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alarmed at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.—Colton.

DEATH. I congratulate you and myself that life is fast passing away. What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! Without this radiant idea-this delightful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. Oh! the expectation of living here, and living thus always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair. But thanks to that fatal decree that dooms us to die; thanks to that gospel which opens the visions of an endless life; and thanks above all to that Saviour friend who has promised to conduct the faithful through the sacred trance of death, into scenes of Paradise and everlasting delight.John Foster.

DEATH.-Death is not, to the Christian, what it has often been called, "Paying the debt of nature." No, it is not paying a debt; it is rather like bringing a note to a bank, to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In this case you bring a cumbrous body which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long; you lay it down, and receive for it, from the eternal treasures, liberty, victory, knowledge, and rapture.-John Foster.

DEATH, ITS CONTEMPLATION.-A wise and due consideration of our latter end, is neither to render us sad, melancholy, disconsolate, or unfit for the business and offices of life; but to make us more watchful, vigilant, industrious, sober, cheerful, and thankful to that God who hath been pleased thus to make us serviceable to him, comfortable to ourselves, and profitable to others; and after all this, to take away the bitterness and sting of death, through Jesus Christ our Lord.-Sir M. Hale.

DEATH, ITS EFFECT.-Death opens the gate of fame, and

shuts the gate of envy after it; it unlooses the chain of the captive, and puts the bondsman's task into another man's hands. Sterne.

DEATH OF OLD AND YOUNG.-One of the fathers saith, "There is but this difference between the death of old men and young men; that old men go to death, and death comes to young men."

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DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN.-Those born once only, die twice they die a temporal, and they die an eternal death. But those who are born twice, die only once; for over them the second death hath no power.—Jay.

DEATH, PREPARATION FOR.-To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our own post at a siege; to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack.-Johnson.

DEATH TEACHES TO LIVE.- -If I were a writer of books, I would compile a register, with the comment of the various deaths of men, and it could not but be useful; for who should teach men to die, would at the same time teach them to live. -Montaigne.

DEATH, THE BED OF.-A death-bed is a wonderful reasoner. Many a proud infidel hath it humbled and refuted without a word, who, but a short time before, would have defied all the ability of man to shake the foundation of his system. Would to God that awful moment was as often distinguished by the dew of repentance, as by the groan of despair.

DEATH TO THE GOOD.-Death to a good man, is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his father's house, into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining.-Clarke.

DEATH, TO WHOM NOT TERRIBLE.-It is no small reproach

to a Christian, whose faith is in immortality and the blessedness of another life, much to fear death which is the necessary passage thereto.—Sir H. Vane.

DEATH, WHEN NEAR.-A good man, when dying, once said, Formerly death appeared to me like a wide river, but now it has dwindled to a little rill; and my comforts which were as the rill, have become the broad and deep river.

DEBT.-Run not into debt, either for wares sold, or money borrowed; be content to want things that are not of absolute necessity, rather than to run up the score such a man pays at the latter end a third part more than the principal comes to, and is in perpetual servitude to his creditors; lives uncomfortably; is necessitated to increase his debts, to stop his creditors' mouths: and many times falls into desperate courses.-Sir M. Hale.

DEBT-I have discovered the philosopher's stone that turns everything into gold: it is "Pay as you go."—John Randolph.

DECEPTION.-There are three persons you should never deceive your physician, your confessor, and your lawyer.Walpole.

DEFECTS OF CHARACTER.-Certain trifling flaws sit as disgracefully on a character of elegance, as a ragged button on a court dress.-Lavater.

DEFERENCE.-Deference is the most delicate, the most indirect, and the most elegant of all compliments.-Shen

stone.

DEFERENCE.-Deference often shrinks and withers as much upon the approach of intimacy, as the sensitive plant does upon the touch of one's finger.-Shenstone.

DEFERENCE, WHAT IT IS.-Deference is the instinctive re

spect which we pay to the great or good-the unconscious acknowledgment of the superiority or excellence of others.

DEFICIENCIES.-We should daily feel our deficiencies more and more till we lose them.

DEFINITION.-All arts acknowledge, that then only we know certainly, when we can define; for definition is that which refines the pure essence of things from the circumstance.-Milton.

DELUSION.-Mankind in the gross is a gaping monster, that loves to be deceived, and has seldom been disappointed; nor is their vanity less fallacious to our philosophers, who adopt modes of truth to follow them through the paths of error, and defend paradoxes merely to be singular in defending them.-Mackenzie.

DEPENDENCE.-There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.Seneca.

DEPRAVITY.-Men sometimes affect to deny the depravity of our race; but it is as clearly taught in the lawyer's office, and in the court of justice, as in the Bible itself.-Edwards.

DEPRAVITY CORRECTS NOT ITS OWN ABUSES.- -Controlled depravity is not innocence; and it is not the labor of delinquency in chains that will correct abuses. Never did a serious plan of amending any old tyrannical establishment, propose the authors and abettors of the abuses as the reformers of them.-Burke.

DESIGN, MANIFEST IN CREATION.-Philosophers say, that man is a microcosm, or a little world resembling in miniature every part of the great; and, in my opinion, the body natural may be compared to the body politic; and if this be so,

how can the epicurean's opinion be true, that the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms; which I will no more believe, than that the accidental jumbling of the letters of the alphabet could fall by chance into a most ingenious and learned treatise of philosophy.-Swift.

Desirable, whaT THINGS ARE NOT.-Those things that are not practicable are not desirable. There is nothing in the world really beneficial, that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-directed pursuit. There is nothing that God has judged good for us, that he has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.—Burke.

DESIRE. Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion; and he whose real wants are supplied, must admit those of fancy.-Johnson.

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DESIRE AND APPETITE. -Where necessity ends, desire and curiosity begin; and no sooner are we supplied with everything nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.-Johnson.

DESIRES.-We all take too much after the wife of Zebedee; every one would have something, such perhaps as we are ashamed to utter. The proud man would have a certain thing, honor; the covetous man would have a certain thing too, wealth and abundance; the malicious would have a certain thing, revenge on his enemies; the epicure would have pleasure and long life; the barren, children; the wanton, beauty; each would be humored in his own desire, though in opposition both to God's will, and his own good.-Bishop Hall.

DESIRES AND WANTS.-The stoical scheme of supplying our

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