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Ib. Who can hide magnanimity, stands on the supreme degree of human nature.

Ed. A good deed done, and immediately forgotten in doing for others, is the desideratum.

Do all the good you can, and make as little noise about it as possible.

Modesty graces every other virtue.

We should never remember the benefits we have conferred, nor forget the favors received.

An ostentatious person once asked a pious matron, how much she prayed in secret? She replied, "It would not be a secret, if I should tell you."

A boasting denouncer once said, "Have you got any religion, Dr. Lathrop?" "None to speak of, sir,” was the Doctor's reply.

Em. Make no display of your talents or attainments; for every one will clearly see, admire and acknowledge them, so long as you cover them with the beautiful veil of modesty.

If you have intelligence, modesty best sets it off; if not, it best hides the want of it.

The nettle mounteth on high, while the violet shrouds itself under its own leaves, and is chiefly found out by its fragrance. Let Christians be satisfied with the honor which cometh from God only.

Paul. In lowliness of mind, let each esteem other better than themselves.

Shenstone. Virtues, like essences, lose their fragrance when exposed. They are sensitive plants, that will not bear too familiar approaches.

612. MONEY.

Money makes the mare go.

Wealth gives influence—it is learning and worth which adorn.

Money is the servant of some, the master of others, and the god of still more.

Money is the sinews of enterprise, and the nerves of war. Diodorus. If thou knowest how to use money, it will become thy hand-maid; if not, thy master.

360

MONOPOLY OF LAND, MORALS.

Ed. When money makes a man, the loss of it unmans him. Ib. Wealth is a very dangerous inheritance, except the inheritor is trained to active benevolence.

Anon. A fool and his money are soon parted. [See 59, 182, 854.]

613. MONOPOLY OF LAND.

Beecher. Hitherto the majority of mankind, who have tilled the earth, have been slaves, or tenants. The soil has been owned by kings, military chieftains, and nobles, and by them rented to landlords, and by these it has been divided and subdivided, until the majority who have paid the rent, sustained by the sweat of their brow, not only their own families, but three or four orders of society above them. The same monopoly of the soil has sent another large class of the community into manufacturing establishments, to work out their days in ignorance and hopeless poverty; and another to the army and navy, where honor and wealth await the few, and ignorance and an early grave the many.

The consequence of excluding such numbers from the possession and the healthful cultivation of the soil, has been ignorance, reckless indifference, turbulence, and crime. Tortured by their oppressors, and unrestrained by moral principle, they have been prepared for desperate deeds. Such a state of society cannot be made happy; the evil is radical, and can only be remedied by giving a new direction to the physical, moral, and intellectual energies of men. Room for action must be afforded, and light must be poured upon the understanding, and motive pressed upon the heart. But, to accomplish this, the earth must be owned by those who till it. This will give action to industry, vigor to the body, tone to the mind, and by the attendant blessings of heaven, religion to the heart. From agriculture, stimulated by personal rights, will result commerce, science, arts, liberty, and independence. [See 59.]

614. MORALS, MORALITY.

Wardlaw. Morality is religion in practice; religion is morality in principle.

MORAL LAW, OBLIGATION AND RECTITUDE.

361

Spring. There is no religion without morality, and no morality without religion. [See 618, 975.]

615. MORAL LAW.

Spring. The moral law is built on firm and immutable foundations. It was not imposed by arbitrary will, but corresponds to truth, to the nature of intelligent beings, and the relations they sustain to God and one another. It is adapted to all times, places, and intelligences; is without change, or abatement; and is alike fitted to earth and to heaven. It requires what human laws may not require perfect holiness; and it forbids what man may not forbid -all sin. It has a province with which no human code may interfere; for it controls the heart. [See 521.]

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616. MORAL OBLIGATION.

Em. Mere moral obligation has no precepts nor prohibitions, and therefore is not clothed with the authority of any being in the universe; but all the positive and moral laws of God contain both precepts and prohibitions, which are sanctioned by Divine authority, which creates an obligation to duty, that is distinct from the obligations founded in the nature of things. Moral obligation to do right, and to avoid doing wrong, is primarily founded in the nature of things, and not upon any law which God has ever given to mankind. Many imagine that all moral obligation is founded in the moral law; but the truth is, all moral law is founded in the nature of things, or in the relation which God bears to his creatures, and which they bear to him and to one another. The moral and positive laws which God has given to men, are binding, because they are founded in the nature and relation of things, and not merely because they are sanctioned by Divine authority.

Ed. A person who cannot be held by the cords of his moral obligations, is harder-bitted than any horse or mule.

617. MORAL RECTITUDE OF GOD.

Spring. Were it possible for moral rectitude to be detached from the character of God; were that Divine Nature, now so glorious, to be stripped of the "beauties of holiness;" instead of being revered and loved, he would be the object of suspicion and

362

MORAL VIRTUE, MORTALITY, MOTHERS.

fear, and could no longer be contemplated but with terror and dismay. The higher a being is in intellectual power, the more debased is he, and the more were he to be dreaded, were he destitute of holiness. Holiness constitutes the beauty, the amiableness, the loveliness of the intelligent nature, in whatever being or world it is found.

Abraham. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Ed. God cannot lie, because his love of truth and righteousness always and everywhere. prevents him. [See 387.] 618. MORAL VIRTUE, RECTITUDE AND PRINCIPLE.

We ought to submit to the greatest inconvenience, rather than commit the least sin. Ed. This maxim has been styled the first principle in morals.

Let justice be done, though the universe should sink.

I would not tell a lie, for all America.

Fuller. No man can lay himself under obligation to do wrong, even for his best friend. Pericles, being once desired by his friend to do so, excused himself, saying, “I am a friend only as far as the altar"-[as far as religion will allow].

Spring. If virtue is anything, is virtue everywhere and always; and if vice is anything at me, it is vice always and everywhere. Nothing in the condition of this or other worlds nothing in the Divine purposes and governmentnothing in time or eternity, can alter its nature. * **

Ib. There is reality and strength in moral virtue, when it will cheerfully do and suffer for the principles of rectitude. [See 614, 797, 975.]

619. MORTALITY.

Young. All men think all men mortal but themselves.

Ed. It is supposed that about one human being dies, upon an average, each second of time. Hence there must be from a hundred and fifty to two hundred in the vast congregation of the dead, where there is one among the living. [See 200.] 620. MOTHERS.

Napoleon. The future destiny of the child may be learned from the mother.

Ed. Every one born of woman, ought to think and speak

MOTIVES, MOURNING.

363

well of the relation, do homage to the station, and be grateful for the gratuitous, abundant, and kind attentions of a mother. Ib. If you would reform the world from its vices, begin the work by enlisting the mothers.

621. MOTIVES.

Men often present motives to others, which they themselves despise.

The incidental and ultimate consequences of doing good, or of evil-doing, are commonly if not always more important than their direct ones. The character of the doer, therefore, depends upon his motive, and is modified by his knowledge of consequences.

The motives of our actions, like the pipes of an organ, are usually concealed. But the gilded and hollow pretext is placed in front, for show.

622. MOTIVES, RELIGIOUS.

Em. Religious motives, which are drawn from the being and presence of the all-seeing and heart-searching God, from the infinite authority of all his precepts and prohibitions, from the controlling influence of his universal providence, and from the future and eternal rewards and punishments which he will finally dispense to the righteous and the wicked, are infinitely superior to any other motives which can be exhibited before reasonable and accountable creatures. They are calculated to affect and influence all the powers and faculties of their souls. They are equally adapted to enlighten their understandings, to bind their consciences, and to govern all their hopes and fears. And they carry the same infinite weight and authority to all men, at all times, in all place and under all circumstances. 623 MOURNING.

Young. Some weep in earnest, and yet weep in vain,
As deep in indiscretion as in woe.

Passion, blind passion, impiously pours

Forth tears that need more tears, while reason sleeps. Ed. All rational beings are capable of considering both natural and moral evils in their hateful and dreadful natures, hurtful tendencies, and calamitous consequences. This view of evils

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