Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs.

  • Timbs, John, 1801-1875.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Things to be remembered in daily life : with personal experiences and recollections / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    Holy Scriptures, where I pluck up the gocllisome herbs of sentences by pruning, eat them by reading, digest them by musing, and lay them up at length in the high seat of memory by gathering them together; that so, having tasted their sweetness, I may the less perceive the bitterness of Hfe. Her piety and great good sense were undeniable. The Chancellor of France, D'Aguesseau, finding that his wife always kept him waiting a quarter of an hour after the dinner-bell had rung, resolved to devote the time to writing a book on jurisprudence; and putting the subject in exe- cution, in course of time produced a work in four quarto volumes. His literary tastes greatly distinguished him from the mass of mere lawyers. He whose mind the world wholly, occupies imagines that no time can be spared for divine duties. But many cir- cumstances in the lives of good men inform him that he is mistaken. The wise statesman, the sound lawyer, the emi- nent merchant, the skilful physician, the most profound mathematician, astronomer, or general student, will rise up in judgment against the man who endeavours to excuse the observance of his religious duties under the plea of learned or professional employment. Addison, Hale, Thornton, Boerhaave, Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Locke, and many others, prove that while the most important of worldly studies and occupations employed their outward attention, Ood rested at their hearts. The Ethiopian treasurer read Isaiah in his chariot, and Isaac meditated in the fields. The friends of the good Hooker, when they went to visit him at his par- sonage, found him with a book in his hand, tending his o\\Ti sheep. In short, the true Christian will neither want place nor opportunity for devotion, nor for the cultivation of those useful and general talents which may contribute to the benefit or happiness of man. Lord Woodhouselee, in his Life of Lord Karnes, has well remarked, that the professional occupations of the best-em- ployed la^vyer or the most distinguished judge cannot fill up every interval of his time. The useful respite of vaca- tion, the hours of sickness, the surcease of employment from the infirmities of age,—all necessarily induce seasons of languor, against which a wise man would do well to pro- vide a store in reserve, and an antidote and cordial to cheer