Page:Collection of interesting anecdotes, religious, moral and entertaining, selected from several eminent authors.pdf/14

( 14 ) 92. PLATO, in his youth, had wrote ſeveral Tragedies. But he no ſooner heard SOCRATES lecture upon virtue, than he burnt them all, and devoted himſelf to the purſuit of wiſdom and morality. So, when the ſoul has been ſavingly taught of God, it's vanities fall off, and it's deſire is to be made wiſe and happy to ſalvation.

93. The duke of Alva having given ſome priſoners their lives, they afterwards petitioned him for ſome food. His anſwer was, that " he would grant them life, but no meat." And they were famiſhed to death.

94. Diſputing, captious, bigotted people, do but pump themſelves dry.

95. Zeuxis, a painter, painted ſome grapes in ſo natural a manner, that the birds flew to the picture, and pecked at the fruit. What are the pleaſures of ſin, but painted grapes, which, beheld through the deluſive medium of Satan's coloring, appear to be real, while, in fact, they are empty and von and waſte?

96. Good Mr. Rogers, the martyr, on the morning he was burnt, put on his clothes very careleſsly ; chearfully ſaying, that " it mattered little how they were put on, ſeeing they were ſo ſoon to be put off forever." Such ſhould be our attachment to all worldly things.

97. Thales, the Miletian, one of the ſeven ſages of Greece; while he reſided in Egypt, meaſured the exact height of the pyramids there, by the ſhadows they caſt. So, one way of attaining to the knowledge of doctrinal truths, is, by conſidering the conſequences of the oppoſite errors.

98. Anaxagoras, the Ionian, being aſked, to what end he was born, replied, " to contemplate the ſun, moon, and ſkies." Had he been a Chriſtian, he would have anſwered, " to glorify God, and to be glorified by him."