Adam Smith: "The Sabbath as a political institution is of inestimable value, independently of its claims to Divine authority."

Sir Walter Scott: "Give to the world one half of Sunday, and you will find that religion has no strong hold of the other half."

How still the morning of the hallowed day!

Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd

The ploughboy's whistle and the milkmaid's song.

The Sabbath day is called by the Jews, "The day of light;' by the Africans," the day of silence;" by the Cree Indians, "the praying day;" by the early Christians, "the queen of days." Sundays observe: think when the bells do chime, 'Tis angel's music; therefore come not late.

On Sunday heaven's gates stand ope;
Blessings are plentiful and ripe,

More plentiful than hope.

If there be any person in a country enlightened with the Gospel, who would banish the blessing of the Sabbath from the world, he must be a stranger to all the feelings of humanity, as well as to all the principles of religion and piety.

The ends of this Divine institution are these:-That Jehovah may be worshipped, nations benefited, man instructed, and families devoted to the service of God.

Our Saviour Christ, Who is Lord of the Sabbath, fulfilling the work of our redemption by His resurrection upon the first day of the week, and by His mission of the Holy Ghost miraculously the first day of the week, and by the secret message of His Spirit to the Apostles and the primitive Church, hath translated the observation of the seventh day to the first day of the week. And every Sabbath should be pass'd As if we knew it were our last; For what would dying people give To have one Sabbath more to live!

Satire.

SATIRE is a sort of glass wherein beholders generally discover everybody's face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.

Of all the ways that wisest men could find
To mend the age, and mortify mankind,
Satire well writ has most successful proved,
And cures, because the remedy is loved.
This great work must be most exactly made,
And sharpest thoughts in smoothest words conveyed;
Rage you must hide, and prejudice lay down :-

A satire's smile is sharper than his frown.

"Of satires," said Frederick the Great, "I think as Epictetus did: If evil be said of thee, and if it be true, correct thyself; if it be a lie, laugh at it. By dint of time and experience I have learned to be a good post-horse; I go through my appointed daily stage, and I care not for the curs who bark at me along the road."

Sole dread of folly, vice, and insolence.

Satire should, like a polish'd razor keen,

Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.

A satire should expose nothing but what is corrigible, and should make a due discrimination between those that are and those that are not the proper objects of it.

Satire has always shone among the rest,

And is the boldest way if not the best,
To tell men freely of their foulest faults,

To laugh at their vain deeds and vainer thoughts. Playful satire may sometimes reform, where serious indignation would be of no avail.

For ridicule shall frequently prevail,

And cut the knot, when graver reasons fail.

Horace, with sly, insinuating grace,

Laugh'd at his friend, and look'd him in the face;
Would raise a blush where secret vice he found,
And tickle while he gently probed the wound;

With seeming innocence the crowd beguiled,

But made the desperate passes when he smiled.

The ordinary subjects of satire are such as excite the greatest indignation in the best tempers.

A false satire ought to be recanted for the sake of him whose reputation may be injured.

On me when dunces are satiric,

I take it for a panegyric.—Swift.

Those arrows of yours, though they have hit me, they have not hurt me; they had no killing quality.

Unless a love of virtue light the flame,

Satire is, more than those he brands, to blame;

He hides behind a magisterial air

His own offences, and strips others bare.

The talent of turning men into ridicule, and exposing to laughter those one converses with, is the qualification of little ungenerous tempers.

The tongues of mocking persons are as keen

As is the razor's edge invisible;

Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,

Above the sense of sense; so sensible

Seemeth their conference, their conceits have wings Fleeter than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things. Mr. Speaker Abbott having spoken in slighting terms of some of Moore's poems, the poet wrote in return the following biting epigram:

They say he has no heart; but I deny it,

He has a heart-and gets his speeches by it."

A man resents with more bitterness a satire upon his abilities than his practice.

The hint malevolent, the look oblique,
The obvious satire or implied dislike;
The sneer equivocal, the harsh reply,
And all the cruel language of the eye;
The artful injury, whose venom'd dart

Scarce wounds the hearing, while it stabs the heart;
The guarded phrase whose meaning kills; yet told,
The listener wonders how you thought it cold;
These, and a thousand griefs minute as these,
Corrode our comfort and destroy our ease.

SELF-CONTROL.

Self.

"I kept me from mine iniquity."

He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, desires, and fears, is more than a king.-Milton.

May I govern my passions with absolute sway,

And grow wiser and better as life wears away.- Watts. He is a fool who cannot be angry but he is a wise man who will not.

He that would govern others, first should be

The master of himself.

SELF-DENIAL. It is safer and wiser to abate somewhat of our lawful enjoyments, than to gratify our desires to the utmost extent of what is permitted.

There never did and never will exist anything permanently noble and excellent in a character which was a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial.

SELF-EXAMINATION.

'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours,
And ask them what report they bore to heaven,

And how they might have borne more welcome news. I will chide no breather in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.

Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own,

And tumble up and down what thou findest there. SELF-DECEIT. No man was ever so much deceived by another as by himself.

SELFISHNESS.

The selfish heart deserves the pain it feels.

There are too many who reverse both the principles and the practice of the apostles; they become all things to all men, not to serve others but themselves; and they try all things, only to hold fast by that which is bad.

He who will not give

Some portion of his ease, his blood, his wealth,
For others' good is a poor frozen churl.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE. Know thyself-no one knows the author of this saying. He that knows himself knows others. The first

step to self-knowledge is self-distrust. If we know ourselves we shall remember the condescension, benignity, and love that is due to inferiors; the affability, friendship, and kindness we ought to show to equals; the regard, deference, and honour we owe to superiors; and the candour, integrity, and benevolence

we owe to all.

SELF-LOVE.

Self-love is the greatest of flatterers.

Thou, who lov'st nothing but what nothing loves,
And that's thyself.

SELF-PRAISE.

There's not one wise man among twenty will praise himself. SELF-RESPECT. Who will adhere to him that abandons himself? SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. It is the devil's masterpiece to make us think well of ourselves. Every man is born a Pharisee. Perhaps the most insidious form of self-righteousness is a professed dissatisfaction with our own works and ways. As Luther used to say, "Adopting the publican's prayer with the Pharisee's spirit."

"Thou which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" -ROM. ii. 21.

"Do thyself no harm."-ACTS xvi. 28.

"In all things shewing thyself a pattern of good works."TITUS ii. 7.

Let us not be over-curious about the failings of others, but take account of our own; let us bear in mind the excellencies of other men while we reckon up our own faults, for then shall we be well-pleasing to God.

None are sent away from Christ but those who come to Him full of themselves.

THINKING ONLY OF SELF. Of all that have tried the selfish experiment, let one come forth and say he has succeeded. He that has made gold his idol-has it satisfied him? He has toiled in the fields of ambition, has he been repaid? He that has ransacked every theatre of enjoyment, is he content? Can any answer in the affirmative? Not one. And when his conscience shall ask him, and ask it will, "Where are the hungry to whom you gave meat? the thirsty to whom you gave drink? the stranger whom you sheltered? the naked whom you clothed? the imprisoned whom you visited? the sick whom you ministered unto?" How will he feel when he must answer, "I have done none of these things-I thought only of myself!"

"If I honour myself, my honour is nothing."-JOHN viii. 54.