Various

“ We stand beneath a serene unclouded sky, and all around us is floating music as enlivening as the song of birds, yet solemn as the strains of the sanctuary. It is that of a life in unison from its childhood to its close; rising indeed like "an unbroken hymn of praise to God." There is no austerity in its piety, no levity in its gladness. It shows that "virtue in herself is lovely," but if "goodness" is ever "awful," it is not here in the company of this young happy Christian heart. ”

“ Would it not seem that He who formed her heart, knew that she needed not to be told to labor, in season and out of season, for her beloved offspring? But to you is the strong command, "Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Mothers, do you not reap a rich reward for curbing your own spirits, for every self-denial, for untiring devotion to the immortals given to your care, with souls to be saved or lost? Oh! neglect them not, lest conscience utter the fearful whisper, "Mother, you might have saved that soul!" ”

“ You are not the only ones who have excused themselves from a feast. And we—we will extend our invitation to others. On the by-ways and lanes they can be found; in every corner of this wide-spread earth are some for whom our table is prepared. We leave the prosperous, the gay, the happy, and speak to the desolate—the widowed.
Dearly beloved, you can look back to a day in your history over which no cloud lowered, when you wore the bridal wreath, and stood at the sacred altar, and laid your hand in a hand faithful and true, and pledged vows of love, and when hope smiled on all your future path ”

“ Thinking is hard work. All things most excellent are the fruits of slow, patient working. The trees grow slowly, grain by grain; the planets creep round their orbits, inch by inch; the river hastens to the ocean by a gentle progress; the clouds gather the rain-drop from the invisible air, particle by particle, and we are not to ask that this immortal mind, the grandest thing in the world, shall reach its perfection by a single stride, or independently of the most early, profound and protracted self-labor. ”

“ How many live for years in exile, and in the estrangement of a foreign land, with nothing to soothe them in the midst of their toil and fatigue, but the image of their dear and distant home? How many toil and plan, day after day, and year after year, from early morn until late at night, for no other object than to gather wealth, which in their love they expect and intend their children to enjoy, when they themselves have gone down to the grave! ”

“ Mind is not to be weighed in scales. It must be judged by its uses and its influence. And who that compasses the peculiar purpose of woman's life; who that understands the meaning of those good old Saxon words, mother, sister, wife, daughter; who that estimates aright the duties they involve, the influences they embody in giving character to all of human kind, will hesitate to place her intellect, with its quickness, delicacy and persuasiveness, as high in the scale of power as that of the father, husband and son? ”

“ It has come to assume a great importance in the eyes of that people. They have a great anxiety to read. More than one hundred aged women are now engaged in learning to read, that they may read the New Testament for themselves.
Let religion create the atmosphere around a woman's spirit and breathe its life into her heart; refine her affections, sanctify her intellect, elevate her aims and hallow her physical beauty, and she is, indeed, to our race, of all the gifts of time, the last and best, the crown of our glory, the perfection of our life. ”

“ My young friends, seek not only to make those around you happy in this world, but happy forever. Give thine own heart to Jesus, and thou mayest save thy brother and thy sister, and thou shalt meet them on high. Refuse to do so, and thou mayest drag these loved ones down with thee to that cold dark region, where affection is unknown and nothing is heard but blasphemies and curses. Oh, thou kind and loving brother and sister, can ye endure the thought of spending an eternity in cursing each other as the instruments of each other's destruction? Christ alone can deliver you from such a woe. ”

“ Thanks to our Father in Heaven, who, in the crowning work of his creation, gave woman to man, made weakness her strength, modesty her citadel, grace and gentleness her attributes, affection her dower, and the heart of man her throne. With her, toil rises into pleasure, joy fills the breast with a larger benediction, and sorrow, losing half its bitterness, is transmitted into an element of power, a discipline of goodness. Even in the coarsest life, and the most depressing circumstances, woman hath this power of hallowing all things with the sunshine of her presence. ”

“ It is little better than studying the costume to the neglect of the person—than the examination of the frame to the neglect of the master-piece of a Raphael inclosed within it—than the criticism of a single window to the neglect of the glorious dome of St. Peter's—than viewing the rapids to the neglect of the mighty fall of Niagara. In education, the observance of this natural order of truth will bring us, at length, to that which fills the outer circle, and thus all the kinds of knowledge will receive a just attention. Indeed, the study of the one naturally leads us to the other. ”

“ The Fireside, is a seminary of infinite importance. It is important because it is universal, and because the education it bestows, being woven in with the woof of childhood, gives form and color to the whole texture of life. There are few who can receive the honors of a college, but all are graduates of the hearth. The learning of the university may fade from the recollection; its classic lore may moulder in the halls of memory. But the simple lessons of home, enameled upon the heart of childhood, defy the rust of years, and outlive the more mature but less vivid pictures of after days. ”

“ There was stillness in this chamber of death. The invalid's pale lips moved as if in prayer, and soon the lids were raised, and the brilliant black eye was lighted up as of old, and triumphant was the strain that burst forth. "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He will keep that which I have committed to Him, my most precious treasures, my children, against that day. I know Him—I rest in His faithfulness." ”

“ I saw in both of my parents heavenly dispositions, heavenly tendencies, drawing them, day by day, towards the great source of all perfection and blessedness. I saw the noble and sublime principles of the Gospel acted out in the nursery as sedulously as in the sanctuary, in fact far more when at home than when abroad, for here there were more ample opportunities afforded for their full development than perhaps anywhere else. They loved each other with a pure heart, fervently, and they sought not only the temporal good of their children, but their eternal felicity and happiness. ”

“ To bury such an intellect as this in the commonplaces of a life of mere sense; to confine it to the narrow circle of a brute instinct and reason; to live in such a world, with the infinite mind of Jehovah looking at us from all natural forms, breathing around us in all tones of music, shining upon us from all the host of heaven, and soliciting us to launch away into an atmosphere of knowledge and ascend to an acquaintance with the great First Cause, even as the bird challenges the fledgling to leave its nest, and be at home on the wing ”

“ What bliss has been hers in the enjoyment of his esteem and affection! She is even now to him, in his absence, the one object of tender regard and constant thought. She knows how fondly he dwells on her love, and how precious to him is the beauty which first won him to her side. She is the "ewe lamb which he has nourished, which has drank from his own cup and lain in his bosom"—she is his all. ”

“ If you would combine the greatest possible elements of unhappiness you could not imagine any which would surpass that of a family of brothers and sisters, hating each other, yet compelled to live together as a family, where no word of kindness passes from one to the other, where no act of kindness draws out the affections, where the success of one only excites the envy of the others; no smile lights up the countenance; no gladness found in each other's society, the aim of each to thwart and annoy the other. ”

“ Every morning it is a new excitement to see long festoons of our green curtains, variegated with trumpet-shaped morning-glories, looking towards the sun, and mingled with them the scarlet star of the cypress vine. When my husband comes home wearied and disgusted with Wall-street, it refreshes his body and soul to look into our "hanging garden," and note new beauties the day has developed. ”

“ Mothers, I need not say a word to impress the lessons suggested by this contrast. They lie upon the surface, and your own hearts will readily take them up. May God save you from looking upon ruined children, and being obliged to feel that you have been their destroyers! May God permit you to look upon children, whom your faithfulness has, through grace, nurtured not only into useful members of human society, but into heirs of an endless glorious life! ”

“ It is not as a lawyer, to wrangle in courts; it is not as a clergyman, to preach in our pulpits; it is not as a physician, to live day and night in the saddle and sick room; it is not as a soldier, to go forth to battle; it is not as the mechanic, to lift the ponderous sledge, and sweat at the burning furnace; it is not as a farmer, to drive the team afield and up-turn the rich bosom of the earth. ”

“ It is as the centre of social influence; the genial power of domestic life; the soul of refinement; the clear, shining orb, beneath whose beams the germs of thought, feeling, and habit in the young immortal are to vegetate and grow to maturity; the ennobling companion of man, his light in darkness, his joy in sorrow, uniting her practical judgment with his speculative wisdom, her enthusiastic affection with his colder nature, her delicacy of taste and sentiment with his boldness, and so producing a happy mean, a whole character; natural, beautiful and strong ”

“ O, sir, eternity will be too short to praise my God for what I have learned. It was there I first beheld my lost and wretched estate as a sinner; it was there that I first found the way of salvation, and there that I first experienced the preciousness of Christ in me the hope of glory. O, sir, permit me to say, Never, never neglect those precious engagements. You have yet a family and more apprentices. May your house be the birth-place of their souls!"
The conscience-stricken tradesman could proceed no further, for every line flashed condemnation in his face. ”

“ Here also are those who have felt the fearful grasp of pain, whose nerves have been shocked, and the whole frame tortured by untold sufferings; and those who cannot walk forth on God's earth with free elastic step, nor pursue any manly toil—the infirm, the crippled, the helpless. How it saddens the heart to look upon them, and hear their moans! Yet they all have a look of hope on their faces. The kind angel who descends to ruffle the hitherto calm waters of the lake may be near at hand. Soon sorrow to some of these will give place to proportioned gladness. ”

“ Flowers in the city are more than beautiful, for the language they speak is so different from everything about them. Their lives are so lovely, returning to the culturer such wealth of beauty—and then their odors seem to me instead of voices. Often, when I am reading, and forget for a time my sweet companions, the fragrance of a heliotrope or a jessamine greets me, causing a sense of delight, as if a beautiful voice had whispered to me, or some sweet spirit kissed me. ”

“ Charlotte's feelings were far from enviable as she went towards home; she hated herself and felt perfectly miserable. As soon as she arrived at the house she went hastily up stairs, and took off the hateful ribbon, as it now appeared, with a feeling of disgust, and throwing herself on the bed cried long and bitterly. Charlotte did not know how to pray to God to give her a clean heart and forgive her sin; she never thought of asking His forgiveness, or confessing her fault; she felt sick at heart, restless and unhappy. Such are ever the consequences of sin. ”