Life thoughts, gathered from the extemporaneous discourses of Henry Ward Beecher. By one of his congregation.

114 LIFE THOUGHTS.
It is not wrong that men who have intellectual
powers and tastes like ours should become agreeable to' us; but that those who have them not
should become to us disagreeable is wrong. Every
man should use his intellect, not as those who study
in their libraries, when all the world is asleep, use
their lamps, for their own seeing only; but as lighthouses use their lanterns, that those who are far off
upon the deep may see the shining, and learn their
way. God appoints our graces to be nurses to other
men's weaknesses.
A RELIGIOUS life is not a thing which spends itself
like a bright bubble on the river's surface. It is
rather like the river itself, which widens continually, and is never so broad or so deep as at its
mouth, where it rolls into the ocean of eternity.
MEN are afraid of slight outward acts which will
injure them in the eyes of others, while they are
heedless of the damnation which throbs in their
souls in hatreds, and jealousies, and revenges.
They are more troubled by the outburst of a
sinful disposition, than by the disposition itself.
It is not the evil, but its reflex effect upon themselves, that they dread. It is the love of approba