Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1893-10-05
CHOICE EXCERPTS.

If diamonds were always under oul
feet, we should soon cease picking then
up; and if the prizes of life were to bs
had for the asking, the time would sooI
come when they would no longer bt
asked for.
THERE is nothing so elastic as the hu
man mind. Like imprisoned steam, the
more it is pressed the more it rises to
resist the pressure. The more we are
obliged to do, the more we are able to
accomplish.
A RELIGIOUS life is not thing which
spends itself like bright bubble on the
rivers surface. 1t is rather like the
river itself, which widens continually
and is never so broad or deep where il
rolls into the ocean of eternity.
THE compulsion of earning a liveli-
hood is legitimate motive to exertion;
but where there is no othor, and where
but for that the work would be aban-
ionened, it is certain that the best re-
suits of which the performer Is capable
will never be reached.
PROSPERITY is consistent with intense
worldliness, intense selfishness, intense
hardness of heart, while the grander
features of human character-self-sa
lice, disregard Of pleasure, patriotism,
love of knowledge, devotion to any great
and good cause-these have no tenden-
cies to bring men what Is called fortune.
WHEN religion, as John Bunyan said.
begins to walk about in its silver slip
pers, there is not much religion at all.
OF all pride in the world spiritual pride
is the worst; it is this that arms every
fanatic against the other; if you despise
a mans creed, you are not far from
hating him. The cobbler who fulmni-
mates against the rotor as man of pride
and sin, is not SO bad as the rector who
despises the vulgar cobbler. The pride
and desire to be seen of men rather than
Of God is base and vulgar at the core.
PERHAPS it is not too much to say
that difficulty is the great strengthener
and conserver of human power. There
is a race of savages who believe that
the strength of wild animal passes into
the man who fights with and kills it.
of the kind is veritably true
of the difficulties which men contend
with and finally conquer. The force
which they have broken down by vigor-
Gus antagonim passes into them and be-
comes part of them, enabling them to
face new opponents with still greater
power.
FROM the day that the child's foot
first presses the green turf till the day
when, an old man, he is ready to be laid
under it. there is not an hour in which
he does not need to know a Thousand
things in relation to his body, "what he
shall eat, what he shall drink, and where
withal he shall be clothed" If parents
were themselves sufficiently educated,
most of this knowledge might be ac-
quired at the mothers knee; but, by the
strangest misdirection of the education
al forces, these most essential elements
of knowledge have been more neglected
than any other.
IT is sometimes said that to the young
the future always looks glowing and glo-
rious, while as age creeps on the expecta-
ton of anything more than a repeated
monotony dies gradually away. 1t GER
tainly would not be thus were life's ex-
periences read Alright. Each year brings
to each life some new joy or sorrow, some
fresh idea or experience. If these are
into our lives 80 that we
discover their meaning and learn their
lessons, each year will find our charac-
ters frmer and stronger, our thoughts
clearer and deeper, our hearts fuller and
richer, and our expectations purer indeed,
also larger and more trustworthy. Only
those with shallow minds or deadened
energies or selfish hearts talk of the mo i
notony of life.
THERE are other ministers of love
more conspicuous than a good daughter,
but none in which gentler lovelier
spirit dwells, and none to which the
hearts warm requitals more joyfully re-
spond. She is the steady light of her
fathers house. Her idea is indissolubly
connected with that of his happy fire.
side. She is the morning sun and even
ing star. The grace, vivacity, the ten
derness OF her sex have their place in the
mighty sway which she holds over his
spirits. The lessons of recorded wis
dom which he reads with her eyes come
to his mind with new charm, as blend
ed with the beloved melody of her voice.
He scarcely knows WEAKNESS which her
song does not make him forget, or gloom
which is proof against the young bright
ness of her smile. She is the pride and
ornament of his hospitality and the gen
tie nurse of his sickness, and the con-
stant agent of those nameless, number
less acts of kindness which chiefly cares
to have rendered because they are un-
pretending but expressive proofs of love.