Faith is the eye of the soul: it looks to Christ; it is the hand of the soul: it receives Christ; its arm embraces Christ; its mouth feeds on Christ; its foot comes to Christ; its lip kisses Christ.

If we have faith in Christ we shall love Him; if we love Him we shall keep His commandments.

Faith is not reason's labour, but repose.

Perfect faith is nothing but an assured hope and confidence in Christ's mercy.

Faith may be strongest when assurance is weakest. The woman of Čanaan had no assurance, but she had a glorious faith.

Faith can do more for a man than a mine of gold.

Faith is not the lazy notion that a man may, with careless confidence, throw his burden upon the Saviour and trouble himself no further, a pillow by which he lulls his conscience to sleep, till he drops into perdition; but a living and vigorous principle, working by love, and inseparably connected with true repentance as its motive, and with holy obedience as its fruits, by which the Christian surely appropriates all the blessings of the Gospel; contends manfully against all his enemies, the world, and the flesh, and the devil; and rejoices in hope of heaven till his warfare at length is ended, and he receives an inheritance of rest and a crown of glory.

Faith in Christ can be no hindrance to critical and philosophical inquiries; otherwise the Christian would himself impede the progress of truth. The best token that the renewing of the soul is going on in us is that the Word of God becomes daily a richer mine to our intelligence.

I were no Christian if my faith were not as sure as my sense.

Oh, how unlike the cumbrous works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,
No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;
From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity;
Inscribed above the portal from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,

Legible only by the light they give

Stands the soul-quickening words—Believe and live!

Flattery.

"MEDDLE not with him that flattereth with his lips."PROV. XX. 19.

Flatterers are the bosom enemies of princes.

'Tis the fate of princes, that no knowledge

Comes pure to them; but passing through the eyes
And ears of other men, it takes a tincture
From every channel, and still bears a relish
Of flattery or private ends.

People generally despise where they flatter.

Great lords, by reason of their flatterers, are the first to know their own virtues, and the last to know their own vices. Some are made ashamed by comparison, because their ancestors were so great; and others are ashamed of their ancestors because they were so little.

When I tell him he hates flattery,

He says he does, being then most flattered.

Take heed that thou be not made a fool by flatterers, for even the wisest men are abused by them. Know, therefore, that flatterers are the worst kind of traitors; for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, and correct thee in nothing. Do not praise thyself except thou wilt be counted a vain-glorious fool, neither take delight in the praise of other men, except thou deserve it, and receive it from such as are worthy and honest, and will withal warn thee of thy faults; for flatterers have never any virtue; they are ever base, creeping, cowardly persons.

No flattery, boy; an honest man can't live by 't;

It is a little sneaking art, which knaves

Use to cajole, and soften fools withal.

Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flattery. If you flatter all the company, you please none; if you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest.

O, that men's ears should be

To counsel deaf, but not to flattery!

Flattery is often a traffic of mutual meanness, where, although both persons intend deception, neither is deceived.

No visor doth become black villany

So well as soft and tender flattery.

We do not always like people the better, for paying us all the court which we ourselves think our due.

"Tis an old maxim in the schools,
That flattery's the food of fools;
Yet now and then your men of wit
Will condescend to take a bit.

He that loves to be flattered is worthy o' the flatterer.

You play the spaniel,

And think with wagging of your tongue to win me.

Why what a deal of candid courtesy

This fawning greyhound then did proffer me!

Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant;
And of all tame, a flatterer.

Flattery is the beast that biteth smiling.

Flattery is like the ivy, that seems to embrace the tree in its

affection, but in reality chokes and kills it.

Ah! when the means are gone, that buy the praise,
The breath is gone whereof this praise is made.
Do not think I flatter,

For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast, but thy good spirits,

To feed and clothe thee? Should the poor be flattered? Beware of flattery; it is a rock thinly covered with smooth water, upon which unthinking youth are apt to split; nor do they perceive the danger until they are shipwrecked.

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.

Flattery is an ensnaring quality, and leaves a very dangerous impression. It swells a man's imagination, entertains his vanity, and drives him to a doting upon his own person.

All-potent flattery, universal lord!

Reviled, yet courted; censured, yet adored!
'Tis thine to smooth the furrow'd brow of pique,
Wrinkle with smiles the sour, reluctant cheek,
Silence the wrathful, make the sullen speak,
Disarm a tyrant, tame a father's curse,
Wring the slow farthing from the miser's purse.
I cannot flatter; I defy

The tongues of smoothness; but a braver place
In my heart's love, hath no man than yourself.

Flowers.

HE cometh forth like a flower."-JOB xiv. 2.

'As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.”—Ps. ciii. 15.
The rose in Eden had no thorn.

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
A thousand roses blow in fruitful June.
Roses and maidens soon do lose their bloom.
The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew,
And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.
'Tis the last rose of summer

Left blooming alone;

All her companions are faded and gone.
No flower of her kindred,

No rosebud is nigh,

To reflect back her blushes,

To give sigh for sigh.

He wears the rose of youth upon him.

Pliny calls the rose the queen of flowers.

Edward I. was the first English King who assumed it as his badge. Henry VIII. was the last English Sovereign who received the golden rose from the Pope.

In the wars of the Roses-York was the white and Lancaster the red. The marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth of York was called the Union of the Roses, and roses were then introduced into the Royal Arms.

Oh the shamrock, the green, immortal shamrock,
Chosen leaf of bard and chief.

Old Erin's native shamrock !

The shamrock is a trefoil, as is the clover-leaf; it is thought by some to be the clover, by others to be the wood sorrel.

It is said that the shamrock, the Irish national emblem, was used by Patrick M'Alpine, since called St. Patrick, as a simile of the Trinity, about A.D. 432.

The Abbot Justinian says the Order of the Thistle (Scotland) was instituted by Achaicus I. of Scotland, A.D. 809, when that

monarch made an alliance with Charlemagne, and then took for his devise the thistle.

The Welsh took the leek for their emblem, in consequence of a command from Dewi, or David, afterwards Archbishop of St. David's, in A.D. 519. On the day King Arthur won a great victory over the Saxons, Dewi is said to have ordered the soldiers to place a leek in their caps.

God the first garden made; the first city Cain.

It is with flowers as with moral qualities-the bright are sometimes poisonous, but, I believe, never the sweet.

To me the meanest flower that blows can give

Thoughts that too often lie too deep for tears.

Who does not look back with feelings he would in vain attempt to describe, to the delightful rambles which his native fields and meadows afforded to his earliest years? Flowers are among the first objects that forcibly attract the attention of young children, becoming to them the source of gratifications which are among the purest of which our nature is capable. The love of flowers seems a naturally implanted passion, without any alloy or debasing object as a motive.

Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God has written in the stars above;

Yet not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of His love.

What a desolate place this world would be without a flower! It would be a face without a smile; a feast without a welcome; a home without a child.

But bid me with my wreath one matchless lily blend.

Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. Reserve and modesty are the flowers with which youth should be adorned.

Zante, from its great beauty and fertility, is called the flower of the Levant.