Hypocrisy.

IF Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites; they are the greatest dupes he has.

Colton.

There is some virtue in almost every vice but hypocrisy; and even that, while it is a mockery of virtue, is at the same time a compliment to it.

Hazlitt.

An atheist is but a mad, ridiculous derider of piety; but a hypocrite makes a sober jest of God and religion; he finds it easier to be upon his knees than to rise to a good action.

Satan was the first that practiced falsehood
Under saintly show, deep malice to conceal,
Couched with revenge.

Hypocrisy, detest her as we may

Pope.

Milton.

And no man's hatred ever wronged her yet-
May claim this merit still, that she admits
The worth of what she mimics with such care,
And thus gives virtue indirect applause.

Neither man nor angel can discern
Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks
Invisible, except to God alone.

Cowper.

Milton.

There is no vice so simple, but assumes

Some mark of virtue on its outward parts.

Shakespeare.

Idleness.

LAZINESS grows on people; it begins in cobwebs and ends in iron chains. The more business a man has to do, the more he is able to accomplish; for he learns to economize his time.

Sir Matthew Hale.

Rather do what is nothing to the purpose than be idle that the devil may find thee doing. The bird that sits may easily be shot, while fliers escape the fowler. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swallows all the virtues, and the self-made sepulchre of a living man.

Quarles.

He is not only idle who does nothing, but he is idle who might be better employed.

Socrates.

They that do nothing are in the readiest way to do

that which is worse than nothing.

The busy world shoves angrily aside

Zimmermann.

The man who stands with arms akimbo set,

Until occasion tell him what to do;

And he who waits to have his task marked out,

Shall die and leave his errand unfulfilled.

J. R. Lowell.

There is no remedy for time misspent ;
No healing for the waste of idleness,
Whose very languor is a punishment
Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.

Sir Aubrey De Vere.

Absence of occupation is not rest,

A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed.

Cowper.

By Nature's laws, immutable and just,
Enjoyment stops where indolence begins.

Pollok.

Imitation.

He who imitates what is evil, always goes beyond the example that is set; on the contrary, he who imitates what is good, always falls short. Guicciardini.

To be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the new set had a crack in it. Wendell Phillips.

It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives.

Burke.

Immortality.

WITHOUT a belief in personal immortality, religion is surely like an arch resting on one pillar, like a bridge ending in an abyss.

Max Müller.

Every natural longing has its natural satisfaction. If we thirst, God has created liquids to gratify thirst. If we are susceptible of attachment, there are beings to gratify that love. If we thirst for life and love eternal, it is likely that there are an eternal life, and an eternal love to satisfy that craving. F. W. Robertson.

How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die; that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on for ever!

Johnson.

Let earth dissolve; yon ponderous orb descend,
And grind us into dust; the soul is safe!

The man emerges, mounts above the work,
As towering flame from nature's funeral pyre.

There is no end; ye are, and can not die!
What shall I measure your far journey by?
Time's head is old, but older ye shall be
Ere ye have tasted immortality.

Young.

A. C. Coxe.

1

Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride:
They do not quench the orb they hide;
Still there it wheels, the tempest o'er,
In a bright sky to burn once more;
So, far above the clouds of time,
Faith can behold a world sublime;
There, when the storms of life are past,
The light beyond shall break at last.

C. Sprague.

Impenitence.

THERE is a greater depravity in not repenting of sin when it has been committed, than in committing it at first. To deny, as Peter did, is bad; but not to weep bitterly, as he did, when we have denied, is worse. E. Payson.

It is the greatest of all sins always to continue in sin; for, when the custom of sinning waxeth greater, the conscience for sin grows less; it is easier to quench a spark than a fire. Warwick.

He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend ; Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure

For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.

H. Taylor.