Good reasons must, of force, give place to better. Julius Caesar, Act iv.  Sc. 3.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Whatever sceptic could inquire for,
  For every why he had a wherefore.
Hudibras, Pt.  I.  S. BUTLER.

I was promised on a time
To have reason for my rhyme;
From that time unto this season,
I received nor rhyme nor reason.
Lines on his Promised Pension.  E. SPENSER.

REGRET.

For who, alas! has lived,
Nor in the watches of the night recalled
Words he has wished unsaid and deeds undone?
Reflections.  S. ROGERS.

Thou wilt lament
Hereafter, when the evil shall be done
And shall admit no cure.
Iliad, Bk.  IX.  HOMER. Trans. of BRYANT.

The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets.
Lucile, Pt. 1.  Canto II.  LORD LYTTON (Owen Meredith).

  O lost days of delight, that are wasted in doubting and waiting! 
  O lost hours and days in which we might have been happy!
Tales of a Wayside Inn:  The Theologian’s Tale.  H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

  Calmly he looked on either Life, and here
  Saw nothing to regret, or there to fear: 
  From Nature’s temp’rate feast rose satisfied. 
  Thanked Heaven that he had lived, and that he died.
Epitaph X.  A. POPE.

RELIGION.

God is not dumb, that he should speak no more;
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And find’st not Sinai, ’t is thy soul is poor.
Bibliotres.  J.R.  LOWELL.

Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired.
Expostulation.  W. COWPER.

                       In religion,
  What damned error, but some sober brow
  Will bless it and approve it with a text.
Merchant of Venice, Act iii.  Sc. 2.  SHAKESPEARE.

I think while zealots fast and frown,
And fight for two or seven,
That there are fifty roads to town,
And rather more to Heaven.
Chant of Brazen Head.  W.M.  PRAED.

  Religion stands on tiptoe in our land,
  Ready to pass to the American strand.
The Church Militant.  G. HERBERT.

A Christian is the highest type of man. Night Thoughts, Night IV.  DR. E. YOUNG.

  Remote from man, with God he passed the days,
  Prayer all his business, all his pleasure praise.
The Hermit.  T. PARNELL.

  Religion’s all.  Descending from the skies
  To wretched man, the goddess in her left
  Holds out this world, and, in her right, the next.
Night Thoughts, Night IV.  DR. E. YOUNG.