It is shameful for man to rest in ignorance of the structure of his own body, especially when the knowledge of it mainly conduces to his welfare, and directs his application of his own powers. Melancthon. ANCESTRY-Boast of. Were honour to be scann'd by long descent Nor will I borrow merit from the dead, ANCESTRY-Nobility of. Rowe. Philosophy does not look into pedigrees; she did not adopt Plato as noble, but she made him such. Seneca. ANCESTRY-Pedigrees of. The origin of all mankind was the same: it is only a clear and a good conscience that makes a man noble, for that is derived from heaven itself. It was the saying of a great man, that if we could trace our descents, we should find all slaves to come from princes, and all princes from slaves; and fortune has turned all things topsy-turvy in a long series of revolutions: beside, for a man to spend his life in pursuit of a title, that serves only when he dies to furnish out an epitaph, is below a wise man's business. Ibid. ANGELS. derive from the love of the living. They are denied, it is true, to our personal acquaintance; but the light they shed during their lives survives within their tombs, and will reward our search, if we explore them. If the virtues of strangers be so attractive to us, how infinitely more so should be those of our own kindred; and with what additional energy should the precepts of our parents influence us, when we trace the transmission of those precepts from father to son through successive generations, each bearing the testimony of a virtuous, useful, and honourable life to their truth and influence; and all uniting in a kind and earnest exhortation to their descendants so to live on earth, that (followers of Him through whose grace alone we have power to obey Him) we may at last be reunited with those who have been before, and those who shall come after us. No wanderer lost- Lord Lindsay. Boast not the titles of your ancestors, brave youth! They're their possessions, none of yours. names, Twill be but fair to lean upon their fames, Ben Jonson. The man who has not anything to boast of but his illustrious ancestors, is like a potatothe only good belonging to him is under Sir T. Overbury. ground. ANCESTRY-Shadows of. Some men by ancestry are only the shadow of a mighty name. Lucan. ANGELS-in Affliction. I have seen angels by the sick one's pillowTheirs was the soft tone and the soundless tread; Where smitten hearts were drooping like the willow, They stood between the living and the dead. ANGELS-Blessedness of the. rung With jubilee, and loud hosannahs filled ANGELS-Characteristics of the. Virgil. With solemn adoration down they cast Milton. ANGELS-Celestiality of the. They boast ethereal vigour, and are form'd Sails between world and world with steady wings: Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan Man is a mixed being, made up of a spiritual He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky soul and of a fleshly body; the angels are pure spirits, herein nearer to God, only that they are created and finite in all respects, whereas God is infinite and uncreated; hereby too, it would seem, immortal from the first, without any of the earthly alloy which time is wont to prey upon; free from decay, free from the power of death. Hence, too, is it that they excel in power. For as the power of man above the beasts of the field arises from his having a spiritual soul, while they have only fleshly bodies, so do the angels, being pure spirits, being wholly free from the manifold, evergrowing wants and weaknesses of the body, excel mankind in power. Indeed we need only think of the power which the mind has to dart through time and over space, through thousands of years and over thousands of miles in a moment, to get some notion what its power would be, if it were not bound down to a single spot by the numbing weight of the body, which, whatever it may have been at first, now that the soul is so weakened and maimed by sin, has become a heavy, intolerable clog to it. Hare. The very names assigned to angels by their Creator, convey to us ideas pre-eminently pleasing, fitted to captivate the heart, and exalt the imagination; ideas which dispel gloom, banish despondency, enliven hope, and awaken sincere and unmingled joy. They are Living Ones; beings in whom life is inherent and instinctive; who sprang up under the quickening influence of the Sun of Righteousness, beneath the morning of everlasting day; who rose expanded, and blossomed in the uncreated beam, on the banks of the river of life, and were nourished by the waters of immortality. They are spirits, winged with activity, and formed with power, which no labour wearies, and no duration impairs; their faculties always fresh and young, their exertions unceasing and wonderful, and their destination noble and delightful, without example, and without end. They are Burning Ones, glowing with a pure and serene, with an intense and immortal flame of divine love; returning, without ceasing, the light and warmth which they have received from the great central sun of the universe, reflecting with supreme beauty the image of that divine luminary; and universally glorious, although differing from each other in glory. Dwight. Winnows the buxom air. Milton. Six wings he wore, to shade Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his His lineaments divine; the pair that clad breast Girt, like a starry zone, his waist, and round ANGELS-Guardian. A thousand liveried angels lackey her, ; The guardian angel of life sometimes flies so high that man cannot see it; but he always is looking down upon us, and will soon hover nearer to us. Richter. ANGELS-Harbingers of the Most High. They are called the chariots of God: the chariots of God are thousands of angels. That is, they are the chariots of His will, they bear His will about to every part of the universe. This is their delight. They bless God, who vouchsafes thus to employ them. But when they have fulfilled God's message, then they return back to Him by whom they were sent forth. They return back to Him, and stand before Him, drinking in fresh streams of life, and strength, and purity, and joy from His ANGELS. One to warn him when he darkleth, One to leave him to his nature, Two recording spirits, reading Writes the good or evil wrought; Writes with truth that adds not, errs not, Purpose, action, word, and thought. One, the Teacher and Reprover, Marks each heaven-deserving deed; Graves it with the lightning's vigour ; Seals it with the lightning's speed; For the good that man achieveth Good beyond an angel's doubt- One (severe and silent Watcher!) Seals it not, but waits awhile; "God, forgive me!" ere he sleeps, Then the sad stern spirit seals it, And the gentler spirit weeps. ANGELS-compared to Men. ANGELS-Ministering. Prince. ANGER. The severed righteous at His holy hill, Bishop Mant. ANGER-Allaying of. The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. We should freely forgive, but forget rarely. I will not be revenged, and this I owe to my enemy; but I will remember, and this I owe to myself. Colton ANGER-Gentle Correction of. Anger is like the waves of a troubled sea; when it is corrected with a soft reply, as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves nothing behind but froth and shells,-no permanent mischief. Jeremy Taylor. 1 ANGER-Cure of. Had I a careful and pleasant companion, that should show me my angry face in a glass, I should not at all take it ill. Some Young. are wont to have a looking-glass held to them while they wash, though to little purpose; but to behold a man's self so unnaturally disguised and disordered, will conduce not a little to the impeachment of anger. Plutarch. ANGER-Definition of. How oft do they their silver bowers leave, And all for love and nothing for reward: Spenser. fiery spirits which cause a preternatural fer- ANGER-Restraining of. mentation. Shenstone. What a chain of evils does that man prepare for himself who is a slave to anger! He is the murderer of his own soul, yea to the letter he is so, for he lives in a continual torment. He is devoured by an inward fire, and his body partakes of his sufferings. Terror reigns around him, every one dreads lest the most innocent, the most trifling occurrence, may give him a pretext for quarrel, or rouse him into fury. A passionate man is alike odious to God and man, and is insupportable even to himself. St. Ephraim. ANGER-Fierceness of. Frowning they went; And kindle rivers in its course. Never do anything that can denote an angry mind; for, although everybody is born with a certain degree of passion, and, from untoward circumstances, will sometimes feel its operation, and be what they call "out of humour," yet a sensible man or woman will never allow it to be discovered. Check and restrain it; never make any determination until you find it has entirely subsided; and always avoid saying anything that you may wish unsaid. Lord Collingwood. If anger is not restrained, it is frequently more hurtful to us than the injury that provokes it. Seneca. When anger rises, think of the consequences. Confucius. When I myself had twice or thrice made a Congreve. resolute resistance unto anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who having once foiled the Lacedæmonians (who before that time had held themselves invincible), never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them. Plutarch. To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves. Pope. To be angry about trifles is mean and childish; to rage and be furious is brutish; and to maintain perpetual wrath is akin to the practice and temper of devils; but to prevent and suppress rising resentment is wise and glorious, is manly and divine. ANGER-Imprudence of. Watts. Shakspeare. When a man is wrong and won't admit it, Haliburton. he always gets angry. ANGER-Remedy for. It is an easy matter to stop the fire that is kindled only in hair, wool, candlewick, or a little chaff; but if it once have taken hold of matter that hath solidity and thickness, it soon inflames and consumes, Advanced, the highest timber of the roof; as Eschylus saith; so he that observes anger, while it is in its beginning, and sees it by degrees smoking and taking fire from some speech or chaff-like scurrility, he need take no great pains to extinguish it, but oftentimes puts an end to it only by silence or neglect. For as he that adds no fuel to fire, hath already as good as put it out; so he that doth not feed anger at the first, nor blow the fire in himself, hath prevented and destroyed it. Plutarch. ANGER. ANGER AND MADNESS-Difference between. He does anger too much honour, who calls it madness, which, being a distemper of the brain, and a total absence of all reason, is innocent of all the ill effects it may produce, whereas anger is an affected madness, compounded of pride and folly, and an intention to do commonly more mischief than it can bring to pass. Lord Clarendon. ANGLO-SAXON RACE-The. The rapid increase of the Anglo-Saxon race during the last two centuries, its wide diffusion over the globe, and its superiority over every race with which it has contact, are remarkable facts, however we view them. This will not be done, by wise and thoughtful men, in a vain-glorious or boastful spirit, but with a thoughtful and reverential consideration of the plans of Providence which it indicates, and the great duties and responsibilities which it involves. It has been stated, with regard to the Anglo-Saxon race, that, while in 1620, the year in which the Mayflower landed the first Pilgrims in New England, it numbered only about six millions, and was almost exclusively confined to our own island. It now numbers sixty millions of human beings, planted on all the islands and continents of the earth, and apparently destined, at no distant period, to absorb or supplant all the barbarous and nomadic races on the continents of Asia, Africa and America, and the vast newer world recently found in the Southern ocean. The enterprise of the race multiplies with its expansion. Commerce goes on apace, carrying the wealth and industry of the old world into the remotest and least known regions of the earth; and it is estimated that, if no sudden and unthought revolution abruptly arrest this remarkable expansion of the race sprung exclusively from the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the Anglo-Saxon race will soon number 800 millions of human beings in less than a century and a half from the present time. ANSWER-a Slight. McCulloch. ANTIQUITY. ANTICIPATION-Weariness of. O tell him I have sat these three long hours, ANTIDOTE-Vital Power of an. Oft have I seen its vital touch diffuse New vigour through the poison'd streams of life. When almost settled into dead stagnation, ANTIPATHIES-Irreconcilable. ANTIPATHY-Fierceness of. Discord, first Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational, And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving ANTIQUARY—The. I knew Aurelius. He was shrewd and prudent; As books of fables graced with prints of wood, ANTIQUARY-Museum of the. A slight answer to au intricate and useless question is a fit cover to such a dish,—a cabbage-leaf is good enough to cover a dish And parritch pats, and auld saut lackets of mushrooms. Jeremy Taylor. ANTICIPATION-Improvidence of. Whatever advantage we snatch beyond a certain portion allotted us by nature, is like money spent before it is due, which, at the time of regular payment, will be missed and regretted. Afore the flude. ANTIQUITY-Beauty of. Burns. Time's gradual touch Has moulder'd into beauty many a tower, Which when it frown'd with all its battle ments Johnson. Was only terrible. Mason. |
