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From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands like the cerulean arch we see,
Majestic in its own simplicity.

Inscribed above the portals from afar,
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star;
Legible only by the light they give,

Stand the soul-quickening words-BELIEVE AND LIVE.

BELLS.

Cowper.

YOUR flock, assembled by the bells,

Encircle you to hear with reverence.

Shakspere.

Get thee gone, and dig my grave thyself,

And bid the merry bells ring to thy ear,
That thou art crowned, not that I am dead.

Those flattering bells have all

One sound at wedding, and at funeral.

Shakspere.

Webster.

Loud ringing changes all our bells have marred;
Jangled they have and jarred,

So long they're out of tune and out of frame,
They seem not now the same.

Put them in frame anew, and once begin
To tune them so that they may chime all in.

The humble records of my life to search,

Herbert.

I have not herded with mere pagan beasts,
And sometimes I have "sat at good men's feasts,"
And I have been where bells have knolled to church.
Dear bells! how sweet the sound of village bells,
When on the undulating ear they swim!

Now loud as welcomes! faint now as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells,
As fluttered by the wings of cherubim;
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn,
And lost to sight the ecstatic lark above,
Sings, like soul beatified, of love.

Thos. Hood.

The bells themselves are the best of preachers;
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,

From their pulpits of stone in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
The clangorous hammer is the tongue,
This way, that way, beaten and swung;

That from mouth of brass, as from mouth of gold,
May be taught the Testaments, New and Old.
And above it the great cross-beam of wood,
Representeth the Holy Rood,

Upon which, like the bell, our hopes are hung;
And the wheel wherewith it is swayed and rung,
Is the mind of man, that round and round
Sways, and maketh the tongue to sound!
And the rope, with its twisted cordage three,
Denoteth the Scriptural Trinity

Of morals, and symbols, and history;

And the upward and downward motions show
That we touch upon matters high and low;
And the constant change and transmutation
Of action and of contemplation—

Downward, the scripture brought from on high,
Upward, exalted again to the sky:
Downward, the literal interpretation,

Upward, the vision and mystery!

On the pagoda spire,

The bells are swinging,

Their little golden circles in a flutter,

Longfellow.

With tales the wooing winds have dared to utter; Till all are singing,

As if in a choir;

Of golden-nested birds in heaven were singing;

And with a lulling sound,

The music floats around,

And drops like balm into the drowsy ear.

Mrs. E. C. Judson.

Those evening bells-those evening bells—
How many a tale their music tells
Of youth and home-and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!

Moore.

108

BENEFICENCE.

BENEVOLENCE.

BENEFICENCE-BENEFITS.

BENEFICENCE regardless of herself,
Of pride, ambition, policy, or pelf,
Enjoys in blest return, for one poor mite,
A mine, an empire of sublime delight.-Lathrop.

When noble benefits shall prove

Not well disposed, the mind grown once corrupt,
They turn to vicious forms.

As many as offered life
Neglect not, and the benefit embrace
By faith, not void of works.

Shakspere.

A benefit upbraided, forfeits thanks;
And 'tis not sure so full a benefit,
Freely to give, as freely to require.
A bounteous act hath glory following it,
They cause the glory, that the act desire.

To brag of benefits one hath bestown,

Milton.

Lady Carew.

Doth make the best seem less, and most seem none; So oftentimes the greatest courtesy

Is by the doer made an injury.

Brome.

BENEVOLENCE.

GRASP the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence.

Nature all

Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.

Pope.

Thomson.

Ah! little think the gay, licentious, proud,
Whom pleasure, power, and affluence surround;
They, who their thoughtless hours in giddy mirth,
And wanton, often cruel riot, waste;

Ah! little think they, while they dance along,

How many feel, this very moment, death,
And all the sad variety of pain.

**

*

* Thought, fond man,

Of these, and all the thousand nameless ills,
That one incessant struggle render life,
One scene of toil, of suffering, and of fate,
Vice in his high career would stand appalled,
And heedless rambling impulse learn to think;
The conscious heart of charity would warm,
And her wide wish benevolence dilate.

Thomson.

From the low prayer of want and plaint of woe, O never, never turn away thine ear!

Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

Ah! what were man should heaven refuse to hear!
To others do (the law is not severe,)

What to thyself thou wishest to be done;
Forgive thy foes, and love thy parents dear;
And friends and native land: nor these alone;

All human weal and woe learn thou to make thine own.

James Beattie.

And he whose wakeful tenderness removes

Th' obstructing thorn, which wounds the friend he loves, Smooths not another's rugged path alone,

But scatters roses to adorn his own.—.
-Hannah More.

O God! with sympathetic care,
In others' joys and griefs to share,
Do Thou my heart incline!
Each low, each selfish wish control,
Warm with benevolence my soul,
And make me wholly Thine.

Blacklock.

He is the wisest and the happiest man,
Who, in his sphere, does all the good he can,
And with a ready hand and generous heart,
Performs to all the benefactor's part;

He clothes the naked, he the hungry feeds,
Consoles the sorrowing, for the guilty pleads;
His are the joys which pall not in the sense,
And his the high reward of pure benevolence.

Egone.

110

BENIGNITY.

BEST.

Giver of all things fair!

BENIGNITY.

THIS turn hath made amends! Thou hast fulfilled Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,

So shall the world go on,

Milton.

To good malignant, to bad men benign.

Milton.

Different are thy names,

As thy kind hand has founded many cities,

Or dealt benign thy various gifts to men.

Prior.

Oh, truly good and truly great!

For glorious as he rose, benignly so he set.

Prior.

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Does well, acts nobly-angels could no more.

He doeth well who doeth good
To those of his own brotherhood;
He doeth better who doth bless
The stranger in his wretchedness;
Yet best, Oh! best of all doth he,
Who helps a fallen enemy.

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Young.

Egone.

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