Washington sentinel. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1853-1855, 1854-11-26

My morning haunts are, where they should
be, at home; not sleeping, or connecting the
surfeits Of an irregular feast, but up and STIR
ing; in winter, often ere the sound of any bell
awakes men to labor or to devotion; in sum
mer as oft with the bird that first rises, or not
much tardier, to read good authors or cause
them to be read, till the attention be weary OF
memory have its full freight
cannot praise fugitive and clustered vir-
tue unexercised and unbreathed, that never
sallies out and sees her adversary, but sinks
out of the race, where that immortal garland is
to be run for, not without dust and heat. This
was the reason why our sage and serious poet,
Spenser, describing true temperance under the
person of Guion, brings him in with his palmer
through the cave of mammon and the bower Of
earthly bliss, that he might see and know, and
yet abstain.
Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stiffness
of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection,
the seat of meditation, the rest Of our cares,
and the calm of our tempest; prayer is the
issue Of a quiet mind, Of untroubled thoughts,
1t is the daughter of charity, and the sister OF
meekness; and he that prays to God with an
angry THAT is, with a troubled and discom-
posed) spirit, is like him that retires into a
battle to mediate, and sets up his closet in the
oefiuoitrio VI al dfluIs
Cheerfulness and festival spirit fills the
soul full Of harmony; it composes music for
churches and hearts; IL makes and publishes
Qualifications Of God; Il produces thankfulness
and serves the end of charity; and, when the
oil Of gladness runs over, il makes bright and
tall emissions Of light and holy fires, reaching
up to cloud, and making joy round about
and, therefore, such il is SO innocent, and NAV
be so pious and full Of holy advantage, what
soever can innocently minister to this holy joy
does set forward the work Of religion and
charity. And, indeed, charity itself, which il
the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else
but an union of joys concentrated in the heart
and reflected from all the angles Of our life and
intercourse. It's rejoicing In God, a gladness
in our neighbors' good, pleasure in doing
good, rejoining with him; and without love
we cannot have any Joy at all.
Our infancy is fun Of folly; youth, of disor.
der and toll age, Of in6rmity. Each time hath
his burden, and that which may Justly work
our weariness yet infancy longeth after youth
and youth after more age and he that Is very
old, as he is a child for simplicity SO he would
be for years. account old age the best of the
three partly, for that II hath passed through
the folly and disorder Of the others; partly, Tor
that the Inconvenience Of this are but bodily,
with bettered state of the mind; and partly,
for that il is nearest TO dissolution. There Is
nothing more miserable than an old man that
would be young again II was an answer
worthythe concentrations Of Petrarch, and that
which argued mind truly philosophical Of him,
who, when bis friend bemoaned his age appear.
ing in his white temples, telling him he was
sorry TO see him look so old, replied: "Nay, be
sorry rather that ever was young, to be fool"
Ertracts from Taious Authors.