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THE severest, the sublimest, and perhaps the most meritorious virtues, of which we are capable, are Patience and Composure under distress, pain, and affliction; a steadfast keeping up of our confidence in God, and our dependance upon his final goodness, even at the time that every thing present is discouraging and adverse; and, what is no less difficult to retain, a cordial desire for the happiness and comfort of others, even then, when we are deprived of our own. The possession of this temper is almost the perfection of our nature. But it is then only possessed, when it is put to the trial; tried at all, it could not have been in a life, made up only of pleasure and gratification. Few things are easier to perceive, to feel, to acknowledge, to extol the goodness of God, the bounty of Providence, the beauties of Nature, when all things go well, when our health, our spirits, our circumstances, conspire to fill our hearts with gladness, and our tongues with praise. This is easy, this is delightful. None but they who are sunk in sensuality, sottishness, and stupefaction, or whose understandings are dissipated by frivolous pursuits; none but the most giddy and insensible, can be destitute of these sentiments. But this is not the trial, or the proof. It is in the chambers of sickness; under the stroke of affliction; amidst the pinchings of want, the groans of pain, the pressures of infirmity; in grief, in misfortune; through gloom and horror, that it will be seen, whether we hold fast our hope, our confidence, our trust in God;

whether this hope and confidence be able to produce in us resignation, acquiescence, and submission. And as those dispositions, which perhaps from the comparative perfection of our moral nature, could not have been exercised in a world of unmixed gratification, so neither would they have found their proper office or object in a state of strict and evident retribution; that is, in which we had no sufferings to submit to, but what were evidently and manifestly the punishment of our sins. A mere submission to punishment, evidently and plainly such, would not have constituted, at least would very imperfectly have constituted, the disposition which we speak of, -the true resignation of a Christian.

PALEY.

A FACE that should content me wondrous well,
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold;
Of lively look, all grief for to repel

With right good grace, so would I that it should
Speak without word, such words as none can tell.

SIR THOMAS WYATT.

OUGHT we to be astonished that the wise walk more slowly in their road to virtue, than fools in their passage to vice, since passion drags us along, while wisdom only points out the way.

CONFUCIUS.

FIVE years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur.-Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some, Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye :
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind,

With tranquil restoration ;-feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,-
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame,
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In both, and become a living soul :

While, with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.

WORDSWORTH.

WE must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment: the course is then over, the wheel turns round but once, while the reaction of goodness and happiness is perpetual.

LANDOR.

A WIFE as tender, and as true withal,
As the first woman was before her fall;
Made for the man, of whom she was a part;
Made to attract his eyes, and keep his heart.
A second Eve, but by no crime accursed;
As beauteous, not as brittle as the first.
Had she been first, still Paradise had been,
And Death had found no entrance by her sin;
So she not only had preserved from ill
Her sex and ours, but lived their pattern still.

DRYDEN.

A BEAUTIFUL object calls forth pleasing ideas, and excites a gay emotion. A grand object leaves upon the mind an impression of grandeur. In all sublime scenes, there is a mixture of the awful. The view of the skies by night; the moon moving in the brightness of her course; and the host of heaven in silent majesty, performing their eternal rounds, strike an awe and adoration into the mind. We feel divinity present; we bow down, and worship in the temple, which the Most High God hath built with his hand, and hath filled with his presence.

LOGAN.

THE brave man does maintain his painful post,
And cowards only fly to ease in death.

MOTTLEY.

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