Joyful is woe for a noble cause, and welcome all its miseries.

A just man hateth the evil, but not the evil-doer.

It is folly to believe that he can faithfully love, who does not love faithfulness.

Everything that is mine, even to my life, is hers I love, but the secret of my friend is not mine.

A man of true honor thinks himself greater in being subject to his own word, than in being lord of a principality. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.-Sir Philip Sidney.

No CROSS, NO CROWN.

The cross of Christ is a figurative speech borrowed from the outward tree or wooden cross on which Christ submitted to the will of God, in permitting him to suffer death at the hands of evil men. The cross mystical is that divine grace and power which crosses the carnal wills of men, gives a contradiction to their corrupt affections, and constantly opposeth itself to the inordinate and fleshly appetites of their minds; and so may be justly termed the instrument of man's holy dying to the world, and being made conformable to the will of God.

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Nor is a recluse life, the boasted righteousness of some, much more commendable, or one whit nearer the nature of the true cross; for if it be not unlawful as other things are, it is unnatural, which true religion teaches not. The Christian convent and monastery are within, where the soul is encloistered from sin. And this religious house the true followers of Christ carry about with them, who exempt not themselves from the conversation of the world, though they keep themselves from the evil of the world in their conversation.

That is a lazy, rusty, unprofitable self-denial, burdensome to others to feed their idleness; religious bedlams, where people are kept up, lest they should do mischief abroad; patience

per force; self-denial against their will, rather ignorant than virtuous; and out of the way of temptation, than constant in it.

No thanks if they commit not what they are not tempted to commit. What the eye views not, the heart craves not, as well as rues not. The cross of Christ is of another nature. It truly overcomes the world, and leads a life of purity in the face of its allurements. They that bear it are not thus chained up, for fear they should bite; nor locked up lest they should be stolen away. They receive power from Christ, their Captain, to resist the evil, and do that which is good in the sight of God; to despise the world, and love its reproach above its praise, and not to offend others, but even to love those who offend them, though not for offending them.

What a world we should have, if everybody, for fear of transgressing, should mew himself up within four walls! No such matter; the perfection of the Christian life extends to every honest labor or traffic used among men.

True godliness does not turn men out of the world, but enables them to live better in it; and excites their endeavors to mend it: "not to hide their candle under a bushel, but to set it upon a table, in a candlestick." Besides, it is a selfish invention; and that can never be the way of taking up the cross, which the true cross is taken up to subject. Again, this humor runs away by itself, and leaves the world behind to be lost. Christians should keep the helm, and guide the vessel to its port; not meanly steal out at the stern of the world, and leave those that are in it without a pilot, to be driven by the fury of evil times upon the rock or sand of ruin. This sort of life, if taken up by young people, is commonly to cover idleness, or to pay portions; to save the lazy from the pain of punishment, or quality from the disgrace of poverty; one will not work, and the other scorns it. If taken up by the aged, a long life of guilt sometimes flies to superstition for refuge; and, after having had its own will in other things, would finish it with a wilful religion to make God amends.

Taking up the cross of Jesus is a more interior exercise.

It is the circumspection and discipline of the soul, in conformity to the divine mind therein revealed. Does not the body follow the soul, and not the soul the body? Consider, that no outward cell can shut up the soul from lust, or the mind from The thoughts of

an infinity of unrighteous imaginations! man's heart are evil, and that continually. Evil comes from within, and not from without. How then can an external application remove an internal cause; or a restraint upon the body work a confinement of the mind? Less even than without doors; for where there is least of action, there is most time to think; and if those thoughts are not guided by a higher principle, convents are more mischievous to the world than exchanges. And yet retirement is both an excellent and needful thing: crowds and throngs were not much frequented by the ancient holy pilgrims

Examine, O man, thy foundation, what it is, and who placed thee there; lest in the end it should appear thou hast put an eternal cheat upon thy own soul. The inward steady righteousness of Jesus is another thing, than all the contrived devotion of poor superstitious man; and to stand approved in the sight of God, excels that bodily exercise in religion resulting from the invention of men. The soul that is awakened and preserved by his holy power and spirit, lives to him in the way of his own institution, and worships him in his own spirit, that is, in the holy sense, life, and leadings of it; which indeed is the evangelical worship. Not that I would be thought to slight a true retirement; for I do not only acknowledge, but admire solitude. Christ himself was an example of it: he loved, and chose to frequent, mountains, gardens, sea-sides. It is requisite to the growth of piety, and I reverence the virtue that seeks and uses it, wishing there were more of it in the world: but then it should be free, not constrained.- William Penn.

THE TESTIMONIES OF SEVERAL GREAT, LEARNED, AND VIRTUOUS PERSONAGES AMONG THE GENTILES AND CHRISTIANS, URGED IN FAVOR OF SELF-DENIAL, TEMPERANCE, AND PIETY.

PHILIP, king of Macedon, upon three sorts of good news arriving in one day, feared too much success might transport him immoderately; and therefore prayed for some disappointments, to season his prosperity, and caution his mind under the enjoyment of it. He refused to oppress the Greeks with his garrisons, saying, "I had rather retain them by kindness, than fear; and be always beloved, than to be for awhile terrible." One of his minions persuading him to decline hearing a cause, wherein a particular friend was interested; "I had much rather," says he, "thy friend should lose his cause, than I my reputation." Seeing his son Alexander endeavor to gain the hearts of the Macedonians by gifts and rewards, "Canst thou believe," says he, "that a man whom thou hast corrupted to thy interests will ever be true to them?" When his court would have had him quarrel with and correct the Peloponnesians for their ingratitude to him, he said, "By no means; for if they despise and abuse me, after being kind to them, what will they do if I do them harm?”

PHOCION, a famous Athenian, was honest and poor, yea, he contemned riches; for a certain governor making rich presents, he returned them, saying, "I refused Alexander's." And when several persuaded him to accept of such bounty, or else his children would want, he answered, "If my son be virtuous, I shall leave him enough; and if he be vicious, more would be too little." He rebuked the excess of the Athenians, and that openly, saying, "He that eateth more than he ought, maketh more diseases than he can cure." To condemn or flatter him, was to him alike. Demosthenes telling him, "Whenever the people were enraged, they would kill him;" he answered, "And thee also, when they are come to their wits." After all the great services of his life, he was unjustly condemned to die, and going to the place of his execution, lamented of the people,

one of his enemies spat in his face; he took it without any disorder of mind, only saying, "Take him away.”

HIPPARCHIA, a fair Macedonian virgin, noble of blood, as they term it, but more truly noble of mind, I cannot omit to mention; who entertained so earnest an affection for Crates, the cynical philosopher, as well for his severe life as excellent discourse, that by no means could her relations or suitors, by all their wealth, nobility, and beauty, dissuade her from being his companion. Upon this strange resolution, they all betook themselves to Crates, beseeching him to show himself a true philosopher, by persuading her to desist; which he strongly endeavored by many arguments; but not prevailing, went his way, and brought all the little furniture of his house and showed her. This, saith he, is thy husband; that, the furniture of thy house: consider on it, for thou canst not be mine, unless thou followest the same course of life; for being rich above twenty talents, which is more than fifty thousand pounds, he neglected all, to follow a retired life. All this had so contrary an effect, that she immediately went to him, before them all, and said, "I seek not the pomp and effeminacy of this world, but knowledge and virtue, Crates; and choose a life of temperance, before a life of delicacies: for true satisfaction, thou knowest, is in the mind; and that pleasure is only worth seeking, which lasts forever." Thus she became the constant companion both of his love and life, his friendship and virtues : traveling with hin from place to place, and performing the public exercises of instruction with Crates, wherever they came. She was a most violent enemy to all impiety, but especially to wanton men and women, and those whose garb and conversation showed them devoted to vain pleasures and pastimes: effeminacy rendering the like persons not only unprofitable, but pernicious to the whole world. Which she as well made good by the example of her exceeding industry, temperance, and severity, as those are wont to do by their intemperance and folly: for ruin of health, estates, virtue, and loss of eternal