S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Probation
Considered as a state of probation, our present condition loses all its inherent meanness; it derives a moral grandeur even from the shortness of its duration, when viewed as a contest for an immortal crown, in which the candidates are exhibited on a theatre, a spectacle to beings of the highest order, who, conscious of the tremendous importance of the issue, of the magnitude of the interest at stake, survey the combatants from on high with benevolent and trembling solicitude.
Robert Hall: Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte.