ances, than sin and wickedness. It is in league with God and the
universe; the whole creation smiles upon it; there is something of God
in it, and therefore it must needs be a victorious and triumphant
thing.--CUDWORTH.

Regeneration is the ransacking of the soul, the turning of a man out
of himself, the crumbling to pieces of the old man, and the new
moulding of it into another shape; it is the turning of stones into
children, and a drawing of the lively portraiture of Jesus Christ upon
that very table that before represented only the very image of the
devil.... Art thou thus changed? Are all old things done away, and all
things in thee become new? Hast thou a new heart and renewed
affections? And dost thou serve God in newness of life and
conversation? If not,--what hast thou to do with hopes of heaven? Thou
art yet without Christ, and so consequently without hope.--BISHOP
HOPKINS.

REGRET.--A wrong act followed by just regret and thoughtful caution to
avoid like errors, makes a man better than he would have been if he
had never fallen.--HORATIO SEYMOUR.

The business of life is to go forward; he who sees evil in prospect
meets it in his way, but he who catches it by retrospection turns back
to find it. That which is feared may sometimes be avoided, but that
which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow.--DR. JOHNSON.

A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
--LONGFELLOW.

The present only is a man's possession; the past is gone out of his
hand wholly, irrevocably. He may suffer from it, learn from it,--in
degree, perhaps, expiate it; but to brood over it is utter madness.
--MISS MULOCK.

Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
--WHITTIER.

RELIGION.--A religion that never suffices to govern a man will never
suffice to save him; that which does not sufficiently distinguish one
from a wicked world will never distinguish him from a perishing
world.--HOWE.

Religion crowns the statesman and the man,
Sole source of public and of private peace.
--YOUNG.

A true religious instinct never deprived man of one single joy;
mournful faces and a sombre aspect are the conventional affectations
of the weak-minded.--HOSEA BALLOU.

The source of all good and of all comfort.--