"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."
