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selves. Yet they are knowledgehow else to be acquired, unless by making men as gods, enabling them to understand without experience? All that men go through may be absolutely the best for them;-no such thing as evil, at least in our customary meaning of the word.SIR A. HELPS (Friends in Council).

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LXXII.

E that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend: Eternity mourns that. PHILIP VON

ARTEVELDE.

LXXIII.

You must have the right moral

state first, or you cannot have

the art. But when the art is once obtained, its reflected action enhances and completes the moral state out of which it arose; and above all, communicates the exaltation to other minds which are already morally capable of the like. — J. RUSKIN (Lectures on Art).

ANY

LXXIV.

NY one may yield to temptation, and yet feel a sincere love and aspiration after virtue; but he who maintains vice in theory has not even the conception or capacity for virtue in his mind. Men err: fiends only make a mock at goodness. — HAZLITT (Essays).

LXXV.

Envention.

IT is indisputably evident that a

great part of every man's life must be employed in collecting materials for the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come of nothing; he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.-SIR JOSHUA Reynolds.

LXXVI.

OUR time is very limited ;—of our

brief day we have already lost

much. Firm, stedfast resolution for

the time to come is our only safety. The Holy Spirit (blessed be His mercy) is willing to co-operate with

The Church is ready with her instructions and ordinances to fence us about with such external aids as may render the habits of a life of devotion more easy to us, and backslidings less of a temptation. The rest remains with ourselves. We must keep our eyes fixed on one object, the working out our own salvation. From this object nothing must divert us-it must absorb us wholly. No sacrifices must be counted too costly to attain it; no surrenders too great to secure it. We must bend all our cares and studies this one way; and no allurements of the world, no earthly suc

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cess, no domestic affections, must interfere with it. All must be laid aside which comes in competition with it; everything thankfully received, trial, suffering, or sorrow,— which may help us forward in our pursuit of it. We must be ready to give up what we cherish and love best, without repining or regret ;-for

so doing we shall attain to the kingdom of God.-F. PAGET.

LXXVII.

No one can be astonished at getting out of his depth in

God.-FABER.

LXXVIII.

THE cross is on everything—I can taste nothing but bitterness.

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