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by a diamond buckle, or a virtuous edict, a sumptuary law, or a glass necklace.- Goldsmith.

CEREMONIES. All ceremonies are in themselves very silly things; but yet a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of manners and decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defence, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance. It is for that reason that I always treat fools and coxcombs with great ceremony; true good-breeding not being a sufficient barrier against them.-Chesterfield.

CEREMONIES, VARIOUS.-Ceremonies are different in every country; but true politeness is everywhere the same. Ceremonies which take up so much of our attention, are only artificial helps, which ignorance assumes in order to imitate politeness, which is the result of good sense and good nature. A person possessed of those qualities, though he had never seen a court, is truly agreeable; and if without them, would continue a clown, though he had been all his life a gentleman usher. Goldsmith.

CHANCERY.-Equity is a roguish thing; for law we have a measure, and know what to trust to: equity is according to the conscience of him that is chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is equity. 'Tis all one as if they should make his foot the standard for the measure, we call a chancellor's foot-what an uncertain measure this would be! One chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot; 'tis the same thing in the chancellor's conscience.-Selden.

CHANGES.-If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear and hope will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to

resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse

and obstinate.-Burke.

CHARACTER.-A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.-Solomon.

CHARACTER, A GOOD.-The character is like white paper; if once blotted, it can hardly ever be made to appear as white as before. One wrong step often stains the character for life. It is much easier to form a good character at first, than it is to do it after we have acquired a bad one; to preserve the character pure, than to purify it after it has become defiled.

CHARACTER, ELEMents of a good.—In a truly good character we look, first of all, for integrity, or an unbending regard to rectitude; then for independence, or the habitual determination to be governed by an enlightened conviction of truth and duty; then for benevolence, or the spirit of kindness and good-will to men; and last, but not least, for piety towards God, or an affectionate reverent regard for the will and glory of the great Jehovah.-Hawes.

CHARACTER, HOW GAINED.-A good character is, in all cases, the fruit of personal exertion. It is not inherited from parents; it is not created by external advantages; it is no necessary appendage of birth, wealth, talents, or station; but it is the result of one's own endeavors the fruit and reward of good principles manifested in a course of virtuous and honorable action.-Hawes.

CHARACTER, ITS DELICACY.-A fair reputation is a plant, delicate in its nature, and by no means rapid in its growth. It will not shoot up in a night like the gourd of the prophet, but like that gourd it may perish in a night.—Taylor.

CHARACTER, ITS MANIFESTATION.-Actions, looks, words,

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steps, form the alphabet by which you may spell characters: some are mere letters, some contain entire words, lines, whole pages, which at once decipher the life of a man. One such genuine uninterrupted page may be your key to all the rest; but first be certain that he wrote it all alone, and without thinking of publisher or reader.-Lavater.

CHARACTER, ITS VALUE.-Character is like stock in trade; the more of it a man possesses, the greater his facilities for making additions to it. Character is power-is influence; it makes friends; creates funds; draws patronage and support; and opens a sure and easy way to wealth, honor, and happiness.-Hawes.

CHARACTER, ITS VINDICATION.-As they who, for every slight infirmity, take physic to repair their health, do rather impair it; so they who, for every trifle, are eager to vindicate their character, do rather weaken it.

CHARACTER, UNNATURAL OR ASSUMED.-Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them, are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave, and of the character they assume.-Burke.

CHARITY. It is an old saying, that charity begins at home; but this is no reason it should not go abroad: a man should live with the world as a citizen of the world; he may have a preference for the particular quarter or square, or even alley in which he lives, but he should have a generous feeling for the welfare of the whole.- Cumberland.

CHARITY, DEFINITION OF.--Mahomet's definition of charity, says Irving, in his life of the prophet, embraced the wide circle of all possible kindness. Every good act, he would say, is charity. Your smiling in your brother's face, is charity; an exhortation of your fellow-man to virtuous deeds, is equal to alms-giving; your putting a wanderer in the right

road, is charity; your assisting the blind, is charity; your removing stones, and thorns, and other obstructions from the road, is charity; your giving water to the thirsty, is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter, is the good he does in this world to his fellow-man. When he dies, people will say, "What property has he left behind him?" But the angels will ask, “What good deeds has he sent before him.”

CHARITY, REAL, TO THE POOR.-Give work rather than alms to the poor. The former drives out indolence, the latter industry.

CHARTERS, WHEN KEPT.--Charters are kept when their purposes are maintained: they are violated when the privilege is supported against its end and its object.-Burke.

CHEERFULNESS. To be happy, the passion must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.-Hume.

CHEERFULNESS AND MIRTH.-Cheerfulness is always to be kept up if a man is out of pain; but mirth, to a prudent man, should always be accidental. It should naturally arise out of the occasion, and the occasion seldom be laid for it; for those tempers who want mirth to be pleased, are like the constitutions that flag without the use of brandy.--Steele.

CHEERFULNESS AND MIRTH.--Mirth is like the flash of lightning that breaks through the gloom of the clouds and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a daylight in the soul, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

CHEERFULNESS, CHRISTIAN.-Gratitude is the homage the heart renders to God for his goodness: Christian cheerfulness is the external manifestation of that homage.

CHEERFULNESS, ITS EFFECTS.--A cheerful temper, joined

with innocence, will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured. It will lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction; convert ignorance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity itself agreeable.--Addison.

CHEERFULNESS PROMOTES HEALTH.-I live in a constant endeavor to fence against the infirmities of ill-health, and other evils of life, by mirth: being firmly persuaded that every time a man smiles-but much more when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life.-Sterne.

CHILDREN.-As the vexations men receive from their children hasten the approach of age and double the force of years, so the comforts they reap from them are balm to all other sorrows, and disappoint the injuries of time. Parents repeat their lives in their offspring; and their esteem for them is so great, that they feel their sufferings and taste their enjoyments as much as if they were their own.-Palmer's Aphorisms.

CHILDREN AND PARENTS." Let all children remember," says Dr. Dwight, "if ever they are weary of laboring for their parents, that Christ labored for his; if impatient of their commands, that Christ cheerfully obeyed; if reluctant to provide for their parents, that Christ forgot himself and provided for his mother amid the agonies of the crucifixion. The affectionate language of this divine example to every child is, 'Go thou and do likewise.'"

CHIVALRY.-The age of chivalry is gone, and one of calculators and economists has succeeded.-Burke.

CHRISTIANITY.-If ever Christianity appears in its power, it is when it erects its trophies upon the tomb; when it takes up its votaries where the world leaves them; and fills the breast with immortal hope in dying moments.-R. Hall.

CHRISTIAN, THE REAL ONE.-No man is so happy as a real

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