Obrázky stránek
PDF
ePub

MUSIC.

Music is the only one of the fine arts in which not only man, but all other animals, have a common property,-mice and elephants, spiders and birds.-Richter.

Music is a prophecy of what life is to be the rainbow of promise translated out of seeing into hearing.-Mrs. L. M. Child.

The lines of poetry, the periods of prose, and even the texts of Scripture most frequently recollected and quoted, are those which are felt to be pre-eminently musical. -Shenstone.

The direct relation of music is not to ideas, but to emotions-in the works of its greatest masters, it is more marvelous, more mysterious than poetry.-H. Giles.

Music is the medicine of the breaking heart.-A. Hunt.

We love music for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings it can summon at a touch.-L. E. Landon.

Music washes away from the soul the dust of every-day life.-Auerbach.

Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, and bend the knotted oak.-Congreve.

Almost all my tragedies were sketched in my mind, either in the act of hearing music, or a few hours after.-Alfieri.

Music is a discipline, and a mistress of order and good manners; she makes the people milder and gentler, more moral and more reasonable.—Luther.

In the germ, when the first trace of life begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul; it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps; the tones are companions of his dreams, they are the world in which he lives.-Bettina.

Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God, to which Satan is a bitter enemy, for it removes from the heart the weight of sorrow, and the fascination of evil thoughts.-Luther.

Both music and painting add a spirit to devotion, and elevate the ardor.—Sterne.

Lord, what music hast thou provided for thy saints in heaven, when thou affordest bad men such music on earth!-Izaak Walton.

Music is the child of prayer, the companion of religion.-Chateaubriand.

The best sort of music is what it should be-sacred; the next best, the military, has fallen to the lot of the devil.-Coleridge.

Music moves us, and we know not why: we feel the tears, but cannot trace their source. Is it the language of some other

[blocks in formation]

state, born of its memory? For what can wake the soul's strong instinct of another world like music ?—L. E. Landon.

Let me have music dying, and I seek no more delight.-Keats.

Music is the language of praise; and one of the most essential preparations for eternity is delight in praising God; a higher acquirement, I do think, than even delight and devotedness in prayer.-Chal

mer's.

Through every pulse the music stole, and held sublime communion with the soul; wrung from the coyest breast the imprisoned sigh, and kindled rapture in the coldest eye.-Montgomery.

When griping grief the heart doth wound, and doleful dumps the mind oppress, then music, with her silver sound, with speedy help doth lend redress.-Shakespeare.

A good ear for music, and a taste for music are two very different things which are often confounded; and so is comprehending and enjoying every object of sense and sentiment.-Gréville.

Music is well said to be the speech of angels.- Carlyle.

Music wakes the soul, and lifts it high, and wings it with sublime desires, and fits it to bespeak the Deity.-Addison.

There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.-George Eliot.

Yea, music is the prophet's art; among the gifts that God hath sent, one of the most magnificent.-Longfellow.

The meaning of song goes deep. Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that!-Carlyle.

Of all the arts beneath the heaven that man has found or God has given, none draws the soul so sweet away, as music's melting, mystic lay; slight emblem of the bliss above, it soothes the spirit all to love. -Hogg.

MUTABILITY.-What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue !—Burke.

Man must be prepared for every event of life, for there is nothing that is durable.Menander.

Mutability is the badge of infirmity.—It is seldom that a man continues to wish and design the same thing for two days alike.Charron.

In human life there is constant change

MYSTERY.

of fortune and it is unreasonable to expect an exemption from the common fate. Life itself decays, and all things are daily changing.—Plutarch.

Clocks will go as they are set; but man, irregular man, is never constant, never certain. Otway.

The blessings of health and fortune, as they have a beginning, so they must also have an end.-Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.—Sallust.

When Anaxagoras was told of the death of his son, he only said, "I knew he was mortal." So we in all casualties of life should say, "I knew my riches were uncertain, that my friend was but a man. Such considerations would soon pacify us, because all our troubles proceed from their being unexpected.—Plutarch.

[ocr errors]

It may serve as a comfort to us, in all our calamities and afflictions, that he that loses anything and gets wisdom by it is a gainer by the loss.-L'Estrange.

All our life goeth like Penelope's web, and what one hour effects, the next destroys.-Augustine.

MYSTERY.-Mystery is but another name for our ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain.Tryon Edwards.

A mystery is something of which we know that it is, though we do not know how it is.-Joseph Cook.

He had lived long enough to know that it is unwise to wish everything explained.Coningsby.

I do not explain-I only state it; and this is all we can do with a large proportion of all the facts and truths that we know. There is a point, easily reached, where the simplest facts end in mystery, even as they begin in it; just as each day lies between two nights.-R. Turnbull.

While reason is puzzling itself about mystery, faith is turning it to daily bread, and feeding on it thankfully in her heart of hearts.-F. D. Huntington.

Mystery magnifies danger, as a fog the sun; the hand that warned Belshazzar derived its horrifying influence from the want of a body.-Colton.

Each particle of matter is an immensity; each leaf a world; each insect an inexplicable compendium.-Lavater.

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy. -Shakespeare.

Like a morning dream, life becomes more and more bright the longer we live, and the

[blocks in formation]

reason of everything appears more clear. What has puzzled us before seems less mysterious, and the crooked paths look straighter as we approach the end.-Richter.

I do not know how the great loving Father will bring out light at last, but he knows, and he will do it.-Livingstone, in Africa.

I would fain know all that I need, and all that I may.-I leave God's secrets to himself. It is happy for me that God makes me of his court, and not of his council. Bp. Hall.

It is the dim haze of mystery that adds enchantment to pursuit.-Rivarol.

Happy is the man who is content to traverse this ocean to the haven of rest, without going into the wretched diving-bells of his own fancies.-There are depths; but depths are for God.—Evans.

Speculate not too much on the mysteries of truth or providence.-The effort to explain everything, sometimes may endanger faith. Many things God reserves to himself, and many are reserved for the unfoldings of the future life.-Tryon Edwards.

Most men take least notice of what is plain, as if that was of no use, but puzzle. their thoughts with those vast depths and abysses which no human understanding can fathom.-Bp. Sherlock.

We injure mysteries, which are matters of faith, by any attempt at explanation, in order to make them matters of reason. Could they be explained, they would cease to be mysteries; and it has been well said that a thing is not necessarily against reason, because it happens to be above it.Colton.

To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems, in general, to be necessary. -When we know the full extent of any danger, and can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.-Burke.

A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.- — Chesterfield.

As defect of strength in us makes some weights to be immovable, so likewise, defect of understanding makes some truths to be mysterious.-Bp. Sherlock.

A religion without mystery must be a religion without God.

In dwelling on divine mysteries, keep thy heart humble, thy thoughts reverent, thy soul holy. Let not philosophy be ashamed to be confuted, nor logic to be confounded, nor reason to be surpassed. What thou canst not prove, approve; what thou canst not comprehend, believe; what

MYTHOLOGY.

thou canst believe, admire and love and obey. So shall thine ignorance be satisfied in thy faith, and thy doubt be swallowed up in thy reverence, and thy faith be as influential as sight. Put out thine own candle, and then shalt thou see clearly the sun of righteousness.—Jeremy Taylor.

MYTHOLOGY.-Mythology is the religious sentiment growing wild.—Schelling.

Mythology is not religion. It may rather be regarded as the ancient substitute, the poetical counterpart for dogmatic theology. -Hare.

The heathen mythology not only was not true, but it was not even supported as true it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none.-The very pretension to truth, the very demand of faith, were characteristics of Christianity. Whately.

N.

NAMES. (See "REPUTATION.")

370

A name is a kind of face whereby one is known.-Fuller.

With the vulgar and the learned, names have great weight; the wise use a writ of inquiry into their legitimacy when they are advanced as authorities.-Zimmermann.

Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame, the power of grace, the magic of a name.- Cowper.

Favor or disappointment has been often conceded, as the name of the claimant has affected us; and the accidental affinity or coincidence of a name, connected with ridicule or hatred, with pleasure or disgust, has operated like magic.—Disraeli.

are

"Names," says an old maxim, things." They certainly are influences.Impressions are left and opinions areshaped by them.-Virtue is disparaged, and vice countenanced, and so encouraged by them. The mean and selfish talk of their prudence and economy; the vain and proud prate about self-respect; obstinacy is called firmness, and dissipation the enjoyment of life seriousness is ridiculed as cant, and strict morality and integrity, as needless scrupulosity; and so men deceive themselves, and society is led to look leniently, or with indifference, on what ought to be sharply condemned.-Tryon Edwards.

;

Some to the fascination of a name surrender judgment hoodwinked.-Cowper.

What is in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.-Shakespeare.

NATIONS.

Some men do as much begrudge others a good name, as they want one themselves; and perhaps that is the reason of it.Penn.

A person with a bad name is already halfhanged.— Old Proverb.

One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous, should they desire to put them in practice.Pascal.

A virtuous name is the precious, only good, for which queens and peasants' wives must contest together.-Schiller.

A man's name is not like a mantle which merely hangs about him, and which one perchance may safely twitch and pull, but a perfectly fitting garment, which, like the skin, has grown over him, at which one cannot rake and scrape without injuring the man himself.-Goethe.

Good name, in man or woman, is the immediate jewel of their souls.-Who steals my purse steals trash; but he that filches from me my good name, robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed.-Shakespeare.

The honors of a name 'tis just to guard; they are a trust but lent us, which we take, and should, in reverence to the donor's fame, with care transmit them down to other hands.-Shirley.

Great names debase, instead of raising those who know not how to use them. Rochefoucauld.

A name truly good is the aroma from virtuous character; it is a spontaneous emanation from genuine excellence.-Such a name is not only remembered on earth, but it is written in heaven.-J. Hamilton.

A good name lost is seldom regained.— When character is gone, all is gone, and one of the richest jewels of life is lost forever.-J. Hawes.

No better heritage can a father bequeath to his children than a good name; nor is there in a family any richer heir-loom than the memory of a noble ancestor.—J. Hamilton.

[ocr errors][merged small]

NATURE.

The best protection of a nation is its men; towns and cities cannot have a surer defense than the prowess and virtue of their inhabitants.-Rabelais.

It is written in God's word, and in all the history of the race, that nations, if they live at all, live not by felicity of position, or soil, or climate, and not by abundance of material good, but by the living word of the living God.-The commandments of God are the bread of life for the nations. R. D. Hitchcock.

Territory is but the body of a nation.The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life.—Garfield.

No nation can be destroyed while, it possesses a good home life.-J. G. Holland.

In the youth of a state, arms do flourish; in the middle age, learning; and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age, mechanical arts and merchandise. -Bacon.

A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds; they constitute one common patrimony, the nation's inheritance. They awe foreign powers, they arouse and animate our own people.-Henry Clay.

National progress is the sum of individual industry, energy, and uprightness, as national decay is of individual idleness, selfishness, and vice.-S. Smiles.

The true grandeur of nations is in those qualities which constitute the true greatness of the individual.-C. Sumner.

As for the just and noble idea, that nations, as well as individuals, are parts of one wondrous whole, it has hardly passed the lips or pen of any but religious men and poets. It is the one great principle of the greatest religion which has ever nourished the morals of mankind.-Harriet Martineau.

NATURE.-Nature is but a name for an effect whose cause is God.-Cowper.

Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God; and defects, to show that she is only his image.— Pascal.

Nature does not capriciously scatter her secrets as golden gifts to lazy pets and luxurious darlings, but imposes tasks when she presents opportunities, and uplifts him whom she would inform. The apple that she drops at the feet of Newton is but a coy invitation to follow her to the stars.E. P. Whipple.

Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each

[blocks in formation]

faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty!-Coleridge.

Nature and revelation are alike God's books; each may have mysteries, but in each there are plain practical lessons for every-day duty.-Tryon Edwards.

The man who can really, in living union of the mind and heart, converse with God through nature, finds in the material forms around him, a source of power and happiness inexhaustible, and like the life of angels. The highest life and glory of man is to be alive unto God; and when this grandeur of sensibility to him, and this power of communion with him is carried, as the habit of the soul, into the forms of nature, then the walls of our world are as the gates of heaven.-G. B. Cheever.

Nature knows no panse in progress and development, and attaches her curse on all inaction.-Goethe.

Read nature; nature is a friend to truth nature is Christian, preaches to mankind, and bids dead matter aid us in our creed. Young.

Sympathy with nature is a part of the good man's religion.-F. H. Hedge.

Looks through nature up to nature's God.-Pope.

Study nature as the countenance of God. -Charles Kingsley.

Hill and valley, seas and constellations, are but stereotypes of divine ideas appealing to, and answered by the living soul of man.-E. H. Chapin.

There is a signature of wisdom and power impressed on the works of God, which evidently distinguishes them from the feeble imitations of men.-Not only the splendor of the sun, but the glimmering light of the glowworm, proclaims his glory.-John Newton.

Natural objects themselves, even when they make no claim to beauty, excite the feelings, and occupy the imagination. Nature pleases, attracts, delights, merely because it is nature. We recognize in it an Infinite Power.-W. Humboldt.

There is no trifling with nature; it is always true, grave, and severe; it is always in the right, and the faults and errors fall to our share. It defies incompetency, but reveals its secrets to the competent, the truthful, and the pure.-Goethe.

Nature is the time-vesture of God that reveals him to the wise, and hides him from the foolish.—Carlyle.

Nature is beautiful, always beautiful! Every little flake of snow is a perfect crys

;

NATURE.

tal, and they fall together as gracefully as if fairies of the air caught waterdrops and made them into artificial flowers to garland the wings of the wind!—Mrs. L. M. Child.

Nature is an Æolian harp, a musical instrument, whose tones are the re-echo of higher strings within us.-Novalis.

What profusion is there in His work! When trees blossom there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom-full of gems; and of leaves they have so many suits that they can throw them away to the winds all summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has He reared in the forest shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore by tremulous music; and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have flown out of His hand faster than sparks out of a mighty forge !—H. W. Beecher.

Nature and wisdom always say the same. -Juvenal.

The laws of nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the laws of man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the laws of nature,—were man as unerring in his judgments as nature.-Longfellow.

Nature is commanded by obeying her.— Bacon.

Nature is the living, visible garment of God. Goethe.

In contemplation of created things, by steps we may ascend to God.-Milton.

A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.-Johnson.

The laws of nature are the rules according to which effects are produced; but there must be a lawgiver-a cause which operates according to these rules.-The laws of navigation never steered a ship, and the law of gravity never moved a planet. -T. Reid.

Nature is the most thrifty thing in the world; she never wastes anything; she undergoes change, but there's no annihilation-the essence remains.-T. Binney.

The laws of nature are but the thoughts and agencies of God-the modes in which

[blocks in formation]

he works and carries out the designs of his providence and will.-Tryon Edwards.

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own; and from morning to night, as from the cradle to the grave. is but a succession of changes so gentle and easy that we can scarcely mark their progress.-Dickens.

In nature, all is managed for the best with perfect frugality and just reserve, profuse to none, but bountiful to all; never employing on one thing more than enough, but with exact economy retrenching the superfluous, and adding force to what is principal in everything.-Shaftesbury.

Surely there is something in the unruffled calm of nature that overawes our little anxieties and doubts: the sight of the deep-blue sky, and the clustering stars above, seem to impart a quiet to the mind. -Jonathan Edwards.

It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and appearances of nature. Our Saviour expatiates on a flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplations of religion, and be, at the same time, alive to the charms and loveliness of nature.-Chal

mers.

In nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place.-Bacon.

Nature is a frugal mother, and never gives without measure. When she has work to do, she qualifies men for that and sends them equipped.—Emerson.

He that follows nature is never out of his way. Nature is sometimes subdued, but seldom extinguished.—Bacon.

If we did not take great pains to corrupt our nature, our nature would never corrupt us.- -Clarendon.

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.— Sydney Smith.

I follow nature as the surest guide, and resign myself, with implicit obedience, to her sacred ordinances.-Cicero.

It were happy if we studied nature more in natural things; and acted according to nature, whose rules are few, plain, and most reasonable.-Penn.

Epicurianism is human nature drunk, cynicism is human nature mad, and stoi

« PředchozíPokračovat »