PART III.

A CASKET OF THOUGHT-GEMS.

America.]

Truth.]

MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS.

I.

WESTWARD the course* of empire takes its way;
The first four acts already past,

A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.

II.

BP. BERKELEY.

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

Education.]

IV.

SHAK.: Julius Cæsar.

A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district, all studied and appreciated as they merit,- -are the prin cipal support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty. FRA KLIN Virtue.]

V.

Mortals that would follow me,
Love Virtue; she alone is free;
She can teach ye how to climb
Higher than the sphery chime;
Or if Virtue feeble were,

Heaven itself would stoop to her.

* Often quoted "star of empire."

MILTON: Comus.

These two things, contradictory as they may seem, must go together,―manly dependence and manly independence, manly reliance and manly self-reliance.

WORDSWORTH.

The fittest place where man can die

Is where he dies for man.

VIII.

M. F. BARRY.

To persevere in one's duty and to be silent is the best answer

School-houses are the republican line of fortifications.

Schools.]

Teaching.]

Teaching.]

XI.

HORACE MANN.

Delightful task! to rear the tender thought,
To teach the young idea how to shoot,
To pour the fresh instruction o'er the mind,
To breathe the enlivening spirit, and to fix
The generous purpose in the glowing breast.

XJI.

THOMSON: The Seasons.

If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, if we imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and love of our fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which will brighten to all eternity. WEBSTER. Learning.]

XIII.

Do you covet learning's prize?
Climb her heights and take it.
In ourselves our fortune lies;

Life is what we make it.

****

Life is a casket not precious in itself, but valuable in proportion to what fortune, or industry, or virtue has placed within it.

Self-reliance.]

Life.

XV.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

XVI.

SHAK.: Julius Cæsar.

It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth looking at.

HOLMES.

We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs; he most lives,
Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.

Benevolence.]

XVIII.

P. J. BAILEY: Festus.

An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves:

If there is anything that ought to be said, say it; if there is any thing that ought to be done, do it. What a man wills to do he will do.

Dare to be true, nothing can need a lie;

A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.

***

GEORGE HERBERT.

Dare to say No. To refuse to do a bad thing is to do a good

Heaven is not gained at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its suminit round by rour d.

***

Man.]

I count this thing to be grandly true,
That a noble deed is a step toward God,
Lifting the soul from the common sod
To purer air and a broader view.

We rise by things that are 'neath our feet;
By what we have mastered of good and gain;
By the pride deposed and the passion slain,
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet.
J. G. HOLLAND.

XXIV.

Man is the jewel of God, who has created this material world to keep his treasure in.

Self-improvement.]

Schools.]

XXV.

THEODORE PARKER.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight;

But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upwards in the night.

LONGFELLOW: Ladder of St. Augustine.

XXVI.

Jails and state prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former.

HORACE MANN.

The thing most specious cannot stead the true;
Who would appear clean must be clean all through.
ALICE CARY: The Might of Truth.

Leisure is time for doing something useful; this leisure the diligent man will obtain, but the lazy man never; so that, as Poor Richard says, a life of leisure and a life of laziness are two things. FRANKLIN

For strength is born of stuggle, faith of doubt,
Of discord law, and freedom of oppression:
We hail from Pisgah, with exulting shout,
The promised land below us, bright with sun,
And deem its pastures won,

Ere toil and blood have earned us the possession!
Each aspiration of our human earth

Becomes an act through keenest pangs of birth;
Each force, to bless, must cease to be a dream,
And conquer life through agony supreme;

Each inborn right must outwardly be tested
By stern material weapons, ere it stand
In the enduring fabric of the land,

Secured for those who yielded it, and those who wrested.
BAYARD TAYLOR: Gettysburg Ode.

The strength of a nation, especially of a republican nation, is in the intelligent and well-ordered homes of its people.

Flowers.]

XXXI.

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

Your voiceless lips, O flowers, are living preachers,
Each cup a pulpit and each leaf a book,
Supplying to my fancy numerous teachers,
From loneliest nook.

HORACE SMITH.

How the universal heart of man blesses flowers! They are wreathed round the cradle, the marriage altar, and the tomb. The Persian in the far East delights in their perfume, and writes his love in nosegays; while the Indian child of the far West claps his hands with glee as he gathers the abundant blossoms,-the illuminated scriptures of the prairies.

MRS. L. M. CHILD.

We tread through fields of speckled flowers,

As if we did not know

Our Father made them beautiful

Because he loves us so.

Flowers.]

XXXIV.

ALICE CARY: January.

Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made and forgot to put a soul into.

God's Love.]

XXXV.

There's not a flower that decks the vale,

BEECHER.

There's not a beam that lights the mountain,
There's not a shrub that scents the gale,

There's not a wind that stirs the fountain,

There's not a hue that paints the rose,
There's not a leaf around us lying,

But in its use or beauty shows

True love to us, and love undying. GERALD Griffifn.