"Since the generality of persons act from impulse, much more than from principle, men are neither so ..." — Augustus Hare

Nothing good bursts forth all at once. The lightning may dart out of a black cloud; but the day sends his bright heralds before him, to prepare the world for his coming.

Love, it has been said, flows downward. The love of parents for their children has always been far more powerful than that of children for their parents; and who among the sons of men ever loved God with a thousandth part of the love which God has manifested to us?

Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.

It is a proof of our natural bias to evil, that gain is slower and harder than loss in all things good; but in all things bad getting is quicker and easier than getting rid of.