The maid who modestly conceals
  Her beauties, while she hides, reveals: 
  Gives but a glimpse, and fancy draws
  Whate’er the Grecian Venus was.
The Spider and the Bee.  E. MOORE.

  Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good;
  A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly;
  A flower that dies when first it ’gins to bud;
  A brittle glass that ’s broken presently;
      A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower,
      Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour.
The Passionate Pilgrim.  SHAKESPEARE.

BELL.

  Tuned be its metal mouth alone
  To things eternal and sublime. 
  And as the swift-winged hours speed on
  May it record the flight of time!
Song of the Bell.  F. SCHILLER.
Trans.  E.A.  BOWRING.

The bells themselves are the best of preachers,
Their brazen lips are learned teachers,
From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air,
Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw,
Shriller than trumpets under the Law,
Now a sermon and now a prayer.
Christus:  The Golden Legend, Pt.  III.  H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

                     And the Sabbath bell,
  That over wood and wild and mountain dell
  Wanders so far, chasing all thoughts unholy
  With sounds most musical, most melancholy.
Human Life.  S. ROGERS.

Sweet Sunday bells! your measured sound
Enhances the repose profound
Of all these golden fields around,
And range of mountain, sunshine-drowned.
Sunday Bells.  W. ALLINGHAM.

Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh. Hamlet, Act iii. Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

  Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and
  Clashing, clanging to the pavement
  Hurl them from their windy tower!
Christus:  The Golden Legend.  Prologue.  H.W.  LONGFELLOW.

  Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news
  Hath but a losing office, and his tongue
  Sounds ever after as a sullen bell,
  Remembered tolling a departing friend.
K.  Henry IV., Pt.  II.  Act i. Sc. 1.  SHAKESPEARE.

BIBLE.

  My Book and Heart
  Must never part.
New England Primer.

  Within that awful volume lies
  The mystery of mysteries!

* * * * *

  And better had they ne’er been born,
  Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
The Monastery.  SIR W. SCOTT.

  God, in the gospel of his Son,
  Makes his eternal counsels known;
  ’Tis here his richest mercy shines,
  And truth is drawn in fairest lines.
The Glory of the Scriptures.  B. BEDDOME.

  Holy Bible, book divine,
  Precious treasure, thou art mine;
  Mine to tell me whence I came,
  Mine to teach me what I am.

  Mine to chide me when I rove,
  Mine to show a Saviour’s love;
  Mine art thou to guide my feet,
  Mine to judge, condemn, acquit.
Holy Bible, Book Divine.  J. BURTON.