JUNE 19. Nature is an infinite sphere; the center is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. The whole visible world is but an imperceptible point in the ample bosom of nature. The secrets of nature are concealed. Time reveals them from age to age. In this way we can embrace new opinions, without undervaluing the ancients; the knowledge they have given us, has served as a stepping-stone to our acquisitions. The cells of bees were as well proportioned a thousand years ago as at the present time, and each bee forms the hexagon as exactly the first time as the last. Not so with man. He gains knowledge as he advances in years; he takes advantage not only of his own experience, but of that of his predecessors. Blaise Pascal, born June 19, 1623. JUNE 20. When faith and patience, hope and love, Jeremy Belknap, died suddenly, June 20, 1798, aged 54. JUNE 21. Happiness is neither within us, nor without us; it is the union of our souls with God. It is superstition to repose confidence in forms and ceremonies; not to submit to them is pride. Though we should be mistaken in the belief that the Christian Religion is true, we should lose little by it; but if it be true, how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it false. Asked if I repented of having written the Provincial Letters, I answered, That if I had to do it again, I would write them yet more strongly. If condemned at Rome, that which I condemn in them, is condemned in heaven. The Inquisition and the Society of Jesuits are the two Scourges of the truth. Blaise Pascal. JUNE 22. Man was made to grow, not stop: The ladder on which he rose, He needs no more. Let him rise from each new height To higher things. Robert Browning. JUNE 23. He who fixed immoveably the frame Of the round world hath built, by laws as strong, William Wordsworth. JUNE 24. The American people, by virtue of their liberty, intelligence, and civil and religious polity, are a nation loving law better than any other nation on earth. It is the glory of our institutions that it makes the people the fountain of the law. Nowhere else is there a disposition so universal to observe that which is found to be just. We are not a warlike people, although capable of war on a just occasion. It is not to our taste. It is not in consonance with our polity, the current of our thoughts, or the occupation of our minds. The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the whole world's joy, and so God sits effulgent in heaven, not for a favored few, but for the universe of life, and there is no creature so low that it may not look up and say, "My Father! Thou art mine." Henry Ward Beecher, born June 24, 1813. JUNE 25. The overthrow of Satan is not yet completed, nor was designed to he till the end of the world. Christ expects his followers to be tried like himself, waging the same war that he did against the same enemy. One is possessed by the devil, when he rebels against God by breaking his commandments, especially when he falls into those sins which characterize the Tempter, such as envy, hatred, malice, and lying, of which he is described as "the father." Richard Whately. JUNE 26. Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve, A heavenly race demands thy zeal, How gentle God's commands! How kind his precepts are! Come, cast your burdens on the Lord, Philip Doddridge, born June 26, 1702. JUNE 27. Partiality to ourselves is dishonesty. For a man to judge that to be the equitable, right part for him, which he would see to be harsh, unjust, oppressive in another, is plain vice, and can proceed only from great unfairness of mind. Mankind hath the rule of right within himself. Your obligation to obey this law, is its being the law of your nature. Conscience carries its own authority, that it is our natural guide, assigned to us by the Author of our nature. Joseph Butler. JUNE 28. Time was when I believed that wrong In others to detect, Was part of genius, and a gift To cherish, not reject: Now better taught by Thee, O Lord, Self-hating and compassionate, And blind to others' sin, F. W. Faber, born June 28, 1814. |