Page:Collection of interesting anecdotes, religious, moral and entertaining, selected from several eminent authors.pdf/2

 ANECDOTES,

RELIGIOUS,

MORAL AND ENTERTAINING.

I. GROTIUS uſed to take for 'his motto, " Hora ruit," te put himſelf in continual remembrance, that he ſhould uſefully employ that time which was flying away with extreme rapidity; and yet, ſo great a ſenſe had he of the non-improvement of it, that with all his learning, when he came to die, he exclaimed, " I have waſted my life in inceſſant toil, and have done nothing."

2. Dr. Cotton Mather was ſo careful to redeem his time, that, to prevent the tediouſneſs of viſits, he wrote over his ſtudy door in capital letters - BE SHORT.

3. It was a common ſaying of Julius Cæſar, " that no muſic was ſo charming in his ears as the requeſts of his friends, and the ſupplication of thoſe in want of his aſſiſtance." Let Chriſtians learn to imitate this Pagan.

4. The aggregate population on the ſurface of the known habitable globe is eſtimated at 895,300,000 ſouls. If we reckon with the Ancients, that a generation laſts thirty years, then in that ſpace 895,300,000 human beings will be born and die; conſequently 81,760 muſt be dropping into eternity every day, 3,407, every hour, or about 56 every minute.