Hannah More

“ To what tendency in the heart of man, my dear Stanley, is it owing, that religion is commonly seen to excite more suspicion than the want of it? When a man of the world meets with a gay, thoughtless, amusing person, he seldom thinks of inquiring whether such a one be immoral, or an unbeliever, or a profligate, though the bent of his conversation rather leans that way. Satisfied with what he finds him, he feels little solicitude to ascertain what he really is. But no sooner does actual piety show itself in any man, than your friends are putting you on your guard ”

“ I have told Charles it is my wish that he should visit you soon after my death. I durst not command it—for this incomparable youth, who has sacrificed so much to his father, will find he has a mother worthy of still greater sacrifices. As soon as he can prevail on himself to leave her, you will see him. May he and your Lucilla behold each other with the eyes with which each of us views his own child! If they see each other with indifference, never let them know our wishes. It would perplex and hamper those to whom we wish perfect freedom of thought and action. ”

“ Oh my friend, Eternity is a depth which no geometry can measure, no arithmetic calculate, no imagination conceive, no rhetoric describe. The eye of a dying Christian seems gifted to penetrate depths hid from the wisdom of philosophy. It looks athwart the dark valley without dismay, cheered by the bright scene beyond it. It looks with a kind of chastised impatience to that land where happiness will be only holiness perfected. There all the promises of the gospel will be accomplished. There afflicted virtue will rejoice at its past trials, and acknowledge their subservience to its present bliss. ”

“ How dull do we find it, when civility compels us to pass even a day with an illiterate man? Shall we not then delight in the kindred acquirements of a dearer friend? Shall we not rejoice in a companion who has drawn, though less copiously, perhaps, from the same rich sources with ourselves; who can relish the beauty we quote, and trace the allusion at which we hint? I do not mean that learning is absolutely necessary, but a man of taste who has an ignorant wife, can not, in her company, think his own thoughts, nor speak his own language ”

“ You have been virtuous, without the reputation or the peace which belongs to virtue. You have been charitable without doing good, and affectionate without having ever made a friend. You have wasted those attentions on the worthless which the worthy would have delighted to receive, and those talents on the frivolous which would have been cherished by the enlightened. You have defeated the use of a fine understanding by the want of common prudence, and robbed society of the example of your good qualities by your total inability to resist and oppose. ”

“ The deficiencies which I deplore, I feel. Not only when I look abroad, am I persuaded of the general prevalence of evil by what I see; but when I look into my own heart, my conviction is confirmed by what I experience. I am conscious, not merely of frailties, but of sins. I will not hypocritically accuse myself of gross offenses which I have no temptation to commit, and from the commission of which, motives inferior to religion would preserve me. But I am continually humbled in detecting mixed motives in almost all I do. Such strugglings of pride with my endeavors after humility! ”

“ Those who are given up completely to the world, to its maxims, its principles, its cares, or its pleasures, can not entertain thoughts of God. And to be unmindful of his providence, to be regardless of his presence, to be insensible to his mercies, must be nearly as offensive to him as to deny his existence. Excessive dissipation, a supreme love of money, or an entire devotedness to ambition, drinks up that spirit, swallows up that affection, exhausts that vigor, starves that zeal, with which a Christian should devote himself to serve his Maker. ”

“ While I indulged the appetite of a child, I would never hold out that indulgence which I granted to the lowest, the animal part of his nature, as a payment for the exertion of his mental or moral faculties."
"You have one great advantage," said Sir John, "and I thank God it is the same in Cavendish-square, that you and Mrs. Stanley draw evenly together. Nothing impedes domestic regulation so effectually as where parents, from difference of sentiment, ill-humor, or bad judgment, obstruct each other's plans, or where one parent makes the other insignificant in the eyes of their children." ”

“ It is wisely ordered that all mortal enjoyments should have some alloy. I never tasted a pleasure since I had been at the Grove, I never witnessed a grace, I never heard related an excellence of Lucilla, without a sigh that my beloved parents did not share my happiness. "How would they," said I, "delight in her delicacy, rejoice in her piety, love her benevolence, her humility, her usefulness! O how do children feel who wound the peace of living parents by an unworthy choice, when not a little of my comfort springs from the certainty that the departed would rejoice in mine! ”

“ It is not romance, but indolence; it is not poetry, but sensuality, which are the prevailing evils of the day—evils far more fatal in themselves, far more durable in their effects, than the perusal of works of wit and genius. Imagination will cool of itself. The effervescence of fancy will soon subside; but absorbing dissipation, but paralyzing idleness, but degrading self-love,
"Grows with their growth, and strengthens with their strength." ”

“ So kind a neighbor as you are, so honest a gentleman, so generous a master, as you are allowed to be, I can not, sir, think without pain of your losing the reward of such valuable qualities, by your placing your hope of eternal happiness in the exercise of them. Believe me, Mr. Flam, it is easier for a compassionate man, if he be not religious, to 'give all his goods to the poor,' than to bring every thought, 'nay than to bring any thought' into captivity to the obedience of Christ! ”

“ His abasement of soul, as far as I can judge, is sincere. He abhors himself in dust and ashes. He sees death at hand. He feels that the sting of death is sin. All subterfuge is at an end. He is at last seeking the only refuge of penitent sinners, I trust on right grounds. His state is indeed perilous in the extreme; yet awful as it is, he knows it. He will not open his eyes on the eternal world in a state of delusion. But what shall awaken poor Mr. Flam from his dream of security? ”

“ I repeat it—a hundred amiable women, who are living in the quiet practice of their duties, and the modest exertion of their talents, do not fill the public eye, or reach the public ear, like one aspiring leader, who, hungering for observation, and disdaining censure, dreads not abuse but oblivion; who thinks it more glorious to head a little phalanx of fashionable followers, than to hold out, as from her commanding eminence, and imposing talents she might have done, a shining example of all that is great, and good, and dignified in woman. ”

“ These are the women who bless, dignify, and truly adorn society. The painter indeed does not make his fortune by their sitting to him; the jeweler is neither brought into vogue by furnishing their diamonds, nor undone by not being paid for them; the prosperity of the milliner does not depend on affixing their name to a cap or a color; the poet does not celebrate them; the novelist does not dedicate to them; but they possess the affection of their husbands, the attachment of their children, the esteem of the wise and good, and above all they possess His favor, "whom to know is life eternal." ”

“ Stanley, smiling, "who, from their dread of a burning zeal, have taken refuge in a freezing indifference! As to the two extremes of heat and cold, neither of them is the true climate of Christianity; yet the fear of each drives men of opposite complexions into the other, instead of fixing them in the temperate zone which lies between them, and which is the region of genuine piety."
"The truth is, Sir John, your society considers ardor in religion as the fever of a distempered understanding, while in inferior concerns they admire it as the indication of a powerful mind. ”

“ She has a fine temper, and strong virtues. The little faults she has, seem to flow from the excess of her good qualities. Her susceptibility is extreme, and to guide and guard it, finds employment for her mother's fondness, and her father's prudence. Her heart overflows with gratitude for the smallest service. This warmth of her tenderness keeps her affections in more lively exercise than her judgment; it leads her to over-rate the merit of those she loves, and to estimate their excellences, less by their own worth than by their kindness to her. ”

“ The real genius, which exists in several of this whimsical school, I trust, will at length lead them to prune their excrescences, and reform their youthful eccentricities. Their good sense will teach that the surest road to fame is to condescend to tread in the luminous track of their great precursors in the art. They will see that deviation is not always improvement; that whoever wants to be better than nature will infallibly be worse; that truth in taste is as obvious as in morals, and as certain as in mathematics. ”

“ Stanley. "I wonder how parents who love their children as I love mine, can put in competition a temporary indulgence, which may foster one evil temper, or fasten one bad habit, with the eternal welfare of that child's soul. A soul of such inconceivable worth, whether we consider its nature, its duration, or the price which was paid for its redemption! What parent, I say, can by his own rash negligence, or false indulgence, risk the happiness of such a soul, not for a few days or years, but for a period compared with which the whole duration of time is but a point? ”

“ We have always endeavored, though with much imperfection, to fill some duties to each other, to our children, to our friends, and to the poor. But of the prime duty, the main spring of action, and of all moral goodness, duty to God, we have not been sufficiently mindful. I hope we have at length learned to consider him as the fountain of all good, and the gospel of his Son, as the fountain of all hope. This new principle, I am persuaded, will never impair our cheerfulness, it will only fix it on a solid ground. By purifying the motive, it will raise the enjoyment. ”

“ Is zeal in politics accounted the mark of a vulgar intellect? Did they consider the unquenchable ardor of Pitt, did they regard the lofty enthusiasm of Fox, as evidences of a feeble or a disordered mind? Yet I will venture to assert, that ardor in religion is as much more noble than ardor in politics, as the prize for which it contends is more exalted. It is beyond all comparison superior to the highest human interests, the truth and justice of which, after all, may possibly be mistaken, and the objects of which, must infallibly have an end. ”

“ When we feel,' added she, 'that we are doing wrong, the opening our heart may strengthen our virtue; but when we are suffering wrong, the mind demands another sort of strength; it wants higher support than friendship has to impart. It pours out its sorrows in prayer with fuller confidence, knowing that he who sees can sustain; that he who hears will recompense; that he will judge, not our weakness, but our efforts to conquer it; not our success, but our endeavors; with him endeavor is victory.
"'The grace I most want,' added she, 'is humility. ”

“ While we live in a total neglect of the Bible, we must not talk of our deficiencies, our failings, our imperfections, as if these alone stood between us and the mercy of God. That indeed is the language and the state of the devout Christian. Stronger terms must be used to express the alienation of heart of those, who, living in the avowed neglect of Scripture, maybe said, forgive me, sir, 'to live without God in the world.' Ignorance is no plea in a gentleman. In a land of light and knowledge, ignorance itself is a sin. ”

“ Stanley, "I only meant to give Lucilla as much Latin as would teach her to grammaticize her English, but her quickness in acquiring led me on, and I think I did right; for it is superficial knowledge that excites vanity. A learned language, which a discreet woman will never produce in company, is less likely to make her vain than those acquirements which, are always in exhibition. And after all, it is a hackneyed remark, that the best instructed girl will have less learning than a school-boy; and why should vanity operate in her case more than in his?" ”