CHARITY. As every lord giveth a certain livery to his servants, charity is the very livery of Christ. Our Saviour, who is the Lord above all lords, would have his servants known by their badge, which is love.-Latimer. How white are the fair robes of Charity, as she walketh amid the lowly habitations of the poor!-Hosea Ballou. The Shepherds led the Pilgrims to Mount Charity, where they showed them a man that had a bundle of cloth lying before him, out of which he cut coats and garments for the poor that stood about him; yet his bundle or roll of cloth was never the less. Then said they, "What should this be? "This is," said the Shepherds, "to show you, that he who has a heart to give of his labor to the poor shall never want wherewithal. He that watereth shall be watered himself.' And the cake that the widow gave to the prophet did not cause that she had the less in her barrel.”—Bunyan. The heart of a girl is like a convent, the holier the cloister, the more charitable the door. Bulwer Lytton. To complain that life has no joys while there is a single creature whom we can relieve by our bounty, assist by our counsels, or enliven by our presence, is to lament the loss of that which we possess, and is just as irrational as to die of thirst with the cup in our hands.— Fitzosborne. Charity is an eternal debt, and without limit.—Pasquier Quesnel. If there be a pleasure on earth which angels cannot enjoy, and which they might almost envy man the possession of, it is the power of relieving distress, -if there be a pain which devils might pity man for enduring, it is the death-bed reflection that we have possessed the power of doing good, but that we have abused and perverted it to purposes of ill.-Colton. That comes too late that comes for the asking.-Seneca. Nothing truly can be termed mine own but what I make mine own by using well. Those deeds of charity which we have done shall stay forever with us; and that wealth which we have so bestowed we only keep; the other is not ours.-Middleton. It is good to be charitable; but to whom? That is the point. As to the ungrateful, there is not one who does not at last die miserable. -La Fontaine. Heaven be their resource who have no other but the charity of the world, the stock of which, Charity, though enjoined by the Christian law, and the law of nature itself, is withal so pleasant that if any duty can be said to be its own reward, or to pay us while we are discharging it, it is this.-Fielding. A woman who wants a charitable heart wants a pure mind.-Haliburton. The spirit of the world encloses four kinds of spirits, diametrically opposed to charity,the spirit of resentment, spirit of aversion, spirit of jealousy, and the spirit of indifference.— Bossuet. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth.—Bible. I have much more confidence in the charity which begins in the home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world-wide philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge into egotism.— Mrs. Jameson. Charity is the scope of all God's commands. St. Chrysostom. When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground. I would enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive and seeing another enjoy it.-Pope. It is fruition, and not possession, that renders us happy.-Montaigne. Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.—Colton. Though we may sometimes unintentionally bestow our beneficence on the unworthy, it does not take from the merit of the act. For charity doth not adopt the vices of its objects.— Fielding. True charity is spontaneous and finds its own occasion; it is never the offspring of importunity, nor of emulation.-Hosea Bullou. I would have none of that rigid, circumspect charity which is never done without scrutiny, and which always mistrusts the truth of the necessities laid open to it.-Massillon. Our possessions are wholly in our perform I fear, is no way sufficient for the many great ances. He owes nothing to whom the world claims which are hourly made upon it.-Sterne. | owes nothing.-Simms. It is an old saying, that charity begins at home; but this is no reason it should not go abroad. A man should live with the world as a citizen of the world; he may have a preference for the particular quarter or square, or even alley, in which he lives, but he should have a generous feeling for the welfare of the whole.Cumberland. Charity, gently to hear, kindly to judge. Shakespeare. Beneficence is a duty. He who frequently practises it, and sees his benevolent intentions realized, at length comes really to love him to whom he has done good.-Kant. For charity shall cover the multitude of sins.-Bible. Charity is that rational and constant affection which makes us sacrifice ourselves to the human race, as if we were united with it, so as to form one individual, partaking equally in its adversity and prosperity.—Confucius. Large charity doth never soil, but only whitens soft white hands.-Lowell. Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities. We gain only as we give. There is no beggar so destitute as he who can afford nothing to his neighbor.—Simms. My poor are my best patients. God pays for them.-Boerhaave. We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. Seneca. That charity is bad which takes from independence its proper pride, from mendicity its salutary shame.-Southey. Flatter not thyself in thy faith to God, if thou wantest charity for thy neighbor; and think not thou hast charity for thy neighbor, if thou wantest faith to God; where they are not both together, they are both wanting; they are both dead, if once divided.—Quarles. The secret pleasure of a generous act is the great mind's great bribe.-Dryden. I thank Heaven I have often had it in my power to give help and relief, and this is still A man should fear when he enjoys only my greatest pleasure If I could choose my what good he does publicly. Is it not the pub-sphere of action now, it would be that of the licity, rather than the charity, that he loves?- most simple and direct efforts of this kind.— Beecher. Niebuhr. The last, best fruit which comes to late perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard, forbearance toward the unforbearing, warmth of heart toward the cold, philanthropy toward the misanthropic.-Richter. Cast thy bread upon the waters; for thou shalt find it after many days.-Bible. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.-Bible. Active beneficence is a virtue of easier practice than forbearance after having conferred, or than thankfulness after having received, a benefit. I know not, indeed, whether it be a greater and more difficult exercise of magnanimity, for the one party to act as if he had forgotten, or for the other as if he constantly remembered, the obligation.-Canning CHASTITY. Not the mountain ice, congealed to crystals, is so frosty chaste as thy victorious soul, which conquers man and man's proud tyrant-passion.-Dryden. Nothing makes a woman more esteemed by the opposite sex than chastity; whether it be that we always prize those most who are hardest to come at, or that nothing besides chastity, with its collateral attendants, truth, fidelity, and constancy, gives the man a property in the person he loves, and consequently endears her to him above all things.-Addison. Chastity, once lost, cannot be recalled; it goes only once.- Ovid. A pure mind in a chaste body is the mother of wisdom and deliberation, sober counsels and ingenuous actions, open deportment and sweet carriage, sincere principles and unprejudicate understanding, love of God and self-denial, peace and confidence, holy prayers and spiritual comfort, and a pleasure of spirit infinitely greater than the sottish pleasure of unchastity. Jeremy Taylor. He comes too near that comes to be denied. There needs not strength to be added to There can be no Christianity where there is inviolate chastity; the excellency of the mind no charity.-Colton. makes the body impregnable.-Sir P. Sidney. It is with charity as with money, - the more we stand in need of it, the less we have to give away.-Bovee. Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act a charity sometimes. When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the "seven small children," in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth to save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him.-Lamb. The lightsome countenance of a friend giveth such an inward decking to the house where it lodgeth, as proudest palaces have cause to envy the gilding.-Sir P. Sidney. The industrious bee does not stop to complain that there are so many poisonous flowers and thorny branches in his road, but buzzes on, selecting the honey where he can find it, and passing quietly by the places where it is not. There is enough in this world to complain about and find fault with, if men have the disposition. We often travel on a hard and uneven road; but with a cheerful spirit, and a heart to praise God for his mercies, we may walk therein with comfort, and come to the end of our journey in peace.-Dewey. An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with.-Fuller. 75 CHEERFULNESS. Let me play the fool; with mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come; and let my liver rather heat with wine than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster, sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice by being peevish?-Shakespeare. The mind that is cheerful in its present state will be averse to all solicitude as to the future, and will meet the bitter occurrences of life with a smile.-Horace. Cheerful looks make every dish a feast, and it is that which crowns a welcome.—Massinger. A cheerful temper spreads like the dawn, and all vapors disperse before it. Even the tear dries on the cheek, and the sigh sinks away half-breathed when the eye of benignity beams upon the unhappy.-Jane Porter. To be free-minded and cheerfully disposed at hours of meat and sleep and of exercise is one of the best precepts of long lasting.—Bacon. A light heart lives long.—Shakespeare. I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill-health, and other evils of life, by mirth; being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more when he laughs, it adds something to his fragment of life.-Sterne. Cheerfulness is health; the opposite, melancholy, is disease.-Haliburton. I have observed that in comedies the best actor plays the droll, while some scrub rogue is made the fine gentleman or hero. Thus it is in the farce of life. Wise men spend their time in mirth; it is only fools who are serious. Bolingbroke. A merry heart doeth good like a medicine; The burden becomes light which is cheerful- but a broken spirit drieth the bones.—Bible. ly borne.-Ovid. True joy is a serene and sober motion, and they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing; the seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolutions of a brave mind.-Seneca. The cheerful live longest in life, and after it, in our regards. Cheerfulness is the offshoot of goodness.-Bovee. Be thou of good cheer.—Bible. The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.-Johnson. Youth will never live to age unless they keep themselves in breath with exercise, and in heart with joyfulness.-Sir P. Sidney. Cheerfulness is always to be kept up if a man is ont of pain; but mirth, to a prudent man, should always be accidental. It should naturally arise out of the occasion, and the occasion seldom be laid for it.-Steele. I cannot tell how much I esteem and admire your good and happy temperament. What folly not to take advantage of circumstances, and enjoy gratefully the consolations which God sends us after the afflictive dispensations which he sometimes sees proper to make us feel! It seems to me to be a proof of great wisdom to submit with resignation to the storm, and enjoy the calm when it pleases him to give it us again. Madame de Sévigné. God is glorified, not by our groans, but our thanksgivings; and all good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer. Whipple. Give us, O give us, the man who sings at his work! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue whilst he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts, to be permanently useful, must be uniformly joyous,- -a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright.-Carlyle. A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.-Chesterfield. Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health. Repinings and murmurings of the heart give imperceptible strokes to those delicate fibres of which the vital parts are composed, and wear out the machine. Cheerfulness is as friendly to the mind as to the body.—Addison. There seem to be some persons, the favorites of fortune and darlings of nature, who are born cheerful. "A star danced" at their birth. It is no superficial visibility, but a bountiful and beneficent soul that sparkles in their eyes and smiles on their lips. Their inborn geniality amounts to genius, the rare and difficult genius which creates sweet and wholesome character, and radiates cheer.- Whipple. What can the Creator see with greater pleasure than a happy creature ?-Lessing. Cheerfulness is just as natural to the heart of a man in strong health as color to his cheek; and wherever there is habitual gloom, there must be either bad air, unwholesome food, improperly severe labor, or erring habits of life.Ruskin. Cheerfulness bears the same friendly regard to the mind as to the body; it banishes all anxious care and discontent, soothes and composes the passions and keeps them in a perpetual calm.-Addison. I have told you of the Spaniard who always put on his spectacles when about to eat cherries, that they might look bigger and more tempting. In like manner I make the most of my enjoyments; and though I do not cast my eyes away from my troubles, I pack them in as little compass as I can for myself, and never let them annoy others.-Southey. When Goethe says that in every human condition foes lie in wait for us, "invincible only by cheerfulness and equanimity," he does not mean that we can at all times be really cheerful, or at a moment's notice; but that the endeavor to look at the better side of things will produce the habit, and that this habit is the surest safeguard against the danger of sudden evils. Leigh Hunt. Every human soul has the germ of some flowers within; and they would open if they could only find sunshine and free air to expand in. I always told you that not having enough of sunshine was what ailed the world. Make people happy, and there will not be half the quarrelling or a tenth part of the wickedness there is.-Mrs. L. M. Child. Cheerfulness ought to be the viaticum vita of their life to the old; age without cheerfulness is a Lapland winter without a sun.Colton. Nothing will supply the want of sunshine to peaches, and, to make knowledge valuable, you must have the cheerfulness of wisdom. Whenever you are sincerely pleased you are nourished. The joy of the spirit indicates its strength. All healthy things are sweet-tempered. Genius works in sport, and goodness smiles to the last.-Emerson. A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction, convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agrecable.—Addison. CHILDREN. No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conversation of those dear pledges.—Jeremy Taylor. Children have more need of models than of critics.—Joubert. An infallible way to make your child miserable is to satisfy all his demands. Passion swells by gratification; and the impossibility of satisfying every one of his demands will oblige you to stop short at last, after he has become a Ïittle headstrong.-Henry Home. I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.-Dickens. |