Negotiate for yourself, and trust no agent, where practicable, if you would avoid difficulty.

Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.

Prevention is better than cure.

Prepare for sickness in health, for old age in youth, and above all, for eternity, in time.

Buckingham. The world is made up, for the most part, of fools, or knaves. Ed. Then honest men ought to be constantly on their guard against the contamination of fools, and the trickery of knaves.

Ed. Look out for your debtor, if his promises either abound, or are wanting. He means to bite.

Ib. If you once fairly discover the cloven foot upon a person, make a memorandum with indelible ink.

103. CENSORIOUSNESS, DENUNCIATION. Swift. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Addison. It is a folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defence against reproach, but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

Who begins with severity in judging of another, commonly ends with falsehood.

He that cannot see well, should avoid censure, denunciation, and confident assertions.

Secker. Censorious persons take magnifying glasses, to look at others' imperfections, and diminishing glasses, to look at their own.

Those the most given to censure are commonly the most deserving it.

Charity, like the sun, brightens every object on which it shines: a censorious disposition casts every character into the darkest shade it will bear.

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CEREMONY, CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE.

Demosthenes. The best way to stop censure is to correct

self.

Ed. Censure seldom seeks or endures the presence of its object.

that

Ib. It is not enough to justify us in censuring and denouncing others, that we have evidence of their faults, which amounts to probability. The evidence should be conclusive and irresistible. We should also have a clear conviction, from mature reflection, that the reproachful truths ought to be utteredtheir proclamation is adapted to accomplish some definite and important end, before we proclaim them from the house-tops. We must also first cast out the beam out of our own eye, or censure, like the spirits cast out by Sceva's sons, will turn and rend us. When a brother trespasses against us, we are bound first to tell him his fault in private, and faithfully to seek his acknowledgment and reformation. If this fails, the publication of his fault should be no wider than the public good requires. [See 808.]

104. CEREMONY, CEREMONIES.

Ceremonies are the smoke of friendship.

Ed. Ceremony is indispensable in those who have nothing better to recommend them.

105. CERTAIN KNOWLEDGE.

Its

Spring. Men who love the Bible, know that it is true. truths accord with their own experience. They perceive their excellence and beauty. They have felt them; they have handled them; they have tasted and enjoyed them; and those wants of the soul which have so long been mocked, deluded, and unrelieved, have found in them that satisfaction and peace which have elsewhere been sought in vain. The Scriptures fix the certainty of religious truth. Few principles are of higher importance than that truth, so far as it is attained, can be known with certainty. Where can be imagined a more dreadful state of mind than one of uncertainty as to the most important and vital moral subjects? Is there such a being as God? Is there a future state of immortal existence? Is there pardon for the guilty? At what rate shall we estimate the

CERTAINTY

CHANGES AND REVOLUTIONS.

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misery of the mind that ponders upon these momentous questions with doubt and uncertainty?

Ed. Some of our knowledge is intuitive, the gift of our Creator, and the original and main ground of certain knowledge. A person had better doubt his doubts, or even his faculty of doubting, than to doubt his intuitive knowledge. [See 953.]

106. CERTAINTY, OR MORAL NECESSITY.

Ed. A world of complaint and unbelief has been manifested in all ages, in reference to the idea of a moral necessity, or absolute certainty of our so acting, as to fulfil the eternal, universal, and infinitely wise and benevolent purposes of Heaven. But there is no avoiding the complete and overwhelming evidence of this fact. Let any one try to stop the current of his thoughts, volitions, sensations, and feelings, and thus wind up and stop his moral agency for one hour, and he will find more than a match for his feeble powers, which will convince him, if he is convincible, that he exists and acts by a cause from without, which involves the idea of moral necessity.

107. CHANCE, HAP-HAZARD, ETC.

He seldom lives frugally, who lives by chance.

Ed. Of all hap-hazard adventures, matrimonial ones are the most unwise for this life - trusting in dreams, visions, and spiritual knockings, for the life to come. [See 377.]

108. CHANGES AND REVOLUTIONS.

We often speak of being settled in life; we might as well think of casting anchor in the midst of the ocean, or talk of the permanent situation of a stone that is rolling down hill.

The greatest changes in the face of nature, and in the condition of mankind, often take place the most imperceptibly and quietly.

Young. A new world rises, and new manners reign.

16.

Each night we die,

Each morn are born anew: each day, a life!

How solid all, where change shall be no more.

Em. God subjects mankind to greater, more numerous and more surprising changes, than he does any other of his intelli

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CHANGES DESIGNED FOR GOOD.

gent creatures. The rich become poor, and the poor become rich. The low are exalted, and the exalted abased. One day they are joyful, and another sorrowful. One day they lead, and another they are led. One day they are in health, and another they are in pain, sickness and distress. One day they are rejoicing with their friends around them, and another they are bereaved and drowned in tears. Such are the changes constantly passing over individuals; but still greater changes and revolutions are frequently passing over whole nations and kingdoms. So that this whole world is a constant scene of changes and revolutions in the state and circumstances of mankind.

Ib. All things are in motion. The material, animal, and moral world are perpetually changing. There has been a constant succession of rising and falling empires from Nimrod. The political world is still in convulsions. One nation is falling into the hands of another. Large kingdoms are crumbling to pieces. Societies, civil, religious, and literary, are subject to continual changes. Families are changing from generation to generation. Individuals are still more liable to perpetual changes of body and of mind. Men are perpetually changing circumstances, rank, characters, customs and manners, opinions and pursuits. The fashion of the world passeth away. [See 820.]

109. CHANGES DESIGNED FOR GOOD.

Em. Why has God caused so many changes and revolutions to pass over the world? One reason is to make the world know that he governs it. More than fifty times God gives this reason for great revolutions and changes: "that ye may know that I am the Lord." Another is, to display his perfections. Great changes display great power, wisdom, goodness, justice, and sovereignty. Another is, to draw forth the talent and abilities of men. Great changes make great men. When great things are to be done, great men are raised up to do them. A thousand distinguished characters would have lived and died in obscurity, had not the changes of the world called for their great exertions. Another is, to discover the corrup

tions of the human heart. Great changes are great trials, and these always tend to lay open the great depravity of human nature. God causes great changes, to restrain the corruptions, and refine the graces of men. It is the character of fallen man to be given to indolence and vice. They eat and sleep. China has never been torn by external revolutions, and the Chinese have made little progress. Great and frequent changes are necessary to rouse the attention, and draw forth the latent powers and abilities of men in the pursuit of knowledge, virtue, and happiness.

110. CHANGING PLANS, ETC.

Thompson, (0.) It will do to change for the better.

He who never changes any of his opinions, never corrects any of his errors.

Bible. Meddle not with them who are given to change. [See 345.]

111. CHARACTER.

It is by little and little that every man's character is formed. Ed. Character-what we love to see, better than to seek. Ib. Character is formed by a course of actions, and not actions by character. A person can have no character before he has had actions.

Most of our thoughts and actions may be minute, and unnoticed by ourselves and others, and yet their result is, character for eternity.

The noblest contribution for the benefit of posterity is a good character, formed by good conduct.

Every one is the former of his own character, which determines individual destiny.

Character is what a man truly is, and what his reputation soon will be.

112. CHARITY.

Charity loses its graces when heralded.

Charity" thinketh no evil;" envy, no good; malice, all harm. Charity begins at home: Ed. And spreads itself abroad; but covetousness begins with self, and ends with pelf.

Ed. The charity of the chief apostle, which "suffereth long,