one. There is but grass in his hand,
and no longer pearls."

"There are many professing Christians who are secretly vexed on account
of the charity they have to bestow and the self-denial they have to use.
If, instead of the smooth prayers which they _do_ pray, they should
speak out the things which they really feel, they would say, when they
go home at night, 'O Lord, I met a poor curmudgeon of yours to-day, a
miserable, unwashed brat, and I gave him sixpence, and I have been sorry
for it ever since'; or, 'O Lord, if I had not signed those articles of
faith, I might have gone to the theatre this evening. Your religion
deprives me of a great deal of enjoyment, but I mean to stick to it.
There's no other way of getting into heaven, I suppose.'

"The sooner such men are out of the church, the better."

"The youth-time of churches produces enterprise; their age, indolence;
but even this might be borne, did not _these dead men sit in the door
of their sepulchres, crying out against every living man who refuses to
wear the livery of death_. In India, when the husband dies, they burn
his widow with him. I am almost tempted to think, that, if, with the end
of every pastorate, the church itself were disbanded and destroyed, to
be gathered again by the succeeding teacher, we should thus secure an
immortality of youth."

"A religious life is not a thing which spends itself. It is like a river
which widens continually, and is never so broad or so deep as at its
mouth, where it rolls into the ocean of eternity."

"God made the world to relieve an over-full creative thought,--as
musicians sing, as we talk, as artists sketch, when full of suggestions.
What profusion is there in his work! When trees blossom, there is not
a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems; and of leaves they
have so many suits, that they can throw them away to the winds all
summer long. What unnumbered cathedrals has he reared in the forest
shades, vast and grand, full of curious carvings, and haunted evermore
by tremulous music! and in the heavens above, how do stars seem to have
flown out of his hand, faster than sparks out of a mighty forge!"

"Oh, let the soul alone! Let it go to God as best it may! It is
entangled enough. It is hard enough for it to rise above the
distractions which environ it. Let a man teach the rain how to fall, the
clouds how to shape themselves and move their airy rounds, the seasons
how to cherish and garner the univer