Swift calls discretion low prudence; it is high prudence, and one of the most important elements entering into either social or political life.

In the isolation of his clear, cold intellect, the sceptic abides in a glacial and spectral universe. No glow from the affections lights up the frost and shadow of the grave. He feels no prophecy in the thrill of the human heart-in the incompleteness of nature. He believes merely in things tangible, and sees only in the daytime. He will not confess the authenticity of that paler light of faith which was meant to shine when the sunshine of reason falls short, and the firmament of mystery is over our heads.

Think for a moment of the great agents and engines of our civilization, and then think what shadowy ideas they all once were. The wheels of the steamship turned as swiftly as they do now, but as silent and unsubstantial as the motions of the inventor's thought; and in the noiseless loom of his meditation were woven the sinews of the printing-press, whose thunder shakes the world.

Pure felicity is reserved for the heavenly life; it grows not in an earthly soil.

To me there is something thrilling and exalting in the thought that we are drifting forward into a splendid mystery-into something that no mortal eye hath yet seen, and no intelligence has yet declared.

When I contrast the loving Jesus, comprehending all things in his ample and tender charity, with those who profess to bear his name, marking their zeal by what they do not love, it seems to me as though men, like the witches of old, had read the Bible backward, and had taken incantations out of it for evil, rather than inspiration for good.

We may learn by practice such things upon earth as shall be of use to us in heaven. Piety, unostentatious piety, is never out of place.