Sermonets

SERMONETS Education is the cheap defense of nations. — Burke. Many would come to wisdom if they did not think themselves already there. — Bacon. The use of character, is to be a shield against calumny. — Burke. "Without the Way, there is no going; Without the Truth, there is no knowing; Without the Life, there is no living." Thomas a'Kempis. Home religion is as important as personal religion, and is essential to it. The relationship between parents and children grows pure and dear when they all kneel together and ask the peace of God to rest on their home. Many of us remember the dear old days when at the family altar morning and evening prayers were offered together, and the Sunday evening hour, when we sang hymns, each choosing his favorite.— Dr. F. IV. Tompkins. One man walks solemnly, with puckered brow and eyes cast down, thinking of a thousand frets, dreading tomorrow, and regretting yesterday. Another laughs and whistles, careless in every step and gesture, looking at the trees and the flowers, and the white clouds and the blue sky — looking, above all, at human faces, and making them smile back at him. Which of these men do you think is the wiser? Which is more like you? — Youth's Companion. What a tribute to the character of Washington is the recent government survey of the old Fairfax land grants! The sixteen-year-old boy worked under conditions so primitive that mistakes would have been excusable, and in a wilderness so remote that in any case they would hardly have been detected for generations; yet the recent survey of the land, made with the finest modern instruments, has failed to disclose any appreciable error in his work. They say the cherry-tree anecdote is a myth. Let it go; we do not need it. Washington's whole life shows that he ran his lines by the compass of character. — Youth's Companion.