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Truth, indeed, came once into the world with her Divine Master, and was a perfect shape, most glorious to look on; but when he ascended, and his apostles after him were laid asleep, then straight arose a wicked race of deceivers, who, as that story goes of the Egyptian Typhon with his conspirators, how they dealt with the god Osiris, took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to the four winds. From that time ever since, the sad friends of Truth, such as durst appear, imitating the careful search that Isis made for the mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gathering up limb by limb, still as they could find them. We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons! nor ever shall do, till her master's second coming; he shall bring together every joint and member, and mould them into an immortal feature of loveliness and perfection.

Areopagitica.-JOHN MILTON.

TWILIGHT.

Twilight is a great blessing of God to mankind: for, should our eyes be instantly posted out of darkness into light, out of midnight into morning, so sudden a surprisal would blind us. God, therefore, of his goodness, hath made the intermediate twilight to prepare our eyes for the reception of the light.

Mixt Contemplations on these Times, xxv.
THOMAS FULLER.

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He that is most practical in Divine things, hath the purest and sincerest knowledge of them, and not he that is most dogmatical. Divinity, indeed, is a true efflux from the Eternal light, which, like the sunbeams, does not only enlighten, but heat and enliven; and, therefore, our Saviour hath in his Beatitudes connext Purity of heart with the Beatifical Vision.

Select Discourses, 1660, by SMITH.

Unbelief. Strength and Weakness of

Profound minds are the most likely to think lightly of the resources of human reason; and it is the pert superficial thinker who is generally strongest in every kind of unbelief. The deep philosopher sees chains of causes and effects so wonderfully and strangely linked together, that he is usually the last person to decide upon the impossibility of any two series of events being independent of each other; and in science, so many natural miracles, as it were, have been brought to light-such as the fall of stones from meteors in the atmosphere, the disarming a thunder cloud by a metallic point, the production of fire from ice by a metal white as silver, and the referring certain laws of motion of the sea to the moon-that the physical inquirer is seldom disposed to assert, confidently, on any abstruse subjects belonging to the order of natural things, and still less so on those relating to the more mysterious relations of moral events and intellectual natures.

Salmonia.-Sir HUMPHREY DAVY.

UPRIGHTNESS.

Be good, and fear for naught that slanderous speech endangers ;

Who bears no sin himself affords to bear a stranger's.

Strung Pearls.-RUCKERT.

Vain Glory.

It was prettily devised of Æsop, the fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel, and said, "What a dust do I raise ! " So are there some vain persons that, whatsoever goeth alone, or moveth upon greater means, if they have never so little hand in it, they think it is they that carry it.

Essay on Vain Glory.-LORD BACON.

VALOUR.

Perfect valour consists in doing without witnesses. all we should be capable of doing before the whole world. Maxims, CCCCXXXI.-ROCHEFOUCAULT.

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The things true valour's exercised about,
Are poverty, restraint, captivity,

Banishment, loss of children, long disease;
The least is death.

The Character of True Valour.-BEN JONSON.

VALOUR Seasons all Virtues.

A valiant man

Ought not to undergo, or tempt a danger,
But worthily, and by selected ways:

He undertakes with reason, not by chance.
His valour is the salt to his other virtues,
They are all unseason'd without it.

VANITY.

The Character of True Valour.-BEN JONSON.

A vain thought engrosseth all the ground of my heart; till that be rooted out, no good meditation can grow with it or by it.

Good Thoughts in Worse Times, XIII.
THOMAS FULLER.

VICES.

My soul by nature is not only a servant, but a slave unto sin. Pride calls me to the window, gluttony to the table, wantonness to the bed, laziness to the chimney, ambition commands me to go up stairs, and covetousness to come down. Vices, I see, are as well contrary

to themselves as to virtue.

Mixt Contemplations, VIII.
THOMAS FULLER.

VIRTUE.

Definitions of

A box, where sweets compacted lie;

Virtue.-GEORGE HERBERT.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Essay on Beauty.-LORD BACON.

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So Virtue blooms, brought forth amid the storms
Of chill adversity; in some lone walk

Of life she rears her head,

Obscure and unobserved;

While every bleaching breeze that on her blows,
Chastens her spotless purity of breast,

And hardens her to bear,

Serene, the ills of life.

To an Early Primrose.-H. K. WHITE.

VIRTUE. Analysis of

What, what is virtue, but repose of mind,

A

pure ethereal calm, that knows no storm; Above the reach of wild ambition's wind, Above the passions that this world deform, And torture man, a proud malignant worm? But here, instead, soft gales of passion play, And gently stir the heart, thereby to form A quicker sense of joy; as breezes stray Across the enlivened skies, and make them still more The Castle of Indolence. JAMES THOMSON.

gay.

VIRTUE. Inspiration of

By thee inspired, O Virtue! age is young,
And music warbles from the faltering tongue :
Thy ray creative cheers the clouded brow,
And decks the faded cheek with rosy glow,

Y

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