Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1889-03-14
CHOICE EXCERPTS.

CHOICE EXCERPTS.
IT is easy for men to write and talk
like philosophers, but to act with wis
dom, there is the rubl
FAILURE is one of Gods most effect
i've instruments in teaching His crea-
lures that they are not omnipotent.
REPORT seldom adheres to the truth
favorable to the man who deserves the
worst, and unfavorable to the good.
THE discovery of what is true, and the
practice of that which is good, are the
two most important objects of philoso-
ply.
BETTER to undertake a great work
and fail than to be content with accom-
plishing small thing that requires no
heroic effort.
UNLESS we cast off the preiudices of
the man and become as children, dOcile
and unperverted, we need never hope to
enter the temple of philosophy.
NOTHING is so narrowing, contracting.
hardening, as always to be moving in
the same groove, with no thought be-
yOnd what we Immediately see and hear
close around us.
Do YOU know that there is an i'm
mense amount of enjoyment to be de
rived from a downright good action?
You don't? Well, try it once and see
how good it will make you feel.
How MANKIND defers from day to day
the best it can do, and the most beauti-
full things it can enjoy, without think
ing that some day must be the last one,
and that lost time is lost eternity?
THE mind is the seat of government
of individual human activity. Reason
and judgment are the two branches of
the legislative department; conscience
is the judicial department, and the will
is the executive department.
WE should never fret over our misfor-
tunes. In the first place it doesn't do
any good; in the next place, it may be
only few days until we shall see that
our failure was necessary to a greater
success; and lastly, it saps our very life
away.
A LARGE portion of human beings
live not so much in themselves as in
what they desire to be. They create
what is called an ideal character, in an
ideal form, whose perfections compen-
safe in some degree for the imperfections
of their own.
RATHER do what is nothing to the
purpose than be idle, that the Devil may
find thee doing. The bird that sits is
easily shot, when flyers escape the fowl
er. Idleness is the Dead Sea that swal-
lows all the virtues, and the self made
sepulchre of living man.
KIND words produce their own image
in mems souls, and beautiful image it
is. They soothe and quiet and comfort
the hearer. They shame him out of his
sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have
not begun to use kind words in such
abundance as they ought to be used.
o VANITY, how little is thy force ac-
knowledged or thy operations discerned!
How wantonly dost thou deceive man
kind under different disguisesl Some
times thou dOSt wear the face of pity;
sometimes of generosity; nay, thou hast
the assurance to put on those glorious
ornaments which belong only to heroic
virtue.
MEDITATION is busy search in the
storehouse of phantasy for some ideas
of matters, to be cast in the moulds of
resolution into some forms of words or
actions; in which search, when | have
used my greatest diligence, / find this
is the best conclusion, that to mediate
on the best is the best of meditations, |
and resolution to make good end is
a good end of my resolutions.
IDLENEss is the badge gentry, the |
bane of body and mind, the nurse of |
naughtiness, the step-mother of disci- |
pline, the chief author of all mischief, |
one of the seven deadly sins, the cushion |
upon which the devil chiefly reposes, ana !
a great cause not only of melancholy but |
of many other diseases; for the mind is |
naturally active, and if it be not occu-
pied about some honest business, it |
rushes into mischief or sinks into mel |
ancholy.
THE little l have seen of the world |
teaches me to look upon the errors Of
others in sorrow, not in anger. When l
take the history of one moor heart that has
sinned and suffered and represent to
myself the struggles and temptations it
has passed through, the brief pulsations
of joy, the feverish inquietude of hope
and fear, the pressure of want, the de-
sertion of friends, would fain leave the +
erring soul of my fellow man with Him
from whose hand it came.