The Varieties of Human Greatness: A Discourse on the Life and Character of the Hon. Nathaniel Bowditch ... Delivered in the Church on Church Green, March 25, 1838

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C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1838 - 119 pages
 

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Page 96 - On parent knees, a naked new-born child Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled ; So live, that sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile, while all around thee weep.
Page 81 - GAY, guiltless pair, What seek ye from the fields of heaven ? Ye have no need of prayer, Ye have no sins to be forgiven. Why perch ye here, Where mortals to their Maker bend ? Can your pure spirits fear The God ye never could offend ? Ye never knew The crimes for which we come to weep.
Page 70 - This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is a liberty to that only which is good, just and honest.
Page 75 - So that if the invention of the ship was thought so noble, which carrieth riches and commodities from place to place, and consociateth the most remote regions in participation of their fruits, how much more are letters to be magnified, which as ships pass through the vast seas of time, and make ages so distant to participate of the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, the one of the other?
Page 17 - I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing ; for it makes life a discipline of goodness — creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish ; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights ; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity : makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise ; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful...
Page 13 - Thousands of human generations, all as noisy as our own, have been swallowed up of Time, and there remains no wreck of them any more ; and Arcturus and Orion and Sirius and the Pleiades are still shining in their courses, clear and young, as when the Shepherd first noted them in the plain of Shinar.
Page 95 - Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit. who in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.
Page 103 - YE golden lamps of heaven, farewell, With all your feeble light ; Farewell, thou ever-changing moon, Pale empress of the night. 2 And thou, refulgent orb of day, In brighter flames arrayed, My soul, that springs beyond thy sphere, No more demands thine aid.
Page 79 - The pleasantry, perhaps, of no man of wit had so unlaboured an appearance. It seemed rather to escape from his mind than to be produced by it...
Page 96 - Why weep ye then for him, who, having won The bound of man's appointed years, at last, Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done, Serenely to his final rest has passed; While the soft memory of his virtues, yet, Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set...

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