"Mr," "Messrs," "Dr"--abbreviations which retain the last letter of the whole word--are written without a point.
V. The comma indicates a short pause in a sentence. It is used when we wish to separate words that stand together, and at the same time to stop as little as possible the flow of the sentence.
When the earl reached his own province, he found that preparations had been made to repel him.
Though it is difficult, or almost impossible, to reclaim a savage, bred from his youth to war and the chase, to the restraints and the duties of civilized life, nothing is more easy or common than to find men who have been educated in all the habits and comforts of improved society, willing to exchange them for the wild labours of the hunter and the fisher.
VI. Where there is no danger of obscurity, the subject must not be separated from the predicate by any point.
The eminence of your station gave you a commanding prospect of your duty.
VII. When the subject is long, a comma may be placed after it.
To say that he endured without a murmur the misfortune that now came upon him, is to say only what his previous life would have led us to expect.
In every sentence the subject, whether expressed in one word or in several words, must be grasped as a whole; and, when the subject is long, one is often assisted in doing this by having a point to mark its termination. The eye at once observes the separating line. Note the corresponding pause in the reading of such sentences.
VIII. When the subject consists of several parts, _e.g._, of several nouns, a comma is placed after the last part.
A few daring jests, a brawl, and a fatal stab, make up the life of Marlowe.
Time, money, and friends, were needed to carry on the work.
This rule will appear reasonable if we consider an apparent exception to it. When the last noun sums up all the others, or marks the highest point of a climax, no comma is placed after it.
If "religion" be regarded as marking the highest point of a climax, the predicate is read with "religion," and with it alone. When so great a thing as religion is said to be at stake, everything else is dropped out of sight, or is held to be included. But write the three names as if they were of equal importance; the comma should then be inserted: