THE

SECOND CLASS READER.

I.-SELECT SENTENCES IN PROSE.

IN the hour of adversity be not without hope; for crystal rain falls from black clouds.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt. An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you wiil rind it a calamity.

True eloquence consists in saying what should be said, and leaving unsaid what should not be said.

If we were faultless ourselves, we should not take so much pleasure in remarking the faults of others.

Friendship hath the skill and observation of the best physician, the diligence and watchfulness of the best nurse, and the tenderness and patience of the best mother.

Ingratitude is a crime so shameful, that the man was never yet found who would acknowledge himself guilty of it.

A liar begins with making a falsehood appear like truth, and ends with making truth itself appear like falsehood.

What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a God!

To relieve the oppressed is the most glorious act a man is capable of; it is in some measure doing the business of God and providence.

As we perceive the shadow to have moved, but did not perceive its moving, so our advances in learning, as they consist of such minute steps, are perceivable only by the distance.

There is no mortal truly wise and restless at the same time. wisdom is the repose of the mind.

The passionate are like men standing on their heads; they see all things the wrong way.

The philosophers of antiquity addressed themselves to the intellect; the simple words of Jesus lay hold of the heart.

It is with narrow-souled people as with narrow-necked bottles; the less they have in them, the more noise they make in pouring it out.

He who is insensible to praise is either raised far above, or sunk much below, the ordinary standard of human nature.

Benevolence is not merely a feeling, but a principle; not a dream of rapture for the fancy to indulge in, but a business for the hand to execute.

The great object of education is not to store the mind with knowledge, but to give activity and vigor to its powers.

Without fairness of mind, which is only another phrase for disinterested love of truth, great native powers of understanding are perverted.

I know of no great expounder of moral principle, I know of no eloquent teacher of divine truth, who is more useful in God's world than a business man that carries his religion into his business.

There are two ways of arriving at the highest personal liberty one is to have few wants, and the other to have abundant means of satisfying them. The first method is easier than the latter, and yet it is the one most rarely made use of.

Accustom yourself to submit on all and every occasion, and in the most minute no less than in the most important circumstances of life, to a small present evil, to obtain a greater

distant good. This will give decision, tone, and energy to the mind, which, thus disciplined, will often reap victory from defeat, and honor from repulse.

II.-SELECT SENTENCES IN PROSE.

HURRY and Cunning are the apprentices of Despatch and of Skill; but neither of them ever learns his master's trade. Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; any thing but live for it.

To commiserate is sometimes more than to give, for gifts are external to one's self; but he who bestows compassion communicates his own soul.

In most quarrels there is a fault on both sides. A quarrel may be compared to a spark, which cannot be produced without a flint, as well as a steel; either of them may hammer on wood forever, and no fire will follow.

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which, nevertheless, will make, at the end of it, no small deduction from the life of man.

Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; yield graciously, or oppose firmly.

Men are never made so ridiculous by the qualities they have, as by those they affect to have.

I consider a quarrelsome person to be like a loaded gun, which may go off by accident and kill one.

Modesty makes large amends for the pain it gives the persons who labor under it, by the prejudice it affords thy person in their favor.

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He that lies in bed all a summer's morning loses the chief pleasure of the day; he that gives up his youth to indolence suffers a loss of the same kind.

Shining characters are not always the most agreeable ones.