century is dy- ing and they are to be buried with him; his history is fin- ished and they will stand upon its roll forever. The century that is opening is all our own. The years that are before us are a virgin page. We can inscribe them as we will. The future of our country rests upon us. The happiness of posterity depends on us. The fate of human- ity may be in our hands. That pleading voice, choked with the sobs of ages, which has so often spoken to deaf ears, is lifted up to us. It asks us to be brave, benevolent, con- sistent, true to the teachings of our history, proving "divine descent by worth divine." It asks us to be virtuous, build- ing up public virtue upon private worth; seeking that righteousness which exalteth nations. It asks us to be pa- triotic, loving our country before all other things; making her happiness our happiness, her honors ours, her fame our own. It asks us in the name of Charity, in the name of Freedom, in the name of God! Henry Armitt Brown. 158 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Wherever party spirit shall strain the ancient guaran- tees of freedom, or bigotry and ignorance shall lay their fatal hands upon education, or the arrogance of caste shall strike at equal rights, or corruption shall poison the very springs of national life — there, minute-men of liberty! are your Lexington Green and Concord Bridge, and as you love your country and your kind, and would have your chil- dren rise up and call you blessed, spare not the enemy! Over the hills, out of the earth, down from the clouds, pour in resistless might. Fire from every rock and tree, from door and window, from hearthstone and chamber, hang upon his flank and rear from noon to sunset, and so, through a land blazing with holy indignation, hurl the hordes of ignorance and corruption and injustice, back, back, in utter defeat and ruin. George William Curtis. She takes but to give again, As the sea returns the rivers in rain, And gathers the chosen of her seed From the hunted of every crown and creed. Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine ; Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine : Her France pursues some dream divine ; Her Norway keeps his mountain pine ; Her Italy waits by the western brine ; And, broad-based under all, Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, As rich in fortitude As e'er went worldward from the island wall. Fused in her candid light, To one strong race all races here unite ; Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan. 'Twas glory once to be a Roman ; She makes it glory now to be a man. Bayard Taylor. WATCH-FIRES. 15£ The land which freemen till, Which sober-suited freedom chose ; A land where, girt with friends or foes, A man may speak the thing he will ; A land of settled government ; A land of free and old renown, Where freedom slowly settles down From precedent to precedent. T envy son. Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle- field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fit- ting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sine.' we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long re- member what we say here; but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedi- cated here to the unfinished work which they, who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause, for which they gave the last full measure of de- votion; that we here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth. Abraham Lincoln; (Dedication of the Gettysburg Cemetery, Nov., 1863.) 160 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Even from this brief review it is manifest that the na- tion is resolutely facing to the front, resolved to em ploy- its best energies in developing the great possibilities of the future, sacredly preserving whatever has been gained to liberty and good government during the century. Our people are determined to leave behind them all those bit- ter controversies concerning things which have been irre- vocably settled, further discussion of which can only stir up strife and delay the onward march. ****** It has been said that unsettled questions have no pity for the repose of nations. It should be said, with the ut- most emphasis, that this question of suffrage will never give repose or safety to the States or to the Nation, until each, within its own jurisdiction, makes and keeps the bal- lot free and pure by the strong sanctions of law. James A. Garfehl, There can be no prosperity nor virtue nor glory in the aggregate when the individual is false to the higher dic- tates within him. By night, by day, at home, abroad, in the field, the mart, the workshop, the closet, the caucus, the legislative hall, the magistrate's chair- — let him remem- ber that, wherever he acts, whatever he does, he acts as a complete moral agent, personally, directly responsible to God. Let him remember that he ever represents the state. Let him consider every public transaction in which he is engaged as a private affair, and to that end, in private af- fairs, let him at all hazards do right. Let a vile deed to which he has given the least countenance, no matter how remote in its operation from his immediate interests, tin- gle his cheek with shame, as if he had lost personal credit and respect thereby. Let the maxim that ' all is fair in polities' sound as discordant to his ears as the maxim that 'all is fair in religion, ' 'ad is fair in trade,' ' all is fair in any act of intercourse between man and man.' Let him remember that no movement is so exclusively public as to WATCH-FIRES. 1G1 take away the force of individual responsibility ; that no multitude is so large as to absorb his moral personality ; •out there, in that public movement, there, in that huge crowd, he stands as if he were standing alone in the uni- verse, spiritually naked, listening to the judgment of God and the beating of his own heart. Chap in. What cordial welcomes greet the guest By the lone rivers of the West! How faith is kept and truth revered And man is loved and God is feared, In woodland homes, And where the ocean-border foams! There's freedom at our gates, and rest For earth's downtrodden and oppressed, A shelter for the hunted head, For the starved worker toil and bread; Power at thy bounds Stops and calls back his baffled hounds. Bryant. On, keep their memory green who led A suffering Nation's hope forlorn ! What blows they gave ! What blood they shed ! What pangs their patience learned to scorn I The patriot saviors ! Swift they rose The primal rights of men to shield ; Their bleeding feet and tattered clothes, The unconquered, dauntless soul revealed. Remember valor's piteous plight, In Valley Forge, the camp of prayer ; Mark wan hope's agonizing night, Storm-mocked on frozen Delaware. My heart reveres a stately name, Which, bright and fadeless as a star, 11 162 GOLDEX GLEAMS. Shines lambent in the sky of fame, Above remembered clouds of war. The name of men's ideal man, — Of heroes great the greatest one, — The world-praised, pure American, — Home-worshiped, godlike Washington. Still, as his birthday circles round, The people's hearts foreknow the time ; Sound, loui 1 , majestic music, sound ! And happy bells, rejoicing chime ! And let stern cannon jar the earth"; For it is meet their echoing boom Should celebrate our freedom's birth, And re-pronounce oppression's doom. W. II. Venable, What constitutes a state ? Not high-raised battlements or labored mound, Thick wall or moated gate ; Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Not bays and broad-armed ports, Where, laughing at the storms, rich navies ride; Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-browed baseness waits perfume to pride. No ; men, high-minded men, With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude — Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain — Prevent the long aimed blow, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain — These constitute a state; And sovereign law, that state's collected will, WATCH-FIRES. 163 O'er thrones and globes elate Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill, Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend, dissension, like a vapor sinks; And e'en the all-dazzling crown Hides its faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Leslos fairer, and the Cretan shore 1 No more shall freedom smile? Shall Britons languish, and be men no more ? Since all must life resign, Those sweet rewards which decorate the brave ' Tis folly to decline, And steal inglorious to the silent grave. Sir William Jones. For not in quiet English fields Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, Where we might deck their broken shields With all the flowers the dead love best. For some are by the Delhi walls, And many in the Afghan land, And many where the Ganges falls Through seven mouths of shifting sand. And some in Russian waters lie, And others in the seas which are The portals to the East, or by The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? Where is our English chivalry? Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, And sobbing waves their threnody. And thou whose wounds are never healed, Whose weary race is never won; Cromwell's England! must thou yield For every inch of ground a son? 164 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head; Change thy glad song to song of pain; Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, And will not yield them back again. Oscar Wilde. XVII. WATCH-FIRES. CONCLUDED. A critic is now aware that his personal taste has no value, that he must set aside his temperament, inclinations, party and interests ; that, above all, his talent lies in sym- pathy, that his first essay in history should consist in put- ting himself in the place of the men whom he is desirous of judging, to enter into their instincts and habits, to espouse their sentiments, to re-think their thoughts, to reproduce within himself their inward condition, to represent to him- self minutely and substantially their surroundings, to fol- low in imagination the circumstances and the impres- sions which, added to their innate tendency, have deter- mined their actions and guided their lives. Such a course, in placing us at an artistic point of view, permits us better to comprehend them ; and as it is composed of analysis, it is, like every scientific operation, capable of verification and perfectibility. By following this method, we have been able to approve and disapprove of this or that artist, to condemn one and praise another part of the same work, to determine the nature of values, to point out progress or decline, to recognize periods of bloom or decay, not arbi- trarily, but according to a common criterion. Taint. WATCH-FIRES. 165 Let us not fall into the vulgar whim and dishonor the century in which we live. Erasmus called the sixteenth century the " excrement of times ;" Bossuet thus char- acterizes the seventeenth century : " A time wicked and small ;" Rousseau stigmatizes the eighteenth century in these terms : " This great rottenness in which we live." Posterity has decided against these illustrious minds. She has said to Erasmus, " The sixteenth century is grand ;" to Bossuet, " The seventeenth century is grand;" to Rous- seau, "The eighteenth century is grand." The infamy of these centuries must have been real, yet these strong men were wrong in complaining. The thinker ought to accept with simplicity and calmness, the center in which Provi- dence has placed him. Victor Hugo. This spirit of free thought may be seen in every depart- ment of active life and dry speculation. The most casual observer may detect its presence and recognize its influence in the sphere of civil government. First principles are called into question. The right of property is disputed. The supremacy of the state is made a fiction. The law is made void of authority without the unanimous consent of the governed. The whole machinery of civil government becomes dependent upon the changing whims of the masses, and the nation itself possesses no divine right except as derived from the people. The educational world is also subject to the inroads of the same rash mode of thought. Intellectual discipline is at a discount. Utilitarian instruc- tion is in high demand. Classical lore is a useless fable. Mathematics is a torture to which no virtuous man should be condemned. Business colleges are crowded with young men hurrying into active life, and the whole tendency is to leave behind the standard means by which alone the intel- lect may be developed and the mind thoroughly strength- ened. Henry C. Minion. lbb GOLDEN GLEAMS. It suppresses duration, it suppresses space, it suppresses suffering; it writes a letter from Paris to London, and it has the answer in ten minutes; it amputates a man's thigh while the man is singing and smiling. It has only to realize — and it is close upon it — a progress which is nothing at the side of the other miracles which it has already done; it has only to find the means to propel in a mass of air a bubble of air still lighter ; it has already secured the air-bubble, and it holds it imprisoned; it has only to find the impelling force, only to make the vacuum before the balloon, for example, i nly to burn the air before it, as the rocket would ; it has only to resolve in some such way this problem, and it will resolve it; and do you know what will happen ? At that very instant frontiers will vanish, barriers will retire, every- thing which is a Chinese wall around thought, around com- merce, around industry, around nationalities, around pro- gress, will crumble. Victor Hugo. In spite of censorship, in spite of the Index; it will rain books and journals everywhere. Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, will fall in hail on Rome, on Naples, on Vienna, on St. Pe- tersburg. Human speech is manna and the serf will pick it up in the furrows ; fanaticisims will die, oppression will be impossible ; man crawls along the earth, he escapes ; civili- zation will make herself a flock of birds and fly away, and go whirling, and light joyously on all points of the globe at once. Stop ! there she is, she is passing; point your can- non, old despotisms ! she disdains you ; you are the bullet, she is the lightning ; no more hatreds, no more interests mutually annulling one another ; no more wars ; a sort of new life made up of concord and light, carries away and pacifies the world ; the fraternity of peoples crosses space and communes in the eternal azure ; men are mingled in the heavens until this last progress ; see the point to which this century has brought civilization. Victor Hugo. WATCH-FIRES. 167 This system and order everywhere forms the basis of all science, and is indeed the condition without which thought itself could no longer exist. The uniformity of universal law lies at the bottom of all rational thinking and intelli- gent acting. Whence it may be readily seen how vain and false is the boasted liberty of free thought. No thought is worthy of the name that does not conform itself to the rigid methods of regular law. The liberty of free thought is the thraldom of passion, prejudice and perverted reason, and the real dignity of the human mind is nowhere more worthily displayed than when reverently engaged in dis- covering to itself the laws by which the " Everlasting Ge- ometer " of the created universe is pleased to execute His designs and accomplish His purposes. Henry C. Minion. But the higher departments of moral and religious thought are perhaps most seriously invaded by this modern spirit of free thinking. Here, as everywhere, freedom of thought is followed by freedom of action, and this ripens into the ranker fruits of libertinism and social anarchy. The family and all the sacred ties of the home circle are lost in the mazy mist of modern socialism. The Bible is a book fit only to be read by children. Revelation is a myth, and the dignity of mind is asserted in the motto: "Science and Reason are the highest powers in man." Paine's suc- cessors, gifted with his derisive satire without his power of reason, lecture in Christian cities to crowded and applaud- ing audiences. Such are the actual and legitimate results of the so-called free thought of the nineteenth century. The popular disposition to drift away from the old land- marks of thought is justly considered one of the most alarming symptoms of the present era. The inventive ge- nius of the American mind is indeed marvelous. The glory of our history is in the richness of our apt discoveries. Henry C. Minton. 163 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The history of mankind as well shows forth the uniform- ity of law. Social science, yet in its infancy, will one day teach the laws and conditions of national success and social ruin, just as alchemy gave birth to the beautiful science of chemistry, and the mythical stories of ancient astrology to the demonstrations of Kepler's laws. Just as all physical energy may be reduced to the form of heat, so, at the magic touch of such men as the Herschels, Newton and La Place, all scientific truth seems to resolve itself into the chilling formulas of mathematical law. Henry C. Minton. The age is tempestuous with speculation, and every new thinker seems to be the center of converg-in^ whirlwinds. This restless spirit of inquiry is not confined to those who have been trained in universities, and who are at the head of the world's marching columns, but, owing to the ad- vance of science and the diffusion of knowledge, is to be found wherever the light of the press has penetrated, wherever man has been taught to think and to investigate. While the great body of Christians throughout the world, hold with an ever tightening grasp to the vital truths of the Gospel, yet we find that among many whose opinions greatly influence, if they do not control the multitude, grave questions have sprung up and are now being hotly discussed, concerning the nature of Christ's redemptive work, the nature of inspiration, the unity and antiquity of the human race, the success of Protestantism, papal infalli- bility, the necessity for universal Christian union, concern- ing the relation of church and state; concerning hell and eternal punishment, concerning amusements, concerning baptism and the eucharist, concerning church govern- ment and church discipline and church psalmody and music; concerning revivals, the new birth and growth in grace, and the claims and advantages of an im- posing liturgy and a splendid ritual service. Athletic minds are now grappling anew with these mighty subjects, WATCH-FIRES. 169 and with an honest aim, let us hope, are struggling forward again towards their just and final settlement. Th ■ present age, exultant over the many recent wonder- ful triumphs in the field of natural science, almost uncon- sciously glides into a materialistic mode of thought, and perhaps too strongly demands that all accepted truth shall conform to the conditions upon which the physical world is found to exist. This tendency leads to endless confusion in all other than the physical sciences; this condition in turn invites the threatening state of the public mind so sig- nificantly designated by the term free thought. This tendency to free thinking has been growing ever since the days of Kant, Hegel and Voltaire, and may be seen in the increasing disposition to popularize and simplify all their hidden doctrines and abstruse ideas. The great pendulum of human thought swings slowly; and, by the marvelous force of its own inertia, is always driven beyond the vertical line of absolute perfection. Henry C. Minton. This century is the grandest of centuries; and do you ask why? because it is the sweetest. This century, the imme- diate and first issue of the French Revolution, freed the slave in America, elevated the pariahs in Asia, extinguished the funeral pile in India, and crushed the last firebrands at the martyr's stake in Europe; is civilizing Turkey, is causing the Gospel to penetrate even to the refutation of the Koran; elevates woman, subordinates the right of might to the might of right; suppresses piracies, softens suffering, makes the galleys wholesome, throws the red branding-iron into the sewer, condemns the death penalty, takes the ball from the foot of the galley-slave, abolishes corporal punishment, de- grades and dishonors war, takes the edge away from the Dukes of Alva and the Charles the Ninths, tears out the claws of tyraDts. Victor Hugo. 170 GOLDEN GLEAMS. But there is a limit, both to the necessity and the capac- ity of this power of invention. Its needful and salutary exercise should not give it an impetus beyond the range of virtue and safety. In the fresh vigor of national youth, the American people should stand by the old and tested methods of thought and life that have availed the virtuous generations that have gone before, and take warning from the sudden and speedy fall that has uniformly marked the end of those nations that have been lured from the long- trod paths of homely truth and simple virtue. The present age is certainly far enough down in the line of the world's history to perceive at a single retrospective glance, especially in the light of its eminent achievements in every department of scientific thought, that the great watchword of the entire universe is law — austere, changeless, unfailing law. The shooting grass in the sunny meadow, the surging wave on the mighty deep, the tall peak lifting its head high toward the blue sky above it, sublime with the gray wrinkles of the formative ages throng!) which it has pa-sod, the sil- very clouds that float along over it, the sun that lights our day and the more distant suns that illuminate our night, and the yet more remote luminaries whose light, perchance, has never yet had time to wing its flight to this shady nook of the skies — all these bow their obeisance to their great Cre- ator and delight to fulfill His mandates and exemplify His laws. Henry C. Minton. This century proclaims the sovereignty of the citizen and the inviolability of life; it crowns the people and conse- crates man. In art it has all varieties of genius: writers, orators, poets, historians, publicists, philosophers, painters, statuaries, musicians, majesty, grace, power, strength, bril- liancy, depth, color, form, style. It reinvigorates itself at once in the real and in the ideal ; and carries in its hand these two thunderbolts — the true and the beautiful. In WATCH-FIRES. 171 science it performs every miracle: it makes saltpetre out of cotton; of steam, a horse; of the voltaic pile, a workman; of the electric fluid, a messenger; of the sun, a painter. It waters itself with subterranean waters till it warms itself with central fire; it opens on the two infinities those two windows — the telescope, on the infinitely great; the micro- scope, on the infinitely little; and it finds in the first abyss — stars, and in the second — insects, which prove God to it. Victor Hugo. We live in the world's crisis. Never were such changes going on as now. The world never felt such thrills and throbs before. The hearts of men now harden or soften under the influence of the truth quicker than ever; charac- ter is now more rapidly formed than ever; opinions are shaking, and hoary errors are dying by sudden paralysis. Truth is crystalizing and asserting its power. We are lost in the whirl of the great agitation, and stunned by the noise of conflicting elements. Plunged in the midst of exciting events, we are bewildered by their novelty and rapidity. Men have forgotten to hope — almost forgotten to pray, but it is God who is shaking the world that false institutions may fall. Behold it in the social, political, financial and religious revolutions that are now taking place with almost dramatic suddenness! Behold it in the opening of iron doors whose creaking rings round the globe! Behold it in the overthrow of wrongs which have resisted the shock of centuries! Can Christianity stand in this hour of the world's trial? I believe she can, for her principles are righteous and immutable; but, with God's help, they must be lived and cherished, and preserved unsullied. What a grand, earnest thing it is to live at such an hour as this! with the roar of conflict all around us, with the graves of saints and martyrs behind us; with a glorious future and heaven before us, what a time for hope, and prayer, and effort! 17 '2 GOLDEN GLEAMS. XVIII. VIOLET-FLAMES. I do love violets; they tell the history of woman's love. Letitla E. Landon. Woman must impose a restraint upon her affections until she is challenged. Like the violet, she hides her sweetness beneath the leaf until the hand is stretched to pluck her from concealment. B. M. Palmer, D.D. I have always said it, nature meant to make woman as its masterpiece. Lessing. I am prescient by the very hope And promise set upon me, that henceforth Only my gentleness shall make me great, My humbleness exalt me. Elizabeth B. Browning; (Eve, in "Drama of Exile".) The world is the book of women. Whatever knowledge they may possess is more commonly acquired by observa- tion than by reading. Rousseau. What causes the mnjority of women to be so little touched by friendship is, that it is insipid when they have once tasted of love. La Rochefoucauld. Her voice was ever soft, Gentle and low; an excellent thing in woman. Shakespeare. VIOLET-FLAMES. 173 The taste forever refines in the study of woman. iV. P. Willis. Man legislates; woman ornates. Eugene Benson. Contact with a high-minded woman is good for the life of any man. Henry Vincent. The influence of poetry in literature is like the influence of true womanhood in society. Prof. Parsdon. Men like women to reflect them, but the woman who can only reflect a man and is nothing in herself, will never be of much service to him. George McDonald. To glorify the common offices of life, that is the grand- est part of woman's work in this world. Joseph J. Duryea, D.D. A lovely countenance is the fairest of all sights, and the sweetest harmony in the world is the sound of the voice of her whom we love. La Bruye're. Woman has been faithful in a few things; now God is going to make her ruler over many things. Susan B. Anthony. From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love. We build statues of snow and weep to see them melt, Walter Scott. Love has a way of cheating itself consciously, like a child who plays at solitary hide-and-seek; it is pleased with as- surances that it all the while disbelieves. George Eliot. ' 74 GOLDEN GLEAMS. To be womanly is the greatest charm of woman. Gladstone. We glorify the supremacy of a first love, as though the heart did not require a training as varied as the intellect. The Galaxy. We seldom think how much we owe our first love. Goethe. How little flattering is a woman's love ! Given commonly to whomsoever is nearest And propped with most advantage; outward grace Nor inward light is needful; day by day Men wanting both are mated with the best And loftiest of God's feminine creation, Whose love takes no distinction but of gender, And ridicules the very name of choice. Henry Taylor. Love is first inspired by a magnetism that has a locked door. It is what women withhold in the coloring of a thought or the tone of voice, the glance of an eye or the pressure of a hand, which ties the bandage over the first sentiment, and turns it into a Cupid. N. P. Willis. I did not fall in love — I rose in love. Bulwer. There are souls that are created for one another in the eternities; hearts that are predestined each to each from the absolute necessities of their nature; and when this man and woman come face to face, these hearts throb and are one. Anna JE. Dickinson. One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance; it is the bodily symbol of identity. Emerson. VIOLET-FLAMES. I asked the Sun, " Can 'st tell me what love is ? " He answered only by a smile Of golden light. I prayed the flowers, "Oh, tell me, what is love ?" Only a fragrant sigh was wafted Thro' the night. " Is love the soul's true life, Or is it but the sport Of idle summer hours ?" I asked Of Heaven above. In answer, God sent thee t Sweet heart, to me ! And I no longer question, " What is love ? " 175 y Her eyes are homes of silent prayer. The Galaxy. Tennyson. Have you ever thought of it? The memory of an eye is the most deathless of memories, because there, if anywhere, you catch a glimpse of the visible soul as it sits by the window. Donald G. Mitchell. Ladies, whose bright eyes rain influence. Milton. I am not one of those who do not believe in love at first sight, but I believe in taking a second look 1 Henry Vincent, 'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark Our coming, and look brighter when we come. Byron, 176 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Some day, some day of days, threading the street With idle, heedless pace, Unlooking for such grace, I shall behold your face ! Some day, some day of days, thus may we meet. Perchance the sun may shine from skies of May, Or winter's icy chill Touch whitely vale and hill; "What matter? 1 shall thrill Through every vein with summer on that day. Once more life's perfect youth will all come back, And for a moment there I shall stand fresh and fair, And drop the garment care; Once more my perfect youth will nothing lack. I shut my eyes now, thinking how 't will be, — How face to face each soul Will slip its long control, Forget the dismal dole Of dreary fate's dark separating sea; And glance to glance and hand to hand in greeting, The past with all its fears, Its silence and its tears, Its lonely yearning years, Shall vanish in the moment of that meeting. Elizabeth S. Phelps. Glanci:s are the first billets-doux of love. JSii7ion de V Enclos. Distance injures love less than nearness. Richter. TnB soul is never so hampered by its enthrallment, with- in the body, as when it loves. Prof. S. Fowler. VIOLET-FLAMES. 177 There is an atmosphere in the letters of those we love which we alone — we who love — can feel. Marion Harland. When love begins to sicken and decay It useth an enforced ceremony. Shakespeare. A man of sense may love like a madman, but never like a fool. La Rochefoucauld. Each time we love, We turn a nearer and a broader mark To that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes. Alexander Smith. The love of man, in his maturer years, is not so much a new emotion as a revival and concentration of all his de- parted affections for others. Bulwer. We bury love; F orgetfulness grows over it like grass; That is a thing to weep for, not the dead. Alexander Smith. On! sweet fond dream of human love! A rose-cloud dimly seen above, Melting in heaven's blue depths away. Whittier Love is never lost. If not reciprocated n will flow back and soften and purify the heart. In: big. O, shallow and mean heart! dost thou conceive so little of looe as not to know that it sacrifice- ail — love itself- — for the happiness of the one it loves? 12 173 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I hold it true whate'er befall, I feel it when I sorrow most; 'T is better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all. Tennyson. The beautiful are never desolate; Some one always loves them— God or man; If man abandons, God takes them. Bailey. She was like A drpam of poetry, that may not be Written or told — exceeding beautiful! And so came worshipers. The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new, And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears; The rose is sweetest wash'd with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalm' d in tears. /Scott. I have nu.de my choice, have lived my poems, and though youth is gone in wasted days, I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the poet's crown of bays. Oscar Wilde. Better trust all and be deceived, And weep that trust and that deceiving, Than doubt one heart that, if believed, Had blessed one's life with true believing. Oh! in this mocking world too fast The doubting fiend o'ertakes our youth; Better be cheated to the last, Than lose the blessed hope of truth. Frances A. Kemble. VIOLET-FLAMES. 179 Bkwabe of her fair hair, for she excels A; women in the magic of her locks; And if she wind them round a young man's heart, She will not ever let him go again. Shelley. Matches wherein one party is all passion, and the other all indifference, will assimilate about as well as ice and fire. It is possible that the fire will dissolve the ice, but it is mo;i probable that it will be extinguished in the attempt. Co Hon, She was said to have made a brilliant match, whatever that may mean. One thing, however, it does not mean; to make a brilliant match is not another form of expression for marrying the man or woman you love. Harper's* Love weepeth always — weepeth for the past, For woes that are, for woes that may betide; Why sho ild not hard ambition weep at last, Envy and hatred, avarice and pride? Tennyson. Tht:u2, speak in whispers; fold me to thy heart, D< ar love, for I have roamed a weary weary way; B ; my vague terrors with thy kiss depart! Oh, I have been arannu the dead to-day, An 1, like a pilgrim to some martyr's shrine, Awed with the memories that crowd my brain, Fearng my voice, I woo the charm of thine; Tell me thou livest, lovest, yet again. Not among graves, but letters old and dim, Yellow and precious, have I touched the past, Reverent and prayerful as we chant the hymn Among the aisles where saints their shadows cast; Reading dear names on faded leaves that here. 180 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Were worn with foldings tremulous and fond, These drowned in plashing of a tender tear, Or with death's tremble pointing " the beyond." And love, there came a flutter of white wings, A stir of snowy robes from out the deep Of utter silence, as I read the things I smiled to trace before I learned to weep; And hands, whose clasp was magic long ago, Came soft before me, till I yearned to press Mad kisses on their whiteness; then the \ oe, The sting of death, the chill of nothingness. One was afar, where golden sands made dim The shining steps of the poor trickster Time; And one was lost. Ah bitter grief for him Who wrecked his manhood in the depths of crime! Another, beautiful as morning's beam Flushing the Orient, lay meekly down Among the daisies, dreaming love's glad dream; And one sweet saint now wears a starry crown. And thus there stole delicious odors still From out those relics of the charmed past, Sighs from the lips omnipotent to will And win rich tribute to the verv last; But death, or change, had been among my flowers, And all their bloom had faded, so that 1 • Yield my sad thoughts to the compelling powers Of the bright soul I worship til! I die. Nay, never doubt me, for, by love's divine And tearful past, I know my future thine. What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent^ unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting? George Eliot. VIOLET-FLAMES. 181 Then, too, I love thee For having so adored me that my presence Near thee was unto thee a sacred thing, For having at my feet, as on an altar, Sacrificed all the fury of thy hate. I love thee for that perfect gentleness That strove to win me, having conquered me; For having set me free and made my fate Depend upon the worthiest, not the strongest; For having braved for me curses and storms, And above all I love thee — lor I love thee! Dost thou believe me now? M. Lomin. Oh! cast thou not Affection from thee! In this bitter world, Hold to thy heart that only treasure fast; Watch, guard it — suffer not a breath to dim The bright gem's purity. Felicia Hemans. Love not told, And only born of absence and by thought, With thought and absence may return to naught. Jean Inge low. He did not notice that I never spoke to her in the same key of voice to which the conversation of others was at- tuned. He saw not that while she turned to him with a smile or a preparation to listen, she heard my voice as if her attention had been arrested by distant music, with no change in her features except a look more earnest ; she would have called him to look with her at a glowing sunset or to point out a new corner in the road from the village ; but if the moon had gone suddenly into a cloud and sad- dened the face of the landscape, or if the wind had sounded mournfully through the trees as she looked out upon the night, she would have spoken of that first to me ! JV. P. Willis. 182 GOLDEN GLEAMS. They sin who tell us love can die; With life all other passions fly; All others are but vanity. In heaven ambition cannot dwell, Nor avarice in the vaults of hell. Earthly, these passions of low earth, They perish where they have their birth; But love is indestructible — Its holy flame forever burnetii; From heaven it came, to heaven returneth. Too oft on earth a troubled guest, At times deceived, at times opprest, It here is tried and purified. And hath in heaven its perfect rest. It soweth here with toil and care, But the harvest-time of love is there. Oh! when a mother meets on high The babe she lost in infancy, Hath she not then for all her fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrows, all her tears, An over-payment of delight? Southey. There is not an hour Of day or dreaming night, but I am -with thee ; There's not a wind but whispers of thy name, And not a flower that sleeps beneath the moon, But in its hues or fragrance tells a tale of thee. Seldom hath my tongue pronounced that name, But the dear love, so deeply wounded there, I, in my heart, with silent faith sincere, Devoutly cherish till we meet again. Southey. VIOLET-FL A M ES. 1 83 Oh ! if thou lovest and art a woman, Hide thy love from him whom thou dost worship — Never let him know how dear he is ; Flit like a bird before him, — Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower, But be not won, or thou mayest like that bird, When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected And perish in forgetfulness. Letitia E. Landon, The night has a thousand eyes, The day but one ; Yet the light of the bright world dies With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, The heart but one ; Yet the light of a whole life dies, When love is done. Say never, ye loved once, God is too near above, the grave below, And all our moments go Too quickly past our souls, for saying so. The mysteries of life and death avenge Affections light of range; There comes no change to justify that change. Elizabeth B. Browning. I fain would ask thee to forget; v 'T were best, perhaps, I were forgot; I raise the pen to write — and yet I write the words — " forget me not." How can I ask thee to forget, When 'tis so sweet to remembered be? Then let me say without regret, Think — yes, ofttimes think of me. 184 GOLDEN GLEAMS. If I leave ail for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing, and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors — another home than this? Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is Filled by dead eyes, too tender to know change? That's hardest. If to conquer love has tried, To conquer grief, tries more, as all things prove; For grief, indeed, is love and grief besides; Alas! I have grieved so, 1 am hard to love. Yet love me, wilt thou? Open thine heart wide And fold within the wet wings of thy dove! Elizabeth B. Browning. There are many phases through which the soul must pass before it can attain even that approximation to the divine which is possible on earth. We cling to prop after prop; we follow longingly whichever of earth's beautiful and blessed things seems most to realize that perfect ideal which we call happiness. Of these joys the dearest, truest and most satisfying, is that which lifts us out of ourselves, and unites us in heart and soul — aye, and intellect too, for the spirit must find its mate to make the union perfect — with some other being. This we call love. But the chances of fortune come between us and our desires; the light passes, and we go on our way in darkness. We walk alone, and earth's deepest and most real joys float by like shadows. Alas! we can but stretch our arms toward that Infinite, which alone is able to fill the longings of an immortal spirit. Then, with wounded souls lying naked and open before the Beholder of all, we look yearningly toward the eternal and divine life, complete, unchangeable, and cry, with subdued voice. "0 God! thy fullness is sufficient for me; O Godl thy love is an all-boundless store!" VIOLET-FLAMES. 185 I wake. Ah ! would that I could sleep again ! For in my slumber I had quite forgot The weariness, the heart-ache and the pain That makes the burden of my waking lot. I wake. Ah ! would that, waking, I could live The dreams that slumber to my senses brought ! Why not ? Why may I not full freedom give To soul and sense, and, disregarding aught That frets and fetters individual life, Fill full my waking with the dream-life bliss, And count the ills, in waking moments rife, As only dreams ? Ay, darling, even this I can and will, if only thou wilt take Thy path with mo, from all the world aside, Content forevermore with me to make My dream our life, thy heart the only guide ! " Montebello" You, man! who with your honey words and your ten- der looks steal awav a vounjj ffirl's heart, for thoughtless or selfish vanity, do you know what it is you do? Do you know what it is to turn the precious fountain of woman's first love into a very Marah, whose bitterness may pervade her whole life's current, crushing her, if humble, beneath the torture of self-con tempt, or, if proud, making her cold, heartless, revengeful, quick to wound others as she herself has been wounded ? And if she marry, what is her fate? She has lost that instinctive worship of what is noble in man, which causes a woman gladly to follow out the right- eous altar-vow, arid in " honoring and obeying" her hus- band to create the sunshine of her home; and this is caused by your deed! Is not such a deed a sin? Aye, only second to that deadly on 1 - which ruins life and fame, body and soul! Yet man does both toward women, and goes smiling amidst the world, which smiles at him again. 3fiss Jlf/ loch. 186 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover, to remove. Oh, no! It is an ever-fixed mark, T..at looks on tempests and is never shaken. /Shakespeare, Love is enough. Let us not seek for gold. Wealth breeds false aims, and pride and selfishness: In those serene, Arcadian days of old, Men grave no thought to princely homes and dress. The gods who dwelt in fair Olympia's height Lived only for dear love and love's delight ; Love is enough. Love is enough. Why should we care for fame? Ambition is a most unpleasant guest: It lures us with the glory of a name Far from the happy haunts of peace and rest. Let us stay here in this secluded place, Made beautiful by love's endearing grace ; Love is enough. Love is enough. Why should we strive for power? It brings men only envy and distrust ; The poor world's homage pleases but an hour, And earthly honors vanish in the dust. The grandest lives are ofttimes desolate; Let me be loved, and let who will be great; Love is enough. Love is enough. Why should we ask for more? What greater gift have gods vouchsafed to men? What better boon of all their precious store Than our fond hearts that love and love again? Old love may 'lie; new love is just as sweet; And life is fair, and all the world complete: Love is enough! Ella Wheeler. VIOLET-FLAMES. 1&7 " Till death us part," So speaks the heart, When each to each repeats the words of doom; Thro' blessing and thro* curse, For better and for worse, We will be one till that dread hour shall come. Life, with its myriad grasp, Our yearning souls shall clasp, By ceaseless love, and still expectant wonder; In bonds that shall endure, Indissolubly sure, Till God in death shall part our paths asunder. Till Death us join, O voice yet more divine! That to the broken heart breathes hope sublime; Thro' lonely hours And shattered powers We still are one, despite of change and time. Death, with his healing hand, Shall once more knit the band, Which needs but that one link which none may sever; Till thro' the Only Good, Heard, felt and understood, Our life in God shall make us one forever. Dean Stanley. Alas! how bitter are the wrongs of love! Life has no other sorrow so acute; For love is made of every fine emotion Of generous impulses and noble thoughts; It looketh to the stars, and dreams of heaven; It nestles mid the flowers and sweetens earth. Love is aspiring, yet is humble too; It doth exalt another o'er itself With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise That which it worships, yet is fain to win 1^8 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The idol to its lone and lonely home Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck When such hopes perish. From that moment life Has in its depths a well of bitterness, For which there is no healing:. O the anguish of that thought that we can never atone to our dead for the stinted affection we gave them, for the light answers we returned to their plaints or their plead- ings, for the little reverence we showed to that sacred hu- man ^oul that lived so close to us, and was the divinest thing God had given us to know. George Eliot. Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope, And Hope kissed Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss, and drank her whispered tales; They said that Love would die when Hope was gone, And Love mourn'd long, and sorrow'd after Hope; At last she sought out Memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. Tennyson. XIX. VIOLET FLAMES. CONCLUDED. The most perfect thing in the world is a woman's temper, but 1 am bound to say 1 have seen some tempers better than others. Henry Vincent. VIOLET-FLAMES. 189 There has nearly always been a good wife behind every great man, and there is a good deal of truth in the saying that a man can be no greater than his wife will let him. Edward JEggleston. A man cannot leave a better legacy to the world than a well educated family. Rev. Thoracis Scott. He travels safe, and not unpleasantly, who is guarded by poverty and guided by love. Sir Philip Sidney. Woman - ! with that word. Life's dearest hopes and memories come; Truth, beauty, love, in her adored, And earth's lost paradise restored, In the green bower of home. Halleck. A man who has not some woman, somewhere, who be- lieves in him, trusts him and loves him, has reached a point where self-respect is gone. Holland. Until the ladies have recognized, or refused to recogniz.-, a man's merit, his social position is not yet determined. London Saturday Review. What gathering flowers in a wood is to children, that shopping in large cities is to women. To wander from shop to shop, to compare, to choose, to appropriate — it is like gathering flowers. Auerbach. Home is the crystal of society, and domestic love and duty are the best security for all that is most dear to us on earth. Samuel Smiles. 190 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Public gossip is sometimes the best security for the ful- filment of engagements. Bulwer. The hearthstone has ever been the corner-stone of the family and of society. Hellenes, Home 's not merely four square walls, Though with pictures hung and glided; Home is where affection calls, Filled with shrines the heart hath builded. Queen. If the bom --life is inharmonious, nothing can go well. The root of all, unless this is wholesome and firm, the flower must needs be poor and the fruit bad. Let us learn again the infinite importance of keeping the peace at home, and the need of cultivating the nobler qualities of mind and heart, if this is to be done well. Ah me! for aught that ever I could read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The eourse of true love never did run smooth; But either it was different in blood, Or else misgraffed in respect to years, Or else it stood upon the choice of friends, Or, if there were a sympathy in choice, Nor death, or sickness did lay siege to it, Making it momentary as a sound, Swift as a shadow, short as any dream; Brief as the lightning in the coliied night, That, in a spleen, enfolds both heaven aim earth, And ere a man hath power to say, behold! The jaws of darkness do devour it up; So quick bright things come to confusion. Shakespeare. VIOLET-FLAMES. 1 9 1 That which is nearest us touches us most. The passion* rise higher at domestic than at imperial tragedies. Samuel Johnson. Oh! man may bear with suffering; his heart Is a strong thing, and gudiike in the grasp Of pain that wrings mortality; but tear One chord affection clings to, part one tie That binds him unto woman's delicate love, And his great spirit yieldeth like a reed. N. P. Willis. We wind our life about another life, We hold it closer, dearer than our own; Anon it faints and falls in deadly strii ',-, Leaving us stunned and stricken and alone; But ah! we do not die with those we mourn, This also can be borne. Florence Percy, Ann still I changed; I was a boy no more, My heart was large enough to hold my kind, And all the world; as hath been oft before With youth, I sought, but I could never find Work hard enough to quiet my self-strife, And use the strength of action-crowning life. Jean Ingelovo. When - he shall hear she died upon his word, The idea of her life shall sweetly creep Into the study of his imagination, And every lovely organ of her life Shall come appareled in more precious habit, More moving, delicate, and full of life, Into the eye and prospect of his soul, Than when she lived indeed. Shakespeare, 19:2 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The modern Cupid is no longer blind, but clear-sighted, calculating and practical. William Black. Flirtation is attention without intention. Burdettc. Natural selection — Marrying for Love. Struggle for existence — Marrying without money. Punch . It is these invisible, subtle strokes at the unseen centers of hope and courage that are hard to bear. Chronicles of Carlingford. He was not all unhappy. His resolve Upbore him, and firm faith, and evermore Prayer from a living source within the will, And beating up through all the bitter world, Like fountains of sweet water in the sea, Kept him a living soul. Tennyson. It is a dear delight for the soul to have trust in the fidel- ity of another. It makes a pillow of softness for the cheek which is burning with tears and the touch of \ ain. It pours a balm into the very source of sorrow. It is a hope undeferred, a flowery seclusion, into which the mind, when weary of sadness, may retreat for a caress of constant love; a warmth in the hand of friendship for ever lingering on the hand; a consoling voice that dwells as with an eternal echo on the ear; a dew of mercy falling on the bruised and troubled hearts of this world. Bereavements and wishes long withheld descend sometimes as chastening griefs upon our nature; but there is no solace to the bitter- ness of broken faith. Harper's, VIOLET-FLAMES. 193 Easy — crying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for transplanting. Holmes. To love satisfies one- half of our nature; to be loved sat- isfies the other half. But no human love can fully satisfy us, because man is so constituted that nothing finite can suffice him; his heart ever springs beyond the universe in search of an ideal of beauty, a perfect object of love and adoration; and no human love for us can make us perfectly happy, for no human heart is fully attuned to ours — no human heart can wholly understand or sympathize with our own. A. A. Hodge, D.D. We walk alone through all life's various ways, Through light and darkness, sorrow, joy and change; And greeting each to each, through passing days — Still we are strange. We hold our dear ones with a firm, strong grasp; We hear their voices, look into their eyes; And yet, betwixt us in that clinging clasp A distance lies. We cannot know their hearts, howe'er we may Mingle thought, aspiration, hope and prayer; We cannot reach them, and in vain essay To enter there. Still, in each heart of hearts a hidden deep Lies, never fathomed by its dearest, best; With closest care our purest thoughts we keep, And tender est. But, blessed thought! we shall not always so In darkness and in sadness walk alone; There comes a glorious day when we shall know As we are known. Eleanor Gray. 194 GOLDEN" GLEAMS. The man who truly loves, loves humbly and fears not that another may be preferred, but that another may be worthier of preference than himself. Miss Muloch. Adriana. — Nay, said I not — And if I said it not, I say it now; I'll follow thee through sunshine and through storm; I will be with thee in thy weal and woe; In thy afflictions, should they fall upon thee, In thy temptations, when bad men beset thee; In all thy perils which must now press round thee, And should they crush thee, in the hour of death, Let but thy love be with me to the last. Artevelde. — My love is with thee ever; that thou knowest. Henry Taylor, These longing eyes may never more behold thee, These yearning arms may never more enfold thee; To my sad heart I never more may press thee, But day and night I never cease to bless thee. I do not envy those who may be near thee, Who have that joy supreme, who see thee, hear thee; I bless them also, knowing they, too, love thee, And that they prize no earthly thing above thee. I do not even hope again to meet thee, I never dare to think how I should greet thee, Low in the dust should I fall before thee, And, kneeling there, for pardon should implore thee. Alas! 'twould be a sin to kneel before thee — A sin to let thee know I still adore time, I kneel and pray that Heaven may bless and guide thee; Love of my life! to Heaven's care I confide thee. Blackwood's. VIOLET-FLAMES. 195 Let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy, That come in the night time of sorrow and care, And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories filled, Like the vase in which roses have once been distilled; You may break, you may shatter, the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. Thomas Moore. Lord ! we would put aside The gauds and baubles of this mortal life — Weak self-conceit, the foolish tools of strife, The tawdry garb of pride — And pray, in Christ's dear name, Thy grace to deck us in the robes of light; That at His coining we may stand aright, And fear no sudden shame. An Advent Carol. Sweet heart, good bye! that flut'ring sail Is spread to waft me far from thee, And soon, before the farth'ring gale, My ship shall bound upon the sea. Perchance, all des'late and forlorn, These eyes shall miss thee many a year; But unforgotten every charm — Though lost to sight, to memory dear. Sweet heart, good bye! one last embrace! Oh. cruel fate, two souls to sever! Y"et in this heart's most sacred place Thou, thou alone, shalt dwell forever; And still shall recollection trace, In fancy's mirror, ever near, Each smile, each tear, that form, that face — Though lost to sight, to memory dear. 196 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I had a friend once, and she was to me What fragrance is to flowers, or songs to birds — Part of my being; but there came a time — I cannot tell you how, or where, or when, — A time that severed us. There was no fierce, Hot trouble at our parting. It was calm, Because it was so gradual. Ere I knew, We had grown cold at meeting, colder still At our good-bye. But looking on it now, After weary days, I marvel at it all, And weep more tears than T did then, by far, Over this strange, sad parting; this blank wreck Of love, and hope, and friendship, and warm trust. Oh! it is pitiful — this breaking up Of human sympathy and sweet heart-tryst! Had we so many friends — this friend and I — That we could well afford to give the slip, Each to the other? drifting thus apart Like ships that meet upon some tropic sea For one brief, passing hour, exchange stale news, Gossip of cargoes, or the last made port, Then sail away, each on its separate course, And never dream, nor (.'are, to meet again! I think the heart grows chary of its friends, As years and death do steal them from our grasp; I could nor let a friend go now, as I Did her; for I was youmr then — both were young. Ah, well! I wonder if she cares, or if She ever thinks of those old foolish days, When, with her hand in mine, we sat and talked, And kissed each other t'wixt our happy words, And vowed eternal friendship, endless trust. It may be so; and if this idle verse — Albeit, not so idle as it seems — Should meet her gaze — I would, I would it might- She, too, may give a sio-h to those old days, VIOLET-FLAMES. 197 And wish, with me, that one had been more true, And both more patient — that the olden time Had ; ess of bitterness mixed with its sweet, Making the after-draught so drugged with pain, That even now tears come because of it. If there should come a time, as well there may, When sudden tribulation smites thine heart, And thou dost come to me for heip and stay And comfort — how shall I perform my part? How shall I make my heart a resting place, A shelter safe for thee when terrors smite? How shall I bring the sunshine to thy face, And dry thy tears in bitter woe's despite? How shall I win strength to keep my voice Steady and firm, although I hear thy sobs? How shall I bid thy fainting soul rejoice, Nor mar the counsel of mine own heart-throbs? Love, my love, teaches me a certain way, So, if the dark hour comes, I am thy stay. I must live higher, nearest the reach Of angels in their blessed truthfulness; Learn their usefulness, ere I can teach Content to thee whom I would gladly bless. Ah me! what woe were mine if thou should'st come Troubled, but trusting, unto me for aid, And I should meet thee, powerless and dumb, "Willing to help thee, but confused, afrai ;? It shall not happen thus, for I will rise, God helping me, to higher life, and gain Courage and strength to give thee counsel wise, And deeper love to bless thee in thy pain; Fear not, dear love ! thy trial hour shall be The dearest bond between my heart and thee. All the Year Hound. 193 GOLDEX GLEAMS. Some hearts go hungering through the world, And never find the love they seek; Some lips with pride or scorn are curled, To hide the pain they may not speak; The eye may flash, the mouth may smile, The voice in gladdest music thrill, And yet beneath them all the while, The hungry heart be pining still. 0, eager eyes which gaze afar! O, arms which clasp the empty airl Not all unmarked your sorrows are, Not all unpitied your despair, Smile, patient lips, so proudly dumb; When life's trail tent at last is furled, Your glorious recompense shall come, O hearts, that hunger through tiie world! Whex the pale wreath is laid upon the tomb, Love's last fond homage offered to the dead, And the bereft, with tears and drooping head, Bid mute farewell on sadly turning home, Sister and brother, widowed love and friend, Review, as in a solemn vision then, Their dear one's life, its bliss and bitter pain, Its restless hopes now ever at an end. The common thought lifts them above despair, One brief thanksgiving is on every tongue : That faithful heart shall never more be wrung With cold unkindness or with aching care ; That generous mind no stern rebuffs shall vex ; That busy brain no problems dire perplex. It sometimes happens that two friends will meet, And, with a smile and touch of hands, again Go on their way along the noisy street. VIOLET-FLAMES. 199 Each is so sure of all the friendship sweet, The loving silence gives no thought of pain. And so, I think, those friends whom we call dead Are with us. It may be some quiet hour, Or time of busy work for hand or head — Their love fills all the heart that missed them so. They bring a sweet assurance of the life Serene, above the worry that we know; And we grow braver for the comfort brought. Why should we mourn because they do not speak Our words that lie so far below their thought? Sunday Afternoon. Axd this is life : to live, to love, to lose ! To feel a joy stir, like an unsung song, The deep, unwrit emotions of our souls ; Then, when we fain would utter it, to find Our glad lips stricken dumb. To watch a hope Climb like a rising star, till from the heights Of fair existence, it sends luster down, Whose radiance makes earth's very shadows shine, Then suddenly to see it disappear, Leaving a bleak, appalling emptiness In all the sky it did illuminate. To build up, stone by stone, a temple fair, On whose white altars we do burn our days ; To form its arches of our dearest dreams ; To shape its pillars of our strongest strength, Then suddenly to see that temple fall, A broken and irreparable wreck — Its shape all shapeless, and its formless form In ruthless ruin's unrelenting grasp. To veil our shrinking eyes, lest they should see Life's grim appraisers, death and burial, Come down the path that leads across our hearts, 200 GOLDEN GLEAMS. To write us paupers in the book of love. To dream, in all life's happy arrogance — Life's proud proportions limitless, then find Life's limit limited by one fresh grave — To stand beside that new-made mound, and feel Within that ceil is locked forever up The precious honey, gathered drop by drop From out the fairest flow >r-fields of .>ur souls ; Lonely and desolate to cast ourselves, In some white city of the silent, down Beside some cold, forbidding marble door, And feel ourselves forever shut away From that which was our dearest and our own ;- - To know, however earnestly we knock, That door will ne'er be opened unto us — To know the dweller there will never step Beyond the boundary of that cruel gate ; To know, howe'er we plead, no lip therein Will break into its old accustomed smile, The folded hands stretch out no welcomings, The fastened eyelids never lift themselves Again in answering anguish, or glad love, From out the frozen bondage of their sleep. 'Tis thus to love, and bury out of sight Some precious darling of our dearest years, Some far outstretched root of our own hearts, Some flowery branch that we had hoped to train Along the loftiest trellises of hope. Life, love and loss ! Three little words that make The compass of that varied road which lies Stretched out between our swaddles and our shroud ! Life, love and loss ! Three ripples on one brook; Three unstemmed currents emptying themselves Into one vast and va°'ue eternity. VIOLET-FLAMES. 201 Great, indeed, is the task assigned to woman. Who can elevate its dignity? Not to make laws, not to lead armies, not to govern enterprises; but to form those by who;.. laws are made, armies are led, empires are governed. To guard against the slightest taint of* bodily infirmity, the frail, yet spotless creature, whose moral no less than physi- cal being must be derived from her; to inspire those princi- ples, to inculcate those doctrines, to animate those senti- ments which generations yet unborn, and nations yet un- civilized, shall learn to bless. To soften firmness into mercy and chasten honor into refinement; to exalt generos- ity into virtue; by a soothing care to allay the anguish of the body and the far worse anguish of the mind; by her tenderness to disarm passion; by her purity to triumph over sense; to cheer the scholar sinking under his toil; to console the statesman for the ingratitude of a mistaken peo- ple; to be compensation for friends that are perfidious, for happiness that has passed away — such is her vocation. The couch of the tortured sufferer, the prison of the de- serted friend, the cross of the rejected Saviour — these are the theaters on which her greatest triumphs have been achieved. Such is her destiny: to visit the forsaken, to at- tend the neglected; when monarchs abandon, when counsel- ors betray, when justice persecutes, when brethren and dis- ciples flee, to remain unshaken and unchanged; and to ex- hibit in this lower world a type of that love, pure, constant and ineffable, which in another world we are taught to be- lieve the test of virtue. Blaclcv-oocVs. But time would fail to attempt to catalogue the grand women of the last twenty-five years alone, who, according to the generally recognized theory of woman's life, have been superfluous, because unmarried women — " social fail- ures,"' as Sir Henry James calls them. All through the land, in homes and outskL; of them, I find these women, unwedded, in the vulgar parlance of everyday speech 202 GOLDEN GLEAMS. called "old maids," with a shrug of the shoulder, and a slight dash of scorn; in the finer language of sociologists and essayists denominated "superfluous women." They have been brave enough to elect to walk through life alone, when some man has asked them in marriage, whom they could not love. With white lips they said "No," while their hearts have said " Yes," because duty demanded of them the sacrifice of their own happiness. Their lives have been the stepping stones for the advancement of younger sisters; they have earned the money to carry brothers through col- lege into professions; like the caryatides of architecture, they stand in their places and uphold the roof over a de- pendent household; they invert the order of nature and become mothers to the aged, childish parents, fathers and mothers, whose failing feet they guide gently down the hill of life, and whose withered hands they, by and by, fold be- neath the daisies; they carry words of cheer and a world of comfort to households invaded by trouble, sickness or death. The dusty years stretch far behind them; beauty and come- liness drop away from them, and they grow faded and care- worn; they become nobodies to the hurrying, rushing, bust- ling world, and by and by they will slip out into the ^loom — the shadows will veil them forever from earthly sight — the great surprise of joyful greeting will welcome them, and they will thrill to the embrace of the Heavenly Bride- groom. Mary A. Liverrnore. They were living to themselves; self, with its hopes and promises and dreams, still had hold of them: but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contri- tion, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they had asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He had placed them in the furnace, sitting by as a "refiner of silver," till VIOLET-FL^ MES. 203 they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it to them, it lacer- ated their hands. Through court, and through mart, and through college, The grand truth is working at length — There's a purity wiser than knowledge, There's a righteousness stronger than strength. And though pride unto pride hath erected The temple of state and the tower, God again, what the builders rejected, Uplifteth in honor and power. And in woman unshackled — the token That justice, faith, truth are to reign; That the bow shall be shaftless and broken, The scepter cast aside and the chain. That no more to the loves and soft languor Is fair Amaryllis to slave, While wrongs front her impotent angers, But the sword shall strike and shall save. And her virtue, the Eisau, the Nero, The traitor, shall blast with its light; Like the shield of the fabled Ruggero, Its luster shall be for her might. Then at last, from the deathful reposing, Human hope shall awake to God's day; And the stone, its cold sepulchre closing, The angels of God roll away. Then the nation shall gird for high duty, And live to the purpose of God; And the arm man has kissed but for beauty Shall share with him balance and rod. Rev. R. R. McNulUj. 204 GOLDEN GLEAMS. With gentle looks and hearts made calm by sorrow, I see them moving on their earthly way, Thev wait, in patience, what may come to-morrow, Faithful to all the duties of to-day; They watch around the bedsides of the dying, And soothe the sufferers with their quiet cares; They seek the homes where new-born grief is crying, And mingle service with their silent prayers. The bloom of youth, the blush of early roses, Has faded long ago from off their cheek, But in its stead a holy peace reposes, A heavenly beauty, angel-like and meek; The mirth and song, the ch ral of the dances. Have died away amid departed years, The eves look upward now, with hiving glances, And death itself is shorn of all its fears. It is the same old, ever-blessed story, Of holy women clinging- round the cross; They had not seen the Lord's transfiguring glory, But they were with him in his shame and loss; Around his grave, with ointments and sweet spices, They hovered, as the birds about their nest; For love like theirs dies not in cold surmises, But kindles courag" in the humblest breast. The costliest service human hands can render Comes without cost — is never bought and sold; It flows from human hearts, by love made tender, And moves above the purchase power of gold. On the same paths where selfish greed is stalking, Rating all virtue at a market price, These saintly feet unselfishly are walking, To comfort pain and heal the wounds of vice. Then tell me not that earth is wholly barren, While these angelic souls still linger here; Sweeter than roses in the vale of Sharon SUXBURSTS. 205 Are their kind deeds, besprinkled with a tear; And heaven itself above their path is bending, To watch their acts of mercy, day by day; And angel bands are on their steps attending, To shed a glory o'er their shining way. Rev. J. N. Tarbox. XX. SUNBURSTS. The ocean stood like crystal. The soft air Stirred not the glassy waves, but sweetly there Had rocked itself to slumber. The blue sky Leaned silently above, and all its high And azure-circled roof, beneath the wave, Was imaged back, and seemed the deep to pave With its transparent beauty. While, between The waves and sky, a few white clouds were seen Floating upon their wings of feathery gold, As if they knew some charm the universe enrolled. A holy stillness came, while, in the ray Of heaven's soft light, a delicate foam-wreath lay Like silver on the sea. Look ! look ! why shine Those floating bubbles, with such light divine? They break, and from their midst a lily form Rises from out the wave, in beauty warm. The wave is by the blue-veined feet scarce prest, Her silky ringlets float about her breast, Veiling its fairy loveliness. While her eye Is soft and deep as the blue heaven is high. The beautiful is born, and sea and earth May well revere the hour of that mysterious birth. R. C. W. 206 GOLDEN GLEAMS. What shall we say of flowers — those flaming 1 banners of the vegetable world, which march in such various and splendid triumph before the coming of its fruits? Duke of Ar gyle. Of too much beauty let us complain when we have had a spring day too delightful, a sunbeam too delicately spun, an autumn too abundant. The finest writers in the world have been the most luxuriant. Glljillan. Nature never did betray The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege, Through all the years of this our life, to lead From joy to joy ; for she can so inform The mind that is within us, so impress With quietness and beauty, and so feed With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all The dreary intercourse of daily life, Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold, ]s full of blessings. Therefore let the moon Shine on thee in thy solitary walk ; And let the misty mountain winds be free To blow against thee ; and, in after years, When these wild ecstasies shall be matured Into a sober pleasure ; when the mind Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms; Thy memory be as a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies ; oh! then, If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief, Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts Of tender joy wilt thou remember me, And these my exhortations 1 Wordsworth. SUNBURSTS. 207 Fastex your souls so high, that constantly The smile of your heroic cheer may float Above all floods of earthly agonies, Purification being the joy of pain. Elizabeth B. Browning. A thing of beauty is a joy forever; Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble, natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways Made for our searching; yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Keats. My heart is awed within me, when I think Of the great miracle that still goes on ]n silence round me — the perpetual work Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed Forever. Written on thy works I read The lesson of thy own eternity. Lo! all grow old and die — but, see again! How on the faltering footsteps of decay Youth presses — ever gay and beautiful youth In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees Wave not less proudly than their ancestors Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost One of earth's charms; upon her bosom yet, After the fight of untold centuries, The freshness of her far beginning lies, And yet shall lie. Bryant. 208 GOLDEN GLEAMS. As nightingales do upon glow-worms feed, So poets live upon the living light of nature and beauty. Bailey. God has made this world very fair. He fashioned it in beauty when there was no eye to behold it hut his own. All along the wild forest he has carved the forms of beauty. Every hill and dale and tree and landscape is a picture of beauty. Every cloud and mist-wreath and vapor-veil is a shadowy reflection of beauty. Every spring and rivulet, every river and lake and ocean, is a glassy mirror of beauty. Every diamond and rock and pebbly beach is a mine of beauty. Every sea and planet and star is a blazing face of beauty. All along the aisles of earth, all over the arches of heaven, all through the expanse of the universe, are scat- tered in rich and infinite profusion the life germs of beautv. All natural motion is beauty in action. From the mote that plays its little frolic in the sunbeam, to the world that blazes along the sapphire spaces of the firmament, are visi- ble the ever varying features of the enrapturing spirit of beauty. All things have something more than barren use: There is a scent upon the brier, A tremulous splendor in the autumn dews; Cold morns are fringed with fire. The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breathed flowers; In music dies poor human speech; And in beauty blow those hearts of ours When love is born in each. Life is transfigured in the soft and tender Light of love, as a volume dun Of roiling smoke becomes a wreathed splendor In the declining sun. Alexander Smith, SUNBUKSTS. 209 Flow on forever, in thy glorious robe Of terror and of beauty. God hath set His rainbow on thy forehead, and the clouds Mantled around thy feet; and he doth give Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him Eternally, bidding the lip of man Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour Incense of awe-struck praise. Jfrs. Sigourney, (Apostrophe to Niagara.) The flowers of rhetoric are only acceptable when backed by the evergreens of truth and sense. Macaulay. Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit-spirits dwell and range apart; Our eyes see all around, in gloom or glow, Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart. I stood beside my window one stormy winter day, And watched the light, white snow flakes flutter past; And I saw, though each one wandered its silent, separate way, They all sank down upon the ground at last. "So men must lie down, too," I said, " When life is past." From out the selfsame window, when soft spring days were come, I watched the fair, white clouds that sailed the blue; Could those bright, pearly wonders far up in heaven's high dome Be the old, wintry snow-banks that I knew? " So men shall one day rise again," I whispered, " too." Caroline Leslie. 14 210 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The path of duty in this world is not all gloom or sadness or darkness. Like the roads of the South, it is hedged with everbloom, pure and white as snow. It is only when we turn to the right hand or the left that we are lacerated by piercing thorns and concealed dangers. Iiev. James Dins more Kerr. Sweet day! so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky, The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. George Herbert. Whither amidst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way 'i There is a power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast, The desert and illimitable air, Lone wandering, but not lost. He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that 1 must tread alone Will lead my steps aright. Bryant, (To a Water Fowl.) Oh heart of God that pities all! Oh Love that gives and takes away! Confused and faint, on thee we call, Yet know not how we ought to pray. Saw this, that in our doubt and fear, We wait as loving children should; We cannot see nor far nor near, But trust that somehow all is good. Tennyson. SUNBURSTS. 211 There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar. Byron. An hour of solitude, passed in sincere and earnest prayer or conflict with, and conquest over, a single passion or sub- tle bosom sin, will teach us more of thought, will more effectually awaken the faculty, and form the habit of reflec- tion than a year's study in the schools without them. Coleridge. Nature denied him much, But gave him at his birth what most he values — A passionate love for music, sculpture, painting; For poetry — the language of the Gods; For all things here or grand or beautiful — The setting sun, a lake among the mountains, The light of an ingenuous countenance, And what transcends them all — a noble action. /Samuel Rogers. Po;-:t! T come to touch thy lance with mine; Not as a knight, who on the listed field Of tournay touched his adversary's shield In token of defiance, but in sign Of homage to the mastery, which is thine In English song; nor will I keep concealed, And voiceless as a rivulet frost-congealed, My admiration fur thy verse divine. Not of the howling dervishes of song, "Who craze the brain with their delirious dance, Art thou, O sweet historian of the heart! Therefore to thee the laurel leaves belong, To thee our love and our allegiance, For thy allegiance to the poet's art. Henry ~W. Longfellow to Alfred Tennyson. 212 GOLDEX GLEAMS. To the pure mind alone hath solitude Its charms. To that base nature which Runs to daily riot in the carnival of Sin, there is no sweetness in the calm Seclusion of the forest shade. For the deep quiet that doth reign Around is but a torturing contrast To the sad turmoil within the breast, And there would conscience sting him to the quick. But, to the mind endued with nobler Aims, it is a treat, indeed, to seat one's Self upon some fallen trunk, which in Its palmy days upreared itself in stately Pride, and waived on high its vernal Branches in the summer breeze, and There to feast the eyes on the rich Landscape spread before our gaze, while On the listening ear doth i'all the melody Of singing birds, the hum of insects, and The soft sound of tinkling bells, borne By the well-fed kine, as wandering Homewards they stoop to crop the dewy herbage by the \\ ay. And though, perchance, we may not Own one foot of soil on which we look, Yet is the whole beauteous picture ours, Framed in its fair margin of shady "Woods and sunlit skies. 'Tis from A scene like this, the soul doth rise On eager wings, to lay its tribute of Adoring praise before that Being bright, Who made the earth and clothed it with Its vernal robe, and spangled it with Perfumed flowers, decked it with the Golden light of day, and cave it as A heritage for man. To Him be all the praise ! SUXBUKSTS. 213 We will grieve not ; rather find Strength in what remains behind, Jn the primal sympathy, Which having been must ever be, In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering, In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind. Wordsicorth. Come ! for thy day, thy wasted day, is closing, With all its joy and sun; Bright, loving hours have pass'd thee by, unheeded; Thy work on earth undone — And all thy race unrun. Folly and pleasure hast thou still been chasing, With the world's giddy throng; Beauty and love have been thy golden idols; And thou hast rushed along, Still list'ning to their song. Sorrow and weeping thou hast cast behind thee; For what were tears to thee? Life was not life without the smile and sunshine; Only in revelry Did wisdom seem to be. Unclasp, O man! the syren hand of pleasure; Let the gay folly go! A few quick years will bring the unwelcome ending; Then whither dost thou go — To endless joy, or woe? Clasp a far truer hand, a kinder, stronger, Of Him, the crucified; Let in a deeper love into thy spirit — The love of Him who died, And now is glorified! 214 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Do you see, my friend, that beautiful picture of Corregio, and again, that Venus of Titian, and that incomparable picture of Annibale Carracci? Ah! my poor friend, I must quit all that. Adieu, dear paintings that I have loved so much, and that have cost me so dear! Cardinal 3fazarin. Tears, idle tears— I know not what they mean — Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Tennyson. piety! O heavenly piety! She is not rigid, as fanatics deem, But warm as love, and beautiful as hope. Prop of the weak, the crown of humbleness, The clue of doubt, the eyesight of the blind, The heavenly robe and garniture of clay. He that is crowned with that supernal crown, Is lord and sovereign of himself and fate, And angels are his friends and ministers. Clad in that raiment, ever white and pure, The wayside mire is harmless to defile, And rudest storms sweep impotently by. The pilgrim wandering amid crags and pits, Supported by that staff shall never fall: He smiles at peril and defies the storm. Shown by that clue, the doubtful path is clear; The intricate snares and mazes of the world Are all unlabyrinthed and bright as day. Sweet piety! divinest piety! She has a soul capacious as the spheres, A heart as larce as all human it v. SUNBURSTS. 215 Who to his dwelling takes that visitant, Has a perpetual solace in all pain, A friend and comforter in every grief. The noblest domes, the haughtiest palaces That know not her, have ever open gates Where misery may enter at her will. But from the threshold of the poorest hut, Where she sits smiling, sorrow passes by, And owns the spell that robs her of her sting. It is thy voice that floats above the din, Clear as a silver bell; We hear thee, Saviour ! through the strife of sin, Thy servants heed thee well; Beyond all others, through the upper air That voice comes pure and sweet, Like chimes, that from a steeple tall and fair, Break o'er the clamorous street. Not all, O Lord ! may walk erect and know The music of that sound; Some cannot hear thee till their heads are low, Ay, level with the ground! And yet for them, heart-humbled and alone, Spurned as the crowds go by, There is a power in the royal tone To set them up on high. Thy sheep shall hear thy voice, on plain or hill, Through flood or wilderness, In the green pastures, by the waters still, In joy or sharp distress, Thy call will reach them, sometimes loud and near, Then faint and far away; O thou good Shepherd ! grant that heart and ear May listen and obey ! Sarah JJoudney. 216 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Mast;: i! ! to do great work for thee, my hand Is tar too weak. Thou givest what may suit — Some little chips to cut with cart- minute, Or tint, or grave, or polish. Others stand Before their quarried marble, fair and grand, And make a life-work of the great d< sign Which thou hast traced; or, many-skilled, combine To build vast temples, gloriously planned, Yet take the tiny stones which I have wrought, Just one by one, as they were given by thee, Not knowing what came next in thy wise thought. Set each stone by thy master hand of grace, Form the mosaic as thou wilt, for me, And in thy temple- pavement give ii place. Frances Ridley Havergal. I thought to work for Him. " Master !" I said, "Behold how wide the fields, and the good seed How few to sow. For Thee all toil were sweet — Oh, bid me go! " He staved my eager i'eet. "Not that, my chill ! the task I have for thee." "Thou seest, Lord ! how white the harvest bends, How worn the reapers are. Their cry ascends For help, more help to garner up the grain — Here am I, Lord! send me." Alas! In vain! Tiie Master saith, t- Let others bind the sheaves." "Thy lambs, dear Lord ! are straying from the fold. Their feet are stumbling o'er the mountains cold. Far in tiie night I hear their piteous cry — Let me bring back the wanderers ere they tiie." "No. Other hands must load them home again."' "Dear Master! dost thou see the bitter tears The mourners shed? Through all tin; long sad years, Their wails ascend. Wilt thou not bid me say, Thy hand shall wipe each mourner's tears away!" "My'child! 1 know their "-riei's. and 1 will heal !*' SUNBURSTS. 217 " 'Tis not for thee to sow the deathless seed, Nor thine to bind the sheaves; nor thine to lead The lost lambs back into their fold again, Nor vet to soothe the heart sore crushed with pain; For thee, my child ! another task is set." And then He led me to my darkened room, And there amid the silence and the gloom, My task I found. But I am well content To bear the pain and weakness He hath sent, Rejoiced that I can suffer for His sake. Why shouldst thou fill to-day with sorrow About to-morrow, My heart? One watches all with care most true ; Doubt not that He will give thee, too, Thy part. Only be steadfast; never waver, Nor seek earth's favor, But rest; Thou knowest what God wills must be For all his creatures, so for thee, The best. Paul Fleming. There is no death ! what seems so is transition; This life of mortal breath Is but the suburb of the life elysian Whose portals we call death. Longfellow. Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them ; they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence. George Eliot. 218 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Halt! Who passes, friend or foe? Friend? Advance! The countersign I What! No word? Surely I know That step of thine. 'T is mine ancient enemy, Woe betide his stealthy grace ! Through the shadows I can see How he veils his face. List the murmur of the pines, Like a dirge, mournful and low ! How the dusky, clinging vines Waver to and fro ! Help! his hand is at my heart! Whither has my courage flown? Is there none to take my part? Must I fall alone? I have fought thee long and well — All in vain ! at last 1 yield! Lo! the mask that veiled him fell, And an ano-el stood revealed ! A. H. S. There is no death! The stars go down To shine upon some fairer shore, And bright in Heaven's jeweled crown They shine for evermore. There is no death! The dust we tread Shall change beneath the summer showers To golden grain, or mellow fruit, Or rainbow-tinted llowers. There is no death! The leaves may fall, The flowers may fade and pass away — They only wait tl if nigh wintry hours The coming of the May. suxbukst.-s. 219 There is no death! An angel form Walks o'er the earth with silent tread, He bears our best beloved away, And then we call them " dead." He leaves our hearts all desolate, He plucks our fairest, sweetest flowers — Transplanted into bliss, they now Adorn immortal bowers. The. birdlike voice, whose joyous tones Make glad this scene of sin and strife, Sings now in everlasting song Amid the tree of life. And where he sees a smile too bright, Or hearts too pure for taint and vice, He bears them to that world of light, To dwell in paradise. Born into that undying life, They leave us but to come asrain; With joy we welcome them — the same Except in sin and pain. And ever near us, though unseen, The dear immortal spirits tread, For all the boundless universe Is life — there are no dead ! Lord Lytton. Thou canst not frown, Death! Thy sullen brow Is marble-cast; thine ear is deaf and dead To sound; thine eyes are blind, and thou art led By wandering chance, nor knowest where or how; Nor smile nor frown can move thy visage, now, To fill the cup of joy, or pain. 'Tis said Thou hast no touch of sorrow for the bed Of anguish; thou dost scorn both weal and woe, And, merciless and pitiless, dost change 220 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The purposes of men, with frosted breath; Dost snap sweet ties and gentle bonds of love, And in thy prison-house — the grave — with strange, Relentless hand, dost bind the soul, O Death ! And cheat the spirit of its home above. Yet, Death ! thou art not victor. Through the gloom Of thy veiled face, like some dim-visioned height In shadow, dawns the spirit's quenchless light The vast reality of love — to loom Beyond the shuddering silence of the tomb! 0, Christly faith ! but lift, in gentle might, The standard of thy Master, and the night Doth melt in day, sublimer thought doth bloom And flower, and holier laws compel the heart, Till, uncompelled, all souls, made true as free, Shall hear, enwrapped, the voiceless, heavenly choirs, In unimagined glorias, impart The perfect song of immortality, The full fruition of divine desires ! S. H. Thayer. Call me not dead when I, indeed, have gone Into the company of the ever-living, High and most glorious poets ! Let thanksgiving Rather be made. Say, " He at last hath won Rest and release, converse supreme and wise, Music and song and light of immortal faces. To-day, perhaps, wandering in starry places, He hath met Keats, and known him by his eyes. To-morrow (who can say?) Shakespeare may pass, — And our lost friend just catch one syllable Of that three-centuried wit that kept so well. Or Milton, — or Dante, looking on the grass, Thinking of Beatrice, and listening still To chanted hymns that sound from the heav- enly hill." Scribner's. ECHOES. 221 So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan which moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death, Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustain'd and sooth'd By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave Like one that draws the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. Bryant. XXI. ECHOES. There are many echoes in the world, and but few voices. Goethe. Tones are the cadences which emotion gives to thought. Herbert Spencer. Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart, which can- not be compressed into words, because it is infinite. Wagner. Words are not essential to the existence of thought — only to its expression. Dugald Stewart. Thinking is the talking of the soul with itself. Plato. Were it not for music we might, in these days, say, the beautiful is dead. D ''Israeli. 222 GOLDEX GLEAHS. Music has a grammar and a syntax, but no speech. Har- mony is the angelic and divine tongue. No words are necessary to ecstacy. When the soul speaks its syllables are sighs, and its eloquence the melody of the birds. John W. Forney. The music of art is but the imitation of the music of nature; there are voices of grief in the winds, joy in the songs of spring and melody in the rippling stream. These /Eolian strains God employs to educate the finer feelings; and man, conspiring to the same result, adds these artificial charms, which elevate the sentiment, quicken the imagina- tion, touch the heart, transport the soul and draw the finite closer to the infinite. W. 17. Robertson. Music, as it rises from the family altar or echoes from the sanctuary, addresses the highest and holiest emotions of the soul. Rev. J. M. Smith. Wiit:x music grieves, the past Returns in tears. Alexander Smith. Music, in its highest form, seems a pensive memory. Dae id Swing . The foot always steps more lightly and willingly when there is a band of music in front. David Swing. Music should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman. Beethoven. Song shall be heard as long as fields are green, and skies are blue, and woman's face is fair. Alexander Smit*^ ECHOES. 223 Poetry is the marriage of music to passionate sentiment. Musical! how much lies in that. A musical thought is one spoken by a mind that has penetrated into the inner- most heart of the thing, detected the inmost mystery of it, namely, the melody that lies hidden in it, the inward har- mony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and lias a right to be in this world. All inmost things, we may say, are melodious, naturally utter themselves in song. The meaning of song goes deep. Who is there that in logi- cal words can express the effect music has on us. A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that. Carlyle. When troubles come, go at them with songs. When griefs arise, sing them down. Lift the voice of praise against cares. They sing in heaven, and among God's peo- ple on earth; song is the appropriate language of Christian feeling. Beecher. The devil cannot stand music. Luther. The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. =h * * >h Let no such man be trusted. Shakespeare. This is the luxury of music. It touches every key of memory, and stirs all the hidden springs of sorrow and of joy. I love it for what it makes me forget, and for what it makes me remember. Belle Brittain. 22 i GOLDEN GLEAMS. What martial music is to marching men, should song be to humanity. Alexander Smith. The musician by profession hears, in an orchestral per- formance, every instrument, and every single tone, whilst one unacquainted with the art is wrapped up in the mas- sive effect of the whole. Goethe. What is commonly called musical criticism is a misnomer. If we have heard a piece of music before, if it be pleasantly associated in our history, if it recall fond scenes of the past, which we would fain renew, we love it, we praise its every repetition, the merits of the tune being measured by the amount of emotion it lias stirred within us. Now all this is purely personal, and, in truth, not far from selfish. Such judgments are worthless, being often unsound in fact, and always unsafe in principle. Jonathan. Edwards, D.D. Poetry, and its twin-sister, Music, are the most sublime and spiritual of arts, and are much more akin to the genius of Christianity, and minister far more copiously to the pur- poses of devotion and edification than Architecture, Paint- ing or Sculpture. They employ word and tone, and can speak thereby more directly to the spirit than the plastic arts by stone and color, and give more adequate expression to the whole wealth of thought and feeling. Schair. Music hath an impressive, as well as an expressive, power and purpose. Ira JJ. Sank* y. Music! we love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon at a touch. JIlSS I. E. London. ECHOES. 225 And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, And as silently steal away. Longfellow. Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Auerbach. Oh, let us carry hence, each one, Some kindly word, some look, some tone, Into his after-life, to be Treasured heart-deep and carried home — An echo from the distant sea, A thing of joy to memory, In all the years to come ! I stand by every word I utter when I sing, and feel I must to the death. It is not alone song with me — melodi- ous sounds — it is the lesson inculcated: hope in the future, bright joys to come, the mercy of an all-wise God. I would not sing a wicked or a frivolous word before my audi- ence for anything on earth. Madame Antoinette Sterling. It does seem that God in His mystery has some time put out the eyes of poets, and stopped the ears of musicians, to admit them to glimpses of His own glories, and whisper to them His own harmonies. A. P. Russell. Literature is the immortality of speech. Schlegel. TnE literature of an age is but the mirror of its prevalent tendencies. The Nation. 15 226 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The literature of the age is the photograph of its leading men and women. David Swiyig. Some people exclaim, "Give me no anecdotes of an au- thor, but give me his works; " and yet I have often found that the anecdotes are more interesting than the works. D' Israeli. I have never met but one man who knew how to read Emerson intelligently, and that is James A. Garfield. He says that the way to understand Emerson's writings is to begin at the end and read backwards. llroiison Alcott. The ti'ue test of poetry is the substance which remains when the poetry is reduced to prose. Goethe. Of every noble work the silent part is best; Of all expression, that which cannot be expressed. W. W. /Story. His choicest verse is harsher-toned than he. Low 11 (On Longfellow). Every man has some peculiar train of thought which he falls back upon when alone. This, to a great degree, molds the man. Dug aid Stewart. You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power. Iiufus Choate. Those that think must govern those that toil. Goldsmith. ECHOES. 227 Deep feeling is contagious. Words poured forth from burning hearts are sure to kindle the hearts of others. Hearts that can stand everything else are often melted hy a tear. Let the heart palpitate in every line, and burn in every word. A little said and truly said Can deeper joy impart Than hosts of words that reach the head, But never touch the heart. Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive. Wordsworth. Nothing will make a man more persuasive than to really need a thing, and to be determined to have it. I have always dreaded to provoke reason, but never in- dividuals. Miraheau. Fiction hath in it a higher end than fact. 'T is the pos- sible when compared with the merely positive. Bailey. We represent our fictions as though they were realities, while you preach your realities as though they were fictions. An Actor to a Minister. Accustom thyself carefully to attend to what is said by another, and, as much as possible, be in the speaker's mind. Marcus Aurelius. "VTe can refute assertions, but who can refute silence? Dickens. 22S GOLDEN GLEAMS. Whiter! whoso'er thou art, Speaker! on whatever theme, Write and speak from heart to heart, Truly being what you seem. Tupper. Never act in the heat of emotion; let reason answer first. Hie /iter. The greatest element of criticism is taste. Sainte Beuve. A bold surprise at a belief is sometimes the best argu- ment against it. London Quarterly. The more we study human nature, the less we think of men, the more of man. Theodore Til ton. It is a matter of the simplest demonstration that no man can be really appreciated but by his equal or superior. Ruskin. Shakespeare, with all his genius, failed to create any great religious character. Atlantic Monthly. The painter has but one sentence to utter, but one mo- ment to exhibit; he cannot like the poet or historian expa- tiate and impress. Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is easy enough to draw an eye; the difficulty is to paint a look. Auguste Pre'ault. A picture is a poem without words. Horace. ECHOES. 229 Before the close of this century, pictures will be as much used in the preaching of sermons as are manuscripts. President Hitchcock. Pictures are the consolers of loneliness. Irving. Every man carries in his own head more pictures than are to be found in all the galleries of the world. Beecher. The Jew is the pilgrim of commerce, trading with every nation and blending with none. Conybeare & Howson. No nation has treated in poetry moral ideas with more energy and depth than the English. There, it seems to me, is the great merit of the English poets. Voltaire. When you see me lounging about the garden, and prun- ing a rosebush, you probably suppose that I am thinking of nothing else, when, perhaps, I am deliberating on some weighty matter on which I have to decide. Archbishop Whately. Genius is only a superior power of seeing. RusJcin. Duty and to-day are ours; results and futurity belong to God. Horace Greely. If there is any person whom you dislike, that is the very person of whom you ought never to speak. Cecil. The next dreadful thing to a battle lost is a battle won WeUingtoyi. 2o0 GOLD EX GLEAMS. Perish policy and cunning, Perish all that fears the light; Whether losing, whether winning, Trust in God, and do the right. Some will love thee, some will hate thee. Some will natter, some will slight; Cease from man, and look above thee, Trust in God, and do the right. Is or man Macleod. XXII. FIREFLIES. The firefly only shines when on the win?; So with the mind ; when once we rest, we darken. Bailey. In life we always believe that we are seeking repose, while, in reality, all that we ever seek is agitation. Pascal. It is ever the contest that pleases us, and not the vic- tory. Tims it is in play ; thus it is in hunting ; thus it is in the search of truth ; thus it is in life. The past does not interest us, the present does not satisfy, the future alone is the object which engages us. Sir William, Hamilton. Our hopes like towering falcons aim At objects in an airy height, But all the pleasure of the game Is afar off — to view the flight. FIREFLIES. 231 Wekp not that the world changes ; did it keep A stable, changeless state, 't were cause indeed to weep. Bryant. Beware of getting into a rut from which it may be dif- ficult for you to extricate yourself. Rev. Noah M. Price. When we see the dishonor of a thing, then it is time to renounce it. Plutarch. The mattock will make a deeper hole in the ground than lightning. Horace Mann. Do not wait for extraordinary opportunities for good actions, but make use of common situations. A long-con- tinued walk is better than a short flight. Goethe. Maintain the place where thou standest. Goethe. A man's best friends are his ten fingers. Robert Collier. A man living amid the advantages and activities of the nineteenth century is a condensed Methusalah. Chap in, ■ Tni-: only way to shine, even in this false world, is to be modest and unassuming. Falsehood may be a thick crust, but, in the course of time, truth will find a place to break through. Bryant. Parlor feasts extinguish kitchen fires. Proverb. 232 GOLDEX GLEAMS. There is no policy like politeness, since a good manner often succeeds where the best tongue has failed. Magoon. There is in human nature a general inclination to make people stare. Samuel Johnson. The sword is but a hideous flash in the darkness — right is an eternal ray. Victor Hugo. Words are keener than steel, And mightier far for woe than for weal. Joaquin Miller. While Thanksgiving has its foundation on Plymouth Rock, Christmas rests upon the Rock of Ages. Charles Dudley Warner. Chance is the best introducer. Turkish Proverb. Every wind is fair, When we are Hying from misfortune. Sophocles. The English people are like a barrel of their own ale — on the top froth, on the bottom dregs, but in the middle excellent. Voltaire. I wish you not only a happy New Year, but a happy eternity. W. S. Plumer, D.D. There is that in pomo men, which, if not chilled by ad- versity, would give to the world grand thoughts. FIKEFLIES. 23o What we strove after yesterday, that our hearts begin again to-day. Paul Gassel. A theme for angels when they celebrate The high-souled virtues which forgetful earth has witnessed. Welcome ! A curse begin at the very root of his heart That is not glad to see thee! Shakespeare. The earth and air feed the plants, the plants feed the animals, the animals feed the earth and air. This is the great circle of nutrition in nature. J. F. Whittaker, M. D. Time and patience will change the mulberry leaf to satin. Eastern Proverb. There are some deeds so grand That their mighty doers stand Ennobled, in a moment, more than kings. Baker. The surest way of making a dupe is to let your victim suppose that you are his. JBulwer. Those who have finished by making all others think with them, have usually been those who began by daring to think for themselves. Colton. It is a great matter to be in the way of accident, and to be watchful and ready to take advantage of it. Sir Joshua Reynolds. 234 GOLDEN GLEAMS. It sounds like stories from the land of spirits, If any man obtain that which he merits, Or any merit that which he obtains. Coleridge. Follow up advantages. Napoleon. The use of character is to be a shield against calumny. Burke. Each one sees what he carries in his heart. Goethe. You will find poetry nowhere, unless you bring some with you. Joubert. When a man seeks your advice, he generally wants your praise. Chesterfield. The best thing one can do is to cultivate one's garden. Voltaire. He who has most of heart knows most of sorrow. Bailey. Roses have thorns and silver fountains mud. Sliahespeare. Why all this toil for triumph of an hour ? Young. Life's a short Summer, man a flower. Johnson-. By turns we catch the vital breath and die — Pope. The cradle and the tomb, alas ! so nigh. Prior. To be is better than not to be, Sen-ell. Though all man's life may seem a tragedy. Spencer. But light cares speak when mighty griefs are dumb, Baniell. The ho*tam is but shallow whence they come. Raleigh. FIREFLIES. 235 Your fate is but the common fate of all; Longfellow. Unmingled joys here to no man befall. Southwell. Nature to each allots his proper sphere; Congreve. Fortune makes folly her peculiar care. Churchill. Custom does often reason overrule, And throws a cruel sunshine on a fool. Rochester. Armstrong. Live well ; how long or short permit to heaven; Milton. They who forgive most shall be most forgiven. Bailey. Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face, Trench. Vile intercourse where virtue has no place. Somerville. Then keep each passion down, however dear, Thomson. Thou pendulum betwixt a smile and tear. Baron. Her sensual snare let faithless pleasure lay, Smollett, With craft and skill to ruin and betray. Grabbe. Soar not too high to fall, but stoop to rise ; Masseng< r. We masters grow of all that we despise. Cowley. Then I renounce that impious self-esteem; Beattie. Riches have wings, and grandeur is a dream. Cowper. Think, not ambition wise because 'tis brave; Bavenant. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Gray. What is ambition? 'T is a glorious cheat! Willis. Only destructive to the brave and great. Addison. What's all the gaudy glitter of a crown? Bryden. The way to bliss lies not on beds of down. Quarles. How long we live, not years but actions tell ; Watkins. That man lives twice who lives the first life well. Herrick. The trust that's given, guard, and to yourself be just, Bana. For, live we how we can, yet die we must. Shakespeare. (Compiled by Mrs. H. A. Demino.) 236 GOLDEN GLEAMS. T cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unex- ercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary. Milton. A cordial, warm shake of the hand takes my heart. N.P. Willis. Max's best powers point him godward. Spur g eon. Men - are naturally tempted by the devil, but an idle man positively tempts the devil. Spanish Proverb. It is remarkable with what Christian fortitude and resig- nation we can bear the sufferings of other people. Dean Swift. When the world frowns we can face it, but let it smile, and we are undone. JBulwer. Good temper, like a sunny day, sheds a brightness over everything ; it is the sweetener of toil and the soother of disquietude. Irving. The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident. Charles Lamb. That is ever the difference between the wise and the un- wise; the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual. Emerson. Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life. Sir W. Temple. FIREFLIES. 237 Self-love is not so vile a sin As self-neglecting. Shakespeare. Forty years is the old age of youth, while fifty is the youth of old age. Victor Hugo. Recall to mind the heavier trials of others, that you may bear more lightly your own little troubles. Thomas a Kempls. There is something still more to be dreaded than a Jesuit, and that is a Jesuitess. Eugene Sue. The human heart refuses to believe in a universe without a purpose. Kant. You may depend upon it, there are as good hearts to serve men in palaces as in cottages. Robert Owen. The most skillful flattery is to let a person talk on, and be a listener. Addison. Things that never happen are often as much realities to us in their effects as those that are accomplished. Dickens. Those with whom we can apparently become well ac- quainted in a few moments, are generally the most difficult to rightly know and understand. TT , & J Hawthorne. The fretful stir, Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart. Wordsworth. 233 GOLDEN GLEAMS. We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. Goethe. Our enemies speak of us as they hear; we judge of our- selves as we feel. Hannah More. There is a serious and resolute egotism that makes a man interesting to his friends, and formidable to his oppo- nents. E. P. Whipple. A judicious reticence is hard to learn, but it is one of the great lessons of life. Chesterfield. I have lived to know that the secret of happiness is never to let your energies stagnate. Adam Clarke. All persons are not discreet enough to know how to take things by the right handle. Cervantes. The negative part of a conversation is often as impor- tant as its positive. IVteodore Winthrop. A man behind the times is apt to speak ill of them, on the principle that nothing looks well from behind. Holmes. Always be as solicitous to shun applause as assiduous to deserve it. Chesterfield. Not for art, not for truth, not for God, will we give up our ease. We will only give it up for money, and that tu purchase future ease. Round Table. LIFE-MOTTOES. 2.' '. 9 Our antagonist is often our helper. Burke. We cannot expect perfection in any one; but we may demand consistency of every one. Hannah More. A name, though it seem but a superficial matter, yet carrieth much impression and enchantment. Lord Bacon. Evert man who rises in any profession must tread a path more or less bedewed by the tears of those he passes on iiis way. Peter Bay ne. If a man has any brains at all, let him hold on to his calling, and in the grand sweep of things, his turn will come at last. Walter McC'une. XXIII. LIFE-MOTTOES. All may have, If they dare choose, a glorious life or grave. George Herbert. To live in hearts we leave behind Is not to die. Campbell. Howe'er it be, it seems to me 'T is only noble to be good. Tennyson. 240 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Procrastination is the thief of time; Year after year it steals till all are fled, And, to the mercies of a moment, leave The vast concerns of an eternal scene. Not yet dead, But in old marbles ever beautiful. It is infamy to die and not be missed. 'T is late before The brave despair. Young. Keats. Wilcox. Thompson. Throw time away, Throw empires, and be biameless — Moments seize. Every one has his day from which he dates. Proverb. We should go into the world with small expectations and infinite patience. Good Words. Be good, my dear, let who will be clever; Do noble things, not dream them all day long; And so make life, death, and the vast forever, One grand, sweet song. Charles Kingsley. Get into the habit of looking for the silver lining of the cloud, and when you have found it continue to look at it rather than at the leaden gray in the middle. It will help you over many hard places. A. A. Willits, IJ.D. LIFE-MOTTOES. 241 Perseverance is a Roman virtue That wins each godlike act, and plucks success Even from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger. Hazard. Still I am learning! Michael Angelo. 1 cannot help suspecting that those who abuse them- selves are in reality angling for approbation. Zimmerman. There is a past which is gone forever, but there is a fu- ture which is still our own. F. W. Robertson. He is a wise man who always knows what to do next. Proverb. Who best can suffer, best can do. Milton. 'T is man's nature To make the best of a bad thing once past, A bitter and perplexed " What shall I do?" Is worse to man than worst necessity. Schiller. No conflict is so severe as his who labors to subdue him- self. Thomas d Kemp is. If you want to succeed in the world you must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land, will find that the seventh wave is a long- time coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until some one comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence. John B. Gough. 242 GOLDEN GLEAMS. It is impious in a good man to be sad. Shakespeare. The superior man will watch over himself when he is alone. He examines his heart that there may be nothing wrong there, and that he may have no cause for dissatisfac- tion with himself. Confucius, Each soul redeemed from self and sin Must know its Calvary. Cobbe. Snow me the man you honor; I know by that symptom better than by any other, what kind of a man you are your- self; for you show me what your ideal of manhood is, what kind of a man you long to be. Carlyle- In the moral life conscience predominates. Phillips Brooks. He that respects not is not respected. Herbert. I am so much a utilitarian that I prefer the useful to the useless. Sir William Hamilton. No one should blame Neptune i'or a second shipwreck. Auguste Preault. We must go head-foremost toward the world, but heart- foremost toward God. J. W. Scott, D.D. My heart and mind and self never in tune; Sad for the most part; then in such a flow Of spirits — I seem now hero — now buffoon. -Leigh Hunt. LIFE-MOTTOES. 243 Keep thy spirit pure from worldly taint by the repellant strength of virtue. Bailey We live in the consequences of past action. A. A. Hodge, D.D. Vice stings us even in our pleasures, but virtue consoles us even in our pains. Colton. Be ashamed of nothing but sin. John Wesley. Method in study, with a proper division of labor, will give us time for leisure and recreation. Alfred JYevin, D.D. What I don't see Don't trouble me; And what 1 see Might trouble me, Did I not know, That it must be so. Goethe. As you ascend the road of prosperity, may you never meet a friend coming down. Unless a man nas trained himself for his chance, the chance will only make him ridiculous. A great occasion is worth to a man exactly what his antecedents have enabled him to make of it. William Mathews. In deciding questions of truth and duty, remember that the wrong side has a c*-afty and powerful advocate in your own heart. 244 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A man's happiness and success in life will depend not so much upon what he has, or upon what position he occu- pies, as upon what he is, and the heart he carries into his position. S. J. Wilson, D.D. The higher the sphere of life, the more fully does it hold good that particular individuals must be many things ;o many men, as Aristotle, Leibnitz, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Calvin, Napoleon. Martensen. Logical men, dogmatic men, rule the world. Aristotle, Kant, Augustine, Calvin — these are the names that instant- ly suggest systems, and systems that are exact, solid, and that maintain their place from century to century. Shedd. Curved is the line of beauty, Straight is the line of duty; Follow the last and thou shall see Tht; other ever following thee. When a man is born from above, this world is spoiled for him. Moody. Fi:om the grave of a dead hope we may rise to newness of life. Let us be thankful for the pangs by which God brings us to Himself. Herrick Johnson, D.D. The greatest men have been those who have cut their way to success through difficulties. F. W. Robertson. The heaven-sent man is always successful. Moody. LIFE-MOTTOES. 245 A Christian is really what he is when alone, and so a rainy Sunday may be a heaven-sent test to leave us to the discovery of ourselves. Christian at Work. When a man can live apart From works on theologic trust, I know the blood about his heart Is drv as dust. Every event of life points, if it does not carry us on, to the cross. Jonathan Edwards, D.D. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. Walter Scott. j^ord, what is man — what the best of men — but man at the best ? Whitefield. Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one. Jeffrey. The ends of culture, truly conceived, are best attained by forgetting culture and aiming higher. S hair p. Happiness is the congruity between a creature's nature and its circumstances. Bishop Butler. Pleasure is the reflex of unimpeded energy. /Sir William Hamilton. The best throw with the dice is to throw them away. Prvverb. 246 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most pow- erful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God. Spurgeon. The health of a community, is an almost unfailing index of its morals. Martineau. The worst of all knaves are those who can mimic their former honesty. Laoater. So strong the zeal t' immortalize himself Beats in the breast of man, that even a few, Few transient years, won from the abyss abhorr'd Of blank oblivion, seem to be a glorious prize. Be like the bird, that, halting in her flight Awhile on boughs too slight, Feels them give way beneath her and yet sings, Knowing that she hath wings. Victor Hugo. The drying up a single tear has more Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore. Byron. I live for those that love me, For those that know me true, For the heaven that smiles above me And waits my coming too; For the cause that needs assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, For the o - ood that I can do. LIFE-MOTTOES. 247 Do to-day thy nearest duty. Goethe. If you wish to win bright laurels, Ere to God you yield your life; If while on through years you journey, You'd be valiant in each strife; If you'd nobly do your duty, Or the " still, small voice " obey; Sit not idiy thinking, dreaming, But work earnestly to-day. There are roads where you can travel, There are seas where you can sail, You can beautify the wayside, Or with life-boats face the gale, You can help raise lofty temples, To show straying souls the way To win crowns of matchless glory ; So work earnestly to-day. Lucette. Bit what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries. Franklin. Fail not in the harder trial; Faint not in the greater struggle. He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, Who fears to put it to the touch, To win or lose it all. Montrose. The worst is not, So long as we can say, This is the worst. Shakespeare. 248 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Every man's life is a plan of God. Horace Bushnell. Who will speak the solvent word for all these problems? Emerson. Prize respect more than affection. Charming. It is a very great thing to be able to bear the absence of both human and divine consolation, and for the love of God cheerfully to accept inward desolation, and never to seek nor reflect upon one's deserts. Thomas a Kempis. Oh, what a tangled web we weave When first we practice to deceive ! Scott. When our hatred is too keen, it places us beneath those we hate. La Rochefoucauld. Painting is my wife, and my works are my children. Michael Angelo. The least error should humble, but we should never per- mit even the greatest to discourage us. Bishop Potter. From torch reversed the flame Still streameth, rising straight; So struggleth up the brave man Stricken down bv fate. Do you ask me in general what will be the end of the conflict? I answer, victory. But if you ask me in particu- lar, I answer, death. Savonarola. LIFE-MOTTOES. 249 All of us pay a high price for the manhood we obtain — nothing less than the sweet faith of childhood; all along the way, from morning to high noon, robbers exact the toll of life. George D. Prentice. AiioxG the pitfalls in our way, The be&t of us walk blindly; So, man, be wary, watch and pray, And judge your brother kindly. Alice Cary. Get leave to work; In this world 't is the best you got at all; For God, in cursing, gives us better gifts Than man in benediction. God says, " Sweat For foreheads; " men say " crowns," and so we are crowned — Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work; Be sure 't is better than what you work to get. Elizabeth B. Browning. There is a grandeur in the soul that dares To live out all the life God lit within; That battles with the passions hand to hand, And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield; That plucks its joy in the shadow of death's wing, That drains with one deep draught the wine of life, And that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eyes May stand upon a dizzy precipice, High over the abyss of ruin, and not fall. Sara J. Clarke. Few men die when or where they expect to. W. Goodwyn, D.D. A dying man can do nothing easy. Benjamin Franklin. 250 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Much had he read, Much more had seen; he studied from the life, And in the original perused mankind. Versed in the woes and vanities of life, He pitied man. Armstrong. This monument does not make thee famous, O Euripides! but thou makest this monument famous. Epitaph of Euripides. So, when a good man dies, For years beyond his ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths of men. The best of all is, God is with us. PitAY more and worry less. Longfellow. John Wesley. Moody. Revkre thyself, and yet thyself despise; His nature no man can o'errate, and none Can underrate his merit. Young. By all means, use sometime to be alone; Salute thyself, see what thy soul doth wear; Dare to look in thy chest; for 't is thine own — And tumble up and down what thou findest there. Herbert. Hope, though your sun is hid in gloom, And o'er your careworn, wrinkled brow, Grief spreads his shadows — 't is the doom That falls on many now. LIFE-MOTTOES. 251 Our life was but a battle and a march; And, like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless, We stormed across the war-convulsed earth. Schiller. Looking calmly yet humbly for the close of my mortal career, which cannot be far distant, I reverently thank God for the blessings vouchsafed me in the past, and with an awe that is not fear, and a consciousness of demerit that does not exclude hope, await the opening before my steps of the gates of the eternal world. Horace Greely. We are what the past has made us. The results of the past are ourselves. The perishable emotions, and the mo- mentary acts of bygone years, are the scaffolding on which we built up the being that we are. As the tree is fertilized by its own broken branches and fallen leaves, and grows out of its own decay, so is the soul of man ripened out of broken hopes and blighted affections. F. W. Robertson. Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed hath sate, He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers! My half-day's work is done, And this all my part, I give a patient God My patient heart, And clasp his banner still, Though all the blue be dim; These stripes, no less than stars, Lead after him. 252 GOLDEN GLEAMS. He wrought in sad sincerity; Himself from God he could not free. Emerson on Michael Angelo. Leave God to order all thy ways, And hope in Him whate'er betide; Thou 'It find Him in the evil days An all-sufficient strength and guide; Who trusts in God's unchanging love Builds on a rock that naught can move. George JVeicman. I know the hand that is guiding me through the shadow to the light, And I know that all betiding me is meted out aright; I know that the thorny path I tread is ruled by a golden Sine, And I know that the darker life's tangled thread, the richer the deep design. British Evangelist. Young men, you are the architects of your own fortunes Rely upon your own strength of body and soul. Take foi your star, self-reliance. Don't take too much advice — keep at your helm and steer your own ship, and remember that the great art of commanding is to take a fair share of the work. Think well of yourself. Strike out. Assume your own position. Put potatoes in a cart over a rough road, and the small ones go to the bottom. Rise above the envi- ous and jealous. Fire above the mark you intend to hit. Energv, invincible determination, with a right motive, are the levers that move the world. Be in earnest. Be self- reliant. Be generous. Be civil. Read the papers. Ad- vertise your business. Make money, and do good with it. Love vour God and fellow-men. Love truth and virtue. Love your country and obey its laws. President Porter. LIFE-MOTTOES. 253 He liveth long who liveth well! All other life is short and vain; He liveth longest who can tell Of living most for heavenly gain. He liveth long who liveth well! All else is being flung away; He liveth longest who can tell Of true things only done each day. Waste not thy being; back to Him Who freely gave it, freely give; Else is that being but a dream, 'T is but to be, and not to live. Be wise, and use thy wisdom well; Who wisdom speaks must live it too; He is the wisest who can tell How first he lived, then spoke the true. Be what thou seemest; live thy creed, Hold up to earth the torch divine; Be what thou prayest to be made; Let the great Master's step be thine. Fill up each hour with what will last; Buy up the moments as they go; The life above when this is past Is the ripe fruit of life below. Sow truth if thou the truth wouldst reap; Who sows the false shall reap the vain; Erect and sound the conscience keep, From hollow words and deeds refrain. Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure; Sow peace, and reap its harvest bright; Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor, And find a harvest home of light. II. Bonar. 254 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I would give nothing for a young man who did not be- gin life with an enthusiasm of some kind; it shows at least, that he had faith in some thing good, lofty and generous from his own standpoint. Duffon. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century. But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men. To write some earnest verse or line, Which, seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood smile In the untutored heart. He that doth this, in verse or prose, May be forgotten in his day, But surely shall be crowned at last with those Who live and speak for aye. James Russell Lowell. I love poverty, because Jesus Christ loved it. I love wealth, because it gives me the means of assisting the wretched. I keep faith with all men. I do not render evil to those who do it to me; but I desire a state for them like to my own, in which I receive neither evil or good from the 1 hand of man. I endeavor to be just, truthful, sincere and faithful to all men; and I have a tenderness of heart for those to whom God has united me more closely; and whether I am alone or in the sight of men, in all my actions I have in sight God, who must judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. Pascal's Profession of Faith. LIFE-MOTTOES. 255 As other men have creed, so have I mine: I keep the holy faith in God, in man, And in the angels ministrant between; I hold to one true church of all true souls, Whose churchly seal is neither bread nor wine, Nor laying on of hands, nor holy oil, But only the annointing of God's grace; I hate ail kings and caste and rank of birth, For all the sons of man are sons of God; Nor limps a beggar but is nobly born, Nor wears a slave a yoke, nor czar a crown, That makes him more or less than just a man; 1 love my country and her righteous cause, So dare I not keep silent of her sin; And after freedom may her bells ring peace 1 I love one woman with a hciy fire, Whom I revere as priestess of my house; I stand with wondering awe before my babes Till they rebuke me to a nobler life; I keep a faithful friendship with a friend, Whom loyally I serve before myself; I lock my lips too close to speak a lie, I wash my hands too white to touch a bribe; I owe no man a debt I cannot pay, Save only of the love men ought to owe; Withal, each day, before the blessed Heaven, I open wide the chambers of my soul And pray the Holy Ghost to enter in. Thus reads the fair confession of my faith, So crossed with contradictions of my life, That now may God forgive the written lie ! Yet still, by help of Him who helpeth men, I face two worlds, and fear not life nor death. O, Father, lead me by Thy hand ! Amen. T/teodore Tilton. 256 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Beautiful is young enthusiasm; keep it to the end, and be more and more correct in fixing on the object of it. It is a terrible thing to be wrong in that — the source of all our miseries and confusions whatever. Carlyle. Be not amazed at life. 'T is still The mode of God with his elect, Their hopes exactly to fulfill, In times and ways they least expect. Dean Alford. The romantic vision of the first half of a man's life is the most real survey of earth he will ever make. David Swing. The silent sympathy of love To me is dearer now than praise. WhiUier. A HEA.RT within blood-tinctured with a Veined humanity. Elizabeth D. Browning. On, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence ; live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rectitude;, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues ! So to live is heaven ; To make undying music in the world, LIFE-MOTTOES. 257 Breathing as beauteous order that controls With growing sway the growing life of man, So we inherit that sweet purity For which we struggled, failed, and agonized, With widening retrospect that dread despair — Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued, A vicious parent shaming still its child; Poor, anxious penitence is quick dissolved, Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies, Die in the large and charitable air. And all our rarer, better, truer self, That sobbed religiously in yearning song, That watched to ease the burden of the world, Laboriously tracing what must be, And what may yet be better — saw within A worthier image for the sanctuary, And shaped it forth before the multitude Divinely human, raising worship so To higher reverence more mixed with love — ■ That better self shall live till human time Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb, Unread forever. This is the life to come, Which martyred men have made more glorious For us who strive to follow. May I reach That purest heaven, be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony; Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty; Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, And in diffusion ever more intense; So shall I join the choir invisible Whose music is the gladness of the world. George Eliot. 17 258 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Look not mournfully into the past; it comes not back again. Wisely improve the present; it is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future without fear, and with a manly heart. Longfellow. We lead two lives, the outward seeming fair, And full of smiles that on the surface lie ; The other spent in many a silent prayer, With thoughts and feelings hidden from the eye. The weary, weary hours of mental pain, Unspoken yearnings for the dear ones gone ; The wishes half defined, yet crushed again, Make up the silent life we lead alone. And happy visions we may never show Gild all this siient life with sweet romance ; That they will fade like sunset's clouds we know. Yet life seems brighter for each stolen glance. This silent life, we little reck its power To strengthen us for either good or ill ; Whether we train our thoughts like birds to soar, Or let them wander wheresoe'er they will. This silent life, not those we love may share, Though day by day we strive to draw them close ; Our secret chamber — none may enter there, Save that one Eye that never seeks repose. And if beneath that Eye we do not quail, Though all the world may turn from us aside, We own a secret power that shall prevail, When every motive of our life is tried. FLYING EHBEKS. 259 XXIV. FLYING EMBEES. How many will say " forgive," and find A sort of absolution in the sound To bate a little longer! Tennyson. Forgiveness to the injured does belong; But they never pardon who have done the wrong. Dryden. To pardon an old injury is to provoke a new one. Auguste Preault. He who puts up with insult invites injury. Proverb. Be assured those will be thy worst enemies, not to whom thou hast done evil, but who have done evil to thee. And those will be thy best friends, not to whom thou hast done good, but who have done good to thee. Lavater. A lying tongue hateth those that are afflicted by it. Solomon. Friendship which flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring does not congeal in Winter. Fenimore Cooper. A man ought to keep his friendships in constant repair. I look upon a day as lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance. Dr. Samuel Johnson. 2G0 GOLDEN GLEAMS. What makes us like new acquaintances is not so much any weariness of our old ones, or the pleasures of change, as disgust at not being sufficiently admired by those who know us too well, and the hope of being more so by those who do not know so much of us. La Rochefoucauld. Heaven knows what would become of our society, if we never visited people we speak ill of; we should all live, like Egyptian hermits, in crowded solitude. George Eliot. Children always turn to the light; O, that grown-up men would do likewise ! Julius Hare. The great man down, you mark his favorite flies; The poor advanced makes friends of enemies, And hitherto doth love on fortune tend; For who not needs shall never lack a friend, And who in want a fellow-friend doth try Directly sees in him an enemy. Shakespeare. "Look on your best friends with the thought that they may one day become your worst enemies," was an ancient maxim of worldly prudence. It is for us to reverse this maxim, and rather say: " Look on your worst enemies with the thought that they may one day become your best friends."' Dean Stanley. Nothing so soon mortifies as to spend one's scorn in vain. John Foster. Unpopularity or popularity is utterly worthless as a test of manhoud'a worth. F. W. Robertson. FLYING EMBERS. 261 Rashly, nor ofttimes truly, doth- man pass judgment on his brother. Tupper. He seemed to be a soul that by accident had met with a body and tried to make the best of it. Joubert. He was the soul of goodness, Anil ail our praises of him are like streams Drawn from a spring, that still rise full, and leave The part remaining greatest. Shakespeare. How often have I lamented that his powers should have wanted the influence of an unsullied reputation! Dumont, on Mirabeau. No one is a more dangerous enemy to all that is sweet and good in human life, than the one who lends to impurity the sanction of splendid talents. Wendell Phillips. Tie down a hero, and he feels the puncture of a pin; throw him into battle, and he is almost insensible to pain. John C. Calhoun. Strength of character is not mere strength of feeling; it is the resolute restraint of strong feeling. It is unyield- ing resistance to whatever would disconcert us from with- out or unsettle us from within. Dickens. Each is bound to all. Herbert Spencer. The public are served not by what the lord mayor feels, who rides in his coach, but by what the apprentice boy feels, who looks at him. Colton 262 GOLD EX GLEAMS. Power comes from persistent and repeated effort. When you can do something better than anybody else, you are acquiring power ; and if you can do this easily and pleasantly, that is your calling. lion. D. P. Baldwin. Tiie apple falls near the tree. Spanish Proverb. Souls agree but minds discuss. Auguste Pre'ault. In the subtle alchemy of hope the slightest possibilities are ever transmuted into golden probabilities and inevi- table certainties. Round Table. Do something worth living for, worth dying for; do some- thing to show that you have a mind, and a heart, and a soul within you. Dean Stanley. Dickens set out on the literary theory that in life every- thing is bettor than it looks; Thackeray with the impres- sion that everything was worse. Justin McCarthy. We must love the Lord, if we would learn to serve him and win others to him. JVm. Ormiston, D.D. One hand ought to wash the other. Latin Proverb. The best of men That e'er wore earth about him was a Sufferer; A soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit — The first true gentleman that ever lived. Deckar. FLYING EMBERS. 263 To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meal, and of sleep, and of exercise, is one of the best precepts of long-iasting. Bacon. If we are God's children, we need not fear the develop- ments of his providence. Richard Newton, D.D. Make but few explanations; the character that cannot defend itself is not worth vindicating. F. W. Robertson. There is no funeral so sad to follow as the funeral of our own youth, which we have been pampering with fond de- sires and ambitious hopes, and all the bright berries that hang in poisonous clusters over the path of life. I caxxot despair of the ultimate conversion of the hea- then, when I remember the power of the Gospel upon my- self. John Newton, D.D. It is well known that he seldom lives frugally who lives by chance. Hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises make little scruple of reveling to-day on the pro- fits of the morrow. Samuel -Johnson. Anxual income £"20, annual expenditure £19 19s. 6d.; result happiness; annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 Us. Gd.; result misery. Jlicaicber. Hal! I am heinously unprovided to-day, * * * and I do suspect you grievously; * * * you promise me so infinitely. Falstaff. 2G4 GOLDEN GLEAMS. From indolence, despondency and indiscretion, may I specially be preserved. John Quincy Adams. Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. Ho Im'.s. I have discovered the philosopher's stone that turns evervtliing into wold ; it is — " Pav as you goV' John Randolph. Earthly treasures are disappointing- in pursuit, dissatis- fying in enjoyment, and uncertain in possession. Blair'' s Rhetoric. Modern" criticism discloses that which it would fain con- ceal, but conceals that which it professes to disclose; it is, therefore, read by the discerning not to discover the merits of an author, but the motives of his critic. Colton. Nothing ages like laziness. Bulwer Lytton. Pleasures are like poppies spread, You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; Or like the snow-falls in the river, A moment white — then melts forever. Bums. Melancholy is the convalescence of errief. Ma t 1 1 line Bubre n oy. A> old as the centuries and as young as the future. Buhcer, (on the Christian Church). Earnest work for Christ is the best means of spiritual culture. Stephen If. Tyng, Jr., B.B. FLYING EMBERS. 2G5 Silence is the virtue of the feeble. Auguste Prlault. The best of men and the most earnest workers will make enough of mistakes to keep them humble. Thank God for mistakes and take courage. Don't give up on account of mistakes ! M>ody. My greatest sorrows are those of my own heart. Out- vard troubles serve rather to steady than to disconcert me. Rev. George Paul. It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all. Tennyson. We are all wicked; what one of us blames in another *ach will find in his own breast. Seneca. The conjurer does not deceive the man who beats the gong for him. Chinese Proverb. To select well among old things is almost equal to in- venting new ones. Trublet. To contemplate things lovely is always an ascent. David Swing. Max is by nature a fighting and quarreling animal. Lord Palmerston. Planting colleges and filling them with studious young men and women, is planting seed-corn for the world. Rev. Dr. Judson. 266 GOLDEN GLEAMS. The imagination is the retina of the universe. Raskin. Taste and smell are chemical, touch is mechanical, the ear is emotive, and the eye is intellectual. Tyndall. The strangeness of foreign life throws one back into himself. John Henry Newman. Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it; no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow. Chesterfield. Sarcasm is the natural language of the devil. Carlyle. A decent boldness ever meets with friends. Pope. A letter shows the man it is written to, as well as the man it is written by. Chesterfield. Education is the cheap defense of nations. Burlce. Poverty is the sixth sense. German Proverb. In many things, a comprehensive survey of a subject is the shortest way of getting at a precise knowledge of a par- ticular division of it. Princeton Review. It seems to be nearly impossible to be moderate. If we are calm and deliberate enough to be just, we are almost sure to be indifferent. A. P. Russell. NUT-SHELLS. Mythology is religion growing wild. Statement is argument. 267 Schelling. Shedd. A gaubled quotation may be the most effectual perver- sion of an author's meaning; and a partial representation of an incident in a man's life may be the most malignant of all calumnies. McCosh. The double sense of prophesy is aptly illustrated by mountain-peaks or gas-lights seeming as one in the distance. Charles Wordsworth, &.D. ""What a fool you are, Paley," said a young man in a British university, "to be wasting your time in idleness and dissipation. You have talents which might raise you to eminence. I have none; and it is of no consequence how I act.*' Paley took the hint, though roughly made, laid it to heart, and rose like a clear light, and shed a lustre on the age and the literature of his nation. Albert -Barnes. XXV. KUT-SHELLS. The fourth gospel is written by the hand of an angel. Herder. The fourth gospel is the heart of Christ. Ernesii. 268 GOLDEN GLEAMS. You shall see a beautiful quarto page, where a neat rivu- let of text shall meander through a meadow of margin. Sheridan. I believe Plato and Socrates; T believe in Jesus Christ. Coleridge. The material universe is so great that the highest intelli- gence in heaven can never fully grasp or know it. Through all eternity, should its limits ever be found, the mind would be shocked. John Foster. A good library is a statesman's workshop. John Randolph. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. Bacon. Of all those arts in which the wise excel, Nature's chief masterpiece is writing well. Sheffield. Tex censure wrong, for one that writes amiss. Pope. If Adam fell in the days of innocency, How could you expect Falstaff to stand In the days of villainy? Shakespeare. Ont. that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave! Wordsworth. The negro is the image of God cut in ebony. Fuller. Tin: task-master is the image of the devil cut in ivory. Horace Smith. NUT-SHELLS. 269 Some people have the negro question on the brain, but not much brain on the negro question. George D. Prentice. The largest funeral procession known carries its genuine grief in one coach, and fortunate is the man who leaves be- hind enough real mourners to fill one hack. From this we must not jump to the conclusion that the world is so bad, but we are all so occupied with our own troubles that we have not time nor inclination for those of others. Donn Piatt. Sense shines with a double lustre when it is set in hu- mility. William Penn. I fiave no fear for England; she will stand till the day of J ud - ment William Pitt. What I fear for England is the day of judgment. Edmund Burke. In all our decisions and actions, it would be well for us to remember the suggestive inscription that was written on the gates of Busyrane. As the traveler entered that an- cient city, he read on the first gate, "Be bold;" and on the second gate, " Be bold, be bold and evermore be bold;" and then he paused as he read on the third gate, " Be not too bold !" A man's strength should be like the momen- tum of a falling planet, and his discretion like the return of its due and perfect curve. ,-, r Emerson. Men give me credit for genius ; but all the genius I have lies in this: when I have a subject on hand I study it profoundly. The effect I make, they call the fruit of genius ; it is, however, the fruit of labor and thought. Alexander Hamilton. 270 GOLDEN GLEAMS. A mosquito is the concrete incarnation of the mystery of evil. Prof. Llewellyn J. Evans. There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottoms are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters. Its current is more rapid thai) the Mississippi or the Amazon, and its volume more than a thousand times greater. M. F. Maury. There is in every animal's eye a dim image and gleam of humanity, a flash of strange light through which their life looks out and up to our great mystery of command over them, claiming the fellowship of the creature, if not of the soul. Bus/an. The motives of conscience, as connected with repentance and the feeling of duty, are the most important differences which separate man from the animal. Darn-in. A seared conscience is like a tympanum without reso- nance. Theo. Cuyler, D.I). There is, between the whole animal kingdom on the one side, and man, even in his lowest state, on the other, a barrier which no animal has ever crossed, and that barrier is — language. By no effort of understanding, by no stretch of imagination, can I explain to myself how language could have grown out of anything which animals possess, even if we granted them millions of years for that purpose. Max Mueller. NUT-SHELLS. 271 Quotation, sir, is a good thing ; there is a community of mind in it. Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. Samuel Jolmson. Ax apt quotation is as good as an original remark. Proverb. Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world. Bancroft. Flowers are the smiles of God's goodness. Wilberforce. Tiik moon is the flatterer of decay. Buhcer. Take me, for I come to Thee. Last words of John Bunyan. O Lord! is this the way? Among the last icords of Rev. E. R. Beadle, D.D. God often works more by the life of the illiterate, seek- ing the things which are His, than by the ability of the learned, seeking the things that are their own. Anselm. Religion is assent through conscience to God. Martineau. A person is always startled when he hears himself seri- ously called old for the first time. Holmes. Who can blame me if I cherish the belief that the world is still young — that there are great possibilities in store for it? Tyndall. '2 / 2 GOLD EX GLEAMS. There is no process of evolution or development that can ever span the chasm between the organic and the in- organic, between the living and the lifeless, between animal instinct and reflective consciousness. Lid don. He who was the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, has, with His pierced hand, lifted heathenism off its hinges, and turned the dolorous and ac- cursed centuries into new channels, and now governs the ages. 1 1 '"-.liter. In proportion as nations become more corrupt, more dis- grace will attach to poverty and more respect to wealth. Oolton. The pupil of the eye is the portal through which light brings in all the riches and glories of the earth and heaven to adorn the inner chambers of the soul. The mind sits enthroned as a sovereign in its secret place, and this swift- winged messenger comes flying with intelligence from every point in the whole landscape, and from the far distant orbs of heaven. The mind has only to lift the curtain of the eve, and millions of bright heralds rush in to describe the form, and hue and order of everything in the world of vis- ion. Some of these messengers have brought their tidings in an instant, and some have been on their way a million of vears, to tell me where of old the breath of God blew a million suns into flame, and sent them forth to sing and shine among the rival spheres of heaven. And as I stand gazing from some giddy height, it is as if all this vast and varied scene were the creation of light itself. Take from me the faculty of vision, or, what would be the same thing, destroy the liofht, and in place; of all this wondrous world of beautv, a blank and pitiless wall of darkness shuts me in on every side. lite. Dr. March. NUT-SHELLS. 273 The face of a loving old man is always to me like a morning moon, reflecting the yet unseen sun of the world, yet fading before its approaching light, until, when it does rise, it fades and withers away from our gaze, absorbed in the source of its own beauty. George McDonald. In the Mammoth Cave, where the light of day never enters, the fish are eyeless, having lost their organ of sight from long disuse; but the slave in his captivity, enveloped in worse than cavern darkness, and shut out from all the privileges which a man formed in the image of God has a right to enjoy, has retained his capacity for liberty, educa- tion and religion. J. B. Bittinger, D.JD. AVe have no reason to fear that the poor and unfortunate will ever receive too much attention, either at home or abroad. Mrs. E. C. Stanton. The great face was so sad, so earnest, so longing, so pa- tient. There was a dignity not of earth in its mien, and in its countenance a benignity, such as never anything hu- man wore. It was stone, but it seemed sentient. If ever image of stone thought, it was thinking. It was looking toward the verge of the landscape, but looking at nothing, nothing but distance and vacancy. It was looking over and beyond everything of the present, and far into the past. It was gazing over the ocean of time, over lines of century waves, which, farther and farther receding, closed nearer and nearer together, and blended at last into one unbroken tide, away toward the horizon of a remote an- tiquity. It was the type of an attribute of man — of a fac- ulty of his heart ami brain. It was memory — retrospect- ion, wrought into visible, tangible form. Mark Twain, (0?i the Sphinx). IS 274 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Yet still there whispers the small voice within, Heard through gain's silence and o'er glory's din : Whatever creed be taught or land be trod, Man's conscience is the oracle of God. Byron. Have yon ever seen those marble statues in some public s piare or garden which art has so finished into a perennial fountain that through the lips or through the hands the clear water flows in perpetual stream, on and on and on for- ever; and the marble stands there, passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water'.'' it is so that time flows through the hands of men — swift, wcxlt pausing, till it has run itself out; and there is the man petrified into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing away forever. It is so that the destiny of nine men out of ten accom- plishes itself — slipping away from them, aimless, useless till it is too late. F. W. Rohcrtson. Come, my friends, souls that have toiled and Wrought and thought with me,* :;: * * * 'T is not too late to seek a newer woi Id. XXVI. KEY-iNTOTES. 'T is a very good world we live in, To lend, or to spend, or to give in ; But to beg, or to borrow, or get a man's own, 'T is the very worst world that ever was known. Bulwer Lytton. KF.Y-XOTES. Z/O Strength for the day ! At early dawn I stand Helpless and weak, and with unrested eyes, Watching for day. Before its portal lies A low, black cloud — a heavy, iron hand, Slowly the mist is lifted from the land, And pearl and amber gleam across the skies, Gladdening my upward craze with sweet surprise ! I own the sign; I know that Ho whose hand Hath fringed these somber clouds with ruby ray, And changed that iron bar to molten gold, Will to my wandering stops be guide and stay; Breathe o'er my wavering heart his rest for aye, And give my waiting, folded palms to hold His blessed morning boon — strength for the day ! S or lb tier's. Tn \t which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is cheerfulness and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. Emerson. Let us wipe our tears, lift up our heads, and gird our- selves for brave and cheerful toil. In due time the release will come; rest so sweet after the toil is over; glory so bright after the darkness is passed; victory so grand, that we shall not wish the conflicts to have been less fierce, or the perils of the way less numerous or painful. Every kindness done to others in our daily walk, every attempt to make others happy, every prejudice overcome, every truth more clearly perceived, every difficulty sub- dued, every sin left behind, every temptation trampled under foot, every step forward in the cause of what is good, is a step nearer the cause of Christ, through which only death can be really a gain to us. Dean Stanley. 276 GOLDEN GLEAMS. On, if the selfish knew how much they lost, What would they not endeavor, not endure, To imitate, as far as in them lay, Him, who his wisdom and his power employs In making others happy I Samuel Rogers. My reason yields her hand to faith, And follows meekly where the angel leads. Holland. Saving faith is the flight of a penitent sinner to the mercy of God in Christ. Jifestrezat. Religion is never fashionable. The way of peace is not the broad way superintended by Paris, but the narrow way watched by the Ivedeemer. Moody. I pity the man who has never, in his best moods, felt his life consoled and comforted in its bitterness by the larger lives that he could look at and know that they too were men living in the same humanity with himself, only living in it much more largely. So much of our need of consolation comes from the bitterness of our life, its pettiness and weariness insensibly transferring itself to all life, making us skeptical about anything great or worth living for in life at all. It is our rescue from this debilitating doubt that is the blessing which falls upon us when, leaving our own insig- nificance behind, we let our hearts rest with comfort on the mere fact that these men are of great, broad, generous and healthy lives — men like the greatest that we know. Phillips Broolcs. Tittc past is past; T see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea. Alexander Smith. KEY-NOTES. 277 Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurt- less breaks; Arm it in rags — a pigmy's straw doth pierce it. Shakespeare. A people that gives up God is like a people that gives up a territory; it is a lost people. There is only one greater folly than that of the fool who says in his heart, "there is no God," and that is the folly of a people that says in its heart that it does not know whether there is a God or no. Bismarck. Hearts, like apples, are hard and sour, Till crushed by pain's resistless power; And yield their juices rich and bland To none but sorrow's heavy hand. Holland. A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring. There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again. Pope. Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased; Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow; Raze out the written troubles of the brain; And with some sweet, oblivious antidote, Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff "Which weighs upon the heart? Shakespeare. Saving faith is not an intellectual assent to a system of doctrine superior to reason, but a personal trust on God in Christ, appropriation of God's personal word and promise of redeeming love. Luther. 278 GOLDEN GLEAMS. Some faithful eulogist may say, He sought not praise, and praise did overlook His unobtrusive merit; but his life, Sweet to himself, was exercised in good That shall survive his name and memory. Wordtiicorth. When loss of property and loss of repute are come, when the severance of friendships has come, when the future is overcast with disappointment, and hopes are shat- tered, and we know nothing of what is to come except sim- ply this, that we know God's will must be done, and try to do what is pleasing in His sight, and leave all to Him, the endurance which then reveals itself is the masterful power of the human will. Men trained in this experience cannot be frightened nor disheartened by troubles, however great. li. S. Starrs, JD.lJ. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace. Pope. In men whom men pronounce as ill, I find so much of goodness still; In men whom men pronounce divine, 1 find so much of sin and blot; I hesitate to draw the line Between the two, when God has not. Joaquin Miller. There are points from which we can command our life, When the soul sweeps the future like a glass; And coming things, full-freighted with our fate, Jut out dark on the offing of the mind. Shelley. KEY-XOTES. 279 Are there not lofty moments when the soul Leaps to the front of being-, casting - off The robes and clumsy instruments of sense. And, pastured in its immortality, Reveals its independence of the clod In which it dwells? Holland. It must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well, Else whence this pleasing- hope, this fond desire, This longing- after immortality? Or whence the secret dread and inward horror Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul Back on itself, and startles at destruction? 'T is the divinity that stirs within us; 'T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter And intimates eternity to man. Addison. It is success that colors all in life; Success makes fools admired, makes villains honest; All the proud virtue of this vaunting world Fawns on success and power, however acquired. Thomson. Had I miscarried, I had been a villain; For men judge actions always by events; But, when we manage by a just foresight, Success is prudence, and possession right. Uiggins. The feeling of a direct responsibility of the individual to God is almost wholly a creation of Protestantism. John Stuart Mill. The soul forgets nothing, save through its vices, worthy of lasting remembrance. A. Bronson Alcott. 280 GOLDEK GLEAMS. Geology gives us a key to the patience of God. Holland. They are poor That have lost nothing; they are poorer far Who, losing, have forgotten; they most poor Of all who lose and wish they might forget. Jean Ingelow. On, it is hard to work for God, To rise and take His part Upon this battle-field of earth, And not sometimes lose heart. He hides Himself so wondrously, As though there was no God; He is least seen when all the powers Of ill are most abroad. Or He deserts us in the hour, The fight is all but lost, And seems to leave us to ourselves Just when we need Him most. Workman of God, Oh, lose not heart ! But learn what God is like; And in the darkest battle-field, Thou shalt know where to strike. For right is right, since God is God, And right the day must win. To doubt would be disloyalty; To falter would be sin. /Songs of Devotion. Where is the fiery furnace hot enough to burn despair into our souls, so long as we see walking with us the form of one like unto the Son of God? Bishop Huntington. KEY-NOTES. 281 He walked attended By a strong-aiding champion, conscience. Milton. I sow see more good and more evil in all men than here- tofore I did. I see that good men are not so good as I once thought they were, and I find that few are so bad as either malicious enemies or censorious separating professors do imagine. Richard Baxter. Tiiex gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman ; Though they may gang a kennin' wrang, To step aside is human. One point must still be greatly dark, The moving why they do it; And just as lamely can ye mark How far, perhaps, they rue it. Who made the heart, 't is He alone Decidedly can try us; He knows each chord — its various tone, Each spring — its various bias; Then at the balance let's be mute, We never can adjust it. What's done we partly may compute, But know not what's resisted. Burns. We on this globe are like insects in a garden; those who live on an oak seldom meet those who pass their short lives on an ash. Voltaire. I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to my- self, than to be crowded on a velvet cushion. Thoreau. 282 GOLDEN GLEAMS. We are poor, sill}' animals; we live for an instant upon a particle of a boundless universe, and are much like a but- terfly that should argue about the nature of the seasons, and what creates their vicissitudes, and does not exist itself to see an annual revolution of them. Horace Wed pole. Unless we are accustomed to them from early youth, splendid chambers and elegant furniture had best be left to people who neither have nor can have any thoughts. Goethe. Foe my own private satisfaction, I had rather be master of my own time than wear a diadem. Bishop Berkeley. Can anything bo so elegant, as to have few wants and serve them one's self? Parched corn, and a house with one apartment, that I ma} 7 be free of all perturbations, that I may be serene and docile to what the mind shall speak, and girt and road-ready for the lowest mission of knowledge or goodness, is frugality for gods and heroes. Emerson. Beyoxd the farthest glimmering star That twinkles in the arch above, There is a world of truth and love Which earth's vile passions never mar. Oh! could I snatch the eagle's plumes And soar to that bright world above, Which God's own holy light illumes With glories of eternal day, How gladly every lingering tie That binds me down to earth I'd sever, And leave for that blest home on high This hollowdiearted world forever! Geonje JD. Prentice. KEY-NOTES. 283 Humility is the base of every virtue, And they who dig the deepest build the safest. God keeps all His pity for the proud. Bailey. Teach me to live! 'T is easier far to die — Gently and silently to pass away — On earth's long night to close the heavy eye, To waken in the realms of glorious day. Teach me that painful lesson, how to live, To serve Thee in the darkest paths of life; Arm me for conflict, and fresh vigor give, And make me more than conqueror in the strife. Teach me to live for self and sin no more, But use the time remaining to me yet; Not mine own pleasure seeking, as before, Wasting no precious hours in vain regret. Teach me to live!- — no idler let me be, But in Thy service hand and heart erapl y; Prepared to do Thy bidding cheerfully — Be this my highest and my holiest joy. Teach me to live! — my daily cross to bear, Xor murmur though I bend beneath its load; Only be with me. Let me feel Thee near'; Thy smile sheds gladness on the darkest road. Teach me to live! — and find my life in Thee, Looking from earth and earthly things away; Let me not falter, but untiringly Press on, and gain new strength and power each day. Teach me to live! — with kindly words for all, Wearing no cold, repulsive brow of 2-loom; Waiting, with cheerful patience, till Thy call Summons me to my heavenly rest and home. Hymnal. 284 GOLDEN GLEAMS. I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. Newton. XXVII. MEMORY GEMS. Fkom childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw; I could not bring My passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken My sorrow; I could not awaken My heart to joy at the same tone; And all I loved, I loved alone. Then, in my childhood — in the dawn Of a most stormy life — was drawn, From ev'ry depth of good and ill, The mystery which binds me still; From the torrent, or the fountain, From the red cliff of the mountain, From the sun that 'round me roll'd In its autumn tint of gold; From the lightning in the sky As it pass'd me flying by — From the thunder and the storm; And the cloud that took the form, When the rest of heaven was blue, Of a demon in my view. Edgar A. Poe. MEMOKY GEMS. 285 We will revive those times, and in our memories pre- serve and still keep fresh, like flowers in water, those hap- pier days. Richter. Who art thou, shadowy passer-by? I feel I know thee well, But because thou art shadow, cloud, With neither sex nor age avowed, Thy name I cannot tell. Who art thou, ghostly passer-by? "On earth thy mother — I." And thou, whose fluttering wing droops low And faintly beats the air, Whose eyes are wet with tender tears, And dimmed with memories of past years; Who art thou? Speak and spare. "Thy sister, then, dost thou not know? Surely the dead forgotten go." Another follows; who art thou, So meek and mild of mien? "Thv daughter once, thy angel now, I think of thee as low I bow The shining ranks between. I watch thee still" — Now heaven be kind And make my guardian angel blind. And thou? "Recall thy early love, For 1 am she." And thou? "The shadow of a soul am I, The ghost of thine own heart; the cry Of conscience, visible, who now Stand ready to accuse in sight Of heaven." Hide me, profoundest night! Victor Hugo. 286 GOLDEN GLEAMS. There are recollections as pleasant as they are sacred and eternal. There are words and faces and places that never lose their hold upon the heart. They may be words that we seldom hear amid the whirl of life; faces that we may never see on earth again; places that we are but sel- dom permitted to re-visit; but they were once the scenes, the associates, the joy of our life; they had a controlling inflnence in training our aspirations and in shaping our des- tinies, and they can never be wholly forgotten. The flight of years cannot sully their innocence, nor diminish their in- terest, and eternity will preserve them among the dearest reminiscences of earth. We may meet and love other faces, we may treasure other words, we may have other joys, we may mingle in other scenes and form other associations, but these old familiar faces, and these dear old familiar scenes, remain invested with a fadeless beauty, sacred in their exemption from oblivion and decay. Our youthful troubles and their sources are soon forgot- ten, but the objects of beauty which gladden the early life never cease to yield us delight. They become the stars in the firmament of youth, lighting up the pathway of the past, and when in later years the night of sorrow gathers round the soul, memory, like the astronomer's tube, pierc- ing the surrounding gloom, sweeps that distant sky, and re- veals those stars still shining with undiminished lustre. The heart renews its youth, and the whole man is cheered and invigorated by the contemplation of those things of beauty that were the delight of earlier days. Henry A. Walker. Fair are the flowers and the children, but their subtle sug- gestion is fairer; Rare is the rose-burst of dawn, but the secret that clasps it is rarer; Sweet the exultance of song, but the strain that precedes it is sweeter; MEMORY GEMS. 287 And never was poem yet writ, but the meaning outmastered the metre. Never a daisy that grows, but a mystery guideth the growing; Never a river that flows, but a majesty sceptres the flowing; Never a Shakespeare that soared, but a stronger than he did enfold him; Nor ever a prophet foretells, but a mightier seer hath fore- told him. Back of the canvas that throbs, the painter is hinted and hidden; Into the statue that breathes, the soul of the sculptor is bidden; Under the joy that is felt, lie the infinite issues of feeling; Crowning the glory revealed, is the glory that crowns the revealing. Great are the symbols of being, but that which is symboled is greater; Vast the create and beheld, but vaster the inward creator. Back of the sound broods the silence, back of the gift stands the giving; Back of the hand that receives, thrill the sensitive nerves of receiving. Space is as nothing to spirit, the deed is outdone by the doing; The heart of the wooer is warm, but warmer the heart of the wooing. A.nd up from the pits where these shiver, and up from the heights where those shine, Twin voices and shadows swim starward, and the essence of life is divine. Richard Realf. Memory seizes the passing moment, fixes it upon the canvas, and hangs the picture on the soul's inner chambers, for her to look upon when she will. Haven. 288 GOLDEN GLEAMS. On, thou to-morrow ! Mystery ! Oh, day that ever runs before ! What has thy hidden hand in store For mine, to-morrow, and for me? Oh, thou to-morrow ! What hast thou In store to make me bear the now? Oh, day in which we shall forget The tangled troubles of to-day ! Oh, day that laughs at duns, at debts! Oh, day of promises to pay ! Oh, shelter from all present stortn ! Oh, day in which we shall reform. Oh, safest, best day for reform ! Convenient day of promises ! Hold back the shadow of the storm, Oh, blest to-morrow ! Chiefest friend, Let not thy mystery be less But lead us blindfolded to the end! Joaquin Miller. I know not of the dark or bright Shall be my lot; If that wherein my hopes delight, Be best or not. It may be mine to drag for years Toil's heavy chain; Or day and night, my meat be tears, On bed of pain. Dear faces may surround my hearth With smile and glee, Or 1 may dwell alone, and mirth Be strange to me. My bark is wafted to the strand Bv breath divine 1 , MEMOKY GEMS. 289 And on the helm there rests a Hand Other than mine. One who has known to sail I have on board; Above the raging of the gale I hear my Lord. He holds me; when the billows smite I shall not fall; If sharp, 't is short; if long, 't is light; He tempers all. Safe to the land, safe to the land! The end is this; And then with Him go hand in hand, Far into bliss. Dean Alford. When Goethe's death was told, we said: Sunk, then, is Europe's sagest head; Physician of the iron age, Goethe has done his pilgrimage, He took the suffering, human race, He read each wound, each weakness clear; And struck his finger on the place, And said : Thou ailest here, and here ! He looked on Europe's dying hour Of fitful dream and feverish power; His eye plunged down the weltering strife, The turmoil of expiring life — He said: The end is everywhere; Art still has truth, take refuge there I And he was happy, if to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to see the lurid flow Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness. Matthew Arnold. 19 290 GOLDEX GLEAMS. Plan not, nor scheme, but calmly wait; His choice is best, While blind and erring is thy sight; His -wisdom sees and judges right; So trust and rest. Strive not, nor struggle; thy poor might Can never wrest The meanest thing to serve thy will; All power is His alone; be still, And trust and wait. What dost thou fear? His wisdom reigns Supreme, confessed; His power is infinite; His love Thy deepest, fond-st dreams above; So trust and rest. Macduff. An! when will all be ended? If the dead Have unto them some little memory left Oi tilings that, while they lived, fate from them reft, Ere life itself was reft them at last, Yet would to God these days at least were past, And all be done that here must needs be done. Ah! shall I, living underneath the sun, I wonder, wish for any tiling again, Or ever know what pleasure means, and pain? William Morris. There is a time, we know not when, A point, we know not where, That marks the destiny of men, To glory or despair. There is a line, by us unseen, That crosses every path ; The hidden boundary between God's patience and his wrath. MEMORY GEMS. 291 To pass that limit is to die — To die as if by stealth ; It does not quench the beaming eye, Nor pale the glow of health. The conscience may be still at ease, The spirits light and gay; That which pleases still may please, And care be thrust away ; But on that forehead God has set Indelibly a mark, Unseen by man, for man as yet Is blind, and in the dark. Indeed, the doomed one's path below May bloom as Eden bloomed ; He did not, does not, will not know Or feel that he is doomed. He feels perchance, that all is well, And every fear is calmed ; He lives, h