If there are sufferings which, however dreadful in their endurance, are yet susceptible of amelioration, the sorrow which a parent’s loss awakens is not among the number; other ties may be replaced, other affections may be restored, but when death breaks the bond of filial love, nature, honouring the most sacred of her feelings, forbids a sentiment less pure, less strong, succeeding to it; and though the tear which sorrow sheds upon the parent’s grave may be dried by time, the loss which bids that tear to flow can never be replaced by human tenderness or human power. ❦ [Sidenote: Fruit.] Physicians, says Petrarch, regard fruit as almost equally poisonous with aconite and henbane; if this be true, surely Nature is a cruel step-mother to have given to fruits such beauty of colouring, such a delightful perfume, and so agreeable a taste, purposely to seduce and draw us into the snare. Would a good mother present poison to her children, covered with honey? ❦ On parle peu quand la vanité ne fait pas parler. ❦ [Sidenote: Anecdote of Frederick the Great.] Frederick the Great, on the death of one of his chaplains, being desirous of replacing him by a man of talent, took the following mode of ascertaining the qualifications of the candidate for the nomination. He told the applicant that he would himself furnish him with a text the following Sunday, from which he was to preach extempore. The clergyman accepted the offer. The whim of such a probationary sermon was spread abroad widely, and at an early hour the Royal chapel was crowded to excess. The King arrived at the close of the prayers, and, on the clergyman’s ascending the pulpit, one of His Majesty’s Aides-de-Camp presented him with a sealed letter. The preacher opened it, and found nothing but a blank paper, yet in so critical a moment he did not lose his presence of mind. “My brethren,” said he, turning the paper on both sides, “here is nothing, and there is nothing; out of nothing God created all things.” And he proceeded to deliver a most admirable discourse on the wonders of the creation. ❦ On ne se blâme que pour être loué. ❦ It is a poor wit that jests at poverty. ❦ [Sidenote: Equity.] Turn, turn thy hasty foot aside, Nor crush that helpless worm; The frame thy scornful looks deride Required a God to form. The common Lord of all that move, From whom thy being flowed, A portion of his boundless love On that poor worm bestowed. The sun, the moon, the stars he made To all his creatures free; And spreads o’er earth the glassy blade For worms as well as thee. The crown to awe, the rod to smite, Is man’s by law divine: But sacred be each humble right That clashes not with thine. Let savage prowlers of the wood, With thirst or hunger bold, Let poisonous foes by land or flood, Let plunderers of the fold,