網頁圖片
PDF
ePub 版
[blocks in formation]

It is shameful for man to rest in ignorance of the structure of his own body, especially when the knowledge of it mainly conduces to his welfare, and directs his application of his own powers. Melancthon.

ANCESTRY-Boast of.

Were honour to be scann'd by long descent
From ancestors illustrious, I could vaunt
A lineage of the greatest, and recount
Among my fathers, names of ancient story,
Heroes and god-like patriots, who subdued
The world by arms and virtue;
But that be their own praise :
Nor will I borrow merit from the dead,
Myself an undeserver.

ANCESTRY-Nobility of.

Rowe.

Philosophy does not look into pedigrees; she did not adopt Plato as noble, but she made him such. Seneca.

ANCESTRY-Pedigrees of.

The origin of all mankind was the same: it is only a clear and a good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself. It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions: beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business. Ibid.

[blocks in formation]

ANGELS.

derive from the love of the living. They are denied, it is true, to our personal acquaintance; but the light they shed during their lives survives within their tombs, and will reward our search, if we explore them. If the virtues of strangers be so attractive to us, how infinitely more so should be those of our own kindred; and with what additional energy should the precepts of our parents influence us, when we trace the transmission of those precepts from father to son through successive generations, each bearing the testimony of a virtuous, useful, and honourable life to their truth and influence; and all uniting in a kind and earnest exhortation to their descendants so to live on earth, that (followers of Him through whose grace alone we have power to obey Him) we may at last be reunited with those who have been before, and those who shall come after us.

No wanderer lost

A family in heaven. Lord Lindsay.

ANCESTRY-Reliance on.

Boast not the titles of your ancestors, brave youth!

They're their possessions, none of yours. When your own virtues equall'd have their

names,

'Twill be but fair to lean upon their fumes, For they are strong supporters; but till then, The greatest are but growing gentlemen.

Ben Jonson.

The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors, is like a potatothe only good belonging to him is under ground. Sir T. Overbury.

ANCESTRY-Shadows of.

Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name. Lucan.

ANGELS-in Affliction.

I have seen angels by the sick one's pillowTheirs was the soft tone and the soundless

tread;

Where smitten hearts were drooping like the willow,

They stood between the living and the dead.
Elizabeth Wetherall.

ANGELS-Blessedness of the.
The multitude of angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices uttering joy. Heaven

rung

With jubilee, and loud hosannahs filled
The eternal regions: lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the
ground,

ANGELS.

With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amaranth and gold.
Milton.

ANGELS-Celestiality of the.

Man is a mixed being, made up of a spiritual soul and of a fleshly body; the angels are pure spirits, herein nearer to God, only that they are created and finite in all respects, whereas God is infinite and uncreated; hereby too, it would seem, immortal from the first, without any of the earthly alloy which time is wont to prey upon; free from decay, free from the power of death. Hence, too, is it that they excel in power. For as the power of man above the beasts of the field arises from his having a spiritual soul, while they have only fleshly bodies, so do the angels, being pure spirits, being wholly free from the manifold, ever-growing wants and weaknesses of the body, excel mankind in power. Indeed we need only think of the power which the mind has to dart through time and over space, through thousands of years and over thousands of miles in a moment, to get some notion what its power would be, if it were not bound down to a single spot by the numbing weight of the body, which, whatever it may have been at first, now that the soul is so weakened and maimed by sin, has become a heavy, intolerable clog to it. Hare.

The very names assigned to angels by their Creator, convey to us ideas pre-eminently pleasing, fitted to captivate the heart, and exalt the imagination; ideas which dispel gloom, banish despondency, enliven hope, and awaken sincere and unmingled joy. They are Living Ones; beings in whom life is inherent and instinctive; who sprang up under the quickening influence of the Sun of Righteousness, beneath the morning of everlasting day; who rose expanded, and blossomed in the uncreated beam, on the banks of the river of life, and were nourished by the waters of immortality. They are spirits, winged with activity, and formed with power, which no labour wearies, and no duration impairs;

their faculties always fresh and young, their exertions unceasing and wonderful, and their destination noble and delightful, without example, and without end. They are Burning Ones, glowing with a pure and serene, with an

| intense and immortal flame of divine love; returning, without ceasing, the light and warmth which they have received from the great central sun of the universe, reflecting with supreme beauty the image of that divine luminary; and universally glorious, although differing from each other in glory. Dwight.

[blocks in formation]

ANGELS-Harbingers of the Most High. They are called the chariots of God: the chariots of God are thousands of angels. That is, they are the chariots of His will, they bear His will about to every part of the universe. This is their delight. They bless God, who vouchsafes thus to employ them. But when they have fulfilled God's message, then they return back to Him by whom they were sent forth. They return back to Him, and stand before Him, drinking in fresh streams of life, and strength, and purity, and joy from His presence.

Hare.

[blocks in formation]

ANGELS.

One to warn him when he darkleth,
And rebuke him if he stray;
One to leave him to his nature,
And so let him go his way.

Two recording spirits, reading
All his life's minutest part,
Looking in his soul, and listening
To the beatings of his heart.
Each, with pen of fire electric,

Writes the good or evil wrought; Writes with truth that adds not, errs not, Purpose, action, word, and thought.

One, the Teacher and Reprover,

Marks each heaven-deserving deed; Graves it with the lightning's vigour; Seals it with the lightning's speed; For the good that man achievethGood beyond an angel's doubtSuch remains for aye and ever, And cannot be blotted out.

ANGER.

The severed righteous at His holy hill, With them God's face to see, to do His will, And bear with them His likeness.

Bishop Mant.

ANGELS-Messengers of Wrath.
So when an angel, by divine command,
With rising tempest shakes a guilty land,
Such as of late o'er pale Britannia pass'd,
Calm and serene he drives the furious blast,
And, pleased th' Almighty's orders to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.
Addison.

ANGER-Allaying of.

The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. | We should freely forgive, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. Colton.

ANGER-Gentle Correction of.

Anger is like the waves of a troubled sea; when it is corrected with a soft reply, as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves nothing behind but froth and shells, no permanent mischief. Jeremy Taylor.

ANGER-Cure of.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fer- ANGER-Restraining of.

mentation.

Shenstone.

What a chain of evils does that man prepare for himself who is a slave to anger! He is the murderer of his own soul, yea to the letter he is so, for he lives in a continual torment. He is devoured by an inward fire, and his body partakes of his sufferings. Terror reigns around him, every one dreads lest the most innocent, the most trifling occurrence, may give him a pretext for quarrel, or rouse him into fury. A passionate man is alike odious to God and man, and is insupportable even to St. Ephraim. himself.

ANGER-Fierceness of.

[blocks in formation]

Made good guard for itself.

ANGER-Obstinacy of.

Shakspeare.

Never do anything that can denote an angry mind; for, although everybody is born with a certain degree of passion, and, from untoward circumstances, will sometimes feel its operation, and be what they call "out of humour," yet a sensible man or woman will never allow it to be discovered. Check and restrain it; never make any determination until you find it has entirely subsided; and always avoid saying anything that you may wish unsaid. Lord Collingwood.

[blocks in formation]

When a man is wrong and won't admit it, That thou hast power to shake my manhood

[blocks in formation]

It is an easy matter to stop the fire that is kindled only in hair, wool, candlewick, or a little chaff; but if it once have taken hold of matter that hath solidity and thickness, it soon inflames and consumes,

Advanced, the highest timber of the roof; as Eschylus saith; so he that observes anger, while it is in its beginning, and sees it by degrees smoking and taking fire from some speech or chaff-like scurrility, he need take no grent pains to extinguish it, but oftentimes puts an end to it only by silence or neglect. For as he that adds no fuel to fire, hath already as good as put it out; so he that doth not feed anger at the first, nor blow the fire in himself, hath prevented and destroyed

it.

Plutarch.

thus;

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

When almost settled into dead stagnation,
Swift as a southern gale unbinds the flood.

Thomson.

ΑΝΤΙΡΑTHIES-Irreconcilable.

Nature and the common laws of sense,
Forbid to reconcile antipathies;
Or make a snake engender with a dove,
And hungry tigers court the tender lambs.
Roscommon.

Discord, first

Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational,
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy:
Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with

fowl,

The rapid increase of the Anglo-Saxon race during the last two centuries, its wide diffusion over the globe, and its superiority over every race with which it has contact, are remarkable facts, however we view them. This will not be done, by wise and thoughtful men, in a vain-glorious or boastful spirit, but with a thoughtful and reverential consideration of the plans of Providence which it indicates, and the great duties and responsibilities which it involves. It has been stated, with regard to ANTIPATHY-Fierceness of. the Anglo-Saxon race, that, while in 1620, the year in which the Mayflower landed the first Pilgrims in New England, it numbered only about six millions, and was almost exclusively confined to our own island. It now numbers sixty millions of human beings, planted on all the islands and continents of the earth, and apparently destined, at no distant period, to absorb or supplant all the barbarous and nomadic races on the continents of Asia, Africa and America, and the vast newer world recently found in the Southern ocean. The enterprise of the race multiplies with its expansion. Commerce goes on apace, carrying the wealth and industry of the old world into the remotest and least known regions of the earth; and it is estimated that, if no sudden and unthought revolution abruptly arrest this remarkable expansion of the race sprung exclusively from the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the Anglo-Saxon race will soon number 800 millions of human beings in less than a century and a half from the present time.

ANSWER-a Slight.

McCulloch.

[blocks in formation]

And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving
Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Of man, but fled him, or with countenance grim
Glared on him passing.
Milton.

ANTIQUARY-The.

I knew Aurelius. He was shrewd and prudent;
Wisdom and cunning had their share of him;
But he was shrewish as a wayward child,
And pleased again by toys which childhood
please;

As books of fables graced with prints of wood,
Or else the jingling of a rusty medal,
Or the rare melody of some old ditty,
That first was sung to please King Pippin's
Shakspeare.

cradle.

ANTIQUARY-Museum of the.
He had a routh o' auld nick-nackets,
Rusty airn caps, and jinglin-jackets,
Would hold the Croudars three in tackets
A towmond gude,
And parritch pats, and auld saut lackets

Afore the flude.

ANTIQUITY-Beauty of.

Burns.

[blocks in formation]
« 上一頁繼續 »