God pardons like a mother who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.—Beecher.
As thro’ the land
at eve we went,
And pluck’d
the ripen’d ears,
We fell out, my wife
and I,
We fell out I know not
why,
And kiss’d
again with tears.
And blessings on the falling out
That all the more endears,
When we fall out with those we love
And kiss again with tears!
For when we came where lies the
child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kiss’d again with tears.
—Tennyson.
Oh, my dear friends,—you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day,—if you only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do!—Phillips brooks.
Refinement.—Refinement is the delicate aroma of Christianity. —Charlotte M. Yonge.
That alone can be called true refinement which elevates the soul of man, purifying the manners by improving the intellect.—Hosea Ballou.
Refinement that carries us away from our fellow-men is not God’s refinement.—Beecher.
If refined sense, and exalted sense, be not so useful as common sense, their rarity, their novelty, and the nobleness of their objects, make some compensation, and render them the admiration of mankind.—Hume.
Far better, and more cheerfully, I could dispense with some part of the downright necessaries of life, than with certain circumstances of elegance and propriety in the daily habits of using them.—De Quincey.
Reform.—He who reforms himself, has done more toward reforming the public, than a crowd of noisy, impotent patriots.—Lavater.
He that has energy enough in his constitution to root out a vice should go a little further, and try to plant a virtue in its place; otherwise he will have his labor to renew. A strong soil that has produced weeds may be made to produce wheat with far less difficulty than it would cost to make it produce nothing.—Colton.
Time yet serves, wherein you may redeem your tarnished honors, and restore yourselves into the good thoughts of the world again. —Shakespeare.
Each year one vicious habit rooted out, in time might make the worst man good.—Franklin.
Reform, like charity, must begin at home.—Carlyle.
Whatever you dislike in another person take care to correct in yourself.—Sprat.
He who reforms, God assists.—Cervantes.
Regeneration.—Content not thyself with a bare forbearance of sin, so long as thy heart is not changed, nor thy will changed, nor thy affections changed; but strive to become a new man, to be transformed by the renewing of thy mind, to hate sin, to love God, to wrestle against thy secret corruptions, to take delight in holy duties, to subdue thine understanding, and will, and affections, to the obedience of faith and godliness.—BP. Sanderson.


