Must love be ever treated with profaneness as a mere illusion? or with coarseness as a mere impulse? or with fear as a mere disease? or with shame as a mere weakness? or with levity as a mere accident? whereas it is a great mystery and a great necessity, lying at the foundation of human existence, morality, and happiness,--mysterious, universal, inevitable as death.

But is it not the fact that religion emanates from the nature, from the moral state of the individual? Is it not therefore true that unless the nature be completely exercised, the moral state harmonized, the religion cannot be healthy?

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

I never did a right thing or abstained from a wrong one from any consideration of reward or punishment.

The habit of dwelling on the past, has a narrowing as well as a debilitating influence. Behind us, there is a small, - an almost insignificant measure of time; before us, there is an eternity. It is the natural tendency of the mind to magnify the one, and to diminish the other.

Moral excellence has no regard to classes and professions.

Who is apt, on occasion, to assign a multitude of reasons when one will do? This is a sure sign of weakness in argument.