BENEFITS-Giving and Receiving. There is a principle of disunion in unequal connections. Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered the obligation. Canning. BENEFITS-no Shackles. Consider, my most honour'd lords BENEVOLENCE. tics of. BENEFICENCE-to Others. Men resemble the gods in nothing so much Rare benevolence, the minister of God. as in doing good to their fellow-creatures. Cicero. Like silent-working heaven, surprising oft The sunny glade, and feels an inward bliss thought, Of all His works creative bounty burns Induces thought, and contemplation still. And warms the bosom; till at last sublimed BENEVOLENCE-Divine Characteris Carlyle. The whole world calls for new work and nobleness. Subdue mutiny, discord, wideand wisdom. Chaos is dark, deep as hell; let spread despair, by manfulness, justice, mercy, light be, and there is instead a green flowery world. O it is great, and there is no other greatness! To make some nook of God's creation a little fruit fuller, better, more worthy of God; to make some human hearts a little wiser, manfuller, happier, more blessed, less accursed! It is work for a God! Sooty hell of mutiny, and savagery, and despair, can, by man's energy, be made a kind of heaven; cleared of its soot, of its mutiny, of its need to mutiny; the everlasting arch of heaven's azure overspanning it too, and its cunning mechanisms and tall chimney-steeples, ing on it well pleased. as a birth of heaven; God and all men lookIbid. BENEVOLENCE Christian. From the low prayer of want and plaint of woe Ah! what were man, should Heaven refuse to To others do (the law is not severe) And friends, and native land, nor these alone :- BENEVOLENCE. BENEVOLENCE-a Duty. Benevolence is a duty. He who frequently practises it, and sees his benevolent intentions realised, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good. When, therefore, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," it is not meant thou shalt love him first, and do good to him in consequence of that love, but thou shalt do good to thy neighbour, and this thy beneficence will engender in thee that love to mankind which is the fulness and consummation of the inclination to do good. Emmanuel Kant. Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another. St. Paul. BENEVOLENCE-Enjoyments of. Never did any soul do good, but it came readier to do the same again, with more enjoyment. Never was love or gratitude, or bounty practised, but with increasing joy, which made the practiser still more in love with the fair act. Shaftesbury. BENEVOLENCE-Modes of Exercising. Pecuniary aid, by those who have the means, is the most easy form in which benevolence can be gratified, and that which often requires the least, if any, sacrifice of personal comfort or self-love. The same affection may be exercised in a degree much higher in itself, and often much more useful to others, by personal exertion and personal kindness. The former, compared with the means of the individual, may present a mere mockery of mercy; while the latter, even in the lowest walks of life, often exhibits the brightest displays of active usefulness that can adorn the human character. This high and pure benevolence not only is dispensed with willingness, when occasions present themselves, but seeks out opportunity for itself, and feels in want of its natural and healthy exercise when deprived of an object on which it may be bestowed. Dr. Abercrombie. BENEVOLENCE-Nobler than Intel lect. The disposition to give a cup of cold water to a disciple is a far nobler property than the finest intellect. Satan has a fine intellect, but not the image of God. Howels. BENEVOLENCE-Office of The office of liberality consisteth in giving with judgment. Cicero. BIBLE-Benefit derived from the. Convictions, like the sun's meridian beams, some To whom more guilt and shame are justly due BIBLE. Heaven's anger less, than when the Book of God and heart, the hopes and fears, the days and Is forced to yield to man's authority, nights of humanity; their superiority to aught Or from its straightness warp'd; no reck'ning else in the thoughts or words of man, their made, consistency with themselves, their progressive and their close-drawn connection with those marvellous and unshaken facts, are proved divine in a sense altogether peculiar and alone. Gilfillan. What blood the sowing of it in the world Has cost; what favour for himself he wins, Who meekly clings to it. · Christ said not to his first conventicle, Go forth and preach impostures to the world; But gave them Truth to build on; and the sound Was mighty on their lips; nor needed they, Dante. BIBLE-the Christian's Bulwark. The Christian faith has been, and is still, very fiercely and obstinately attacked. How many efforts have been and are still made; how many books, serious or frivolous, able or silly, have been and are spread incessantly, in order to destroy it in men's minds! Where has this redoubtable struggle been supported with the greatest energy and success? and where has Christian faith been best defended? There where the reading of the Sacred Books is a general and assiduous part of public worship-there where it takes place in the interior of families and in solitary meditation. It is the Bible, the Bible itself, which combats and triumphs most efficaciously in the war between incredulity and belief. Guizot. BIBLE-Capacities of the. A stream where alike the elephant may swim and the lamb may wade. Gregory the Great. BIBLE-Divine Character of the. This Book, this holy Book, on every line Mark'd with the seal of high divinity, On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love Divine, and with the eternal heraldry And signature of God Almighty stamp'd From first to last; this ray of sacred light, This lamp, from off the everlasting throne, Mercy took down, and in the night of Time Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow; And evermore beseeching men with tears And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live. Pollok. BIBLE. As a poem, moral and didactic, it is a repertory of divine instincts-a collection of the deepest intuitions of truth, beauty, justice, holiness-the past, the present, the futurewhich, by their far vision, the power by which they have stamped themselves on the belief BIBLE-the Star of Eternity. Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Star of Eternity! The only star Of heaven's own light, and, to the hills of The everlasting hills-pointed the sinner's eye. Pollok. BIBLE-Fulness of the. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter:-it is all pure, all sincere ; nothing too much, nothing wanting. Locke. BIBLE-Glory of the. A glory gilds the sacred page, It gives a light to every age; The Bible is a precious storehouse, and the Magna Charta of a Christian. There he reads of his heavenly Father's love, and of his dying Saviour's legacies. There he sees a map of his travels through the wilderness, and a landscape, too, of Canaan. And when he climbs on Pisgah's top, and views the promised land, his heart begins to burn, delighted with the blessed prospect, and amazed at the rich and free salvation. But a mere professor, though a decent one, looks on the Bible as a dull book, and peruseth it with such indifference as you would read the title-deeds belonging to another man's estate. Berridge. Coreper. BIBLE-Imperishableness of the. All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field: the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: because the spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word of our God shall stand for ever. Isaiah BIBLE. BIBLE-Noble Composition of the Book BIBLE-Poetry of the. of Job. BIBLE the Guide of Life. It is a belief in the Bible, the fruits of deep meditation, which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. I have found it a capital safely invested, and richly productive of interest. Goethe. The Book of Job.-I call that, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism, or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book! all men's book! It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending problem, man's destiny, and God's ways with him here in this earth. And all in such free flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is the seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every way; true eyesight and vision for all things; material things no less than spiritual: the horse,-"hast Thou clothed his neck with tamader?"-" he laughs at the shaking of the spear!" Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind; so soft and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! BIBLE-Poetry, Oratory, and Politics of There is nothing written, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit. Carlyle. the. BIBLE-Misapplication of the. Beware of misapplying Scripture. It is a thing easily done, but not so easily answered. I know not any one gap that hath let in more and more dangerous errors into the Church than this, --that men take the word of the sacred text, fitted to particular occasions, and to the condition of the times wherein they were written, and then apply them to themselves and others, as they find them, without due respect had to the differences that may be between those times and cases and the present. Bishop Sanderson. BIBLE contains the Mystery of Mys- To whom their God has given grace BIBLE. The Scripture affords us a divine pastoral drama in the Song of Solomon, consisting of two persons and a double chorus, as Origen rightly judges; and the Apocalypse of St. John is a majestic image of a high and stately tragedy, shutting and intermingling her solemn scenes and acts with a seven-fold chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies. And this my opinion, the book, is sufficient to confirm. Or, if occasion grave authority of Pareus, commenting that shall lead, to imitate those magnific odes and in most things worthy, some others in their hymns, wherein Pindarus and Callimachus are faulty. But those frequent songs, throughout frame judicious, in their matter most an end the laws and prophets, beyond all these, not in their divine argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition, may be easily made appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy to be incomparable. Milton. There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion; no orations equal to those of the Prophets; and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach. Ibid. BIBLE-our Dying Reliance. There is no book upon which we can rest in a dying moment but the Bible. Selden. BIBLE-Sublimity of the. There is not a book on earth so favourable to all the kind, and all the sublime affections, or so unfriendly to hatred and persecution-to tyranny, injustice, and every sort of malevolence, as the GOSPEL. It breathes nothing throughout but mercy, benevolence, and peace. Such of the doctrines of the gospel as are level to human capacity, appear to be agreeable to the purest truth and soundest morality. All the genius and learning of the heathen world, all the penetration of Pythagoras, Socrates, and Aristotle, had never been able to produce such a system of moral duty, and so rational an account of Providence and of man, as is to be found in the New Testament. Beattie. I have carefully and regularly perused these Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion, that the volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may have Sir William Jones. Sir Walter Scott. been written. BIBLE. BIBLE-Teaching of the. The SCRIPTURES teach us the best way of living, the noblest way of suffering, and the most comfortable way of dying. Flavel. Better teaching The solid rules of civil government, In their majestic, unaffected style, Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. In them is plainest taught, and easiest learnt, What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so; What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat: These only, with our law, best form a king. Milton. BIBLE-Value of the. The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of this one volume. The more deeply he works the mine, the richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new light continually beams from this source of heavenly knowledge, to direct the conduct, and illustrate the work of God and the ways of men; and he will at least leave the world confessing, that the more he studied the Scriptures, the fuller conviction he had of his own ignorance, and of their inestimable value. Sir Walter Scott. BIGOTRY-Demon Spirit of. He was an execrable bigot, Who for such horrid purposes had crept Into the cheated Sultan's court and service, As by the traitor's papers we have learn'd; For know, there lives upon the craggy cliffs Of wild Phoenician mountains, a dire race, A nation of assassins. Dreadful zeal, Fierce and intolerant of all religion That differs from their own, is the black soul Of that infernal state. Soon as their chief, The Old Man (so they style him) of the Mountains, Gives out his baleful will, however fell, And never fail to execute his orders. Of these the villain was, these ruffian saints, The curse of earth, the terrors of mankind. Thomson. BILLS-of Exchange. Bless'd paper credit, last and best supply, She has no head, and cannot think; no heart, and cannot feel. When she moves, it is in wrath; when she pauses, it is amidst ruin; her prayers are curses-her God is a demon-home. her communion is death-her vengeance is BIOGRAPHIES-Religious. Memoirs of pure minds, of noble lives, of hearts warm with all the fervour and sunshine of the Gospel-let us do homage to those young saints, those virgin confessors, those true soldiers of our Lord. It is no reproach to them that friends make merchandise of their devout letters, their pious sayings, and the secret life which they lived with God-or that an unwise love beguiles its grief by making into talk, and throwing irreverently open, the innermost sanctuary of their souls. They are the greatest sufferers by the operation. Yet it is wonderful to perceive with what ease all features of human individuality can be obliterated from the record which professes to tell us how one and another, real men and women, people who left positive mortal footsteps in the soil they trod, and tangible good works behind them, lived and died. It is by no means an overstrain of the fact to say that one might go on reading half-a-dozen such memoirs at once, and, but for the difference of name, and perhaps the distinction of here and there a personal pronoun, would be quite unable to find out which was the young soldier in the midst of his regiment, and which the humble Sunday-school teacher dwelling at How this can be done, and by what extraordinary effort of skill it is possible to |
