Freeze, melt; open, shut; reviles, flatters; Prosperous, adverse; forgetful, mindful; great, little; False, real; injuries, benefits; shallow, profound; Enmity, affection; commendation, reprehension; Friendship, hostility; darken, enlighten; least, most. We are alternately soothed and alarmed, exalted and depressed, by hope and fear, joy and sorrow. A seeming diffidence is a surer sign of vanity, than a moderate degree of assurance. The winter brings cold and we must freeze; the summer brings heat and we must melt. A man of business must always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut. He that reviles me, it may be, calls me fool; but he that flatters me, if I take not heed, will make me one. Nothing but greatness of mind can make either a prosperous or adverse fortune easy to us. It is as common for gratitude to be forgetful as for hope to be mindful. Without virtue we do but abuse all the good things we have, whether they be great or little, false or true. It is the character of an unworthy nature to write injuries in marble, and benefits in dust. The admirers of mere title and high rank, have either a very shallow wit, or a very profound hypocrisy. Great enmity often succeeds to tender affection. Commendation is as much the duty of a friend as reprehension. An enemy that disguises himself under the veil of friendship, is worse than he who declares open hostility. Passionate disputes darken our reason, but seldom enlighten our understanding. They who think least commonly speak most. 9. Sadness, mirth; contracts, dilates; laugh, weep; Above, below; barren, fertile; fierce, tame; Sadness contracts the mind, mirth dilates it. ones. He that fears not the future, may enjoy the present. It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause. To be proud of authority is to make your rise your downfall. There are a thousand fops made by art for one fool by nature. The strongest passions allow us some rest, but vanity keeps us always in motion. The virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is fortitude; but still we must rejoice under the one and mourn under the other. Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance. He hath most that coveteth least; and a wise man wants but little, because he desires not much. He is not to be accounted in fault, whose crime is not the effect of choice, but necessity. He that is not above an injury is below himself. The most barren grounds may, by manuring, be made fertile, as fierce beasts, by art, are made tame. Opinion is a monster, half truth, half falsehood. As antiquity cannot privilege a mistake, so novelty cannot prejudice truth. Gratitude preserves old friendship, and 10. procures new. Haughty, humble; abased, exalted; absent, present; The haughty are often abased, and the humble exalted. St. Paul said that he longed to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord. It is a matter of doubt whether we shall see another day or not; but the approach of death, at one time or other, is a certainty. Though men, while occupied with the illusions of time, are apt to refuse the Scriptures as their guide to salvation, and to reject them as an enemy; yet there is an era approaching, in which they would be glad to accept them as a friend: viz. when they become conversant with the realities of eternity. Some animals are lively and active in their dispositions, and others are dull and sluggish. In the day of judgement, the Great Judge of all will condemn and punish the guilty, while he will acquit and reward the innocent. An angle that is less than a right-angle, is called acute, and one that is greater, obtuse. Lines that approach to the centre of a circle are said to converge, while those that recede from it, diverge. When the tide flows, the sea is said to advance ; when it ebbs, we say it retires. We affirm what we believe to be true, and deny what is false. 11. Agree, differ; commence, conclude; folly, wisdom; Move, stop; applause, censure; attract, repel; Disclose, conceal; barren, fertile; before, behind; Begin, finish; broken, entire; empty, full; Careful, heedless; hither, thither; concord, discord; Darkness, light; crooked, straight; create, destroy; Hatred, love; contract, expand; hasten, retard. Hearts may agree, though heads differ. To commence any undertaking inconsiderately is a mark of folly, but to think how it may conclude is an evidence of wisdom. It is difficult to stop any object if it moves down a declivity; so it is to acquire applause if one has been accustomed to censure. A disposition to conceal your thoughts from your friend is apt to create want of confidence, and to repel kindness; whereas a readiness to disclose them will attract his esteem. The portion of ground which we have left behind us is very barren, but what is before us is extremely fertile. You ought never to begin what you do not intend to finish. One of the jars is broken and empty, but the other is entire and quite full. The careful man endeavours to regulate his thoughts as well as his actions, but the heedless man allows them to run hither and thither at random: concord and light attend the meditations of the one, while the thoughts of the other are involved in discord and darkness: the path of the one is straight and pleasant, and that of the other is crooked and tedious. Love creates pleasures, but hatred destroys them : the one expands the affections, and the other contracts them. Regularity hastens the despatch of business, but carelessness retards its progress. 12. Constant, fickle; farthest, nearest; confuse, arrange; The youth who is constant in the pursuit of knowledge will at last obtain it, but he who is fickle will often labour in vain. He is farthest from happiness who thinks the nearest road to it is deceit. We ought always to arrange our ideas in the best order, because to confuse them is sure to produce error. Providence often produces good from seeming evil. The surface of the earth is convex, that is, rounded like a ball; but the heavens appear to be concave. We ought to forgive injuries, and never to revenge them. Allow nothing to interrupt your public or private devotions, except the performance of some humane action. The timid are often exposed to dangers, from the approach of which the fearless are secure. The profane are prone to turn things sacred into ridicule. By relying implicitly on Providence, our weakness is converted into strength. We often murmur at untoward events, but we are seldom sufficiently thankful for mercies. It is noble to forgive an injury, and mean to be always on the outlook for opportunities of retaliation. An equal weight of a heavy substance is contained in much less space than that of a light one. If we extend our hours of recreation to an unnecessary length, we shall miserably abridge our opportunities of improvement. Our dearest friend may be made a foe by ungenerous neglect, or continued ill treatment. Every thing around us is in perpetual motion except the mind of the sluggard, which is too often at rest. Like the surface of the earth, the bed of the ocean has its deep and its shallow places. The heavenly bodies present a system of mechanism that is apparently complex; but we are assured by astronomers, that nothing can be more beautifully simple. Compact bodies occupy less room than loose ones. Heavy bodies have a tendency to descend through light ones, which, for the same reason, ascend with equal readiness. END OF SECTION SECOND. |