MINISTER. MINISTERS. Him would he sharply check with alter'd for a boy's army, one who had no misgivings and gave no uncertain word of command, and, let who would yield or make truce, would fight the fight out (so every boy felt) to the last gasp and the last drop of blood. Other sides of his character might take hold of and influence boys here and there, but it was this thoroughness and undaunted courage which more than anything else won his way to the hearts of the great mass of those on whom he left his mark, and made them believe first Hughes. in him, and then in his Master. MINISTER-Life of a. The life of a pious minister is visible rhetoric. A young raw preacher is a bird not yet fledged, that hath hopped out of his nest to be chirping on a hedge, and will be straggling abroad at what peril soever. The pace of his sermon is a full career, and he runs wildly over hill and dale, till the clock stop him. The labour of it is chiefly in his lungs; and the only thing he has made in it himself is the faces. His action is all passion, and his speech interjections. He has an excellent faculty in bemoaning the people, and spits with a very good grace. His style is compounded of twenty several men's, only his body imitates some one extraordinary. He will not draw his handker chief out of his place, nor blow his nose without discretion. His commendation is, that he never looks upon book; and indeed he was never used to it. He preaches but once a-year, though twice on Sunday; for the stuff is stil the same, only the dressing a little altered; be has more tricks with a sermon, than a tailor with an old cloak, to turn it, and piece it, and at last quite disguise it with a new preface. If he have waded further in his profession, and would show reading of his own, his authors are postils, and his school-divinity a catechism. Bishop Earle. MINISTERS-Duties of. We listened, as all boys in their better moods will listen (ay, and men too, for the matter of that), to a man who we felt to be, with all his heart and soul and strength, striving against whatever was mean and unmanly and unrighteous in our little world. It was not the cold clear voice of one giving advice and warning from serene heights to those who were struggling and sinning below, but the warm living voice of one who was fighting for us, and by our sides, and calling on us to help him and ourselves and one another. And so, wearily, little by little, but surely and steadily on the whole, was brought home to the young boy, for the first time, the meaning of his life: that it was no fool's or sluggard's paradise into which he had wandered by chance, but a battle-field ordained from of old where there are no spectators, but the youngest must take his side, and the stakes are the life and death. And he who roused this consciousness in them, showed them at the same time, by every word he spoke in the pulpit, and by his whole daily life, how that battle was to be fought; and stood there MINISTERS-Earnestness of. before them their fellow-soldier and the captain of their band. The true sort of captain too, Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock. St. Peter. Love and meekness Become a churchman better than ambition; Win straying souls with modesty again, Cast none away. Shakspeare. Surely that preaching which comes from the soul most works on the soul. Fuller That a man stand and speak of spiritual things to men. It is beautiful;-even in its great obscuration and decadence, it is among the beautifullest, most touching objects one sees on the earth. This Speaking Man has indeed, in these times, wandered terribly from the point; has, alas, as it were, totally lost sight of the point: yet, at bottom, whom have we to compare with him? Of all public functionaries boarded and lodged on the Industry of Modern Europe, is there one worthier of the board he has? A man even professing, and never so languidly making still some endeavour, to save the souls of men: contrast him with a man professing to do little but shoot the partridges of men! I wish he could find the point again, this Speaking One; and stick to it with tenacity, with deadly energy; for there is need of him yet! The Speaking Function-this of Truth coming to us with a living voice, nay in a living shape, and as a concrete practical exemplar: this, with all our In the mind of the politician, the mechanist, the man of science, the man of trade, or any of the numerous classes which spend their intellectual energies on the things of time and sense, the expected result of their operations must occupy the first place, since it furnishes the only efficient motive for their exertions. But the defender of religious truth acts in obedience to the principle of duty, and leaves the result with God. The men who are, by office, the especial standard-bearers in the army of Christ, are bound to " contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints," whether their efforts are likely to be accounted the greatest or the least in the annals of human achievement. Bishop Hopkins. MINISTERS-Responsibilities of. Is not the care of souls a load sufficient? MINISTERS-universally Venerated. The priesthood hath in all nations, and all religions, been held highly venerable. Atterbury. MINISTERS-Christian Virtues of. Awful Heaven! Great ruler of the various hearts of man! Since Thou hast raised me to conduct thy church Without the base cabal too often practised, Beyond my wish, my thought, give me the lights, The virtues, which that sacred trust requires: MINSTREL-An Aged. The way was long, the wind was cold, Sir Walter Scott. MIRACLE-Definition of a. A miracle I take to be a sensible operation, which, being above the comprehension of the spectator, and in his opinion contrary to the established course of nature, is taken by him Locke. to be divine. MIRACLES-Jesus the Worker of. We know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles which thou doest, except God be with him. St. Matthew. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and MIRTH. signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. St. Peter. MIRTH-Characteristics of. Our mirth should be the quintessence of pleasure, And our delight flow with that harmony, From the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth; he hath twice or thrice cut Cupid's bowstring, and the little hangman dare not shoot at him: he hath a heart as sound as a bell, and his tongue is the clapper; for what his heart thinks, his tongue speaks. Shakspeare. MIRTH-Concomitants of. Jest and youthful jollity, Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles, Fun gives you a forcible hug, and shakes | laughter out of you, whether you will or no. Garrick MIRTH-Proper Kind of. I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning; or men, that cannot well bear it, to repent in the money they spend when they be warmed with drink and take this for a rule, you may pick out such times and such companies, that you may make yourself merrier for a little than a great deal of money; for ""Tis the company and not the charge that makes the feast." Izaak Walton. MIRTH-Reasons for. The sun is careering in glory and might, The butterfly flits round the blossoming tree, MIRTH AND INNOCENCE. O mirth and innocence! O milk and water! His thirst with such pure beverage. No matter; MIRTHFULNESS-Pleasures of. When many a merry tale and many a song Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long : The rough road then, returning in a round, Mock'd our enchanted steps, for all was fairy ground. MISANTHROPE-The. Johnson. There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of doing them to others. Sir W. Temple. I am misanthropos, and hate mankind. MISANTHROPE-Desires of the. MISER MISFORTUNE. But, canker-like, eats through the poor men's Is made worth heaven !-thou art virtue, fame, MISER-Character of the. May. Through every stage and revolution of life, the miser remains invariably the same; or if any difference, it is only this, that as he advances into the shade of a long evening, he clings closer and closer to the object of his idolatry; and while every other passion lies dead and blasted in his heart, his desire for more pelf increases with renewed eagerness, and he holds by a sinking world with an agonizing grasp, till he drops into the earth with the increased curses of wretchedness on his head, without the tribute of a tear from child or parent, or any inscription on his memory but that he lived to counteract the distributive justice of Providence, and died without hope or title to a blessed immortality. Dean Kirwan. MISER-Deception of the. The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled All still of joy in children, parents, friends, Such are thy beauties and our love's dear saint. Riches the dumb god, that givest all men tongues; That canst do nought, yet makest men do all things: The price of souls! Even hell, with thee to boot, MISERY-Causes of. Johnson. Misery assails riches, as lightning does the highest towers; or as a tree that is heavy laden with fruit breaks its own boughs, so do riches destroy the virtue of their possessor. Burton. MISERY AND HAPPINESS - How I made up. The misery of human life is made up of large masses, each separated from the other by certain intervals. One year the death of a child; years after, a failure in trade; after another longer or shorter interval, a daughter! may have married unhappily;-in all but the singularly unfortunate, the integral parts that compose the sum total of the unhappiness of a man's life are easily counted and distinctly remembered. The happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions; the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling. Coleridge |