are very few passages worth
comprehending, either of verse or prose, that can be promptly understood,
when they are read unnaturally and ill."--_Thelwall's Lect_. "They waste
life in what are called good resolutions--partial efforts at reformation,
feebly commenced, heartlessly conducted, and hopelessly
concluded."--_Maturin's Sermons_, p. 262.

"A man may, in respect of grammatical purity, speak unexceptionably, and
yet speak obscurely and ambiguously; and though we cannot say, that a man
may speak properly, and at the same time speak unintelligibly, yet this
last case falls more naturally to be considered as an offence against
perspicuity, than as a violation of propriety."--_Jamieson's Rhet._, p.
104.

"Ye are witnesses, and God also, how holily and justly and unblamably we
behaved ourselves among you that believe."--_1 Thes._, ii, 10.

"The question is not, whether they know what is said of Christ in the
Scriptures; but whether they know it savingly, truly, livingly,
powerfully."--_Penington's Works_, iii, 28.

"How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy's neglected sire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death!"--_Cowper_.

LESSON VIII.--CONJUNCTIONS.

"Every person's safety requires that he should submit to be governed; for
if one man may do harm without suffering punishment, every man has the same
right, and no person can be safe."--_Webster's Essays_, p. 38.

"When it becomes a practice to collect debts by law, it is a proof of
corruption and degeneracy among the people. Laws and courts are necessary,
to settle controverted points between man and man; but a man should pay an
acknowledged debt, not because there is a law to oblige him, but because it
is just and honest, and because he has promised to pay it."--_Ib._, p. 42.

"The liar, and only the liar, is invariably and universally despised,
abandoned, and disowned. It is therefore natural to expect, that a crime
thus generally detested, should be generally avoided."--_Hawkesworth_.

"When a man swears to the truth of his tale, he tacitly acknowledges that
his bare word does not deserve credit. A swearer will lie, and a liar is
not to be believed even upon his oath; nor is he believed, when he happens
to speak the truth."--_Red Book_, p. 108.

"John Adams replied, 'I know Great Britain has determined on her system,
and that very determination determines me on mine.