"There can be no abiding power until that day comes when we keep
our conduct abreast of our profession; there must be something back of
profession; that something is a consistent life. It is a beautiful thing to
hear one who is gifted in speech and in prayer in the prayer meeting, but I am
persuaded that there is a something far more beautiful, and this is, for one to
be able, from Monday morning to Saturday night, to live Christ. Here is a power
infidelity cannot assail nor unbelief deny. If you are traveling through an
orange country, you are sensible all the time of the fact that orange blossoms
are about you; the fragrance is wafted to you the last thing at night; the
first thing in the morning, and it even makes your sleep sweeter, and there is
a sweetness like that about the life that is truly `hid with Christ in
God.'" Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman.
"Infinite toil would not enable you to sweep away a mist, but by
ascending a little you may afterwards look it over altogether. So it is with
our moral improvements. We wrestle fiercely with a vicious habit which would
have no hold upon us if ascended into a higher moral atmosphere. It is by
adding to our purposes and nourishing the affections which are rightly placed,
that we shall be able to combat the bad one."
"Beautiful souls often get put into plain bodies; but they cannot
be hidden, and have a power all their own, the greater for the unconsciousness
of the humility which gives it grace." Louisa M. Alcott.
"...If mistakes were hay stacks, there would be no poor horses in
this world, except such as would not eat hay, or the hay was a poor
quality."
"Do not keep the alabaster boxes of your love sealed up until your
friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheerful
words while their hearts can be thrilled by them. The things you mean to say
when they are gone say before they go. The flowers you meant to send for their
coffins send to sweeten and brighten their homes before they leave them. If my
friends have alabaster boxes laid away full of perfumes of sympathy and
affections, which they intend to break over my body, I would rather they would
bring them out in my weary hours and open them that I may be refreshed and
cheered while I need them. I would rather have a bare coffin without a flower
and a funeral without a eulogy, than a life without the sweetness of love and
sympathy." Fla. Christian Advocate.
(1890 issue.)
"He is a wise man that can avoid evil; he is a patient man that can
endure it; but he is a valiant man that can conquer it." Quarles.
"Be quiet and do your little duties. Do them for God, be they ever
such little things, and then they will become great results. For every godly
worker God has a worker together with him." Wm. Mountford.
"None of us can tell for what God is educating us. We fret and
murmur at the narrow round and daily task of ordinary life, not realizing that
it is only thus that we can be prepared for the high and holy office which
awaits us. We must descend before we can ascend. We must suffer if we would
reign. We must take the via crucis (way of the cross) submissively and
patiently if we would tread the via lucis (way of light). We must endure the
polishing if we would be shafts in the quiver of Emmanuel. God's will comes to
thee and me in daily circumstances; in little things equally as in great; meet
them bravely; be at your best always, though the occasion be one of the very
least; dignify the smallest summons by the greatness of your response."
B.F. Meyer.
"It is the lives like the stars, which simply pour down on us the
calm light of their bright and faithful being, up to which we look and out of
which we gather the deepest calm and courage. No man or woman of the humblest
sort can really be strong, gentle, pure and good without the world being better
for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of
that goodness." Phillips Brooks.
"We need to watch against a `grudging service'. The enemy is always
trying to get in the word `duty' instead of the word `delight,' he says a stern
`you must' instead of the loving `you may.' There is no slavery like the
slavery of love, but its chains are sweet. It knows nothing of sacrifice, no
matter what may be given up. It delights to do the will of the beloved
one." Smith.
"False religion is clamorous, impatient, nervous and selfish, but a
true faith gives strength, repose of spirit, and calm confidence, and impels to
unselfish concern for others."
"If we charged so much a head for sunsets, or if God sent round a
drum before the hawthorns came into flower, what a work we should make about
their beauty! But these things, like good companions, stupid people early cease
to observe." R.L. Stevenson.
"There is a grace of kind listening, as well as a grace of kind
speaking. Some men listen with an abstracted air, which shows that their
thoughts are elsewhere. Or they seem to listen, but by wide answers and
irrelevant questions show that they have been occupied with their own thoughts,
as being more interesting at least in their own estimation, than what you have
been saying. Some interrupt, and will not hear you to the end, and then forthwith
begin to talk to you about a similar experience which has befallen themselves,
taking your case only as an illustration of their own. Some, meaning to be
kind, listen with such a determined, lively, violent attention, that you are at
once made uncomfortable, and the charm of conversation is at an end. Many
persons, whose manners will stand the test of speaking, break down under the
trial of listening. But all these things should be brought under the sweet
influence of religion." Frederick Wm. Faber.
"A neglected Bible means a starved and strengthless spirit; a
comfortless heart; a barren life; and a grieved Holy Ghost. If the people, who
are now perpetually running about to meetings for crumbs of help and comfort,
would only stay at home and search their Bibles, there would be more happiness
in the church, and more blessing in the world. It is prosaic counsel; but it is
true." F.B. Meyer.
"Think of the result of existence in the man or woman who has lived
chiefly to gratify the physical appetites; think of its real emptiness, its
real repulsiveness, when old age comes, and the senses are dulled, and the
roses have faded, and the lamps at the banquet are smoking and expiring, and
desire fails, and all that remains is the fierce, insatiable, ugly craving for
delights which have fled forever more; think of the bitter, burning vacancy of
such an end, and you must see that pleasure is not a good haven to seek in the
voyage of life." Henry Van Dyke.
"It's good to have money, and the things that money can buy, but
it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the
things that money can't buy." Lorimer.
"Every church is divided into two classes that may be called trees
and posts. Plant a tree and it begins to grow. Stick out a post and it begins
to rot. The difference between the tree and the post is simply a matter of
life. The tree is alive, while the post is dead. The pastor enjoys the living
trees of his church, watching them grow and bear fruit, while he is often
perplexed to know what to do with posts that show no signs of life. It takes
much time and strength to paint and prop up and finally have carried off the
posts when they have fallen down." Dr. A.C. Dixon.
"The child is savior of the race. What we do for the child, for his
protection, for his education, for his training for the duties of mankind, for
securing the rights and prolonging the period of childhood, is a measure of
what we shall accomplish for the race that is to be."
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