The thistle is a prince. Let any man that has an eye for beauty take a view of the whole plant, and where will he see a more expressive grace and symmetry; and where is there a more kingly flower?

No emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form.

Nature is a vast repository of manly enjoyments.

Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.

We sleep, but the loom of life never stops, and the pattern which was weaving when the sun went down is weaving when it comes up in the morning.

Sorrows are gardeners: they plant flowers along waste places, and teach vines to cover barren heaps.

We pray for those who have ceased to pray. We pray for those that need prayer more than ever, that have fewer and fewer seasons even of thought, that grow hard with years, that are less and less troubled by sin, and that are more and more irreverent of religion. We pray for the children of Christian parents who sometimes weep at the memory of father and mother, but who never have thought of God.