It is remarkable, that almost all speakers and writers feel it to be incumbent on them, sooner or later, to prove or to acknowledge the personality of God.  Some Earl of Bridgewater, thinking it better late than never, has provided for it in his will.  It is a sad mistake.  In reading a work on agriculture, we have to skip the author’s moral reflections, and the words “Providence” and “He” scattered along the page, to come at the profitable level of what he has to say.  What he calls his religion is for the most part offensive to the nostrils.  He should know better than expose himself, and keep his foul sores covered till they are quite healed.  There is more religion in men’s science than there is science in their religion.  Let us make haste to the report of the committee on swine.

A man’s real faith is never contained in his creed, nor is his creed an article of his faith.  The last is never adopted.  This it is that permits him to smile ever, and to live even as bravely as he does.  And yet he clings anxiously to his creed, as to a straw, thinking that that does him good service because his sheet anchor does not drag.

In most men’s religion, the ligature, which should be its umbilical cord connecting them with divinity, is rather like that thread which the accomplices of Cylon held in their hands when they went abroad from the temple of Minerva, the other end being attached to the statue of the goddess.  But frequently, as in their case, the thread breaks, being stretched, and they are left without an asylum.

“A good and pious man reclined his head on the bosom of contemplation, and was absorbed in the ocean of a revery.  At the instant when he awaked from his vision, one of his friends, by way of pleasantry, said, What rare gift have you brought us from that garden, where you have been recreating?  He replied, I fancied to myself and said, when I can reach the rose-bower, I will fill my lap with the flowers, and bring them as a present to my friends; but when I got there, the fragrance of the roses so intoxicated me, that the skirt dropped from my hands.——­`O bird of dawn! learn the warmth of affection from the moth; for that scorched creature gave up the ghost, and uttered not a groan:  These vain pretenders are ignorant of him they seek after; for of him that knew him we never heard again:—­O thou! who towerest above the flights of conjecture, opinion, and comprehension; whatever has been reported of thee we have heard and read; the congregation is dismissed, and life drawn to a close; and we still rest at our first encomium of thee!’”—­Sadi.

By noon we were let down into the Merrimack through the locks at Middlesex, just above Pawtucket Falls, by a serene and liberal-minded man, who came quietly from his book, though his duties, we supposed, did not require him to open the locks on Sundays.  With him we had a just and equal encounter of the eyes, as between two honest men.