So hollow and so false,-I feel my heart
Dissolve in pity, and account the learned,
If this be learning, most of all deceived.
Great crimes alarm the conscience, but it sleeps,
While thoughtful man is plausibly amused:
Defend me, therefore, common sense, say I,
From reveries so airy, from the toil

Of dropping buckets into empty wells,

And growing old in drawing nothing up!-Cowper.

WISDOM.-The Spread of

The strong barriers which confined the stores of wisdom have been thrown down, and a flood overspreads the earth; old establishments are rising, the inferior schools are introducing improved systems of instruction, and good books are rendering every man's fireside a school.-Arnot.

WISDOM. Teaching Spiritual

He who teaches men the principles and precepts of spiritual wisdom, before their minds are called off from foreign objects, and turned inward upon themselves, might as well write his instructions, as the Sybil wrote her prophecies, on the loose leaves of trees, and commit them to the mercy of the inconstant winds.-Archbishop Leighton.

WISDOM.-The Value of

If the mountains were pearl, if every sand of the sea were a diamond, it were not comparable to wisdom. Without wisdom a person is like a ship without a pilot, in danger to split upon rocks. The price of wisdom is above rubies. The ruby is a precious stone, transparent, of a red fiery colour. It is reported of one of the kings of India, he wore a ruby of that bigness and splendour, that he might be seen by it in the dark; but wisdom casts a more sparkling colour than the ruby, it makes us shine as angels.-T. Watson.

WISDOM and KNOWLEDGE.

Wisdom penetrates the length, the breadth, the height, and depth, more than knowledge. Knowledge is, so to speak, sight; wisdom is sight coupled with taste. Knowledge relates to things that are to be done; wisdom to things eternal. Bengel.

WISDOM and LEARNING.

Wisdom and learning should go hand-in-hand, they are so beautifully qualified for mutual assistance. But it is better to have wisdom without learning, than learning without wisdom; just as it is better to be rich without being the possessor of a mine, than to be the possessor of a mine without being rich.-Colton.

WISDOM and MEEKNESS.

Wisdom is mighty, meekness is mighty; but the "meekness of wisdom" is almighty; therefore unite meekness with wisdom.-Dr. Reed.

The intellect of the wise is like glass; it admits the light of heaven and reflects it.-Archdeacon Hare.

WISE.-In Various Nature

Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise,
To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Formed by the converse, happily to steer

From grave to gay,-from lively to severe.-Pope.

WIT-Condemned.

I cannot forbear warning, in the most earnest manner, against endeavouring at wit in your sermons; because, by the strictest computation, it is very near a million to one that you have none, and because too many of your calling have made themselves everlastingly ridiculous by attempting it.-Dean Swift.

WORD.-The Deathlessness of the

All human speculations have alloy about them-that Word is perfect. All human speculations fail-that Word abideth. The Jew hated it; but it lived on, while the veil was torn away from the shrine which the Shekinah had forsaken, and while Jerusalem itself was destroyed. The Greek derided it; but it has seen his philosophy effete, and his Acropolis in ruins. The Roman threw it to the flames; but it rose from its ashes, and swooped down upon the fallen eagle. The reasoner cast it into the furnace, which his own malignity had heated "seven times hotter than its wont;" but it came out without the smell of fire. The infidel cast it overboard in a tempest of sophistry and sarcasm; but it rode gallantly upon the crest of the proud waters. And it is living still-yet heard in the loudest swelling of the storm-it has been speaking all the while-it is speak ing now. The world gets higher at its every tone, and it shall ultimately speak in power, until it has spoken this dismantled planet up again into the smiling brotherhood of worlds which kept their first estate, and God, welcoming the prodigal, shall look at it as He did in the beginning, and pronounce it to be very good.-Dr. Punshon.

WORD.-The Excellency of the

What a Word must that be which is the result of infinite Wisdom! How precious are those tables which are the writing of God Himself! How glorious is that beam of light which was darted from this sun, to whom a whole firmament of suns were worse than perfect darkness! If the breath of a man be so sweet that his doctrine drop as the rain, and his speech distil as the dew; if the heart of a man indite a good matter, and his tongue resemble the pen of a ready writer, oh what is the speech of the tongue of a God!—Swinnock.

WORD.-The Milk of the

The Word is resembled to milk in three respects:-First, because it is the only food of the faithful, as milk is the only and proper food of babes; secondly, because it is not hard and intricate, but plain and easy to be conceived, as milk is easy to be digested; and thirdly, because it is sweet and comfortable to the soul, as milk is sweet and pleasant in taste.-H. Smith.

WORD.-Our Treatment of the

We are to listen to the Divine Word, not to corrupt it. We must not play tricks with it, by fanciful interpretations, as many in all ages have done. The plain natural sense always carries with it the richest and most valuable instruction.

Melancthon.

WORD.-The Preaching of the

The preaching of the Word is the great means which God hath appointed for salvation: "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." When God first created man, it is said that "He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;" but when God new creates man, He breathes into his ears. This is the Word that raiseth the dead, calling them out of the grave: this is the Word that opens the eyes of the blind, that turns the hearts of the disobedient and rebellious. And though wicked and profane men scoff at preaching, and count the minister's words, and God's words too, but so much wind, yet they are such wind, believe it, as is able to tear rocks and rend mountains; such winds as, if ever they are saved, must shake and overturn the foundations of all their carnal confidence and presumption. Be exhorted, therefore, more to prize and more to frequent the preaching of the Word.-Bishop Hopkins.

WORD. The Spirit and the

He who would utterly separate the Spirit from the Word, had as good burn his Bible.-Dr. Owen.

WORD.-Truth in the

The "truth as it is in Jesus," is contained in that Word which is truth itself : there it is laid up as in a casket, and hallowed as in a shrine. No change can pass upon it. It bears the character of its first perfection. It is the wisdom of God and the power of God. Like the manna and the rod in the recess of the ark, it is the incorruptible bread of heaven, it is the ever-living instrument of might, without an altered form or superseded virtue. Nothing but clouds of unholy passion or of mental vanity can obscure it. And such is its simplicity when men read it as learners and receive it as sinners-that we can dare a contradiction to its plain interpretation, and feel that if "an angel from heaven" were so to belie it-torturing it by sophistry, annulling it by conjecture, and re-casting it by prejudgment, he should suffer the “curse" which dreadly guards our faith from every violation.-Dr. R. W. Hamilton.

WORD.-The Value of the

Of all the blessings of Canaan this was the chiefest-that it flowed with milk and honey; and this encouraged the Israelites to travel through the desert to possess it. The Word is a land flowing with better milk and honey, and we must not think any pains or toils too much to attain it.-H. Smith.

WORDS.-The Accumulation of

Words, words, words; good and bad, loud and soft, long and short; millions in the hour, innumerable in the day, unimaginable in the year: what then in the life? what in the history of a nation? what in that of the world? And not one of these is ever forgotten! There is a book where they are all set down!— Dean Alford.

WORDS.-Ancient

Words borrowed of antiquity do lend a kind of majesty to style, and are not without their delight sometimes; for they have the authority of years, and out of their intermission do win themselves a kind of grace-like newness. But the eldest of the present, and the newest of the past language is the best.-Jonson.

WORDS.-The Charm of

There is an endless, undefinable charm in words. They come back to us with that alienated majesty which a great writer ascribes to our own thoughts. They are the sanctuary of the intuitions. They paint humanity, its thoughts, longings, aspirations, struggles, failures-paint them on a canvas of breath, in the colours of life.-Swinton.

WORDS.-The Choice of

We presume the words to be chosen will be those which are of the most familiar and frequent occurrence. To Cicero, the perfection of written language was the employment of words in daily use. Use to Horace, we know, was the canon law of all correct eloquence. Of course, we should eschew the debased, the corrupt, and the vulgar in expression, however frequently used by the illiterate and the ignorant; just as we ought to reject the unauthorized conventions and verbal coinings of persons in higher life, which multitudes, nevertheless, will be found ready to endorse. We shall feel that no pretended plainness in the use of language will compensate for a wound inflicted upon its purity. Language, to a public teacher, is a sacred trust. There is not only a history in it; but, what is more, there is often a subtle and profound morality. And the man who tampers with the purity of his native tongue, by the admixture of a base alloy, is like a Vandal who destroys a precious monument; or a faithless ruler, who, by a change in the currency, introduces confusion into all the compacts of commercial life.-D. Moore. WORDS-Defined.

Words are the soul's ambassadors, who go
Abroad upon her errands to and fro;
They are the sole expounders of the mind,
And correspondence keep 'twixt all mankind:
They are those airy keys that ope, and wrest
Sometimes, the locks and hinges of the breast:
By them heart makes sallies: wit and sense
Belong to them: they are the quintessence
Of those ideas which the thoughts distil,

And so calcine and melt again, until
They drop forth into accents; in whom lies
The salt of fancy, and all faculties.-Howell.

WORDS-Described.

Words are like sea-shells on the shore; they show

Where the mind ends, and not how far it has been.-P. J. Bailey. Words are but little bubbles thrown up to express what lies below, for ever inexpressible.-H. W. Beecher.

WORDS.-The Effect of

Words make truth to spangle, and its rays to shine.—Bunyan.

WORDS.-Eloquence in

There is eloquence in words as well as eloquence in manner. Paul does indeed discard the "enticing words of man's wisdom," but he does not discard eloquent, powerful, and well-ordered discourse; or what mean his own matchless discourses before Agrippa and the Athenian Areopagites, and his farewell to the Ephesian Elders, and his descant upon the resurrection?-Dr. Skinner.

WORDS.-Gentle

WORDS.-Good

Speak kindly to the broken heart;
Wrath ne'er the will can bend,
And gentle words have ever proved
To Virtue's cause a friend:
The heavy rain that loudly falls,

Makes Nature droop her head;
The gentle dew bids her look up,
And smile as from the dead:

A skilful hand he needs must have

Who plays with broken chords;

He who would heal the stricken heart

Christ's love must rule his words.—Balfern.

Good words will do more than hard speeches; as the sunbeams, without any noise, made the traveller cast off his cloke, which all the blustering of the wind could not do, but made him bind it the tighter.-Archbishop Leighton.

WORDS.-Hard

Hard words are like hailstones in summer, beating down and destroying what they would nourish were they melted into drops.-Friswell.

WORDS.-The Importance of

Words are often everywhere as the minute-hands of the soul, more important than even the hour-hands of actions.-Richter.

The beasts may make each other understand many things, but they have no speech. These glorious things-words-are man's right alone, part of the image of the Son of God-the Word of God, in which man was created. If men would but think what a noble thing it is merely to be able to speak in words, to think in words, to write in words! Without words we should know no more of each others' hearts and thoughts, than the dog knows of his fellow dog, without words to think in; for if you will consider, you always think to yourself in words, though you do not speak them aloud; and without them all our thoughts would be mere blind longings, feelings which we could not understand ourselves. Without words to write in we could not know what our forefathers did-we could not let our children after us know what we do.-Canon Kingsley.

WORDS.-The Impotency of

Words, those fickle daughters of the earth, are the creation of a being that is finite, and when applied to that which is infinite, they fail; for that which is made surpasses not the maker; nor can that which is immeasurable by our thoughts be measured by our tongues.—Colton.

WORDS-Muttered Over.

The sweet words

Of Christian promise,-words that even yet

Might stem destruction, were they wisely preached,
Are muttered o'er by men whose tones proclaim

How flat and wearisome they feel their trade;

Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

To deem them falsehoods, or to know their truth.-S. T. Coleridge.