Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-12-20
CHOICE EXCERPTS.

CHOICE EXCERPTS.
WE can take nothing with US from
! this life except what we have wrought
into our minds and characters.
THERE is no use in trying to strike an
!, average on honesty. The article must
be Simon pure or it is spurious.
THERE is one inevitable criterion of
judgment touching religious faith in
doctrinal matters. Can you reduce it to
practice? If not, have none of it.
LOOK not mournfully into the past, it
comes not back again; wisely improve
the PRESENT. is thine; go forth to
meet the shadowy future without fear
and with a manly heart
HABITS, though in their commence
ment like the flimsy line of the spider,
trembling at every breeze, may in the
end prove as links of tempered steel,
binding deathless being to eternal fe-
licity or woe.
A MANS time, when well husbanded,
is like cultivated field, of which few
acres produce more of what is useful to
life than extensive provinces even of
the richest soil when Overrun with weeds
and brambleS.
EVERY man has in his life follies
enough; in his own mind troubles
enough; in the performance of his duties,
deficiencies enough; in his own fortune,
evils enough, without being curious
after the affairs of others.
WE should accustom ourselves to
view those above us without admiration
or envy, and never look upon those be-
low us with contempt. Little souls fall
down and worship grandeur, without
rejecting that admiration is due only to
virtue and goodness.
IF should pray for taste which
would stand by me under every variety
of circumstances, and be source of hap
ness and cheerfulness to me through
life, and shield against its ills, howev-
er things might go amiss, and the world
frown upon me, it would be taste for
reading.
The avoidance of little evils, little
sins, little inconsistencies, little weak
nesses, little follies, indiscretions and
imprudences, little foibles, little indul-
gences of self and the flesh; the avoid
ance of such little things as these goes
far to make up, at least, the negative
beauty of holy life.
CURIOSITY is one of the permanent
and certain characteristics of a vigor-
GUS intellect. Every advance into knowl-
edge opens new prospects, and produces
new indictments to further progress.
The more we read and study the more
we think; and as thought engenders
thought, so will one idea lead to an
other.
PRAYERS are bulwarks of piety and
good conscience, the which ought to be
placed so as to flank and relieve one an
other, together with the interjacent
spaces of our life; that the enemy (the
sin which doth so easily beset us) may
not come in between, or at any time as
sault us, without force sufficiently near
to reach and repel him.
THERE is as much merit in catering
to the humorous side of our nature as to
the sober and sedate. Men and women
were made to laugh and indulge in
pleasantries just as much as to pray and
fast. Because a face is uncommonly |
long instead of wide, it does not follow |
that its possessor is a first-class saint.
We would as soon trust a cOuntenance |
got up on the broad as the long gauge.
FASHION is the great governor of this
world; it presides not only in matters of
dress and amusement, but in law, phys
ic, politics, religion, and all other things
of the gravest kind; indeed the wiseSt |
of men would be puzzled to give any
better reason why particular forms in
all these have been at certain times
universally received, and at other times
universally rejected, than that they were
in or out of fashion.
DIFFICULTY is severe instructor, set
over us by the supreme ordinance of a
parental guardian and legislator who
knows us better than we know ourselves,
and loves us better too. He then wres-
ties with us, strengthens our nerves,
and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist
is our helper. This amicable conflict
with difficulty obliges US to an intimate
acquaintance with our object, and COM
pels us to consider it in all its relations.
1t will not suffer us to be superficial.
HAPPINESS is inborn; it is not an out
ward trait. 1t is generated in the soul.
1t is never bought or sold as an article
of commerce. You may fill your house
with all manner of curious things, but
you cannot lay in stock of happiness
in the same way. If you are happy,
your happiness is that which you are
q hIn to InaEa bv tha uca of tha mind If