Most people who commit a sin count on some personal benefit to be derived therefrom, but profanity has not even this excuse.

Exaggeration is a blood relation to falsehood and nearly as blamable.

Some clergymen make a motto, instead of a theme, of their texts.

With regard to manner, be careful to speak in a soft, tender, kind and loving way. Even when you have occasion to rebuke, be careful to do it with manifest kindness. The effect will be incalculably better.

There is no possible excuse for a guarded lie. Enthusiastic and impulsive people will sometimes falsify thoughtlessly, but equivocation is malice prepense.

As the sun's rays will irradiate even the murky pool, and make its stagnant waters to shine like silver, so doth God's goodness and tender mercy, towards the greatest sinner, and the blackest heart, make his own image visible there!

True charity is spontaneous and finds its own occasion; it is never the offspring of importunity, nor of emulation.