We must follow, not force Providence.—­Shakespeare.

Go, mark the matchless working of the power
That shuts within the seed the future flower;
Bids these in elegance of form excel. 
In color these, and those delight the smell;
Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies,
To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes. 

          
                          —­Cowper.

A man’s heart deviseth his way:  but the Lord directeth his steps.  —­Proverbs 16:9.

Prudence.—­Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.—­Colton.

Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.—­Milton.

When any great design thou dost intend,
Think on the means, the manner, and the end. 
—­Sir J. Denham.

The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best of hearts.—­Fielding.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.—­Jeremy Collier.

No other protection is wanting, provided you are under the guidance of prudence.—­Juvenal.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.—­Burke.

The rules of prudence, like the laws of the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive.  “Thou shalt not” is their characteristic formula.—­Coleridge.

Punctuality.—­I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will never be respected or successful in life.—­Rev.  W. Fisk.

I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.—­Lord Nelson.

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty.  You may as well borrow a person’s money as his time.  —­Horace Mann.

It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point.—­La Fontaine.

I could never think well of a man’s intellectual or moral character if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.—­Emmons.

Purity.—­Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.—­Hosea Ballou.

Blessed are the pure in heart:  for they shall see God.—­Matthew 5:8.

God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.—­J.G.  Holland.

While our hearts are pure,
Our lives are happy and our peace is sure. 
—­William winter.

Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.—­Colton.