It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven.

The mental powers acquire their full robustness when the cheek loses its ruddy hue, and the limbs their elastic step; and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student's lamp burning far into the silent night.

In the spangled sky, the rainbow, the woodland hung with diamonds, the sward sown with pearly dew, the rosy dawn, the golden clouds of even, the purple mountains, the hoary rock, the blue boundless main, Nature's simplest flower, or some fair form of laughing child or lovely maiden, we cannot see the beautiful without admiring it.

The finest flowers of genius have grown in an atmosphere where those of Nature are prone to droop, and difficult to bring to maturity.

As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their luster.

Do it now. It is not safe to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influences of the world.

More tears are shed in playhouses than in churches.