BETTER THOUGHTS FOR QUIET MOMENTS.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 4023, 19 November 1881, Page 1

BETTER THOUGHTS FOR QUIET MOMENTS.

To rejoice in others' prosperity it to give content to your own-Jot; fafniitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own. ' •

Bevenge is a momentary triumph, in which the satisfaction dies out once, and is succeeded by remorse; whereas for* giveness.V which is the . noblest l)f all revenge, entails a perpetual pleasure. You cannot make yourself better by simply resolving to be better at some time any more than a farmer can, plough his field by simply .turning it over in his mind. A good resolution is a fine starting point, but as a terminus it has no value. More important than the thing you do may be the discipline of tbe doing. The great art of those who bare to act for and with the young is to combine in just proportions and wholesome, circumstances the due amount of pleasure with the right amount of duty. The fashion of the day goes more and more to giving too much pleasure to the young and demand* ing too little duty. The highest elements of character, of power, and dignity lie within the reach of the lowest and the poorest. Ihe end of a man is an action and not a thought, though it were of the noblest. We can hardly make a greater mistake than to imagine those have most joy who have least sorrow.

Anger is a mere animal impulse. Indignation comes in when that impulse has been adopted by the reason and moral sentiments, and has become a mere rational revolt from evil. When, there* fore, a man is assailed by wrong, he has a right to feel anger; but he has no right to carry it on. Bo not let the sun go down before you have looked over, and put on this moral ground, and held in and regulated the temper of your mind. You must. bear the common fate of humanity. Temptation will come, from duties as well as from wrong doing. It will come, from that which is right as well as from that which is wrong. It will come from your neighbours. In this school we shall have become so educated that in another and brighter realm nobler duties, under better circumstances, will await us. For every tear wo shall have a diamond, and an eternity of blessedness for a hand's breath of schooling and practising against evil.

There is an essential meauness in the wish to get the better of anyone. - ' True benevolence seeks the benefit of object; true affection finds its highest happiness in loving; true excellence is most concerned about the value of its work. You are not, prayiug io the brazen heavens, the uuansweriug rock,, to a Cretan Jove, to an unjust, judge, but lo One who treasures up your prayers, who lets not a tear fall to the ground without His notice, and who in his own good tima and way will fulfill a better purpose than your most exalted imagination has ever conceived.