There are at bottom but two possible religions--that which rises in the moral nature of man, and which takes shape in moral commandments, and that which grows out of the observation of the material energies which operate in the external universe.

Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.

The soul of man is not a thing which comes and goes, is builded and decays like the elemental frame in which it is set to dwell, but a very living force, a very energy of God's organic will, which rules and moulds this universe.

What is called virtue in the common sense of the word has nothing to do with this or that man's prosperity, or even happiness.

Men are made by nature unequal. It is vain, therefore, to treat them as if they were equal.

We cannot live on probabilities. The faith in which we can live bravely and die in peace must be a certainty, so far as it professes to be a faith at all, or it is nothing.

The practical effect of a belief is the real test of its soundness.