. fli ttxe Wmkgirtil & PRINCETON, N. J. S/te/f. Division . Section . Number ., BURNING WORDS BRILLIANT WRITERS; CYCLOPEDIA OF QUOTATIONS FROM THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF ALL AGES. JOSIAH H. GILBERT, WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CHARLES S. ROBINSON, D. D, Troy, N. Y. : H. B. NIMS AND COMPANY, 1883. COPYRIGHTED BY D. R. NiVER. I88^ SLECTBOTYPBD BY WEED, PARSONS AND COMPUTITf ALBANY, N. Y. INTRODUCTION. THE genius of quotation is abroad. Public speakers, preachers, pleaders, and teachers are wont to enrich their addresses with the bright utterances of briUiant men. If this practice be managed deftly and honestly, there is good in it. The long pro- cesses of many years of study are often concentrated into a single paragraph, and often delivered in a figure of surpassing force. Even opinions possess helpfulness in such uses. "Great authorities are arguments," so Daniel Webster used to say. Attention is arrested, interest is awakened, persuasion is se- cured, by the mention of some well-known author's name, and the waiting audience grow eager for the sentence which is com- ing. Even if the purpose be no higher than mere ornamentation, the practice need not be despised. Beauty and utility are not necessarily and always to be divorced. We are told that Samuel Rogers, the opulent poet, owned one of the very few notes of the value of a hundred thousand pounds issued by the Bank of England. He had it framed and hung in his reception room. Beautifully finished, it was as effective for decoration on his wall as any other engraving of the same dimensions ; and then it was in itself a fortune. So a writer can light up his disquisition some- times with the issue of some masterful mind's wealth ; it adorns with its shining, it enriches with its worth. It is not to be understood that I have read all the selections included in this volume. I have but touched the pages here and there, and looked through the index. The work seems to have been done with wide research, with commendable exactness, and with good taste ; and I am more than willing to bid the book God-speed. CHARLES S. ROBINSON. New York, May i, 1883. Why are not more gems from our great authors scat- tered OVER the country ? Great books are not in every body's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet IT IS a good work to give a little to those who have not the time nor means to get more. — S. T. Coleridge. It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he must say all that he has to say in the fewest pos- sible WORDS, OR his reader IS SURE TO SKIP THEM ; AND IN the plainest possible words, or his reader will certainly misunderstand them. generally, also, a downright fact may be told in a plain way ; and we want downright facts at the present more than any thing else. — John Ruskin. PREFACE IN making this collection of brief and pointed selections " from the religious literature of all ages," it has been the aim of the compiler : I. To use only such extracts as clearly and forcibly express or apply some religious truth. II. To make the character of the book "evangelical." III. To avoid all denominational tendencies. Indeed it has been one object to show the essential unit}^ of the faith of the different sects composing the Christian church. IV. To present doctrine, not so much as a complete system of theology, as the frame-work — the sustaining principle of holy living. V. To give especial prominence to American authors. All the subjects are arranged alphabetically, with the excep- tion of the subdivisions of the topic "Christ," which are grouped in two classes in what seems to be the natural order: first, "The Historic Christ," on pages 54 to 'j'] inclusive ; and second, " The Living Christ," pages 78 to 102 inclusive. As all matter of the book is selected, quotation marks are not generally used, whether the author's name is given or omitted. J. H. G. Albany, May i, 1883. He that lays down precepts for governing our lives, AND moderating OUR PASSIONS, OBLIGES HUMANITY NOT ONLY in the present, but in all future generations. — Seneca. If YOU WOULD be pungent, be brief ; FOR IT IS WITH WORDS AS WITH SUNBEAMS— THE MORE THEY ARE CONDENSED, THE DEEPER THEY BURN. SOUTHEY. The PROVERB answers where THE SERMON FAILS. — W. G. SIMMS. BURNING WORDS OF BRILLIANT WRITERS, ABILITY. Ability involves responsibility. Power to its last particle is duty. — Alexander Maclaren. Man is not altogether an imbecile. True, " circumstances do make the man." But they make him only in the sense and degree that he permits them to make him. G. D. BOARDMAN. What we do upon a great occasion will probably depend upon what we already are ; what we are will be the result of previous years of self-discipline, under the grace of Christ or the absence of it. H. P. LiDDON. ACCOUNTABILITY. Moral conduct includes every thing in which men are active and for which they are accountable. They are active in their desires, their affections, their designs, their intentions, and in every thing they say and do of choice; and for all these things they are accountable to God. — Emmons. 2 ACTION. When illusions are over, when the distractions of sense, the vagaries of fancy, and the tumults of passion have dissolved even before the body is cold, which once they so thronged and agitated, the soul merges into intellect, intellect into conscience, conscience into the unbroken, awful solitude of its own per- sonal accountability; and though the inhabitants of the universe were within the spirit's ken, this personal accountability is as strictly alone and unshared, as if no being were throughout immensity but the spirit and its God. — Henry Giles. ACTION. The end of man is an action, and not a thought, though it were the noblest. — Thomas Carlyle. Existence was given us for action, rather than indolent and aimless contemplation ; our worth is determined by the good deeds we do, rather than by the fine emotions we feel. They greatly mistake, who suppose that God cares for no other pur- suit than devotion. — E. L. Magoon. Christian life is action : not a speculating, not a debating, but a doing. One thing, and only one, in this world has eternity stamped upon it. Feelings pass; resolves and thoughts pass; opinions change. What you have done lasts — lasts in you. Through ages, through eternity, Avhat you have done for Christ, that, and only that, you are. — F. W. Robertson. It is well to think well ; it is divine to act well. — Horace Mann. ACTION. 3 Man, being essentially active, must find in activity his joy, as well as his beauty and glory; and labor, like every thing else that is good, is its own reward. — Bishop Whipple. Tempests may shake our dwellings and dissipate our com- merce, but they scourge before them the lazy elements, which otherwise would stagnate into pestilence. Be thy best thoughts to work divine addressed ; Do something, — do it soon — with all thy might; An angel's wing would droop if long at rest. And God Himself inactive were no longer blessed. — Carlos Wilcox. When I read the life of such a man as Paul, how I blush to think how sickly and dwarfed Christianity is at the present time, and how many hundreds there are who never think of working for the Son of God and honoring Christ. — D. L. Moody. I have lived to know that the secret of happiness is never to allow your energies to stagnate. — Adam Clarke. I have never heard any thing about the resolutions of the dis- ciples, but a great deal about the Acts of the Apostles. — Horace Mann. The life of man is made up of action and endurance ; and life is fruitful in the ratio in which it is laid out in noble action or in patient perseverance. H. P. LiDDON. 4 ACTION. Act well at the moment, and you have performed a good action to all eternity. — Lavater. Look around you, and you will behold the universe full of active powers. Action is, so to speak, the genius of nature. By motion and exertion, the system of being is preserved in vigor. By its different parts always acting in subordination one to another, the perfection of the whole is carried on. The heavenly bodies perpetually revolve. Day and night incess- antly repeat their appointed course. Continual operations are going on in the earth and in the waters. Nothing stands still. All is alive and stirring throughout the universe. In the midst of this animated and busy scene, is man alone to remain idle in his place ? Belongs it to him to be the sole inactive and slothful being in the creation, when in so many various ways he might improve his own nature; might advance the glory of the God who made him ; and contribute his part in the general good ? — Blair. Activity in the kingdom of God augments the power of spiritual life, and deepens the consciousness of religious realities. — William Adams. The history of the Church of Christ from the days of the Apostles has been a history of spiritual moveme7its. H. P. LiDDON. It is much easier to settle a point than to act on it. — Richard Cecil. Unselfish and noble acts are the most radiant epochs in the biography of souls. — David Thomas. ACTION. Haste thee on from grace to glory, Armed by faith and winged by prayer, Heaven's eternal day's before thee ; God's own hand shall guide thee there. — H. F. Lyte. I do not say the mind gets informed by action, — bodily action ; but it does get earnestness and strength by it, and that nameless something that gives a man the mastership of his faculties. — Wm. Mountford. The essential elements of giving are power and love — ac- tivity and affection — and the consciousness of the race testi- fies that in the high and appropriate exercise of these is a blessedness greater than any other. — Mark Hopkins. All mental discipline and symmetrical growth are from activity of the mind under the yoke of the will or personal power. — Mark Hopkins. Napoleon was the most effective man in modern times — some will say of all times. The secret of his character was, that while his plans were more vast, more various, and, of course, more difficult than those of other men, he had the talent at the same time, to fill them up with perfect promptness and precision, in every particular of execution. — Horace Bushnell. Time is short, your obligations are infinite. Are your houses regulated, your children instructed, the afflicted relieved, the poor visited, the work of piety accomplished ? — Massillon. 6 ACTION. Let us remember that Elijah's God was with him only while he was occupied in noble and effectual services. When thus engaged, he exulted in the conscious majesty of a life which had upon it the stamp and signature of Divine power. — Richard Fuller. It is no use for one to stand in the shade and complain that the sun does not shine upon him. He must come out resolutely on the hot and dusty field where all are compelled to antagonize with stubborn difficulties, and pertinaciously strive until he conquers, if he would deserve to be crowned. — E. L. Magoon. The fact is that in order to do any thing in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. — Sydney Smith. What is done is done ; has already blended itself with the boundless, ever living, ever working universe, and will also work there for good or evil, openly or secretly, throughout all time. — Thomas Carlyle. Consider and act with reference to the true ends of exist- ence. This world is but the vestibule of an immortal life. Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity. — E. H. Chapin. Our actions must clothe us with an immortality loathsome or glorious. — C. C. CoLTON. Accuse not Nature, she hath done her part; do thou but thine. — Milton. ADOPTION — ADVERSITY. ADOPTION. Adoption is an act of God's free grace, whereby we are re- ceived into the number, and have a right to all the privileges, of the sons of God. — Westminster Catechism. We need a spirit of adoption to take us out of the foundling hospital of the world, and to put us into the celestial family. G. D. BOARDMAN. Faith unites us to Christ, and acquiesces in the redemption purchased by Him as the meritorious cause of our adoption. — Fisher's Catechism. ADVERSITY. God kills thy comforts from no other design but to kill thy corruptions ; wants are ordained to kill wantonness, poverty is appointed to kill pride, reproaches are permitted to destroy ambition. — John Flavel, Adversity borrows its sharpest sting from impatience. — Bishop Horne. In the day of prosperity we have many refuges to resort to ; in the day of adversity, only one. HORATIUS BONAR. How full of briers is this working-day world ! — Shakspeare. AFFLICTION. For one man who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand adversity. — Thomas Carlyle. AFFLICTION. Afflictions are but the shadow of God's wings. — Geo. MacDonald. Human character is never found " to enter into its glory," except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation. — James Martineau. Affliction is the school in which great virtues are acquired, in which great characters are formed. — Hannah More. The damps of autumn sink into the leaves and prepare them for the necessity of their fall; and thus insensibly are we, as years close around us, detached from our tenacity of life by the gentle pressure of recorded sorrow. — W. S. Landor. God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His com- mandments. — T. L. CUVLER. Be still, sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds the sun is shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall, — Some days must be dark and dreary. — Longfellow. AFFLICTION. Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces. — Matthew Henry. Affliction of itself does not sanctify any body, but the reverse. I believe in sanctified afflictions, but not in sanctifying afflictions. — C. H. Spurgeon. Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene; Resumes them, to prepare us for the next. -Young. Afflictions are but as a dark entry into our Father's house. — Thomas Brooks. Most of the grand truths of God have to be learned by trouble; they must be burned into us by the hot iron of afflic- tion, otherwise we shall not truly receive them. — C. H. Spurgeo'n. What seem to us but dim funereal tapers may be heaven's distant lamps. — Longfellow. Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judg- ment of others. I depend very much on the effect of afflic- tion. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain. — Richard Cecil. The Lord gets His best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. — C. H. Spurgeon. Night brings out stars as sorrow shows us truths. — P. J. Bailey 10 AFFLICTION. If you would not have affliction visit -you twice, listen at once, and attentively, to what it teaches. — Burgh. - Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified cross is a fruitful tree. ■^- Rutherford. We should be more anxious that our afflictions should bene- fit us than that they should be speedly removed from us. — Robert Hall. Seek holiness rather than consolation. — John Owen. It is the best thing for a stricken heart to be helping others. — A. H. K. The cup which my Saviour giveth me, can it be any thing but a cup of salvation ? — Alexander Maclaren. The truly great and good, in affliction, bear a counte- nance more princely than they are wont ; for it is the temper of the highest hearts, like the palm tree, to strive most upward when they are most burdened. — Sir Philip Sidney. What He tells thee in the darkness, Weary watcher for the day. Grateful lip and heart should utter When the shadows flee away. — F. R. Havergal. As sure as God ever puts His children into the furnace, He will be in the furnace with them. — C. H. Spurgeon. AMBITION. 11 The truest help we can render an afiflicted man is not to take his burden from him, but to call out his best strength, that he may be able to bear the burden. — Phillips Brooks. Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night and the dark woods of affliction and sorrow, it is something to find here and there a spray broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot and the brush of His hand as He passed ; and to remember that the path He trod He has hallowed, and thus to find lingering fragrance and hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as "in all points tempted like as we are," bearing grief for us, bearing grief tvith us, bearing grief like us. — Alexander Maclaren. Christ leads me through no darker rooms Than He went through before. — Richard Baxter. However bitter the cup we have to drink, we are sure it con- tains nothing unnecessary or unkind; and we should take it from His hand with as much meekness as we accept of eternal life with thankfulness. — William Goodell. In the dark and cloudy day. When earth's riches flee away. And the last hope will not stay, Saviour, comfort me. AMBITION. Ambition is the way in which a vulgar man aspires. — H. W. Beecher. 12 AMUSEMENT. Virtue is choked with foul ambition. — Shakspeare. Ambition is a gilded misery, a secret poison, a hidden plague, the engineer of deceit, the mother of hypocrisy, the parent of envy, the original of vices, the moth of holiness, the blinder of hearts, turning medicines into maladies, and remedies into diseases. — Thomas Brooks. Ambition is but avarice on stilts. — W. S. Landor. AMUSEMENT. Amusements are to religion like breezes of air to the flame; gentle ones will fan it, but strong ones will put it out. — David Thomas. Any pleasure which takes and keeps the heart from God is sinful, and unless forsaken, will be fatal to the soul. — Richard Fuller. People should be guarded against temptation to unlawful pleasures by furnishing them the means of innocent ones. In every community there must be pleasures, relaxations, and means of agreeable excitement ; and if innocent are not fur- nished, resort will be had to criminal. Man was made to enjoy as well as labor; and the state of society should be adapted to this principle of human nature. — W. E. Channing. Recreation is not the highest kind of enjoyment; but in its time and place it is quite as proper as prayer. — S. iRENiEUS Prime. ANGER, 13 Whatever we do to please ourselves, and only for the sake of the pleasure, not for an ultimate object, is "play," the "pleas- ing thing," not the useful thing. The first of all English games is making money. That is an all-absorbing game; and we knock each other down oftener in playing at that than at foot- ball, or any other rougher sport; and it is absolutely without purpose ; no one who engages heartily in that game ever knows why. Ask a great money-maker what he wants to do with his money — he never knows. He doesn't make it to do any thing with it. He gets it only that he may get it. " What will you make of what you have got ? " you ask, "Well, I'll get more," he says. Just as at cricket you get more runs. There is no use in the runs; but to get more of them than other people is the game. And there is no use in the money ; but to have more of it than other people is the game. — C. H. Spurgeon. ANGER. An unsanctified temper is a fruitful source of error, and a mighty impediment to truth. — ^E. L. Magoon. He submits himself to be seen through a microscope, who suffers himself to be caught in a fit of passion. — Lavater. Our passions are like convulsion fits, which make us stronger for the time, but leave us weaker forever after. — Dean Swift. If anger proceeds from a great cause, it turns to fury; if from a small cause, it is peevishness ; and so is always either terrible or ridiculous. — Jeremy Taylor. 14 APOSTASY. The proud man hath no God ; the envious man hath no neighbor ; the angry man hath not himself. — Bishop Hall. There was a man here last night — you needn't be afraid that I shall mention his name — who said that his will was given up to God, and who got mad because the omnibus was full, and he had to walk a mile to his lodgings. — D. L. Moody. When I had twice or thrice made a resolute resistance to anger, the like befell me that did the Thebans; who, having once foiled the Lacedemonians, never after lost so much as one battle which they fought against them. — Plutarch, The sun should not set upon our anger, neither should he rise upon our confidence. — C. C. COLTON. APOSTASY. The kiss of the apostate was the most bitter earthly ingredient in the agonies which Christ endured. — E. L. Magoon. Still in the garden shadows art Thou pleading, Staining the night dews with Thine agony; But one is there Thy woe and prayer unheeding, And to their guileless prey Thy murderers leading. Lord, is it I ? — George Huntingdon. O God, the Father, of heaven, have mercy upon us miserable sinners. ASPIRATION. 15 " Lord, is it I ? " Thou knowest my temptations, My spirit willing, though my flesh is weak ; My earnest striving, and my often failing; Sinning, repenting, still Thy grace I seek. ASPIRATION. O God, Thou art my God ; early will I seek Thee ; my soul thirsteth for Thee ; my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. — Psalms. There is not a heart but has its moments of longing, — yearn- ing for something better, nobler, holier than it knows now. — H. W. Beecher. Aspiration, worthy ambition, desires for higher good for good ends — all these indicate a soul that recognizes the beckoning hand of the good Father who would call us homeward towards Himself — all these are the ground and justification for a Christian discontent ; but a murmuring, questioning, fault-find- ing spirit has direct and sympathetic alliance with nothing but the infernal. — J. G. Holland. In truth, there is no religion, no worship in our prosperity and ease. So far as we are happy, we are in a state of satisfied desire ; so far as we are religious, we are in a state of aspira- tion and unsatisfied desire. — James Martineau. Father ! forgive the heart that clings Thus trembling to the things of time, And bid my soul, on angel's wings Ascend into a purer clime. — Jane Roscoe. 16 ASSURANCE. ASSURANCE. Assurance of hope is more than Hfe. It is health, strength, power, vigor, activity, energy, manliness, beauty. — J. C. Ryle. True assurance makes a man more humble and self-denied but presumptuous confidence puffs up with spiritual pride and self-conceit; the one excites to the practice of every commanded duty, but the other encourages sloth and indolence. — Fisher's Catechism. You have a valuable house or farm. It is suggested that the title is not good. You employ counsel. You have the deeds ex- amined. You search the records for mortgages, judgments and liens. You are not satisfied until you have a certificate, signed by the great seal of the State, assuring you that the title is good. Yet how many leave their title to heaven an undecided matter ! Why do you not go to the records and find it ? Give yourself no rest day or night until you can read your "title clear to mansions in the skies." — T. DeWitt Talmage. The more the soul is conformed to Christ, the more confident it will be of its interest in Christ. — Thomas Brooks. The best assurance any one can have of his interest in God, is doubtless the conformity of his soul to Him. When our heart is once turned into a conformity with the mind of God, when we feel our will conformed to His will, we shall then presently perceive a spirit of adoption v/ithin ourselves, teach- ing us to say, " Abba, Father." CUDWORTH. ASSURANCE. 17 If you would have clear and irrefragable for a perpetual joy, a glory and a defense, the unwavering confidence, " I am Thy child," go to God's throne, and lie down at the foot of it, and let the first thought be, " My Father in heaven; " and that will brighten, that will establish, that will make omnipotent in your life, the witness of the Spirit that you are the child of God. — Alexander Maclarex. One of those poor fellows that had become a Christian was badgered by his companions; and one of them said, " How do you know that Jesus Christ has forgiven your sins ? " The man turned at once and said, " How do you know when you have got sugar in your tea ? " — John B. Gough. Every one of us may know what is the ruling purpose of his life; and he who knows that his ruling purpose is to trust and follow Christ knows that he is a Christian. — W. Gladden. "Compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses," let us with firm and cheerful trust endure all trials, discharge all du- ties, accept all sacrifices, fulfill the law of universal and impar- tial love, and adopt as our own that cause of truth, righteous- ness, humanity, liberty, and holiness, — which being the cause of the All-Good, cannot but triumph over all powers of evil. Let us rise into blest assurance that everywhere and forever we are enfolded, penetrated, guarded, guided, kept by the power of the Father and Friend, who can never forsake us ; and that all spirits who have begun to seek, know, love, and serve the All-Perfect One on earth shall be reunited in a celestial home, and be welcomed together into the freedom of the universe, and the perpetual light of His presence. -7 — W. E. Channing. 18 ATHEISM. There are believers who by God's grace, have cUmbed the mountains of full assurance and near communion, their place is with the eagle in his eyrie, high aloft ; they are like the strong mountaineer, who has trodden the virgin snow, who has breathed the fresh, free air of the Alpine regions, and therefore his sinews are braced, and his limbs are vigorous; these are they who do great exploits, being mighty men, men of renown. — C. H. Spurgeon. If you have not the faith of assurance, practice at least the faith of adherence. That, at least, is in your power. Cleave to God exactly as if you were certain of being accepted of Him at last; and thus fulfilling His own conditions, you will be accepted of Him, whether you are assured of it beforehand or not. — Jacques Bonneval. ATHEISM. The thing formed says that nothing formed it; and that which is made is, while that which made it is not ! The folly is infinite. — Jeremy Taylor. That the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, I will no more believe than that the accidental jumb- ling of the alphabet would fall into a most ingenious treatise of philosophy, — Dean Swift. A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion. — Francis Bacon. Atheism is rather in the life than in the heart of man. — Francis Bacon. ATHEISM. 19 Atheism can benefit no class of people ; neither the unfor- tunate, whom it bereaves of hope, nor the- prosperous, whose joys it renders insipid, nor the soldier, of whom it makes a coward, nor the woman whose beauty and sensibility it mars, nor the mother, who has a son to lose, nor the rulers of men, who have no surer pledge of the fidelity of their subjects than religion. — Chateaubriand. ingersoll's atheism can never become an institution ; it can never be more than a destitution. — Robert Collyer. They that deny a God destroy man's nobility, for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body ; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. — Francis Bacon. No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved and sustained by the Spirit of the universe. — Jean Paul Richter. Religion assures us that our afflictions shall have an end; she comforts us, she dries our tears, she promises us another life. On the contrary, in the abominable worship of atheism, human woes are the incense, death is the priest, a coffin the altar, and annihilation the Deity. — Chateaubriand. Nothing enlarges the gulf of atheism more than the wide passage that lies between the faith and lives of men pretending to teach Christianity. — Stillingfleet. 20 AVARICE. I want you to have courage to declare yourself to be an athe- ist, or to serve your god with all your might and power in per- fect consecration, whatever or whoever that god may be — whether it be the crocodile of the Nile or our Jehovah, " God over all blessed for evermore." — Charles F. Deems. Practically every man is an atheist, who lives without God in the world. — Guesses at Truth. AVARICE. It is impossible to conceive any contrast more entire and ab- solute than that which exists between a heart glowing with love to God, and a heart in which the love of money has cashiered all sense of God — His love. His presence. His glory; and which is no sooner relieved from the mockery of a tedious round of religious formalism, than it reverts to the sanctuaries where its wealth is invested, with an intenseness of homage surpassing that of the most devout Israelite who ever, from a foreign land, turned his longing eyes toward Jerusalem. — Richard Fuller. Avarice is to the intellect what sensuality is to the morals. — Mrs. Jameson. Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disk of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust. — E. H. Chapin. Poverty is want of much, but avarice of every thing. — PuBLius Syrius. BACKSLIDING— BAPTISM. 21 Jesus, save me from the infatuation of avarice ! I, too, will lay up a treasure, but Thou shalt have the keeping of it. — Christian Scriver. B. BACKSLIDING. I never yet have heard of a good man having fallen when he was trying to do Christ's will and trusting on Christ's help. Every fall without one exception came from venturing upon sinful ground or from venturing upon self-support. — T. L. CUYLER. AVhen we read or hear how some professed Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed into drunkenness, or slipped from the communion table into open disgrace, it simply means that a human arm has broken. The man has forsaken the everlast- ing arms. — T. L. CUYLER. The master will not keep His hand under our arms when we go on forbidden ground. Presumptuous Peter needed a sharp lesson, and he got it. That bitter cry at the foot of the stairs bespoke an awful fall. How many such are rising daily into God's listening ears. — T. L. CUYLER. BAPTISM. Only what coronation is in an earthly way, baptism is in a heavenly way; God's authoritative declaration in material form of a spiritual reality. — F. W. Robertson, 22 BEAUTY — BELIEF. Oh ! for this baptism of fire ! when every spoken word for Jesus shall be a thunderbolt, and every prayer shall bring forth a mighty flood. A. E. KiTTREDGE, BEAUTY. Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite. — George Bancroft. The gospel allies itself with all that is beautiful in the uni- verse, as truly as with all that is noble and pure. — Samuel Wolcott. Eyes raised toward heaven are always beautiful, whatever they be. — Joseph Joubert. He hath a daily beauty in his life. — Shakspeare. I pray the prayer of Plato old, — "God make thee beautiful within." — J. G. Whittier. BELIEF. What is meant by believing in Christ but just going with trusting and loving hearts, and committing to His love and power ourselves, our souls, and all that concerns us for time and eternity? — A. H. Boyd. Begin by regarding every thing from a moral point of view, and you will end by believing in God. — Dr. Arnold. BELIEF. 23 To believe is to be happy; to doubt is to be wretched. To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do any thing that is worth the doing. — F. W. Robertson, If you wish to be assured of the truth of Christianity, try it. Believe, and if thy belief be right, that insight which gradually transmutes faith into knowledge will be the reward of thy belief. — S. T. Coleridge. He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend, must have a very long head, or a very short creed. C. C. COLTON. The man who goes through life with an uncertain doctrine not knowing what he believes, what a poor, powerless creature he is ! He goes around through the world as a man goes down through the street with a poor, wounded arm, forever dodging people he meets on the street for fear they may touch him. — Phillips Brooks. / • If that impression does not remain on this intrepid and powerful people, into whose veins all nations pour their min- gling blood, it will be our immense calamity. Public action, without it, Avill lose the dignity of consecration. Eloquence, without it, will miss what is loftiest, will give place to a careless and pulseless disquisition, or fall to the flatness of political slang. Life, without it, will lose its sacred and mystic charm. Society, without it, will fail of inspirations, and be drowned in an animalism whose rising tides will keep pace with its wealth. — R. S. Storrs. Now God be praised, that to believing souls, Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair ! — Shakspeare. 34 BENEFICENCE. BENEFICENCE. There cannot be a more glorious object in creation than a human being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to His creatures. — Fielding. Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good. — ROWE. Never try to save out of God's cause; such money will canker the rest. Giving to God is no loss; it is putting your substance in the best bank. Giving is true having, as the old gravestone said of the dead man: "What I spent I had, what I saved I lost, what I gave I have." — C. H. Spurgeon. Learn the luxury of doing good, — Goldsmith. By doing good with his money, a man, as it were, stamps the image of God upon it, and makes it pass current for the mer- chandise of heaven. RUTLEDGE. Wealth tends to materialize the soul. Every contribution to spiritual objects counteracts the tendency. It is another step up the ladder, whose foot is deep down in materialism, but whose top reaches to the holy heavens of spirit and love. Liberality consists not so much in giving a great deal as in giving seasonably. — Bruyere. BENEFICENCE. 25 Proportion thy charity to the strength of thy estate, lest God proportion thy estate to the weakness of thy charity. Let the lips of the poor be the trumpet of thy gift, lest in seeking ap- plause thou lose thy reward. Nothing is more pleasing to God than an open hand and a close mouth. — Francis Quarles. Give with a heart glowing with generous sentiments; give as the fountain gives out its waters from its own swelling depths; give as the air gives its vital breezes, unrestrained and free ; give as the sun gives out its light, from the infinite abysses of its own nature. Poverty is the load of some, and wealth is the load of others, perhaps the greater load of the two. It may weigh them to perdition. Bear the load of thy neighbor's poverty, and let him bear with thee the load of thy wealth. Thou lightenest thy load by lightening his. — St. Augustine. He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do any thing. — Samuel Johnson. Open your hands, ye whose hands are full ! The world is waiting for you ! The whole machinery of the Divine benefi- cence is clogged by your hard hearts and rigid fingers. Give and spend, and be sure that God will send ; for only in giving and spending do you fulfill the object of His sending. — T- G. Holland. Be charitable before wealth makes thee covetous. — Sir Thomas Browne. Honor the Lord with thy substance. 26 BENEFICENCE. " Not for ourselves, but for others," is the grand law in- scribed on every part of creation. — Edward Payson. Every day should be distinguished by at least one particular act of love. — Lavater. My brethren, surely the time has come for us to return to the Lord's plan. Among us there are children to be clothed, widows to be aided, and afflicted ones to be cared for. As you draw near to the poor, the Saviour will come nearer to you. — George C. Lorimer. I have heard of a monk who in his cell, had a glorious vis- ion of Jesus revealed to him. Just then, a bell rang, which called him away to distribute loaves of bread among the poor beggars at the gate. He was sorely tried as to whether he should lose a scene so inspiring. He went to his act of mercy; and when he came back, the vision remained more glorious than ever. T. L. CUYLER. Every man who becomes heartily and understandingly a channel of the Divine beneficence, is enriched through every league of his life. Perennial satisfaction springs around and within him with perennial verdure. Flowers of gratitude and gladness bloom all along his pathway, and the melodious gurgle of the blessings he bears is echoed back by the melodious waves of the recipient stream. — J. G. Holland. So quickly sometimes has the wheel turned round, that many a man has lived to enjoy the benefit of that charity which his own piety projected. — Laurence Sterne. BEREAVEMENT. 27 What do you think God gave you more wealth than is requi- site to satisfy your rational wants for, when you look around and see how many are in absolute need of that which you do not need ? Can you not take the hint ? - — J. G. Holland. BEREAVEMENT. A genuine faith lifts us above the bitterness of grief; a sense of Christ's living presence takes away all unbearable loneliness even when we are most alone. In our darkest hours, to know that our lost friend is still living, still loving us, still ours, in the highest and best sense, must be unspeakably consoling. — A. H. K. Is it well with the child ? And she answered. It is well. — Bible. Believe me, it is no time for words when the wounds are fresh and bleeding ; no time for homilies when the lightning's shaft has smitten, and the man lies stunned and stricken. Then let the comforter be silent ; let him sustain by his pres- ence, not by his j)reaching ; by his sympathetic silence, not by his speech. — George C. Lorlmer. The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On the tomb. — O. W. Holmes. 28 BIBLE. Over the river they beckon to me, Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side, The gleam of their snowy robes I see, But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. — N. A. W. Priest. Yes, we all live to God ! Father, Thy chastening rod, So help us. Thine afflicted ones, to bear. That in the spirit land. Meeting at Thy right hand, 'Twill be our heaven to find that He is there ! — John Pierpont. BIBLE. We believe that the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction ; that it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth with- out any mixture of error for its matter ; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us, and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Chris- tian union, and the supreme standard by which all human con- duct, creeds, and opinions should be tried. — Baptist Church Manual. The Bible is God's chart for you to steer by, to keep you from the bottom of the sea, and to show you where the harbor is, and how to reach it without running on rocks or bars. — H. W. Beecher. The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to im- part enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest. — Albert Barnes. BIBLE. 29 It is not simply a theological treatise, a code of laws, a re- ligious homily, but the Bible — the book — while the only book for the soul, the best book for the mind. — Herrick Johnson. The Bible is a window in this prison-world, through which we may look into eternity. — Timothy Dwight. The Bible abounds in plain truth, expressed in plain lan- guage; in this it surpasses all other books. — Whelpley. The Bible alone of all the books in the world, instead of uttering the opinions of the successive ages that produced it, has been the antagonist of these opinions. — Stuart Robinson. The Bible has been my guide in j^erplexity, and my comfort in trouble. It has roused me when declining, and animated me in languor. Other writings may be good, but they want certainty and force. ■ The Bible carries its own credentials along with it, and proves spirit and life to the soul. In other writ- ings I hear the words of a stranger or a servant. In the Bible I hear the language of my Father and my friend. Other books contain only the picture of bread. The Bible presents me with real manna, and feeds me with the bread of life. You will want a book which contains not man's thoughts, but God's — not a book that may amuse you, but a book that can save you — not even a book that can instruct you, but a book on which you can venture an eternity — not only a book which can give relief to your spirit, but redemption to your soul — a book which contains salvation, and conveys it to you, one which shall at once be the Saviour's book and the sinner's. — ^JoHN Selden. 30 BIBLE. The life-boat may have a tasteful bend and beautiful deco- ration, but these are not the qualities for which I prize it ; it was my salvation from the howling sea ! So the interest which a regenerate soul takes in the Bible, is founded on a personal application to the heart of the saving truth which it contains. ' — J. W. Alexander. The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, and the support of the dying; and while other books may amuse and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of that book to create light in the midst of darkness, to allevi- ate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consola- tion can reach ; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy inspiration. — Robert Hall. The Bible is a treasure. It contains enough to make us rich for time and eternity. It contains the secret of happy living. It contains the key of heaven. It contains the title- deeds of an inheritance incorruptible, and that fadeth not away. It contains the pearl of great price. Nay, in so far as it re- veals them as the portion of us sinful worms, it contains the Saviour and the living God Himself. — James Hamilton. The Bible is a warm letter of affection from a parent to a child ; and yet there are many who see chiefly the severer pas- sages. As there may be fifty or sixty nights of gentle dews in one summer, that will not cause as much remark as one hail- storm of half an hour, so there are those who are more struck by those passages of the Bible that announce the indignation of God than by those that announce His affection. — T. DeWitt Talmage. BIBLE. 31 The Bible is not only the revealer of the unknown God to man, but His grand interpreter as the God of nature. In re- vealing God, it has given us the key that unlocks the profound- est mysteries of creation, the clew by which to thread the laby- rinth of the universe, the glass through which to look from Nature up to Nature's God. — L. J. Halsey. I cannot look around me without being struck with the anal- ogy observable in the works of God. I find the Bible written in the style of His other books of Creation and Providence. The pen seems in the same hand. I see it, indeed, write at times mysteriously in each of these books ; thus I know that mystery in the works of God is only another name for my ignorance. The moment, therefore, that I become humble, all becomes right. — Richard Cecil. The Bible is the most thought-suggesting book in the world. No other deals with such grand themes. — Herrick Tohnson. Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law. — Psalms. One gem from that ocean is worth all the pebbles from earthly streams. — Robert McCheyne. I have carefully and regularly perused the Holy Scriptures, and am of opinion that the volume contains more sublimity, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains of eloquence, than can be collected from all other books, in what- ever language they may have been written. — Sir William Jones. 32 BIBLE. It is impossible to look into the Bible with the most ordinary attention without feeling that we have got into a moral atmos- phere quite different from that which we breathe in the world, and in the world's literature. — Thomas Erskine. This Bible, then, has a mission, grander than any mere creation of God; for in this volume are infinite wisdom, and infinite love. Between its covers are the mind and heart of God; and they are for man's good, for his salvation, his guid- ance, his spiritual nourishment. If now I neglect my Bible, I do my soul a wrong; for the fact of this Divine message is evi- dence that I need it. — -A. E. KiTTREDGE. The Old and New Testaments contain but one scheme of religion. Neither part of this scheme can be understood with- out the other. — Richard Cecil. The Saviour who flitted before the patriarchs through the fog of the old dispensation, and who spake in time past to the fathers by the prophets, articulate but unseen, is the same Saviour who, on the open heights of the gospel, and in the abundant daylight of this New Testament, speaks to us. Still all along it is the same Jesus, and that Bible is from beginning to end, all of it, the word of Christ. — James Hamilton. Throw away the Old Testament ! What part of it will you throw away ? That which I do not understand } Take down then yonder blood-stained cross; for there is a love there "which passeth knowledge," and a Divine hatred of sin which shook the solid earth. A. E. KiTTREDGE. BIBLE. 33 The Psalms are an everlasting manual to the soul ; the book of its immortal wishes, its troubles, its aspirations, and its hopes; sung in every tongue, and in every age; destined to endure while the universe of God has light, harmony, or grandeur, while man has religion or sensibility, while language has sub- limity or sweetness. — Henry Giles. Let your daughter have first of all the book of Psalms for holiness of heart, and be instructed in the Proverbs of Solomon for her godly life. — St. Jerome. High above all earthly lower happiness, the blessedness of the eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself. They are white with the snows of eternity; they give a space, a meaning, a dignity to all the rest of the earth over which they brood. — Dean Stanley. I am heartily glad to witness your veneration for a Book which to say nothing of its holiness or authority, contains more specimens of genius and taste than any other volume in existence. — W. S. Landor. Intense study of the Bible will keep any man from being vulgar in point of style. — S. T. Coleridge. If there be any thing in my style or thought to be com- mended, the credit is due to my kind parents in instilling into my mind an early love of the Scriptures. — Daniet, Webster. The word of the Lord is tried. 34 BIBLE. The English Bible — a book which, if every thing else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power. — T. B. Macaulay. Wherever God's word is circulated, it stirs the hearts of the people, it prepares for public morals. Circulate that word, and you find the tone of morals immediately changed. It is God speaking to man. — Bishop Simpson. Wherever public worship has been established and regularly maintained, idolatry has vanished from the face of the earth. There is not now a temple to a heathen god where the word of God is read. — Bishop Simpson. The increasing influence of the Bible is marvelously great, penetrating everywhere. It carries with it a tremendous power of freedom and justice guided by a combined force of wisdom and goodness. — Mori. We may persuade men that are infidels to receive the Script- ures as the word of God by rational arguments drawn from their antiquity; the heavenliness of the matter; the majesty of the style ; the harmony of all the parts though written in different ages; the exact accomplishment of prophecies; the sublimity of the mysteries and matters contained in the word; the efficacy and power of it, in the conviction and conversion of multitudes; the scope of the whole, — to guide men to attain their chief end, — the glory of God in their own salvation; and the many miracles wrought for the confirmation of the truth of the doctrines contained in them. — Fisher's Catechism. BIBLE. 35 What other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires, and an interest that never cloys ? — Robert Hall. The grand old Book of God still stands; and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the Sacred word. — James D. Dana. The books of men have their day and grow obsolete. God's word is like Himself, "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." — R. Payne Smith. Christianity claims that the supernatural is as reasonable as the natural, that man himself is supernatural as truly as he is natural, and that the Bible is so clearly the word of God by proofs that are unanswerable, that it is unreasonable to disbe- lieve its divine truths. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Eighteen centuries have passed since the Bible was fin- ished. They have been centuries of great changes. In their course the world has been wrought over into newness at almost every point. But, to-day, the text of the Scriptures, after copyings almost innumerable and after having been tossed about through ages of ignorance and tumult, is found by exhaustive criticism to be unaltered in every important particular — there being not a single doctrine, nor duty, nor fact of any grade, that is brought into question by variations of readings — a fact that stands alone in the history of such ancient literature. — E. F. Burr. The best evidence of the Bible's being the word of God is to be found between its covers. It proves itself. — Charles Hodge. 36 BIBLE. We glory most in the fact, that Scripture so commends itself to the conscience, and experience so bears out the Bible, that the gospel can go the round of the world, and carry with it, in all its travel, its own mighty credentials. — Henry Melvill. All that has been done to weaken the foundation of an im- plicit faith in the Bible, as a whole, has been at the expense of the sense of religious obligation, and at the cost of human happiness. — J. G. Holland. Do not mathematics and all sciences seem full of contradic- tions and impossibilities to the ignorant, which are all resolved and cleared to those that understand them .' — Richard Baxter. The piecemeal criticism which, like the fly, scans only the edge of a plinth in the great edifice upon which it crawls, dis- appears under a criticism that is all-comprehending and all- surveying. — Prof. Shedd. The word of God is solid ; it will stand a thousand read- ings ; and the man who has gone over it the most frequently and the most carefully is the surest of finding new wonders there. — James Hamilton. The Scripture is to be its own interpreter, or rather the Spirit speaking in it ; nothing can cut the diamond but the diamond ; nothing can interpret Scripture but Scripture. — Richard Watson. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. — Bible. BIBLE. 37 The main condition is that the spiritual ear should be open to overhear and patiently take in, and the will ready to obey that testimony which, I believe, God bears in every human heart, however dull, to those great truths which the Bible re- veals. This, and not logic, is the way to grow in religious knowledge, to know that the truths of religion are not shadows, but deep realities. — J. C. Shairp. Many books in my library are now behind and beneath me. They were good in their way once, and so were the clothes I wore when I was ten years old ; but I have outgrown them. Nobody ever outgrows Scripture ; the book widens and deep- ens with our years, — C. H. Spurgeon. If thou desire to profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faithfulness ; nor even desire the repute of learning. — Thomas a Kempis. If the Bible is God's word, and we believe it, let us handle it with reverence. — John B. Gough. I believe that the want of our age is not more " free " hand- ling of the Bible, but more " reverent " handling, more humil- ity, more patient study, and more prayer. — J. C. RVLE. If you are ever tempted to speak lightly or think lightly of it, just sit down and imagine what this world would be with- out it. No Bible ! A wound and no cure, a storm and no covert, a condemnation and no shrift, a lost eternity and no ransom ! Alas for us if this were all; alas for us if the ladder of science were the only stair to lead us up to Crod ! — R. R. Meredith. 38 BIBLE. If God is a reality, and the soul is a reality, and you are an immortal being, what are you doing with your Bible shut ? — Herrick Johnson. Other books we may read and criticise. To the Scriptures we must bow the entire soul, with all its faculties. — E. N. Kirk. Let the oracles of inspiration be cited continually, both as authority and illustration, in a manner that shall make the mind instantly refer each expression that is introduced to the venerable book whence it is taken; but let oiir part of religious language be simply ours, and let those oracles retain their characteristic form of expression unimitated, unparodied to the end of time. — John Foster. There are many persons of combative tendencies, who read for ammunition, and dig out of the Bible iron for balls. They read, and they find nitre and charcoal and sulphur for powder. They read, and they find cannon. They read, and they make port- holes and embrasures. And if a man does not believe as they do, they look upon him as an enemy, and let fly the Bible at him to demolish him. So men turn the word of God into a vast arsenal, filled with all manner of weapons, offensive and defensive. — H. W. Beecher. A loving trust in the Author of the Bible is the best prepa- ration for a wise study of the Bible. — H. Clay Trumbull. The reason why we find so many dark places in the Bible is, for the most part, because there are so many dark places in our hearts. — A. Tholuck. BIBLE. 39 When you are reading a book in a dark room, and come to a dilificult part, you take it to a window to get more light. So take your Bibles to Christ. — Robert McCheyne. My own experience is that the Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am really alive, and set in upon the text with a tidal pressure of living affinities, it opens, it multiplies discoveries, and reveals depths even faster than I can note them. The worldly spirit shuts the Bible; the Spirit of God makes it a fire, flaming out all meanings and glorious truths. — Horace Bushnell. Parents, I urge you to make the Bible the sweetest, the dearest book to your children; not by compelling them to read so many chapters each day, which will have the effect of making them hate the Bible, but by reading its pages ivith them, and by your tender parental love, so showing them the beauty of its wondrous incidents, from the story of Adam and Eve to the story of Bethlehem and Calvary, that no book in the home will be so dear to your children as the Bible; and thus you will be strengthening their minds with the sublimest truths, storing their hearts with the purest love, and sinking deep in their souls solid principles of righteousness, whose divine stones no waves of temptation can ever move. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Give the Bible the place in your families to which it is justly entitled, and then, through the unsearchable riches of Christ, many a household among you may hereafter realize that most blessed consummation, and appear a whole family in heaven. H. A. BOARDMAN. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against Thee. 40 BIBLE. Merely reading the Bible is no use at all without we study it thoroughly, and hunt it through, as it were, for some great truth. — D. L. Moody. I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible. If a man neglects his Bible, he may pray and ask God to use him in His work; but God cannot make much use of him, for there is not much for the Holy Ghost to work upon. — D. L. Moody. Study the Bible topically. If you will study assurance for a week, you will soon find it is your privilege to know that you are a child of God. — D. L. Moody. Go through John's Gospel, and study the "believes," the " verilys," the *' I ams; "and go through the Bible in that way, and it becomes a new book to you. — D. L. Moody. Do you know a book that you are willing to put under your head for a pillow when you lie dying ? Very well; that is the book you want to study while you are living. There is but one such book in the world. — TosEPH Cook. When you read the sacred Scriptures, or any other book, never think hoiv you read, but what you read. — John Keimble. The duty which God requireth of man is obedience to His revealed will. — Westminster Catechism. I delight to do Thy will, O my God ; yea, Thy law is within my heart. — Psalms. BROTHERHOOD. 41 BROTHERHOOD. Enough of good there is in the lowest estate to sweeten life; enough of evil in the highest to check presumption; enough there is of both in all estates, to bind us in compassionate brotherhood, to teach us impressively that we are of one dying and one immortal family. — Henry Giles. My friends, let us try to follow the Saviour's steps; let us remember all day long what it is to be men; that it is to have every one whom we meet for our brother in the sight of God; that it is this, never to meet any one, however bad he may be, for whom we cannot say, " Christ died for that man, and Christ cares for him still. He is precious in God's eyes, and he shall be precious in mine also." — Charles Kingsley. God has taught in the Scriptures the lesson of a universal brotherhood, and man must not gainsay the teaching. Shiver- ing in the ice-bound or scorching in the tropical regions; in the lap of luxury or in the wild hardihood of the primeval forest; belting the globe in a tired search for rest, or quieting through life in the heart of ancestral woods; gathering all the decencies around him like a garment, or battling in fierce raid of crime against a world which has disowned him, there is an inner humanness which binds me to that man by a primitive and in- dissoluble bond. He is my brother, and I cannot dissever the relationship. He is my brother, and I cannot release* myself from the obligation to do him good. — Wm. M. Punshon. Kings and their subjects, masters and slaves, find a common level in two places — at the foot of the cross, and in the grave. — C. C. Colton- 43 CARES. 1 stand by my kind; and I thank God for the temptations that have brought me into sympathy with them, as I do for the love that urges me to efforts for their good. I hail the great brotherhood of trial and temptation in the name of humanity, and give them assurance that from the Divine Man, and some, at least, of His disciples, there goes out to them a flood of sympathy that would fain sweep them up to the firm footing of the rock of safety. — J. G. Holland. Jesus throws down the dividing prejudices of nationality, and teaches universal love without distinction of race, merit, or rank. A man's neighbor, henceforth, was every one who needed help, even an enemy. All men, from the slave to the highest, were sons of one Father in heaven, and should feel and act toward each other, as brethren. No human standard of virtue would suffice; no imitations of the loftiest examples among men. Moral perfection had been recognized alike by heathen and Jews, as found only in likeness to the Divine, and that Jesus proclaims as, henceforth, the one ideal for all hu- manity. With a sublime enthusiasm and brotherly love for the race. He rises above His age, and announces a common Father of all mankind, and one grand spiritual ideal in resem- blance to Him. — J. C. Geikie. CARES. Anxious care rests upon a basis of heathen worldly-mind- edness and of heathen misunderstanding of the character of God. — Alexander Maclaren. CARES. 43 God gives us power to bear all the sorrows of His making ; but He does not give us power to bear the sorrows of our own making, which the anticipation of sorrow most assuredly is. — Alexander Maclaren. Despatch necessities ; life hath a load Which )nust be carried on — and safely may ; Yet keep these cares without thee; let the heart Be God's alone; and choose the better part. — Henry Vaughan. He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. I will cast all my cares on God ; He hath bidden me ; they cannot burden Him. — Bishop Hall. He who climbs above the cares of this world, and turns his face to his God, has found the sunny side of life. The world's side of the hill is chill and freezing to a spiritual mind; but the Lord's presence gives a warmth of joy which turns winter into summer. — C. H. Spurgeon, I met a brother who, describing a friend of his, said he was like a man who had dropped a bottle, and broken it, and put all the pieces in his bosom, where they were cutting him perpetually. — H. W. Beecher. Why art thou troubled and anxious about many things ? One thing is needful — to love Him and to sit attentively at His feet. — Fenelon. Care that is entered once into the breast, Will have the whole possession ere it rest. 44 CHARACTER. I have no cares, O blessed Will ! For all my cares are Thine ; I live in triumph, Lord, for Thou Hast made Thy triumph mine. — F. W. Faber. CHARACTER. When the captain throws out his sheet-anchor, and the ship " rides at anchor, " as it is called, there is a great strain on every link of that chain ; and if one bad link breaks, off goes the anchor, and the ship is driven before the winds, and may be destroyed. Now, our character is very much like the chain; one bad piece vitiates and spoils it. So we must have a pure character. — John Hall. Modern engineers, after having erected a viaduct, insist upon subjecting it to a severe strain by a formal trial trip, before allowing it to be opened for public traffic ; and it would almost seem that God, in employing moral agents for the carrying out of His purposes, secures that they shall be tested by some dreadful ordeal, before He fully commits to them the work which He wishes them to perform. — Wm. M. Taylor. A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget- me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble. — C. H. Spurgeon. Only what we have wrought into our character during life can we take away with us. — Humboldt. CHARACTER. 45 Whatever capacities there may be for enjoyment or for suf- fering in this strange being of ours, and God only knows what they are, they will be drawn out wholly in accordance with character. — Mark Hopkins. Men and brethren, a simple trust in God is the most essen- tial ingredient in moral sublimity of character. — ^ Richard Fuller. Man can have strength of character only as he is capable of controlling his faculties ; of choosing a rational end ; and, in its pursuit, of holding fast to his integrity against all the might of external nature. — Mark Hopkins. The materials of the first temple were made ready in soli- tude. Those of the last also must be shaped in retirement ; in the silence of the heart ; in the quietness of home ; in the prac- tice of unostentatious duty. — Henry Giles. There never has been a great and beautiful character, which has not become so by filling well the ordinary and smaller offices appointed of God. — Horace Bushnell. Character is made up of small duties faithfully performed — of self-denials, of self-sacrifices, of kindly acts of love and duty. I have learned by experience that no man's character can be eventually injured but by his own acts. — Rowland Hill. 46 CHARITY, A man is what he is, not what men say he is. His charac- ter no man can touch. His character is what he is before his God and his Judge ; and only himself can damage that. His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity. — John B. Gough. Our character is but the stamp on our souls of the free choice of good or evil we have made through life. — J. C. Geikie. Character is the product of daily, hourly actions, and words, and thoughts ; daily forgivenesses, unselfishness, kindnesses, sympathies, charities, sacrifices for the good of others, struggles against temptation, submissiveness under trial. Oh, it is these, like the blending colors in a picture, or the blending notes of music, which constitute the man. — J. R. Macduff. A man's character is like a fence — it cannot be strengthened by whitewash. CHARITY. Charity — gently to hear, kindly to judge. • — Shakspeare, Charity, like the sun, brightens every object on which it shines. Charity is that rational and constant affection, which makes us sacrifice ourselves to the human race, as if we were united with it, so as to form one individual, partaking equally in its adversity and prosperity. — Confucius. CHARITY. - 47 Why should not our solemn duties, and our hastening end, render us so united, that personal contention would be impos- sible, in a general sympathy quickened by the breath of a for- bearing and pitying charity? — Henry Giles. If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou pro- fessest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor, thy love to God is nourished. — Francis Quarles. A life in any sphere that is the expression and outflow of an honest, earnest, loving heart, taking counsel only of God and itself, will be certain to be a life of beneficence in the best pos- sible direction. — J. G. Holland. We may not substitute charity for godliness; but there is room for the Divine love in the heart which has been touched by the human. — Wm. M. Punshon. An effort made for the happiness of others lifts us above ourselves. — L. M. Child. Earth has not a spectacle more glorious or more fair to show than this — love tolerating intolerance; charity covering, as with a vail, even the sin of the lack of charity. — F. W. Robertson. There is no dearth of charity in the world in giving, but there is comparatively little exercised in thinking and speaking. — Sir Philip Sidney. 4S CHEERFULNESS. I have more confidence in the charity which begins in the home and diverges into a large humanity, than in the world- wide philanthropy which begins at the outside of our horizon to converge into egotism. — Mrs. Jameson. Nothing will make us so charitable and tender to the faults of others as by self-examination thoroughly to know our own. — Fenelon. With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right — as God gives us to see the right — let us strive on to finish the work we are in. — Abraham Lincoln. CHEERFULNESS. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous, a spirit all sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. — Thomas Carlyle. Cheerful looks make every dish a feast. — Massinger. Sweetness of spirit and sunshine is famous for dispelling fears and difficulties ; patience is a mighty help to the burden- bearer. — James Hamilton. The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness. — Montaigne. The soul that perpetually overflows with kindness and sym- pathy will always be cheerful. — Parke Godwin. CHILDREN. 49 You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful peo- ple. Why not make earnest effort to confer that pleasure on others ? — L. M. Child- If good people would but make their goodness agreeable, and smile instead of frowning in their virtue, how many would they win to the good cause ! — Archbishop Usher. I praise Thee while my days go on ; I love Thee while my days go on ! Through dark and dearth, through fire and frost. With emptied arms and treasure lost, I thank Thee while my days go on. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a i)ound of sadness to serve God with. — Fuller. A scrip on my back, and a rtaff in my hand, I march on in haste through an enemy's land ; The road may be rough, but it cannot be long; • And I'll smooth it with hope, and I'll cheer it with song. — H. F. Lyte, CHILDREN. Jesus was the first great teacher of men who showed a genu- ine sympathy for childhood. When He said " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," it was a revelation. — Eggleston. Children have more need of models than of critics. 4 — Joseph Jourert. 50 CHILDREN. God has given you your child, that the sight of him, from time to time, might remind you of His goodness, and induce you to praise Him with fiHal reverence. — Christian Scriver. Train them to virtue; habituate them to industry, activity, and spirit. Make them consider every vice as shameful and unmanly. Fire them with ambition to be useful. Make them disdain to be destitute of any useful knowledge. Fix their ambi- tion upon great and solid objects, and their contempt upon little, frivolous, and useless ones. — John Adams. As in the Master's spirit you take into your arms the little ones, His own everlasting arms will encircle them and you. He will pity both their and your simplicity; and as in unseen presence He comes again, His blessing will breathe upon you. — Tames Hamilton. Bring your little children to the Saviour. Place them in His arms. Devote them to His service. Born in His camp, let them wear from the first His colors. Taking advantage of timely opportunities, and with all tenderness of spirit, seek to endear them to the Friend of Sinners, the Good Shepherd of the lambs, the loving Guardian of the little children. And not only teach them, but govern them. And in order to govern them, govern yourselves. — James Hamilton. Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys. — T. L. Cuyler. Precious Saviour ! come in spirit, and lay Thy strong, gentle grasp of love on our dear boys and girls, and keep these our lambs from the fangs of the wolf. — T. L. Cuyler. CHILDREN. 51 We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us .'' — Mrs. Sigourney. Let us be men with men, and always children before God; for in His eyes we are but children. Old age itself, in presence of eternity, is but the first moment of a morning. — Joseph Joubert. We are but children, the things that we do Are as sports of a babe to the Infinite view, That sees all our weakness, and pities it too. And oh ! when aweary, may we be so blest As to sink, like an innocent child, to our rest, And feel ourselves clasped to the Infinite breast. — F. BuRGE Smith. I never hear parents exclaim impatiently, " Children, you must not make so much noise," that I do not think how soon the time may come when, beside the vacant seat, those parents would give all the worlds could they hear once more the ring- ing laughter which once so disturbed them. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them. — Rutherford. Johnny is but gone an hour or two sooner to bed as children are wont to do, and we are undressing to follow. And the more we put off the love of this present world, and all things superfluous beforehand, we shall have the less to do when we lie down. — Archbishop Leighton. CHILDREN. When our children die, we drop them into the unknown, shuddering with fear. We know that they go out from us, and we stand, and pity, and wonder. If we receive news that a hundred thousand dollars had been left them by some one dying, we should be thrown into an ecstasy of rejoicing; but when they have gone home to God, we stand, and mourn, and pine, and wonder at the mystery of Providence. — H. W. Beecher. The dying boy said: "Father, don't you weep for me; when I get to heaven I will go straight to Jesus and tell Him that ever since I can remember you have tried to lead me to Him." I would rather have my children say that of me after I am gone; or if they die before me, I would rather they should take that message to the Master than to have a monument over me reach- ing to the skies, — D. L. Moody. How can a mother's heart feel cold or weary Knowing her dearer self safe, sheltered, warm ? How can she feel her road too dark or dreary, Who knows her treasure sheltered from the storm ? How can she sin ? Our hearts may be unheeding. Our God forgot, our holy saints defied; But can a mother hear her dead child pleading. And thrust those little angel hands aside ? — A. A. Proctor. Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living ; not as a flower that has withered, but as one that is transplanted, and touched by a Divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth. — Hooker. CHOICE. 53 Better that the light cloud should fade away into heaven with the morning breath, than travail through the weary day to gather in darkness, and in storm. BULWER. Ye have lost a child — nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere. — Rutherford. The glorified spirit of the infant is as a star to guide the mother to its own blissful clime. — Mrs. Sigourney. Dearest wife, let us go on and faint not ; something of otirs is in heaven besides the flesh of our exalted Saviour, and we go on after our ozon. — Rutherford, CHOICE. You must make your choice whether to hold on to some thing which cannot save you, or let go, and fall info the hands of the Lord. — IcHABOD Spencer. But for us there are moments, O, how solemn, when destiny trembles in the balance, and the preponderance of either scale is by our own choice. — Mark Hopkins. Choose you this day whom ye shall serve. — Bible. 54 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. CHRIST. Jesus ! How does the very word overflow with sweetness, and light, and love, and life ; filling the air with odors, like precious ointment poured forth ; irradiating the mind with a glory of truths on which no fear can live, soothing the wounds of the heart with a balm that turns the sharpest anguish into delicious peace, shedding through the soul a cordial of immor- tal strength. Jesus ! the answer to all our doubts, the spring of all our courage, the earnest of all our hopes, the charm omnipotent against all our foes, the remedy for all weakness, the supply of all our wants, the fullness of all our desires. Jesus ! at the mention of whose name every knee shall bow and every tongue confess. Jesus ! our power; Jesus ! our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption — Jesus! our elder brother, our blessed Lord and Redeemer. Thy name is the most transporting theme of the church, as they sing going up from the valley of tears, to their home on the mount of God ; Thy name shall ever be the richest chord in the harmony of heaven, while the angels and the redeemed unite their exulting, adoring songs around the throne of God. — George W. Bethune. The ^^ wise men " were journeying to the manger — we to the throne. They \.o see a babe — we to look upon the King in His beauty. They to kneel and worship — we to sit with Him on His throne. That trembling star shone for them through the darkness of the night, lighting their way — Jesus is always with us, our star of hope; and the pathway is never dark where He leads; for He giveth " songs in the night." A. E. KiTTREDGE. Jesus Christ is, in the noblest and most perfect sense, the realized ideal of humanity. — Herder. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. 55 The incarnation of God is a necessity of human nature. If we really and truly have a Father, we must be able to clasp His feet in our penitence, and to lean on His breast in our weary sorrowfulness. — Charles F. Deems. Every unfulfilled aspiration of humanity in the past ; all par- tial representation of perfect character ; all sacrifices, nay, even those of idolatry, point to the fulfillment of what we want, the answer to every longing — the type of perfect humanity, the Lord Jesus Christ. — F. W. Robertson. I feel that one reason why many real Christians do not go on their way rejoicing is, that they deify the humanity of Christ. (They study the deity of the Saviour before they look to His humanity.) — Mrs. Mary Winslow. Christ's whole life on earth was the assertion and example of true manliness — the setting forth in living act and word what man is meant to be, and how he should carry himself in this world of God — one long campaign in which the " tempta- tion " stands out as the first great battle and victory. — Thomas Hughes. But if there has been on this earth no real, perfect human life, no love th'at never cooled, no faith that never failed, which may shine as a loadstar across the darkness of our ex- perience, a light to light amidst all convictions of our own meanness and all suspicions of other's littleness, why, we may have a religion, but we have not a Christianity. For if we lose Him as a Brother, we cannot feel Him as a Saviour. — F. W. Robertson. 5G CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. As human voice and instrument blend in one harmony, as human soul and body blend in each act of feeling, thought, or speech, so, as far as we can know, divinity and humanity act together in the thought and heart and act of the one Christ. — A. A. Hodge. Christ was placed midmost in the world's history ; and in that central position. He towers like some vast mountain to heaven — the farther slope stretching backward toward the cre- ation, the hither slope toward the consummation of all things. The ages before look to Him with prophetic gaze ; the ages since behold Him by historic faith ; by both He is seen in com- mon as the brightness of the Father's glory, and the unspeak- able gift of God to the race. We believe that to Christ belongs creative power — that " with- out Him was not any thing made which was made." We be- lieve that from Him came all life at first. In Him life was as in its deep source. He is the fountain of life. We believe that as no being comes into existence without His creative power, so none continues to exist without His sustaining energy. We believe that the history of the world is but the history of His influence, and that the centre of the whole universe is the cross of Calvary. — Alexander Maclaren. When has the world seen a phenomenon like this ? — a lonely uninstructed youth, coming from amid the moral darkness of Galilee, even more distinct from His age, and from every thing around Him, than a Plato would be rising up in some wild tribe in Oregon, assuming thus a position at the head of the world and maintaining it, for eighteen centuries, by the pure self-evidence of His life and doctrine. — Horace Bushnell. CHRIST- LIFE AND MINISTRY. 57 He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur. Nineteen cen- turies roll away, and His character so lives that He inspires millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings; He became what He was despite His surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness, " Do as 1 have done." He, the ideal, the perfect one of our race, appears in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act — could not have been conceived in thought. In the theory of develop- ment the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence. Christ therefore is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ Himself is proof of His own miracles. — Reynolds. The most destructive criticism has not been able to dethrone Christ as the incarnation of perfect holiness. The waves of a tossing and restless sea of unbelief break at His feet, and He stands still the supreme model, the inspiration of great souls, the rest of the weary, the fragrance of all Christendom, the one divine flower in the garden of God. — Herrick Johnson. Christ's divinity accounts for His exaltation to the right hand of God, justifies the worship of angels and the confidence of mankind. It makes clear His right to the throne of the universe, and enables the mind to understand why He is ex- alted in providence, in grace, and in judgment. It is the unify- ing truth that harmonizes all other teachings of Christianity, and renders the entire system symmetrical and complete. — George C. Lorimer. Christ was either the grandest, guiltiest of impostors, by a marvelous and most subtle refinement of wickedness, or He was God manifest in the flesh. — Herrick Johnson. 58 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. Newton supposed that all matter attracted other matter in- versely according to the square of the distance ; and the hy- pothesis was found to account for the whole movements of the heavenly bodies ; which all became verifications of what New- ton supposed to be the law of the solar system. Adopt the hypothesis that Jesus was what He is represented, and the whole of the books and the history becomes a verification. — James McCosh. If Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God in the experience of those who trust and love Him, there needs no further argument of His divinity. — H. W. Beecher. Whatever Jesus is, the glorious Godhead is; and to have fel- lowship with the Son is to have fellowship with the Father. To know the love of Christ is to be filled with all the fullness of God. — James Hamilton. The tears of Christ are the pity of God. The gentleness of Jesus is the long-suffering of God. The tenderness of Jesus is the love of God. " He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." — Alexander Maclaren. Christ pitied because He loved, because He saw through all the wretchedness, and darkness, and bondage of evil; that there was in every human soul a possibility of repentance, of restoration; a germ of good, which, however stifled and overlaid, yet was capable of recovery, of health, of freedom, of perfection. — Dean Stanley. In His love and in His pity He redeemed them. — Bible. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. 59 Poor shepherdless sheep ! it was His delight, as the Good Shepherd, to lead them to rich pastures; and as they sat and stood around Him, they forgot their bodily wants in the beauty and power of His words. — J. Cunningham Geikie. The absence of sentimentalism in Christ's relations with men is what makes His tenderness so exquisitely touching. — Phillips Brooks. From the moment of His self-dedication, when He tlirew His cares away, and went forth not knowing where to lay His head, the whole energy which others spend on interests of their own was poured into His human and Divine affections, and filled His life with an enthusiasm resistless and unique. How- ever quiet His words, it is impossible not to feel the tender depths from which they come. — James Martineau. The life of Christ concerns Him who, being the holiest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the holy, lifted with His pierced hand empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and still governs the ages. — Jean Paul Richter. Great occasions rally great principles, and brace the mind to a lofty bearing, a bearing that is even above itself. But trials that make no occasion at all, leave it to show the goodness and beauty it has in its own disposition. And here precisely is the superhuman glory of Christ as a character, that He is just as perfect, exhibits just as great a spirit in little trials as in great ones. — Horace Bushnell. 60 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. No other fame can be compared with that of Jesus. He has a place in the human heart, that no one who ever lived has in any measure rivaled. No name is pronounced with a tone of such love and veneration. All other laurels wither before His. His are ever kept fresh with tears of gratitude. — W. E. Channing. Unlike all other founders of a religious faith, Christ had no selfishness, no desire of dominance; and His system, unlike all other systems of worship, was bloodless, boundlessly beneficent, and — most marvelous of all — went to break all bonds of body and soul, and to cast down every temporal and every spiritual tyranny. — William Howitt. Jesus Christ was born in a stable; He was obliged to fly into Egypt; thirty years of His life were spent in a workshop; He suffered hunger, thirst, and weariness; He was poor, despised, and miserable; He taught the doctrines of heaven, and no one would listen. The great and the wise persecuted and took Him, subjected Him to frightful torments, treated Him as a slave, and put Him to death between two malefactors, having preferred to give liberty to a robber, rather than to suffer Him to escape. Such was the life which our Lord chose; while we are horrified at any kind of humiliation, and cannot bear the slightest appearance of contempt. — Fenelon. It is the grandeur of Christ's character which constitutes the chief power of His ministry, not His miracles or teachings apart from His character. The greatest truth of the gospel is Christ Himself — a human body become the organ of the Divine nature, and revealing, under the conditions of an earthly life, the glory of God. — Horace Bushnell. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. 61 That image or rather that Person, so human, yet so entirely- Divine, has a power to fill the imagination, to arrest the affec- tions, to deepen and purify the conscience, which nothing else in the world has. — J. C. Shairp. The sages and heroes of history are receding from us, and history contracts the record of their deeds into a narrow and narrower page. But time has no power over the name and deeds and words of Jesus Christ. — W. E. Channing. In Christ we see the strength of achievement, and the strength of endurance. He moved with a calm majesty, like the sun. The bloody sweat, and the crown of thorns, and the cross, were full in His eyes; but He was obedient unto death. In His perfect self-sacrifice, we see the perfection of strength; in the love that prompted it, we see the perfection of beauty. This combination of self-sacrifice and love must be commenced in every Christian; and when it shall be in its spirit complete in him, then will he also be perfect in strength and beauty. — Mark Hopkins. This it is that gives a majesty so pure and touching to the historic figure of Christ; self-abandonment to God, uttermost surrender, without reserve or stipulation, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the Soul of souls; pause in no darkness, hesitation in no perplexity, recoil in no extremity of anguish; but a gentle unfaltering hold of the invisible Hand, of the Only Holy and All Good; — these are the features that have made Jesus of Nazareth the dearest and most sacred image to the heart of so many ages. — James Martineau. Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. — Bible, 62 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. He came, bringing with Him the knowledge that God is a Being of infinite goodness ; that the service required of man- kind is not a service of form or ceremony, but a service of obedience. — J. A. Froude. Other sages have spoken to me of God. But from whom could I have learned the essence of Divine perfection, as from Him, who was in a peculiar sense the Son, representative, and image of God — who was especially an incarnation of the un- bounded love of the Father? And from what other teacher could I have learned to approach the Supreme Being with that filial spirit, which forms the happiness of my fellowship with Him? From other seers I might have heard of heaven; but when I behold in Jesus the spirit of heaven, dwelling actually on earth, what a new comprehension have I of that better world! — W. E. Channing. I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I never read in either of them, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." — St. Augustine. Whoever would fully and feelingly understand the words of Christ, must endeavor to conform his life wholly to the life of Christ. — Thomas a Kempis. Oh, wonderful teacher! Oh, favored disciples! Oh, famous school — that built no marble halls, and collected no grand library, but turned all life into opportunity; made houses and streets and seaside and mountain-tops, places of discipline and recitation and delight! Oh, blest example — shining this day on the pages of history — our example, our dream, our desire! — y. H. Vincent. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. 63 Christ's method is divine. His words have the charm of antiquity with the freshness of yesterday; the simplicity of a child with the wisdom of a God; the softness of kisses from the lip of love, and the force of the lightning rending the tower. His parables are like groups of matchless statuary; His prayers like an organ peal floating round the world and down the ages, echoed by the mountain-peaks and plains into rich and varied melody, in which all devout hearts find their noblest feelings at once expressed, sustained, refined. His truths are self-evidencing. They fall into the soul as seed into the ground, to rest and germinate. He speaks, and all nature and life become vocal with theology. — Edward Thomson. Then, too, His patience — reaching on and on in its long-suf- fering amplitude, waiting and never weary, hopeful and never despairing of conquering the soul, — no wonder the "patience of Christ" became the apostolic formulary of moral loveliness. What a power was in it! Here is a nature made suspicious by manifold deceits, stranded on the shoals of doubt, desponding, obstinate, wedded to sin. Does the Master crush it by imperi- ous authority, exasperate it by taunts, fling it aside as a cum- berer of the ground ? Ah, give it time to recover, opportunities to know itself, nurse it by gentleness, gain its confidence, find the secret of its weakness and sorrow! Do not despair! It may bear fruit next year. Oh, this infinite patience of Jesus, how it rebukes our cynical criticisms and passionate haste! How it bids us take note of temperaments, troubles, habits, provocations, prejudices, in our judgments of men ! — H. N. Powers. How free from every thing like art were the reasonings and language of Christ. — David Thomas. •34 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. From first to last, Jesus is the same; always the same — majestic and simple, infinitely severe and infinitely gentle. — Napoleon Bonaparte. You never get to the end of Christ's words. There is some- thing in them always behind. They pass into proverbs — they pass into laws — they pass into doctrines — they pass into con- solations; but they never pass away, and, after all the use that is made of them, they are still not exhausted. — Dean Stanley. Certainly, no revolution that has ever taken place in society can be compared to that which has been produced by the words. of Jesus Christ. — Mark. Hopkins. Think of the majesty of that moment in this dying world's history, when Jesus Christ declared that to the Christian death was only a sleep. Outside of that small dwelling in Caper- naum, a great race of men rushed and toiled as they harassed continents and seas ; mighty events marshaled themselves into annals and pageants. What was inside ? In one inconspicu- ous chamber of a now forgotten house, man's Redeemer, unob- served, martyred man's final enemy. There Immanuel subdued death forever. — C. S. Robinson. What Jesus spoke was Truth; the way He spoke was gracious. He spoke the truth in love. God is love, and the Son of God spoke lovingly. — Ta.aies Hamilton. Christ is the chief object proposed to the sinner in the New Testament, The eye that sweeps round the whole circle of Divine truth must rest in Him as the centre. — John Angel James. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. 65 Jesus Christ, the embodiment of truth and love, has explained the Scriptures by fulfilling them. So when the soul has passed into God, the word is fulfilled in the soul, as it was in Christ- O Love ! thou art thyself the pure, naked, simple truth, which is expressed, not by me, but by thyself, through me. In darkness there is no choice. It is light that enables us to see the difference between things ; and it is Christ that gives us light. — Guesses at Truth. Christ came not to talk about a beautiful light, but to be that light — not to speculate about virtue, but to be virtue. — H. G. Taylor. The parables, as they are called, are the wisdom of Jesus applied to the daily life of man. — C. W. Elliott. They take inadequate views of Christ's prophetic character, who think Jesus came only to utter discourses, parables, and prayers. Suppose all He ever said to be found in the writings of Jewish rabbis and heathen philosophers. His great functio?i would still be an orginal one, to show us the Father. — Edward Thomson. Christ's miracles were vivid manifestations to the senses that He is the Saviour of the body — and now as then the issues of life and death are in His hands — that our daily existence is a perpetual miracle. The extraordinary was simply a manifesta- tion of God's power in the ordinary. — F. W. Robertson. All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 5 — Bible. 66 CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. The miracles of Christ were studiously performed in the most unostentatious way. He seemed anxious to veil His majesty under the love with which they were wrought. — W. E. Channing. A large portion of Christ's miracles of love were wrought at the urgent request of parents for their suffering children. Is that ear gone deaf to-day ? Will He not do for our children's souls what He did for the bodies of the ruler's daughter, and the dead youth at Nain ? T. L. CUYLER. Our Lord's miracles were all essential parts of His one con- sistent life. They were wrought as evidences not only of His power, but of His mercy. They were throughout moral in their character, and spiritual in the ends contemplated by them. They were in fact embodiments of His whole character, exem- plars of His whole teaching, emblems of His whole mission. — James McCosh. All Christ's public acts were consecrated by prayer, — His baptism. His transfiguration. His miracles, His agony. His death. He breathed away His spirit in prayer. " His last breath," says Philip Henry, "was praying breath." — J. R. Macduff. Remember that vision on the Mount of Transfiguration ; and let it be ours, even in the glare of earthly joys and brightnesses, to lift up our eyes, like those Avondering three, and see no man any more, save Jesus only. — Alexander Maclaren. Christ illustrates the purport of life as He descends from His transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns. — E. H. Chapin. CHRIST: LIP^E AND MINISTRY. 67 Not only do we witness on the Holy Mount the installation of the royal lawgiver, but of the great high-priest. It is a grand valedictory service in which He is re-ordained to duty — as the banners are blessed before the army marches to the field. And the voice speaks from heaven as a sovereign gives audience to a chosen commander, and cheers him with the encouragement of royal favor. With what reverence, brethren, should we, sinners, look upon the scene ! As we see Him standing alone upon the mountain — fresh from His ordination of glory — calm and kingly in His heaven-imparted strength ; and then as we see Him, with firm step, treading the dark avenue which, through desertion, agony, insult, abandonment, terminates in His death upon the cross — surely our distrust should vanish, and in reliance on such a champion we should have "joy in believ- ing." Surely our indignation against the vile sin which made all this suffering necessary should be roused within us. Surely our hearts should bound with a fervor of devotion and grati- tude which the obedience of a lifetime can only inadequately express. — Wm. M. Punshon. All the virtues which appeared in Christ shone brightest in the close of His life, under the trials He then met. Eminent virtue always shows brightest in the fire. Pure gold shows its purity chiefly in the furnace. It was chiefly under those trials which Christ endured in the close of His life, that His love to God, His honor of God's majesty, His regard to the honor of His law, His spirit of obedience, His humility, contempt of the world. His patience, meekness, and spirit of forgive- ness towards men, appeared. Indeed, every thing that Christ did to work out redemption for us appears mainly in the close of His life. Here mainly is His satisfaction for sin, and here chiefly is His merit of eternal life for sinners, and here chiefly appears the brightness of His example which He has set us for imitation. — Jonathan Edwards. CHRIST: LIFE AND MINISTRY. As Christ's ministry drew to its close, its severity and its gen- tleness both increased; its severity to the class from whom it never turned away. Side by side through all His manifesta- tions of Himself, there were the two aspects: "He showed Himself froward " (if I may quote the word) to the self-right- eous and the Pharisee; and He bent with more than a woman's tenderness of yearning love over the darkness and sinfulness, which in its great darkness dimly knew itself blind, and in its sinfulness stretched out a lame hand of faith, and groped after a Divine deliverer. — ^ Alexander Maclaren. Christ wrought out His perfect obedience as a man, through temptation, and by suffering. — Alexander Maclaren. And I think, dear friends, if we carried with us more dis- tinctly than we do that one simple thought that in all human joys, in all the apparently self-forgetting tenderness, of that Lord, who had a heart for every sorrow, and an ear for every complaint, and a hand 'open as day and full of melting charity for every need — that in every moment of that life in the boy- hood, in the dawning manhood, in the maturity of His grow- ing power — there was always present one black .shadow, toward which He ever went straight with the consent of His will and the clearest eye, we should understand something more of how the life as well as the death was a sacrifice for us sinful men. — Alexander M.a.cl.a.ren. It was necessary for the Son to disappear as an outward authority, in order that He might reappear as an inward prin- ciple of life. Our salvation is no longer God manifested in a Christ without us, but as a " Christ within us, the hope of glory." — F. W. Robertson. CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. G9 God's beloved Son, leaving the echoes of His cries upon the mountains and the traces of His weary feet upon the streets, shedding His tears over the tombs and His blood upon Gol- gotha, associating His life with our homes, and His corpse with our sepulchres, shows us how we, too, may be sons in the hum- blest vale of life, and sure of sympathy in heaven amid the deepest wrongs and sorrows of earth. — Edward Thomson. The study of every thing that stands connected with the death of Christ, whether it be in the types of the ceremonial law, the predictions of the prophets, the narratives of the Gos- pels, the doctrines of the epistles, or the sublime vision of the Apocalypse, this is the food of the soul, the manna from heaven, the bread of life. This is "'' meat indeed" 2.x\di. '^ drink indeed^ — John Angel James. The whole history of Israel, its ritual and its government, is explicable only as it is typical of the spiritual Israel, of the sac- rifice on Calvary, of the precious blood which alone can wash away sin. A. E. KiTTREDGE. All other great men are valued for their lives; He, above all, for His death, around which mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, God and man are reconciled; for the cross is the magnet which sends the electric current through the telegraph between earth and heaven, and makes both Testaments thrill, through the ages of the past and future, with living, harmoni- ous, and saving truth. — Edward Thomson. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. — Bible. 70 CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. Other men have said, " If I could only live, I would establish and perpetuate an empire." This Christ of Galilee says, " My death shall do it." Other martyrs have djed in simple fidelity to truth. This martyr dies that He may make His truth mighty over all hearts. He was a man; but was He only a man ? — Herrick Johnson. It was in His parting sorrow — that Jesus asked His disciples to remember Him; and never was entreaty of affection an- swered so; for ever since hasHisname been breathed in morn- ing and evening prayers that none can count, and has brought down some gift of sanctity and peace on the anguish of bereave- ment, and the remorse of sin. — James Martineau. When the Father would give men the light of the knowledge of His -glory, how does He proceed.^ To what does He turn men's gaze ? Not to His mighty works; not to creative or provi- dential wonders; not to geological or astronomical facts; not to the data on which Paley and Bell and other admirable writers build up their argument from design; not to the still greater wonder of mind, but to " the face of Jesus Christ," that face that was more marred than any man's; that endured the ruffian blows; down which the blood drops trickled ; that looked down on a mocking crowd from an ignominious cross. — John Hall. Christ's sacrifice stands in glorious proportions with the work to be done. Nothing else or less would suffice. It is a work supernatural, transacted in the plane of nature ; and what but such a work could restore the broken order of the soul under evil ? — Horace Bushnell. CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. 71 " Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them to the end." Often had they been faithless ; and now, while addressing them, He knmvs that they will all in a few hours forsake Him. Yet He trusts them ; He commits His cause to their keeping. And we must love as He loved. — Richard Fuller. When Jesus knew that it was not possible for the cup to pass from Hinij with love to God He held it fast, and with love to man He drank it all. — Alexander Dickson. As we look upon that agony And those tearful prayers, let us not only look with thankfulness ; but let that kneeling Saviour teach us that in prayer alone can we be forearmed against our lesser sorrows; that strength to bear flows into the heart that is opened in supplication ; and that a sorrow which we are made able to endure is more truly conquered than a sorrow which we avoid. — Alexander Maclaren. He planted His cross in the midst of the mad and roaring current of selfishness, aggravated to malignity, and uttered from it the mighty cry of expiring love. And the waters heard Him, and from that moment they began to be refluent about His cross. From that moment, a current deeper and broader and mightier began to set heavenward; and it will continue to be deeper and broader and mightier till its glad waters shall en- compass the earth, and toss themselves as the ocean. And not alone did earth hear the cry. It pierced the regions of im- mensity. Heaven heard it, and hell heard it, and the remotest star shall hear it, testifying to the love of God in His unspeak- able gift, and to the supremacy of that blessedness of giving which could be reached only through death — the death of the cross. — Mark Hopkins. 73 CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. I entreat you to devote one solemn hour of thought to a crucified Saviour — a Saviour expiring in the bitterest agony. Think of the cross, the nails, the open wounds, the anguish of His soul. Think how the Son of God became a man of sor- rows and acquainted with grief, that you might live forever. Think as you lie down upon your bed to rest, how your Saviour was lifted up from the earth to die. Think amid your plans and anticipations of future gaiety, what the redemption of your soul has cost, and how the dying Saviour would wish you to act. His wounds plead that you will live for better things. ■ — Albkrt Barnes. Nothing like one honest look, one honest thought of Christ upon His cross. That tells us how much He has been through, how much He endured, how much He conquered, how much God loved us, who spared not His only begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us. Dare we doubt such a God ? Dare we murmur against such a God ? — Charles Kingsley. O, let us understand that the power of Christianity lies not in a hazy indefiniteness, not in shadowy forms, not so much even in definite truths and doctrines, but in the truth and the doc- trine. There is but one Christ crucified. All the gathered might of the infinite God is in that word. — Herrick Johnson. My faith would lay her hand On that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my sin. — Watts. CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. 73 The last business of Christ's life was the saving of a poor penitent thief. — D. L. Moody. But now, the sounds of infancy, always nearest the heart, and sure to come to the lips in our deepest emotion, returned in His anguish ; and in words which He had learned at His mother's knee. His heart uttered its last wail — " Eloi ! Eloi ! lama sabachthani ? " " My God ! My God ! why hast Thou forsaken me ? " — J. Cunningham Geikie. But no sympathy reached His convulsed spirit. He was alone; alone, enduring the curse for us; alone, " bearing our sins in His own body on the tree," and exhausting the fierce- ness of eternal justice; alone, without succor from man; alone, without one strengthening whisper from angel; above all, alone, without one ray from His Father's countenance. And that expiring cry, " My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken me .'' " was the bitter, dreary, dismal, piercing wail of a soul utterly deserted — wrapped, shrouded in essential unmitigated desolation. — Richard Fuller. He was Himself forsaken that none of His children might ever need to utter His cry of loneliness. — J. H. Vincent. In agony unknown He bleeds away His life; in terrible throes He exhausts His soul. "Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani .' " And then see ! they pierce His side, and forthwith runneth out blood and water! This is the shedding of blood, the terrible pouring out of blood, without which, for you and the whole human race, there is no remission. — C. H. Spurgeon. 74 CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. A moment more, and all was over. The cloud had passed as suddenly as it rose. Far and wide, over the vanquished throngs of His enemies, with a loud voice, as if uttering His shout of eternal victory before entering into His glory, He cried, " It is finished ! " Then, more gently, came the words, " Father, into Thy hands 1 commend my spirit." A moment more, and there arose a great cry, as of mortal agony ; the head fell. He was dead. — T- Cunningham Geikie. In this awfully stupendous manner, at which Reason stands aghast, and Faith herself is half confounded, was the grace of God to man at length manifested, — Richard Hurd. Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of Thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, so by continual mortify- ing our corrupt affections, we may be buried with Him ; and that through the grave, and gate of death, we may pass to our joyful resurrection ; for His merits, who died, and was buried, and rose again for us. Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — Book of Common Prayer. If Socrates died like a sage, Jesus died like a God. — Rousseau. It was not till Jesus had cried, " It is finished," and from His riven side the soldier's spear had fetched the blood and water; it was not till then, that the fountain sealed of Incarnate Love became the fountain opened of Redeeming merit, and that the Siloah began to flow, which ever since has flowed adown the oracles of God. — James Hamilton. CHRIST: SUFFERINGS AND DEATH. 75 The death of the Son of God is a single and most perfect sacrifice and satisfaction for sins; of infinite value and price, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of the whole world. — Synod of Dort. The sufferings and death of Jesus Christ are a substitution for the endless punishment of all who truly believe on Him. — Adams. I have always considered the atonement to be characteristic of the gospel, as a system of religion. Strip it of that doctrine, and you reduce it to a scheme of morality, excellent indeed, and such as the world never before saw; but to man in the present state of his faculties, absolutely impracticable. — Thomas, Earl of Kinnoul. By Thine hour of dire despair; By Thine agony of prayer; By the cross, the nail, the thorn, Piercing spear, and torturing scorn; By the gloom that veiled the skies O'er the dreadful sacrifice ; Listen to our humble cry, Hear our solemn Litany. — Sir Robert Grant. The world cannot bury Christ. The earth is not deep enough for His tomb, the clouds are not wide enough for His winding-sheet; He ascends into the heavens, but the heavens cannot contain Him. He still lives — in the church which burns unconsumed with His love; in the truth that reflects His image ; in the hearts which burn as He talks with them by the way. — Edward Thomson. 76 CHRIST: RESURRECTION AND EXALTATION. Twice had the sun gone down on the earth, and all as yet was quiet at the sepulchre; Death held his sceptre o'er the Son of God ; still and silent the hours passed on; the guards stood by their posts; the rays of midnight moon gleamed on their helmets and on their spears ; the enemies of Christ ex- ulted in their success; the hearts of His friends were sunk in despondency and sorrow; while the spirits of glory waited with anxious suspense to behold the event — wondering at the depth of the ways of God. At length, the morning star, arising in the east, announced the approach of light; the third day began to dawn on the world, when on a sudden the earth trembled to its centre, and the powers of heaven were shaken ; an angel of God descended ; the guards shrunk back from the terror. of his presence, and fell prostrate on the ground. His coun- tenance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow ; he rolled the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and sat on it. But who is this that cometh from the tomb, with dyed garments from the bed of death .' He that is glorious in His appearance, walking in the greatness of strength ? It is thy Prince, O Zion ! Christian, it is your Lord ! He hath trodden the wine-press alone ; He hath stained His raiment with blood; but now as the first-born from the womb of nature. He meets the morning of His resurrection. He arises, a con- queror from the grave ; He returns with blessings from the world of spirits ; He brings salvation to the sons of men. Never did the returning sun usher in a day so glorious ! It was the jubilee of the universe ! Step by step, He had raised their conceptions of Him nearer the unspeakable grandeur of His true nature and work. At first the Teacher, He had, after a time, by gradual disclosures, revealed Himself as the Son of God veiled in the form of man; and, now, since His crucifixion and resurrection, He had taught them to see in Him the Messiah, exalted to immortal and Di- vine majesty, as the conqueror of Death and the Lord of all. CHRIST: RESURRECTION AND EXALTATION. 77 In His discourses, His miracles, His parables, His sufferings, His resurrection, He gradually raises the pedestal of His hu- manity before the world, but under a cover, until the shaft reaches from the grave to the heavens, whenHe lifts the curtain, and displays the figure of a man on a throne, for the worship of the universe ; and clothing His church with His own power, He authorizes it to baptize and to preach remission of sins in His own name. — Edward Thomson. Having made an expiation for sins. He is set down on God's right hand for ever. There is no more that even Immanuel can do. This is Love's extremest effort, God's last and greatest gift, God's own sacrifice. Can there be any escape for those who neglect so great salvation ? — James Hamilton. My Saviour ! fill up the blurred and blotted sketch which my clumsy hand has drawn of a Divine life, with the fullness of Thy perfect picture. I feel the beauty I cannot realize; robe me in Thine unutterable purity. — F. W. Robertson. Christ whose glory fills the skies, Christ, the true, the only light. Sun of Righteousness, arise, Triumph o'er the shades of night ; Day-spring from on high, be near. Day-star in my heart appear. TOPLADY. Jesus Christ is not hurried; He calmly rules the storm, and holds the helm of this world in His hand, and it will not drift away from the course designated by the infinite authority and power of God. — Bishop Daggett. 78 CHRIST: KING. The hoary centuries are full of Hmi; the echoes of His sweet voice are heard to-day; His love has perfumed the past eighteen hundred years, and He lives to-day, as the Head of His church; He lives to-day, the object of the warmest adora- tion, the most passionate love, for whom millions would die this very hour. Empires have fallen, thrones have crumbled; but Jesus lives, His empire extending every day. His throne gaining new trophies of His grace. A. E. KiTTREDGE. It was the custom of the Roman emperors, at their triumphal entrance, to cast new coins among the multitudes; so doth Christ, in His triumphal ascension into heaven, throw the greatest gifts for the good of men that were ever given. — T. Goodwin. And what is the joy of Christ ? The joy and delight which springs forever in His great heart, from feeling that He is for- ever doing good; from loving all, and living for all; from know- ing that if not all, yet millions on millions are grateful to Him, and will be forever. — Charles Kingsley. Brethren, it is not the thinker who is the true king of men, as we sometimes hear it proudly said. We need one who will not only show, but be the Truth; who will not only point, but open and be the Way ; who will not only communicate thought, but give, because He is the Life. Not the rabbi's pulpit, nor the teacher's desk, still less the gilded chairs of earthly mon- archs, least of all the tents of conquerors, are the throne of the true king. He rules from the cross. — Alexander Maclaren. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. — Bible. CHRIST: KING. 79 The enthronement of Christ over the minds of men is steadily going forward. His kingdom embraces the princes in the realm of mind. It embraces the nations of highest civilization. They are all beneath the cross. It is maintained by simple authority. Other mental monarchs rule by logic ; Christ's word'\% law — it is satisfying to His subjects. His truth in the hands of His disciples, like the bread He broke upon the moun- tains, is an ample supply for the millions that gather at His table. — Edward Thomson. Yes, we have throned Him in our minds and hearts — the cynosure of our wandering thoughts — the monarch of our warmest affections, hopes, desires. This we have done. And the more we meditate upon His astonishing love. His amazing sacrifice, the more we feel that if we had a thousand minds, hearts, souls, we would crown Him Lord of all. Living we will live in Him, for Him, to Him. Dying, we will clasp Him in our arms, and, with Simeon, welcome death as the consum- mation of bliss. — Richard Fuller. Christ is the Head of all things. Every thing lies open before His eye, every thing is sustained by His power, and every thing is disposed of by His wisdom. Not a sparrow can fall to the ground without His notice and permission. Oh, to see Jesus in all things ! Oh to see every thing at the disposal of Jesus ! Oh, to see that all things are directed, controlled, and over- ruled by Christ alone ! May this calm my mind, compose my spirit, and produce holy resignation m my soul ! If Jesus ar- ranges all, sends all, directs all, overrules all, then all things must work together for good to them that love God. — James Smith. 80 CHRIST: LEADER. Up with the banner of your new Lord, Jehovah Jesus ! Raise it in firm decision, with quiet earnestness and with hum- ble prayer; keep it with unflinching fortitude, and be ready to die rather than dishonor it. — Wm. M. Taylor. Christ puts Himself at the head of the mystic march of the generations; and, like the mysterious angel that Joshua saw in the plain by Jericho, makes the lofty claim, " Nay, but as the captain of the Lord's host am I come up." — Alexander Maclaren. Jesus, still lead on, Till our rest be won I And although the way be cheerless, We will follow calm and fearless; Guide us by Thy hand To our fatherland ! — Count Von Zinzendorf. Christ sends His Spirit, not only to help, but to lead us on, so that we build better than we know. We come freely into His methods ; we are made to carry out His plan. This is the guarantee of an eternal success. — M. B. Riddle. Christ wants to lead men by their love, their personal love to Him, and the confidence of His personal love to them. — Horace Bushnell. From behind the shadow of the still small voice — more awful than tempest or earthquake — more sure and persistent than day and night — is always sounding full of hope and strength to the weariest of us all, '' Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." — Thomas Hughes. CHRIST: SAVIOUR. 81 We believe that the salvation of sinners is wholly of grace; through the mediatorial offices of the Son of God; who, by the appointment of the Father, freely took upon Him our nature, yet without sin ; honored the Divine law by His personal obe- dience, and by His death made a full atonement for sins; that having risen from the dead He is now enthroned in heaven ; and uniting in His wonderful person the tenderest sympathies with Divine perfections, He is every way qualified to be a suitable, a compassionate, and an all-sufficient Saviour. — Baptist Church Manual. My only comfort is that I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood hath fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me, that without the will of my heav- enly Father, not a hair can fall from my head ; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation. And, therefore, by His Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth to live unto Him. — Heidelberg Catechism. You may be a dreadful failure. Christ is a Divine success. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth." — Edward Thomson. Our sins are debts that none can pay but Christ. It is not our tears, but His blood; it is not our sighs, but His sufferings, that can testify for our sins. Christ must pay all, or we are prisoners forever. — Thomas Brooks. Jesus did all the saving-work. He brought the cross to our level. Get saved by looking to Him; and then live to God. 6 — W. P. Mackay. 82 CHRIST: SAVIOUR. Because many who are called by the gospel do not repent nor believe in Christ, but perish in unbelief, this does not arise from defect or insufficiency of the sacrifice offered by Christ, but from their own fault. — Synod of Dort. You have " done all you could " to save yourself; and yet you have accomplished nothing. Fly, then, to Christ, — to Christ, just as you arc, just as unworthy — to Christ now, "while it is called to-day." Be assured you are welcomed to all His benefits. — IcHABOD Spencer. The compassion of Christ inclines Him to save sinners, — the power of Christ enables Him to save sinners, — and the promise of Christ binds Him to save sinners. A guilty, weak, and helpless worm, On Thy kind arms I fall ; Be Thou my Strength and Righteousness, My Saviour and my All. — Watts. Grieve not the Christ of God, who redeems us ; and remem- ber that we grieve Him most when we will not let Him pour His love upon us, but turn a sullen, unresponsive unbelief towards His pleading grace, as some glacier shuts out the sun- shine from the mountain-side with its thick-ribbed ice. — Alexander Maclaren. On Thee alone my hope relies. Beneath Thy cross I fall ; My Lord ! my Life ! my Sacrifice ! My Saviour ! and my All! — Anne Steele. CHRIST: SAVIOUR. 83 I feel my disease, and I feel that my want of alarm and lively affecting conviction forms its most obstinate ingredient ; I try to stir up the emotion, and feel myself harassed and dis- tressed at the impotency of my own meditations. But why linger without the threshold in the face of a warm and urgent invitation? "Come unto me." Do not think it is your office to heal one part of the disease, and Christ's to heal the re- mainder. — Thomas Chalmers. Brethren, is not this the Saviour that you need ? one who can save you from the utmost depths of depravity, in the ut- most corner of the earth, on the utmost inch of time ? One who can save you amidst the utmost urgency of fierce tempta- tions, and who in the uttermost extreme of exhausted nature, when heart and flesh do faint and fail, completes the work, and seals the salvation for evermore ? — James Hamilton. No glory of the Eternal One is higher than this, " Mighty TO save;" no name of God is more adorable than that of "Saviour;" noplace among the servants of God can be so glorious as that of an instrument of salvation. — William Arthur. As this brook not only washes off impurities, but overwhelms them, so that they can no longer be found, even so Thy Divine mercy, and the stream of my Saviour's blood, not only purge away, but extinguish my sins, sweeping them into the depths of the sea, where through all eternity they shall be remembered no more. — Christian Scriver. Bear in mind, it was the ark that saved Noah; it was not his righteousness; it was not his feelings; it was not his prayers. It was the ark that saved him. 84 CHRIST: SAVIOUR. You have only to cast your life-long guilt, your ungodliness, your evil thoughts and wicked words, your sinful soul itself, into this crime-canceling, sin-annihilating, soul-cleansing Foun- tain, in order to obliterate from God's creation your foul trans- gressions, and yet leave the Divine perfection fair as ever. The sin which a Saviour's blood dissolves is the only sin which, after being once committed, is totally extinguished. — James Hamilton. Rest, weary soul 1 The penalty is borne, the ransom paid. For all thy sins full satisfaction made; Strive not to do thyself what Christ has done. Claim the free gift, and make the joy thine own; No more by pangs of guilt and fear distressed. Rest, sweetly rest. — Jane Borthwick. Go to the family where darkness and suspicion and jealousy and disorder reign, and if they will but receive Christ, mark how light and confidence and order and peace spring up. Go to the regions of superstition and idolatry, and see what trans- formations are effected by Jesus. — Edward Thomson. Never trample on any soul though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life: — the voice of God that whispers to it: " You are not what you ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are still God's child, still an immortal soul. You may rise yet, and fight a good fight yet, and be a man once more, after the likeness of God who made you, and Christ whb died for you! " — Charles Kingsley. CHRIST: SAVIOUR. 85 Christ's voice sounds now for each of us in loving invitation; and dead in sin and hardness of heart though we be, we can listen and live. Christ Himself, my brother, sows the seed now. Do you take care that it falls not on, but in, your souls. — Alexander Maclaren. When a man begins to apprehend the first approach of grace, pardon, and mercy by Jesus Christ to his soul; when he is convinced of his utter unworthiness and desert of hell, and can never expect any thing from a just and holy God but damna- tion, how do the first dawnings of mercy melt and humble him! — John Flavel. Compassionate Saviour ! We welcome Thee to our world, We welcome Thee to our hearts. We bless Thee for the Di- vine goodness Thou hast brought from heaven; for the souls Thou hast warmed with love to man, and lifted up in love to God; for the efforts of divine philanthropy which Thou hast inspired; and for that hope of a pure celestial life, through which Thy disciples triumph over death. — W. E. Channing. Happy those who are able in truth to say, " My Lord and my God ! " Here is the true bond of union. Here is the noblest inspiration of life. Strength for work. Comfort in trouble. Hope in death. Here is what gives eternity itself its chief interest and joy. There we shall behold the King in His beauty. And when we shall see Him as He is, and shall be like Him, with what ecstasy of love and gratitude and joy shall we cry, " My Lord and my God ! " — William Forsythe. Jesus is the true manifestation of God, and He is manifested to be the regenerating power of a divine life. — Horace Bushnell. 86 CHRIST: SAVIOUR. O Thou Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world, what Thou bearest in Thy blessed hands and feet I cannot bear; take it all away. Hide me in the depths of Thy suffer- ing love, mold me to the image of Thy divine passion. — Horace Bushnell. Christ is the great Burden bearer — the Lamb of God who beareth the sin of the world; but in order to enjoy the benefit of His interposition, I must distinctly and for myself take advantage of it. Conscious of my lost estate, I must seek a personal share in the common salvation. — James Hamilton. . Remember Thy pure word of grace, — Remember Calvary; Remember all Thy dying groans. And then remember me. — Burnham. He who thinks he hath no need of Christ, hath too high thoughts of himself. He who thinks Christ cannot help him, hath too low thoughts of Christ. — J. M. Mason, There is truth in Jesus which is terrible, as well as truth that is soothing; terrible, for He shall be Judge as well as Saviour; and ye cannot face Him, ye cannot stand before Him, unless ye now give ear to His invitation. — Henry Melvill. The Lord Jesus Christ would have the whole world to know, that though He pardons sin, He will not protect it. — Joseph Alleine. CHRIST: SAVIOUR. 87 He in whose heart the law was, and who alone of all man- kind was content to do it, His sacrifice alone can be the sac- rifice all-sufficient in the Father's sight as the proper sacrifice of humanity; He who through the Eternal Spirit offered Him- self without spot to God, He alone can give the Spirit which enables us to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. He is the only High-Priest of the universe. — -F. W. Robertson. With guilt's defilement stained, without, within. How may I hope Thy cleansing grace to win ? Because Thou saidst, " I have forgiven thy sin.'" — Margaret J. Preston. There is more of power to sanctify, elevate, strengthen, and cheer in the word Jesus (Jehovah-Saviour) than in all the utterances of man since the world began. — Charles Hodge. The little stone by the road-side receives dust from every passing wind. The shower has often cleansed it, but it has always become again soiled. Another stone of the same lustre lies near by, but within the brook. It is perpetually cleansed, and kept clean by the flowing waters. Clouds of dust may pass over it, but they do not reach it, and it always reflects the clear rays of the sun. All its cleansing, all its purity is in the stream not in itself. Now it is the blood of Jesus which saves, and it is the same blood which cleanses and sanctifies ; and as we had to come to Jesus to be plunged into the fountain, so we have to abide in Jesus by fellowship, to grow up into Christlikeness. — A. E. Kittredge. The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. CHRIST: ADVOCATE. Beloved, you that have faith in the fountain, frequent it. Beware of two errors which are very natural and very disas- trous; beware of thinking any sin too great for it; beware of thinking any sin too small, — -James Hamilton. Never be afraid to bring the transcendent mysteries of our faith, Christ's life and death and resurrection, to the help of the humblest and commonest of human wants. — Phillips Brooks. Reader, if Christ is yours, and you are Christ's, is there any thing on which you may more confidently repose than that Jesus is making continual intercession for you, ever displaying the merits of His cross and precious blood, not only for the church at large, but for thee, even for sinful thee ? G. W. MVLNE. Christ by His intercession is able to save thee beyond the horizon and largest compass of thy thoughts, even to the utmost. In danger Christ lashes us to Himself, as Alpine guides do when there is perilous ice to get over. — Alexander Maclaren. Guide Thou my hand within that hand of Thine — Thy wounded hand ! ■ — until its tremblings take Strength from Thy touch. — Dora Greenwell. A man may go to heaven without health, without riches, without honors, without learning, without friends; but he can never go there without Christ. — John Dyer. CHRIST: GUIDE. 89 Be sure that Christ is not behind you, but before, calling and drawing you on. This is the liberty, the beautiful liberty of Christ. Claim your glorious privilege in the name of a dis- ciple ; be no more a servant, when Christ will own you as a friend. — Horace Bushnell. Jesus does not drive His followers on before, as a herd of unwilling disciples, but goes before Himself, leading them into paths that He has trod, and dangers He has met, and sacri- fices He has borne Himself, calling them after Him and to be only followers. — Horace Bushnell. Jesus has never slept for an hour while one of His disciples watched and prayed in agony. — H. Clay Trumbull. Who art Thou, Lord, and why to me so wondrous kind ? Quickly the voice replies, "I am the Shepherd, who my straying lamb would find." — Emma Campbell. Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care, Thou didst seek after me, — that Thou didst wait, Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate, And pass the gloomy nights of winter there ? — Lope de Vega. As a child walking over a slippery and dangerous path cries out, " Father, I am falling ! " and has but a moment to catch his father's hand, so every believer sees hours when only the hand of Jesus comes between him and the abysses of destruc- tion. — T. L. Cuyler. 90 CHRIST: WAY, TRUTH. LIGHT. Sun of my soul, Thou Saviour dear, It is not night if Thou be near ; Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes. — John Keble. If you are really anxious to learn the way to God, He has not left Himself without a witness, nor you without a teacher. Go to the recorded Christ, and look at that history; listen to those words which survive in the Gospels. And go to the living Christ, to Him who has said, "lam the Light of the world, he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." And dim as may be your outset — more of night than morning in your twilight, as you follow on you shall know the Lord, and with the light that radiates from Himself, your path will shine brighter and brighter unto the perfect day. — James Hamilton. Unless you live in Christ, you are dead to God. — Rowland Hill. Christ is kuoiun only by them that receive Him into their love, their faith, their deep want; known only as He is enshrined within, felt as a Divine force, breathed in the inspirations of the secret life. — Horace Bushnell. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. In its doctrinal largeness let it inhabit your convictions, and in its Divine lov- ingness let it be infused into your spirit, and let its lifesome energy inspire your character. — James Hamilton. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me. — Bible. CHRIST: PROPHET. 91 Let the Bible itself dwell in you — Christ's own word in Christ's own tone — the truth as it was in Jesus — truth dis- solved in love, and redolent of sanctity. — James Haimilton. In Christ's word there is both Christ's doctrine and Christ's heart, — the fact which He announces, and the feeling with which He proclaims it; and in order to be really Biblical, in order to be completely Christian, we must unite the two. If a man wants either, just to that extent Christ's word does not dwell in him. — James Hamilton. Thus the word reveals the Divine Essence; His incarnation makes that Life, that Love, that Light, which is eternally resi- dent in God obvious to souls that steadily contemplate Him- self. These terms Life, Love, Light — so abstract, so simple, so suggestive — meet in God; but they meet also in Jesus Christ. They do not only make Him the centre of a philoso- phy; they belong to the mystic language of faith more truly than to the abstract terminalogy of speculative thought. They draw hearts to Jesus; they invest Him with a higher than any intellectual beauty. H. P. LiDDON. What do we know about the world unseen ? What reason- ings, what curiosity, what misgivings there have been concern- ing that impenetrable mystery ! Out of this mystery and vague- ness and vastness comes the human form of the Divine Re- deemer. He assures us that there is an unmixed and endless life, and that all we have to do to secure it is, to trust ourselves to Him who came to declare it and to confer it. — William Adams. Jesus Christ hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. 93 CHRIST'S LOVE. The Divine Christ has died on the cross a victim for the sins of the world; what is He doing now ? Did His redemptive love exhaust itself in the days of His flesh ? The past has been forgiven; but has any provision been made for the future? Have we been reconciled to God by the death of His Son, but is there no salvation through His risen life ? H, P. LiDDON. No friend sympathizes so tenderly with his friend in affliction as does Jesus. " In all our afflictions, He is afflicted." He feels all our sorrows, wants, and burdens as His own. Whence it is that the sufferings of believers are called the sufferings of Christ. — John Flavel. Truth is a rock, and on that rock faith plants its foot, and feels secure. But even on the rock you cannot live long without an atmosphere, and the believer's atmosphere is love. That at- mosphere, is viewless, invisible, often forgotten; still it is real, and it is vital. " The words that I speak are spirit," says the Saviour. Over and above the resting place which weary spirits have found at His feet, which guilty consciences have found in His arms, there is an afflatus gone forth from those words of His, which to inhale and be surrounded with is like entering heaven's vestibule. — James Hamilton. Rejoice in Christ Jesus, for in Him you are complete. His righteousness is over you, His strong arm is around you; and he who puts his soul in Christ's keeping shall never perish nor come into condemnation. This is a safe place to rest in. " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ ? " — James Hamilton. The love of Christ constraineth us. CHRIST'S LOVE. 93 Yes, for me, for me He careth With a brother's tender care; Yes, with me, with me He shareth Every burden, every fear. HORATIUS BONAR. My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love. — Rutherford. I love to think of Him in the world of light to-day, my brother; mine though angels bow before Him, and archangels veil their faces; mine though I am very far from heaven's holi- ness and heaven's joy; yet He is my brother, and every beat- ing of His heart is a brother's love for me, and though high and lifted up,H'sarm, a brother's, is around me, and will keep me and uphold me, until He gives me a brother's welcome to His and my home in the better land. A. E. KiTTREDGE. He is not affected by our mutability; our changes do not alter Him. When we are restless. He remains serene and calm; when we are low, selfish, mean or dispirited. He is still the un- alterable I AIM, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. What God is in Himself, not what we may chance to feel Him in this or that moment to be, that is our hope. My soul, "hope thou /// God." — F. W. Robertson. In our fluctuations of feeling, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by. — Rutherford. H CHRIST'S LOVE. Jesus lives ! the same comforting, helping, instructing, loving Elder Brother, as when John leaned on His bosom, as when He lifted Peter up from the waves, as when He dried Mary's tears with His, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." Jesus lives! the same almighty Saviour, Guide, Intercessor, as when He ascended to glory with the broken fetters of sin and death in His pierced hands. — A. E. Kittredge. To multitudes of sufferers on beds of pain and languishing, Jesus has been the great physician to-day; in many a weeping circle around precious dust, He has been the Divine com- forter, and the tears have almost ceased to flow as this Jesus has touched the bier. Dying lips have whispered His name,. and the valley of the shadow has been illumined as with the glory from the celestial shores. — A. E. Kittredge. Thou our throbbing flesh hast worn; Thou our mortal griefs hast borne; Thou hast shed the human tear; Jesus, Son of Mary, hear ! H. H. MiLLMAN. Lord Jesus, engrave Thou Thy name with Thine own finger upon my heart, that it may remain closed to wordly joy and worldly pleasure, self-interest, fading honor, and low revenge, and open only to Thee. — Christian Scriver. When I stand before the throne. Dressed in beauty not my own. When I see Thee as Thou art. Love Thee with unsinning heart, Then, Lord, shall I fully know — Not till then — how much I owe. — Robert McCheyne. CHRIST'S FULLNESS. 95 All is loss that comes between us and Christ. — George MacDonald. What will you do with Jesus ? Do with Him did I say ? O what, what will you do without Him ? What, when afifliction and ahguish shall come upon yo*u ? what, when closing your eyelids in death ? what, when appearing before the awful judg- ment-seat ? — Richard Fuller. Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom. — Rutherford. All we want in Christ, we shall find in Christ. If we want little, we shall find little. If w^e want much, we shall find much; but if in utter helplessness we cast our all on Christ, He will be to us the whole treasury of God. — Bishop Whipple. He is wisdom for your ignorance, strength for your weak- ness, righteousness for your guilt, sanctification for your cor- ruption, redemption from all the thralldom of your apostasy. — Richard Fuller. What then.? For all my sins. His pardoning grace; For all my wants and woes. His loving-kindness; For darkest shades, the shining of God's face; And Christ's own hand to lead me in my blindness. When Caesar gave one a great reward, "This," said he, "is too great a gift for me to receive; " but said Caesar, " It is not too great a gift for me to give. " So, though the least gift that Christ gives, in one sense, is too much for us to receive, yet the greatest gifts are not too great for Christ to give. — Thomas Brooks. 96 CHRIST'S PRESENCE. There is not a moral evil which has not its infallible anti- dote, nor any moral virtue which has not its spring and suste- nance in Jesus Christ and Him crucified. To apprehend Him with every faculty of the mind, and with every affection of the heart, and to grow daily in that apprehension, is to emerge from every thing that enthralls, to surmount all that can con- taminate. — Alexander Knox. If we knew all our need, what a large want book we should require ! How comforting to know that Jesus has a supply book which exactly meets our want book. We want the vision of a calmer and simpler beauty, to tran^ quillize us in the midst of artificial tastes — we want the draught of a pure spring to cool the flame of our excited life; we want, in other words, the spirit of the life of Christ, simple, natural, with power to soothe and calm the feelings which it rouses; the fullness of the spirit which can never intoxicate. — F. W. Robertson. Now and always as in that morning twilight on the Galilean lake Christ comes to men. Everywhere He is present, every- where revealing Himself. Now, as then, our eyes are holden by our own fault, so that we recognize not the merciful Pres- ence which is all around us. Now, as then, it is they who are nearest to Christ by love who see Him first. Still Jesus joins Himself to us; still He walks with us; still He instructs us, speaking to us by His word, His providences, His Spirit; still He seeks to enter into our sorrows and trials, and to console and cheer us. But we know Him not. Our eyes are holden by unbelief. We do not press Him to abide with us. Hence He is grieved, and we are left alone in the night. — Richard Fuller. CHRIST'S PRESENCE. 97 " Lo ! I am with you alway, even to the end of the world," is not an idle — not an unfulfilled promise. He is not with us merely as a thought, but as a life. He gathers us up into His own being. He floods us with it. There is inspiration here, certainty for any duty, for any endurance. The faith, Christ with me, can make the poorest and the hardest life luminous, joyous, glorious. — Wayland Hoyt. One thing alone my heart requires, — one gleam of living light amid the ashes and the gloom; that into my cell of humili- ation the flood of Divine pity should break, and keep aglow the openings of eternal hope, and sustain the hidden strength of an everlasting love. — James Martineau. It is when we unbosom ourselves to Him, and confide to Him all our cares and sorrows and temptations, that He walks with us, and abides with us, and opens to us the Scriptures concerning Himself — His dignity, His suitableness. His love- liness, His truth. His tenderness. His faithfulness, revealing Himself in us; causing our hearts to burn within us — to burn with love, gratitude, devotion, courage, joy — to burn with a celestial fire, which consumes all selfishness and sin, and glows, a pure, perennial flame, upon pure, living altars. — Richard Fuller. When the storms of trial lower. When I feel temptation's power, In the last and darkest hour, Jesus, Saviour, be Thou nigh. I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways ! 7 — Rutherford. 98 CHRIST: BURDEN BEARER. Blessed are they who, in the cahii moments of retirement, of worship, of prayer, of silent waiting, have found that to " the weary and heavy laden " Christ can indeed give rest; that com- pared with the heavy bondage of the world or the exactions of human systems, His yoke indeed is easy, and His burden is light. — Dean Stanley. O most grateful burden, which comforts them that carry it ! The burdens of earthly masters gradually wear out the strength of those who carry them; but the burden of Christ assists the bearers of it, because we carry not grace, but grace us, — Chrysostom. - Take Christ in with you under your yoke, and let patience have her perfect work. — Rutherford. " My burden is light," said the blessed Redeemer, a light burden indeed, which carries him that bears it. I have looked through all nature for a resemblance of this, and seem to find a shadow of it in the wings of a bird, which are indeed borne by the creature, and yet support her flight towards heaven. — St. Bernard. The wayfaring man, Christ Jesus, has helped many and many a tired traveler home with burdens quite as heavy as yours. Often and often He goes up and down this thorough- fare of life in search of just such overladen pilgrims; and His voice is sounding forth above all the babble of the busy tongues and the clatter of the busy wheels, saying, — "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." — W. Gladden. CHRIST: BURDEN BEARER. . 99 Dear Lord ! in all our loneliest pains Thou hast the largest share, And that which is unbearable 'Tis Thine, not ours to bear. — F. W. Faber. We are weary and heavy laden, and our heavenly Father offers to carry us and our afi'airs in His own everlasting arms. And so far as the weariness is concerned, we consent; we con- sent to be carried and find rest to our souls. But " heavy laden," — no, we cannot part with the heavy load. This responsibility, this nervousness about the absent, this household worry, this mercantile venture, this literary experiment, this invalid friend, we cannot transfer to Him wlio says, " Cast thy burden on the Lord," but even our bleared and sleepy eyes we open from time to time to see that it is still there, and ( " O fools and slow of heart I " ) when we can guard it no longer, the relaxing arms are still in attitude as if they enclasped it, all unconscious that it is now better cared for elsewhere. — James Haimilton. I see that I have too much confined my thoughts to God, and that I ought to go directly to the Saviour's arms, and that I ought to believe, abominable as my sins have been, if they have once been pardoned, they form no partition between me and the heart of Christ. — E. D. Griffin. Then Jesus spoke: " Bring here thy burden, And find in me a full release; Bring all thy sorrows, all thy longings, And take instead my perfect peace. Trying to bear thy cross alone ! — Child, the mistake is all thine own." — Anna Warner. 100 . CHRIST: REFUGE. Brethren, whatever the temptation is, our safety is not in habits of virtue. It is not in sturdy resolution and strength of character. It is not even in the timely thought of sin's conse- quences; but our safety is in the Saviour. Christ ever lives and ever intercedes; and it is our strength, our triumph, to rush into His arms of omnipotent protection. — James Hamilton. I come to Thee, O Christ. Faint and perishing, defence- less and needy, with many a. sin and many a fear, to Thee I turn, for Thou hast died for me, and for me Thou dost live. Be Thou my shelter and strong tower. Give me to drink of living water. Let me rest in Thee while in this weary land; and let Thy sweet love, my Brother and my Lord, be mine all on earth and the heaven of my heaven. — Alexander Maclaren. Well, then. Lord Jesus ! I will creep if I cannot walk; I will take hold of Thy word. When I stumble, Thou wilt sup- port me; when I fall. Thou wilt hold out Thy cross, and help me with it to rise again, until at length I reach the place where Thou art, and with all my weaknesses and wants, cast myself into Thy bosom. — Christian Scriver. Christ is a rock in a weary land, a covert from the tempest of Divine justice, receiving through the ages the snows of Divine mercy, and melting them for the green pastures and still waters of God's peaceful flock — a rock against which wicked men and devils have breathed their empty curses in vain, for eighteen hundred years, — Edward Thomson. Rock of Ages, cleft for me ! Let me hide myself in Thee. CHRIST : ROCK OF AGES. 101 When the tempest rages, In the Rock of Ages I will safely hide; Though the earth be shaking, And all hearts be quaking, Christ is at my side. JOHANN FrANCK. The sea ebbs and flows, but the rock remains unmoved. — Robert McCheyne. If hope be fixed on Christ as the Rock of Ages, a rock rent, if we may use the expression, on purpose that there might be a holding-place for the anchors of a perishing world, it may well come to pass that we enjoy a calm as we journey through life, and draw near the grave. — Henry Melvill. Rock of Ages, I'm secure, With Thy promise full and free; Faithful, positive, and sure — " As thy days, thy strength shall be." — W. F. Lloyd. Would you be free from the condemnation of the sins that are past, from the power of the temptations that are to come ? Then take your stand on the Rock of Ages. Let death, let the grave, let the judgment come, the victory is Christ's and yours through Him. — D. L. Moody. Blest is my lot whate'er befall ; What can disturb me, who appall, While, as my strength, my rock, my all. Saviour ! I cling to Thee ? — C. Elliott. 102 CHRIST'S SECOND COMING. To-day Christ, in a certain sense, is on trial before us all. In these living hearts, in every one to-day, there will be a judg- ment of some sort passed upon His sacred person. — William Adams. Now let us gather into one bouquet, from the King's garden, these seven fragrant flowers: Jesus the Son of God; Jesus our sin-bearer ; Jesus the giver of eternal life ; Jesus the keeper of our undying souls; Jesus the hearer of our prayers; Jesus the chastener who can turn crosses into crowns ; and Jesus the wonder-worker who changes us into eternal likeness unto Himself ! These flowers will keep sweet till heaven dawns. T. L. CUYLER. Earth, thou grain of sand on the shore of the Universe of God ; thou Bethlehem, amongst the princely cities of the heavens; thou art, and remainest, the Loved One amongst ten thousand suns and worlds, the Chosen of God ! Thee will He again visit, and then thou wilt prepare a throne for Him, as thou gavest Him a manger cradle; in His radiant glory wilt thou rejoice, as thou didst once drink His blood and tears, and mourn His death ! On thee has the Lord a great work to complete. — Pressel. If I were but sure that I should live to see the coming of the Lord, it would be the joyfulest tidings in the world. O that I might see His kingdom come ! It is the characteristic of His saints to love His appearing, and to look for that blessed hope. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." " Even so, come. Lord Jesus." — Richard Baxter. We beseech Thee, cut short Thy delay and tarry not; come forth out of Thy pavilion, O Thou for whom the ages wait ! CHRISTIANS. 103 CHRISTIANS. A Christian is a man in CJirist. " If any man be in Christ." A Christian is a man for Christ. " Glorify God in your body and spirit which are God's." Richard Fuller. He that will deserve the name of a Christian must be such a man as excelleth through the knowledge of Christ and His doctrine; in modesty and righteousness of mind, in constancy of life, in virtuous fortitude, and in maintaining sincere piety toward the one and the only God, who is all in all. — EUSEBIUS. Christians are called saints, for their holiness ; believers, for their faith ; brethern, for their love ; disciples, for their knowledge. — Fuller. A Christian is a believer in Jesus. He believes that if he only throws his own lost and sinful soul on the Redeemer, there is in His sacrifice sufficient merit to cancel all his guilt, and in His heart sufficient love to undertake the keeping of his soul for all eternity. He believes that Jesus is a Saviour. He believes that His heart is set on His people's holiness, and that it is only by making them new creatures, pure-minded, kind-hearted, unselfish, devout, that He can fit them for a home and a life like His own, that He can fit them for the occupations and en- joyments of heaven. And believing all this he prays and labors after holiness. — James Hamilton. It is through the multitudinous mass of living human hearts, of human acts and words of love and truth, that the Christ of the first century has become the Christ of the nineteenth. — Dean Stanley. 104 CHRISTIANS. Now see what a Christian is, drawn by the hand of Christ. He is a man on whose clear and open brow God has set the stamp of truth; one whose very eye beams bright with honor; in whose very look and bearing you may see freedom, manli- ness, veracity; a brave man — a noble man — frank, generous, true, with, it may be, many faults; whose freedom may take the form of impetuosity or rashness, but the form of meanness never. — F. W. Robertson. It was a deep true thought which the old painters had, when they drew John as likest to his Lord. Love makes us like. — Alexander Maclaren. - A child of God should be a visible Beatitude, for joy and happiness, and a living Doxology, for gratitude and adoration. — C. H. Spurgeon. The purified righteous man has become a coin of the Lord, and has the impress of his King stamped upon him. — Clement of Alexandria. Ordinary human motives will appeal in vain to the ears which have heard the tones of the heavenly music; and all the pomp of life will show poor and tawdry to the sight that has gazed on the vision of the great white throne and the crystal sea. — Alexander Maclaren. The sum of the whole matter is this — He who is one in will and heart with God is a Christian. He who loves God is one in will and heart with Him. He who trusts Christ loves God. That is Christianity in its ultimate purpose and result. That is Christianity in its means and working forces. That is Chris- tianity in its starting-point and foundation. — Alexander Maclaren. CHRISTIANS. 105 These — lowliness, meekness, long-suffering, loving forbear- ance — quiet, unpretending, unshowy virtues, are amongst the best means for promoting true unity in the church of God. Who is the most useful Christian ? Not as a rule he who has the most transcendent genius, brilliant talents, and command- ing eloquence, but he who has the most of this quiet, loving, forbearing spirit. The world may do without its Niagara, whose thundering roar and majestic rush excite the highest amazement of mankind, but it cannot spare the thousand rivu- lets that glide unseen and unheard every moment through the earth, imparting life, and verdure, and beauty wherever they go. And so the church may do without its men of splendid abilities, but it cannot do without its men of tender, loving, forbearing souls. — David Thomas. The weakest believer is a member of Christ as well as the strongest; and the weakest member of the body mystically shall not perish. Christ will cut off rotten members, but not weak members. — Watson. The last, best fruit that comes to perfection, even in the kindliest soul, is tenderness toward the hard; forbearance toward the unforbearing ; warmth of heart toward the cold; and philanthropy toward the misanthropic. — Jean Paul Richter. There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ. — Rutherford. The greatness of God is the true rebuke to the littleness of men. The greatness of Christ is the true rebuke to the little- ness of Christians. — Dean Stanley. 106 CHRISTIANS. A greater absurdity cannot be thought of than a morose, hard-hearted, covetous, proud, maHcious Christian. — Jonathan Edwards. God Hstens for nothing so tenderly, as when His children help each other by their testimonies to His goodness and the way in which He has brought them deliverance. — Horace Bushnell. Christ, in that place He hath put you, hath intrusted you with a dear pledge, which is His own glory, and hath armed you with His sword to keep the pledge, and make a good account of it to God. — Rutherford. The man who is satisfied, because he thinks he is safe, who feels that he has religion enough, because he thinks he has enough to save him from hell, is as ignorant of the power as he is a stranger to the consolation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. — Gardiner Spring. Like the cellar-growing vine is the Christian who lives in the darkness and bondage of fear. But let him go forth, with the liberty of God, into the light of love, and he will be like the plant in the field, healthy, robust, and joyful, — H. W. Beecher. Let us not torment each other because we are not all alike, but believe that God knew best what He was doing in making us so different. So will the best harmony come out of seem- ing discords, the best affection out of differences, the best life out of struggle, and the best work will be done when each does his own work, and lets every one else do and be what God made him for. — James F. Clarke. CHRISTIAN CONFLICT. 107 Being in Christ, it is safe to forget the past; it is possible to be sure of the future; it is possible to be diligent in the present. — Alexander Maclaren. Whatever makes men good Christians makes them good citizens. — Daniel Webster. CHRISTIAN CONFLICT. The path which leads to the mount bf ascension does not lie among flowers; and he who travels it must climb the cold hill- side, he must have his feet cut by the pointed rocks, he must faint in the dark valley, he must not seldom have his rest at midnight on the desert sand. — Henry Giles. Difficulties are God's errands; and when we are sent upon them, we should esteem it a proof of God's confidence, — as a compliment from God. — H. W. Beecher. He that o'ercometh hath power in the nations, Stronger than steel is the sword of the Spirit; Swifter than arrows, the light of the truth; Greater than anger is love that subdueth. — H. W. Longfellow. It is easy to say " resist; " but the command is bitter irony, unless we go on to say with the New Testament, — " Wliom resist steadfast in the faith." No man, my dear brother, can stand in the slippery places where we have to go, unless he have the grasp of a higher and stronger hand to keep him up. — Alexander Maclaren. 108 CHRISTIAN CONFLICT. Conflict, not progress, is the word that defines man's path from darkness into light. No holiness is won by any other means than this, that wickedness should be slain day by day, and hour by hour. — Alexander Maclaren. Dear brethren, make your choice. Fight you must. Are you going to win or be beaten? Make your choice of the image you must bear. Whose ? — Alexander Maclaren. There are two ways of defending a castle; one by shutting yourself up in it, and guarding every loop-hole; the other by making it an open centre of operations from which all the sur- rounding country may be subdued. Is not the last the truest safety ? Jesus was never guarding Himself, but always invad- ing the lives of others with His holiness. There never was such an open life as His; and yet the force with which His character and love flowed out upon the world kept back, more strongly than any granite wall of prudent caution could have done, the world from pressing in on Him. His life was like an open stream which keeps the sea from flowing up into it by the eager force with which it flows down into the sea. He was so anxious that the world should be saved that therein was His salvation from the world. He labored so to make the world pure that He never even had to try to be pure Himself. — Phillips Brooks- Guided by His wisdom, strong in His strength, there may be for you struggle and suffering, the darkness and the storm. "The disciple is not above His Master." There may be weep- ing that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, " a morn- ing without clouds," the morning of an eternal day. — Mark Hopkins. CHRISTIAN CONFLICT. 109 The success of sainthood is the success attained by struggle and suffering and achieved by faith; a success of honor, of clean hands and pure heart, of service to man and glory to God. — Bishop Doane. Christ is the ideal of what a man should be. He has my ideal portrait, as it were, drawn out in His own thought and feeling. There is an exaltation and a grandeur for myself in the time to come, which Christ knows, and I do not; but I am following after. I am pressing up toward that thought that Christ has of what I am and ought to be; and I am determined that I will apprehend it as Christ Himself does. Not that I have it; but I will strive for it. My manhood is in the future. My life lies beyond the present. — H. W, Beecher. That discipline which corrects the baseness of worldly pas- sion, fortifies the heart with virtuous principles, enlightens the mind with useful knowledge, and furnishes it with enjoyment from within itself, is of more consequence to real felicity, than all the provision we can make of the goods of fortune. — Blair. We thank God, in this our day, for the furnace and the fire; for the good sword and the true word; for the great triumph and the little song. — B. F. Taylor. Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is a far higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expect- ing some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him. — Alexander Maclaren. 110 CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP, Brethren, are you in earnest ? If so, though your faith be weak, and your struggles unsatisfactory, you may begin the hymn of triumph noiu, for victory is pledged. " Thanks be to God, which " — not shall give, but "givet/i us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." — F. W. Robertson. The disciples seem alone; but up yonder, in some hidden cleft of the hills, their Master looks down on all the weltering storm, and lifts His voice in prayer. Then when the need is sorest, and the hope least. He comes across the waves, making their surges His pavement, and using all opposition as the means of His approach; and His presence brings calmness; and immediately they are at the land. • — Alexander Maclaren. The way is long and dreary. The path is bleak and bare ; Our feet are worn and weary. But we will not despair ; More weary was Thy burden, More desolate Thy ways, O Lamb of God, who takest The sin of the world away, Have mercy upon us. — A. A. Proctor. CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. The same bond which unites believers to Christ binds them to each other. The love which is exercised towards the Head extends to the members. The union itself necessarily involves a union of affection. Those who love Christ love those who are like Him and those who are beloved by Him. — Gardiner Spring. The social element is the genius of Christianity. CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP. Ill The golden chain of affection is binding together all who compose the goodly fellowship of the saints. Calvary rather than Sinai is the typical source of the church's inspiration ; and bonds of law are being supplanted by bonds of love. Indeed, the whole host of the redeemed is marching in solid phalanx against the combined forces of ignorance and error, of depravity and sin; while, high above all the regimental standards, floats the banner of the cross, blazoned with this suggestive inscription, " Everyone that loveth is born of God." — J. McC. Holmes. There is a mighty gulf between those who love and those who do not love God. To the one class we owe civility, courtesy, kindness, even tenderness. It is only those who love the Lord who should find in our hearts a home. — F. W. Robertson. Ye are born, all of you, to a royal birthright. Scorn not the poor, thou wealthy — his toil is nobler than thy luxury. Fret not at the rich, thou poor — his beneficence is cpmelier than thy murmuring. Join hands, both of you, rich and poor to- gether, as ye toil in the brotherhood of God's great harvest- field — heirs of a double heritage — thou poor, of thy kingly labor — thou rich, of thy queenly charity — and let heaven bear witness to the bridal. — Wm. M. Punshon. The lack of brotherhood among believers themselves has paralyzed the church in front of the skepticism and immorality of the world ; but when we go back in simple faith to the one great fact of our redemption, we shall be both brought into closer fellowship with each other, and stimulated to more tender regard for the salvation of men. — Wm. M. Taylor. 112 CHRISTIAN LIFE. The church and the world aUke demand that those who pro- fess to love the Lord should be careful to love their brethren also. It is for them to have in essentials unity, in non-essen- tials diversity, in all things charity. Only so can the church realize the ideal of its Divine Founder, and foreshadow its future excellence and beauty. Only so can this spiritual struct- ure be celestial and glorious, revealing in all its fair propor- tions from dome and turret, from glittering spires and airy traceries, its marvelous symmetry and oneness, while at the same time it swells from every organ pipe, and chants in every choral anthem the praises of Him whose essence is love, and whose being is characterized by unity. — J. McC. Holmes. . Shake hands with somebody as you go out of church. The more of it the better, if it is expressive of real interest and feel- ing. There may be a great deal of the spirit of the gospel put into a hearty shake of the hand. — The Presbyterian. If there is a sentence in the creed which we cannot say to- gether, there is nothing in Christ which we would wish to be different; and heresies of the heart are quite as dangerous, and to me as estranging, as errors in the head. — James Hamilton. CHRISTIAN LIFE. The Christian life is not knowing or hearing, but doing. — F. W. Robertson. The only satisfactory manifestations of religious character and life are associated with the reciprocal influences of spiritual experience and aggressive activity. — J. McC. Holmes. CHRISTIAN LIFE. 113 No true work since the world began was ever wasted ; no true life since the world began has ever failed. Oh, under- stand those two perverted words "failure" and "success," and measure them by the eternal, not by the earthly standard. When after thirty obscure, toilsome, unrecorded years in the shop of the village carpenter, one came forth to be preemi- nently the man of sorrows, to wander from city to city in home- less labors, and to expire in lonely agony upon the shameful cross — was that a failure ? Nay, my brethren, it was the death of Him who lived that we might follow His footsteps, it was the life, it was the death of the Son of God. — F. W. Farrar. Each sinner transformed into a saint is a new token of a re- deeming power among men. That token declares to observers, not that there is a King in heaven, not that there is a " Father of Lights," but that there is a Saviour. And this is the testi- mony that the world especially needs. — William Arthur, It takes practice to use one's eyes, even when God has opened them. And there are some believers who never get be- yond confounding a doctrinal statement of a truth with a living exemplification of that truth. — H. Clay Trumbull. There is just now a great clamor and demand for " culture; " but it is not so much culture that is needed as discipline. — Prof. Shedd. The strength that we want is not a brute, unregulated strength; the beauty that we want is no mere surface beauty; but we want a beauty on the surface of life that is from the cen- tral force of principle within, as the beauty on the cheek of health is from the central force at the heart. 8 — Mark Hopkins. 114 CHRISTIAN LIFE. The way to be strong is to act on the credit of strength being given. Strength is received in the act of obeying. When the path of duty is clear, it is want of faith to continue asking for strength, and not to act upon it. — G. W. Mylne. Great talents are not, before God, a substitute for love for Himself; the possession of a profound intellect does not free any man from the obligations resting on the heart for purity and holiness ; a reputation for attainments in science does not settle the question whether he is righteous before his Maker; refined manners are not, in the sight of God, a substitute for the graces of the Spirit; God does not justify man on the ground of human learning; attainments in chemistry, anatomy, geology, botany, astronomy, or skill in sculpture and painting, — these do not prepare a man to die. — Albert Barnes. Emotion, feeling — these are well enough if they feed the springs of power. Prayer, praise, preaching — these are all good and never to be dispensed with; but if the life to which they minister have no manifestation out of them, it is a failure. — J. G. Holland. Though to us — the toilers — it is night still, to Him — the Master who watcheth our labor, and to them — our fellows whose labor is done — "there is light with a clear sky." Though to us, down below, there is but the deafening roar, the shriek of discord, the wail of pain, blent in one jargon of strange sounds which have no chime; to them, above in the high, calm silence, there are heard only the striking of the hour which tells of the sure speed of time, and the voice of the joy- bells already ringing for the world's great bridal. — Wm. M. Punshon. CHRISTIAN LIFE. 115 So I take my life as I find it, as a life full of grand advan- tages that are linked indissolubly to my noblest happiness and my everlasting safety. I believe that Infinite Love ordained it, and that, if I bow willingly, tractably, and gladly to its dis- cipline, my Father will take care of it. — T- G. Holland. The religious life is a struggle, and not a hymn. — Madame DE St AEL. God grant that as our horizon of duty is widened, our minds may widen with it; that as our burden is increased, our shoul- ders may be strengthened to bear it. God grant to us that spirit of wisdom and understanding, uprightness, and godly fear, without which, even in greatest things there is nothing; with which, even in the smallest things there is every thing. — Dean Stanley, In his soul, as in a mirror, were concentrated all the lights radiating from every point of observation — whether human or Divine — and from his soul as from a mirror, these lights were reflected back in every possible combination of beauty and sublimity. — Sir J. Stephens. The demand of the day is for a higher standard and style of Christian life. Every follower of Christ must represent His religion purely, loftily, impressively, before that multitude of " Bible-readers " whose only Bible is the Christian, — T. L. Cuyler. If a man is as passionate, malicious, resentful, sullen, moody, or morose, after his conversion as before it, what is he converted from or to ? — John Angel James, 116 CHRISTIAN LIFE. Show me the professing Christian whose social character is as unlovely after profession as it was before, and though there may be an increase of knowledge and of some other things connected with religion, there is no progress. — John Angel James. Here is where a great many professed disciples of Jesus fail of being real disciples. They have regularly enlisted, have put on their uniform, and there they stand before the recruiting office, with knapsacks and blankets on their backs, with mus- kets at "carry," marking time to the martial music — although some of them don't do even that; and there they have stood since their enlistment, never marching a rod. — H. Clay Trumbull. Some time ago when in a mine, looking through its dark corridors, I every now and then saw the glimmer of a moving lamp, and I could track it all through the mine. The reason was that the miner carried it on his hat, — it was a part of him- self, and it showed where he went. I said, " Would that in this dark world every miner of the Master carried his lamp to show where he walks." T. L. CUYLER. You may be quite sure that if little light comes from a Christian character, little light comes into it. We must have the glory sink into us before it can be reflected from us. But let the love of Jesus become the master-principle of our hearts, and there will be no halting or irresolution; no parley- ing with temptation; no seeking to explain away our duty under color of deliberating to discover what it is; no looking one way and walking another ; but with undivided souls, and with en- thusiastic devotion, we shall do only and always the will of Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us. — Wm. M. Taylor. CHRISTIAN LIFE. 117 In self-examination, take no account of yourself by your thoughts and resolutions in the days of religion and solemnity; examine how it is with you in the days of ordinary conversa- tion and in the circumstances of secular employment. — Jeremy Taylor. Count not that thou hast lived that day, in which thou hast not lived with God. — Richard Fuller. Life, like war, is a series of mistakes; and he is not the best Christian nor the best general who makes the fewest false steps. Poor mediocrity may secure that; but he is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes. Forget mistakes; organize victory out of mistakes. — F. W. Robertson. Looking back the way we've come, AVhat a sight, O Lord, we see ! All the failures in ourselves, All the love and strength in Thee. Yet it seemed so dark before — Would that we had trusted more! Is thine a life of devotion, of meekness and humility, of supreme attachment to heavenly and divine things; of self- denial and of universal benevolence ? If after candid exami- nation you find reason to hope that you are one of God's dear children washed with His blood, sanctified by the Spirit, clothed with the righteousness of the Well Beloved — cherish that hope as the gift of heaven. Dismiss your fears; bind yourself to be the Lord's in an everlasting covenant; think less of yourself and more and more of the name, the cross, the glory of your Redeemer. Henceforth " let your light shine." — Gardiner Spring. 118 CHRISTIAN LIFE. O Lord and Sovereign of my Life, take from me the spirit of idleness, despair, love of power, and unprofitable speaking. — Old Russian Liturgy. It is they who glorify, who shall enjoy Him ; they who deny themselves, who shall not be denied ; they who labor on earth, who shall rest in heaven; they who bear the cross, who shall wear the crown ; they who seek to bless others, who shall be blessed. — Thomas Guthrie. The truest worship is a life; All dreaming we resign; We lay our offerings at Thy feet, — Our lives, O God, are Thine ! — John Weiss, Live for the other life. Endure as seeing Him who is invis- ible. Work by faith; work by hope ; work by love; work by courage; work by trust; work by the sweet side of your mind; and so be like Christ, until you dwell with Him. — H. W. Beecher. Bearing bravely the evils that beset us, doing cheerfully the duties that are near, trusting in God, guided by Christ, fear shall not confound us in the way, and death shall find us ready. — Henry Giles. The Christian's life on this side and beyond the grave is essentially the same, differing only as a song which, at a certain point, changes from the minor to the major key, and thence- forth wells along with still more glorious harmonies. — J. McC. Holmes. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 119 All the graces of Christianity always go together. They so go together that where there is one, there are all, and where one is wanting, all are wanting. Where there is faith, there are love, and hope, and humility; and where there is love, there is also trust; and where there is a holy trust in God, there is love to God; and where there is a gracious hope, there also is a holy fear of God. — Jonathan Edwards. He who lives to God rests in his Redeemer's love, and is trying to get rid of his old nature — to him every sorrow, every bereavement, every pain, will come charged with blessings, and death itself will be no longer the " king of terrors," but the messenger of grace. — F. W. Robertson. The death-bed testimony impresses us only as it is the out- growth of a life. The life is the test. Triumphant living is better than triumphant dying. — E. P. Tenney. O happy life ! life hid with Christ in God ! So making me At home and by the wayside and abroad. Alone with Thee. — Elizabeth Payson Prentiss. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. Life passes; work is permanent. It is all going — fleeting and withering. Youth goes. Mind decays. That which is done remains. Through ages, through eternity, what you have done for God, that, and only that, you are. Deeds never die. — F. W. Robertson. 120 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. Every day in this world has its work; and every day as it rises out of eternity keeps putting to each of us this question afresh, " What will you do before to-day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again ? " And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing — Time? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour in the garden of Gethsemane — they go to sleep. — F. W. Robertson. Whoever lives a noble life for Christ and God — he is one of God's workmen, working on that building of which God is the supreme Architect. — H. W. Beecher. There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, nothing will be overpowering, when,- living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, " My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me." — Alexander Maclaren. The simple desire and purpose to please and honor and serve the Master will save your most ordinary work from being con- temptible, and will give to your greatest service a beauty and ac- ceptableness which bulk and bigness can never give. — S. E. Herrick. My Master and my Lord ! I long to do some work, some work for Thee; I long to bring some lowly gift of love For all Thy love to me. — Hetty Bowman. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 121 The ready, earnest heart that asks, " May I do this for Thee, Lord ? " not "' Must I do it ? " has a blessed reward moment by moment. — Christian at Work. Shall I grudge to spend my life for Him who did not grudge to shed His life-blood for me ? — Beveridge. While the passion of some is to shine, of some to govern, and of others to accumulate, let one great passion alone in- fluence our breasts, the passion which reason ratifies, which conscience approves, which Heaven inspires, — that of being and doing good. Robert Hall. We must be something in order to do something, but Ave must also do something in order to be something. The best rule, I think, is this: If we find it hard to do good, then let us try to be good. If, on the other hand, we find it hard to be good, then let us try to do good. Being leads to doing, doing leads to being. Yet below both as their common root is faith, — faith in God, in man, in ourselves, in the eternal superiority of right over wrong, truth over error, good over evil, love over all selfishness and all sin. — J. F. Clarke. We are not to wait /o be in preparing to be. . We are not to wait to do in preparing to do, but to find in being and doing preparation for higher being and doing. — Henry Giles. Nothing progresses more rapidly in a heart set upon doing good than an ability to be useful. They who at first are timid, shy, awkward, in such efforts, soon acquire courage, expertness, and efficiency. — John Angel James. 133 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. There are multitudes in our congregations who are just wait- ing while they ought to be acting. They must work, if they would have God work in them. There can be no religion without obedience. — IcHABOD Spencer. Give an earnest-hearted, devoted girl any true work that will make her active in the dawn, and weary at night, with the con- sciousness that her fellow-creatures have indeed been the bet- ter for her day, and the powerless sorrow of her enthusiasm will transform itself into a majesty of radiant and beneficent peace. — John Ruskin. God works, and therefore we work ; God is with us, and therefore we are with God, and stand on His side. — C. H. Spurgeon. The Spirit never makes men the instruments of converting others until they feel that they cannot do it themselves ; that their skill in argument, in persuasion, in management, avails nothing. — Charles Hodge. Learn these two things : never be discouraged because good things get on so slowly here, and never fail daily to do that good which lies next to your hand. Do not be in a hurry, but be diligent. Enter into the sublime patience of the Lord. Be charitable in view of it. God can afford to wait ; why cannot we, since we have Him to fall back upon ? Let patience have her perfect work, and bring forth her celestial fruits. Trust to God to weave your little thread into a Aveb, though the patterns show it not yet. — George MacDonald. CHRISTIAiNT SERVICE. 133 I feel convinced that every man has given him of God much more than he has any idea of, and that he can help on the world's work more than he knows of. What we want is the single eye that will see what our work is, the humility to accept it, however lowly, the faith to do it for God, the perseverance to go on till death. — Norman Macleod. If you cannot be great, be willing to serve God in that which is small. If you cannot do great things for Him, cheerfully do little ones. If you cannot be an Aaron to serve at the altar, or a Moses to guide the tribes, consent to be " a little maid " to Naaman the Syrian, for the honor of God's prophets, or a little child, for Christ's sake, to be set by Him in the midst of the people, as an illustration of the sweetness of humility. — S. F. Smith. God often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things that are God's, than by the ability of the learned seeking the things that are their own. — St. Anselm. God is a kind Father. He sets us all in the place where He wishes us to be employed; and that employment is truly " our Father's business." He chooses work for every creature which will be delightful to them, if they do it simply and humbly. He gives us always strength enough, and sense enough, for what He wants us to do ; if we either tire ourselves, or puzzle ourselves, it is our own fault. And we may always be sure, whatever we are doing, that we cannot be pleasing Him, if we are not happy ourselves. — John Ruskin. Live as with God; and, whatever be your calling, pray for the gift that will perfectly qualify you in it. — Horace BusHNELL. 124 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. A pure, sincere, and stable spirit is not distracted though it be employed in many works; for that it works all to the honor of God, and inwardly being still and quiet, seeks not itself in any thing it doth. — Thomas a Kempis. O Master, let me walk with Thee In lowly paths of service free ; Tell me Thy secret ; help me bear The strain of toil, the fret of care. — W. Gladden. God is the best helper, but He loves to be^ielped. Be earnest in prayer, but do not neglect human means. You must help yourself in all manner of ways, and then the Lord will be with you. - — Savonarola. Christ seeketh your help in your place; give Him your hand. — Rutherford. The worst days of darkness through which I have ever passed have been greatly alleviated by throwing myself with all my energy into some work relating to others. — T- A. Garfield. Let us imitate Him who sought the mountain-tops as His refreshment after toil, but never left duties undone or sufferers unrelieved in pain. Let us imitate Him who turned from the joys of contemplation to the joys of service without a murmur when His disciples broke in on His solitude with, " All men seek Thee; " but never suffered the outward work to blunt His desire for, nor to encroach on, the hour of still communion with His Father, Lord, teach us to work; Lord, teach us to pray. — Alexander Maclaren. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 135 Your only safety lies in placing yourself in circumstances which will make exertion necessary, and which will secure Divine assistance. Never mind your infirmities. You have nothing to do with them. Your business is to trust, and to go forward. If you wait till the sea becomes land, you will never walk on it. You must leave the ship, and, like Peter, set your feet upon the waves, and you will find them marble. — Edward Payson. Toil on, and in thy toil rejoice; For toil comes rest, for exile, home ; Soon shalt thou hear the bridegroom's voice. The midnight peal : " Behold, I come." HORATIUS BONAR. When four rowers are in a boat, with their backs to the bow, their simple office is to pull the oars. The steersman's office is to look ahead and work the helm. The moment that the rower turns steersman, and tries to look over his shoulder or outpull his fellow oarsman, the boat loses headway. So you and I are placed with our backs to the future. In our hands are the oars of Christian endeavor. Let God steer the boat, and let us attend to the oars. T. L. CUYLER. And yet the doing is ours, not His. He inspired it, we wrought it out. He quickened, but we brought forth. His the heart-beat, but ours the hand-stroke; His the influence, ours the effluence. — George C. Lorimer. Stand up from among the dead, and patiently work as one waiting for the judgment-seat of Christ. — W. P. Mackay. 126 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. So, my brethren, let us do our work, that others entering on it may carry it forward through after generations. Thus shall the work of the fathers become the glory of their children; and in the end, when the mystery of God shall be finished, we shall see, in its completed beauty and proportion, the great fabric into which we put our little all; and we shall rejoice at once in the skill of the Architect and the diligence of the successive builders. — Wm. M. Taylor. Look to the end; and resolve to make the service of Christ the first object in what remains of life, without indifference to the opinion of your fellow men, but also without fear of it. H. P. LiDDON. Your salvation is His business; make His service jw/r busi- ness and delight. — Richard Fuller. The question is not merely what we can feel^ but what we can do for Christ ; not how many tears we can shed, but how many sins we can mortify ; not what raptures we can experi- ence, but what self-denial we can practice; not what happy frames we can enjoy, but what holy duties Ave can perform ; not simply how much we can luxuriate at sermon or at sacrament, but how much we can exhibit of the mind of Jesus in our intercourse with our fellow men; not only how far above earth we can rise to the bliss of heaven, but how much of the love and purity of heaven we can bring down to earth ; in short, -not how much of rapt feeling we can indulge, but how much of religious principle we can bring to bear on our whole conduct. — John Angel James. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 127 " Work out your own salvation. " Work, as well as believe; and in the daily practice of faithful obedience, in the daily subjugation of your own spirits to His Divine power, in the daily crucifixion of your flesh with its affections and lusts, in the daily straining after loftier heights of godliness and purer atmospheres of devotion and love, — make more thoroughly your own what you possess. Work into the substance of your souls that which you have. " Apprehend that for which you are apprehended of Christ; " and remember that not a past act of faith, but a present and continuous life of loving, faithful work in Christ, which is His and yet yours, is the holding fast the beginning of your confidence firm unto the end. — Alexander Maclarex. If we truly feel that the Lord liveth, before whom we stand, we shall want nothing else for our work but His smile ; and we shall feel that the light of His face is all we need. That thought should deaden our love for outward things. How the things that we fever our souls by pursuing, and fret our hearts when we lose, will cease to attract ! How small and vulgar the "prizes " of life, as people call them, will appear! — Alexander Maclaren. God's very service is wages; His ways are strewed with roses, and paved with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, and with peace that passeth understanding. — Thomas Brooks. The sense that a man is serving a Higher than himself, with a service which will become ever more and more perfect free- dom, evokes more profound, more humbling, more exalted emotions than any thing else in the world can do. The spirit of man is an instrument which cannot give out its deepest, finest tones, except under the immediate hand of the Divine Harmonist. — J. C. Shairp. 128 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine; Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws, Makes that and the action fine. — George Herbert. Let us endeavor to commence every enterprise with a pure view to the glory of God, continue it without distraction, and finish it without impatience. — Fenelon. The man who labors to please his neighbor for his good to edification has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinner. Even a feeble, but kind and tender man, Avill effect more than a genius, who is rough and artificial. — Richard Cecil. If the world is ever conquered for our Lord, it is not by ministers, nor by office-bearers, nor by the great, and noble and mighty, but by every member of Christ's body being a working member; doing his work ; filling his own sphere; hold- ing his own post; and saying to Jesus, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " — Thomas Guthrie. Jesus was a great worker, and His disciples must not be afraid of hard work. — C. H. Spurgeon. A divine life is hidden in every seed we sow for Jesus. It matters not how small the seed may be, nor in what secluded part of the vineyard it may be sown — a prayer, a word, a look, a pressure of the hand — God's almighty energy is enfolded in every seed which we sow in the Master's name and for His glory. — A. E. Kittredge. CHRISTIAN SERVICE. 129 I believe that when Paul plants and Apollos waters, God gives the increase; and I have no patience with those who throw the blame on God when it belongs to themselves. — C. H. Spurgeon. If a man is unable to find the way to Jesus, he ought to be led. It is good work this bringing the blind to Him who alone can give them sight. ■ — H. Clay Trumbull. When men's hearts are melted under the preaching of the word, or by sickness, or the loss of friends, believers should be very eager to stamp the truth upon the prepared mind. Such opportunities are to be seized with holy eagerness. — C. H. Spurgeon. We may talk of the best means of doing good; but, after all, the greatest difficulty lies in doing it in a proper spirit. Speak- the truth in love, " in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves" — with the meekness and gentleness of Christ. — Nettleton. We serve Him most who take the most Of His exhaustless love. — Alice Cary. Give me a faithful heart — Likness to Thee, That each departing day Henceforth may see Some work of love begun, Some deed of kindness done. Some wanderer sought and won, Something for Thee. — S. D. Phelps, 130 CHRISTIAN SERVICE. I rejoice that the reign of Christ is such, while it thrills the soul with emotions, and opens before the highest intellect the most boundless conceptions, we are left at the same time ready, though our hearts be thrilled, to have our hands filled for deeds of benevolence and love. The happiest moments may be the busiest moments. — Bishop Simpson. Be ashamed to die until you have gained some victory for humanity. — Horace Mann. The man who has given himself to his country loves it better ;^ the man who has fought for his friend honors him more; the man who has labored for his community values more highly the interests he has sought to conserve ; the man who has wrought and planned and endured for the accomplishment of God's plan in the world sees the greatness of it, the divinity and glory of it, and is himself more perfectly assimilated to it. — R. S. Storrs. Theodore Cuyler found Mr. Moody laboring in a little base- ment in the city of Brooklyn. With him was a handful of pauper children. Cuyler whispered to him, "Dull work this, is it not } " Moody looked at him and said, " Did you ever light a fire ? I am lighting my fire; " and he kindled it to such good purpose that anon it blazed over two continents. Do not mourn the past, my brother; it has given place to better times. Do not dread the coming of the future ; it shall dawn in brighter and safer glory. Come, and upon the altars of the faith be anointed as the Daniels of to-day, at once the prophet and the worker — the brow bright with the shining prophecy, the hands full of earnest and of holy deeds. — AVm. M. Punshon. CHRISTIANITY. 131 Go, then, young men, where glory waits you. The field is the world. Go where the abjects wander, and gather them into the fold of the sanctuary. Go to the lazarettos where the moral lepers herd, and tejl them of the healing balm. Go to the haunts of crime, and float a gospel message upon the fecu- lent air. Go wherever there are ignorant to be instructed, timid to be cheered, and helpless to be succored, and stricken to be blessed, and erring to be reclaimed. Go wherever faith can see, or hope can breathe, or love can work, or courage can venture. Go and win the spurs of your spiritual knighthood there. — Wm. M. Punshon. Our work, abiding, shall bring to us the endless glory with which God at last overpays the toils, even as now He overan- swers the poor prayers of His laboring servants. — Alexander Maclaren. To-day, let us rise and go to our work. To-morrow, we shall rise and go to our reward. — Richard Fuller. Nay, be they many, be they few, My thought but holds the end in view ; And fills each day's full measure up With service sweet and patient hope. — Mrs. Helen M. Brown. CHRISTIANITY. Christianity does not consist in a proud priesthood, a costly church, an imposing ritual, a fashionable throng, a pealing organ, loud responses to the creed, and reiterated expressions of reverence for the name of Christ ; but in the spirit of filial trust in God, and ardent, impartial, overflowing love to man. T. J. MUMFORD. 133 CHRISTIANITY. Christianity is not so much the advent of a better doctrine as of a perfect character. — Horace Bushnell. If Christianity were only a development, then Christ was not needed. If Christianity were only a scheme of morals, then the Divine incarnation was a thing superfluous. — Herrick Johnson. The patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian dispensations, are evidently but the unfolding of one general plan. In the first we seethe folded bud; in the second the expanded leaf; in the third the blossom and the fruit. And now, how sublime the idea of a religion thus commencing in the earliest dawn of time ; holding on its way through all the revolutions of king- doms and the vicissitudes of the race ; receiving new forms, but always identical in spirit ; and, finally, expanding and em- bracing in one great brotherhood the whole family of man ! Who can doubt that such a religion was from God } — Mark Hopkins. Christianity was the temple that was to be eternal, and on it, as unconscious builders, men were laboring in all the ages from the creation. — -C D. Foss. In what consists the entire of Christianity but in this, — that feeling an utter incapacity to work out our own salvation, we submit our whole selves, our hearts, and our understandings, to the Divine disposal ; and that, relying upon God's gracious assistance, ensured to our honest endeavors to obtain it, through the mediation of Jesus Christ, we look up to Him, and to Him alone, for safety ? Nay, what is the very notion of religion, but this humble reliance upon God ? — Archbishop Magee. CHRISTIANITY. 133 The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these other, men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after man. — Thomas Arnold. Christianity is more than history ; it is also a system of truths. Every event which its history records, either is a truth, or sug- gests a truth, or expresses a truth which man needs to assent to or to put into practice. — Noah Porter. No, there is nothing on the face of the earth that can, for a moment, bear a comparison with Christianity as a religion for man. Upon this the hope of the race hangs. From the very first, it took its position, as the pillar of fire, to lead the race onward. The intelligence and power of the race are with those who have embraced it ; and now, if this, instead of proving indeed a pillar of fire from God, should be found but a delu- sive meteor, then nothing will be left to the race but to go back to a darkness that may be felt, and to a worse than Egyptian bondage. — Mark Hopkins. Christianity is no mere scheme of doctrine or of ethical practice, but is instead a kind of miracle, a power out of nature and above, descending into it ; a historically supernatural movement on the world, that is visibly entered into it, and organized to be an institution in the person of Jesus Christ. — Horace Bushnell. Christianity is, above all other religions ever known, a relig- ion of sacrifice. It is a religion founded on the greatest of all sacrifices, the sacrifice of the Incarnation, culminating in the sacrifice on Calvary. — Dean Stanley. 134 CHRISTIANITY. The whole of Christianity is comprised in three things — to believe, to love, and to obey Jesus. These are things, how- ever, which we must be learning all our life. — Christian Scriver. Christianity may produce agitation, anger, tumult as at Ephe- sus; but the diffusion of the pure gospel of Christ, and the establishment of the institutions of honesty and virtue, at what- ever cost, is a blessing to mankind. — Albert Barnes. Christianity depends finally on consciousness and experience. From other departments of the mind she may retire at times or seem to, but never from this. Sitting here, if allowed to, on the throne of the soul, she occasionally walks into the other rooms and sets them in order ; and accustomed to her presence, sooner or later the soul finds every department flooded with her light. — E. O. Haven. Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within all is clear and defined ; every ray of light reveals an army of unspeakable splendors. — John Ruskin. Christianity is perfect, men are imperfect. Now a perfect consequence cannot spring from an imperfect principle. Chris- tianity, therefore, is not the work of man. If Christianity is not the work of man, it can have come from none but God. If it came from God, men cannot have acquired a knowledge of it except by revelation. Therefore, Christianity is a revealed religion. — Chateaubriand. CHRISTIANITY. 135 The substance of all realities is in this religion of Jesus Christ ; but it can be real only to those who will do His will. — W. Gladden. Christendom, as an effect, must be accounted for. It is too large for a mortal cause. — Bishop Huntingdon. When I see how fragmentary the structure of religious knowledge was left by nature, when I see how inadequate all the labors of man had proved for its completion, — and when I look at the glorious and completed dome reared by Christian- ity, I cannot but feel that other than human hands have been employed in its structure. — Mark Hopkins. Go to Dahomey, Ashantee, Caffraria, Malaisia, — anywhere; search out the rudest people on earth ; draw a picture of its vices and cruelties, make it as black as you can , and we will parallel it by pictures of Greece under Pericles and of Rome under Cicero. — Edward Thomson. Here is Christianity. Whence came it ? What is it ? It is a force in the world, a prodigious force. It has revolutionized society. It has lifted man out of himself. It has changed the face of the world. There it lies, imbedded in more than eight- een centuries of human history; and history of no mean sort, the best record of the race. — Herrick Johnson. Christianity, Christ, heaven, hell, the judgment, sin, holiness, God, — these, and whether they be true or false, and our per- sonal relations to them, whether they be right or wrong, are things ^0 knoiv about, not to be doubting or guessing about. — Herrick Johnson. 136 CHRISTIANITY. Since the revelation of Christianity, all moral thought has been sanctified by religion. Religion has given it a purity, a solemnity, a sublimity, which even among the noblest of the heathen, we shall look for in vain. The knowledge which shone only by fits and dimly on the eyes of Socrates and Plato, " that rolled in vain to find the light," has descended over many lands into "the huts where poor men lie" — and thoughts are familiar there, beneath the low and smoky roofs, higher far than ever flowed from the lips of Grecian sage meditating among the magnificence of his pillared temples. The whole condition and character of the human being in Christian coun- tries has been raised up to a loftier elevation ; and he may be looked at in the face without a sense of degradation, even wheii he wears the aspect of poverty and distress. Since that relig- ion was given us, and not before, has been felt the meaning of that sublime expression, " The Brotherhood of Man." — John Wilson. If Christianity has really come from heaven, it must renew the whole life of man; it must govern the life of nations no less than that of individuals; it must control a Christian when act- ing in his public and political capacity as completely as when he is engaged in the duties which belong to him as a member of a family circle. H. P. LiDDON. Christianity has found its triumphs and shown its fruits in every nation and tribe upon the globe; and its results have been in every case the same. Virtue, social order, prosperity, blessedness, the elevation and improvement, in all respects, of the human life, are the uniform and exclusive inheritance of those who receive the gospel. — J. H. Seelye. The entrance of Thy words giveth light. CHRISTIANITY. 137 If ever Christianity appears in its power, it is when it erects its trophies upon the tomb ; when it takes up its votaries where the world leaves them; and fills the breast with immortal hope in dying moments. — Robert Hall. The greatest, strongest, mightiest plea for the church of God in the world is the existence of the Spirit of God in its midst, and the works of the Spirit of God are the true evidences of Christianity. They say miracles are withdrawn, but the Holy Spirit is the standing miracle of the church of God to-day. — C. H. Spurgeon. The strong argument for the truth of Christianity is the true Christian; the man filled with the Spirit of Christ. The best proof of Christ's resurrection is a living church, which itself is walking in a new life, and drawing life from Him who hath overcome death. — Christlieb. Religions which depend upon arguments are failures. A re- ligion, to be aggressive, must be experimental; men must be something and do something by means of it, which would be otherwise impossible ; then they become both rhetoric and logic — persuasion and proof. — C. H. Fowler, I have been young, but now am old. I have spent a whole life-time in battling against infidelity with the weapons of apol- ogetic science ; but I have become ever more and more con- vinced that the way to the heart does not lie through the head; and that the only way to the conversion of the head lies through a converted heart which already tastes the living fruits of the gospel. — A. Tholuck. 138 CHRISTIANITY. Give us more and more of real Christianity, and we shall need less of its evidences. Act upon the supposition that Christ is a Divine Teacher, and you will soon have a demonstration of its truth. — Edward Thomson. I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer. — Madajie De Stael. Read a work on the " Evidences of Christianity," and it may become highly probable that Christianity, etc., are true. This is an opinion. Feel God. Do His will, till the Absolute Im- perative within you speaks as with a living voice, " Thou shalt, and thou shalt not; " and then you do not think, you knozcf that there is a God. — F. W. Robertson. Christians are continually tempted to do what all controversy solicits them to do; namely, to argue; as if their business was to establish, in the light of the understanding, certain conclu- sions to which every rational person must assent. But this is to put the main point, the attractive action of God Himself, out of the question. If the end of God be what we hold it to be, to bring human souls to Himself, then the means He actually employs must be living and spiritual. They are likely to be infinitely various and subtle; but they will deal princi- pally with the conscience and the affections. — T- Llewelyn Davies. The real difficulty with thousands in the present day is not that Christianity has been found wanting, but that it has never been seriously tried. H. P. LiDDON. CHRISTIANITY. 139 Personal Christianity is not a creed, however orthodox; not a ritualism, however Scriptural; not a profession, however out- wardly consistent ; not a service, however seemingly useful ; but is Christ in man. When Christianity is received, it stimulates the faculties, and calls forth new ideas, new motives, and new sentiments. It has been the mother of all modern education, — James McCosh. We say then, that Christianity is adapted to the intellect, because its spirit coincides with that of true philosophy ; because it removes the incubus of sensuality and low vice; because of the place it gives to truth ; because it demands free inquiry; because its mighty truths and systems are brought before the mind in the same way as the truths and systems of nature; because it solves higher problems than nature can; and because it is so communicated as to be adapted to every mind. — Mark Hopkins. Christianity excludes malignity, subdues selfishness, regulates the passions, subordinates the appetites, quickens the intellect, exalts the affections. It promotes industry, honesty, truth, purity, kindness. It humbles the proud, exalts the lowly, up- holds law, favors liberty, is essential to it, and would unite men in one great brotherhood. It is the breath of life to social and civil well-being here, and spreads the azure of that heaven into whose unfathomed depths the eye of faith loves to look. — Mark Hopkins. There is no inevitable connection between Christianity and cynicism. Truth is not a salad, is it, that you must always dress it with vinegar .' — Wm. M. Punshon. 140 CHRISTIANITY. Christianity teaches us to moderate our passions ; to temper our affections toward all things below ; to be thankful for the possession, and patient under loss, whenever He who gave shall see fit to take away. — Sir Wm. Temple. Other sciences may strengthen certain faculties of the soul ; some the intellect, some the imagination, some the memory ; but Christianity strengthens the soul itself. We are blessed with a faith, which calls into action the whole intellectual man ; which prescribes a reasonable service ; which challenges the investigation of its evidences ; and which, in the. doctrine of immortality, invests the mind of man Avith a por- tion of the dignity of Divine intelligence. — Edward Everett. Christ does not dress up a moral picture, and ask you to observe its beauty. He only tells you how to live; and the most beautiful characters the world has ever seen, have been those who received and lived these precepts without once con- ceiving their beauty. — Horace Bushnell. It awes by the majesty of its truths, it agitates by the force of its compunctions, it penetrates the heart by the tenderness of its appeals, and it casts over the abyss of thought, the shadow of its eternal grandeur. — Henry Giles. Christianity alone inspires and guides progress ; for the pro- gress of man is movement toward God, and movement toward God will ensure a gradual unfolding of all that exalts and adorns man. — Mark Hopkins. CHRISTIANITY. 141 The introduction of the Christian religion into the world has produced an incalculable change in history. There had previously been only a history of nations — there is now a history of mankind; and the idea of an education of human nature as a whole, — an education the work of Jesus Christ Himself — is become like a compass for the historian, the key of history, and the hope of nations. D'AUBIGNE. We have now in our possession three instruments of civiliza- tion, unknown to antiquity. These are the art of printing; free representative government ; and, lastly, a pure and spirit- ual religion, the deep fountain of generous enthusiasm, the mighty spring of bold and lofty designs, the great sanctuary of moral power. — Edward Everett. Outside of Christianity there have been grand spectacles of activity and force, brilliant phenomena of genius and virtue, generous attempts at reform, learned philosophical systems, and beautiful mythological poems, but no real profound or fruitful regeneration of hmnanity and society. Jesus Christ from His cross accomplishes what erewhile in Asia and Europe, princes and philosophers, the powerful of the earth, and sages, attempted without success. He changes the moral and the social state of the world. He pours into the souls of men new enlightenment and new powers. For all classes, for all human conditions He prepares destinies before His advent unknown. He liberates them at the same time that He lays down rules for their guidance ; He quickens them and stills them. He places the Divine law and human liberty face to face, and yet still in harmony. He offers an effectual remedy for the evil which weighs upon humanity; to sin He opens the path of sal- vation, to unhappiness, the door of hope. — GUIZOT. 142 CHRISTIANITY. Look back to the cross, and the disciples gazing on it in terror from afar, and then look around on the nations that are influenced by the faith that there centres — and note the change! Then take these elements, established in history, and calculate the orbit Christianity is to fill, — R. S. Storrs. There is no social life outside of Christendom. — Wm. H. Seward. While Christianity is speaking in languages more numerous, by tongues more eloquent, in nations more populous than ever before; marshaling better troops, with richer harmony; shrink- ing from no foe, rising triumphant from every conflict; shaking down the towers of old philosophies that exalt themselves against God; making the steam-press rush under the demand for her Scriptures, and the steam-horse groan under the weight of her charities; emancipating the enslaved, civilizing the law- less, refining literature, inspiring poetry; sending forth art and science no longer clad in soft raiment to linger in king's palaces, but as hardy prophets of God to make earth bud and blossom as the rose; giving God-like breadth and freedom and energy to the civilization that bears its name, elevating savage islands into civilized states, leading forth Christian martyrs from the mountains of Madagascar, turning the clubs of cannibals into the railings of the altars before which Fiji savages call upon Jesus; repeating the Pentecost, "by many an ancient river and many a palmy plain; " thundering at the seats of ancient pa- ganism; sailing all waters, cabling all oceans, scaling all mount- ains in the march of its might, and ever enlarging the diameter of those circles of light which it has kindled on earth, and which will soon meet in a universal illumination, — you call it a failure! A little more such failure, and we shall have, over all the globe, the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. — Edward Thomson. CHRISTMAS — CHURCH. 143 Christianity must live and triumph as a system of reform, because it goes to the roots of things, and, because, by so doing it proves itself to be divinely and eternally true. — J. G. Holland. CHRISTMAS. The church-bells of innumerable sects are all chime-bells to- day, ringing in sweet accordance throughout many lands, and awaking a great joy in the heart of our common humanity. — E. H. Chapin. The soul of John must have been pervaded by eternal, child- like, Christmas joys. SCHLIERMACHER. I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. — Charles Dickens. 'Tis the season for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial fire of charity in the heart. — W, Irving. It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when its mighty Founder was a child Himself. — Dickens. CHURCH. God has made a covenant with His people, has given Him- self for their portion, His Son for their price. His Spirit for their guide in the way, His earth for their accommodation by the way, His angels for their guard, the powers of darkness and death for their spoil, everlasting glory for their crown. — Richard Alleine. 144 CHURCH. The everlasting covenant which God has made with Jesus, and through Jesus with all His beloved people, individually, is a strong ground of consolation amidst the tremblings of human hope, the fluctuations of creature things, and the instability of all that earth calls good. — Octavius Winslow. So, from generation to generation, the spiritual church is rising upwards toward its perfection ; and, though one after another the workmen pass away, the fabric remains, and the great Master-builder carries on the undertaking. Be it ours to build in our portion in a solid and substantial manner, so that they who come after us may be at once thankful for our thoroughness, and inspired by our example. — Wm. M. Taylor. A strong church is made up of well-ordered families, where intelligent. Christian parents bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, where the home of the week has its counterpart in the home of the Sabbath, where the hopes and joys of the living, and the blessed memories of the dead bind to the Lord and His church, where young men and maidens are glad when it is said to them, "Let us go unto the house of the Lord," where the tranquillity, and purity, and holy peace, the light and the love, form to the opening minds of the children a type and prophecy of the eternal Sabbath and the heaven above. — John Hall. I know that with consecration on the part of believers, sep- aration from the world, disentanglement from enslaving sins, and a mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit, the church would become a conquering power in the world, not by its constructed theology, not by its Sabbath services, not by its arguments to convince the intellect, but by its simple story of Jesus' love, by the Cross, the Cross — God's hammer, God's fire. A. E. KiTTREDGE. CHURCH. 145 One day of good preaching is no match for six days of incon- sistent practice. God will never honor His church with com- plete success until it completely honors Him. T. L. CUYLER. Depend upon it, as long as the church is living so much like the world, we cannot expect our children to be brought into the fold. — D. L. Moody. We must reinstate Jesus in the rightful place which belongs to Him in the church; or the church will soon be driven into the wilderness. — Bishop Clark. What if every Christian would say: "Lord, I want a revi- val. Let it begin in me. Give me the earnestness, faith, and tenderness that I am looking for in others. Make me such a devoted worker as I think my minister or brother or sister ought to be. Let the revival begin in me, and begin now. ' Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? ' " — The Congregationalist. If the Church would have her face shine, she must go up into the mount, and be alone with God. If "she would have her courts of worship resound with eucharistic praises, she must open her eyes, and see humanity lying lame at the temple gates, and heal it in the miraculous name of Jesus. — Bishop Huntington. I think I speak not too strongly when I say that a church in the land without the Spirit of God is rather a curse than a blessing. If you have not the Spirit of God, Christian worker, remember you stand in somebody else's way; you are a tree bearing no fruit, standing where another fruitful tree might grow, — C. H. Spurgeon. lO 146 CHURCH. Congregations must justify their existence. If they only bring people together to be "very much pleased," why, the Lecture Bureaus will contract for all that. " Did you worship .'' Were you edified ? Did the Lord speak to you ? Did you speak to Him .'' Do you mean more seriously to be pure, honest, upright, generous, manly, holy, from what you did and heard to-day ? " These are the questions which the best part of mankind feel to be proper, and to which we must have affir- mative replies. — John Hall. The one injurious and fatal fact of our present church work is the barrier between the churches and the poorest classes. The first thing for us to do is to demolish this barrier. The impression is abroad among the poor that they are not wanted in the churches. This impression is either correct or incorrect. If it is correct, then there is no missionary work, for us who are pastors, half so urgent as the conversion of our congrega- tions to Christianity. If it is incorrect, we are still guilty before God in that we have allowed such an impression to go abroad ; and we are bound to address ourselves, at once and with all diligence, to the business of convincing the poor peo- ple that they are wanted, and will be made welcome in the churches. — W. Gladden. Let the church come to God in the strength of a perfect weakness, in the power of a felt helplessness and a child-like confidence, and then, either she has no strength, and has no right to be, or she has a strength that is infinite. Then and thus, will she stretch out the rod over the seas of difficulty that lie before her, and the waters shall divide, and she shall pass through, and sing the song of deliverance. — Mark Hopkins. CHURCH. 147 The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its indi- vidual members. — Charles Kingsley. Do you recall the laughter of the Philistines at the helpless Sampson ? You can hear the echo of that laughter to-day, as the church, shorn of her strength by her own sin, is an object of ridicule to the world, who cry in derision, " Where is your boasted triumph and your Millennial glory ? " A. E. KiTTREDGE. There is nothing more pitiable than a soulless, sapless, shriveled church, seeking to thrive in a worldly atmosphere, rooted in barren professions, bearing no fruit, and maintaining only the semblance of existence ; such a church cannot long survive. — George C. Lorimer. How long must the church live before it will learn that strength is won by action, and success by work, and that all this immeasurable feeding without action and work is a positive damage to it — that it is the procurer of spiritual obesity, gout, and debility. — J. G. Holland. A lazy, indolent church tends toward unbelief ; an earnest, busy church, in hand-to-hand conflict with sin and misery, grows stronger in faith. — John Hall. I believe that the root of almost every schism and heresy from which the Christian church has ever suffered, has been the effort of men to earn, rather than to receive, their salvation. — John Ruskin. 148 CHURCH. Doubts about the fundamentals of the gospel exist in certain churches, I am told, to a large extent. My dear friends, where there is a warm-hearted church, you do not hear of them. I never saw a fly light on a red-hot plate. — C. H. Spurgeon. What is the average type of a counterfeit church ? A ham- mock, attached on one side to the cross, and, on the other, held and swung to and fro by the forefinger of Mammon; its freight of nominal Christians elegantly moaning meanwhile over the evils of the times, and not at ease unless fanned by eloquence and music, and sprinkled by social adulations into perfumed, unheroic slumber. — Joseph Cook. I never yet have known the Spirit of God to work where the Lord's people were divided. — D. L. Moody. Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken. — George MacDonald. The way to preserve the peace of the church is to preserve the purity of it. — Matthew Henry. Antedating our history, possessing and illumining the hearts of the founders of liberty in our free land, and constantly exert- ing the soul-equalizing and soul-elevating principles of the gospel of Christ as they fall from Sabbath to Sabbath on the masses of the people, the Christian church stands before all men as the pillar and ground of civil liberty in the world. — W. H, Perrine. CHURCH. 149 The church may go through her dark ages, but Christ is with her in the midnight; she may pass through her fiery furnace, but Christ is in the midst of the flame with her. — C. H. Spurgeon. Persecution has not crushed it, power has not beaten it back, time has not abated its force, and, what is most wonderful of all, the abuses and treasons of its friends have not shaken its stability. — Horace Bushnell. Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of "revival," will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man's moods and moral caprice. If a church is declining, it may require a " revival " to restore it; but what need was there of its declining .'' T. L. CUYLER, And this is the mission of the church — not civilization, but salvation — not better laws, purer legislation, social elevation, human equality, and liberty, but first, the " kingdom of God and His righteousness;" regenerated hearts, and all other things will follow. — A. E. Kittredge. In the true, original, catholic, evangelical religion of Jesus Christ, and in this alone, all the divided religions of Christen- dom find their union, their repose, their support. Find out His mind. His character. His will ; and in His greatness we shall rise above our littlenesses; in His strength we shall lose our weakness; in His peace we shall forget our discord. — Dean Stanley. 150 CHURCH. One family — we dwell in Him, One church above, beneath, Though now divided by the stream, The narrow stream of death. — Charles Wesley, The church itself has got to go outside of its own borders and carry the gospel to every creature, or it is no church of Christ; and any mutual improvement club ^yhich thinks that by reading its Shakspeare, or by acting its pretty tableaux, or by having this or that little reading from Spenser and from Chaucer, it is going to lift itself up into any higher order of culture or life, is wholly mistaken, unless as an essential part of its duty, it goes out into the world, finds those that are fall- ing down, and lifts them up to the majesty of freemen, who are sons of God. — Edward E. Hale. CHURCH (SANCTUARY). They who would grow in grace, must love the habitation of God's house. It is those that are planted in the courts of the Lord who shall flourish, and not those that are occasionally there. — John Angel James. When I go to the house of God I do not want amusement; I want the doctrine which is according to godliness. I want to hear the remedy against the harassing of my guilt and the dis- order of my affections. I want to be led from weariness and disappointment to that goodness which filleth the hungry soul. I want to have light upon the mystery of Providence ; to be taught how the judgments of the Lord are right; how I shall be prepared for duty and for trial; how I may fear God all the days of my life, and close them in peace. — John M. Mason. COMING TO CHRIST. 151 It is better to have a plain, substantial building, with no ex- travagance about it, but without a debt, than to have the most splendid specimen of Gothic architecture that is overlaid by a mortgage. — Wm. M. Taylor. We have houses of God built in defiance of the laws of God. On the walls of one of these monstrosities I saw this most ap- propriate motto:. "This is the house of God; how dreadful is this place ! " — Prof. Sheppard. COMING TO CHRIST. It is not to come in any particular way, or with any particu- lar experience, but to arise and come to your Father, and say unto Him, " Father I have sinned against heaven and before Thee, and am no more worthy to be called Thy son; make me as one of Thy hired servants." — H. W. Beecher. When you do what the poor weary dove did — when you just betake yourself to the one only ark for safety, the infinite Love will put forth His hand, and draw you in ! Into union with Christ ! Into renewing grace and supporting strength ! Into peace! Oh! wondrous peace; oh! sweet, satisfying peace; oh! peace of God that passeth understanding ! — T. L. CUYLER. " No man can come to Christ except the Father draw him." If he comes asking, that proves he comes drawn. — C. S. Robinson. No obstacle can close the kingdom of heaven against him who desires to enter it. 153 COMING TO CHRIST. No, there are no long stages of preparation through which you must pass; all things are now ready; there is nothing to hinder you from becoming a Christian this very hour. And, if any of you have been trying to make yourself better until you are weary and discouraged in the work, all you have to do is to put it into stronger hands. — W. Gladden. Our very unworthiness is our highest preparation for coming to Christ. A starving man can stretch out his hand, and receive the food that is offered to him, just as well as the man who is only a little hungry; and the greatest sinner can take of the water of life, just as well as the man who can say of all the commandments of the Decalogue, " All these have I kept from my youth up." — Henry Darling. You are not to come to Christ because you are qualified, but that you may be qualified with whatever you want; and the best qualification you can bring is a deep sense that you have no worth or excellency at all in you. — John Flavel. Come, come to Him who made thy heart; Come weary and oppressed; To come to Jesus is thy part; His part, to give thee rest. — George MacDonald. Christ died for the ungodly. And if you turn to Him at this moment with an honest heart, and receive Him simply as your Saviour and your God, I have the authority of His word for telling you that He will /;/ no wise cast out. — D. L. Moody. COMING TO CHRIST. 153 And, oh, the blessing of "exceeding joy," after following in vain — after inquiring of the great men and learning nothing — of the religious men and finding little — to see the star at last resting over the place where '' the young child" lies — after groping the way alone, to see the star stand still — to find that religion is a thing far simpler than we thought — that God is near us — that to kneel and adore is the noblest posture of the soul. — F. W. Robertson. No man ever sought Christ with a heart to find Him who did not find Him. — D. L. Moody. If I ask Him to receive me. Will He say me nay ? Not till earth, and not till heaven Pass away. — St. Stephen the Sabaite. Take the lost sinner's place, and claim the lost sinner's Saviour. — W. P Mackay. If you would know Christ at all, you must go to Him as a sinful man, or you are shut out from Him altogether. — Alexander Maclaren. When a man goes thirsty to the well, his thirst is not allayed by merely going there. On the contrary, it is increased by every step he goes. It is by what he draws out of the well that his thirst is satisfied. And just so it is not by the mere bodily exercise of waiting upon ordinances that you will ever come to peace, but by tasting of Jesus in the ordinances, whose flesh is meat indeed, and His blood drink indeed. — Robert McCheyne. 154 COMING TO CHRIST. I saw from that saying, " He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst," that believing and coming was all one; and that he that came, that is, that ran out in his heart and affections after salvation by Christ, he indeed believed in Christ. Then the water stood in mine eyes, and I asked further, " But, Lord, may such a great sinner as I am, be indeed accepted of Thee, and be saved by Thee ? " and I heard Him say, " Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." Then I said, "But how, Lord, must I consider of Thee in my coming to Thee, that my faith may be placed aright upon Thee ? " Then He said, " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." " He is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." " He died for our sins, and rose again for our justification." "He loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." " He is Mediator between God and us." "He ever liveth to make intercession for us." From all which I gathered, that I must look for righteousness in His person, and for satisfaction for my sins by His blood; that what He did in obedience to His Father's law, and in submitting to the penalty thereof, was not for Himself, but for him that will accept it for his salvation, and be thankful. — John Bunyan. You must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick that Christ hath put away uncured. — Rutherford. We are to come to Christ. This is the primal duty. The doctrines are but highways that lead to Him. But when we come to Christ we must receive Him as our Saviour. — D. L. MooDV. I know whom I have believed. — Bible. CONFESSING CHRIST. 155 What right has a man to ask Jesus to forgive him, when his heart is still burning with hatred or festering with grudges against a fellow-creature ? Confession, to be of any avail, must let go of its hold on the sin confessed. T. L. CUYLER. Return unto me; for I have redeemed thee. — Bible. CONFESSING CHRIST. There cannot be a secret Christian. Grace is like ointment hid in the hand; it betrayeth itself. If you truly feel the sweet- ness of the cross of Christ, you will be constrained to confess Christ before men. — Robert McCheyne. You are not so good a Christian when you are neglecting a plain duty as when you are performing it. And joining the church is a plain duty for all who mean to be Christians. — W. Gladden. A love to Christ which is so cowardly and selfish that it is unwilling to proclaim by a public confession its faith in Him who hung before all the world crucified for sinners, is a love which is hardly worth the name. — A. E. Kittredge. If you were good enough, there would be no need of con- fessing Christ at all. It is just because you are not good enough, that Christ says to you, " Follow me." He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. It is not the perfect people whom He wants in His church, but those who have a deep sense of their own imperfection, and who believe that His strength is made perfect in weakness. — W. Gladden. 156 CONSCIENCE. What we want, above all things, in this age is heartiness and holy simplicity; men who justify the holy impulse of grace in their hearts, and do not keep it back by artificial clogs of pru- dence and false fear, or the sham pretences of fastidiousness and artificial delicacy. These are they whom God will make His witnesses in all ages. They dare to be holy, dare just as readily to be singular. What God puts in them, that they ac- cept; and when He puts a song, they sing it. They know Christ inwardly, and therefore stand for Him outwardly. They en- dure hardships. They fight a fight. And these are the souls, my brethren, who will stand before God accepted. — Horace Bushnell. CONSCIENCE. Conscience is God's vicegerent in the soul. BUCHAN. It is quite certain that, if from childhood men were to begin to follow the first intimations of conscience, honestly to obey them and carry them out into act, the power of conscience would be so strengthened and improved within them, that it would soon become, what it evidently is intended to be, "a connecting principle between the creature and the Creator." — J. C. Shairp. Conscience is that peculiar faculty of the soul which may be called the religious instinct. — Samuel Smiles. Every one of us, whatever his speculative opinions, knows better than he practices, and recognizes a better law than he obeys. — Iames a. Froude. CONSCIENCE. 157 There is in man a conscience which outlives the sensations, resolutions, and emotions of the hour, and rises above them all. — Edward Thomson. We never do evil so effectually as when we are led to do it by a false principle of conscience. — Pascal. A good conscience is the palace of Christ ; the temple of the Holy Ghost; the paradise of delight; the standing Sabbath of the saints. — St. Augustine. Trust that man in nothing, who has not a conscience in every thing. — Laurence Sterne. Be fearful only of thyself, and stand in awe of none more than thine own conscience. — Burton. The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it. — Madame de Stael. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celes- tial fire, called conscience. — George Washington. There is no evil which we cannot face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. — Daniel Webster. The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul. — Calvin. 158 CONSECRATION. An old historian says about the Roman armies that marched through a country, burning and destroying every living thing, "They make a solitude, and they call it peace." And so men do with their consciences. They stifle them, sear them, forcibly silence them, somehow or other; and then, when there is a dead stillness in the heart, broken by no voice of either approbation or blame, but doleful, like the unnatural quiet of a deserted city, then they say, "It is peace;" and the mian's uncontrolled passions and unbridled desires dwell solitary in the fortress of his own spirit ! You may almost attain to that. — Alexander Maclaren. CONSECRATION. Take me, O my Father, take me! Take me, save me, through Thy Son; That which Thou wouldst have me, make me, Let Thy will in me be done. Long from Thee my footsteps straying, Thorny proved the way I trod; Weary come I now, and praying — Take me to Thy love, my God ! — Ray Palmer. See that you receive Christ luith all your heart. As there is nothing in Christ that may be refused, so there is nothing in you from which He must be excluded. — John Flavel. If you want to live in this world, doing the duty of life, know- ing the blessings of it, doing your work heartily, and yet not absorbed by it, remember that the one power whereby you can so act is, that all shall be consecrated to Christ, and done for His sake, — Alexander Maclaren. CONSECRATION. 159 God consecrates us with His Spirit; whom He adopts, He anoints; whom He makes sons, He makes saints; He doth not only give them a new name, but a new nature. God turns the wolf into a lamb; He makes theJieart humble and gracious; He works such a change as if another soul did dwell in the same body. — T. Watson. Teach us. Master, how to give All we have and are to Thee; Grant us. Saviour, while we live. Wholly, only Thine to be. — F. R. Havergal. Live, as it were, on trust. All that is in you, all that you are, is only loaned to you; make use of it according to the will of Him who lends it; but never regard it for a moment as your own. — Fenelon. Seek to make life henceforth a consecrated thing; that so, when the sunset is nearing, with its murky vapors and lowering skies, the very clouds of sorrow may be fringed with golden light. Thus will the song in the house of your pilgrimage be always the truest harmony. It will be composed of no jarring, discordant notes; but with all its varied tones will form one sustained, life-long melody; dropped for a moment in death, only to be resumed with the angels, and blended wuth the everlasting cadences of your Father's house. — J. R. Macduff. Ah, my friends, it is not only from the study walls of pastors, but from the walls of every shop, every counting-room, and every hall of justice and legislation, that the countenance of the all-holy Jesus is looking down, and saying, "" Do all for me." — T. L. CUYLER. 160 CONTEMPT. Living or dying, Lord, I ask but to be Thine; My life in Thee, Thy life in me. Makes heaven forever mine. — Henry Harbaugh. CONTEMPT. The spirit of contempt is the true spirit of Antichrist; for no other is more directly opposed to Christ, — Henry Giles. Christ saw much in this world to weep over, and much to pray over; but He saw nothing in it to look upon with con- tempt. — E. H. Chapin. There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride; but only for a gentle and a reverent heart. — James Martineau. Nothing is so contemptible as habitual contempt. It is im- possible to remain long under its control without being dwarfed by its influence. — E. L. Magoon. Ah, there is nothing more beautiful than the difference be- tween the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a holy being, and the thought about sinful creatures which is natural to a self-righteous being. The one is all contempt; the other, all pity, — Alexander Maclaren. Contempt leaves a deeper scar than anger. CONTENTxMENT. 161 CONTENTMENT. Contentment is natural wealth; luxury, artificial poverty. — Socrates. True contentment depends not upon what we have ; a tub was large enough for Diogenes, but a world was too little for Alexander. C. C. COLTON. There are two sorts of content ; one is connected with exer- tion, the other with habits of indolence. The first is a virtue; the other, a vice. ' — Mrs. Maria Edgeworth. We cannot be young twice ; we cannot turn upon our steps, and go back to gather the garlands we gathered ten years ago. And, therefore, with a gaze over on the cross upon the distant hills, and a remembrance always of the shadow land that lies beyond, let us endeavor to be contented with small things, and to make ourselves happy in the pleasantness of simple pleasures. — Holme Lee. My God, give me neither poverty nor riches; but whatsoever it may be Thy will to give, give me with it a heart which knows humbly to acquiesce in what is Thy will. — Christian Scriver. Come calm content serene and sweet, O gently guide my pilgrim feet To find thy hermit cell. — A. L. Barbauld. I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be con- tent. — Bible. 162 CONTROVERSY — CONVERSION. CONTROVERSY. When men differ in any matter of belief, let them meet each other manfully. — F. Wayland. No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy. — Lyman Beecher. It is humbling to mankind to contemplate men capable of grasping eternal truths, fencing and debating in trivialities, like- gladiators fighting with flies. M. NiSARD. Doubtless there are times when controversy becomes a necessary evil. But let us remember that it is an evil. — Dean Stanley. CONVERSION. Conversion is the act of joining our hands to the pierced hand of the crucified Saviour. The new life begins with the taking of Christ's hand, and His taking hold, in infinite love, of our weak hands. T. L. CUYLER. A man to be converted has to give up his will, his ways, and his thoughts. — D. L. Moody. The time when I was converted was when religion became no longer a duty, but a pleasure. — Prof. Lincoln. CONVERSION. 163 In every sound convert the judgment is brought to approve of the laws and ways of Christ, and subscribe to them as most righteous and reasonable; the desire of the heart is to know the whole mind of Christ; the free and resolved choice of the heart is determined for the ways of Christ, before all the pleas- ures of sin, and prosperities of the world; it is the daily care of his life to walk with God. — Joseph Alleine. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? — Bible. Conversion is not, as some suppose, a violent opening of the heart by grace, in which will, reason, and judgment are all ignored or crushed. The reason is not blinded, but enlightened ; and the whole man is made to act with a glorious liberty which it never knew till it fell under the restraints of grace. — C. H. Spurgeon. My observation continues to confirm me more and more in the opinion, that to experience religion is to experience the truth of the great doctrines of Divine grace. — IcHABOD Spencer. Conversion by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God's grace lights up the dark heart. And when a man has once been kindled at the cross of Christ, he is bound to shine. T. L. CUYLER. This is always the way in which the reality of Christian con- version evidences itself. It makes the selfish man charitable; the churlish, liberal ; and implants in the soul, which hitherto has cared only for the things belonging to himself, a disposition to seek also the things of others. — William Adams. 164 ' CONVICTION. The evidence of our acceptance in the Beloved rises in pro- portion to our love, to our repentance, to our humility, to our faith, to our self-denial, to our delight in duty. Other evidence than this the Bible knows not — God has not given. — Gardiner Spring. "Follow me!" The publican "rose up." This implies immediate action. It was now or never with him. So you must act with prompt obedience. He did the first thing Jesus bade him do. Are you willing to do as much? If not, you are deciding against Christ, and that means death. T. L. CUYLER. Every man or woman who turns to Christ must bear in mind that they are breaking with their old master, and enlisting under a new leader. Conversion is a revolutionary process. T. L. CUYLER. You cannot find, I believe, a case in the Bible where a man is converted without God's calling in some human agency — using some human instrument. — D. L. Moody. CONVICTION. No man ever truly believed, who was not first made sensible of unbelief. True conviction of sin — how difficult it is, when its appear- ances and modes of life are so fair, when it twines itself so cunningly about, or creeps so insidiously into, our amiable qual- ities, and sets off its internal disorders by so many outward charms and attractions. — Horace Bushnell. COURAGE. ^ 165 It is no certain evidence, that because the conscience feels the weight of sin, the heart is humbled on account of it; that because the conscience approves of the rectitude of the Divine justice, the heart bows to the Divine sovereignty. The most powerful conviction of sin, therefore, is not conclusive evidence of Christian character. — Gardiner Spring. To remember that once we were near the salvation of Christ, so near that our right hand might have touched and taken it, and after all that hand was withheld; this is a memory which will enhance remorse forever. — William Adams. COURAGE. My dear friend, venture to take the wind on your face for Christ. — Rutherford. In the whole range of earthly experience, no quality is more attractive and ennobling than moral courage. Like that moun- tain of rock which towers aloft in the Irish Sea, the man pos- sessed of this principle is unmoved by the swelling surges which fret and fume at his feet. And yet, unlike that same Ailsa Craig, he is sensitive beyond measure to every adverse influence — battling against it, and triumphing over it by a power which proceeds from God's throne, and pervades his entire being. — J. McC. Holmes. Be courageous. Be independent. Only remember where the true courage and independence come from. — Phillips Brooks. 166 COURAGE. What we want is men with a Httle courage to stand up for Christ. When Christianity wakes up, and every child that be- longs to the Lord is willing to speak for Him, is willing to work for Him, and, if need be, willing to die for Him, then Chris- tianity will advance, and we shall see the work of the Lord prosper. — D. L. Moody. Consult the honor of religion more, and your personal safety less. Is it for the honor of religion (think you) that Christians should be as timorous as hares to start at every sound ? — John Flavel. To do an evil action is base ; to do a good action without incurring danger is common enough; but it is the part of a good man to do great and noble deeds, though he risks every thing. — Plutarch. There is a contemptibly quiet path for all those who are afraid of the blows and clamor of opposing forces. There is no honorable fighting for a man who is not ready to forget that he has a head to be battered and a name to be bespattered. Truth wants no champion who is not as ready to be struck as to strike for her. — J. G. Holland. The best hearts are ever the bravest. — Laurence Sterne. This is the way to cultivate courage: First, by standing firm on some conscientious principle, some law of duty. Next, by being faithful to truth and right on small occasions and com- mon events. Third, by trusting in God for help and power. — James F. Clarke. COVETOUSNESS. 167 Conscience in the soul is the root of all true courage. If a man would be brave, let him learn to obey his conscience. — James F. Clarke. Whenever you do what is holy, be of good cheer, knowing that God Himself takes part with rightful courage. — Menander. COVETOUSNESS. Of covetousness, we may truly say that it makes both the Alpha and Omega in the devil's alphabet, and that it is the first vice in corrupt nature which moves, and the last which dies. — South, The covetous man is like a camel with a great hunch on his back; heaven's gate must be made higher and broader, or he will hardly get in. — Thomas Adams. The covetous person lives as if the world were made alto- gether for him, and not he for the world. — South. The covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them, but to have them. TiLLOTSON. The only sovereign remedy is to give Christ the pre-emi- nence in our hearts; for then we shall undervalue all temporal things in comparison of Him. — Fisher's Catechism. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 168 CRITICIS'M— CROSS BEARING. CRITICISM. Grant me patience, just Heaven ! Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world — though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst — the cant of criticism is the most tormenting. — Laurence Sterne. Criticism is not religion, and by no process can it be substi- tuted for it. It is not the critic's eye, but the child's heart, that most truly discerns the countenance that looks out from the pages of the gospel. — J. C. Shairp. Why will you be always sallying out to break lances with other people's wind-mills, when your own is not capable of grinding corn for the horse you ride } — J. G. Holland. An over-readiness to criticise or to depreciate a minister of Christ is proof of a lack of devotion to Christ. — H. Clay Trumbull. How many people would like to get up in a social prayer- meeting to say a few words for Christ, but there is such a cold spirit of criticism in the church that they dare not do it. With pleasure own your errors past. And make each day a critic on the last. CROSS BEARING. Taking up one's cross, my dear, means simply that you are to go the road which you see to be the straight one ; carrying whatever you find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can; without making faces, or calling people to come and look at you. Above all, you are neither to load, nor unload yourself, nor cut your cross to your own liking. CROSS BEARING. 169 A cross borne in simplicity, without the interference of self- love to augment it, is only half a cross. Suffering in this sim- plicity of love, we are not only happy in spite of the cross, but because of it; for love is pleased in suffering for the Well Be- loved, and the cross which forms us into His image is a con- soling bond of love. — Fenelon. And now my cross is all supported, — Part on my Lord, and part on me; But as He is so much the stronger. He seems to bear it — I go free. — Anna Warner. To deny one's self, to take up the cross, denotes something immeasurably grander than self-imposed penance or rigid con- formity to a Divine statute. It is the surrender of self to an ennobling work, an absolute subordination of personal advan- tages and of personal pleasures for the sake of truth and the welfare of others, and a willing acceptance of every disability which their interests may entail. — George C. Lorimer. Losses and crosses are heavy to bear; but when our hearts are right with God, it is wonderful how easy the yoke becomes. — C. H. Spurgeon. To do Thy holy will; To bear Thy cross; To trust Thy mercy still, In pain or loss; Poor gifts are these to bring, Dear Lord, to Thee, Who hast done every thing For me ! — George Coopei 170 CROSS BEARING. If Jesus bore the cross, and died on it for me, ought I not to be wilHng to take it up for Him ? — D. L. Moody. We must bear our crosses; self is the greatest of them all. If we die in part every day of our lives, we shall have but little to do on the last. O how utterly will these little daily deaths destroy the power of the final dying ! — Fenelon. All you have really to do is to keep your back as straight as you can; and not think about what is upon it. The real and essential meaning of " virtue " is that straightness of back. • — John Ruskin. Thou, Everlasting Strength, hast set Thyself forth to bear our burdens. May we bear Thy cross, and bearing that, find there is nothing else to bear ; and touching that cross, find that instead of taking away our strength, it adds thereto. Give us faith for darkness, for trouble, for sorrow, for bereavement, for disappointment; give us a faith that will abide though the earth itself should pass away — a faith for living, a faith for dying. — H. W. Beecher. Dear Lord, forgive my sinful, foolish fears And give me daily, strengthening grace, I pray. And one thing more I ask with humble tears. Take not my cross away ! — Susan O. Curtis. There is an immeasurable distance between submission to the cross and acceptance of it. — Charlotte Elizabeth ToNNA. CROSS OF CHRIST. 171 Weak Christians are afraid of the shadow of the cross. — Thomas Brooks. The cross is not only imposed upon the saints as their bur- den, but bequeathed unto them as their legacy. It is given unto them as an honor and privilege. — Richard Alleine. Welcome, welcome, cross of Christ, if Christ be with it. — Rutherford. How soon would faith freeze without a cross ! — Rutherford. CROSS OF CHRIST. In the cross of Christ I glory. Towering o'er the wrecks of time; All the light of sacred story Gathers round its head sublime. — John Bowring. The cross is the centre of the world's history; the incarna- tion of Christ and the crucifixion of our Lord are the pivot round which all the events of the ages revolve. The testimony of Christ was the spirit of prophecy, and the growing power of Jesus is the spirit of history. — Alexander Maclaren. And how high is Christ's cross ? As high as the highest heaven, and the throne of God, and the bosom of the Father — that bosom out of which forever proceed all created things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven ! for — if you will receive it — when Christ hung upon the cross, heaven came down on earth, and earth ascended into heaven. — Charles Kingsley. 172 CROSS OF CHRIST. There under the cross is the sinner's sanctuary — there, my friend, is the place for you and me. The first smiling look we shall get from God will be when looking unto Jesus ; and the first time that we shall experience the alacrity of a lightened conscience, the relief and elasticity of the great life-burden lifted off, will be when we have laid our sins on the Lamb of God. — James Hamilton. On the cross of Christ relying, Through His death redeemed from dying, By His favor fortified; When my mortal frame is perished, Let my spirit then be cherished And in heaven be glorified. — Jacobus de Benedictis. Nothing but the cross of Christ can so startle the spiritual nature from its torpor, as to make it an effectual counterpoise to the debasing and sensual tendencies of the race. Favored by temperament and education, individuals may measurably escape; but if the race is to triumph in the conflict between the flesh and the spirit, between the lower propensities and the higher nature, they must, as Constantine is said to have done, see the cross, and on it the motto, " /// hoc signo viuces." By this sign we conquer. — Mark Hopkins. At the foot of the cross, in all humility and in all adoration, we have learned at once the depth and the height of human nature; we have learned to think all wisdom but foolishness for the knowledge of Christ; all purity but sin, unwashed by His atonement ; all hope in earth, of all hopes the most miser- able, but in the faith of His most blessed resurrection; content to bear the struggles of life, at His command ; and submitting to the grave, with a consciousness that it can sting no more. — George Croly. DEATH. 173 When to the cross I turn my eyes, And rest on Calvary, O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, I must remember Thee. — James Montgomery. My friends, there is one spot on earth where the fear of Death, of Sin, and of Judgment, need never trouble us, the only safe spot on earth where the sinner can stand — Cal- vary. — D. L. Moody. He who tears down the cross, what is there left to lift him to heaven? The church claiming to be a Christian church is false to the title, if she make the cross of Christ of none effect. — Herrick Johnson. Lord, as to Thy dear cross we flee And pray to be forgiven. So let Thy life our pattern be. And form our souls for heaven. — J. H. GURNEV. O, cross of my bleeding Lord, may I meditate on thee more, may I feel thee more, may I resolve to know nothing but thee. — Richard Fuller. D. DEATH. One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate ; but he must die as a man. — Daniel Webster, 174 DEATH. My friend, there will come one day to you a Messenger, whom you cannot treat with contempt. He will say, " Come with me; " and all your pleas of business cares and earthly loves will be of no avail. When his cold hand touches yours, the key of the counting-room will drop forever, and he will lead you away from all your investments, your speculations, your bank-notes and real estate, and with him you will pass into eternity, up to the bar of God. You will not be too busy to die. A. E. KiTTREDGE. God's finger touched him, and he slept. — Tennyson. O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could ad- vise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambi- tion of men, and covered them all over with these two narrow words, " Hie jacet." — Sir Walter Raleigh. What a power has Death to awe and hush the voices of this earth ! How mute we stand when that presence confronts us, and we look upon the silence he has wrought in a human life ! We can only gaze, and bow our heads, and creep with our broken, stammering utterances under the shelter of some great word which God has spoken, and in which we see through the history of human sorrow the outstretching and overshadowing of the eternal arms. — W. W. Battershall. Look forward a little further to the period when all the noise and tumult and business of this world shall have closed forever. — J. G. Pike. DEATH. 175 We shall be in the midst of some great work, when the tools shall drop from our relaxing fingers, and we shall work no more; we shall be planning some mighty project — house, busi- ness, society, book — when in one shattering moment all our thoughts shall perish. Life shall seem strong in us when we shall find that it is done. Oh, how happy they to whom all that remains is immortality; happy you who have that confi- dence in the Saviour, that, although nature start at the sudden midnight cry, " The Bridegroom cometh ! " faith shall answer, the moment that we remember who He is, " Even so, come. Lord Jesus! " — James Hamilton. However dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes — the winding ,up of all things, the last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that awful sudden wrench from all we have ever known or loved, the long fare- well to sun, moon, stars, and light — brother man, I ask you this day, and I ask myself humbly and fearfully, " JV/iat will then be finished ? When it is finished, what will it be 1 Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a life of uninterrupted sin and self-gratification, or will it be, ' Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do ? '" — F. W. Robertson. How shocking must thy summons be, O Death! To him that is at ease in his possessions! Who, counting on long years of pleasure here, Is quite unfurnished for the world to come. In that dread moment, how the frantic soul Raves round the walls of her clay tenement; Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help; But shrieks in vain. — Blair. 176 DEATH. When we come to die, we shall be alone. From all our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends — the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities, — will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties — our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sisters, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Saviour, — from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who " sticketh closer than a brother " — One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end. — Albert Barnes. When I lived, I provided for every thing but death ; now I must die, and am unprepared. — C^SAR Borgia. Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints. — Pascal. To the Christian, these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth, and mingles with its shadows. — H. W. Beecher. So fades a summer cloud away; So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day; So dies a wave along the shore. — A. L. Barbauld. Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death! — Mrs. Hemans. DEATH. 177 Soon for me the light of day Shall forever pass away; Then from sin and sorrow free, Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee. DOANE. All life is surrounded by a great circumference of death; but to the believer in Jesus, beyond this surrounding death is a boundless sphere of life. He has only to die once to be done with death forever. — James Hamilton. Yes, death, — the hourly possibility of it, — death is the sub- limity of life. — Wm. Mountford. Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature. — Sears. Thus star by star declines Till all are passed away, As morning high and higher shines To pure and perfect day: Nor sink those stars in empty night; They hide themselves in heaven's pure light. — James Montgomery. Life's race well run. Life's work well done, Life's crown well won, Now comes rest. — President Garfield's Epitaph. 12 178 DEATH. " God giveth His beloved sleep; " and in that peaceful sleep, realities, not dreams, come round their quiet rest, and fill their conscious spirits and their happy hearts with blessedness and fellowship. In His own time He will make the eternal morn- ing dawn, and the hand that kept them in their slumbers shall touch them into waking, and shall clothe them when they arise according to the body of His own glory; and they, look- ing into His face, and flashing back its love, its light, its beauty, shall each break forth into singing as the rising light of that unsetting day touches their transfigured and immortal heads, in the triumphant thanksgiving, " I am satisfied, for I awake in Thy likeness." — Alexander Maclaren. When our earthly day is closing, And the night grows still and deep, Let us, in Thine arms reposing. Feel Thy power to save and keep. Blessed Jesus, Give Thine own beloved sleep. What is our death but a night's sleep ? For as through sleep all weariness and f aintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had only slept a night, and shall be fresh and strong. — Martin Luther. Death to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father's house into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely en- tertaining. — Adam Clarke. Death is the quiet haven of us all. — Wordsworth. DEATH. 179 Mysterious Night ! When our first parent knew Thee from report Divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame. This glorious canopy of light and blue ? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven came; And lo! creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O sun ? or who could find, While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind ? Why do we then shun death with anxious strife ? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life ? — Joseph Blanco White. And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory. — H. W. Beecher. ''Paid the debt of nature^ No; it is not paying a debt; it is rather like bringing a note to the bank to obtain solid gold for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture. — Foster. When darkness gathers over all. And the last tottering pillars fall, Take the poor dust Thy mercy warms, And mould it into heavenly forms. — O. W. Holmes. 180 DEATH. Death is the waiting-room where we robe ourselves for immor- tality. — C. H. Spurgeon. Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed at the sound of it ; and it is formidable only from that which pre- ceded it. C. C. COLTON. If life has not made you by God's grace, through faith, holy — think you, will death without faith do it ? The cold waters of that narrow stream are no purifying bath in which you may wash and be clean. No ! no ! as you go down into them, you- will come up from them. -—Alexander Maclaren. The character wherewith we sink into the grave at death is the very character wherewith we shall reappear at the resurrec- tion. — Thomas Chalmers. He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who so lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die. — Owen Feltham. Death cannot come To him untimely who is fit to die; The less of this cold world, the more of heaven; The briefer life, the earlier immortality. MiLLMAN. A joyful messenger of peace, whose kind hand opens to the Aveary pilgrim the gates of immortality, and lets the oppressed go free, is death. DEATH. 181 No man who is fit to live need fear to die. Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are ! How we shall smile at our vain alarms when the worst has happened ! To us here, death is the most terrible thing we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man. It will be what home is to the exile. It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it, a solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God's great morning lighting up the sky. Our fears are the terror of children in the night. The night with its terrors, its darkness, its feverish dreams, is passing away; and when we awake, it will be into the sunlight of God. — George S. Merriam. Tarry with me, O my Saviour ! Lay my head upon Thy breast, Till the morning; then awake me — Morning of eternal rest. — Caroline S. Smith. O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, "We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise. — Henry Melvill. Seek such union to the Son of God, as, leaving no present death within, shall make the second death impossible, and shall leave in all your future only that shadow of death which men call dissolution, and which the gospel calls sleeping in Jesus. — James Hamilton. 182 DEATH. Love masters agony; the soul that seemed Forsaken feels her present God again And in her Father's arms Contented dies away. — John Keble. Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully — not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts — watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not know- ing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest" victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with. — F. W. Robertson. " Come and see how a Christian can die," said the dying sage to his pupil; how would it do to say, " Come and see how an infidel can die ? " How would it have done for Voltaire to say this, who, in his panic at the prospect of eternity, offered his physician half his fortune for six weeks more of life ? — James Hamilton. Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions.' They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world ? — E. F. Burr. Death is the crown of life. DEATH. 183 And now, with busy, but noiseless process, the Comforter is giving the last finish to the sanctifying work, and making the heir of glory meet for home, till, at a signal given, the portal opens, and even the numb body feels the burst of blessedness as the rigid features smile and say, " I see Jesus," then leave the vision pictured on the pale but placid brow. — James Hamilton. How well he fell asleep ! Like some proud river, widening toward the sea; Calmly and grandly, silently and deep. Life joined eternity. — S. T. Coleridge. O Earth, so full of dreary noises ! O men, with wailing in your voices ! O delved gold, the wailer's heap ! O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall ! God makes a silence through you all, And " giveth His beloved, sleep." — Mrs. Browning. Earth has one angel less, and heaven one more since yester- day. Already, kneeling at the throne, she has received her welcome, and is resting on the bosom of her Saviour. — Hawthorne. Beloved in the Lord, if you only will lay hold of the Saviour's strength, and cast yourself entirely on His kind arms, with His dying grace He will do wonders for you in the dying hour. A great trembling may come upon you when you think of going down to tread the verge of Jordan; " for ye have not passed this way heretofore." But Jesus has; and you shall see His footprints on the shore. He will be your guide unto death, and through death. — Alexander Dickson. 184 DEATH. Dead is she ? No; rather let us call ourselves dead, who tire so soon in the service of the Master whom she has gone to serve forever. — W. S. Smart. So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our heads back on the bosom of Christ, and quietly fall asleep. — H. AV. Beecher. I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this " bank and shoal of time " upon which he stands, even though the tide has all but reached his feet — if he knows that God's strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the moment when the sand dissolves from under him, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him high above the floods on the stable land where there is " no more sea." — Alexander Maclaren. When you take the wires of the cage apart, you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do you know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down } — that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life ? — Bishop Randolph S. Foster. The most heaven-like spots I have ever visited, have been certain rooms in which Christ's disciples were awaiting the sum- mons of death. So far from being a " house of mourning," I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory. — T. L. Cuyler. The world recedes ; it disappears ! Heaven opens on my eyes ! -Pope. DEATH. 185 I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands. — Fenelon. When at last the angels come to convey your departing spirit to Abraham's bosom, depend upon it, however dazzling in their newness they may be to you, you will find that your history is no novelty, and you yourself no stranger to them. — James Hamilton. And when, in the evening of life, the golden clouds rest sweetly and invitingly upon the golden mountains, and the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, I wish you a peaceful and abundant entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life will be un- folded to you in the quick consciousness of a soul redeemed and purified. — J. G. Holland. Dear brethren, our ship is sailing fast. We shall soon hear the rasping of the shallows, and the commotion overhead which bespeaks the port in view. When it comes to that, how will you feel } Are you a stranger, or a convict, or are you going home ? Brethren, we are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, '' I have a message for you from home; God wants you; heaven waits for you." — H. W. Beecher. 186 DECISION. Do we not all, in this very hour, recall a death -bed scene in which some loved one has passed away ? And, as we bring to mind the solemn reflections of that hour, are we not ready to hear and to heed the voice with which a dying wife once ad- dressed him who stood sobbing by her side: " My dear hus- band, live for one thing, and only one thing ; just one thing, — the glory of God, the glory of God ! " — E. P. Tenney. DECISION. Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen. — Martin Luther. Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character which I would wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and the cowardly, feeble resolve. — Robert Burns. Decision is a vastly important thing with a convicted sinner. He must choose, or he must be lost. If he will not do it, he may expect the Divine Spirit to depart from him, and leave him to his own way. — IcHABOD Spencer. I take one decisive and immediate step, and resign my all to the sufficiency of my Saviour. — Thomas Chalmers. For a few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze. So will it be with present feelings. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay. T. L. CUYLER. DENOMINATIONALISM. 187 A man who has not learned to say " no " — who is not re- solved that he will take God's way in spite of every dog that can bark at him, in spite of every silvery voice that can woo him aside — will be a weak and wretched man till he dies. — Alexander Maclaren. To be energetic and firm where principle demands it, and tolerant in all else, is not easy. It is not easy to abhor wicked- ness, and oppose it with every energy, and at the same time to have the meekness and gentleness of Christ, becoming all things to all men for the truth's sake. The energy of patience, the most godlike of all, is not easy. — Mark Hopkins. I hate to see things done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone. — Gilpin. In such a world as this, with such hearts as ours, weakness is wickedness in the long run. Whoever lets himself be shaped and guided by any thing lower than an inflexible will, fixed in obedience to God, will in the end be shaped into a deformity, and guided to wreck and ruin. — Alexander Maclaren. The souls of men of feeble purpose are the graveyards of good intentions. DENOMINATIONALISM. Sects differ; but, with few exceptions, they agree not only that a life of unselfish love will insure heaven, but that repent- ance and faith are the way by which one enters into this path of life. — The Independent. 188 DENOMINATIONALISM. I do not want the walls of separation between different orders of Christians to be destroyed, but only lowered, that we may shake hands a little easier over .them. — Rowland Hill. Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions, grow the peace- ful olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn. — Edmund Burke. If God allows us to remain Methodist, Baptist, or Episcopa- lian, it may be on account of the unconverted, that they may be without excuse; that every type of man may be confronted with a corresponding type of doctrine and of method. Surely there are means adapted to your state, and ministries fitted to your peculiar temperament. — George C. Lorimer. It is neither possible nor desirable to make all men think alike. Variety is the very basis of harmony ; and, in the sphere of ecclesiastical experience, oneness of feeling is vastly preferable to unanimity of belief. The voice of God, how- ever, as uttered in the events and experiences of the past hundred years, enjoins upon the private membership of the church the culture of that " unity of the Spirit " which is begotten of the Holy Ghost, and which derives from its Divine Author the life in which it resides, the elements of which it is composed, and the impulses under which it acts. — J. McC. Holmes. Were we all one body, we should lose the tremendous stimula- tion that comes from the present arrangement, and I fear that our uniformity would become the uniformity of death and the tomb. — George C. Lorimer. DENYING CHRIST — DEPRAVITY. 189 God grant that we may contend with other churches as the vine with the olive, which of us shall bear the best fruit; but not as the brier with the thistle, which of us shall be most un- profitable. — Lord Bacon. It is not the actual differences of Christian men that do the mischief, but the mismanagement of those differences. — Philip PIenry. O for less of an abstract, controversial Christianity, and more of a living, loving, personal Christ. — Richard Fuller, DENYING CHRIST. We deny our Lord whenever, like Demas, we through love of this present world forsake the course of duty which Christ has plainly pointed out to us. — ^ Bishop Heber. The Christian who will sit with sealed lips when his Master is assailed, when religion is attacked, when wickedness is broached and defended, when truth is denounced, is a denier of his Lord, as guilty as Simon Peter in Pilate's hall. T. L. CUYLER. DEPRAVITY. The gospel proceeds on the basis of universal depravity; the gospel assimilates all varieties of human nature into one com- mon experience of guilt and need and helplessness; and this is just what you do not like about it. — Wm. Morley Punshon. 190 DEPRAVITY. We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse. — Baptist Church Manual. There is not a beast of the field but may trust his nature and follow it; certain that it will lead him to the best of which he is capable. But as for us, our only invincible enemy is our nature. — William Arthur. Those that hold the doctrine of native depravity do not believe that there is a mass of corrupt matter lodged in the heart, which sends off noxious exhalations, like a dead body. But they maintain that the soul has entirely lost the image of God in which it was originally created; that there is nothing pure or good remaining in it; that in consequence of the with- drawment of those special Divine influences which were given to our first parents, the proper balance of the power is de- stroyed, they have lost their conformity to the law of God; and the holy dispositions, which were at first implanted in the soul, have given place to sinful dispositions, which are the source of all actual transgression. — H. A. Boardman. If we take away this foundation, that man is by nature foolish and sinful, fallen short of the glorious image of God, the Christian system falls at once; nor will it deserve as honor- able an appellation as that of a cunningly devised fable. — John Wesley. DESPAIR. 191 Human nature is said by many to be good; if so, where have social evils come from ? For human nature is the only moral nature in that corrupting thing called " society." Every ex- ample set before the child of to-day is the fruit of human na- ture. It has been planted on every possible field — among the snows that never melt; in temperate regions, and under the line; in crowded cities, in lonely forests; in ancient seats of civiliza- tion, in new colonies; and in all these fields it has, without once failing, brought forth a crop of sins and troubles. — William Arthur. DESPAIR. Despair is the damp of hell; rejoicing is the serenity of heaven. — Donne. It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent. — Jeremy Taylor. Disordered nerves are the origin of much religious despair, when the individual does not suspect it; and then the body and mind have a reciprocal influence upon each other, and it is difficult to tell which influences the other most. The physi- cian is often blamed, when the fault lies with the minister. Depression never benefits body or soul. We are saved by hope. — IcHABOD Spencer. Mr. Fearing had, I think, a slough of despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him, or else he could never have been as he was. — John Bunyan. 193 DEVOTION. ; DEVOTION. "Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." Keep near to the fountain-head, and "with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation." — Gardiner Spring. The Christian is not always praying ; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love, — fires of desire, fervent longings, — which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer. — Thomas Guthrie. Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings. — Humboldt. All who wait upon the Lord shall rise higher and higher upon the mighty pinions of strong devotion, and with the un- blinking eye of faith, into the regions of heavenly-mindedness ; and shall approach nearer and nearer to God, the Sun of our spiritual day. — John Angel James. This is the spirit of prayer — sincere, humble, believing, sub- missive. Other prayer than this the Bible does not require — God will not accept. — Gardiner Spring. The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts toward that eternal goodness which we desire on earth. All our happiness consists in thirsting for it. Now this thirst is prayer. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray. Do not think it necessary to pronounce many words. — Fenelon. DEVOTION. 193 It is not he who knows most, nor he who hears most, nor yet he who talks most, but he who exercises grace most, who has most communion with God. — Thomas Brooks. Devotion is like the candle which Michael Angelo used to take in his pasteboard cap, so as not to throw his shadow upon the work in which he was engaged. — Phillips Brooks. Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, Solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone. — F. W. Robertson. There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid every thing that tends to make us lose it. — Fenelon Our (2^//z7'/f should consist in // cleanse us from the infidelity of our every-day life, and bring us into the spirit of Jesus, that love may reign triumphant in us. and that we may glorify our Father in heaven. Is it for the cultivated man, the man of broad and general views, to throw himself without reserve and with all his weight, into what, for aught he yet knows, may be only a cross-current and eddy, instead of the main stream of truth ? — Prof. Shedd. I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth. — Samuel Johnson. Freethinkers are generally those that never think at all. — Laurence Sterne. Reason is the test of ridicule, not ridicule the test of truth. — Warburton. When you see a mad dog, don't argue with him unless you are sure of your logic. — C. H. Spurgeon. In my judgment, a great mistake has been made by well- meaning and zealous men, through treating error and infidelity with altogether too much respect. I believe that it is safe to say that Christianity is indebted for none of its progress in the world to rational conflicts with infidelity. I do not believe that a single great wrong has ever been overthrown by meeting the advocates of wrong in argument. — J. G. Holland. 350 INFLUENCE. INFLUENCE. The Bible calls the good man's life a light ; and it is the na- ture of light to flow out spontaneously in all directions, and fill the world unconsciously with its beams. So the Christian shines it would say, not so much because he will, as because he is a luminous object. Not that the active influence of Chris- tians is made of no account in the figure, but only that this symbol of light has its propriety in the fact that their uncon- scious influence is the chief influence, and has the precedence in its power over the world. The outward endeavors made by good men or bad to sway others, tliey call their influence ; whereas it is, in fact, but a fraction, and, in most cases, but a" very small fraction of the good or evil that flows out of their lives. — Horace Bushnell. What we do is transacted on a stage of which all the universe are spectators. What we say is transmitted in echoes that will never cease. What we are is influencing and acting on the rest of mankind. Neutral we cannot be. Living, we act ; and dead, w^e speak ; and the whole universe is the mighty company forever looking, forever listening, and all nature the tablets, forever recording the words, the deeds, the thoughts, the pas- sions of mankind. — John Cumming. If you had the seeds of a pestilence in your body, you would not have a more active contagion than you have in your tem- pers, tastes, and principles. Simply to be in this world, what- ever you are, is to exert an influence — an influence, too, coni- pared with which mere language and persuasion are feeble. — Horace Bushnell. No man is so insignificant as to be sure his example can do no hurt. INFLUENCE. 351 To get good is animal ; to do good is human ; to be good is Divine. The true use of a man's possessions is to help his work ; and the best end of all his work is to show us what he is. The noblest workers of our world bequeath us nothing so great as the image of themselves. Their task, be it ever so glorious, is historical and transient, the majesty of their spirit is essential and eternal, — James Martineau. Every word, thought, and deed has its influence upon the destiny of man. Every life, well spent or ill spent, bears with it a long train of consequences, extending through generatiojis yet unborn. — Samuel Smiles. No fountain is so small but that heaven may be imaged in its bosom, — Nathaniel Hawthorne. The serene, silent beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world, next to the might of the Spirit of God. — C. H. Spurgeon. Thank God ! some lights never go out. Death cannot quench them. They shine forever. Luther's great lantern, " The just shall live by faith," still gleams from Wartburg Cas- tle. John Bunyan's lamp twinkles yet through the gratings of Bedford jail. T. L. CUYLER. My mother spoke of Christ to father, by her feminine and childlike virtues, and, after having borne his violence without a murmur or complaint^ gained him at the close of his life to Christc — St. Augustine. 353 INTEGRITY. INTEGRITY. Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can thoroughly depend — who will stand firm when others fail — the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous ; in such an one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages — a sign that there has been a prophet amongst us, — Dean Stanley, Honesty is the best policy, but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man. — Bishop Whately. Though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the bless- ings of posterity. — Edward Everett. Aaron Burr was a more brilliant man than George Washing- ton. If he had been loyal to truth, he would have been an abler man ; but that which made George Washington the chief hero in our great republic was the sagacity, not of intellectual genius, but of the moral element in him. — A. E. Dunning. The man who, for party, forsakes righteousness, goes down ; and the armed battalions of God march over him. — Wendell Phillips. Gold thou mayest safely touch, but if it stick Unto thy hands, it woundeth to the quick. — George Herbert. INTELLECT — INTEMPERANCE. 35S INTELLECT. The intellect has only one failing, which to be sure, is a very considerable one. It has no conscience. Napoleon is the readiest instance of this. If his heart had borne any proportion to his brain, he had been one of the greatest men of history. — J. R. Lowell. She should be my counsellor, But not my tyrant. For the spirit needs Impulses from a deeper source than hers ; And there are motions, in the mind of man, That she must look upon with awe. — W. C. Bryant. Every thing connected with intellect is permanent. — William Roscoe. Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as strong to think. — R. W. Emerson. INTEMPERANCE. Intemperance is a hydra with a hundred heads. She never stalks abroad unaccompanied with impurity, anger, and the most infamous profligacies. — Chrysostom. Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice. — Francis Quarles. Oh, that men should put an enemy in Their mouths, to steal away their brains. — Shakspeare. 23 354 JOY. Voluptuous habits speedily bind all the powers of the soul in loathsome vassalage, and exclude every thought except such as relate to the beastly pleasures of which it is the slave. Dis- tracted by cravings as inexorable as they are base, and in their vileness perpetually reproduced, — tantalized by the impure fountains of a diseased imagination, and oppressed with its own effeminacy, — the mind loses its vigor and its productiveness. Every faculty rapidly deteriorates and decays ; memory becomes extinguished, inanity destroys resolution, and the heart is as cold and callous as a cinder extinct. It ceases to love, to sym- pathize, and diffuse the delicious tears that sanctify friendship's shrine. The whole countenance assumes an expression of ob- durateness and repugnance. The features, marked with pre- mature decay, proclaim that the source of gentle sentiments, pure emotions, and innocent joys, is exhausted, like a limpid fountain invaded by the scoria and flame of a volcano. All the elements of life seem to have retreated into their abused or- gans only to perish there. Even the organs themselves are withered, and worse than dead ; their infirmities, maladies, sufferings, rush in a multitude upon the degraded victim, and overwhelm him in awful retribution. — E. L. Magoon. JOY. "The joy of the Lord is your strength," my brother. Noth- ing else is. No vehement resolutions, no sense of your own sin- fulness, nor even contrite remembrance of your own failures, ever made a man strong yet. It made him weak that he might become strong; and when it had done that, it had done its work. For strength there must be hope, for strength there must be joy. — ■ Alexander Maclaren. JOY. 355 When we speak of joy, we do not speak of something we are after, but of something that will come to us, when we are after God and duty. It is a prize unbought, and is freest, purest in its flow, when it comes unsought. No getting into heaven as a place will compass it. You must carry it with you, or else it is not there. You must have it in you, as the music of a well- ordered soul, the fire of a holy purpose, the welling up, out of the central depths, of eternal springs that hide their waters there. It is the rest of confidence, the blessedness of eternal light and outflowing benevolence, — the highest form of life and spiritual majesty. Being the birth of character, it has eternity in it. Rising from within, it is sovereign over all circumstances and hindrances. — Horace Bushnell. God offers to fill our homes aud our hearts with joy and glad- ness if we will only let Him do it. We cannot create the canary-birds ; but we can provide cages for them, and fill our dwellings with their music. Even so we cannot create the heavenly gifts which Jesus offers ; but they are ours if we pro- vide heart-room for them. The birds of peace and contentment and joy and praise will fly in fast enough if we will only invite Jesus Christ, and set the windows of our souls open for His coming, T. L. CUYLER. God is merely tuning the soul, as an instrument, in this life. And these joys of the Christian, are only the notes and chords that are sounded out in the preparation — preludes to the per- fect harmony that shall flood the soul — forerunners of the per- fected and rapturous joy that shall bless the soul, in that ex- ceeding and eternal weight of glory. — Herrick Johnson. Joy in God is the strength pf work for God ; but work for God is the preparation of joy in God. 356 JOY. Nobody can commit his way unto the Lord who has not be- gun by delighting in the Lord ; and nobody can rest in the Lord who has not committed his way to the Lord. — Alexander Maclaren. If a man is dying for want of bread, and you give him bread, is that to make him gloomy ? That is what Christ is to the soul — the Bread of Life. You will never have true pleasure or peace or joy or comfort until you have found Christ. — D. L. Moody. Rejoice evermore in your Redeemer, — in His truth — His person — His almighty grace — His everlasting faithfulness — His precious blood whose efficacy reaches farther than the eye of your conscience ever penetrated, and cleanses you from a sin- fulness more inveterate than you have ever conceived to be yours, — Richard Fuller. As the skillful artist, in making a good portrait, finds it essen- tially necessary to use the dark and bright colors alternately, so the Divine Artist dips His pencil, by turns, in Marah and Elim. In Marah first, and the background is laid in darkness black as midnight ; and then in Elim, and the blackness is re- lieved with the colors of the rainbow. — Alexander Dickson. These are the marks of a heart that is living in the joy of the resurrection. It lives out of itself ; and living out of itself, by this unselfish joy, it has a joy in itself which comes from the presence of Jesus Christ ; the overflow of His peace which passeth all sense, the consciousuess of that twofold relationship — His relation to us, our relation to Him, and our mutual and indissoluble love, — Manning. JUDGING. 357 We ask God to forgive us for our evil thoughts and evil tem- per, but rarely, if ever, ask Him to forgive us for our sadness. Joy is regarded as a happy accident of the Christian life, an ornament and a luxury, rather than a duty. — R. W. Dale. JUDGING. The Holy Spirit would lead us to think much upon our own sins. It is a dangerous thing for us to dwell upon the imper- fections of others. — IcHABOD Spencer. If we will measure other people's corn in our own bushel, let us first take it to the Divine standard, and have it sealed. — J. G. Holland. Be thyself blameless of what thou rebukest. He that cleanses a blot with blotted fingers makes a greater blot. While the censorious man is most severe in judging others, he is invariably the most ready to repel any animadversions made upon himself ; upon the principle well understood in medical circles, that the feeblest bodies are always the most sensitive, — E. L. Magoon, Would that our harsh judgments could be restrained, our impatience checked, our selfishness broken down, our passions controlled, our waste of time and life in worthless or unworthy objects corrected, by the thought that there is One in whose hands we are, who cares for us with a parent's love, who will judge us hereafter without the slightest tinge of human infirm- ity, the All-Merciful and the All-Just. — Dean Stanley. 358 JUDGMENT-DAY. JUDGMENT-DAY. Standing on my watch-tower^ I am commanded, if I see aught of evil coniing, to give warning. I solemnly declare that I do discern evil approaching ; I see a storm collecting in the heavens ; I discover the commotion of the troubled ele- ments; I hear the roar of a distant wind — heaven and earth seem mingled in the conflict — and I cry to those for whom I watch, " A storm ! A storm I Get you into the ark or you are swept away." Oh ! what is it I see ? I see a world convulsed and falling to ruins — the sea burning like oil — nations rising from under ground — the sun falling — the damned in chains before the bar, and some of my poor hearers among them ! I see them cast from the battlements of the judgment scene ' My God ! the eternal pit has closed upon them forever ! — E. D. Griffin. Meanwhile the globe begins to tremble on its axis; the moon is covered with a bloody veil, the threatening stars hang half detached from the vault of heaven, and the agony of the world commences. Then, all at once, the fatal hour strikes ; God suspends the movements of the creation, and the earth has passed away like an exhausted river. Now resounds the trum- pet of the angel of judgment ; and the cry is heard, " Arise, ye dead ! " The sepulchres burst open with a terrific noise, the human race issues all at once from the tomb, and the as- sembled multitudes fill the valley of Jehoshaphat. Behold, the Son of Man appears in the clouds ; the powers of hell ascend from the depths of the abyss to witness the last judgment pro- nounced upon the ages ; the goats are separated from the sheep, the wicked are plunged into the gulf, the just ascend triumph- antly to heaven, God returns to His repose, and the reign of eternity commences. — Chateaubriand. JUDGMENT-DAY. 359 Winds, storms, tempests, thunders, lightnings, raging flames, dissolving elements, the archangel's trump smiting the silence of the tomb, the universal air blazing with disastrous splendors, " the tribes of the earth mourning and beating their breasts," the wicked calling on rocks and hills to fall upon them and cover them, the shouts of the saved, the bowlings of the damned — all, all will then utter one voice, all will pierce our very souls with their tones ; all will repeat these words, " God alone is great, and God's salvation alone deserved the cares, toils, sacrifices of an immortal spirit." — Richard Fuller. Oh, on that day, that wrathful day, When man to judgment wakes from clay, Be Thou, O Christ, the sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away. — Walter Scott. Glorious transformation ! glorious translation ! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene. The sea and the land have given up their dead ! the quickened myriads have been judged according to their works. And now, an innumerable company, out of all nations and tribes and tongues, ascend with the Me- diator towards the kingdom of His Father. Can it be that these, who were born children of earth, who were long enemies to God by wicked works, are to enter the bright scenes of paradise ? Yes, He who leads them has washed them in His blood ; He who leads them has sanctified them by His Spirit. — Henry Melvill. Then, when the glorious end. The day of God shall come, The angel reapers shall descend. And heaven sing, " Harvest-home !" — T- Montgomery. 360 JUDGMENT-DAY. Now shall the promises made to Christ by God the Father before the foundation of the world, the promises of the cov- " enant of redemption, be fully accomplished. Christ shall now have perfectly obtained the joy set before Him, for which He undertook those great sufferings in His state of humiliation. Now shall all the hopes and expectations of the saints be ful- filled. The state of the church before was progressive and pre- paratory ; but now she is arrived at her most perfect state of glory. All the glory of the church on earth is but a faint shadow of this her consummate glory in heaven. — Jonathan Edwards. Oh, remember that as certain as the historical fact, — He died on Calvary ; so certain is the prophetic fact. He shall reign, and you and I will stand tho-e. I durst not touch that subject. Take it into your own hearts, and think about it, — a kingdom, a judgment-seat, a crown, a gathered universe ; separation, de- cision, execution of the sentence, — Alexander Maclaren. We are all approaching that dread tribunal. However diver- sified our paths, they all converge toward that common centre. The young, with their elastic tread, are striding to the judg- ment ; the old, with their tottering limbs are creeping to the judgment ; the rich in their splendid equipages are driving to the judgment ; the poor, in rags and barefooted, are walking to the judgment. The Christian making God's statutes his song, is a pilgrim to the judgment; the sinner, treading upon the mercy of Jesus, and trampling upon His blood, is hastening to the judgment. " We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ." — Richard Fuller. When God comes to us in judgment, if we are nor in Christ, all will be alike. Learned or unlearned, high or low, priest or scribe — there will be no difference. JUSTICE — JUSTIFICATION. 361 Truly at the day of judgment we shall not be examined as to what we have read, but as to what we have done ; not as to how well we have spoken, but as to how religiously we have lived. - — Thomas a Kempis. The deeds we do, the words we say, Into still air they seem to fleet ; We count them ever past ; But they shall last — In the dread judgment they And we shall meet. — John Keble. JUSTICE. Justice is a constant and perpetual will to render to every one that which is his own, — Justinian. At some time, here or hereafter, every account must be settled, and every debt paid in full. — J. H. Vincent JUSTIFICATION. We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. — Articles of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Justification is an act of God's free grace, wherein He par- doneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous m His sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone. — Westminster Catechism. 362 KINDNESS. Justification is the act of God as a Judge ; adoption as a Father ; by the former we are discharged from condemnation, and accepted as righteous ; by the latter we are made the children of God and joint-heirs with Christ. — John Guyse. Justification is the work of Christ for us ; sanctification the work of the Spirit /« us ; justification is perfect at once ; sanc- tification is progressive ; justification is before sanctification, and sanctification is the fruit of justification ; consequently the evidence of our justification is our sanctification. — John Angel James. Justification by faith is the answer to that momentous ques- tion, " How shall man be just with God ?" And the reply is, " Not by works of his own, but by faith in the work of another, that is Christ." He must have a righteousness in which to stand before a righteous and a holy, as well as a merciful God. He has no such righteousness of his own. Christ is the end of the law for righteousness unto him. — John Angel James. The thief upon the cross and the beloved John were alike complete in Christ. — Anna Shipton. K. KINDNESS. I expect to pass through this life but once. If therefore there be any kmdnesses I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow beings, let me do it now. T.et me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. — Mrs. a. B. Hegeman. KINDNESS. 363 Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve the heart, and se- cure comfort. — Sir Humphry Davy. The art of saying appropriate words in a kindly way is one that never goes out of fashion, never ceases to please, and is within the reach of the humblest. If you consider that the constant tenor of the gospel precepts is to promote love, peace, and good-will amongst men, you will not doubt that the cultivation of an amiable disposition is a great part of your religious duty ; since nothing leads more directly to the breach of charity, and to the injury and moles- tation of our fellow-creatures than the indulgence of an ill- temper. — Hester Chapone. Kindness has converted more sinners than either zeal, elo- quence, or learning. — F. W. Faber. Every one of us knows how painful it is to be called by mali- cious names, to have his character undermined by false insin- uations, to be overreached in a bargain, to be neglected by those who rise in life, to be thrust on one side by those who have stronger wills and stouter hearts. Every one knows, also, the pleasure of receiving a kind look, a warm greeting, a hand held out to help in distress, a difficulty solved, a higher hope revealed for this world or the next. By that pain and by that pleasure let us judge what we should do to others. — Dean Stanley. He had a face like a benediction. — Cervantes. KNOWLEDGE. KNOWLEDGE. The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowl- edge to love Him and imitate Him. — Milton. Real knowledge, like every thing else of the highest value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, — studied for, — thought for, — and, more than all, it must be prayed for. — Thomas Arnold. To understand at all what life means, one must begin with Christian belief. And I think knowledge may be sorrow with a man unless he loves. ■ — Wm. Mountford. As revelation is the great strengthener of reason, the march of mind which leaves the Bible in the rear, is an advance, like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death. ■ — Henry Melvill. Knowledge is folly unless grace guide it. — George Herbert. An uneducated population may be degraded ; a population educated, but not in righteousness, will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, the other must be tyrants. — Henry Melvill. Every increase of knowledge may possibly render depravity more depraved, as well as it may increase the strength of virtue. It is in itself only power ; and its value depends on its applica- tion. — Sydney Smith. KNOWLEDGE. 365 Learning, without Christ, is among the most dangerous at- tainments the human race has ever secured, and one of the most unsatisfying. — Bishop Haven. , If thou knewest the whole Bible by heart, and the sayings of all the philosophers, what would it profit thee without the love of God and without grace ? — Thomas a Kempis. What a man knows should find its expression in what he does. The value of superior knowledge is chiefly in that it leads to a performing manhood. — C. N. BOVEE. Let me always remember that it is not the amount of religious knowledge which I have, but the amount which I use, that determines my religious position and character. — Alexander Maclaren, The essential difference between that knowledge which is, and that which is not conclusive evidence of Christian charac- ter, lies in this : the object of the one is the agreement of the several parts of a theological proposition ; the object of the other is moral beauty, the intrinsic loveliness of God and Divine things. The sinner sees and hates ; the saint sees and loves. — Gardiner Spring. There is oftentimes a great deal of knowledge where there is but little wisdom to improve that knowledge. It is not the most knowing Christian but the most wise Christian that sees, avoids, and escapes Satan's snares. Knowledge without wisdom is like mettle in a blind horse, which is often an occasion of the rider's fall. — Thomas Brooks. 366 KNOWLEDGE. How empty learning, and how vain is art, But as it mends the life, and guides the heart ! — Young. One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common sense to apply it. The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world ; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven. — Jean Paul Richter. Much learning shows how little mortals know ; Much wealth, how little worldlings can enjoy. — Young. As all true virtue, wherever found, is a ray of the life of the All-Holy ; so all solid knowledge, all really accurate thought, descends froni the Eternal Reason, and ought, when we appre- hend it, to guide us upwards to Him. — H. P. LiDDON. Young converts are sometimes so taken up with religious feeling and doing as to forget the importance even, in reference to that of knowing. " Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." — John Angel James. Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbe- lief ; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and en- lightened toleration. — Lord Brougham. O Lord, let me be blessed with the knowledge of what Thou hast revealed ; let me content myself to adore Thy Divine wis- dom in what Thou hast not revealed. LABOR. 367 L. LABOR Labor is not, as some have erroneously supposed, a penal clause of the original curse. There was labor, bright, healthful, unfatiguing, in unfallen Paradise. By sin, labor became drudg- ery — the earth was restrained from her spontaneous fertility, and the strong arm of the husbandman was required, not to de- velop, but to " subdue " it. But labor in itself is noble, and is necessary for the ripe unfolding of the highest life. — Wm. M. Punshon. Labor is the true alchemist that beats out in patient transmu- tation the baser metals into gold. — Wm. M. Punshon. Nothing is denied to well-directed labor ; nothing is ever to be attained without it. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is intended that we shall accomplish all, through law, that we can accomplish for ourselves. God gives every bird its food, but does not throw it into the nest. He does not unearth the good that the earth contains, but He puts it in our way, and gives us the means of getting it ourselves. — J. G. Holland. Blessed is the man who has found his work ; let him ask no other blessedness. Know thy work, and do it ; and work at it like Hercules. One monster there is in the world, the idle man, — Thomas Carlyle. God does not give excellence to men but as the reward of labor. — Sir Joshua Reynolds. 368 LABOR. No man is born into the world whose work is not born with him. There is always work, and tools to work withal, for those who will. — H. W. Beecher. Work is God's ordinance as truly as prayer. — George D. Boardman. The virtues, like the body, become strong more by labor than by nourishment. — Jean Paul Richter. The more we work the more we need to pray. In this day of activity there is great danger, not of doing too much, but of praying too little for so much work. — Alexander Maclaren. Jesus aimed to impregnate the natural with the spiritual, and to resolve all our avocations into a heavenly discipline. — Bishop Clark. The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore ; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour's sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible. And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing in- fluence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well. WiLBERFORCE. LABOR. 369 Man must work. That is certain as the sun. But he may work grudgingly, or he may work gratefully ; he may work as a man, or he may work as a machine. He cannot always choose his work, but he can do it in a generous temper, and with an up-looking heart. There is no work so rude, that he may not exalt it ; there is no work so impassive, that he may not breathe a soul into it ; there is no work so dull, that he may not en- liven it. — Henry Giles. No man is base who does a true work ; for true action is the highest being. No man is miserable that does a true work ; for right action is the highest happiness. No man is isolated that does a true work ; for useful action is the highest harmony — it is the highest harmony with nature and with souls — it is living association with men — and it is practical fellowship with God. — Henry Giles. Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled, And care is light, for Thou hast cared ; Let not our works with self be soiled. Nor in unsimple ways ensnared. Through life's long day and death's dark night, O gentle Jesus ! be our light. — F. W. Faber. A man's labors must pass like the sunrises and sunsets of the world. The next thing, not the last, must be his care. — George MacDonald. Labor is a curse until communion with God in it, which is possible through Jesus Christ, makes it a blessing and a joy. Christ, in the sweat of His brow, won our salvation ; and our work only becomes great when it is work done in, and for, and by Him. 24 370 LAST SUPPER. LAST SUPPER. Not worthy; Lord, to gather up the crumbs With trembUng hand that from Thy table fall, A weary, heavy laden sinner comes To plead Thy promise and obey Thy call. E. H. BiCKERSTETH. We do not presume to come to this Thy table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in Thy manifold and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under Thy table. But Thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy. Grant us, therefore, gracious Lord, so to eat the flesh of Thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink His blood, that our sinful souls and bodies may be made clean by His death, and washed through His most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in Him, and He in us. — Methodist Book of Discipline. We do not come to the Lord's Supper to' testify thereby that we are perfect and righteous in ourselves ; but on the contrary considering that we seek our life out of ourselves in Jesus Christ, we acknowledge that we lie in the midst of death. Therefore, notwithstanding we feel many infirmities and mis- eries in ourselves ; as namely, that we have not perfect faith, and that we do not give ourselves to serve God with that zeal as we are bound, but have daily to strive with the weakness of our faith, and the evil lusts of our flesh ; yet since we are by the grace of the Holy Ghost sorry for these weaknesses, and earnestly desirous to fight against our unbelief, and to live ac- cording to all the commandments of God ; therefore we rest assured that no sin or infirmity, which still remaineth against our will in us, can hinder us from being received of God in mercy, and from being made worthy partakers of this heavenly meat and drink. — Liturgy of the Reformed Church. LAST SUPPER. ■ 371 Dear Lord ! while we adoring pay Our humble thanks to Thee, May every heart with rapture say, — "The Saviour died for me !" — Anne Steele. This bread and wine are the simple but eloquent monument to the infinite love of the Son of God, around which we gather with tender, tearful gratitude, because He loved us so, and be- cause we know that our garlands of affection and consecration are pleasing to Him. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Surely there is a fitness in the institution of the Lord's Sup- per as a standing memorial by which the church at large may commemorate the grandest act, and by which the heart of each individual believer may be reminded of his dearest friend. You, who have learned to love the Saviour, will prize His ordi- nance for the Saviour's sake. You who rejoice in the salva- tion purchased by His dying, will not fail with gratitude and faith to show the Lord's death until He come. — Wm. M. Punshon. Love and grief our hearts dividing. With our tears His feet we bathe ; Constant still, in faith abiding, Life deriving from His death. — James Allen. To turn one's back on the memorial supper is to disregard the most tender and loving and melting of all our Saviour's commandments. It is not needful to know just how obedience will help us. It is enough to know that it was His dying com- mand that we keep it till He come. — Henry M. Grout. 372 LAST SUPPER. Attendance at the Lord's table is not a subject left to human choice ; but to every disciple of Jesus His express and solemn command is, "Do this." — J. G. Pike. Beloved, I congratulate you, that you are at the feast of re- deeming love, that you know the riches of grace in Christ Jesus; but this is only the " early meal " (introductory feast) ; the " grand supper " is awaiting you, at the close of the day, in the palace of the King, where the fellowship will be perfect and eternal, where the table will be beyond all the mists and fogs of sin, where death never enters to disturb the festivities, and where we shall see the Lamb face to face. O ! if the feast with Jesus here is so precious, what, what must heaven be ! A. E. KiTTREDGE. Brethren, here in the sacrament is the rainbow of the new and better covenant, the renewed pledge of salvation purchased, and strength imparted, and blessing conferred on the believing soul. And now, as in your covenant you pay your vows — time, talent, influence, property, life, all God's, — He the Infinite, in boundless condescension stoops to whisper, " My light, my strength, my purity, my joy, my heaven, all yours." Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, to walk in His . ways, and to keep His statutes and His commandments, and His judgments, to hearken to His voice ; and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be His peculiar people, as He hath promised thee. And thus, brethren, in a mutual covenant of blessing, you do show forth His death until He come. — Wm. M. Punshon. For they truly know their Lord in the breaking of bread, whose heart within them so vehemently burneth, whilst I'hou, O blessed Jesus, dost walk and converse with them. — Thomas a Kempis. LAST SUPPER. 373 We, too, must enter into the Saviour's sorrow. For us, if we believe in Him, He breaks the bread, and pours the wine • and when we eat and drink, we do show the Lord's death until He come. His death, not His life, though that was lustrous with a holiness without the shadow of a stain. His death, not His teaching, though that embodied the fullness of a wisdom that was Divine. His death, not His miracles, though His course was a march of mercy, and in His track of blessing the world rejoiced and was glad. His death ! His body not glorious, but broken ; His blood, not coursing through the veins of a con- queror, but shed, poured out for man. His death ! Still His death ! Grandest and most consecrating memory both for earth and heaven ! — -Wm. M. Punshon. We cannot embrace His cross, and yet refuse our own. We cannot raise the cup of His remembrance to our lips, without a secret pledge to Him, to one another, to the great company of the faithful in every age that we, too, hold ourselves at God's disposal, that we will ask nothing on our own account, that we will pass simply into the Divine hand to take us whither it will. — James Martineau. Christ has given us, not only the ritual of an ordinance, but the pattern for our lives, when He took the cup, and gave thanks. So common joys become sacraments, enjoyment be- comes worship, and the cup which holds the bitter or the sweet skillfully mingled for our lives becomes the cup of blessing and salvation drank in remembrance of Him. — Alexander Maclaren. A heart-memory is better than a mere head-memory. Better to carry away a little of the love of Christ in our souls, than if we were able to repeat every word of every sermon we ever heard, — Francis de Sales. 374 LAW. Your participation of the holy communion must be regarded as the fresh act of your espousals, as the solemn renewal of your covenant ; as your surrender, entire and unhesitating, to the service of the Lord. It is thus that you confess Christ, and wit- ness of Him to the world. If you eat and drink without dis- cerning this great purpose, you eat and drink unworthily; if you repudiate such purpose, either in thought or act, you crucify in your measure the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame. By your profane use of the means of grace without the slightest desire for the grace of the means, it is as if you cut and wounded the Saviour in this the house of His friends, and sharpened the daggers of your treachery upon the tables of the violated law. — Wm. M. Punshon. The Lord's Supper ! the marriage supper of the Lamb ! There are vacant seats around the table here. Will there be dear ones missed at the table there ? A. E. KiTTREDGE. LAW. Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world : all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not exempt from her power. — Richard Hooker. The law of God is not the conflict of will with will, but of wisdom with folly, knowledge with ignorance, right with wrong — the announcement out of parental love, of the conditions of spiritual life, happiness, immortality. The punishment of sin, therefore, may be contemplated, not as the overflowing of wrath, but the outworkings of natural law, coincident with the judg- ment of infinite righteousness. — Edward Thomson. LAW. 375 Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary re- lations derived from the nature of things. — Montesquieu. Law, meaning obedience to a holy God, passes by a natural transition into the gospel ; that is, reverential duty to a person, to the obedience of love at last, which obeys, because the beau- tifulness of obedience is perceived. — F. W. Robertson. The law showed what man ought to be. Christ showed what man is, and what God is. — W. P. Mackay. The law discovers the disease. The gospel gives the remedy. — Martin Luther. The law is what we must do ; the gospel what God will give. — Martin Luther. The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated. — John Flavel. Though the moral law has ceased as a covenant, it remains as a rule of life. It will forever continue as the standard of holiness. — Charles Backus. The moral law is to be viewed not only as the rule of our obedience, but also as the reason of it. We must not only do what is commanded, and avoid what is forbidden in the law ; but we must also do good, for this very reason, that God requires it, and avoid evil, because He forbids it. — Fisher's Catechism. 376 LEARNING OF CHRIST. LEARNING OF CHRIST. A man may call himself a Christian — but the measure of his Christianity is the occupation of his mind and heart with the truth as it is in Jesus. — Alexander Maclaren. In the school of Christ they are the best scholars who con- tinue learning to the last — Christian Scriver. We cannot be scholars of Christ without trying to understand what is the place and the work in the world for which each of us is fitted. Every thing which befalls us is part of our educa- tion. Every event and condition of life is a lesson which is to be turned to account to make us more worthy of Him who by suffering was made perfect — who Himself entered not into glory, till first He had suffered pain. — Dean Stanley. The disciples were not losing time when they sat beside their Master, and held quiet converse with Him under the olives of Bethany or by the shores of Galilee. Those were their school- hours ; those were their feeding times. — T. L. Cuyler, Brethren, we can rule our tempers, and we ought. Open the gospel, that most profound philosophy of the human soul, and yet most simple and practical directory of human duty ; study it, fill your whole nature with its inspiration ; set Christ before you ; look upon His calm forehead and unstormed breast ; think how He endured all contradiction of sinners, and endured them to the cross ; and on the cross learn of Him then, for He was meek and lowly of heart. — ^ Henry Giles. LIBERTY. 377 Only, stay by his side Till the page is really known, It may be we failed because we tried To learn it all alone. And now that He would not let us lose One lesson of love (For He knows the loss,) — can we refuse ? — F. R. Havergal. LIBERTY. A day, an hour of virtuous liberty, Is worth a whole eternity in bondage. — Addison. The first freedom is freedom from sin. — Martin Luther. He is the freeman whom the truth makes free. There are two freedoms — the false, where a man is free to do \Vhat he likes ; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought. — Charles Kingsley. It is a question not often considered, whether we are not just as independent when we choose an upright and godly course, even if our fathers did walk in it, as when we follow somebody's example in sin. Indeed the highest and truest independence is that which always elects to do right. — Henry M. King. Conquer thyself. Till thou hast done that, thou art a slave; for it is almost as well to be in subjection to another's appetite as thine own. — Burton. 378 LIBERTY, The only rational liberty is that which is born of subjection, reared in the fear of God and the love of man, and made cour- ageous in the defense of a trust and the prosecution of duty. — W. G. SIMMS. Do you wish to be free ? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal ; then you will have true liberty. — Savonarola. This is the true liberty of Christ, when a free man binds himself in love to duty. Not in shrinking from our distaste- ful occupations, but in fulfilling them, do we realize our high origin. — F. W. Robertson. The moment you accept God's ordering, that moment your work ceases to be a task, and becomes your calling ; you pass from bondage to freedom, from the shadow-land of life into life itself. — H. Clay Trumbull, Not until right is founded upon reverence, will it be secure ; not until duty is based upon love, will it be complete ; not un- til liberty is based on eternal principles, will it be full, equal, lofty, and universal. — Henry Giles. The great comprehensive truths, written on every page of our history, are these : Human happiness has no perfect secu- rity but freedom ; freedom none but virtue ; virtue none but knowledge ; and neither freedom nor virtue has any vigor or im- mortal hope,except in the principles of the Christian faith, and in the sanctions of the Christian religion. — QUINCY. LIBERTY. 379 What is liberty without wisdom and without virtue ? It is the greatest of all possible evils, for it is folly, vice, and mad- ness, without tuition or restraint, — Edmund Burke. That religion which holds that all men are equal in the sight of the great Father will not refuse to acknowledge that all citi- zens are equal in the sight of the law. — De Tocqueville. Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts — the cradle of its infancy, and the Divine source of its claims. — De Tocqueville. True liberty can exist only when justice is equally adminis- tered to all. — Lord Mansfield. The Spirit of God first imparts love ; He next inspires hope, and then gives liberty ; and that is about the last thing we have in a good many of our churches at the present time. — D. L. Moody. O, we all long for the day, the blessed day, when freedom shall at least be co-extensive with Christendom ; when a slave political or domestic, shall not tread on an atom upon which the cross of Calvary has cast its shadow ; when the baptism of the crucified shall be on every brow, the seal of a heavenly sonship ; when the fire of a new Pentecost shall melt asunder, by its divine heat of charity, the bond which wrong or preju- dice has fastened ; when, to touch any spot over the wide sweep of God's Christianized earth, any spot which the gospel of the Saviour has ever visited, which the name of the Saviour has ever sanctified, shall be, in itself, the spell of a complete deliverance, the magic of a perfect franchise. — Henry Giles. 380 LIFE. Illustrious confessors of Jesus Christ, a Christian finds in prison the same joys as the prophets tasted in the desert. Call it not a dungeon, but a solitude. When the soul is in heaven, the body feels not the weight of fetters ; it carries the whole man along with it. — Tertullian. LIFE. Life as we call it, is nothing but the edge of the boundless ocean of existence when it comes upon soundings. — O. W. Holmes. Life is before you, — not earthly life alone, but life — a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity. — J. G. Holland. O thou child of many prayers ! Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares ! Care and age come unawares ! — Longfellow. It is not possible to set out in the Christian profession with a more instructive or impressive idea than this — Life is the seed-time for eternity. — John Angel James. The grand question of life is, Is my name unHtten in heaven ? — D. L. Moody. The end of life is to be like unto God ; and the soul follow- ing God, will be like unto Him. — Socrates. Life is an outliving of world after world. Where is now what the world was to you at ten years old ? LIFE. 381 God help us ! it is a foolish little thing, this human life, at the best ; and it is half ridiculous and half pitiful to see what importance we ascribe to it, and to its little ornaments and dis- tinctions. * — Jeffrey. The feeling of life's nothingness argues a mind capable of heavenly grandeur, and if capable, then made for it. There is no life so humble that, if it be true and genuinely human and obedient to God, it may not hope to shed some of His light. There is no life so meager that the greatest and wisest of us can afford to despise it. We cannot know at what moment it may flash forth with the life of God. — Phillips Brooks. Life is rather a state of embryo, a preparation for life ; a man is not completely born till he has passed through death. — Franklin. Brethren, it is the prismatic halo and ring of eternity round this poor glass of time that gives it all its dignity, all its mean- ing. The lives that are lived before God cannot be trifles. As one climbs a mountain roadway, and looks off on the landscape through the forest trees or from some overtopping crag, at each step he sees more and more of the outlying beauty of field and lake and forest and hill and river, till he reaches the summit, where the whole vast scene opens to the view, and enthuses his soul with delight. So life should be a _cpnstant lookout, through the gray mists, through the falling shadows, through the running tears, till he comes to the shin- ing top of life in God Himself, where the fogs lift, and the shadows fall, and the view is all undisturbed. — T. B. ROMEYN. 382 LIFE. A picture without sky has no glory. This present, unless we see gleaming beyond it the eternal calm of the heavens, above the tossing tree tops with withering leaves, and the smoky chimneys, is a poor thing for our eyes to gaze at, or our hearts to love, or our hands to toil on. — Alexander Maclaren. Life is great if properly viewed in any aspect ; it is mainly great when viewed in connection with the world to come. — Albert Barnes. There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility. — James Martineau. Life and religion are one, or neither is any thing. — George MacDonald. Let the current of your being set towards God, then your life will be filled and calmed by one master-passion which unites and stills the soul. — Alexander Maclaren. Man's life is so interwoven with the grand life of his Maker that it admits of no adequate or rational interpretation except when the Creator as Supreme and the creatures of His hand as subordinate, are seen working in unison. — Charles H. Anthony. I believe that we cannot live better than in seeking to become better. — Socrates. Making their lives a prayer. — Whittier. LIFE. 383 While we seek to fill up life in a way that will best -secure the ends of our existence here, our whole plan and course of action should be such as will not hinder but serve our preparation for a future world. — Albert Barnes. Pray for and work for fullness of life above every thing ; full red blood in the body ; full honesty and truth in the mind ; and the fullness of a grateful love for the Saviour in your heart. — Phillips Brooks. I find death perfectly desirable ; but I find life perfectly beau- tiful. Every day that is born into the world comes likes a burst of music, and rings itself all the way through ; and thou shalt make of it a dance, a dirge, or a grand life-march as thou wilt. — Ladies' Repository. Act as if you expected to live a hundred years, but might die to-morrow. — Ann Lee. Nor love thy lif^, nor hate ; but what thou livest, Live well ; how long, or short, permit to Heaven. — Milton. We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. — P. J. Bailey. I would not choose to go where I would be afraid to die, nor could I bear to live without a good hope for hereafter. — C. H. Spurgeon. 384 LIFE. Life iz short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment uncer- tain, and judgment difficult. — Hippocrates. A few years hence and he will be beneath the sod ; but those cliffs will stand, as now, facing the ocean, incessantly lashed by its waves, yet unshaken, immovable ; and other eyes will gaze on them for their brief day of life, and then they, too, will close. — -H. P. LiDDON. They waste life in what are called good resolutions — partial efforts at reformation, feebly commenced, heartlessly con- ducted, and hopelessly concluded. — Maturin. It is infamy to die, and not be missed. — Carlos Wilcox And thus does life go on, until death accomplishes the catas- trophe in silence, takes the worn frame within his hand, and, as if it were a dried-up scroll, crumbles it in his grasp to ashes. The monuments of kingdoms, too, shall disappear. Still the globe shall move ; still the stars shall biJrn ; still the sun shall paint its colors on the day, and its colors on the year. What, then, is the individual, or what even is the race in the sublime recurrings of Time ? Years, centuries, cycles, are nothing to these. The sun that measures out the ages of our planet is not a second-hand on the great dial of the universe. — Henry Giles. Oh, I believe that there is no a^aay; that no love, no life, goes ever from us ; it goes as He went, that it may come again, deeper and closer and surer, and be with us always, even to the end of the world. — George MacDonald. LITERATURE. 385 The highest Hfe is a broken cohimn ; the fairest Hfe, a tar- nished gem ; the richest life, an unripened fruit. — John Humpstone. This earth will be looked back on like a lowly home, and this life of ours be remembered like a short apprenticeship to duty. — Wm. Mountford. This is life's greatest moment, when the soul unfolds capac- ities which reach beyond earth's boundaries. — I. T. Hecker. Life ! we've been long together Through pleasant and through cloudy weather ; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear, — Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh, a tear. Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time, Say not " Good-night," but in some brighter clime. Bid me " Good-morning." — A. L. Barbauld. LITERATURE. A beautiful literature springs from the depth and fullness of intellectual and moral life, from an energy of thought and feel- ing, to which nothing, as we believe, ministers so largely as en- lightened religion. — W. E. Channing. God be thanked for books ! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levelers. They give to all who will faith- fully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. — W. E. Channing. 25 386 LITTLE THINGS. From the hour of the invention of printing, books, and not kings, were to rule the world. Weapons forged in the mind, keen-edged, and brighter than a sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and battle-axe. Books ! lighthouses built on the sea of time ! Books ! by whose sorcery the whole pageantry of the world's history moves in solemn procession before our eyes. From their pages great souls look down in all their grandeur, undiramed by the faults and follies of earthly existence, conse- crated by time. — E. P. Whipple. Be less concerned about the number of books you read, and more about the good use you make of them. The best of books is the Bible. — Christian Scriver. The great standard of literature as to purity and exactness of style is the Bible. — Blair. Thou mayest as well expect to grow stronger by always eat- ing, as wiser by always reading. — Fuller. It is right for you, young men, to enrich yourselves with the ■spoils of all pure literature; but he who would make a favorite •of a bad book, simply because it contains a few beautiful pas- sages, might as well caress the hand of an assassin because of the jewelry which sparkles on his fingers. — Joseph Parker. LITTLE THINGS. Love's secret is to be always doing things for God, and not to mind because they are such little ones. — F. W. Faber. LITTLE THINGS. 387 At Toulon, Napoleon, looking out of the batteries, drew back a step to let some one take his place. The next moment the new arrived was killed. That step brought the French Em- pire, and made possible the bloody roll of its victories and de- feats. The rout at Waterloo turned on a shower of rain hin- dering Grouchy's advance. The resolution of a moment, with some men, has been the turning-point of infinite issues to a world. — J. C. Geikie. One of the best things in the gospel of Jesus is the stress it lays on small things. It ascribes more value to quality than to quantity; it teaches that God does not ask how much we do, but how we do it, — J. F. Clarke. Let us be content to do little, if God sets us at little tasks. It is but pride and self-will which says, "Give me something huge to fight, — and I should enjoy that — but why make me sweep the dust ? " — Charles Kingsley. Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions. — Longfellow. The reason why those who are converted to Christ often make so poor a work of rectifying their old habits, is that they lay down their work in the very places where it needs to be prosecuted most carefully, that is, in their common employ- ments. They do not live to God in that which is least. — Horace Bushnell. All the mischiefs which befall Christian character, and de- stroy its growth, are such as lie in the ordinary humble duties of life. 388 LITTLE THINGS. Let us try always to feel that in the commonest things we may hear the command of God, that the trifles of each day — ■ trifles though they be — vibrate and sound with the reverbera- tion of His great voice. The best things are nearest ; light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life. For honesty is before honor ; and though man must write his poems in sounding words, God's poems are printed best in the brave and silent duties of common life. — Edward Garrett. We are to work after no set fashion of high endeavor ; but to walk with Jesus, performing, as it were, a ministry on foot, that we may stop at the humblest matter, and prove our fidelity there. — Horace Bushnell. There are no trifles in the moral universe of God. Speak me a word to-day ; — it shall go ringing on through the ages. — Wm. M. Punshon. My brother, life is all great. Life is great because it is the aggregation of littles. As the chalk cliffs that rear themselves hundreds of feet above the crawling sea beneath, are all made up of the minute skeletons of microscopic animalculae ; so life, mighty and awful as having eternal consequences, life that towers beetling over the sea of eternity, is made up of these minute incidents, of these trifling duties, of these small tasks ; and if thou art not " faithful in that which is least," thou art unfaithful in the whole. LONGING FOR GOD. 389 God, who prepares His work for the ages, accomplishes it by the feeblest instruments. It is the method of His provi- dence to produce great results from inconsiderable means. The law which prevades the kingdom of nature is discerned in the history of mankind. Truth makes silent progress, like the Avater that trickles behind the rocks, and loosens them from the mountain on which they rest. Suddenly the hidden opera- tion is revealed, and a single day suffices to lay bare the work of years, if not of ages. — John Lanahan. Duty is duty, conscience is conscience, right is right, and wrong is wrong, whatever sized type they may be printed in. " Large " or " small" are not words for the vocabulary of con- science. — Alexander Maclaren. LONGING FOR GOD. If we would gain light either on the theory or the practice of religion: i. We must sincerely desire the light. 2. We must use the light we already have. 3. We must patiently seek light in the double way of prayer and rational inquiry. Never, as long as the world stands, will any religiously benighted soul thus patiently desire and pray and labor for the break of day, without at last seeing the eyelids of the morn unsealed, and the painfully dusky east gradually redden into the sun. — E. F. Burr. That soul is on the certain path toward light which, sincerely desiring the light, constantly submits to the claims of the light as they are made known. That soul cannot stay in darkness, any more than a flower opening its petals broadly to the sun can stay in shadow. — Wayland Hoyt. 390 LONGING FOR GOD. There is no long interval between the sense of thirst and the trickling of the stream over the parched lip ; but ever it is flowing, flowing past us, and the desire is but the opening of the lips to receive the limpid, and life-giving waters. No one ever desired the grace of God, really and truly desired it, but just in proportion as he desired it, he got it ; just in proportion as he thirsted, he was satisfied. — Alexander Maclarex. The soul that rightly receives Christ is in a longing condi- tion ; never did the hart pant for the water brooks, never did the hireling desire the shadow, never did a condemned person long for a pardon more than the soul longs for Christ. — John Flavel. A living man must have a living God, or his soul will perish in the midst of earthly plenty, and will thirst and die whilst the water of earthly delights is running all around him. We are made to need J>ersons not things. — Alexander Maclaren. Our yearnings are homesicknesses for heaven ; our sighings are for God, just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, and having no one to tell them what it is that ails them. — H. W. Beecher. Come ! for I need Thy love. More than the flower the dew, or grass the rain ; Come like Thy Holy Dove, And let me in Thy sight rejoice to live again. — Jones Very. LOOKING TO JESUS. 391 LOOKING TO JESUS. My friends, look to Christ, and not to yourselves. That is what is the matter with a great many sinners ; instead of look- ing to Christ, they are looking at the bite of sin. — D. L. Moody. Those who are weak in grace dwell more upon their sins than upon the Saviour ; more upon their misery than upon free grace and mercy ; more upon that which may feed their fears than upon that which may strengthen their faith ; more upon the cross than the crown. One of Satan's devices to keep poor souls in a sad, doubting, and questioning condition is causing them to be always posing and musing upon sin ; to mind their sins more than their Saviour : yea, so to mind their sins as to forget and neglect their Saviour. Their eyes are so fixed upon their disease that they cannot see their remedy, though it be near ; and they do so muse upon their debts that they have neither mind nor heart to think of their surety. — Thomas Brooks. How can we in practice copy Jesus ? How do you write a copy in your copy-book ? By constantly looking at the top line, imitating its capital letters, small letters, up-strokes, down- strokes, evensfoJ>s. So be always "looking unto Jesus." — Eugene Stock. Alas ! alas ! for the coldness, the vagrancy, and the infre- quency of the thoughts which we offer to Him who ever thinks of us, and whom it is our life to know and keep in our hearts. Alas ! alas ! for the satire on Christian life, as we often see it, which that exhortation and its accompanying motives contain, " Holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling — consider — Christ Jesus." 392 LOVE. LOVE. Love is the emblem of eternity ; it confounds all notion of time ; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end. — Madame de SxAJiL. It is love that asks, that seeks, that knocks, that finds, and that is faithful to what it finds. — St. Augustine. Love is the greatest thing that God can give us, for Himself is love ; and it is the greatest thing we can give to God, for it will also give ourselves, and carry with it all that is ours. — Jeremy Taylor. Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good. — Petrarch. Love is a passion Which kindles honor into noble acts. — Dryden. Joy is love exulting ; peace is love in repose ; long-suffering is love on trial ; gentleness is love in society ; goodness is love in action ; faith is love on the battle-field ; meekness is love at school ; and temperance is love in training. Humble love, And not proud reason, keeps the door of heaven ; Love finds admission, where proud science fails. — Young. LOVE. 393 Of all earthly music that which reaches farthest into heaven is the music of a loving heart. Love reflects the thing beloved. — Tennyson. Affection is the broadest basis of a good life. — George Eliot. Heaven's harmony is universal love. COWPER. Of the systems above us, angelic and seraphic, we know little ; but we see one law, simple, efficient, and comprehensive as that of gravitation, — the law of love, — extending its sway over the whole of God's dominions, living where He lives, embracing every moral movement in its universal authority, and producing the same harmony, where it is obeyed as we observe in the movements of nature. — Mark Hopkins. The love that gushes for all is the real elixir of life — the fountain of bodily longevity. It is the lack of this that always produces the feeling of age. — J. G. Holland. God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling. — J. G. Holland. The incarnation of God in Christ reveals this truth, that the love that seeks and saves the lost is a love that suffers. On the one side there is loss, Gethsemane and the rugged burden of Golgotha, but on the other is gain, the gain of a world's redemp- tion. — Wesley R. Davis. 394 LOVE. If there is any thing that keeps the mind open to angel visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love. — N. P. Willis. Love would master self ; and having made the mastery stretch onward and upward toward infinitude. — Donald G. Mitchell. Learn the new commandment of the Son of God. Not to love merely, but to love as He loved. Go forth in this spirit to your life-duties; go forth, — children of the cross, to carry every thing before you, and win victories for God by the con- quering power of a love like His. — F. W. Robertson. Ah, how skillful grows the hand That obeyeth Love's command ! It is the heart, and not the brain, That to the highest doth attain. And he who followeth Love's behest Far excelleth all the rest ! — Longfellow. The most beautiful sight this earth affords is a man or woman so filled with love that duty is only a name, and its perform- ance the natural outflow and expression of the love which has become the central principle of their life. — J. G. Holland. Be loving, and you will never want for love ; be humble, and you will never want for guiding. — D. M. Craik. I have often had occasion to observe, that a warm blunder- ing man does more for the world than a frigid wise man. — Richard Cecil. LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. 395 LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. Saviour ! teach me, day by day, Love's sweet lesson to obey ; Sweeter lesson cannot be, Loving Him who first loved me. Charity is the very livery of Christ. — Latimer. Love is a golden key to let in Christ, and a strong lock to keep out others. — Thomas Brooks. Divine love is a sacred flower, which in its early bud is hap- piness, and in its full bloom is heaven. — E. L. Hervey. Christ is not valued at all unless He be valued above all. — St. Augustine. The true measure of loving God is to love Him without measure. — St. Bernard. Between God and man, between the gospel and each soul, the interpreter is Love. — Vinet. God is all love, and the more we are like Him the more we shall love ; the trouble is not in the quantity but the quality of our love. If it were wholly pure, wholly unselfish, it could not be too deep or intense ; for all true loving lifts us to a higher plane, bringing us nearer to God and the eternal good- ness. — A. H. K. 396 LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. To be like Christ in His love is far more than to be like Hirn in His knowlege, if we were forced to choose between them ; but they harmonize and strengthen each other ; more knowledge will help us to love more ; and more love help us to know more. — A. H. K. Love is the active, working principle in all true faith. It is its very soul, without which it is dead. " Faith works by love." — Jonathan Edwards. But how shall this love be demonstrated .'' After what method shall it be expressed ? Not by secret musings alone ; not by the chanting of religious sonnets alone ; not by grateful remem- brances of Him — at His table only — but by deeds of love towards those who in a real sense represent Him, because par- takers of that nature, our common humanity, which He con- descended to assume. — William Adams. Consider that as a principle of love is the main principle in the heart of a real Christian, so the labor of love, is the main business of the Christian life. — Jonathan Edwards. True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no sc// to suffer under it. — Fenelon. A mightier love for the Son of God, to overpower and sub- due and lead captive these wayward and truant affections of the natural heart — this is what is needed. — A. J. Gordon. LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. 397 All true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things — a sense of sin, and an assurance of pardon. There is no love possible — real, deep, genuine, worthy of being called love of God — which does not start with the belief of my own transgression, and with the thankful reception of forgiveness in Christ. — Alexander Maclaren. The disciple whom Jesus loved leaned on His bosom. Dear friend, where are you ? — Anna Shipton. Her heart was a passion-flower, bearing within it the crown of thorns and the cross of Christ, — Jeremy Taylor. Dear Saviour ! we are Thine, By everlasting bands; Our hearts, our souls, we would resign Entirely to Thy hands. — Doddridge. Love Christ, and then the eternity in the heart will not be a great aching void, but will be filled with the everlasting life which Christ gives and is. — Alexander Maclaren. Give me a baptism of glowing love. Thy power and presence wheresoe'er I rove ; And my last prayer, all other prayers above — Oh, give to me More of Thyself, Lord Jesus : more of Thee ! — Anna Shipton. Lord, thou knowest all things ; Thou knowest that I love Thee ! — Bible. - 398 LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. Let us learn how the love of Christ, received into the heart, triumphs gradually but surely over all sin, transforms character, turning even its weakness into strength, and so, from the depths of transgression and the very gates of hell, raises men to God. — Alexander Maclaren. Prostrate, see Thy cross I grasp, And Thy pierced feet I clasp ; Gracious Jesus, spurn me not ; On me, with compassion fraught, Let Thy glances fall. From Thy cross of agony, My Beloved, look on me ; Turn me wholly unto Thee ; "Be thou whole," say openly : " I forgive thee all." — St. Bernard. Christ is not sweet till sin be made bitter to us. — John Flavel. Lovest thou mc ? This is the one test question of our religion : for he that loveth is born of God. — William Adams. Jesus, Master, I am Thine ; Keep me faithful, keep me near ; Let Thy presence in me shine All my homeward way to cheer. Jesus, at Thy feet I fall. Oh, be Thou my All in All. — F. R. Havergal. No man loveth God except the man who has ^xstleanied thdX God loves him, — Alexander Maclaren. LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. 399 For they the mind of Christ discern Who lean, like John, upon His breast. — J. G. VVhittier. How shall we test our love ? How shall the real be known From that which takes its form ? Love " seeketh not her own." — Mrs. M. F. Butts. None know how to prize the Saviour, but such as are zealous in pious works for others. — Lady Huntingdon. Earthly joy can take but a bat-like flight, always checked, always limited, in dusk and darkness. But the love of Christ breaks through the vaulting, and leads us up into the free sky above, expanding to the very throne of Jehovah, and drawing us still upward to the infinite heights of glory. — F. R. Havergal. Fade, fade, each earthly joy ; Jesus is mine ! Break every earthly tie ; * Jesus is mine ; Dark is the wilderness ; Earth has no resting-place ; Jesus alone can bless ; Jesus is mine. — Horatius Bonar. Pure love is in the will alone ; it is no sentimental love, for the imagination has no part in it ; it loves, if we may so express it, without feeling, as faith believes without seeing. — Fenelon. 400 LOVE TO CHRIST AND GOD. Love is the foundation of all obedience. Without it, morality degenerates into mere casuistry. Love is the founda- tion of all knowledge. Without it religion degenerates into a chattering about Moses and doctrines and theories ; a thing that will-neither kill nor make alive, that never gave life to a single soul or blessing to a single heart, and never put strength into any hand in the conflict and strife of daily life. — Alexander Maclaren. Mourning after an absent God is an evidence of a love as strong, as rejoicing in a present one. — F. W. Robertson. To love God, we must know Him as manifested in Christ, — know Him as incarnated in human form, — know Him as re- vealing His holiness. His tenderness. His pity, His yearning love, and condescending grace, in the suffering, glorified Re- deemer. Oh ! make me Thine forever ; And should I fainting be, Lord ! let me never, never. Outlive my love to Thee ! — Gerhardt. When a man is told that the whole of religion and morality is summed up in the two commandments, to love God, and to love our neighbor, he is ready to cry, like Charoba in Gebir, at the first sight of the sea, " Is this the mighty ocean ? is this all .' " Yes, all ; but how small a part of it do your eyes sur- vey ! Only trust yourself to it; launch out upon it; sail abroad over it ; you will find it has no end ; it will carry you round the world. — Guesses at Truth. MALICE. 401 Apart from the positive woes of perdition, an eternity of wretchedness grows from the want of love to Christ as nat- urally as the oak grows from the acorn, or the harvest from the scattered grain. It is not that love to Christ merits heaven; it does far better, it makes heaven. It is, as it were, the organ of sensation that takes note of heaven's blessedness. ^^ — A. A Boyd. Nothing satisfies God but the voluntary sacrifice of love. The pain of Christ gave God no pleasure — only the love that was tested by pain — the love of perfect obedience. — F. W. Robertson. How shall I do to love ? Believe. How shall I do to be- lieve ? Love. — Leighton. M.. MALICE. We are strangers to Christian love, if we harbor malice or revenge in our hearts toward any of our fellow-creatures, what- ever treatment we receive at their hands. — Charles Backus. To be useful as a Christian, a man must keep himself free from all malign feelings, from all bitterness of resentment. Even righteous indignation must not drag Love from her throne. Over all the soul's passions Love must preside in serene majesty. The Christian worker must learn (and the sooner the better) if he has not already learned, that there is something better for a Christian than to plan revenge, and nurse resentment, and call down fire from heaven, even on those who show themselves base and unworthy. — Prof. Ballard. 26 403 MAN. Beware of that which becomes the slanderer's Hfe, of magni- fying every speck of evil and closing the eye to goodness, till at last men arrive at the state in which generous, universal love (which is heaven) becomes impossible, and a suspicious, univer- sal hate takes possession of the heart, and that is hell. — F. W. Robertson. There is no cure for ossification of the heart. Oh, that mis- erable state, when to the jaundiced eye all good transforms it- self into evil, and the very instruments of health become the poison of disease. — F. W. Robertson. MAN. Man is the crowning of history and the realization of poetry, the free and living bond which unites all nature to that God who created it for Himself. — F. GODET. Let us not undervalue the dignity of human nature. Man, although fallen, still retains some traces of his primeval glory and excellence — broken columns of a celestial temple, mag- nificent, even in its ruins. — John McC. Holmes. How poor, how rich, how abject, how august. How complicate, how wonderful is man ! — Young. The older I grow — and I now stand upon the brink of eter- nity — the more comes back to me that sentence in the Catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its mean- ing becomes, "What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." — Thomas Carlyle. MAN. 403 What a chimera is man ! what a confused chaos ! what a sub- ject of contradiction ! a professed judge of all things, and yet a feeble worm of the earth! the great depositary and guardian of truth, and yet a mere huddle of uncertainty ! the glory and the scandal of the universe ! — Pascal. Man has wants deeper than can be supplied by wealth or na- ture or domestic affections. His great relations are to his God and to eternity. — Mark Hopkins. In that vast march, the van forgets the rear; the individual is lost ; and yet the multitude is many individuals. He faints and falls and dies ; man is forgotten ; but still mankind move on, still worlds revolve, and the will of God is done in earth and heaven. — G. W. Curtis. The Divine government of the world is like a stream that rolls under us ; men are only as bubbles that rise on its sur- face ; some are brighter and larger, and sparkle longer in the sun than others ; but all must break ; whilst the mighty current rolls on in its wonted majesty ! — David Thomas. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms ; if, indeed, there is an eternal differ- ence between the fire which inhabits them, and that which ani- mates us, — it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope, not merely by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foun- dations of the gates of the city of God. — John Ruskin. 404 MANHOOD. MANHOOD. Power in its measure and degree is the measure of manhood. — J. G. Holland. Give us an age in which Christian manhood shall assert itself as the highest earthly thing and the noblest earthly estate. Give us an age that, instead of whining and groaning under the truth, shall rejoice in the truth. Give us an age which, lifted into identity with its highest possessions, shall be made by those possessions patient, pure, heroic, and honorable. — J. G. Holland. Obedience, submission, discipline, courage — these are among the characteristics which make a man. — Samuel Smiles. The man, whom I call deserving the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than himself. — Walter Scott. The finest fruit earth holds up to its Maker is a finished man. — Humboldt. A Christian is the gentlest of men ; but then he is a man, — C. H. Spurgeon. There is a great deal more correctness of thought respecting manhood in bodily things than in moral things. For men's ideas of manhood shape themselves as the tower and spire of cathedrals do, that stand broad at the bottom, but grow taper- ing as they rise, and end, far up, in the finest lines, and in an evanishing point. Where they touch the ground they are most, and where they reach to the heaven they are least. — H. W. Beecher. MANLINESS. 405 I long to have the children feel that there is nothing in this world more attractive, more earnestly to be desired than man- hood in Jesus Christ. — H. W. Beecher. MANLINESS. The manliness of Christian love, and the putting away from ourselves of all fear, because we are " perfected in love," is one of the highest lessons that the gospel teaches us, and one of the greatest things which the gospel gives us. -Alexander Maclaren. The conscience of every man recognizes courage as the foun- dation of manliness, and manliness as the perfection of human character. — Thomas Hughes. In proportion as man gets back the spirit of manliness, which is self-sacrifice, affection, loyalty to an idea beyond himself, a God above himself, so far will he rise above circumstances, and wield them at his will. =— Charles Kingsley. " The work of men " — and what is that ? Well, we may any of us know very quickly, on the condition of being wholly ready to do it. But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get ; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one — we want to keep back part of the price ; and we continually talk of taking up our cross, as if the only harm in a cross was the weight of it — as if it was only a thing to be carried, instead of to be — crucified upon. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts." — John Ruskin. 406 MEDITATION. MEDITATION. Meditation is the soul's perspective glass, whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if He were nearer at hand. — Owen Feltham. Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, and pro- duces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity ; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits. — Zimmerman. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, wisest, strongest Christian. — Bishop Hall. For with all our pretension to enlightenment, are we not now a talking, desultory, rather than a meditative generation ? — J. C. Shairp. It is an excellent sign, that after the cares and labors of the day, you can return to your pious exercises and meditations with undiminished attention. — Hannah More. Night by night I will lie down and sleep in the thought of God, and in the thought, too, that my waking may be in the bosom of the Father ; and some time it will be, so I trust. — Wm. Mountford. MEEKNESS — MEMORY. 407 Avoid all refined speculations ; confine yourself to simple reflections, and recur to them frequently. Those who pass too rapidly from one truth to another feed their curiosity and restlessness ; they even distract their intellect with too great a multiplicity of views. Give every truth time to send down deep root into the heart. — Fenelon. MEEKNESS. Meekness is the grace which, from beneath God's footstool, lifts up a candid and confiding eye, accepting God's smile of Fatherly affection, and adoring those perfections which it can- not comprehend. — James Hamilton. He was oppressed, and He was afilicted, yet He opened not His mouth : He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He openeth not His mouth. — Bible. MEMORY. What thousands and millions of recollections there must be in us ! And every now and then one of them becomes known to us ; and it shows us what spiritual depths are growing in us, what mines of memory. — Wm. Mountford. The pure memories given To help our joy on earth, when earth is past, Shall help our joy in heaven, — Margaret J. Preston. 'Tis the plague of devils to think on what they are. 408 MERCY. Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about " the faith that is in Christ Jesus," that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain — that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of /^7i-/ transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. Oh, my brother, you cannot forget your sins ; but it lies within your own decision whether the remembrance shall be thankfulness and blessedness, or whether it shall be pain and loss forever. — Alexander Maclaren. My friend, picture to yourself this — a human spirit shut up with the companionship of its forgotten and dead transgressions ! There is a resurrection of acts as well as of bodies. Think what it will be for a man to sit surrounded by that ghastly com- pany, the ghosts of his own sins ! and as each forgotten fault and buried badness comes, silent and sheeted, into that awful society, and sits itself down there, think of him greeting each with the question, " Thou too ? What ! are ye all here ? Hast thou found me, O mine enemy ?" and from each bloodless, spectral lip there tolls out the answer, the knell of his life, " I have found thee, because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord." — Alexander Maclaren. MERCY. Consider this. That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation ; we do pray for mercy ; And that same prayer doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy. — Shakspeare. MERIT. 409 Who will not mercy unto others show, How can he mercy ever hope to have ? — Edmund Spenser. God loves our mercy to one another ; but not upon condi- tions at variance with sanctity to Him. — James Martineau. Kind hearts are here ; yet would the tenderest one Have limits to its mercy ; God has none. — A. A. Proctor. Mercy to him that shows it is the rule. ~ Cow PER. Nothing humbles and breaks the heart of a sinner like mercy and love. Souls that converse much with sin and wrath, may be much terrified ; but souls that converse much with grace and mercy, will be much humbled. — Thomas Brooks. MERIT. He who thinks to be justified by any strength or merit of his own, and not by faith, puts himself in the place of God. — William Farel. Merit is a work for the sake of which Christ gives rewards. But no such work is to be found, for Christ gives by promise. Just as if a prince should say to me, " Come to me in my castle, and I will give you a hundred florins." I do a work, certainly, in going to the castle, but the gift is not given me as the re- ward of my work in going, but because the prince promised it to me. — Martin Luther. 410 MILLENNIUM. MILLENNIUM. Thus everywhere and always God's agents — small and great — are at work, unsettling the wrong, establishing the right, and carrying the links of Truth's golden chain around the world. When, O crowned Jesus ; when, O loving Saviour ; when, O patient and just Judge — when wilt Thou come forth from Thy hiding, and change tears to smiles, and groans to joys.? When shall that choral song burst forth, sweeping through the air, and circling about Thy throne, which shall proclaim the redemp- tion of the world to the Lord God ? — H. W. Beecher. Wearily have the years passed, I know ; wearily to the pale watcher on the hill who has been so long gazing for the day- break ; wearily to the anxious multitudes who have been waiting for his tidings below. Often has the cry gone up through the darkness, " Watcher, what of the night .'" and often has the dis- appointing answer come, " It is night still ; here the stars are clear above me, but they shine afar, and yonder the clouds lower heavily, and the sad night winds blow." But the time shall come, and perhaps sooner than we look for it, when the coun- tenance of that pale watcher .shall gather into intenser expect- ancy, and when the challenge shall be given, with the hopeful- ness of a nearer vision, " Watcher, what of the night ?" and the answer will come, " The darkness is not so dense as it was ; there are faint streaks on the horizon's verge; mist is in the valleys, but there is a radiance on the distant hill. It comes nearer — that promise of the day. The clouds roll rapidly away, and they are fringed with amber and gold. It is, it is the blest sunlight that I feel around me — Morning ! It is morn- ing !" — Wm. M. Punshon. MINISTERS. 411 The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. — Bible. MINISTERS. Our high mission, our noble calling, is to build up souls, to perfect the Christian life, and to make manhood acceptable to God, and radiant in the sight of all men. — H. W. Beecher. Your great employment is to bring the individual souls of men to Christ, — E. N. Kirk, The minister is to be a live man, a real man, a true man, a simple man, great in his love, great in his life, great in his work, great in his simplicity, great in his gentleness. — John Hall. I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life. — Samuel Johnson. Be ashamed of nothing but sin. — Methodist Discipline. A true minister is a man whose manhood itself is a strong and influential argument with his people. He lives in such relations with God, and in such genuine sympathy with man, that it is a pleasure to be under the unconscious influence of such a mind. It is not the way to convert a sinner to knock him down first and then reason with him. — S. Iren^us Prime. 413 MINISTERS. Learn in Christ how possible it is to be strong and mild, to blend in fullest harmony the perfection of all that is noble, lofty, generous in the soldier's ardor of heroic devotion ; and of all that is calm, still, compassionate, tender in the priest's waiting before God and mediation among men. — Alexander Maclaren. Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth wouldst teach ; Thy soul must overflow, if thou Another's soul wouldst reach ; It needs an overflowing heart To give the lips full speech. Think truly, and thy thoughts Shall the world's famine feed , Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed ; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed. If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground. — R. W. Emerson. Only a loving heart can effectually present a loving gospel ; only one who himself loves sinners, and is willing to deny him- self for their sakes, can faithfully and persuasively represent Him who loved and gave Himself for sinners. — Sunday-School Times. " He commanded that something should be given her to eat." Has anybody's daughter or any body's son been raised from spiritual death in your congregation, or in your class re- cently ? If so, give the revived soul something to eat. — H. Clay Trumbull. MINISTERS. 413 The minister, who would be most Hke the Master, must go and, like Him, lay the warm, kindly hand on the leper, the diseased, the wretched. He must touch the blind eyes with something from himself. The tears must be in his own eyes over the dead who are to be raised to spiritual life. Jesus is our great exemplar. — John Hall. That pastor effects the most in the end who comes into closest personal contact with his charge. No amount of or- ganizing, no skill in creating machinery and manipulating "committees" is a substitute for this. Who feels the power of a tear in the eye of a committee ? — John Hall. I find on inquiring among successful pastors, successful in the sense of winning men to Christ in profession, that they de- pend largely on personal contact. — D. A. GOODSELL. As preachers we are to promote Christian culture, by bring- ing the dead branches to the living Vine, that, grafted into it, without a rag of human righteousness between, the life of Him may enter them ; and by keeping them, as far as teach- ing and example can do it, abiding in Him, that they may bring forth fruit. — John Hall. Every discourse of a true minister has an influence for good or evil, and that for eternity. Every word tells for the ever- lasting rise or fall, weal or woe, life or death, of souls. In every sentence we touch chords that shall send their vibrations through the endless future ; that shall peal in the thunder of a guilty conscience, or resound in the music of a purified spirit. 414 MINISTERS. You want to be radiant, eloquent ministers, ministers of great influence and success. Do you want to sit on the Lord's right hand and on His left ? Then give Him your heart, so that in humility, in gentleness, in unfailing sweetness, in patience under all circumstances, you shall be like Him. He that would speak Divine things in a language which living men of to-day can comprehend, must keep up with the re- searches and discoveries of men who study nature, and put her words into the speech of the present. — T- H. Vincent. One great want of the times is a commanding ministry — a ministry of a piety at once sober and earnest, and of mightiest moral power. Give us these men, " full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," who will proclaim old truths with new energy, not cumbering them with massive drapery nor hiding them be- neath piles of rubbish. Give us these men ! men of sound speech, who will preach the truth as it is in Jesus, not with fal- tering tongue and averted eye, as if the mind blushed at its own credulity — not distilling into it an essence so subtle and so speedily decomposed that a chemical analysis alone can de- tect the faint odor Avhich tells it has been there — but who will preach it apostlewise, that is, "first of all," at once a principle shrined in the heart and a motive mighty in the life — the source of all morals, and the inspiration of all charity — the sanctifier of every relationship, and the sweetener of every toil. Give us these men! men of zeal untiring — whose hearts of constancy quail not although dull men sneer, and proud men scorn, and timid men blush, and cautious men deprecate, and wicked men revile. — Wm. M. Punshon. Many young ministers are poor men, but that is no reason, gentlemen, why you should be poor ministers. MINISTERS. 415 What is ministerial success ? Crowded churches, full aisles, attentive congregations, the approval of the religious world, much impression produced ? Elijah thought so ; and when he discovered his mistake, and found out that the Carmel applause subsided into hideous stillness, his heart well-nigh broke with disappointment. Ministerial success lies in altered lives, and obedient, humble hearts, unseen worth recognized in the judg- ment-day. F. W. Robertson. Do not fear the alleged "current of opinion." It was thus that Edwards, Brainard, Dwight, and Payson, preached, and the noblest and most enduring things in New England were the result. If the sentiment of the time is against their way, so much the worse for the sentiment ! Paul and Peter and John and James so " reproved and rebuked and exhorted, with all long-suffering and doctrine." — John Hall. This is the ministry and its work — not to drill hearts and minds and consciences into right forms of thought and mental postures, but to guide to the living God who speaks. — F. W. Robertson. We are to be neither book-worms nor male gossips, but Christian gentlemen, with a side towards mental culture, and a side to practical life. We are to learn how to talk to the people by being with the people, and we are to learn how to raise them up by raising ourselves. We are never to forget that ministry is service, not mastery. *' Ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake." -D. A. GOODSELL. There are passages of the Bible that are soiled forever by the touches of the hands of ministers who delight in the cheap jokes they have left behind them. — Phillips Brooks. 416 MIRACLES. MIRACLES. A miracle is a supernatural event, whose antecedent forces are beyond our finite vision, whose design is the display of al- mighty power for the accomplishment of almighty purposes, and whose immediate result, as regards man, is his recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler of all things, and of His will as the only supreme law. A. E. KiTTREDGE. The miracles of earth are the laws of heaven. — Jean Paul Richter. When I look to my guiltiness, I see that my salvation is one of our Saviour's greatest miracles, either in heaven or earth. — Rutherford. Once a single word of the Saviour suddenly calmed a furiously agitated sea ; one look of Him at us, and of ours towards Him ought always to perform the same miracle within us. It was a great thing to open the eyes of a blind man, but it is a greater thing to open the eyes of a blind soul. It was a great thing to bring a dead body back to life, but it is a greater miracle to bring a soul dead in sin back to life. My friends, have you ever felt the touch of this Jesus ? Oh ! that we all might feel His touch, that we might look and be healed and live. — A. E. Kittredge. For when self-seeking turns to love. Which knows not mine and thine. The miracle again is wrought, And water changed to wine. MISSIONS. 417 MISSIONS. Men may glorify the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man, but such beliefs will never send missionaries to face the malarial belt of Africa, or the cannibals of the South Pacific. Only such tremendous truths as gather around Sinai and Cal- vary — man's redemption, life and death, heaven and hell — can inspire to such undertakings. Palestine was the West Point and Annapolis for the world. In that little country God was training up a people out of whom, when the fullness of the time should come, His gospel cadets should emerge, fitted by all the training of all their national history for going out among the heathen and proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ. — Wm. M. Taylor. Evangelism is not merely a work of love. It is the sheer law of self-preservation. The heathenism which is creeping along the fences of society is scattering its seeds on both sides. As we love our neighbor, we must try to do him good; but if we love only ourselves and our homes, we must be at work to make the world better. If Christians do not make the world better, the world will surely make the church worse. A man ?nay make his way across the Atlantic in a skiff, for all I know; but if you are intending to cross the sea, take my advice, and secure passage in a first-class steamer, and you will be more likely to get there. So it is with these heathen millions. I do not know but some of them may drift, and we shall find them in the city of God. But I do know that by giv- ing them the gospel, by building up and supporting among them a Christian church, we shall greatly multiply their chances for heaven. — C. H. Fowler. 27 418 MISSIONS. Every impulse and stroke of missionary power on earth is from the heart of Christ. He sows, and there is a harvest. He touches nations, and there arises a brotherhood, not only civil- ized by His light, but sanctified by His love. The isles of the ocean wait for Him. He spreads His net and gathers of every kind, and lo ! the burden of the sea is not only fishes, but fish- ermen, who go and gather and come again. If there are ac- tivity, free giving, ready going, a full treasury, able men who say, "Here am I, send me," it is because through all the organ- ization Christ lives, and His personal Spirit works. There is no other possible spring for that enthusiasm. — Bishop Huntington. The movement has indeed been slow, and not such as man would have expected ; but it has been analogous to the great movements of God in His providence and in His works. So, if we may credit the geologists, has this earth reached its pres- ent state. So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree with long intervals of repose and apparent death. So comes on the spring, with battling elements and frequent reverses, with snow- banks and violets, and, if we had no experience, we might be doubtful what the end would be. But we know that back of all this, beyond these fluctuations, away in the serene heavens, the sun is moving steadily on ; that these very agitations of the elements and seeming reverses, are not only the sign, but the result of his approach, and that the full warmth and radi- ance of the summer noontide are sure to come. So, O Divine Redeemer, Sun of Righteousness, come Thou ! So will He come. It may be through clouds and darkness and tempest ; but the heaven where He is, is serene ; He is " traveling in the greatness of His strength ; " and as surely as the throne of ■God abides, we know He shall yet reach the height and splen- dor of the highest noon, and that the light of millennial glory shall yet flood the earth. — Mark Hopkins. MORALITY. 419 On the American Continent, what a wonderful amalgama- tion of races we have witnessed, how wonderfully they have been fused into that one American people ! — type and earnest of a larger fusion which Christianity will yet accomplish, when, by its blessed power, all tribes and tongues and races shall be- come one holy family. The present popularity of beneficences promises well for the missionary cause in the future. Men's hearts are undergoing a process of enlargement. Their sym- pathies are taking a wider scope. The world is getting closer, smaller, quite a compact affair. The world for Christ will yet be realized. — David Livingstone. MORALITY. Morality rests upon a sense of obligation ; and obligation has no meaning except as implying a Divine command, without which it would cease to be. — J. A. Froude. Morality without religion is only a kind of dead reckoning, — an endeavor to find our place on a cloudy sea by measuring the distance we have run, but without any observation of the heavenly bodies. — Longfellow. All systems of morality are fine. The gospel alone has ex- hibited a complete assemblage of the principles of morality, divested of all absurdity. It is not composed, like your creed, of a few common-place sentences put into bad verse. Do you wish to see that which is really sublime ? Repeat the Lord's Prayer. — Napoleon Bonaparte. To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I would send him to no other book than the New Testament. 420 MOTIVE— MURMURING. MOTIVE. It is not the motive, properly speaking, that determines the working of the will ; but it is the will that imparts strength to the motive. As Coleridge says: "It is the man that makes the motive, and not the motive the man." — James McCosh. In the eye of that Supreme Being to whom our whole in- ternal frame is uncovered, dispositions hold the place of actions. — Blair. In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occa- sions are often worse than those we assail. — W. E. Channing. MURMURING. I have noticed this, that when a man is full of the Holy Ghost he is the very last man to be complaining of other people. — D. L. Moody. Nothing is easier than fault-finding. No talent, no self-de- nial, no brains, no character, is required to set up in the grumbling business. But those that are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint. — Robert West. Some people are never content with their lot, let what will happen. Clouds and darkness are over their heads, alike whether it rain or shine. To them every incident is an acci- dent, and every accident a calamity. — C. H. Spurgeon. MYSTERY. 421 From mad dogs and grumbling professors may we all be de- livered, and may we never take the complaint from either of them. — C. H. Spurgeon. MYSTERY Whoever believes in a God at all, believes in an infinite mys- tery ; and if the existence of God is such an infinite mystery, we can very well expect and afford to have many of His ways mysterious to us. — IcHABOD Spencer. There is no religion without mysteries. God Himself is the great secret of Nature. — Chateaubriand. Where is the subject that does not branch out into infinity ? For every grain of sand is a mystery ; so is every daisy in summer, and so is every snow-flake in winter. Both upwards and downwards, and all around us, science and speculation pass into mystery at last. — Wm. Mountford. Augustine, the father of theologians, was walking on the ocean shore and pondering over the truth, " three distinct per- sons, not separate, but distinct; and yet but one God ; " and he came upon a little boy that was playing with a colored sea- shell, scooping a hole in the sand, and then going down to the waves and getting his shell full of water and putting it into the hole. Augustine said, " What are you doing, my little fellow ? " The boy replied, " I am going to pour the sea into that hole." "Ah," said Augustine, " that is what I have been attempting. Standing at the ocean of infinity, I have attempted to grasp it with my finite mind." — Joseph Dare. 422 MYSTERY. Were there no mysteries in the Bible, we should doubt its being the transcript of the Eternal Mind. The "mystery of godliness" adapts it to our ruined race. Those mysteries of the Bible are like the mountains of the world ; they give grand- eur to the landscape and fertility to the soil. — Joseph Dare. The mysteries of the Bible should teach us, at one and the same time, our nothingness and our greatness ; producing hu- mility, and animating hope. I bow before these mysteries. I knew that I should find them, and I pretend not to remove them. But whilst I thus prostrate myself, it is with deep gladness and exultation of spirit. God would not have hinted the mystery, had He not hereafter designed to explain it. And, therefore, are my thoughts on a far-off home, and rich things are around me, and the voices of many harpers, and the shinings of bright constellations, and the clusters of the cherub and the seraph ; and a whisper, which seems not of this earth, is circulating through the soul, " Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." — Henry Melvill. The Bible tells me explicitly that Christ was God ; and it tells me, as explicitly that Christ was man. It does not go on to state the modus or manner of the union. I stop, therefore, where the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my Mediator, but I own as inscrutable the mysteries of His person. — Henry Melvill. In viewing the scheme of redemption, I seem like one view- ing a vast and complicated machine of exquisite contrivance ; what I comprehend of it is wonderful, what I do not, is, per- haps, more so still. — Richard Cecil. MYSTERY. 423 Providence is a greater mystery than revelation. — Richard Cecil. That great chain of causes, which, linking one to another, even to the throne of God Himself, can never be unraveled by any industry of ours. — Burke. Ah, what a life is theirs who live in Christ ; How vast the mystery ! Reaching in height to heaven, and in its depth The unfathomed sea ! We know, and we feel, that the vast business of our redemp- tion, arranged in the councils of the far-back eternity, and acted out amid the wonderings and throbbings of the universe, could not have been that stupendous transaction which gave God glory by giving sinners safety, if the inspired account brought its dimensions within the compass of a human arithmetic, or defined its issues by the lines of a human demarcation. — Henry Melvill. The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries ; but this mysteriousness does not corre- spond to the difficulties which all existence contains. Let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma ; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man. — Napoleon Bonaparte. Between the mysteries of death and life Thou standest, loving, guiding, — not explaining; We ask, and Thou art silent, — yet we gaze. And our charmed hearts forget their drear complaining ; No crushing fate, no stony destiny ! Thou Lamb that hast been slain, we rest in Thee. — H. B. Stowe. 424 MYSTERY. Can any thing be more mysterious than the union of soul and body, unless it be the still greater mystery, which some have professed to believe, that matter can be so organized as to pro- duce the amazing intellectual results which we witness in man ? In believing our own existence we believe a mystery as great as any that the Christian religion presents. — William Wirt. At some turning point of your life, when some great joy flashed, or some great shadow darkened upon you all at once ; when some crisis that wanted an instantaneous decision ap- peared,— why, what regions of thought, purpose, plan, resolu- tion, what wildernesses of desolate sorrow, and what paradises of blooming gladness, your soul has gone through in a moment. — Alexander Maclaren. We live in the midst of infinite existence ; and widely as we can see, and vastly as we have discovered, we have but crossed the threshold, we have but entered the vestibule of the Creator's temple. In this temple there is an everlasting worship of life, an anthem of many choruses, a hymn of incense that goes up forever. — Henry Giles. We are children shut up as yet in the narrow hollow of our native valley, with all the universe, outside the closely engird- ling hills, for a great wonderland, of which we dream childish dreams, as the light of morning or evening kindles from beyond. "Laws of Nature" — what dost thou know of them, O man.' Look out on the great miracles of nature, blooming in flowers and stars, away to the gates of the city of God, what dost thou know oi its laws and wonders .'' — J. C. Geikie. Lo, these are parts of His ways ; but how little a portion is heard of Him. — Bible. NATIONAL. 425 We comprehend the earth only when we have known heaven. Without the spiritual world the material world is a dishearten- ing enigma. — Joseph Joubert. N. NATIONAL With the exception of the writ of habeas corpus, a privilege not required under the Jewish government, simply because it did not allow of imprisonment, there is not a single feature of free government that is not distinctly developed in the Bible. — Gardiner Spring. It is when the hour of conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, " Lo, God is here, and we knew Him not !" — George Bancroft. No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, no glittering abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom, not even science with its marvelous inventions and discoveries, can help us much in sustaining this republic ; still less can godless theories of creation, or any infidel attempt to rule out the Re- deemer from His rightful supremacy in our hearts, afford any hope of security. That way lies despair. — Robert C. Winthrop. In the study of such events we do well to remember that the hand once nailed to the tree holds the chain that binds the past, the present, and the future. His way is in the sea, His path is in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known. But wis- dom marks His plans ; truth and justice attend their develop- ment, and out of seeming evil He brings triumphant good. — John Lanahan, 426 NATIONAL. Human society reposes on religion. Civilization without it would be like the lights that play in the northern sky — a mo- mentary flash on the face of darkness ere it again settles into eternal night. Wit and wisdom, sublime poetry and lofty phi- losophy, cannot save a nation, else ancient Greece had never perished. Valor, law, ambition, cannot preserve a people, else Rome had still been mistress of the world. The nation that loses faith in God and man loses not only its most precious jewel, but its most purifying and conserving force. Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert those pillars of human happiness, those firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. — George Washington. It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo- American society. In the United States, religion is therefore commingled with all the habits of the nation and all the feel- ings of patriotism ; whence it derives a peculiar force. — De Tocqueville. Make us mindful of Thy mercies in the past, and faithful to the memories and traditions of truth and justice, of religion and patriotism, in those that have gone before us. — Bishop W. C. Doane. Says Oliver Cromwell : " What are all histories but God manifesting Himself, that He hath shaken down and trampled under foot whatsoever He hath not planted ? " History is not a series of jumbled happenings. God is in the facts of history as truly as He is in the march of the seasons, the revolution of the planets, or the architecture of the worlds. — John Lanahan. NATURE. 427 The whole track of -history is marked with the ruin of em- pires which having been founded in injustice, or perpetuated by wrong, were ultimately destroyed. — Wm. M. Taylor. Sow but one seed of primal evil in the moral soil of a nation, it will grow to be a tree as broad as the sky, — to take fruitful- ness from the earth wherein it is rooted, and to cover it instead with barrenness and gloom. — Henry Giles. To avert national decay, then, the moral character must be guarded. The mighty heart of the nation must be kept sound, so that its pulses, when once roused, will, like the ocean in its strength, sweep all before it. So long as the moral tone is preserved, the sun of our glory will not set ; there will come no national decay and death. — F. W. Robertson. If the great questions of the beginning of this century were mainly political, those which will convulse the world at its close will be social. • — ■ De Tocqueville. NATURE. Every object in nature is impressed with God's footsteps, and every day repeats the wonders of creation. There is not an object, be it pebble or pearl, weed or rose, the flower-span- gled sward beneath, or the star-spangled sky above, not a worm or an angel, a drop of water or a boundless ocean, in which in- telligence may not discern, and piety adore, the providence of Him who took our nature that He might save our souls. — Thomas Guthrie. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time. 428 NATURE. If we can hear the voice of God in alL sounds, see the sweep of His will in all motions, catch hints of His taste in all beauty, follow the reach of. His imagination in all heights and distances, and trace the delicate ministry of His love in all the little graces and utilities that spring and blossom about us as thick as the grass, we shall tread God's world with reverent feet as if it were a temple. The pure and solemn eyes of the indwelling soul will look forth upon us from every thing which His hands have made. Nature will be to us, not some dark tissue of cloth of mystery flowing from some unseen loom, but a vesture of light in which God has enrobed Himself ; and with worshipful fingers we shall rejoice to touch even the hem of His garment. — T- H. EcoB. When I consider the multitude of associated forces which are diffused through nature — when I think of that calm bal- ancing of their energies which enables those most powerful in themselves, most destructive to the world's creatures and econ- omy, to dwell associated together and be made subservient to the wants of creation, I rise from the contemplation more than ever impressed with the wisdom, the beneficence, and grandeur, beyond our language to express, of the Great Disposer of us all. — Faraday. We might almost accuse nature of falsehood. One sees him- self behind a mirror when nothing is there. A straight pole leaning in a pool is bent to appearance. The sun seems to rise and set, but moves not at all. We see it before it rises and after it sets. These and numberless other cases might be adduced to prove the deceitfulness of nature. Nay, they prove rather that education is the law of our being, and that here, as elsewhere, he who would not be self-deceived, must study nature's laws, must become educated. — D. J. Pratt. NATURE. 429 Vast chain of being ! which from God began, Natures ethereal, human, angel, man, Beast, bird, fish, insect, what no eye can see, No glass can reach, from infinite to Thee, From Thee to nothing. — Pope. I hold that we have a very imperfect knowledge of the works of nature till we view them as works of God, — not only as works of mechanism, but works of intelligence , not only as under laws, but under a Lawgiver, wise and good. — James McCosh. So distinguished by a Divine wisdom, power, and goodness, are God s works of creation and providence, that all nature, by the ^gentle voices of her skies and streams, of her fields and forests, as well as by the roar of breakers, the crash of thunder, the rumbling earthquake, the fiery volcano, and the destroying hurricane, echoes the closing sentences of this angel hymn, " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory ! " — Thomas Guthrie. There's nothing bright above, below. From flowers that bloom, to stars that glow, But in its light my soul can see Some feature of Thy Deity. — T. Moore. All things and all acts and this whole wonderful universe proclaim to us the Lord our Father, Christ our love, Christ our hope, our portion, and our joy. Oh, brethren, if you would know the meaning of the world, read Christ in it. If you would see the beauty of earth, take it for a prophet of something higher than itself, — Alexander Maclaren. 430 NATURE. These, as they change, Ahiiighty Father ! these Are but the varied God. The roUing year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love. — James Thomson. It is good for any man to be alone with nature and himself, or with a friend who knows when silence is more sociable than talk, — " In the wilderness alone There where nature worships God." It is well to be in places where man is little, and God is great, — where what he sees all around him has the same look as it had a thousand years ago, and will have the same, in all likelihood, when he has been a thousand years in his grave. It abates and rectifies a man, if he is worth the process. — Sydney Smith. The best thing is to go from nature's God down to nature ; and if you once get to nature's God, and believe Him, and love Him, it is surprising how easy it is to hear music in the waves, and songs in the wild whisperings of the winds ; to see God everywhere in the stones, in the rocks, in the rippling brooks, and hear Him everyAvhere, in the lowing of cattle, in the rolling of thunder, and in the fury of tempests. Get Christ first, put Him in the right place, and you will find Him to be the wisdom of God in your own experience. — C. H. Spurgeon. Only let us love God, and then nature will compass us about like a cloud of Divine witnesses ; and all influences from the earth, and things on the earth, will be ministers of God to do us good. Only let there be God within us, and then every thing outside us will become a godlike help. — Wm. Mountford. NEARNESS TO GOD AND CHRIST. 431 The very voices of the night, sounding like the moan of the tempest, may turn out to be the disguised yet tender "voices of God," calHng away from all earthly footsteps, to mount with greater singleness of eye and ardor of aim the alone ladder of safety and peace — upward, onward, heavenward, homeward. — J. R. Macduff. God is infinite ; and the laws of nature, like nature itself, are finite. These methods of working, therefore, — which corre- spond to the physical element in us, — do not exhaust His agency. There is a boundless residue of disengaged energy beyond. — James Martineau. Nature — faint emblem of Omnipotence ! Shaped by His hand — the shadow of His light — The veil in which He wraps His majesty. Call nature the grand revelation ! Is it more to go to nature and know it than to know God 1 Are there deeper depths in nature, higher sublimities, thoughts more captivating and glori- ous t In the mineral and vegetable shapes are there finer themes than in the life of Jesus ? In the storms and glorious pilings of the clouds, are there manifestations of greatness and beauty more impressive than in the tragic sceneries of the cross ? Nature is the realm of things, the supernatural is the realm of powers. — Horace Bushnell. NEARNESS TO GOD AND CHRIST. Still, still with Thee, when purple morning breaketh, When the bird waketh, and the shadows flee ; Fairer than morning, lovelier than the daylight. Dawns the sweet consciousness, — I am with Thee. — H. B. Stowe. 433 NEARNESS TO GOD AND CHRIST. My Christian brethren, if the crowd of difificuhies which stand between your souls and God succeed in keeping you away, all is lost. Right into the Presence you must force your way, with no concealment, baring the soul with all its ailments before Him, asking, not the arrest of the consequences of sin, but the cleansing of the conscience " from dead works to serve the living God," so that if you must suffer, you will suffer as a forgiven man. — F. W. Robertson. Seekest thou a place at my right hand ? Nay, I give thee a more wondrous dignity. " To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." — Alexander Maclaren. Thou wilt draw nigh ! Father — it is no dream that Thou art near — No dream that, in my sin and misery, I may look up to Thee, — May hide beneath the shadow of Thy wings, From all the restlessness of outward things. And from my own heart's self-accusing fears — For Thou art nigh. — Hetty Bowman. O, to have the soul bathed all day long in this thought, " as the pebble in the willow brook " until the words come like the tears, because the heart is full, and we cannot help it ; to feel, in the darkest hour, that there is an unseen Spectator whose eyes rest on us like morning on the flowers ; and that in the severest sorrow, we can sink into a presence full of love and sympathy, deeper than ever breathed from earth or sky or lov- ing hearts — a presence in which all fears and anxieties melt away as ice-crystals in the warm ocean. This is heaven. — Edward Thomson. NEARNESS TO GOD AND CHRIST. 433 Let us keep to Christ, and cling to Him, and hang on Him, so that no power can remove us. — Martin Luther. Nearer, O Christ, to Thee. Nearer to the open side ; nearer to the eyes that wept in love because I was a sinner ; nearer to the scarred hand that wields the sceptre of dominion. — T. M. Eddy. It is not by change of place that we can come nearer to Him who is in every place, but by the cultivation of pure desires and virtuous habits. — St. Augustine, With Thee in shady solitudes I walk. With Thee in busy, crowded cities talk ; In every creature own Thy forming power, In each event Thy providence adore. — A. L. Barbauld. When you have honestly and penitently sought out Christ,, and confessed your sins to Him, and put yourself wholly in His hands, then stay there. Follow Him. Keep close to Him, and Him alone. In your store, in your shop, in your field, in your home, or wherever you are, be ever saying, " Now, Jesus, Lead me ! Teach me Thy way ! Hold fast to my hand ! " T. L. CUYLER. Blessed God, pity the soul whose extremest horror is the doom of an eternal departure from Thee. Draw my spirit into the holiest and the nearest union with Thyself that is possible while it dwells in this flesh ! And let me here commence that delightful residence and converse with God, which nor death, nor judgment shall ever destroy, nor shall a long eternity ever put a period to it. — Elizabeth Rowe. 28 434 NEGLIGENCE -OBEDIENCE. Thus while I journey on, my Lord to meet, My thoughts and meditations are so sweet. Of Him on whom I lean, my strength, my stay, I can forget the sorrows of the way. HORATIUS BONAR. NEGLIGENCE. Negligence is the rust of the soul that corrodes through all her best resolves. — Owen Feltham. How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ? OBEDIENCE. To be a Christian is to obey Christ no matter how you feel. — H. W. Beecher. True obedience to God is the obedience of faith and good works ; that is, he is truly obedient to God who trusts Him, and does what He commands. — Martin Luther. I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans. — George MacDonald. The virtue of paganism was strength ; the virtue of Chris- tianity is obedience. — Guesses at Truth. OBEDIENCE. 435 The history of all the great characters of the Bible is sum- med up in this one sentence: — they acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced in His will in all things. — Richard Cecil. Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, and no other- wise. — Thomas Brooks. " Sir," said the Duke of Wellington to an officer of engineers, who urged the impossibility of executing the directions he had received, " I did not ask your opinion, I gave you my orders, and I expect them to be obeyed." Such should be the obedi- ence of every follower of Jesus. — C. H. Spurgeon. "Arise, take up thy bed and walk." You are on your bed now. You put yourself there by your own sin. You have kept yourself there by your own choice. Every sinner is a sin- ner because he chooses to be ; and you are no exception. Jesus commands you to repent and trust Him and follow Him. The moment you are willing to obey. He gives you strength to obey. T. L. CUYLER. O that we could take that simple view of things, as to feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God ! What gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay, even to please those whom we love, compared with this ? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed, — com- pared with this one aim of " not being disobedient to the heavenly vision? " — J. H. Newman. He praiseth God best that serveth and obeyeth Him most ; the life of thankfulness consists in the thankfulness of the life. 436 OBEDIENCE. The sound convert takes a luholc Christ, and takes Him for all intents and purposes, without exceptions, without limitations, without reserves. He is willing to have Christ, upon His own terms, upon any terms. He is willing to bear the dominion of Christ as well as have deliverance by Christ. He saith with Paul, " Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do ? " — Joseph Alleine. Let the ground of all thy religious actions be obedience ; examine not why it is commanded, but observe it because it is commanded. True obedience neither procrastinates nor ques- tions. — Francis Quarles. O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in Thee ; mercifully accept our prayer; and because through the weak- ness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without Thee, grant us the help of Thy grace, that in keeping Thy commandments we may please Thee, both in will and deed ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Book of Common Prayer. Poor, sad Humanity Through all the dust and heat Turns back with bleeding feet, By the weary road it came, Unto the simple thought By the Great Master taught, And that remaineth still, Not he that repeateth the name. But he that doeth the will ! — Longfellow. Worship is easier than obedience. Men are ever readier to serve the priest than to obey the prophet. — A. M. Fairbairn. OBSTINACY — OCCUPATION. 437 I believe that the fewer the laws in a home the better; but there is one law which should be as plainly understood as the shining of the sun is visible at noonday, and that is, implicit and instantaneous obedience from the child to the parent, not only for the peace of the home, but for the highest good of the child. A. E. KiTTREDGE. This is the secret of Christ's kingship — " He became obedient — wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him." And this is the secret of all obedience and all command. Obedience to a law above you subjugates minds to you who never would have yielded to mere will. — F. W. Robertson. OBSTINACY. An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him ; for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty. — Bishop Butler. His still refuted quirks he still repeats. New-raised objections with new quibbles meets : Till smking in the quicksand he defends. He dies disputing, and the contest ends. COWPER. OCCUPATION. One of the best maxims in determining our course in life is, to select, at the outset, that in which virtue and principle will be least likely to be put to a test, and in which, from the nature of the calling, a man may bring around him such associations and influences as will be an auxiliary in keeping him in the path of virtue. — Albert Barnes. 438 OLD AGE. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom ; and Peter's, the shore of GaHlee ; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High- Priest, — which " station in life " each had to leave, with brief notice. -John Ruskin. Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty. — H. W. Beecher. O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regula- tion to all my thoughts and to all my movements. — Chalmers. OLD AGE. The day of life spent in honest and benevolent labor comes in hope to an evening calm and lovely ; and though the sun de- clines, the shadows that he leaves behind are only to curtain the spirit unto rest. — Henry Giles. Thanks to that regular and temperate course of life I have ever lived, I am still capable of taking an active part in these public scenes of business. In fine, he who fills up every hour of his life in such kind of labors as those I have mentioned, will insensibly slide into old age without perceiving its arrival ; and his powers, instead of being suddenly and prematurely extin- guished, will gradually decline by the gentle and natural effect of accumulated years. — Cicero. The second childhood of a saint is the early infancy of a happy immortality, as we believe. — Wm. Mountford. OLD AGE. 431> It is not so bad a thing to grow old ; it is only getting a little nearer home ; a little nearer to immortal youth. — A. H. K. Age is not all decay ; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk. — George MacDonald. My God ! my time is in Thine hands. Should it please Thee to lengthen my life, and complete, as Thou hast begun, the work of blanching my locks, grant me grace to wear them as a crown of unsullied honor. — Christian Scriver. An aged Christian with the snow of time on his head may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven. — E. H. Chapin. Nobler than a ship safely ending a long voyage, and sublimer than the setting sun, is the old age of a just and kind and use- ful life. The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say " Amen " at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength. — Wm. Mountford. Lonely and old, in the dusk I am waiting. Till the dark boatman with soft muffled oar Glides o'er the waves, and I hear the keel grating, — See the dim beckoning hand on the shore, Wafting me over the welcoming river To gardens and homes that are shining forever ! 440 OPINION - ORDER — PARDON. OPINION. The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the wall of defense around property and life. — W. E. Channing. It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits than to say that our lives depend upon our opinions, which is only now and then true. — F. W. Robertson. ORDER. Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the State. — Robert Southey. Order is the law of all intelligible existence. — Prof. Blackie. Order is heaven's first law. — Pope. P. PARDON. God forgives ; forgives not capriciously, but with wise, defi- nite. Divine pre'arrangement ; forgives universally, on the ground of an atonement, and on the condition of repentance and faith. — R. S. Storrs. PARENTS. 441 God pardons like a mother that kisses the offense into ever- lasting forgetfuhiess. Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness which we, from time to time, most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed against Thy Divine Majesty, provoking most justly Thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings. The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. Have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us, most merciful Father ; for Thy Son our LoM Jesus Christ's sake forgive us all that is past ; and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please Thee in newness of life, to the honor and glory of Thy name ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. — Book of Common Prayer. PARENTS. You that are parents, discharge your duty ; though you can- not impart grace to your children, yet you may impart knowl- edge. Let your children know the commandments of God. " Ye shall teach them your children." You are careful to leave your children a portion ; leave the oracles of heaven with them; instruct them in the law of God. If God spake all these words, you may well speak them over again to your children. — T. Watson. Let France have good mothers, and she will have good sons. — Napoleon Bonaparte. The first essential, then, if we would train up our children to be pure and kind and spiritual, is to be careful that our daily lives are a model for them to copy. Not that we can be absolutely holy, but we can be Christlike. 442 PASSIONS — PATIENCE. I suppose that every parent loves his child ; but I know, without any supposing, that in a large number of homes the love is hidden behind authority, or its expression is crowded out by daily duties and cares. A. E. KiTTREDGE. PASSIONS. We should employ our passions in the service of life, not spend life in the service of our passions. — Richard Steele. Our headstrong passions shut the door of our souls against God. — Confucius. PATIENCE. The disciples of a patient Saviour should be patient them- selves. — C. H. Spurgeon. Dispose thyself to patience rather than to comfort, and to the bearing of the cross rather than to gladness. — Thomas a Kempis. Patience is enduring love ; experience is perfecting love ; and hope is exulting love. — Alexander Dickson. Patience is the ballast of the soul that will keep it from roll- ing and tumbling in the greatest storms. — Bishop Hopkins. A true Christian man is distinguished from other men, not so much by his beneficent works, as by his patience. — Horace Bushnell. PATIENCE. 443 Christ commands you to take up His cross and follow Him, not that He may humble you, or lay some penance upon you, but that you may surrender the low self-will and the feeble pride of your sin, and ascend into the sublime patience of heav- enly charity. — Horace Bushnell. It is not necessary for all men to be great in action. The greatest and sublimest power is often simple patience. — Horace Bushnell. Therefore, let us be patient, patient ; and let God our Father teach His own lesson. His own way. Let us try to learn it well and quickly ; but do not let us fancy that He will ring the school-bell, and send us to play before our lesson is learnt. — Charles Kingsley. Not without design does God write the music of our lives. Be it ours to learn the time, and not be discouraged at the rests. If we say sadly to ourselves, "There is no music in a rest," let us not forget " there is the making of music in it." The mak- ing of music is often a slow and painful process in this life. How patiently God works to teach us ! How long He waits for us to learn the lesson ! — John Ruskin. Patience ! why, it is the soul of peace ; of all the virtues it is nearest kin to heaven ; it makes men look like gods. The best of men that ever wore earth about Him was a Sufferer, — a soft, meek, patient, humble, tranquil spirit ; the first true gentleman that ever breathed. — Thomas Decker. It is easy finding reasons why other folks should be patient. — George Eliot. 444 PATIENCE. When I am about my work, sometimes called unexpectedly and suddenly from one thing to another, I whisper in my heart, " Lord, help me to be patient, help me to remember, and help me to be faithful. Lord, enable me to do all for Christ's sake, and to go forward, leaning on the bosom of His infinite grace." — Mary Lyon. The holier one is, the more forbearing and loving he is ; the more tender and patient and anxious to help others in every way. Think how forbearing and loving Christ is when we do wrong ; and there we are to be like Him. — A. H. K. Help us, O Lord ! with patient love to bear Each other's faults, to suffer with true meekness; Help us each other's joys and griefs to share. But let us turn to Thee alone in weakness. Show yourself a Christian by suffering without murmuring. In patience possess your soul — they lose nothing who gain Christ. — Rutherford. In your patience ye are strong. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on ! hold fast ! hold out ! Patience is genius. — Count de Buffon. Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh ; Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear ; To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh ; Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer. — George Croly. PATRIOTISM — PEACE. 445 PATRIOTISM. To be a good patriot, a man must consider his countrymen as God's creatures, and himself as accountable for his acting towards them. — Bishop Berkeley. It should be the work of a genuine and noble patriotism to raise the life of the nation to the level of its privileges ; to har- monize its general practice with its abstract principles ; to re- duce to actual facts the ideals of its institutions ; to elevate in- struction into knowledge ; to deepen knowledge into wisdom ; to render knowledge and wisdom complete in righteousness ; and to make the love of country perfect in the love of man. — Henry Giles. That is a true sentiment Avhich makes us feel that we do not love our country less, but more, because we have laid up in our minds the knowledge of other lands and other institutions and other races, and have had enkindled afresh within us the instinct of a common humanity, and of the universal beneficence of the Creator. — Dean Stanley. PEACE. When Christ was about to leave the world, He made His will. His soul He committed to His father ; His body He bequeathed to Joseph to be decently interred ; His clothes fell to the sol- diers ; His mother He left to the care of John ; but what should He leave to His poor disciples that had left all for Him ? Silver and gold He had none ; but He left them that which was in- finitely better. His peace. — Matthew Henry. In moderating, not in satisfying desires, lies peace. 446 PEACE. You may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required, — and content that He should indeed require no more of you, — than to do justice, to love mercy^ and to walk humbly with Him. — John Ruskin. After love comes peace. A great many people are trying to make peace. But that has already been done. God has not left it for us to do ; all that we have to do is to enter into it. — D. L. Moody. If there is any thing that can render the soul calm, dissipate its scruples, and dispel its fears, sweeten its sufferings by the anointing of love, impart strength to it in all its actions, and spread abroad the joy of the Holy Spirit in its countenance and words, it is a simple, free, and child-like repose in the arms of God. — Fenelon. How different the peace of God from that of the world ! It calms the passions, preserves the purity of the conscience, is inseparable from righteousness, unites us to God and strength- ens us against temptations. The peace of the soul consists in an absolute resignation to the will of God. — Fenelon. Let my soul calm itself, O Christ, in Thee. — H. B. Stowe. There have been keen agonies, sore heart-aches, but they have been short, and a sweet peace abides. Can it be His peace .'' Is it possible that to such a weak, sinful creature as I, the Comforter has indeed come 1 I must believe this, and that it is His presence that cheers me. — A. H. K. PEACE. 447 Patience and resignation are the pillars Of human peace on earth. — Young. The promise is: " Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." Now, as long as our minds are stayed on our dear selves, we shall never have peace. — D. L. Moody. The mistake we make is to look for a source of comfort in ourselves : self-contemplation, instead of gazing upon God. In other words, we look for comfort precisely where comfort never can be. — F. W, Robertson. We shall never be at peace with ourselves until we yield with glad supremacy to our higher faculties. — Joseph Cook. What produced this divine serenity, subject to no moods, clouded by no depression, this perpetual Sunday of the heart ? It w-as not merely good nature, not the accident of a happy or- ganization. It was deeper than that. It was the perfect poise resulting from a Christian experience. It was the habit of looking to God in love and to man in love. — J. F. Clarke, It is not that I feel less weak, but Thou Wilt be my strength. It is not that I see Less sin, but more of pardoning love in Thee, And all-sufficient grace. Enough ! And now All fluttering thought is stilled ; I only rest. And feel that Thou art near, and know that I am blest. — F. R. Havergal, 448 PENITENCE. I could not live in peace if I put the shadow of a willful sin between myself and God. — George Eliot. And so, in calm expectation of a blessed future and a fin- ished work which will explain the past, in honest submission of our way to God, in supreme delight in Him who is the glad- ness of our joy, the secret of tranquillity will be ours. — Alexander Maclaren. Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men ; for whether they judge well of thee or ill, thou art not on that ac- count other than thyself. Where are true peace and true glory? _ Are they not in God ? — Edward Garrett. Two sorts of peace are more to be dreaded than all the troubles in the world — peace with sin, and peace in sin. — Joseph Alleine. PENITENCE. The law can never save us ; and he is nearest to the forgive- ness of the gospel who, with a contrite heart, discerns most clearly and feels most profoundly that perfection of the Divine statute which impeaches and condemns him. — William Adams. Prostrate, dear Jesus, at Thy feet, A guilty rebel lies ; And upwards, to Thy mercy-seat, Presumes to lift his eyes. — S. Stennett. Christian penitence is something more than a thought or an emotion or a tear ; it is action. — William Adams. PERFECTION. 449 Know what your sin is and confess it ; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract. T. L. CUYLER. Break my hard heart, Jesus my Lord ; In the inmost part Hide Thy sweet word. — Robert McCheyne. PERFECTION. There is but one true good for a spiritual being, and this is found in its perfection. Men are slow to see this truth ; and yet it is the key to God's providence, and to the mysteries of life. — W. E. Channing. Those who disbelieve in virtue because man has never been found perfect, might as reasonably deny the sun because it is not always noon. — Guesses at Truth. It is a union with a Higher Good by love, that alone is end- less perfection. The only sufficient object for man must be something that adds to and perfects his nature, to which he must be united in love ; somewhat higher than himself, yea, the highest of all, the Father of spirits. That alone completes a spirit and blesses it, — to love Him, the spring of spirits. — Archbishop Leighton. That is the true perfection of man to find out his imperfec- tions. — St. Augustine. 29 450 PERSECUTION — PERSEVERANCE. PERSECUTION. It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that " the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." — Albert Barnes. Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant. — E. H. Chapin. PERSEVERANCE. Perseverance is the master impulse of the firmest souls, the discipline of the noblest virtues, and the guaranty of acquisi- tions the most invigorating in their use and inestimable in their worth. — E. L. Magoon. The practice of perseverance is the discipline of the noblest virtues. To run well, we must run to the end. It is not the fighting but the conquering that gives a hero his title to re- nown. — E. L. Magoon. Invariably will you find perseverance exemplified as the radical principle in every truly great character. It facilitates, perfects, and consolidates the execution of the plan conceived, and renders profitable its results when attained. By continuing to advance steadily in the same way, light constantly increases, obstacles disappear, efficient habits are confirmed, experience is acquired, the use of the best means is reduced to easy action, and success becomes more sure. — E. L. Magoon. PIETY. 451 The imperial heroes who rule over the opinions of their fel- low men for good or ill, are victory-organized ; they march towards the execution of their purpose^ as if they were intent on the conquest of a world. With a bold front and piercing eye, they are repelled by no obstacles, and entertain not the slight- est doubt as to a final triumph ; days and nights, like their for- tune, health, and every thing dear in existence, they consecrate to the success of their particular enterprise. As with hooks of steel, they grapple the most stubborn difficulties, and relax neither hand nor foot so long as there remains one vital energy in their will. — E. L. Magoon. The character and conquest of the invincible champion are ever the same. A Lacedaemonian died while writing with his own blood on a rock — " Sparta has conquered!" But, O, there is an illustration higher and better than any derived from mere earthly annals. Jesus veiled His glory in the skies ; shrouded divinity in mortality, and with godhead and humanity coalesced in His person, entered the lists with more than mortal strife against the powers of hell. He drank the bitter cup with sub- limer resignation than the sages of earth ever knew ; contended victoriously where finite champions must inevitably have been destroyed ; fell, like the strong man, destroying His foes by His death ; persevered on our behalf in all the fearful descent from the august throne of the Eternal to the stony floor of the cold 'and gloomy sepulchre ; that Hope's sweet fountain might gush up for mankind in Golgotha, and Salvation plant her banner with immortal triumph at the portal of the conquered tomb. — E. L. Magoon. PIETY. Piety does not mean that a man should make a sour face about things, and refuse to enjoy in moderation what his Maker has given, — Thomas Carlyle. 452 PIETY. In theory, piety is reverence and love fgr God ; and in prac- tice, it is the exercise of all our powers in obedience to the Divine will. Combining the theory and practice, we have the richest treasure known on earth — love for God shown in obedience to God. — D. W. Gates. In periods that are wanting in inspiration piety always as- sumes the character of caution. It degenerates from a free and joyful devotion to a melancholy and anxious slavery. — J. H. Seelye. What you cannot lift before His pure eyes and think of Him while you enjoy, is not for you. Friendship, schemes, plans, ambitions, amusements, speculations, studies, loves, businesses — can you call on the name of the Lord while you put these cups to your lips ? If not, fling them behind you, — Alexander Maclaren. Christian piety annihilates the egotism of the heart ; worldly politeness vails and represses it. — Pascal. There is no piety in the world which is not the result of cul- tivation, and which cannot be increased by the degree of care and attention bestowed upon it. — Albert Barnes. Young men, you who have any piety at all, what sort is it ? Is it a hot-house plant, which must be framed and glassed, lest March, that bold young fellow, should shake the life out of it in his rough play among the flowers ? or is it a hardy shrub, which rejoices when the wild winds course along the heather or howl above the crest of Lebanon '' We need, believe me, the bravery of godliness to bear true witness for our Master now. — Wm. M. Punshon. PIETY. 453 Young men, terminate, I beseech you, in your own experience, the sad divorce which has too often existed between intellect and piety. Take your stand, unswerving, heroic, by the altar of truth ; and from that altar let neither sophistry nor ridicule expel you. Let your faith rest with a child's trust, with a mar- tyr's grip, upon the truth as it is in Jesus. — Wm. M. Punshon. The great moral lesson which Saul's history leaves for the in- struction of mankind is this : That without true piety the finest qualities of character and the highest position in society will utterly fail to make a true and noble man. If Saul's heart had been true to God, he would have been one of the grandest speci- mens of humanity ; but, lacking this true obedience to God, he made his life an utter failure, and his character amoral wreck, — Wm. M. Taylor. The piety that keeps the Sabbath with a great zeal of devo- tion, yet fails to keep itsjDossessor honest on Monday, is not the kind that is stamped in the mint of heaven. — Herrick Johnson, What smoky prayers ! — one earnest petition, and then a thousand wandering thoughts ! What smoky faith! — a joyful sight of the Saviour's sufficiency, and then a long season of in- ward complacency occasioned by that sight ! Self-righteous efforts to extirpate self-righteousness, and most legal endeavors to elaborate faith ! What smoky affections ! — gleams of love to God, followed by long intervals of estrangement ! — spurts of self-sacrifice, followed by systematic worldliness ! Fits of fury against some besetting sin, followed by abject surrender to its power ! Ah, brethren, if the Saviour were human. He would set His foot on this fuming profession ; He would extinguish this smoking flax. — James Hamilton. 454 PITY — POVERTY. We must watch over pious impressions, and cultivate them, or they will never become vigorous and enduring. — W. E. Channing. Think of a woman by the side of a dying sister, or a sick child, or a sorrowing friend, or a broken-hearted and broken- spirited man, without a word of heaven in her mouth — without so much as the ability to whisper "Our Father," or even to point her finger hopefully towards the stars. — T. G. Holland. PITY. More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. — George Eliot. POVERTY. The world's proverb is, " God help the poor, for the rich can help themselves; " but to our mind, it is just the rich who have most need of Heaven's help. Dives in scarlet is worse off than Lazarus in rags, unless Divine lo^fe shall uphold him. — C. H. Spurgeon. There is not such a mighty difference as some men imagine between the poor and the rich ; in pomp, show, and opinion, there is a great deal, but little as to the pleasures and satisfac- tions of life. They enjoy the same earth and air and heavens; hunger and thirst make the poor man's meat and drink as pleasant and relishing as all the varieties which cover the rich man's table ; and the labor of a poor man is more healthful, and many times more pleasant, too, than the ease and softness of the rich. — Bishop Sherlock. POWER. 455 It was Lazarus faith, not his poverty, which brought him into Abraham's bosom. — Trench. It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man. — W. Irving. As no one can adventure nearer the throne of God by virtue of his rank, his wealth, or his talent, so no one is Yt^^i farther from that throne by his low condition, or by his poverty of wealth, of learning, or of intellect. The prince and the sage are not more welcome to heaven than the poor and ignorant. — Albert Barnes. Aspirations pure and high — Strength to do and to endure — Heir of all the Ages, I — Lo ! I am no longer poor ! — Julia C. R. Dorr. POWER. It is not possible to found a lasting power upon injustice, perjury, and treachery. — Demosthenes. What elements of power we wield ! Truth unmixed with error, flashing as God's own lightning in its brightness, resist- less if properly wielded, as that living flame ! O what agencies ! The Holy Ghost standing and pleading with us to so work that He may help us, the very earth coming to the help of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet I am painfully impressed that we are not wielding the elements of Christian achievement nearly up to their maximum. — T. M. Eddy. 456 PRAISE — PRAYER. Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force. — R. W. Emerson. There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness in- stead of quietness and reverence. To souls baptized in Chris- tian nobleness the largest sphere of command is but a wider empire of obedience, calling them, not to escape from holy rule, but to its full impersonation. — James Martineau. PRAISE. Praise is the best auxiliary to prayer; and he who most bears in mind what has been done for him by God will be most em- boldened to supplicate fresh gifts from above. — Henry Melvill. Do not fancy, as too many do, that thou canst praise God by singing hymns to Him in church once a week, and disobey- ing Him all the week long. He asks of thee works as well as words; and more, He asks of thee works first and words after. — Charles Kingsley. Praise consists in the love of God, in wonder at the goodness of God, in recognition of the gifts of God, in seeing God in all things He gives us, ay, and even in the things that He refuses to us ; so as to see our whole life in the light of God ; and see- ing this, to bless Him, adore Him, and glorify Him. — Manning. PRAYER. True prayer is an earnest soul's direct converse with its God. — T. L. CUYLER. PRAYER. 457 A prayer in its simplest definition is merely a wish turned Godward. — Phillips Brooks. Prayer is the breath of a new-born soul, and there can be no •Christian life without it. — Rowland Hill. True prayer is only another name for the love of God. Its excellence does not consist in the multitude of our words ; for our Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. The true prayer is that of the heart, and the heart prays only for what it desires. To pray, then, is to desire — but to desire what God would have us desire. — Fenelon. A life of prayer is a life whose litanies are ever fresh acts of self-devoting love. — F. W. Robertson. Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to His will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of His mercies. — Westminster Catechism. Worship is the earthly act by which we most distinctly recog- nize our personal immortality ; men who think that they will be extinct a few years hence do not pray. In worship we spread out our insignificant life, which yet is the work of the Creator's hands, and the purchase of the Redeemer's blood, before the Eternal and All-Merciful, that we may learn the manners of a higher sphere, and fit ourselves for companionship with saints and angels, and for the everlasting sight of the face of God. H. P. LiDDON. 458 PRAYER. Prayer is not conquering God's reluctance, but taking hold upon God's willingness. — Phillips Brooks. Prayer is the act by which man, detaching himself from the embarrassments of sense and nature, ascends to the true level of his destiny. H. P. LiDDON. Prayer is so mighty an instrument that no one ever thor- oughly mastered all its keys. They sweep along the infinite scale of man's wants and God's goodness. — Hugh Miller. Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness ; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it ; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. — Hannah More. Prayer, then, does not consist in sweet feelings, nor in the charms of an excited imagination, nor in that illumination of the intellect that traces with ease the sublimest truths of God ; nor even in a certain consolation in the view of God ; all these things are external gifts from His hand, in the absence of which love may exist even more purely, as the soul may then attach itself immediately and solely to God, instead of to His mercies. — Fenelon. Prayer is the pulse of the renewed soul ; and the constancy of its beat is the test and measure of the spiritual life. OCTAVIUS WiNSLOW. The best and sweetest flowers of paradise God gives to His people when they are upon their knees. Prayer is the gate of heaven. —Thomas Brooks. PRAYER. 459 We lay it down as an elemental principle of religion, that no large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be often and long alone with God. No otherwise can the great central idea of God enter into a man's life, and dwell there supreme. — Austin Phelps. Any heart turned Godward feels more joy In one short hour of prayer, than e'er was raised By all the feasts of earth since its foundation. — P.J.Bailey. Cease not to pray ; On Jesus as your all rely. Would you live happy — happy die ; Take time to pray. A good man's prayers Will from the deepest dungeon climb to heaven's height, And bring a blessing down. — Joanna Bailie. Prayer moves the hand which moves the world. — J. A. Wallace. Consider how august a privilege it is, when angels are present, and archangels throng around, when cherubim and seraphim encircle with their blaze the throne, that a mortal may approach with unrestrained confidence, and converse with heaven's dread Sovereign ! O, what honor was ever conferred like this ? — Chrysostom. Our prayers are ships. We send them to no uncertain port. They are destined for the throne of grace ; and while they take a cargo of supplications from us, they come back argosies laden with the riches of Divine grace. 460. PRAYER. Prayer pulls the rope below, and the great bell rings above in the ears of God. Some scarcely stir the bell, for they pray so languidly ; others give but an occasionarpluck at the rope; but he who wins with heaven is the man who grasps the rope boldly and pulls continuously, with all his might. — C. H. Spurgeon. O Thou by whom we come to God — The Life, the Truth, the Way ; The path of prayer Thyself hast trod ; Lord, teach us how to pray. — J. Montgomery. When we pray to God with entire assurance, it is Himself who has given us the spirit of prayer. — St. Cyprian. In presenting the Divine promises at the throne of grace, we present the best of names at a bank that is solvent. Let us, when we would pray, consider well whether we have a promise for our plea. — R. M. Offord. Let faith each meek petition fill, And waft it to the skies ; And teach our heart 'tis goodness still That grants it or denies. — J. D. Carlyle. A certain joyful, though humble, confidence becomes us when we pray in the Mediator's name. It is due to Him ; when we pray in His name it should be without wavering. Remember His merits, and how prevalent they must be. " Let us there- fore come boldly to the throne of grace." — Nehemiah Adams. PRAYER. 461 Good prayers never come creeping home. I am sure I shall receive what I ask for or what I should ask. — Bishop Hall. For spiritual blessings, let our prayers be importunate, per- petual, and persevering ; for temporal blessings, let them be general, short, conditional, and modest. — Jeremy Taylor. The prayer that begins with trustfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness and triumph and praise. — ^ Alexander Maclaren. Be not afraid to pray — to pray is right. Pray if thou canst with hope ; but ever pray. Though hope be weak or sick with long delay ; Pray in the darkness, if there be no light. — Hartley Coleridge. Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace ? — George MacDonald. Patience and perseverance are never more thoroughly Chris- tian graces than when features of prayer. — S. Iren/Eus Prime. Are we to suppose that the only being in the universe who cannot answer prayer is that One who alone has all power at His command ? The weak theology that professes to believe that prayer has merely a subjective benefit is infinitely less sci- entific than the action of the child who confidently appeals to a Father in heaven. — Prof. Dawson, 463 PRAYER. Cold prayers shall never have any warm answers. God will suit His returns to our requests. Lifeless services shall have lifeless answers. When men are dull, God will be dumb. — Thomas Brooks. Ah ! well it is for us that God is a loving Father, Avho takes our very prayers and thanksgivings rather for what we vicaii than for what they arc; just as parents smile on the trailing weeds that their ignorant little ones bring them for flowers. — Edward Garrett. Then let us earnest be. And never faint in prayer ; He loves our importunity, And makes our cause His care. — John Newton. Expect an answer. If no answer is desired, why pray ? True prayer has in it a strong element of expectancy. — R. M. Offord. How can He grant you what you do not desire to receive .-^ — St. Augustine. Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. Our prayers upbraid our spirits when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die ; which are more precious than imperial sceptres, richer than the spoils of the sea or the treasures of Indian hills. — Jeremy Taylor. The reason why we obtain no more in prayer, is because we expect no more. God usually answers us according to our own hearts. — Richard Alleine. PRAYER. 463 My words fly up, my thoughts remain below ; Words without thoughts never to heaven go. — Shakspeare. Every prayer is a wish, but wishes are not prayers. In the heart of every prayer is a sense of need, but a sense of need is not prayer. Prayer is asking for a felt need ; not asking the Universe, but God. No one can intelligently ask who does not believe that he can and may be heard. No one can persever- ingly ask, who thinks that asking will bring nothing. Persons who believe that the whole influence of prayer is simply the effect of their own thoughts upon themselves, never pray. They cannot pray. The mouth may utter right words ; the heart is not in them. Some prayers are not prayers, for those who say them do not really wish for the things they mention. But the difficulty with most prayers is that there is no grasp of the idea of God — there is no aski/ig. '' Ask, and ye shall receive." — The Christian Advocate. There is much seeking for God that does not amount to searching for Him with all the heart. There is much praying, and too little prayer. There are many petitions, but too little expectation. There is too reckless a rushing into the presence of God, and too little patient waiting to hear what He will speak. True prayer has to do directly with the infinitely high and holy God ; and true prayer ever finds Him, and in finding Him gets all that Divine wisdom and love can bestow upon the seeker, consistently with God's glory and the creature's highest good. — The Christian Intelligencer. He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small : For the dear God who loveth us. He made and loveth all. — Coleridge. 464 PRAYER. He that loveth little prayeth little ; he that loveth much prayeth much. — St. Augustine. O Lord, we rejoice that we are Thy making, though Thy handiwork is not very clear in our outer man as yet. We bless Thee that we feel Thy hand making us. What if it be in pain } Evermore we hear the voice of the potter above the hum and grind of His wheel. Father, Thou only knowest how we love Thee. Fashion the clay to Thy beautiful will. — George MacDonald. Like an echo from a ruined castle, prayer is an echo from the ruined human soul of the sweet promise of God. — Wm. Arnot. He who has a pure heart will never cease to pray ; and he who will be constant in prayer, shall know what it is to have a pure heart. — La Combe. As in poetry, so in prayer, the whole subject matter should be furnished by the heart, and the understanding should be al- lowed only to shape and arrange the effusions of the heart in the manner best adapted to answer the end designed. From the fullness of a heart overflowing with holy affections, as from a copious fountain, we should pour forth a torrent of pious, humble, and ardently affectionate feelings ; while our under- standings only shape the channel and teach the gushing streams of devotion where to flow, and when to stop. — Edward Payson. ^^ Continuing instant in prayer." The Greek is a metaphor taken from hunting dogs that never give over the game till they have got their prey. — Thomas Brooks. PRAYER. 465 Have you never observed how free the Lord's Prayer is of any material that can tempt to subtle self-inspection in the art of devotion ? It is full of an outflowing of thought and of emotion toward great objects of desire, great necessities, and great perils. — Austin Phelps. For "we know not what we should pray for as we ought; " but love leads us on, abandons us to all the operations of grace, puts us entirely at the disposal of God's will, and thus prepares us for all His designs. — Fenelon, Not what we wish, but what we want, O let Thy grace supply : The good, unasked, in mercy grant, The ill, though asked, deny. There is something in every act of prayer that for a time stills the violence of passion, and elevates and purifies the affections. — Jeremy Taylor. When Christ went up into a mountain apart to pray. He dis- missed the multitude, to teach us that when we address our- selves to God, we must first dismiss the multitude. We must send away the multitude of worldly cares, worldly thoughts, worldly concerns and business, when we would call upon God in duty. BURKITT. Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us. — Wm. M. Taylor. 3° 466 PRAYER. I think that if we would, every evening, come to our Master's feet, and tell Him where we have been, what we have done, what we have said, and what were the motives by which we have been actuated, it would have a salutary effect upon our whole conduct. — Edward Payson. Prayer is so necessary, and the source of so many blessings, that he who has discovered the treasure cannot be prevented from having recourse to it, whenever he has an opportunity. — Fenelon. Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry Avithout language, or music without atmosphere. — James Martineau. There is no burden of the spirit but is lightened by kneeling under it. Little by little, the bitterest feelings are sweetened by the mention of them in prayer. • And agony itself stops swelling, if we can only cry sincerely, " My God, my God !" — Wm. Mountford. Lord ! Thou art with Thy people still ; they see Thee in the night-watches, and their hearts burn within them as Thou talkest with them by the way. And Thou art near to those that have not known Thee ; open their eyes that they may see Thee — see 'Thee weeping over them, and saying, " Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life " — see Thee hanging on the cross and saying, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do " — see Thee as Thou wilt come again in Thy glory to judge them at the last. Amen. — George Eliot. Trouble and perplexity drive me to prayer, and prayer drives away perplexity and trouble. — Melanchthon. PRAYER. 467 Prayer, with our Lord, was a refuge from the storm ; ahiiost every word He uttered during that last tremendous scene was prayer ; prayer the most earnest, the most urgent, repeated, continued, proceeding from the recesses of the soul, private, solitary ; prayer for deliverance, prayer for strength ; above every thing prayer for resignation. — William Paley. By Thine agony and bloody sweat ; by Thy cross and pas- sion ; by Thy precious death and burial ; by Thy glorious res- urrection and ascension ; and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, good Lord, deliver us. — Book of Common Prayer. From coldness to Thy merits and death, from error and mis- understanding, from the loss of our glory in Thee, from the un- happy desire of becoming great, from self-complacency, from untimely projects, from needless perplexity, from the murmur- ing spirit and devices of Satan, from the influence of the spirit of this world, from hypocrisy and fanaticism, from the deceit- fulness of sin — preserve us, gracious Lord ! — Moravian Litany. We kneel, how weak ; we rise, how full of power ! W^hy, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong, Or others — that we are not always strong. That we are ever overborne with care. That we should ever weak or heartless be, Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer, And joy and strength and courage are with Thee } — Trench, We shall all find, by and by, that the most natural thing in the world for all wisdom to do is to sit at the feet of Christ, and ask for that which nothing else than prayer can compass. 468 PRAYER. I have been driven many times to my knees, by the over- whehning conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. — Abraham Lincoln. The Divine Wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them ; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it. — F, W. Robertson. Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer. — John Bunyan. The church converteth the whole world by blood and prayer. — Martin Luther. Happy are they who freely mingle prayer and toil till God responds to the one and rewards the other. — S. Iren^us Prime. From the violence and rule of passion, from a servile will, and a commanding lust, from pride and vanity, from false opin- ion and ignorant confidence ; from improvidence and prodigal- ity, from envy and the spirit of slander ; from sensuality, from presumption and from despair ; from a state of temptation and a hardened spirit ; from delaying of repentance and persever- ing in sin ; from unthankfulness and irreligion, and from seduc- ing others ; from all infatuation of soul, folly, and madness ; from willfulness, self-love, and vain ambition ; from a vicious life and an unprovided death, good Lord, deliver us. — Jeremy Taylor. PRAYER, 409 Faithful prayer always implies correlative exertion ; and no man can ask honestly and hopefully to be delivered from temp- tation, unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it. — John Ruskix. Whatever we are directed to pray for, we are also exhorted to work for ; we are not permitted to mock Jehovah, asking that of Him which we deem not worth our pains to acquire. — E. L. Magoon. Prayer was never meant to be a substitute for labor — an easy way of throwing our responsibilities upon God. The old classic story of the teamster whose cart stuck in the mud, and who fell to crying to Hercules for help instead of using effort himself, and was told by the god he invoked to put his own shoulder to the wheel, shows that even a heathen mind could see that faith was never meant to exclude works. When we pray for any virtue, we should cultivate the virtue as well as pray for it ; the form of your prayers should be the rule of your life ; every petition to God is a precept to man. — Jeremy Taylor. Sometimes a fog will settle over a vessel's deck and yet leave the topmast clear. Then a sailor goes up aloft and gets a look- out which the helmsman on deck cannot get. So prayer sends the soul aloft ; lifts it above the clouds in which our selfishness and egotism befog us, and gives us a chance to see which way to steer. — C. H. Spurgeon. Every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel. — Binney. 470 PRAYER. Not every hour, nor every day, perhaps, can generous wishes ripen into kind actions ; but there is not a moment that cannot be freighted with prayer. ^Wm. Mountford. Ejaculations are short prayers darted up to God on emer- gent occasions. They are the artillery of devotion, and their principal use is against the fiery darts of the devil. — Thomas Fuller. I like ejaculatory prayer ; it reaches heaven before the devil can get a shot at it. — Rowland Hill.- When does the building of the Spirit really begin to appear in a man's heart ? It begins, so far as we can judge, when he first pours out his heart to God in prayer. — J. C. Ryle. There is nothing about which a young Christian should be more anxious than maintaining the spirit, the love, the practice of private prayer ; and nothing which should more seriously alarm him than any disposition to neglect it. — John Angel James. There it is — in such patient silence — that we accumulate the inward power which we distribute and spend in action ; that the soul acquires a greater and more vigorous being, and gathers up its collective forces to bear down upon the piece- meal difficulties of life and scatter them to dust ; there alone can we enter into that spirit of self-abandonment by which we take up the cross of duty, however heavy, with feet however worn and bleeding. — Wavland Hoyt. PRAYER. 471 Private prayer is so far from being a hindrance to a man's business, that it is the way of ways to bring down a blessing from heaven upon it. — Thomas Brooks. If a?iy prayer be a duty, then secret prayer must be superla- tively so, for it prepares and fits the soul for all other supplica- tion. — Thomas Brooks. A house without family worship has neither foundation nor covering. — J. M. Mason. Wise is that Christian parent who begins every morning with the word of God and fervent prayer. T. L. CUYLER. Let family worship be short, savory, simple, plain, tender, heavenly. — Richard Cecil. Ask in simplicity. True need forgets to be formal. Its ut- terances fly from the heart as sparks from a blacksmith's anvil. Set phrases, long sentences, polysyllabic words, find little favor with the soul that is athirst for God and His grace. How brief are the sentences of the immortal and immutable prayer, which Christ taught His disciples ! Not a long word is there. Temp- tation is the longest, and the majority of the words are of one syllable. Do you essay to lead others in prayer? Utter no word that any that hear you cannot understand. Express their need as well as your own. Do not go to the mercy-seat on stilts. — R. M. Offord. Lord, teach us to pray. 472 PRAYER. Blessed Jesus, I am but a lamb, and often fear I shall never be any thing better, but perish as I am. Lord, take me in the arms of Thy power and lay me on the bosom of Thy love; though I am so poor and inconsiderable a creature I will hope in Thy pastoral power and love, that I shall not only continue, but grow, and that Thou wilt one day rejoice in me as one of the flock which Thou hast purchased with Thy own blood. — John Angel James. Our public prayers too often consist almost entirely of pas- sages of Scripture — not always judiciously chosen or well ar- ranged— and common-place phrases, which have been trans- mitted down for ages, from one generation to another, selected and put together just as we would compose a sermon or essay, while the heart is allowed no share in the performance ; so that we may more properly be said to make a prayer than to pray. — Edward Payson. Let your prayers be composed of thanksgiving, praise, con- fession, and petition, without any argument or exhortation ad- dressed to those who are supposed to be praying with you. Adopt no fixed forms of expression, except such as you obtain from Scripture. Express your desire in the briefest, simplest form, without circumlocution. Hallow God's name by avoiding its unnecessary repetition. Adopt the simple devotional phrases of Scripture ; but avoid the free use of its figures, and all quaint and doubtful application of its terms to foreign subjects. Pray to God and not to man. — J. Addison Alexander. If you are in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because other people will not be able to keep pace with you m such un- usual spirituality, and if you are not in the spirit of prayer, do not be long, because you will be sure to weary the listeners. — John MacDonald. PRAYER. 473 In the primitive church were not prayers simple, unpremed- itated, united ; prayers of the well-taught apostle ; prayers of the accomplished scholar ; prayers of the rough but fervent peasant ; prayers of the new and zealous convert ; prayers which importuned and wrestled with an instant and irrepressi- ble urgency ; — were they not an essential part of that religion, which holy fire had kindled, and which daily supplications alone could fan ? — William Arthur. God's hearing of our prayers does not depend upon sanctifi- cation, but upon Christ's intercession ; not upon what we are in ourselves, but what we are in the Lord Jesus ; both our per- sons and our prayers are accepted in the Beloved. — Thomas Brooks. Your child is falling from a window. By the action of a nat- ural law he will be killed. But he cries out for help, " Father ! father!" Hearing his call, in this his day of trouble, you rush forth and catch him in your arms. Your child is saved. Nat- ural law would have killed him, but you interposed, and, with- out a miracle, saved him. And cannot the great Father of all do what an earthly parent does ? — Newman Hall. They tell us of the fixed laws of nature ! but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws cannot use them for the purpose of answering His people's prayers? — Wm. M. Taylor. There is no such thing in the long history of God's kingdom as an unanswered prayer. Every true desire from a child's heart finds some true answer in the heart of God. — Norman Macleod. 474 PRAYER. Unanswered yet ? Faith cannot be unanswered. Her feet were firmly planted on the Rock ; Amid the wildest storms she stands undaunted, Nor quails before the loudest thunder shock. She knows Omnipotence has heard her prayer, And cries, "It shall be done," sometime, somewhere. Unanswered yet ? Nay, do not say ungranted ; Perhaps your part is not yet wholly done. The work began when first your prayer was uttered, And God will finish what He has begun. If you will keep the incense burning there. His glory you shall see sometime, somewhere. — Robert Browning. Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies. — T. L. CUYLER. I have lived to thank God that all my prayers have not been answered. — Jean Ingelow. Are we silent to Jesus } Think ! Have you nothing to ask Him? Nothing to thank Him for.' Nothing to praise Him for ? Nothing to confess ? Oh, poor soul, go back to Beth- lehem— to Gethsemane, to Calvary, and remember at what a cost the vail before the Holies was rent in twain that thou mightest enter it. — Anna Shipton. God commands you to pray. That is your duty. Nothing can excuse you from it. Wicked heart, as you may have, God commands you to pray. God connects His promise with this command. You have no right to separate them. The promise and the command stand together. PRAYER-MEETINGS. 475 Saviour, breathe an evening blessing Ere repose our spirits seal ; Sin and want we come confessing ; Thou canst save, and Thou canst heal. — James Edmeston. If I were an impenitent child of godly parents, and should die so, I would rather go into eternity facing a legion of devils than my mother's prayers. — Herrick Johnson. In eternity it will be a terrible thing for many a man to meet his own prayers. Their very language will condemn him ; for he knew his duty, but he did it not. — T. L. Cuyler. PRAYER-MEETINGS. I look upon prayer-meetings as the most profitable exercises (excepting the public preaching) in which Christians can en- gage. They have a direct tendency to kill a worldly, trifling spirit, and to draw down a Divine blessing upon all our con- cerns, compose differences, and enkindle (at least maintain) the flames of Divine love amongst brethren. — John Newton. " How do you make your prayer-meetings interesting ? " The whole subject is mixed up. " Interesting " to whom ? The Lord ? The suppliants .-■ The spectators ? The only way is to teach men to pray ; to eliminate those who preach or rhap- sodize or scold or " lament " interminably , to promote gen- eral fervor among the people, and apply to the meeting the or- dinary principles of common sense. — John Hall. And it came to pass that while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus Himself drew near. 476 PREACHING. A short speech with a man behind it, and with truth in it — truth that you back up by your Hfe, that is what is needed in the prayer-meeting. — The National Baptist. PREACHING. Jesus chose this method of extending the knowledge of Him- self throughout the world ; He taught His truth to a few men, and then He said, " Now go and tell that truth to other men." — Phillips Brooks. Remember, there are only a few model preachers. We have read of only one perfect Model, and He was crucified many centuries ago. — C. H. Fowler. The object of preaching is, constantly to remind mankind of what mankind are constantly forgetting ; not to supply the de- fects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of hu- man resolutions ; to recall mankind from the by-paths where they turn, into that broad path of salvation which all know, but few tread. — Sydney Smith. It is easier to declaim like an orator against a thousand sins in others than to mortify one sin in ourselves ; to be more in- dustrious in our pulpits than in our closets ; to preach twenty sermons to our people than one to our own hearts. — John Flavel. Language the most forcible proceeds from the man who is most sincere. The way to speak with power, or to write words that pierce mankind to the quick, is to speak and write honestly. — E. L. Magoon, PREACHING. 477 I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than to be one of the twenty to follow mine own teachings. — Shakspeare. His words had power because they accorded with his thoughts ; and his thoughts had reality and depth because they harmonized with the life he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this preacher uttered ; they were the words of life, because a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been dissolved into the precious draught. — Nathaniel Hawthorne. Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself. — T. L, Cuyler. Always carry with you into the pulpit a sense of the immense consequences which may depend on your full and faithful pres- entation of the truth. — R. S. Storrs. The orator is thereby an orator that he keeps his feet ever on a fact. — R. W. Emerson. Settle in your mind, that no sermon is worth much in which the Lord is not the principal speaker. There may be poetry, refinement, historic truth, moral truth, pathos, and all the charms of rhetoric ; but all will be lost, for the purposes of preaching, if the word of the Lord is not the staple of the dis- course. — John Hall. Every sermon ought to have the doctrine of Christ in it in form or in solution. 478 PREACHING. To get, then, the mind of Christ, and to declare it, is the primary end of the teaching ofifices of the church. The living body of sympathetic men, saturated with the truth and feeling of the Book, must bring it into contact with other men, through that marvelous organ the human voice, and with such aid as comes from the subtle sympathy that pervades assemblies of human beings. — John Hall. Every sermon must have a solid rest in Scripture, and the pointedness which comes of a clear subject, and the conviction which belongs to well-thought argument, and the warmth that proceeds from earnest appeal. — Phillips Brooks. Let us never forget that, to be profited, that is, to be spirit- ually improved in knowledge, faith, holiness, joy, and love, is the end of hearing sermons, and not merely to have our taste gratified by genius, eloquence, and oratory. — John Angel James. The most intelligent hearers are those who enjoy most heart- ily the simplest preaching. It is not they who clamor for su- perlatively intellectual or aesthetic sermons. Daniel Webster used to complain of some of the preaching to which he listened. " In the house of God " he wanted to meditate " upon the sim- ple varieties, and the undoubted facts of religion ;" not upon mysteries and abstractions. — Austin Phelps. Tell men that God is love ; that right is right, and wrong, wrong ; let them cease to admire philanthropy, and begin to love men ; cease to pant for heaven, and begin to love God ; then the spirit of liberty begins. — F. W. Robertson. PREACHING. 479 But even genuine argument for the truth is not preaching the gospel, neither is he whose unbeUef is thus assailed likely to be brought thereby into any mood but one unfit for receiving it. Argument should be kept to books; preachers ought to have noth- ing to do with it, — at all events in the pulpit. There let them hold forth light, and let him, who will, receive it, and him who will not, forbear. God only can convince. — George MacDonald. I would have every minister of the gospel address his audience with the zeal of a friend, with the generous energy of a father, and with the exuberant affection of a mother. — Fenelon. The accent of conviction is made up of a mixture of faith, power, and love combined, forming a characteristic which is at once simple, pious, and grand, redolent of inspiration and sanctity. Here are no fabulous joys and woes; no hollow, fantastic sentimentalities ; no wire-drawn refinings, either in thought or feeling; the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart ; the opinion he utters has risen in his own under- standing, and been a light to his own steps. — T. Carlyle. Direct your arrows at objects without being personal ; come near your hearers. Letters dropped into the post-office without address go to the dead-letter office, and are of no use to any body. — John Hall. I preached right to their consciences, and the result was a great revival of religion came up there; and after that I never heard any thing about infidelity. — Lyman Beecher. 480 PREACHING. I like to go and hear Rowland Hill, because his ideas come red-hot from the heart. — R. B. Sheridan. The truth is, no preaching ever had any strong power that was not the preaching of doctrine. The preachers that have moved and held men have always preached doctrine. No ex- hortation to a good life that does not put behind it some truth as deep as eternity can seize and hold the conscience. Preach doctrine, preach all the doctrine that you know, and learn for- ever more and more; but preach it always, not that men may believe it, but that they may be saved by believing it. — Phillips Brooks. To preach practical sermons as they are called, that is, ser- mons upon virtues and vices, without inculcating those great Scripture truths of redemption, grace, etc., which alone can in- cite and enable us to forsake sin and follow after righteousness, what is it but to put together the wheels, and set the hands of a watch, forgetting the spring, which is to make them all go ? — Bishop Horne. Avoid all controversy in preaching, talking, or writing ; preach nothing down but the devil, and nothing up but Jesus Christ. — Berridge. The old fable tells us of a boy who mounted a scavenger's cart with base intent to throw dirt at the moon ; whereat another boy, with better intentions, but scarcely less folly, came running with a basin of water to wash the moon, and make its face clean again. Certain skeptics are forever inventing new infidelities with which they endeavor to defile the fair face of the gospel, and many ministers forsake the preaching of Christ and Him crucified, to answer their endless quibbles ; to both of these the ancient fable may be instructive. PREACHING. 481 If the truth were known, many sermons are prepared and preached with more regard for the sermon than the souls of the hearers. — George F. Pentecost. His admired discourses remind me of the colored shavings with which we fill empty grates in the summer time. — Lynch. Elegance of language must give way before simplicity in preaching sound doctrine. — Savonarola. Embellish truth only with a view to gain it the more full and free admission into your hearer's minds ; and your ornaments will, in that case, be simple, masculine, natural. — Blair, Style should be like window-glass, perfectly transparent, and with very little sash. — Emmons. Style is the gossamer on which the seeds of truth float through the world. — George Bancroft. The greatest thoughts are wronged, if not linked to beauty ; and they win their way most surely and deeply into the soul when arranged in this their natural and fit attire. — W. E. Channing. You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive ; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and as- sociation, with beauty and power, — RuFus Choate, 31 482 PREACHING. John Bunyan, while he had a surpassing genius, would not condescend to cull his language from the garden of flowers ; but he went into the hayfield and the meadow, and plucked up his language by the roots, and spoke out in the words that the people used in their cottages. — C. H. Spurgeon. The great bell of Moscow is too large to be hung, the ques- tion arises, what was the use of making it ? Some preachers are so learned that they cannot make themselves understood, or else cannot bring their minds to preach plain, gospel sermons ; here, too, the same question might be asked. — C. H. Spurgeon. It is a great mistake to think any thing too profound or rich for a popular audience. No train of thought is too deep, or sub- tle, or grand — but the manner of presenting it to their untu- tored minds should be peculiar. It should be presented in anecdote, or sparkling truism, or telling illustration, or stinging epithet ; always in some concrete form, never in a logical, ab- stract, syllogistic shape. — RuFUS Choate. In general, rely mainly on Scriptural arguments, and prefer those that are plain and unquestionable. — Broadus. The text should sustain, suggest, and give tone to the ser- mon. The main thought of the text should usually be the main thought of the sermon. A text must not be a pretext. — John Hall. Never confine yourself to the contemplation of themes. Make themes your means for reaching persons ; and give the mind force by giving it concentration. PREACHING. 483 When a preacher was censured by his brethren for the bad habit of exaggeration, he assured them he had " often bitterly repented of it; it had cost him barrels of tears." For such a case there is no cure. — The New York Observer. Whether you do your work with notes or without them, do it courageously, earnestly, with devotion ; with a glad sense of the greatness of it, and a full consecration of every force and faculty to it. — R. S. Storrs. We doubt whether a man ever brings his faculties to bear with their whole force on a subject, until he writes upon it. — W. E. Channing. A leading Welsh minister — and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers — was invited to preach an anniver- sary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Na- turally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. " Should I read my sermon ? " "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." " But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." " No, that is true ; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire." — John Hall. If any of you ever go into the pulpit " simply upon the cold legs of custom," be very careful to take a manuscript with you. But if you go to speak to the assembly because your mind is full of the truth, and you long to impart that truth to them, for their sake and for God's sake, — then charge your mind with it, and speak with all the force you can give it, without any notes. — R. S. Storrs. 484 PREJUDICE — PRIDE. I verily believe that the kingdom of God advances more on spoken words than it does on essays written and read ; on words, that is, in which the present feeling and thought of the teaching mind break into natural and forceful expression. — R. S. Storrs. Let the sermon thou hast heard be converted into prayer, — John Bunyan. Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing. No conversions after the first Jialf hour. — Emmons. PREJUDICE. When we destroy an old prejudice, we have need of a new virtue. — Madame de Stael. PRIDE. Pride is the master sin of the devil. E. H. Chapin. Pride is not the heritage of man ; humility should dwell with frailty, and atone for ignorance, error, and imperfection. — Sydney Smith. There is no passion that steals into the heart more imper- ceptibly and covers itself under more disguises than pride. — Addison. It is with men as with wheat ; the light heads are erect even in the presence of Omnipotence, but the full heads bow in rev- erence before Him. — Joseph Cook. PRIDE. 485 We rise in glory as we sink in pride. — Young. Pride breakfasted with Plenty, dined with Poverty, and sup- ped with Infamy. — Franklin. Pride looks back upon its past deeds, and calculating with nicety what it has done, it commits itself to rest ; whereas hu- mility looks to that which is before, and discovering how much ground remains to be trodden, it is active and vigilant. Hav- ing gained one height, pride looks down with complacency on that which is beneath it ; humility looks up to a higher and yet higher elevation. The one keeps us on this earth, which is congenial to its nature ; the other directs our eye, and tends to lift us up to heaven. — James McCosh. Pride is the growth of blindness and darkness ; humility, the product of light and knowledge ; and whilst pride has its origin in a mistaken or delusive estimate of things, humility is as much the offspring of truth as the parent of virtue. Spiritual pride is the worst of all pride, if it is not the Avorst snare of the devil. The heart is peculiarly deceitful on just this one thing. — IcHABOD Spencer. If thou desire the love of God and man, be humble ; for the proud heart as it loves none but itself, so it is beloved of none but itself. The voice of humility is God's music, and the silence of humility is God's rhetoric. Humility enforces where neither virtue nor strength can prevail, nor reason. — Francis Quarles. Where boasting ends, there dignity begins. 486 PROCRASTINATION — PROFANITY. Sinners, remember this : It is not so much the sense of your unworthiness as your pride that keeps you from a blessed closing with the Saviour. — Thomas Brooks. Of all the marvelous works of God, perhaps there is nothing that angels behold with such astonishment as a proud man. C. C. COLTON. By ignorance is pride increased ; They most assume who know the least. — John Gay. He who thinks his place below him will certainly be below his place. — Sir H. Savile. PROCRASTINATION. God has promised forgiveness to your repentance ; but He has not promised to-morrow to your procrastination. — St. Augustine. Faith in to-morrow instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse for man's perdition. — Geo. B. Cheever. Do you want to learn holiness with terrible struggles and sore affliction and the plague of much remaining evil ? Then wait before you turn to God. . — F. W. Robertson. PROFANITY. Nothing is a greater sacrilege than to prostitute the great name of God to the petulance of an idle tongue. REASON. 487 The foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing is a vice so mean and low, that every person of sense and character detests and despises it. — George Washington. One cause of atheism is, a custom of scoffing in holy matters, which doth by little and little deface the reverence of religion. — Francis Bacon. R. REASON. The light of reason ever gleams on the margin of an unmeas- ured and unmeasurable ocean of mystery ; and however far we push our discoveries, the line of light only moves on, and has infinite and unfathomable darkness beyond it. — Henry Giles. Polished steel will not shine in the dark. No more can reason^ however refined or cultivated, shine efficaciously but as it reflects the light of Divine truth shed from heaven. — John Foster. What a return do we make for those blessings we have re- ceived ! How disrespectfully do we treat the gospel of Christ to which we owe that clear light both of reason and of nature, which we now enjoy, when we endeavor to set up reason and nature in opposition to it ! Ought the withered hand which Christ has restored and made whole to be lifted up against Him ? — Bishop Sherlock. Water cannot rise higher than its source, neither can human reason. — Coleridge. 488 REDEiMPTION. Religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon ; faith is then but its con- tinuation, even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight ; and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness. — Coleridge. It cannot discover any independent truth ; it has absolutely no function until truth, derived from some other source, is given for it to work upon. You can never get out of it what you did not first put into it. If man is to know any thing at all, that knowledge must come from some other source than reason. — Sunday-School Times. Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glo- rious. But when the question is, " How shall man be just with God ?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak ; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain ; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself. — Henry Melvill. Here is the manliness of manhood, that a man has a reason for what he does, and has a will in doing it. — Alexander Maclaren. REDEMPTION. O, if there be any kind of life most sad, and deepest in the scale of pity, it is the dry, cold impotence of one, who has hon- estly set to the work of his own self-redemption. — Horace Bushnell. The contrivance of our redemption is the most glorious dis- play of Divine love that ever was made, or ever can be made to the children of men. REDEMPTION. 489 Underneath all the arches of Scripture history, throughout the whole grand temple of the Scriptures, these two voices ever echo, man is ruined, man is redeemed. — C. D. Foss. Christ is redemption only as He actually redeems and de- livers our nature from sin. If He is not the law and spring of a new spirit of life, He is nothing. "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God," — as many, no more. — Horace Bushnell. By Christ's purchasing redemption, two things are intended, His satisfaction, and His merit. All is done by the price that Christ lays down, which does two things : it pays our debt, and so it satisfies ; by its intrmsic value, and by the agreement be- tween the Father and the Son it procures our title, and so it merits. The satisfaction of Christ is to free us from misery, and the merit of Christ is to purchase happiness for us. — Jonathan Edwards. Whatever in Christ had the nature of satisfaction, was by vir- tue of His suffering or humiliation ; whatever had the nature of merit, was by virtue of His obedience or righteousness. — Jonathan Edwards. As God carries on the work of converting the souls of fallen men through all ages, so He goes on to justify them, to blot out all their sins, and to accept them as righteous in His sight through the righteousness of Christ. He goes on to adopt and receive them from being the children of Satan to be His own children, to carry on the work of His grace which He has be- gun in them, to comfort them with the consolations of His Spirit, and to bestow upon them, when their bodies die, that eternal glory which is the fruit of Christ's purchase. — Jonathan Edwards. 490 REGENERATION. We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ, by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. Westminster Catechism, Look, therefore, which way we will, whether at the direct Scriptural statements of death as the penalty of sin, or at the agony of the cross as a means of rescue, or ac the joy of the angels of God over a rescue ; we see from either that it must be a work of infinite and eternal consequence — the work of re- demption. — Herrick Johnson. What a memorable epoch that will be when Jesus Christ shall have vacated the throne of mercy ! What an awful event in the history of our universe will that be when the dispensation that cost so much, that lasted so long, when that shall cease, when that shall disappear and be no more at all in the universe of God Almighty! It seems to me the very thought ought to start every sinner to his feet in a moment ! Lord Jesus, help ! that we may embrace the offered mercy! — Bishop Daggett. REGENERATION. Regeneration is God's disposing the heart to Himself ; con- version is the actual turning of the heart to God. — Richard Cecil. I never wish to be more charitable than Christ I find it written : " Except a man be born again, he cannot see the king- dom of God." — C. H. Spurgeon. You are sons because born again, or slaves and enemies be- cause of wicked works. REGENERATION. 491 Creed, or the belief in a certain amount of doctrine, has made Christendom, but never made a Christian. " Ye must be born again." — W. P. Mackay. Embrace in one act the two truths — thine own sin, and God's infinite mercy in Jesus Christ. — Alexander Maclaren. While the agent of renovation is the Divine Spirit, and the condition of renovation ii? our cleaving to Christ, the medium of renovation and the weapon which the transforming grace em- ploys is " the word of the truth of the gospel," whereby we are sanctified. — Alexander Maclaren. The regeneration of a sinner is an evidence of power in the highest sphere — moral nature ; with the highest prerogative — to change nature ; and operating to the highest result — not to create originally, which is great ; but to create anew, which is greater. — William Arthur. Regeneration is the beginning of holiness in the soul, and ad- mits of no progression ; sanctification is carried on progress- ively in the heart of the renewed, and will be continued until it is completed in the concluding moment of life. — Charles Backus. One has said that Christ excelled all other moralists in this, that He puts the padlock not upon the hand, but upon the heart. But He does not use the padlock at all, He renders such a thing unnecessary. He takes the tiger from the heart, and replaces it with the lamb. — Edward Thomson. 492 REJECTION OF CHRIST. Regeneration is, we know, instantaneous ; but the steps that lead to it are often very gradual ; and none of them, so far as we can see, can be spared. — T. W. Chambers. Do you think that a man is renewed by God's Spirit, when except for a few religious phrases, and a little more outside re- spectability, he is just the old man, the same character at heart he ever was ? — Charles KiNGSLEY. A man may beat down the bitter fruit from an evil tree until he is weary ; whilst the root abides in strength and vigor, the beating down the present fruit will not hinder it from brirtging forth more. — John Owen. REJECTION OF CHRIST. How great is your sin in rejecting Jesus Christ! You slight the glorious Person for whose coming God made such great preparation in such a series of wonderful providences from the beginning of the world, bringing to pass a thing before unknown, the union of the Divine nature with the human in one person. You have been guilty of slighting that great Saviour, who, after such preparation, actually accomplished the purchase of redemp- tion, and who, after He had spent three or four and thirty years in poverty, labor, and contempt, in purchasing redemption, at last finished the purchase by closing His life under such ex- treme sufferings ; and so by His death, and continuing for a time under the power of death, completed the whole. This is the Saviour you reject and despise. You make light of all the glory of His person, and of all the love of God the Father in sending Him into the world, and all His wonderful love appear- ing in the whole of His work. — Jonathan Edwards. RELIGION. 493 The message of love can never come into a human soul, and pass away from it unreceived, without leaving that spirit worse, with all its lowest characteristics strengthened, and all its best ones depressed, by the fact of rejection. — Alexander Maclaren. RELIGION. The ground of all religion, that which makes it possible, is the relation in which the human soul stands to God. — J. C. Shairp. Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to His throne. — Daniel Webster. Religion is faith in an infinite Creator, who delights in and enjoins that rectitude which conscience commands us to seek. This conviction gives a Divine sanction to duty. — W. E. Channing. In whatever light we view religion it appears solemn and venerable. It is a temple full of majesty, to which the wor- shiper may approach with comfort, in the hope of obtaining grace and finding mercy ; but where they cannot enter without being inspired with awe. If we may be permitted to compare spiritual with natural things, religion resembles not those scenes of natural beauty where every object smiles. It cannot be likened to the gay landscape or the flowery field. It resem- bles more the august and sublime appearances of Nature — the lofty mountain, the expanded ocean, and the starry firma- ment ; at the sight of which the mind is at once overawed and delighted ; and, from the union of grandeur with beauty, de- rives a pleasing but a serious devotion. — Blair. 494 RELIGION. Religion is the answer to that cry of Reason which nothing can silence, that aspiration of the soul which no created thing can meet, that want of the heart which all creation cannot sup- ply. — I. T. Hecker. Religion to be permanently influential must be intelligent. — E. L. Magoon. Religion, in its purity, is not so much a pursuit as a temper ; or rather it is a temper, leading to the pursuit of all that is high and holy. Its foundation is faith ; its action, works ; its tem- per, holiness ; its aim, obedience to God in improvement of self, and benevolence to men. — Jonathan Edwards. Religion is such a belief of the Bible as maintains a living influence on the heart. — Richard Cecil. Too soon did the doctors of the church forget that the heart — the moral nature — was the beginning and the end, and that truth, knowledge, and insight were comprehended in its expan- sion. — S. T. Coleridge. By religion I mean perfected manhood, — the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit. — H. W. Beecher. Our religious needs are our deepest needs. There is no peace till they are satisfied and contented. The attempt to stifle them is in vain. If their cry be drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. They must be answered. — I. T. Hecker. RELIGION. 495 The true office of religion is to bring out the whole nature of man in harmonious activity. — W. E. Channing. The true religion of Jesus Christ our Saviour is that which penetrates, and which receives all the warmth of the heart, and all the elevation of the soul, and all the energies of the under- standing, and all the strength of the will. — Dean Stanley. Religion is- not mere truth, gained by study, and retained by watchfulness in the soul. It is truth translated into actions, embodied in life. A religion that never suffices to govern a man, will never suffice to save him. That which does not distinguish him from a sinful world, will never distinguish him from a perishing world. — John Howe. No man's religion ever survives his morals. — South. Religion is the best armor in the world, but the w^orst cloak. — Newton. Religion is not a perpetual moping over good books. Re- ligion is not even prayer, praise, holy ordinances, — these are necessary to religion — no man can be religious without them. But religion is mainly and chiefly the glorifying God amid the duties and trials of the world ; the guiding of our course amid adverse winds and currents of temptation by the sunlight of duty and the compass of Divine truth, the bearing up manfully, wisely, courageously, for the honor of Christ, our great Leader, in the conflict of life. — John Caird. 496 RELIGION, Religion is no dry morality ; no slavish, punctilious conform- ing of actions to a hard law. Religion is not right thinking alone, nor right emotion alone, nor right action alone. Re- ligion is still less the semblance of these in formal profession, or simulated feeling, or apparent rectitude. Religion is not nominal connection with the Christian community, nor partici- pation in its ordinances and its worship. But to be godly is to be godlike. — Alexander Maclaren. Human things must be known to be loved ; but Divine things must be loved to be known. — Pascal. True religion is not what men see and admire ; it is what God sees and loves ; the faith which clings to Jesus in the darkest hour ; the sanctity which shrinks from the approach of evil ; the humility which lies low at the feet of the Redeemer, and washes them with tears ; the love which welcomes every sacrifice ; the cheerful consecration of all the powers of the soul ; the worship which, rising above all_ outward forms, as- cends to God in the sweetest, dearest communion — a worship often too deep for utterance, and than which the highest heaven knows nothing more sublime. — Richard Fuller. I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich ; and if they had not that, and I had given them all the world, they would be poor. — Patrick Henry. The call to religion is not to be better than your fellows, but to be better than yourself. RELIGION. 497 O Heavenly Father, convert my religion from a name to a principle ! Bring all my thoughts and movements into an habitual reference to Thee! — Thomas Chalmers. When we take our last remove, I fear that we shall find that a great deal which we call religion, and which we were at the trouble of lugging about with us through our whole pilgrimage, is perfectly worthless, fit only to be burned. — Wm. Goodell. Is religion one of the fine arts, that it should consist simply in going to meeting in good clothes every Sunday, saying grace at table, and praying night and morning? Are we so literally a flock that we have nothing to do but to be fed all the year, yielding only the annual fleece which forms our pastor's salary? — J. G. Holland. The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obe- dience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and an imitation of His perfections. — Edmund Burke. The sum and substance of the preparation needed for a coming eternity is that you believe what the Bible tells you, and do what the Bible bids you. — Chalmers. Carry religious principles into common life, and common life will lose its transitoriness. The world passes away. The things seen are temporal. Soon business, with all its cares and anx- ieties, the whole " unprofitable stir and fever of the world " will be to us a thing of the past. But religion does something better than sigh and moan over the perishableness of earthly things. It finds in them the seeds of immortality. — John Cairo. ?,2 498 RELIGION. How admirable is that religion which, while it seems to have in view only the felicity of another world, is at the same time the highest happiness of this. — Montesquieu. Religious faith and purpose are the only certain safeguards against the growing perils of life. So far as there has been among educated men a decline of loyalty to Christ and His gos- pel, there has been a decline in those qualities which claim con- fidence and honor, which insure unblemished reputation, which minister to social well-being, and to the integrity and purity of public life. — A. P. Peabody. It is only religion, the great bond of love and duty to God, that makes any existence valuable or even tolerable. Without this, to live were only to graze. Without this, the beauties of the world are but splendid gewgaws, the stars of heaven glitter- ing orbs of ice, and, what is yet far worse and colder, the trials of existence profitless and unadulterated miseries. — Horace Bushnell. Remove from the history of the past all those actions which have either sprung directly from the religious nature of man, or been modified by it, and you have the history of another world and of another race. — Mark Hopkins. It was religion, which, by teaching men their near relation to God, awakened in them the consciousness of their importance as individuals. It was the struggle for religious rights, which opened their eyes to all their rights. It was resistance to re- ligious usurpation, which led men to withstand political oppres- sion. It was religious discussion, which roused the minds of all classes to free and vigorous thought. — W. E. Channing. RELIGION. 499 The men that history enshrines in her pages, the men whose memories are embahiied in the hearts of their fellows for all ages, were men who placed unfaltering trust in the loftiest con- victions of the soul, and consecrated life and death to their realization. — I. T. Hecker. It is the very nature and essence of religion to raise men, peoples, and nations above the common level of life, to break through its ordinary bounds, and express itself in a thousand ways, in poetry, painting, music, sculpture, and in every other form of ideal expression. The splendid monuments of the genius and greatness of by-gone ages are the monuments in- spired by their religion. — I. T. Hecker. One must build to the praise of a Being above, to build the noblest memorial of himself. Then, Angelo may verily " hang the Pantheon in the air." Then the unknown builder, whose personality disappears in his work, may stand an almost inspired mediator between the upward-looking thought and the spheres overhead. Each line then leaps with a swift aspiration, as the vast structure rises, in nave and transept into pointed arch and vanishing spire. The groined roof grows dusky with majestic glooms ; while, beneath, the windows flame, as with apocalyptic light of jewels. Angelic presences, sculptured upon the portal, invite the wayfarer, and wave before him their wings of promise. Within is a worship which incense only clouds, which spoken sermons only mar. The building itself becomes a worship, a Gloria in Excelsis, articulate in stone ; the noblest tribute of- fered on earth, by any art, to Him from whom its impulse came, and with the ineffable majesty of whose spirit all skies are filled. — R. S. Storrs. Religion converts despair, which destroys, into resignation, which submits. 500 RELIGION. What but the mighty mastership of rehgion has ever led a people up through civil wars and revolutions into a regenerated order and liberty ? What has planted colonies for a great his- tory but religion ? The most august and beautiful structures of the world have been temples of religion, crystallizations, we may say, of worship. The noblest charities, the best fruits of learning, the richest discoveries, the best institutions of law and justice, every greatest thing the world has seen, represents more or less directly the fruitfulness and creativeness of religion. — Horace Bushnell. All noblest things are religious, — not temples and martyr- doms only, but the best books, pictures, poetry, statues,- and music. — Wm. Mountford. Other religions have risen and decayed ; Christ's comes down the ages in the strength of youth, through the seas of popular commotion, like the Spirit of God on the face of the waters, through the storms of philosophy, like an apocalyptic angel, and through all the wilderness of human thought and action, like the pillar of fire before the camp of the Israelites. — Edward Thomsox. The heathen mythology not only was not true, but was not even supported as true ; it not only deserved no faith, but it demanded none. The very pretension to truth, the very de- mand of faith, were characteristic distinctions of Christianity. — Whately. Beware of a religion of mere sentiment which gazes and sighs and wishes, but makes no sacrifice, which hides the cross with flowers, and wears it over, but not within the heart. Beware of a religion which costs you nothing, never rises an hour earlier, never denies itself a pleasure, never gives that which it will miss, for the sake of Christ and the soul. RELIGION. 501 If you are seeking the comforts of religion rather than the glory of our Lord, you are on the wrong track. The Comforter meets us unsought in the path of duty. There is something in religion, when rightly comprehended, that is masculine and grand. It removes those little desires which are the constant hectic of a fool. — Richard Cecil. Let a man be firmly principled in his religion, he may travel from the tropics to the poles, it will never catch cold on the journey. — Wm. M. Punshon. The way to judge of religion is by doing our duty. Religion is rather a Divine life than a Divine knowledge. In heaven, in- deed, we must first see, and then love ; but here, on earth, we must first love, and love will open our eyes as well as our hearts, and we shall then see and perceive and understand. — Jeremy Taylor. To judge religion we must have it — not stare at it from the bottom of a seemingly interminable ladder. — George MacDonald. The spirit of true religion breathes gentleness and affability ; it gives a native, unaffected ease to the behavior ; it is social, kind, cheerful ; far removed from the cloudy and illiberal dis- position which clouds the brow, sharpens the temper, and de- jects the spirit. — Blair. It is the half-way religion that undoes the professing world. The heart can never be at unity with itself till it is wholly cen- tered in God. 502 RELIGION. Religion gives to virtue the sweetest hopes, to unrepenting vice just alarms, to true repentance the most powerful conso- lations ; but she endeavors above all things to inspire in men love, meekness, and piety. — Montesquieu. Nothing exposes religion more to the reproach of its enemies than the worldliness and half-heartedness of the professors of It. — Matthew Henry. Men use religion just as they use buoys and life-preservers ; they do not intend to navigate the vessel with them, but they keep just enough of them on hand to float into a safe harbor when a storm comes up and the vessel is shipwrecked ; and it is only then that they intend to use them. I tell you, you will find air-holes in all such life-preservers as that. . — Porter. There is a great deal too much in the world, of the " heav- enly-mindedness " which expends itself in the contemplation of the joys of paradise, which performs no duty which it can shirk, and whose constant prayer is to be lifted in some over- whelming flood of Divine grace, and be carried, amidst the ad- miration of men and the jubilance of angels, to the very throne of God. — H. Clay Trumbull. The religion of some people is constrained ; like the cold bath when it is used, not for pleasure, but from necessity, for health, into which one goes with reluctance, and is glad when able to get out. But religion to the true believer is like water to a fish. It is his element. He lives in it, and could not live out of it. — John Newton. RELIGION. 503 With many people, religion is merely a matter of words. So far as words go we do what we think right. But the words rarely lead to action, thought, and conduct, or to purity, good- ness, and honesty. There is too much playing at religion, and too little of enthusiastic, hard work. — Samuel Smiles. You have no security for a man who has no religious princi- ple. — Richard Cobden. There are men who stalk about the world gloomy and stiff and severe — self-righteous embodiments of the mischievous heresy that the religion of peace and good-will to all mankind — the religion of love and hope and joy, the religion that bathes the universal human soul in the light of paternal love, and opens to mankind the gates of immortality — is a religion of terror — men guilty of misrepresenting Christ to the world, and doing incalculable damage to His cause. — J. G. Holland. Men will wrangle for religion ; write for it ; fight for it ; die for it ; any thing but — live for it. COLTON. Too much is said in these days about the aesthetics of religion and its sensibilities. Religion's home is in the conscience. Its watchword is the word "ought." Its highest joy is in doing God's will. — T. L. CUYLER. They who seek religion for culture's sake are aesthetic, not re- ligious, and will never gain that grace which religion adds to culture, because they never can have the religion. — J. C. Shairp. 504 RELIGION. The belief in a Divine education, open to each man and to all men, takes up into itself all that is true in the end proposed by culture, supplements, and perfects it. — J- C. Shairp, To rely on intellectual methods for the direct advance of de- vout thoughts is to mistake philosophy for religion. — James Martineau. Religion is the only metaphysics that the multitude can un- derstand and adopt. — Joseph Joubert. Man without religion is the creature of circumstances. Re- ligion is above all circumstances, and will lift him up above them. — Guesses at Truth. Educate men without religion, and you make them but clever devils. — Duke of Wellington. It seems to me a great truth, that human things cannot stand on selfishness, mechanical utilities, economies, and law courts; that if there be not a religious element in the relations of men, such relations are miserable, and doomed to ruin. — Carlvle. Who ever heard of a devout deist .-" Who ever heard of one who was willing to spend his life in missionary labor for the good of others .' It is not according to the constitution of the mind that such a system should awaken the affections. And what is true of this system is true of every false system. All such sys- tems leave the heart cold, and, accordingly, exert very little genuine, transforming power over the life. — Mark Hopkins. REPENTANCE. 505 Religion may enter a pothouse as a minister of good, but it may not lay aside its dignity to argue its rights and claims there. The moment that it does this it is shorn of its power. — J. G. Holland. Who does not know out of his own heart, that he never was reasoned into holy wonder, love, or reverence ? and who can fail to observe that there is no fixed proportion between force of un- derstanding and clearness or depth of religion ? — -James Martineau. You have respect for religion ! How vastly condescending ! How deeply humble ! The creature has a respect for the service of the Creator ! A grasshopper deigns to acknowledge that it has a respect for the King of kings and Lord of lords ! Verily a subject of congratulation for the universe ! A worm crawling in the dust confesses to its fellow worm that it has some respect for the government of the high and mighty One that inhabiteth eternity. — Dr. Muhlenberg. REPENTANCE. True repentance consists in the heart being broken for sin and broken from sin. — Thornton. Of all acts is not, for a man, repentance the most divine ? The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. — Carlyle. While repentance is indispensable to eternal life, we are not to regard it in the light of a price paid for its possession. It is not an expiatory grace, or a compensation for moral indebted- ness. — George C. Lorimer. 506 REPENTANCE. The Scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance is not, that a man must repent in order to his being qualified to go to Christ ; it is rather, that he must go to Christ in order to his being able to repent. From Him comes the grace of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation. — Henry Melvill. True repentance has as its constituent elements not only grief and hatred of sin, but also an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. It hates the sin, and not simply the penalty ; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered God's love. — Wm. M. Taylor. Not all the drops the human eye can shed will ever quench the fires or blot out the guilt of sin. Do not, I pray you, be de- ceived on this point ; do not permit yourselves to harbor the delusion that the rain-showers from your beclouded eyes can ever fertilize the barren soul, and cause it to blossom as the rose. — George C. Lorimer. To grieve over sin is one thing, to repent is another. — F. W. Robertson. The law stops every man's mouth. God will have a man humble himself down on his face before Him, with not a word to say for himself. Then God will speak to him, when he owns that he is a sinner, and gets rid of all his own righteousness. — D. L. Moody. It is one thing to mourn for sin because it exposes us to hell, and another to mourn for it because it is an infinite evil. It is one thing to mourn for it because it is injurious to ourselves ; another, to mourn for it because it is offensive to God, It is one thing to be terrified ; another, to be humbled. — Gardiner Spring. REPENTANCE. 507 No man ever truly repented, and turned away from all his sins, until by faith he accepted the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross. — Henry Darling. Repentance is getting out of one train and getting into the other. You are in the wrong train ; you are in the broad path that takes you down to the pit of hell. Get out of it to-day. Right-about-face. — D. L. Moody. Repentance can never become a substitute for obedience, neither can it, of itself alone, constitute a just ground for pardon. Repentance does not consist in one single act of sorrow, though that, being the first and leading act, gives denomination to the whole ; but in doing works meet for repentance, in a sin- cere obedience to the law of Christ for the remainder of our lives. — Locke. It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such dejnons as selfishness, worldliness, and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct. T. L. CUYLER. The true penitent sees that he has broken God's holy law, and resisted the claims of his rightful Sovereign. The thought that most deeply affects him is, that he has sinned against God. In comparison with this, his other crimes vanish to nothing. The language of his heart is, " Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned." — Gardiner Spring. 508 "REPENTANCE. A heart renewed — a loving heart — a penitent and humble heart — a heart broken and contrite, purified by love — that and only that is the rest of men. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life is the highest that belongs to man. — F. W. Robertson. My Saviour, mid life's varying scene Be Thou my stay ; Guide me, through each perplexing path, To perfect day. In weakness and in sin I stand ; Still faith can clasp Thy mighty hand, And follow at Thy dear command. My Saviour, I have nought to bring Worthy of Thee ; A broken heart Thou wilt not spurn ; Accept of me. I need Thy righteousness Divine, I plead Thy promises as mine, I perish if I am not Thine. — Elizabeth A. E. Godwin. Repentance is true and genuine, if we are grieved for sin as it is offensive to God, if we are forsaking and turning from it both in heart and life, and, particularly, if we are deeply affected with the sin of unbelief. — Fisher's Catechisini. Place not thy amendment only in increasing thy devotion, but in bettering thy life. This is the damning hypocrisy of this age ; that it slights all good morality, and spends its zeal in matters of ceremony, and a form of godliness without the power of it. — Fuller. REPENTANCE. 509 Holy practice is the most decisive evidence of the reaUty of our repentance. "Bring forth fruits meet for repentance." — Jonathan Edwards. True repentance is to cease from sin. — St. Ambrose. 'Tis to bewail the sins thou didst commit ; And not commit those sins thou hast bewailed. He that bewails, and not forsakes them too, Confesses rather what he means to do. — Francis Quarles. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience. — Westminster Catechism. We believe that repentance and faith are sacred duties, and also inseparable graces, wrought in our souls by the regenera- ting Spirit of God, whereby being deeply convinced of our guilt, danger, and helplessness, and ofthe way of salvation by Christ, we turn to God with unfeigned contrition, confession, and sup- plication for mercy ; at the same time heartily receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as our Prophet, Priest, and King, and rely- ing on Him alone as the only and all-sufhcient Saviour. — Baptist Church Manual. God has promised to forgive the penitent. He has pledged His word that the act of forgiveness on His part shall follow the exercise of repentance on yours. Returning prodigal, par- doning mercy is thine. It is as sure as the sincerity of thy repentance. 510 REPENTANCE. Come back then, O, thou prodigal, to thy Father. Quit thy sad folly and emptiness, thy reproaches of soul, thy diseased longings, and thy restless sighs. Return again to thy God, and give thyself to Him in a final and last sacrifice. Conquer again, as Christ will help you, the original love, in that to abide and rest. — Horace Bushnell. Perhaps yours is a very remorseful past — a foolish, frivolous, disgraceful, frittered past. Well, Christ says, " My servant, be sad," but no languor; there is work to be doije forme yet — rise up, be going ! Oh, my brethren, Christ takes your wretched remnants of life — the feeble pulses of a heart which has spent its best hours not for Him, but for self and for enjoy- ment, and in His strange love He condescends to accept them. — F. W. Robertson. With the blood of Christ to wash away the darkest guilt, and the Spirit of God to sanctify the vilest, and strengthen the weak- est nature, I despair of none. Too late ! It is never too late. Even old age, tottering to the grave beneath the weight of seventy years and a great load of guilt, may retrace its steps and begin life anew. Hope falls like a sunbeam on the hoary head. I have seen the morning rise cold and gloomy, and the sky grow thicker, and the rain fall faster as the hours wore on; yet, ere he set in night, the sun, bursting through heavy clouds, has broken out to illumine the landscape and shed a flood of glory on the dying day, — Thomas Guthrie. Nor alms, nor deeds, that I have done, Can for a single sin atone ; To Calvary alone I flee ; O God ! be merciful to me. — C. Elven. REPUTATION -RESIGNATION. 511 There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded — the penitent thief — that no one should despair ; and only one, that no one should presume. — St. Augustine. REPUTATION. The two most precious things this side the grave are our reputation and our life. C. C. COLTON. It is a maxim with me that no man was ever written out of reputation but by himself. — Richard Bentley. " Thou shalt not get found out " is not one of God's com- mandments, and no man can be saved by trying to keep it. — Leonard Bacon. RESIGNATION. Thy way, not mine, O Lord, However dark it be ! Lead me by Thine own hand ; Choose out the path for me. — Horatius Bonar. What is resignation ? It is putting God between one's self and one's grief. — Madame Swetchine. Depend upon it, in the midst of all the science about the world and its way and all the ignorance of God and His great- ness, the man or woman who can say, " Thy will be done," with the true heart of giving up, is nearer the secret of things than the geologist and theologian. 512 RESIGNATION. Teach us to submit ourselves to Thy chastenings, believing Thy love in them all. Thou hast given us Christ, and in Him eternal life. Oh, how can we think Thou wouldst withhold from us any thing else if it were good for us ! Lord, let us not choose for ourselves. Choose Thou for us in Thy wisdom and love, and let our hearts approve Thy choice. Be Thou our por- tion, our light, and our joy in Christ Jesus. Help us ever watchfully to cherish a meek and quiet spirit, ever looking unto Him who was meek and lowly of heart, that we may find rest unto our souls. ' — Hall's Family Prayers. 0 Lord, my God, do Thou Thy holy will, I will lie still. 1 will not stir, lest I forsake Thine arm. And break the charm Which lulls me, clinging to my Father's breast. To perfect rest. Give, O Lord, what Thou commandest, and then command what Thou wilt. — St. Augustine. We are content to take what Thou shalt give. To work or suffer as Thy choice shall be ; Forsaking what Thy wisdom bids us leave. Glad in the thought that Ave are pleasing Thee. — Eva Travers. Resignation, — not to a whirlwind of inexorable forces, not to powers that cannot see or hear or feel, but to One who lives forever, and who loves us well, and who has given us all that we have, ay, life itself, that we may at His bidding freely give it back to Him. H. P. LiDDON. RESIGNATION. 513 I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet. — Rutherford. "A little way !" — this sentence I repeat. Hoping and longing to extract some sweet To mingle with the bitter ; from Thy hand I take the cup I cannot understand, And in my weakness give myself to Thee. Strike ! Thou the Master, we Thy keys, The anthem of the destinies ! The minor of Thy loftier strain. Our hearts shall breathe the old refrain — " Thy will be done !" — John G. Whittier. Jesus knows that we had rather labor than suffer ; and that we would rather labor and suffer, too, than be laid aside. No man is fit to rise up and labor, until he is made willing to lie still and suffer as long as his Master pleases. — Edward Payson. I take this pain, Lord Jesus, From Thine own hand ; The strength to bear it bravely Thou wilt command. I am too weak for effort, So let me rest, In hush of sweet submission On Thine own breast. — F. R. Havergal. It is resignation and contentment that are best calculated to lead us safely through life. ' -i" 514 REST. And I said in underbreath — All our life is mixed with death, — And who knoweth which is best ? And I smiled to think God's greatness Flowed around our ijicompleteness, — Round our restlessness, His rest. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. I cannot speak In happy tones ; the tear drops on my cheek Show I am sad ; But I can speak Of grace to suffer with submission meek, Until made glad. I cannot feel That all is well, when dark'ning clouds conceal The shining sun ; But then I know God lives and loves ; and say, since it is so, " Thy will be done.'" — F. G. Browning. Wait, then, my soul ! submissive wait. Prostrate before His awful seat ; And 'mid the terrors of His rod, Trust in a wise and gracious God ! — Beddome. REST. When shall I be at rest ? My eyes grow dim With straining through the gloom ; I scarce can see The way-marks that my Saviour left for me. Would it were morning and the night were gone. REST. 515 If thou seek rest in this life, how wilt thou then attain to the everlasting rest ? Dispose not thyself for much rest, but for great patience. Seek true peace — not in earth, but in heaven; not in men, nor in any other creature, but in God alone. — Thomas a Kempis. Rest is not quitting This busy career ; Rest is the fitting Of self to its sphere. Goethe. It is not the placidity of stupid ease that we should covet, but the repose that is requisite for the renewal of exhausted strength, the serenity that succeeds the storm, and the salubrity that repays its ravages. — E. L. Magoon. Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee. — St. Augustine. Oh, give Thine own sweet rest to me. That I may speak with soothing power A word in season, as from Thee, To weary ones in needful hour. — F. R. Havergal. Rest in the Lord. Let your intellect, your judgment, your reason, rest in God ; in God personal, and possessed of every perfection — almighty and all-knowing, kind, righteous, and holy ; that is, on a God truly Divine. Rest in the Lord as He reveals Himself in the gospel, merciful and gracious. Faith in God is good, but faith in Him as our own God is better. — James Hamilton. 516 REST. It is not in understanding a set of doctrines ; not in outward comprehension of the " scheme of salvation," that rest and peace are to be found, but in taking up, in all lowliness and meek- ness, the yoke of the Lord Jesus Christ. — F. W. Robertson. You are made to find your rest only in God. As the eye craves light, and the ear sound, your higher nature sighs for God. Your desires, vainly seeking rest apart from Him, are trailing flowers climbing up the reeds and stalks only to bend them down to the earth, instead of grasping a high and strong support that would lift them up and let them hang out their bells in the sun. God alone can satisfy the soul. It needs His infinite love and unclouded light to meet its longing. — J. C. Geikie. The Princess Elizabeth, of England, was found dead with her head resting on her Bible, open at these words, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So may we all fall asleep at last when the day's work for Jesus is over, and wake up in heaven to find ourselves in the delicious rest that remaineth for the people of God. T. L, CUYLER, For me, my heart, that erst did go Most like a tired child at a show, That sees through tears the mummers leap. Would now its wearied vision close, Would childlike on His love repose, Who giveth His Beloved, sleep. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. Go where ye will, your soul shall not sleep sound but in Christ's bosom. — Rutherford. REST. 517 There is rest in this world nowhere except in Christ, the manifested love of God. Trust in excellence, and the better you become, the keener is the feeling of deficiency. Wrap up all in doubt, and there is a stern voice that will thunder at last out of the wilderness upon your dream. — F. W. Robertson. How quiet such a life is ! how fruitful ! fruitful because it is so quiet ; it works not, but lives and grows. The uneasy effort has passed out of it ; unresting because it rests always, it has done with task-work and anxiety ; it serves, yet is not cumbered with much serving ; it has ceased from that sad complaint, — "Thou hast left me to serve alone." Sit thou at the feet of Christ, and within the influence of His all-composing calmness thine all-disturbing activity shall be gently soothed into quietness and peace ; there thy weary soul shall find rest and bliss. — George C. Lorimer. After the burden and heat of the day, The starry calm of night ; After the rough and toilsome way, A sleep in the robe of white. Oh, sweet is the slumber wherewith the King Hath caused the weary to rest ! For, sleeping, they hear the angels sing. They lean on the Master's breast. Tarry with me, O my Saviour ; Lay my head upon Thy breast Till the morning ; then awake me — Morning of eternal rest. — J. K. Clark. 518 RESURRECTION. Lord Jesus, I am weary in Thy work, but not of it. If I have not yet finished my course, let me go and speak for Thee once more in the field, seal Thy truth, and come home to die. — Whitfield. Rest, weary heart. From all Thy silent griefs and secret pain. Thy profitless regrets, and longings vain ; Wisdom and love have ordered all the past, All shall be blessedness and joy at last ; Cast off the cares that have so long oppressed ; Rest, sweetly rest ! — Jane Borthwick. And He, at last, After the weary strife — After the restless fever we call life — After the dreariness, the aching pain, The wayward struggles which have proved in vain, After our toils are past Will give us rest at last. RESURRECTION. Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time. — Martin Luther. As from the short and dreamless slumber you open your eyes on the great sight — as with mingled joy and awe you find your- self caught up to meet Him in the air, your whole nature spring- ing up into sudden grandeur and a strange unearthliness, I can- not tell what like He then shall be, nor can I tell what like you then shall be, for, seeing Him as He is, you shall not be so like your present self as you shall be like Him. RESURRECTION. 519 The resurrection state is the ciUmination of glorified human- ity ; is the change of the earthly for the heavenly ; is the put- ting off of flesh and blood, and the putting on of the spiritual body. The body of the resurrection is the body with which the spirit is clothed for its celestial life. — Bishop R. S. Foster. I shall see Him with these eyes, Him whom I shall surely know ; Not another shall I rise. With His love this heart shall glow; Only there shall disappear Weakness in and round me here. — Louisa Henrietta. And shall they rise, all these ? Will there be a trumpet blast so shrill that none of them may refuse to hear it, and the soul, re-entering its shrine of eminent or common clay, pass upward to the judgment ? " Many and mighty, but all hushed," shall they submit with us to the judgment of the last assize 1 And in that world is it true that gold is not the currency, and that rank is not hereditary, and that there is only one name that is hon- ored ? Then, if this is the end of all men, let the living lay it to heart. Solemn and thoughtful, let us search for an assured refuge ; childlike and earnest, let us confide in the one accepted Name ; let us realize the tender and infinite nearness of God our Father, through Jesus our Surety and our Friend. — Wm. M. Punshon. The resurrection morning is a true sun-rising, the inbursting of a cloudless sky on all the righteous dead. They wake trans- figured, at their Maker's call, with the fashion of their counte- nance altered and shining like His own. — Horace Bushnell. 520 REVENGE. O, on that glorious day, when all the hosts of God shall have been gathered from Europe and Asia, from Africa and America — when the long-buried armies of the dead shall come forth, spiritual, incorruptible, glorious, immortal — when the sons of God who have kept their first estate, shall sing " unto Him that loved us," and the redeemed from all parts of the earth, and from all the generations, shall respond in a song sweeter than the songs of the morning-stars when all the sons of God shoiited for joy, — may you and I be there to join that everlasting song, and realize that bliss unspeakable which is the enduring portion of the Lord's redeemed. — John J. Murray. How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise ! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer ! With what unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His pres- ence ! — Isaac Watts. REVENGE. Do you who are a Christian desire to be revenged and vindi- cated, and the death of Jesus Christ has not yet been revenged, nor His innocence vindicated ? — St. Augustine. Cheerful looks, kind words, and a speedy pardon are the best revenge we can inflict on the ungenerous and unjust. REVIVAL— RICHES. 521 REVIVAL. A genuine revival means a trimming of personal lamps. T. L. CUYLER. The whole of the Saviour's ministerial life, at least the part of it that stands on record, was passed in what we may call substantially a revival work. — H. W. Beecher. RICHES. Seek not proud riches, but such as thou mayest get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly. — Lord Bacon. There is a burden of care in getting riches, fear in keeping them, temptation in using them, sorrow in losing them, and a burden of account at last to be given up concerning them. — Matthew Henry. Get rich, if you will — you take great risks. But Christianity does not say to any man, " You must be worth only so much, extend your business only so far." It says, " Use your riches for the glory of God." If they once usurp His place, woe to you ! — Herrick Johnson. If by the consecration of my earthly possessions to some ex- tent, I can make the Christian character practically more lovely, and illustrate, in my own case, that the highest enjoyments here are promoted by the free use of the good things intrusted to us, what so good use can I make of them ? — Amos Lawrence. 532 RICHES. Nature does not conquer the world to God. It never has. It never will. In America, with its vast abounding wealth, its grand expanse of prairie, its reach of river, and its exuberant productiveness, there is danger that our riches will draw us away from God, and fasten us to earth ; that they will make us not only rich, but mean; not only wealthy, but wicked. The grand corrective is the cross of Christ, seen in the sanctuary where the life and light of God are exhibited, and where the reverberation of the echoes from the great white throne are heard. — R. S. Storrs. If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price, of falling into temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurt- ful lusts, which drown men in perdition ; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet val- leys of existence, where alone it is well with us ; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion — your all-sufhcient and everlasting portion — peace and quiet- ness and rest in Christ. — F. W. Robertson. But Christian faith knows that wealth means responsibility, and that responsibility may come to mean only heavy arrears of sin. H. P. LiDDON. Worldly wealth is the devil's bait ; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in pro- portion as their stores increase. — Burton. O, my God ! withhold from me the wealth to which tears and sighs and curses cleave. Better none at all than wealth like that. — Christian Scriver. RIGHTS. 523 Riches got by deceit, cheat no man so much as the getter. Riches bought with guile, God will pay for with vengeance. Riches got by fraud, are dug out of one's own heart, and de- stroy the mine. Unjust riches curse the owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting. How many threadbare souls are to be found under silken cloaks and gowns ! — Thomas Brooks. Riches are the pettiest and least worthy gifts which God can give a man. What are they to God's word ? Yea, to bodily gifts, such as beauty and health, or to the gifts of the mind, such as understanding, skill, wisdom ? Yet men toil for them day and night, and take no rest. Therefore our Lord God com- monly gives riches to foolish people to whom He gives nothing else. — Martin Luther. The rich are like beasts of burden, carrying treasure all day, and at the night of death unladen ; they carry to their grave only the bruises and marks of their toil. — St. Augustine. It is not the fact that a man has riches which keeps him from the kingdom of heaven, but the fact that riches have him. — J. Caird. RIGHTS. Almost two thousand years ago there was One here on this earth who lived the grandest life that ever has been lived yet, a life that every thinking man, with deeper or shallower meaning has agreed to call Divine. I read little respecting His rights or of His claims of rights ; but I have read a great deal respecting His duties. Every act He did He called a duty. 534 SABBATH. Rights are grand things, divine things, in this world of God ; but the way in which we expound those rights, alas ! seems to me to be the very incarnation of selfishness. I see nothing very noble in a man who is forever going about calling for his own rights. Alas ! alas ! for the man who feels nothing more grand in this wondrous, divine world than his own rights ! — F. W. Robertson. Away with private wrongs ! We'll not go forth To fight for these — but for the rights of men. — Mrs. Hale. One of the grandest things in having rights is that, hemg your rights, you may give them up. — George MacDonald. SABBATH. There are many persons who think Sunday is a sponge with which to wipe out the sins of the week. — H. W. Beecher. There is a Sunday conscience as well as a Sunday coat; and those who make religion a secondary concern put the coat and conscience carefully by to put on only once a week. — Charles Dickens. Tell me how a professor spends his Sabbaths, and I will tell you in what state his soul is spiritually considered. — John Angel James. The law of the Sabbath is the key-stone of the arch of public morals ; take it away, and the whole fabric falls. SABBATH. 535 Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky. — George Herbert. O day of rest ! How beautiful, how fair. How welcome to the weary and the old ! Day of the Lord ! and truce to earthly care ! Day of the Lord, as all our days should be. — Longfellow. Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week. — Longfellow. We believe that the first day of the week is the Lord's Day, or Christian Sabbath ; and is to be kept sacred to religious pur- poses, by abstaining from all secular labor and sinful recrea- tions ; by the devout observance of all the means of grace, both private and public ; and by preparation for that rest that re- maineth for the people of God. — Baptist Church Manual. Nothing draws along with it such a glory as the Sabbath. Never has it unfolded without some witness and welcome, some song and salutation. It has been the coronation day of martyrs — the first day of saints. It has been from the first day till now the sublime day of the church of God; still the outgoings of its morning and evening rejoice. Let us then remember the Sab- bath day to keep it holy. — James Hamilton. The longer I live the more highly do I estimate the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel towards those who im- press its importance on the community. — Daniel Webster. 536 SACRAMENT - SALVATION. I have, by long and sound experience, found that the due ob- servance of the Sabbath day, and of the duties of it, have been of singular comfort and advantage to me. The observance of the day hath ever had joined to it, a blessing upon the rest of my time ; and the week that hath so begun hath been blessed and prosperous to me. — Sir Matthew Hale. SACRAMENT. He who receives a sacrament does not perform a good work, he receives a benefit. — Martin Luther. Sacraments, ordained of Christ, are not only badges or tokens of Christian men's profession ; but rather they are certain signs of grace, and God's good-will towards us, by the which He doth work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also strengthen and confirm our faith in Him. — Articles of Methodist Episcopal Church. SALVATION. The truth is the Tree of Life knows no seasons. High up among its branches spring warbles all the year ; and they are only the poor pensioners underneath who count the months, and tell an autumn and a winter. — James Hamilton. Brethren, understand that the gospel is a gospel which brings a present salvation ; and try to feel that it is not presumption, but simply out of the very fundamental principle of it, when you are not afraid to say, "I /^vz*??*:/ that my Redeemer is yonder, and I know that He loves me." — Alexander Maclaren. SALVATION. 527 The waters of salvation, welling forth from the mercy-seat above, have descended in copious floods to refresh and bless the earth. And will you refuse to drink of the river of life which flows full and free before you, proffering health and gladness to your famished soul, because you cannot discover every thing pertaining to its source, far, far away in the recesses of the Eter- nal Mind ? — G. B. IDE. What hinders that you should be a child of God ? Is not sal- vation free .'' Is not the invitation to it flung out to you on every page of the New Testament } Is not Christ offered to you in all His offices ? and are you not welcome to all His benefits if you want them } Is not the Holy Spirit promised to them that ask Him ? Nothing can hinder you from being a Christian, but your own worldly, selfish, proud, obstinate, unworthy, and self- righteous heart. — ICHABOD Spencer. We believe that the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel ; that it is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a cordial, penitent, and obedient faith ; and that nothing prevents the salvation of the greatest sinner on earth, but his own inherent depravity and voluntary rejection of the gospel ; which rejection involves him in an aggravated con- demnation. — Baptist Church Manual. The condition of salvation is that kind of belief in Jesus Christ which authenticates itself in repentance for the past and in an amendment of life for the future. — L. L. Noble. This makes salvation great — I shall know how great, when I can measure the distance between the eternal and the perish- able, omnipotence and feebleness, immortality and death. 528 SALVATION. The shipwrecked passenger who grasps an oar does some- thing, but if the possession of that oar leads him to reject the hand which would draw him on board, it is worse than useless. If your church-going, if your reputable life, has the effect of saying to the Saviour, " No, thank you ; I can float," the publicans and vilest sinners may get to heaven before you. But oh, rest not till those everlasting arms are around you, and although the cold brine may still drip from your garments, though your limbs may still be torpid and powerless with that long exposure on the deep, still the moment you clasp that out- stretched arm of mercy, you have come in contact with what will never let you go. None shall be saved by Christ but those only who work out their own salvation while God is working in them by His truth and His Holy Spirit. We cannot do without God ; and God will not do without us. — Matthew Henry. " But what can mortal man do to secure his own salvation ?" Mortal man can do just what God bids him do. He can re- pent and believe. He can arise and follow Christ as Matthew did. — W. Gladden. Grant that the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible is God's truth, and I know not in what way you can es- cape the doctrine that there is salvation only in Christ. From the liberality which says every body is right — from the charity which forbids you to say any body is wrong — from the peace which is bought at the expense of truth, may the good Lord de- liver you. — J. C. Ryle. It is the greatness of salvation that proves the utter ruin that must follow its neglect. SANCTIFICATION. 529 And is not this a great salvation, great in its simplicity, great in its comprehensiveness, which thus meets the every necessity of the guilty and helpless ; and which, arranged for creatures whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leaves them -not till elevated to the very summit of dignity ? — Henry Melvill. Joseph Hart was by the free and sovereign grace and Spirit of God raised up from the depths of sin and delivered from the bonds of mere profession and self-righteousness, and led to rest entirely for salvation in the finished atonement and perfect obedience of Christ. — Old English Epitaph. It is God's purpose to save — to save His people from their sins, to purge out of them all hypocrisy, falsehood, injustice, and make of them honest men, true men, just men — men created anew after His likeness. And this is the meaning of His salvation ; and is the only salvation worth having, for this life or the life to come. — Charles Kingsley. SANCTIFICATION. Sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto right- eousness. — Westminster Catechism. Can we doubt that God acts immediately in the soul ? that He so acts as to make it die to self ? that, after having sub- dued the grosser passions. He attacks all the subtle resources of self-love within, especially in those souls who have without reserve delivered themselves up to the operations of His grace? 34 530 SCIENCE. It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essen- tial portraiture and image in sanctifying us. — Rutherford. When God lifts you up into the arms of His grace and renews your nature, there is a new force, a new love, and therefore a new man. But this new life must take on the hardness of habit, must be entrenched in your being by habitual exercise, or the old yesterday will be back upon you and supreme again. — The Methodist. SCIENCE. All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death. — J. C. Ryle. But when science, passing beyond its own limits, assumes to take the place of theology, and sets up its own conception of the order of nature as a sufficient account of its cause, it is in- vading a province of thought to which it has no claim, and not unreasonably provokes the hostility of its best friends. — M, B. Carpenter. Our abiding belief is that just as the workmen in the tun- nel of St. Gothard, working from either end, met at last to shake hands in the very central root of the mountain, so stu- dents of nature and students of Christianity will yet join hands in the unity of reason and faith, in the heart of their deepest mysteries. — Lemuel Moss. Believe in God, and bid all knowledge speed. Sooner or later the full harmony will reveal itself, the discords and con- tradictions disappear. SECURITY. 531 Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in His universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne. — E. H. Chapin. What are the sciences but maps of universal laws, and uni- versal laws but the channels of universal power ; and universal power but the outgoings of a universal mind ? — Edward Thoimson. Science is a good piece of furniture for a man to have in an upper chamber, provided he has common sense on the ground floor. — O. W. Holmes. Holding then to science with one hand — the left hand — we give the right hand to religion, and cry : " Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things, more wondrous than the shining worlds can tell." Obedient to the promise, religion does waken faculties within us, does teach our eyes to the be- holding of more wonderful things. Those great worlds blazing like suns die like feeble stars in the glory of the morning, in the presence of this new light. The soul knows that an infinite sea of love is all about it, throbbing through it, everlasting arms of affection lift it, and it bathes itself in the clear consciousness of a Father's love. — Bishop H. W. Warren. It is better to inspire the heart with a noble sentiment than to teach the mind a truth of science. SECURITY. He who stands upon his own strength will never stand. — Thomas Brooks. 533 SELF-DENIAL. When life has been well spent; when there is a conscience without reproach ; when there is faith in the Saviour ; when there is a well-founded hope of heaven, there can be nothing that should disquiet us. — Albert Barnes. When you have overcome one temptation, you must be ready to enter the lists with another. As distrust, in some sense, is the mother of safety, so security is the gate of danger. A man had need to fear this most of all, that he fears not at all. — Thomas Brooks. How easy it is for men to be swollen with admiration of their own strength and glory, and to be lifted up so high as to lose sight both of the ground whence they rose, and the hand that advanced them. — Bishop Hall. The weakest spot in every man is where he thinks himself to be the wisest. — Emmons. Many of the Bible characters fell just in the things in which they were thought to be strongest. iVLoses failed in his humil- ity, Abraham in his faith, Elijah in his courage, for one woman scared him away to that juniper-tree ; and Peter, whose strong point was boldness, was so frightened by a maid, as to deny his Lord. — D. L, Moody. SELF-DENIAL. There never did, and there never will exist any thing perma- nently noble and excellent in the character which is a stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial. — Sir Walter Scott. SELF-DENIAL. 533 One never knows a man till he has refused him something, and studied the effect of the refusal ; one never knows himself till he has denied himself. The altar of sacrifice is the touch- stone of character. The cross compels a choice for or against Christ. O. P. GiFFORD. Self-denial must reach beyond gross and undoubted sins. — Alexander Maclaren. Sacrifice alone, bare and unrelieved, is ghastly, unnatural, and dead ; but self-sacrifice, illuminated by love, is warmth and life ; it is the death of Christ, the life of God, the blessedness and only proper life of man. — F. W. Robertson. Contempt of all outward things, which come in competition with duty, fulfills the ideal of human greatness. This convic- tion, that readiness to sacrifice life's highest material good and life itself, is essential to the elevation of human nature, is no il- lusion of ardent youth, nor outburst of blind enthusiasm. It does not yield to growing wisdom. It is confirmed by all ex- perience. It is sanctioned by conscience — that universal and eternal lawgiver whose chief dictate is, that every thing must be yielded up for the right. — W. E. Channing. In heaven, we shall never regret any sacrifice however pain- ful, or labor however protracted, made or performed here for the cause of Christ. — Mary Lyon. Nothing is really lost by a life of sacrifice ; every thing is lost by failure to obey God's call. — H. P. Liddon. 534 SELF-DENIAL. They that deny themselves for Christ shall enjoy themselves in Christ. — J. M. Mason. The sweetest life is to be ever making sacrifices for Christ ; the hardest life a man can lead on earth, the most full of misery, is to be always doing his own will and seeking to please himself. — Edward H. Bickersteth. Take thy self-denials gaily and cheerfully, and let the sunshine of thy gladness fall on dark things and bright alike, like the sunshine of the Almighty. — J. F. Clarke. Whoever will labor to get rid of self, to deny himself, accord- ing to the instructions of Christ, strikes at once at the root of every evil, and finds the germ of every good. — Fenelon. That which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man, that which constitutes human goodness, human nobleness, is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage ; but it is self-forgetful- ness ; it is self-sacrifice ; it is the disregard of personal pleasure, personal indulgence, personal advantage, remote or present, be- cause some other line of conduct is more right. — J. A. Froude. Which do you think of most, your interest or your duty ? Can you sell all for the pearl of great price ? Are these the natural breathings of your heart : " Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done ? " Is the cause of Christ your concern, the dis- honor of Christ your affliction, the cross of Christ your glory ? If so, you are not strangers to the spirit of self-denial. — Gardiner Spring." SELFISHNESS. 535 Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow me. This is war, not peace. It is battle declared against the world, the flesh, and the devil. In me said Christ, "ye have peace," — not in the world ; there is no promise of it there. — Anna Shipton. The secret belief that the Lord of conscience loves and ac- cepts each faithful sacrifice is the ultimate and sufficient sup- port of all goodness ; dispensing with the chorus of approving voices ; replacing all vain self-reliance with a Divine strength; and with the peace of a reconciled nature consoling the inevit- able sorrows of a devoted life. — James Martineau. The very act of faith by which we receive Christ is an act of the utter renunciation of self, and all its works, as a ground of salvation. It is really a denial of self, and a grounding of its arms in the last citadel into which it can be driven, and is, in its principle, inclusive of every subsequent act of self-denial by which sin is forsaken or overcome. — Mark Hopkins. Self-denial is the result of a calm, deliberate, invincible at- tachment to the highest good, flowing forth in the voluntary renunciation of every thing that is inconsistent with the glory of God or the good of our fellow men. — Gardiner Spring. The first lesson in Christ's school is self-denial. — Matthew Henry. SELFISHNESS. Show me the man who would go to heaven alone if he could^ and I will show you one who will never be admitted there. — Owen Feltham. 53G SELFISHNESS. Did any man at his death ever regret his conflicts with him- self, his victories over appetite, his scorn of impure pleasure, or his sufferings for righteousness' sake ? — W. E. Channing. A man as he goes down in self, goes up in God. It is inter- esting to trace this in the experience of the apostle Paul, as gathered from his Epistles. In the year of our Lord 59, he is the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, be- cause he persecuted the church of God. In the year of our Lord 64, after four years more of growth in grace, he is " less than the least of all saints." But in the year of our Lord 65, and not long before he was about to receive his crown in heaven, he is "the chief of sinners." — Dr. Cheever. I hold, in truth, with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things. — Tennyson. If we desire to do what will please God, and what will help men, we presently find ourselves taken out of our narrow habits of thought and action; we find new elements of our nature called into activity; we are no longer running along a narrow track of selfish habit. — J. F. Clarke. O Lord, self-renunciation is not the work of one day, nor children's sport ; yea, rather in this word is included all per- fection. — Thomas a Kempis. A man is called selfish, not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's. SELFISHNESS. 537 The very heart and root of sin is in an independent spirit. We erect the idol self ; and not only wish others to worship, but worship ourselves. — Richard Cecil. We can neither change nor overpower God's eternal suffrage against selfishness and meanness. — James Martineau. Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself. — Thomas Brooks. The selfish man cuts away the sand from under his own feet, he digs his own grave ; and every time, from the beginning of the world until now, God Almighty pushes him into the grave and covers him up. — C. H. Fowler. Alas ! how many souls there are full of self, and yet desirous of doing good and serving God, but in such a way as to suit themselves ; who desire to impose rules upon God as to His manner of drawing them to Himself. They want to serve and possess Him, but they are not willing to be possessed by Him. — Fenelon. It is self-love and its offspring self-deception, which shut the gates of heaven, and lead men, as if in a delicious dream, to hell. — Christian Scriver. Beware of no man more than of yourself ; we carry our worst enemies within us. — C. H. Spurgeon. Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the be- ginning and end of all he death. — John Owen. 538 SELFISHNESS. If you seek in the spirit of selfishness, to grasp all as your own, you shall lose all, and be driven out of the world, at last, naked and forlorn, to everlasting poverty and contempt. — Jonathan Edwards. If we look only to self even in spiritual things, it is still self- ishness though possibly on a somewhat higher plane than be- fore'. — A. P. Van Giesen. There is a sickly habit that men get of looking into them- selves, and thinking how they are appearing. We are always unnatural when we do that. The very tread of one who is think- ing how he appears to others becomes dizzy with affectation. He is too conscious of what he is doing, and self-consciousness is affectation. Let us aim at being natural. And we can only become natural by thinking of God and duty, instead of the way in which we are serving God and duty. , — F. W. Robertson. We are too much haunted by ourselves; we project the central shadow of ourselves on every thing around us. And then comes in the gospel to rescue us from this selfishness. Redemption is this — to forget self in God. — F. W. Robertson. I am not sure that it is best for us, once safe and secure on the Rock of Ages, to ask ourselves too closely what this and that experience may signify. Is it not better to be thinking of the Rock, not of the feet that stand upon it ? — Elizabeth Prentiss. Less, less of self each day. And more, my God, of Thee ! HORATIUS BONAR. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. 539 Think about yourselves; about what you want, what jw/ like, what respect people ought to pay to you, what people think of youj and then to you nothing will be pure. May God keep our hearts pure from that selfishness which is the root of all sin. — Charles Kingsley. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. The thing of all others that unfits men for the reception of Christ as a Saviour, and for the simple reliance on His atoning blood and Divine mercy, is not gross, long profligacy, and out- ward, vehement transgression ; bat it is self-complacency, clean, fatal self-righteousness, and self-sufficiency. — Alexander Maclaren. God has nothing to say to the self-righteous. Unless you humble yourself before Him in the dust, and confess before Him your iniquities and sins, the gate of heaven, which is open only for siimers, saved by grace, must be shut against you forever. — D. L. Moody. You can always tell when a man is a great ways from God — he is always talking about himself, how good he is. But the moment he sees God by the eye of faith, he is down on his knees, and, like Job, he cries, "Behold I am vile." — D. L. Moody. Those who err in one direction, always take care to let you know that they are quite free from error in the opposite direc- tion. A boorish man thanks God very loudly that he is not in- sincere — nobody having ever thought of accusing him even of that small and wretched approach to politeness, which is some- times flavored by insincerity. — Sir Arthur Helps. 540 SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. Never have I greater reason for suspicion than when I am particularly pleased with myself, my faith, my progress, and my alms. — Christian Scriver. For when man comes to front the everlasting God, and look the splendor of His judgments in the face, personal integrity, the dream of spotlessness and innocence, vanishes into thin air ; your decencies and your church-goings and your regularities and your attachment to a correct school and party, your gospel formulas of sound doctrine — what is all that, in front of the blaze of the wrath to come ? — F. W. Robertson. Let us pray God that He would root out of our hearts every thing of our own planting, and set out there, with His own hands, the tree of life, bearing all manner of fruits. — Fenelon. A man may as certainly miscarry by his seeming righteous- ness and supposed graces, as by gross sins ; and that is, when a man doth trust in these as his righteousness before God, for the satisfying His justice, appeasing His wrath, procuring His favor, and obtaining his own pardon. — Joseph Alleine. If there be ground for you to trust, as you do, in your own righteousness, then all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did from the fall of man to prepare the way for it, is m vain. Consider what greater folly could you have devised. to charge upon God than this, that all those things were done so needlessly; when, instead of all this. He might only have called you forth, and committed the business to you, which you think you can do so easily. — Jonathan Edwards. i' / \ SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS. 541 What self-righteous persons take to themselves, is the same work that Christ was engaged in when He was in His agony and bloody sweat, and when He died on the cross, which was the greatest thing that ever the eyes of angels beheld. Christ could accomplish other parts of this work without cost; but this part cost Him His life, as well as innumerable pains and labors. Yet this is the part which self-righteous persons go about to accomplish for themselves. — Jonathan Edwards. Regret not that which is past ; and trust not to thine own righteousness. — St. Anthony. You trust in your own doings to appease God for your sins^ and to incline the heart of God to you. Though you are poor, worthless, vile, and polluted, yet you arrogantly take upon you that very work for which the Son of God became man ; and in order to which God employed four thousand years in all the great dispensations of His providence, aiming chiefly to make way for Christ's coming to do this work. This is the work that you foolishly think yourselves sufficient for; as though your prayers and performances were excellent enough for this pur- pose. Consider how vain is the thought which you entertain of yourself. How must such arrogance appear in the sight of Christ, whom it cost so much ? It was not to be obtained even by Him, so great and glorious a person, at a cheaper rate than His wading through a sea of blood, and passing through the midst of the furnace of God's wrath. — Jonathan Edwards. To depend partly upon Christ's righteousness and partly upon our own, is to set one foot upon a rock and another in the quicksands. Christ will either be to us all in all in point of righteousness, or else nothing at all. — Thomas Erskine. 543 SELF-SURRENDER. You that trust in your own righteousness, arrogate to your- selves the honor of the greatest thing that, even God Himself ever did. You seem not only sufficient to perform Divine works, but such is your pride and vanity, that you are not con- tent without taking upon you to do the N&ry greatest work that ever God Himself wrought. God's works of providence are greater than those of creation. To take on yourself to work out redemption, is a greater thing than if you had taken it upon you to create a world. — Jonathan Edwards. SELF-SURRENDER. Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just-as God pleases, with respect both to your oiitivard and inward state. — Madame Guyon. O Lord ! take my heart, for I cannot give it ; and when Thou hast it, O ! keep it, for I cannot keep it for Thee; and save me in spite of myself, for Jesus Christ's sake. — Fenelon. If Ave love Him infinitely more than we do ourselves, we make an unconditional sacrifice of ourselves to His good pleasure, desiring only to love Him and to forget ourselves. He who thus loses his soul shall find it again with eternal life. — Fenelon. There is but one way in which God should be loved, and that is to take no step except with Him and for Him, and to follow with a generous self-abandonment every thing which He re- quires. — Fenelon. Love so amazing, so Divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. SliMPLlClTV. 543 We must surrender our whole being to Christ Jesus, and cease to live any longer in ourselves, that He may become our life ; that being dead, "our life may be hid with Christ in God." — Madame Guyon. Here it is that the Spirit teaches us all truth ; for all truth is eminently contained in this sacrifice of love, where the soul strips itself of every thing to present it to God. — Fenelon. We have communion in Christ's sufferings as we die with Him unto self, and rise with Him to our proper life — the life of self- surrender to the will of God. — Richard Fuller. " Cheerfully and gratefully I lay myself and all I am or own at the feet of Him who redeemed me with His precious blood, engaging to follow Him, bearing the cross He lays upon me." This is the least I can do, and I do it while my heart lies broken and bleeding at His feet. — Elizabeth Prentiss. I have just put my soul as a blank into the hand of Jesus, my Redeemer, and desired Him to write on it what He pleases ; I know it will be His image. — Whitfield. O God, the creature knows not to what end Thou hast made Him ; teach him, and write in the depths of his soul that the clay must suffer itself to be shaped at the will of the potter. — Fenelon, SIMPLICITY. The greatest truths are the simplest. And so are the greatest men. 544 SIMPLICITY. Nothing is more simple than greatness ; indeed to be simple. is to be great. — R. W. Emerson. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." Blessed are they who are stripped of every thing, even of their own wills, that they may no longer belong to themselves. — Fenelon. God would behold in you a simplicity which will contain so much the more of His wisdom as it contains less of your own. — Fenelon. True simplicity regards God alone ; it has its eye fixed upon Him, and is not drawn toward self; and it is as pleased to say humble as great things. All our uneasy feelings and reflections arise from self-love, whatever appearance of piety they may as- sume. The lack of simplicity inflicts many wounds. Go where we will, if we remain in ourselves, we shall carry everywhere our sins and our distresses. If we would live in peace, we must lose sight of self, and rest in the infinite and unchangeable God. — Madame Guyon. He sows June fields with clover, and the world Broadcasts with little common kindnesses. The plain good souls He sends us, who fulfill Life's homely duties in the daily path With cheerful heart, ambitious of no more Than to supply the wants of friend and kin, Yet serve God's higher love to human hearts ; Giving a secret sweetness to the home, The hidden fragrance of a kindly heart. The simple beauty of a useful life. That never dazzles, and that never tires. — Samuel Longfellow. SIN. 545 Simpler manners, purer lives ; more self-denial ; more earnest sympathy with the classes that lie below us, nothing short of that can lay the foundations of the Christianity which is to be hereafter, deep and broad. — F. W. Robertson. Simplicity and purity are the two wings by which a man is lifted above all earthly things. Simplicity is in the intention — purity in the affection. Simplicity tends to God, — purity apprehends and tastes Him. — Thomas a Kempis. As to our friend, I pray God to bestow upon him a simplicity that shall give him peace. Happy are they indeed who can bear their sufferings in the enjoyment of this simple peace and perfect acquiesence in the will of God. — Fenelon. If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word ; And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of the Lord. — F. W. Faber, If you wish to be like a little child, study what a little child could understand — nature ; and do what a little child could do — love. — Charles Kingsley. SIN. Sin is essentially a departure from God. — Martin Luther. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of the law of God. — Westminster Catechism. 35 546 SIN. The Greek word for wickedness is lawlessness. Sin is the insurrection and rebellion of the heart against God ; it turns from Him, and turns against Him ; it takes up arms against God. — Richard Alleine. He that hath slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God. — John Owen. Sin is an awful fact. It beggars description. Like the shirt of Nessus, it burns one alive. As that poisoned garment ate away the muscles of the victim in his vain attempt to rid him- self of it, so sin will destroy the power of him who becomes its victim. Eternal death is eternal sin ; sin through all the ages, — T. W. Chambers. Sin ! Sin ! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing, that abom- inable thing which God hates. And what wonder.'* Thou hast insulted His holy majesty ; thou hast bereaved Him of beloved children ; thou hast crucified the Son of His infinite love ; thou hast vexed His gracious Spirit ; thou hast defied His power ; thou hast despised His grace ; and in the body and blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot His matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is not that abominable thing which we also iate. — Thomas Guthrie. Retribution, atonement, grace, redemption, a great perdition, a great salvation, a great and Divine Saviour, all become cred- ible when there is truly realized the idea of sin. They all rise as it rises in the moral estimate ; they all fall as it falls. When it goes out, they become incredible. SIN. 547 The God of truth declares, that all have sinned ; the broken law cries for vengeance against transgressors, and by it is the knowledge of sin ; conscience, God's deputy in every man's bosom, tells him he is guilty ; the reign of death, and the groans of the creatures round about us, all bear testimony that there is such a thing as sin in the world. — Fisher's Catechism. I learn the depth to which I have sunk from the length of the chain let down to up-draw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery for restoration. — Henry Melvill. There is the seed of all sins — of the vilest and worst of sins — in the best of men. — Thomas Brooks. No sin is small. It is a sin against an infinite God, and may have consequences immeasurable. No grain of sand is small in the mechanism of a watch. — Jeremy Taylor. St. Augustine used to say that, but for God's grace, he should have been capable of committing any crime ; and it is when we feel this sincerely, that we are most likely to be really im- proving, and best able to give assistance to others without moral loss to ourselves. H. P. LiDDON. Remember that every guilty compliance with the humors of the world, every sinful indulgence of our own passions, is lay- ing up cares and fears for the hour of darkness ; and that the remembrance of ill-spent time will strew our sick-bed with thorns, and rack our sinking spirits with despair. — Bishop Heber, 548 SIN. Misery follows sin; sin itself is misery; and the soul that sinneth dies of course, without any means taken to put that soul to death ; though Divine interference would be indispens- able to prevent the consequences following the cause. — Caroline Fry. God, save us from ourselves ! We carry within us the ele- ments of hell if we but choose to make them such. Ahaz, Judas, Nero, Borgia, Herod, all were once prattling infants in happy mother's arms. — Austin Phelps. Lord, pardon what I have been, sanctify what I am, and order what I shall be, that Thine may be the glory, and mine the eternal salvation. He that avoideth not small faults, by little and little falleth into greater. — Tho.mas a Kempis. The fact is that sin is the most unmanly thing in God's world. You never were made for sin and selfishness. You were made for love and obedience. — J. G. Holland. There are burdens which are bad and blameworthy, and these it is our duty at once to cast away. Such a burden is the evil conscience, from which the true deliverance is the cross of Christ ; such a burden is the easily besetting sin, from which the sanctifying Spirit sets free the vigilant and prayer- ful Christian. — James Hamilton. Yes, every sin is a mistake, and the epitaph for the sinner is, "Thou fool." — Alexander Maclaren. SIN. 549 Sin works by no set methods. It has a way of ruin for every man, that is original and proper only to himself. Suffice it to say that, as long as you are in and under its power, you can never tell what you are in danger of. This one thing you may have as a truth eternally fixed, that respectable sin is, in prin- ciple, the mother of all basest crime. Follow it on to the bit- ter end, and there is ignominy eternal. — Horace Bushnell. To please ourselves with a notion of gospel liberty, while we have not a gospel principle of holiness within to free us from the power of sin, is nothing else but to gild over our bonds and fetters, and to fancy ourselves the inmates of a golden cage. There is a straitness, slavery, and narrowness in sin ; sin crowds and crumples up our souls which, if they were freely spread abroad, would be as wide and as broad as the whole universe. No man is truly free, but he that has his will enlarged to the extent of God's own will, by loving whatever God loves, and nothing else. CUDWORTH. Sin is a state of mind, not an outward act. — J. M. Sewell. Sin, without strong restraints, would pull God from His throne, make the world the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship. — Richard Cecil. Sin murders the soul. Its withering, blasting curse is not exhausted in this life, but goes with us into eternity, to be per- fected and perpetuated there. " The wages of sin is death " — death to all spiritual life now, and an immortality of pain and tears and despair. " The sting of death is sin ; " the weeping and wailing of the judgment will be sin ; and sin will be the ever-gnawing worm and the quenchless fire. 550 SIN. • The slave who digs in the mine or labors at the oar can re- joice at the prospect of laying down his burden together with his life ; but to the slave of guilt there arises no hope from death. On the contrary, he is obliged to look forward with constant terror to this most certain of all events, as the conclu- sion of all his hopes, and the commencement of his greatest miseries. — Blair. Every burning tear, every harrowing fear, every festering grief, every corroding care, every shooting pain, every piercing remorse ; the sighs and moans of lazar-houses reeking with putrefaction and death ; the shrieks and wails and clanking chains in hospitals swarming with maniacs ; and the curses and blasphemies of dungeons where guilt rots and raves — these, all these, are but feeble reverberations of those dismal truths, "Sin reigns unto death." "Death hath passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." — Richard Fuller. That is the bitterest of all, — to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing. — George Eliot. And O when the whirlwind of passion is raging. When sin in our hearts its wild warfare is waging. Then send down Thy grace. Thy redeemed to cherish; Rebuke the destroyer ; " Save, Lord, or we perish." — R. Heber. Multitudes are lost by cherishing some secret sin, that is not only hidden from others, but, from want of searching their own hearts, even from themselves. The essence of all wickedness is a forsaking of God. SIN. 551 Secret sins commonly lie nearest the heart. — Thomas Brooks. The sin that now rises to memory as your bosom sin, let this first of all be withstood and mastered. Oppose it instantly by a detestation of it, by a firm will to conquer it, by reflection, by reason, and by prayer. — W. E. Channing. Though the scorpion be little, yet will it sting a lion to death ; and so will the least sin the sinner, unless pardoned by the blood of Christ. — Thomas Brooks. Every sin deserveth God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come. — Westminster Catechism. Nature has no promise for society, least of all, any remedy for sin. — Horace Bushnell. You cannot stay the shell in its flight ; after it has left the mortar, it goes on to its mark, and there explodes, dealing de- struction all around. Just as little can you stay the conse- quences of a sin after it has been committed. You may repent of it, you may even be forgiven for it, but still it goes on its deadly and desolating way. It has passed entirely beyond your reach ; once done, it cannot be undone. — Wm. M. Taylor. Though sin may be in the Christian, yet it hath no more dominion over him ; he hath an unfeigned respect to all God's commandments, making conscience even of little sins and little duties. — Joseph Alleine. 552 SIN. Sin is to be overcome, not so much by maintaining a direct opposition to it, as by cultivating opposite principles. Would you kill the weeds in your garden, plant it with good seed ; if the ground be well occupied, there will be less need of the labor of the hoe. If a man wished to quench fire, he might fight it with his hands till he was burnt to death ; the only way is to ap- ply an opposite element. — Andrew Fuller. The deliberate and habitual practice of any form of dishon- esty or immorality is impossible to one who follov.'s Christ. — \V. Gladden. A believer is far more apt to be burdened with a sense of sin, and to feel the fear of it in his own character than an unbe- liever; because if we are carried along the stream we fear noth- ing, and it is only when we strive against it, that its progress and power are discernible. — John Owen. If, in proportion as our minds are enlarged, our hearts puri- fied, and our consciences cultivated, our abhorrence of wrong and aversion to it increases, what must be the moral indigna- tion of the infinite and holy God against wrong-doers .' — Edward Thomson. As for our own faults, it would take a large slate to hold the account of them; but, thank God, we know where to take them, and how to get the better of them. — C. H. Spurgeon. From all blindness of heart ; from pride, vain-glory, and hy- pocrisy ; from envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitable- ness, good Lord, deliver us. — Book of Common Prayer. SINCERITY. 553 Presumption has many forms ; and it is worth considering, whether a great and good Being would most disapprove the presumption which expected too much from His goodness, or the presumption which dared positively to disbelieve His promise. — William Arthur. When a sinner has any just sense of his condition, as alien- ated from a holy God, he will not be apt to think of the unpar- donable sin. — IcHABOD Spencer. Almighty and most merciful Father; we have erred and strayed from Thy ways, like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have of- fended against Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable of- fenders. Spare Thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Re- store Thou those who are penitent, according to Thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake, that we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of Thy holy name. Amen. — Book of Common Prayer. SINCERITY. Sincerity and truth form the basis of every virtue. Be what thou seemest ; live thy creed ; Hold up to earth the torch divine ; Be what thou prayest to be made ; Let the great Master's steps be thine. HORATIUS BONAR. 554 SONG. Try how much of the word of God you can understand, and what is more, try how much you can practice. A sincere wish and purpose to do the will of God, will be your best way to know the mind of God. — John Angel James. True emotions and sincere words never perish. The great heart of humanity gladly receives and embalms every true ut- terance of the humblest of its offspring. — E. L. Magoon, The surest, as the shortest way, to make yourself beloved and honored, is to be, indeed, the very man you wish to appear. — Socrates. Judge thyself with the judgment of sincerity, and thou wilt judge others with the judgment of charity. — J. M. Mason. I cannot find in Scripture that any one ever got to heaven merely by sincerity, or was accepted with God if he was only earnest in maintaining his own views. Sincerity cannot put away sin. — J. C. Ryle. Let every man examine his own sincerity, for every man must bear his own burden — the burden of his own sin — unless he has transferred it to the appointed Saviour. — James Hamilton. SONG. The best days of the church have always been its singing days. — T. L. Cuyler. Make His praise glorious. SORROW. 555 If you and I shall, like the believing shepherds, watch and long for His appearing, one day we, too, shall hear a music grander and sweeter even than the song of angels, when the great Composer shall transpose all the strains of earth from the minor into the major, when the wail of nature shall give way to the glad harmony of the everlasting jubilee. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Dear friends, have you begun to sing the " new song? " Loved ones are singing it in the heavenly home, and we may sing it here; and by and by we shall join them, gaze with them on the risen, glorified Lord, and our voices will mingle in the " new song " " unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." A. E. KiTTREDGE. SORROW. Most of the Beatitudes which the Infinite Compassion pro- nounced have the sorrows of earth for their subject, but the joys of earth for their completion. — Hannah More. Sorrow is only one of the lower notes in the oratorio of our blessedness. — A. J. Gordon. How fast we learn in the day of sorrow ! Scripture shines out in a new effulgence ; every verse seems to contain a sun- beam, every promise stands out in illuminated splendor ; things hard to be understood become in a moment plain. BONAR. Marah is always near the mercy-seat, and right across the bitter spring we can join hands with Jesus. 556 SORROW. Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the cages of birds when we wish to teach them to sing? — Jean Paul E.ichter. When we feel how God was in our sorrows, we shall trust the more blessedly that He will be in our deaths. — Wm. Mountford. It is not in the bright, happy day, but only in the solemn night, that other worlds are to be seen shining in their long, long distances. And it is in sorrow — the night of the soul — that we see farthest, and know ourselves natives of infinity, and sons and daughters of the Most High. — Wm. Mountford. From the very summit of his sorrows, where he had gone to die, Moses, for the first time in his life, caught a view of the land of Canaan. He did not know, as he went over the rocks, torn and weary, how lovely the prospect was from the top. In this world, it frequently happens that when man has reached the place of anguish, God rolls away the mist from his eyes, and the very spot selected as the receptacle of his tears, be- comes the place of his highest rapture. — J. T. Headley. There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm. — J. H. Vincent. Vital is the relation between earthly sorrow and eternal sat- isfaction. The travail to which God's saints are subjected re- sults in the birth of nobler natures and more sanctified spirits. Pain always piomotes progress, and suffering invariably ensures success. J. McC. HOLINIES. SORROW. 557 I really believe if, instead of shutting ourselves into our sor- rows and keeping all the light of heaven out of our souls, we opened them to receive Him, Christ would so come to us that the season of our deepest grief and anguish would become one of the richest and most precious of our whole lives. — A. H. K. Sorrows humanize our race ; Tears are the showers that fertilize this world. — Jean Ingelow. There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. — W. Irving. Since Thou on earth hast wept. And sorrowed oft alone, If I must weep with Thee, My Lord, Thy will be done ! As the Christian's sorrows multiply, his patience grows, until, with sweet, unruffled quiet, he can confront the ills of life, and, though inwardly wincing, can calmly pursue his way to the restful grave, while his old, harsh voice is softly cadenced into sweetest melody, like the faint notes of an angel's whispered song. As patience deepens, charity and sympathy increase. — George C. Lorimer. Earth may embitter, not remove, The love divinely given ; And e'en that mortal grief shall prove The immortality of love, And lead us nearer heaven. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. 558 SOUL. If man were sufficient for man, there would be no need for religion. If there were no evils from which man could not rescue his brother, there would be no need for a Saviour ; if no sorrows under which man could not sustain his fellow man, there would be no need of a Divine Comforter. But it is a grief, a care like yours, which makes religion a reality. Carry it to the throne of grace, and see if there you do not find mercy to pardon and grace to help in time of need. — James Hamilton. Not till the everlasting day break, and the shadows flee away, and the Lord Himself shall be our light, and our God our glory, can we do without the cloud in the sunshine, the shade of sorrow in the bright light of joy, and the curtain of night for the deepening of the sleep which God gives His be- loved. — Hugh Macmillan. SOUL. The human soul is like a bird that is born in a cage. Noth- ing can deprive it of its natural longings, or obliterate the mys- terious remembrance of its heritage. — Epes Sargent. The universe, vast, beautiful, magnificent, as it is, cannot con- tent the soul, but rouses it to more majestic thoughts. The wider view it takes of what is material, the more impatient it becomes of all material bonds. The sublimer the prospects which are opened by the universe, the more the spirit is impelled to ascend to a still sublimer being. Forever it aspires towards an infinite and immutable One as the ground of all finite and mutable existences. It can rest in His Omnipotence alone as the source, centre, sustainer, determiner of all forces. — W. E. Channing. SOUL. 559 There is a remedy for every wrong and a satisfaction for every soul. — R. W. Emerson. The strongest love which th^ human heart has ever felt has been that for its Heavenly Parent. Was it not then constituted for this love ? — W. E. Channing. As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by its shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds, still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warns, whose truth makes fair our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be fullof tumult and jangling voices. His voice is little likely to be heard. — Alexander Maclaren. Oh ! how seldom the soul is silent, in order that God may speak. — Fenelon. Christ bounds and terminates the vast desires of the soul ; He is the very Sabbath of the soul. — John Flavel. Every thing here, but the soul of man, is a passing shadow. The only enduring substance is within. When shall we awake to the sublime greatness, the perils, the accountableness, and the glorious destinies of the immortal soul ? — W. E. Channing. It is only when we see in human souls, taken as germs of power, a future magnitude and majesty transcending all present measures, that we come into any fit conception at all of Christ's mission to the world. 360 SOUL. Go and try to save a soul, and you will see how well it is worth saving, how capable it is of the most complete salvation. Not by pondering about it, nor by talking of it, but by saving it, you learn its preciousness. • — Phillips Brooks. You can throw yourselves away. You can become of no use in the universe except for a warning. You can lose your souls. Oh, what a loss is that ! The perversion and degradation of every high and immortal power for an eternity ! And shall this be true of any one of you ? Will you be lost when One has come from heaven, traveling in the greatness of His strength, and with garments dyed in blood, on purpose to guide you home — home to a Father's house — to an eternal home ? — Mark Hopkins. Two things a master commits to his servant's care — the child and the child's clothes. It will be a poor excuse for the servant to say, at his master's return, " Sir, here are all the child's clothes, neat and clean, but the child is lost." Much so of the account that many will give to God of their souls aud bodies at the great day. " Lord, here is my body ; I am very grateful for it ; I neglected nothing that belonged to its contents and wel- fare ; but as for my soul, that is lost and cast away forever. I took little care and thought about it." — John Flavel. We all dread a bodily paralysis, and would make use of every contrivance to avoid it; but none of us is troubled about a pa- ralysis of the soul. — Epictetus. The saddest of all failures is that of a soul, with its capabili- ties and possibilities, failing of life everlasting, and entering upon that night of death upon which morning never dawns. — Herrick Johnson. SPEAKING FOR CHRIST. 561 As ravens rejoice over carrion, so infernal spirits exult over the soul that is dead in sin. — Christian Scriver. SPEAKING FOR CHRIST. It may be a very little thing for you to say to a young man the few words that turn him from the way of ruin, and win him back to life and hope. It may be a very little thing to you ; but it is every thing to the young man. — J. B. GOUGH. A kind word spoken for Christ may create a wider vibration in eternity than the grandest sermon by the greatest preacher. C. GOWAND. A word spoken in season, at the right moment, is the mother of ages. — T. Carlyle. O Christians ! are you willing to walk the streets of heaven, and have no one greet you there ? Would you be willing to go yourselves inside the gates and never have a soul to greet you and say, " I thank God for the kind words of sympathy and love you spoke on earth ?" — Joseph Cummings. To speak for Him will be our impulse. No matter how timid, nervous, self-diffident, we are in ourselves, as we touch His pierced and royal hand, we shall be instantly masterful and strong. — R. S. Storrs. Take my lips, and let them be Filled with messages from Thee. 36 562 SPIRITUALITY— SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION. It is a bad sign when a new-born babe has not lungs enough to make itself heard over the whole house. It is equally a bad symptom when the new convert is born dumb, and cannot find his voice to praise God audibly. T. L. CUYLER. SPIRITUALITY. It is for all who are personally united to Christ to cultivate a contemplative and sanctified spirit. So far from being secular and sordid, they should be sacred and spiritual, having their lives hid with Christ in God, and their whole natures absorbed in the knowledge and love and service of the Saviour. — T. McC. Holmes. As a dead man cannot inherit an estate, no more can a dead soul inherit heaven. The soul must be resurrected in Christ. — D. L. Moody. The contemplation of celestial things will make a man both speak and think more sublimely and magnificently when he de- scends to human affairs. — Cicero. SPIRITUAL PERCEPTION. There will be and can be no rest till we admit, what cannot be denied, that there is in man a third faculty, which I call simply the faculty of apprehending the Infinite, not only in relig- ion, but in all things ; a power independent of sense and reason, a power in a certain sense contradicted by sense and reason ; but yet, I suppose, a very real power, if we see how it has held its own from the beginning of the world — how neither sense nor reason has been able to overcome it, while it alone is able to overcome both reason and sense. — Max MtJLLER. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 563 The fact is those root-truths on which the foundations of our being rest, are apprehended not logically at all, but mystically. This faculty of spiritual apprehension, which is a very different one from those which are trained in schools and colleges, must be educated and fed, not less, but more carefully than our lower faculties, else it will be starved and die, however learned and able in other respects we may become. — J. C. Shairp. He who never looks up to a living God, to a heavenly pres- ence, loses the power of perceiving that presence, and the uni- verse slowly turns into a dead machine, clashing and grinding on, without purpose or end. If the light within us be darkness, how great is that darkness ! — J. F. Clarke. The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand ; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone, — George Eliot. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is en- tering into living peace. And the men who have this life in them are the true lords or kings of the earth — they, and they only. — John Ruskin. It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship ; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven, — Thomas Guthrie. 564 SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. What is it to make progress in religion ? Progress is not only action but moving onward. A door turning upon its hinges is in a state of motion, but it never advances. A char- iot moving upon wheels is 'not only in motion, but goes on- ward. The conduct of some persons in religion resembles the former — there is action, but no advancement ; they move^ but it is on hinges, not on wheels. — John Angel James. Heaven is not gained by a single bound, But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies; And we mount to its summit round by round. . — J. G. Holland. You are born supernaturally through faith, by the grace of God, into the kingdom of righteousness ; but you are born a little babe, that is all ; and if you make any progress from that point on, it must be by work, by sacrifice, by the practice of Christian virtues, by benevolence, by self-denial, by resisting the adversary, by making valiant war for God and against sin; and on no other basis, am I authorized in giving you a hope that you may come to manhood in Christ Jesus. — C. H. Fowler. Voices of the glorified urge us onward. They who have passed from the semblances of time to the realities of eternity call upon us to advance. The rest that awaits us invites us forward. We do not pine for our rest before God wills it. We long for no inglorious rest. We are thankful rather for the invaluable training of difficulty, the loving discipline of dan- ger and strife. Yet in the midst of it all the prospect of rest invites us heavenward. Through all, and above all, God cries, " Go forward!" " Come up higher!" — Sir William Jones. SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. 565 There is perhaps no truer sign that a man is really advanc- ing than that lie is learning to forget himself, that he is losing the natural thoughts about self in the thought of One higher than himself, to whose guidance he can commit himself and all men. — J. C. Shairp. Almighty God, who through Thine only begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life ; we humbly beseech Thee, that as by Thy special grace preventing us. Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by Thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect ; through Jesus Christ our Lord. — Book of Common Prayer. Progress, in the sense of acquisition, is something; but prog- ress in the sense of being, is a great deal more. To grow higher, deeper, wider, as the years go on ; to conquer difficul- ties, and acquire more and more power ; to feel all one's facul- ties unfolding, and truth descending into the soul, — this makes life worth living. — J. F. Clarke. To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God ; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness ; to appear cheerful amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst de- sponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy ; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life. — John Angel James. O how deceived we are, when we suppose we are advancing, because our vain curiosity is gratified by the enlightenment of our intellect ! Be humble, and expect not the gifts of God from man ! 566 SPIRITUAL PROGRESS. The modern Christian does not retire into a cell to pray, but goes about doing good. He thus avoids the risk of narrowness, which attends the man who desires only to do the " nearest duty." But there is a danger here also, — that of shallowness. The man who is always giving, never receiving ; always helping others, and never feeding his own soul, is in danger of becom- ing empty. — J. F. Clarke. The life of a godly man is like a river, not like a stagnant pool or a dead sea. It is ever in motion, sometimes sparkling in the sunbeam, and sometimes shivering in the clouds ; sometimes chanting through scenery as beautiful as Eden, and sometimes moaning through districts of miserable desolation ; sometimes clear as the day, and sometimes black as the night. Still it is ever moving to its ocean destiny — progress is its law, infinitude is its home. — David Thomas. As the reflections of our pride upon our defects are bitter, disheartening, and vexatious, so the return of the soul towards God is peaceful and sustained by confidence. You will find by experience how much more your progress will be aided by this simple, peaceful turning towards God, than by all your chagrin and spite at the faults that exist in you. — Fenelon. A man is a fool who sits looking backward from himself in the past. Ah ! what shallow, vain conceit there is in man ! Forget the things that are behind. That is not where you live. Your roots are not there. They are in the present ; and you should reach up into the other life. H. W. BEECHEFi. If a man is not rising upward to be an angel, depend upon it, he is sinking downward to be a devil. SUCCESS -SUFFERING. 567 SUCCESS. While the man before had climbed, on sharp, flinty preci- pices, slippery, abysmal ; in darkness, seen by no kindred eye, — amid the brood of dragons ; and his heart many times was like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his extreme need ; yet he climbed and climbed, gluing his footsteps in his blood ; and now behold, Hyperion-like, he has scaled the height, and on the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war ! What a scene and new kingdom for him; all bathed in auroral radiance of Hope; far-stretching, solemn, joyful; what wild Memnon's music, from the depths of nature comes toning through the soul raised suddenly out of strangling death into victory and life ! Success is full of promise till men get it ; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown. — H. W. Beecher. SUFFERING. There is seldom a line of glory written upon the earth's face, but a line of suffering runs parallel with it ; and they that read the lustrous syllables of the one, and stoop not to decipher the spotted and worn inscription of the other, get the least half of the lesson earth has to give. — F. W. Faber. Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls ; the most massive characters are seamed with scars ; martyrs have put on their coronation robes glittering with fire ; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven. — E. H. Chapin. No flower can bloom in paradise which is not transplanted from Gethsemane. 568 SUFFERING. The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suf- fering may be the condition of the highest blessing ; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compas- sionate face. — Dean Stanley. Not till I was shut up to prayer and to the study of God's word by the loss of earthly joys — sickness destroying the flavor of them all — did I begin to penetrate the mystery that is learned under the cross. And wondrous as it is, how simple is this mystery ! To love Christ, and to know that I love Him — this is all. — E. Prentiss. Suffering is my gain ; I bow To my Heavenly Father's will, And receive it hushed and still ; Suffering is my worship now. — Jean Paul Richter. Our merciful Father has no pleasure in the sufferings of His children ; He chastens them in love ; He never inflicts a stroke He could safely spare ; He inflicts it to purify as well as to punish, to caution as well as to cure, to improve as well as to chastise. — Hannah More. Some of His children must go into the furnace to testify that the Son of God is there with them. — E. Prentiss. He hears thy faintly sobbing breath, He marks each quivering limb ; He drank a cup for thee alone — Child ! drink it now with Him. SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 5G9 Toil on, O weary, way-worn sufferer ! bear up, O crushed and sorrowing heart ! thy bed of pain, thy silent heroism, thy patient Christian walk, thy resignation, and thy grief, glow all unconsciously to thee with winning radiance, and fill the world with life's sweetest fragrance — as bruised flowers with perfume do the air. — Alexander Dickson. He knows the bitter, weary way. The endless striving day by day, The souls that weep, the souls that pray He knows ! He knows ! Oh thought so full of bliss ! For though on earth our joy we miss. We still can bear it, feeling this, — He knows ! He knows ; O heart take up thy cross, And know earth's treasures are but dross. And He will prove as gain our loss ! He knows. — Marian Longfellow. In the highest class of God's school of suffering we learn not resignation nor patience, but rejoicing in tribulation. — J. H. Vincent. SUNDAY-SCHOOL We the Sunday-school workers, what are we but the church at work ? The Sunday-school is the church in futuro. Our recruits come almost wholly from the training classes of the Sunday-school. The Bible, the open Bible, the studied Bible, the Bible in the heart is the only hope of our land to-day. — H. M. Parsons. 570 SUNDAY-SCHOOL. The hope of the nation and of Christendom, and of the lands called heathen, alike is to be found in the indoctrination of little children in the knowledge of God's truth ; for the missionaries will tell you that the adult heathen population of to-day are to die heathen ; the minister will tell you that the adult, virtually heathen population of Christian lands to-day are to die in that condition, unless .God showers down alto- gether unprecedented grace — with only such occasional excep- tions as confirm this general and terrible law. If this be so, the hope of Christianity is in childhood. Towards childhood must be directed the work of the sappers and miners of the church. Here is the weak point of the enemy's fortress. Here let the breach be made, and his topmost turret shall be laid low. — C. D. Foss. Let the Sunday-school for the children teach Christ first, Christ last, Christ in the middle, Christ all the time. And the school that shall be so single-eyed for the Master, shall have the full beam of His eyes which smile as the sun shining in its strength ever upon them. — Stephen H. Tyng, ]r. One of the brighest and most touching pictures in the whole gospel narratives is that of Jesus taking the little children up and folding His arms about them, putting His hands upon them and blessing them. This is the warrant and the best inspiration of Sunday-school work, and this suggests the secret of success. We must take up the children, and fold them in our arms, in an embrace of tenderness and Christly love, then we shall win them to Christ and heaven. The conditions of success in teaching are these : First, devo- tion to Christ ; second, love for souls ; third, earnest work ; fourth, concentration ; fifth, importunate prayer ; sixth, fitness ; seventh, the Holy Spirit's influences. SUNDAY-SCHOOL. 571 It is a grand thing to train the human mind in the academy and in the college and university to great intellectual achieve- ments. It is a grand thing for you to leap, as it were, by the lightning of your thought, from crag to crag of discovery. It is well to make paths for tender feet through the morasses and over the mountains of study. These bring honor and jjower. But it is also well to remember that the diplomas of colleges and universities can never bring pardon for sin ; that all the scholarships and all the titles in the world can never bring peace to the dying. Oh, brethren, it is this discipleship with the Man of Galilee who trod the wine-press alone, and carried His cross up Calvary's hill ; this discipleship with the man Christ Jesus, that constitutes the moral and spiritual power in our work. That power it is yours to impart to the children under your care. Aye, this is grander than all human achievements. — J. Clement French. Bring the little ones to Christ. Lord Jesus, we bring them to-day, the children of our Sunday-schools, of our churches, of the streets. Here they are ; they wait Thy benediction. The prayer of Jacob for his sons shall be my prayer while I live, and when I die: "The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads." — T. DeWitt Talmage. Begin in prayer ; continue in prayer ; end in prayer. All the help that we have in the conversion of the children comes from God. We cannot convert their souls, but God can by the influ- ence of His Spirit. When we study our lessons, let us go first for illumination to God, that we may so impress it on the minds and hearts of those we are teaching, that they may bring forth fruit for salvation ; that they may see our earnestness — see that our desire is for their conversion. Let us pray individually for each one of our scholars. — A. O. Van Lennep. 572 SUNDAY-SCHOOL. Learn to teach the children to look at this world as a beau- tiful symbol of Jesus ; every thing, Jesus ; Christ, all ; Christ, in all. So shall you educate the imaginations of the children to receive, and their memories to retain and to use, that Christian truth ; and you yourself shall be lifted up, as on angel's wings, to see with John things which are unspeakable, but which the sanctified imagination realizes. — -Stephen H. Tyng, Jr. Oh, be assured, fellow teachers, that there is no time in life so favorable to sound conversion as early childhood. T. L. CUYLER. To live a godly life is the best way to light up a lesson that the teacher can possibly employ. — T. H. Vincent. Let us see to it that in our schools, as far as possible, every week, some lessons from Scripture, in the language oi the Scrip- ture are learned. — Wayland Hoyt. The teacher should use illustrations for the better teaching of the lesson, and never to fill up time, to amuse the class, or to display his own genius. — J. H. Vincent. It is quite likely that the modern contrivances for making Sunday-schools amusing have given them a distaste for the more solemn services of the sanctuary. If so, the amusement is a sin. The schools should feed the church. Children ought to be led by one into the other, exposed to the preaching of the gospel, taught the ways of God's house, and brought up under its influence, with all its hallowed and elevating influences. — S. Iren^us Prime. SUPERSTITION — SYMPATHY. 573 The more you study the lessons as the word of God speaking to you by the Holy Ghost, and the more you come to be- lieve in direct answers to prayer, the more efficacious will be your teaching by word and example upon the hearts and lives of others. — Henry M. Parsons. The primary principle of education is the determination of the pupil to self-activity — the doing nothing for him which he is able to do for himself. — Sir William Hamilton. Be assured, my dear Anne, that it is only by taking our lesson from God and doing the will of God, that we can either please Him in time, or be happy with Him in eternity. — Chalmers. SUPERSTITION. Superstition is a senseless fear of God ; religion, the pious worship of God. The greatest burden in the world is superstition, not only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. — Milton. Superstition is but the fear of belief — religion is the confi- dence. SYMPATHY. The capacity of sorrow belongs to our grandeur, and the loftiest of our race are those who have had the profoundest sym- pathies, because they have had the profoundest sorrows. — Henry Giles. 574 SYiMPATHY. Lord, from success, its noise and glare, And often shallow life, Guide me to where Thy soldiers lie. Faint, wounded in the strife ; . Give me a brother's heart, I pray. To watch and help the weak to-day. We often do more good by our sympathy than by our labors. A man may lose position, influence, wealth, and even health, and yet live on in comfort, if with resignation ; but there is one thing without which life becomes a burden — that is human sympathy. — Canon Farrar. Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it ; so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to re- citing His praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul. — Jeremy Taylor. There is poetry and there is beauty in real sympathy ; but there is more — there is action. The noblest and most power- ful form of sympathy is not merely the responsive tear, the echoed sigh, the answering look ; it is the embodiment of the sentiment in actual help. — OCTAVIUS WiNSLOW. Therefore, if you aspire to be a son of consolation, — if you would partake of the priestly gift of sympathy — if you would pour something beyond common-place consolation into a tempted heart — if you would pass through the daily inter- course of daily 'life with the delicate tact which never inflicts pain — if, to that most acute of human ailments, mental doubt, you are ever to give effectual succor, you must be content to pay the price of the costly education. Like Him, you must suffer — being tempted. TALENTS. 575 I ask Thee for a thankful love, Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes, And a heart at leisure from itself^ To soothe and sympathize. — Anna L. Waring. TALENTS. The way to attain to larger gifts is to employ the gifts you have. Give Jesus the one talent, and then He may trust you with two. If you cannot speak glibly in a prayer-meeting, then stammer out your heart's thanks in the best fashion you can. It may be that your few broken words may accomplish more than another man's fluent harangues. — T. L. Cuyler. Men of splendid talents are generally too quick, too volatile, too adventurous, and too unstable to be much relied on ; whereas men of common abilities, in a regular, plodding routine of busi- ness, act with more regularity and greater certainty. Men of the best intellectual abilities are apt to strike off suddenly, like the tangent of a circle, and cannot be brought into their orbits by attraction or gravity — they often act with such eccentricity as to be lost in the vortex of their own reveries. Brilliant talents in general are like the ignes fatui; they excite wonder, but often mislead. They are not, however, without their use ; like the fire from the flint, once produced, it may be converted, by solid, thinking men, to very salutary and noble purposes. — Trusler, No man can live out a life of sin without also living out all the Godward talent of his soul. 576 TEMPERANCE — TEMPTATION. The man that wrapped up his talent in the napkin and said, " Lo, there thou hast that is thine," was too sanguine. There was never an unused talent rolled up in a handkerchief yet, but when it was taken out and put into the scales, it was lighter than when it was committed to the keeping of the earth. — Alexander Maclaren. "Take therefore the talent from him." It is being taken away rapidly, and the shreds of it will very soon be all that is left. Your religious nature will finally become a virtually ex- terminated organ. The purpose you have at some future time to use your talent avails nothing. It is going from you, and, before you know it, will be utterly, irrevocably gone. My friends, there is not an hour to lose. Only with the greatest difficulty will you be able, now, to gather up yourself and open your closing gates to the entrance of God and His salvation. — Horace Bushnell. TEMPERANCE. Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul, and the foundation of virtue. — Jeremy Taylor. The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience : temperance in prosperity, and cour- age in adversity. — Seneca, Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow. — John Neal. TEMPTATION. God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers. TEMPTATION. 577 On this earth all is temptation. Crosses tempt us by irrita- ting our pride, and prosperity by flattering it. Our life is a continual combat, but one in which Jesus Christ fights for us. We must pass on unmoved, while temptations rage around us, as the traveler, overtaken by a storm, simply wraps his cloak more closely about him, and pushes on more vigorously toward his destined home. — Fenelon. The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation. — Fenelon. In the hour of my distress, When temptations me oppress, And when I my sins confess, Sweet Spirit, comfort me. — Robert Herrick. Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that roared upon Samson ; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them. — John Bunyan. We often wonder that certain men and women are left by God to the commission of sins that shock us. We wonder how, under the temptation of a single hour, they fall from the very heights of virtue and of honor into sin and shame. The fact is that there are no such falls as these, or there are next to none. These men and women are those who have dallied with temptation — have exposed themselves to the influence of it, and have been weakened and corrupted by it. — J. G. Holland. We are to keep ourselves from opportunities, and God will keep us from sin. Z7 578 TENDERNESS. Christian ! thou knowest thou earnest gunpowder about thee. Desire them that carry fire to keep at a distance. It is a dan- gerous crisis, when a proud heart meets with flattering hps. — John Flavel. The devil tempts us not ; 'tis we temjDt him, Beckoning his skill with opportunity. — George Eliot. Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they show what he is. — Thomas a Kempis. When tempted, the shortest and surest way is to act like a little child at the breast ; when we show it a frightful monster, it shrinks back and buries its face in its mother's bosom, that it may no longer behold it. — Fenelon. TENDERNESS. There never was any heart truly great and generous that was not also tender and compassionate. — South. When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. — George Eliot. While we would have our young sisters imitate, as they can- not fail to love, the conduct of Ruth, will not their elders do well to ponder on, and imitate the tenderness of Naomi ? Would we have our daughters Ruths, we must be Naomis. — Grace Aguilar. THANKFULNESS — THEOLOGY. 579 Speak the truth, by all means ! Speak it so that no man can mistake the utterance. Be bold and fearless in your rebuke of error, and in your keener rebuke of wrong-doing ; all Christ's witnesses are bound to be thus "valiant for the truth ; " but be human and loving and gentle and brotherly the while. If you must deliver the Redeemer's testimony, deliver it with the Re- deemer's tears. Look, straight-eyed and kindly, upon the vilest, as a man ought to look upon a man, both royal, although the one is wearing, and the other has pawned his crown. — Wm. M. Punshox. I was never fit to say a word to a sinner, except when I had a broken heart myself. — Edward Payson. THANKFULNESS. Many favors which God giveth us ravel out for want of hem- ming, through our own unthankfulness ; for though prayer purchaseth blessings, giving praise doth keep the quiet posses- sion of them. — Thomas Fuller. God has two dwellings — one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart. — Isaac Walton. THEOLOGY. Of all qualities which a theologian must possess, a devotional spirit is the chief. For the soul is larger than the mind, and the religious emotions lay hold on the truths to which they are related on many sides at once. A powerful understanding, on the other hand, seizes on single points, and however enlarged in its own sphere, is never safe from its narrowness of view. 580 THEOLOGY. We can no more have exact religious thinking without theol- ogy, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathemat- ics, or exact iron-making without chemistry. — John Hall. The theological systems of men and schools of men are de- termined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system. — J. G. Holland. Comparative theology testifies that Jesus Christ, who is not less truly the incarnation of the Christian's theology than of the Christian's God, is indeed the desire of the nations, but not their product, their invention, or their discovery. — George D. B. Pepper. All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass — " Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners." — Archibald Alexander. A man must have a stout digestion to feed upon some men's theology ; no sap, no sweetness, no life, but all stern accuracy, and fleshless definition. Proclaimed without tenderness, and argued without affection, the gospel from such men rather re- sembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's hand. — C. H. Spurgeon. Brethren, what makes a Christian is not the theology you have in your heads, but the faith and love you have in your hearts. We must, indeed, have a clear statement of truth in orderly propositions, — that is, a system of dogmas, — to have any thing to trust to at all. There can be no saving faith in an unseen Person, except through the medium of thoughts con- cerning Him, which thoughts put into words are a creed. THOUGHT. 581 THOUGHT. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all ? — S. T. Coleridge. Every man has some peculiar train of thought which he falls back upon when he is alone. This, to a great degree, moulds the man. — DuGALD Stewart. Thinking leads me to knowledge. He may see and hear, and read and learn, and as much as he pleases ; he will never know any of it, except that which he has thought over, that which by thinking he has made the property of his mind. Is it then saying too much if I say, that man by thinking only be- comes truly a man ? Take away thought from man's life, and what remains ? Good thoughts are true wealth ; they are fountains of living water ; they are gems that always shine ; they are impenetrable shields to protect the character ; they are goodly apparel for the mind ; they are right noble companions ; they are fair angels of light ; they are flowers of rich beauty and sweet fra- grance ; they are seeds of noble actions and noble institutions ; they are moulds in which exalted characters are formed ; they make good and great men ; they are a nation's mightiest bul- warks. A good thought is a grand legacy to bequeath to the world. They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts. — Sir Philip Sidney. An arrow may fly through the air, and leave no trace ; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent. 582 TIME. Every thought willingly contemplated, ever word meaningly spoken, every action freely done, consolidates itself in the char- acter, and will project itself onward in a permanent continuity. — Henry Giles. We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but we need not give them entertainment with open doors. — Thomas Adams. Be not troubled by the wanderings of your imagination which you cannot restrain. How often do we wander through the fear of wandering and the regret that we have done so. What would you say of a traveler who, instead of constantly adv-anc- ing in his journey, should employ his time in anticipating the falls he might suffer, or in weeping over the place where one had happened ? — Fenelon. TIME. Time wasted is existence, used is life. — Young. Dost thou love life ? then do not squander time ; for that is the stuff life is made of. — Franklin. Make use of time, if thou valuest eternity. Yesterday cannot be recalled ; to-morrow cannot be assured ; to-day only is. thine, which, if thou procrastinatest, thou losest, which loss is lost forever. — Jeremy Taylor. Time, — that black and narrow isthmus between two eterni- ties. — C. C. Colton. TIME. 583 Hours are golden links, God's token Reaching heaven ; but one by one Take them, lest the chain be broken Ere the pilgrimage be done. — A. A. Proctor. Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost. — Bishop Horne. In the spirit of faith let us begin each day, and we shall be sure to " redeem the time " which it brings to us, by changing it into something definite and eternal. There is a deep mean- ing in this phrase of the apostle, to redeem time. We redeem time, and do not merely use it. We transform it into eternity by living it aright. — J. F. Clarke. The best general means to insure the profitable employment of our time, is to accustom ourselves to living in continual de- pendence upon the Spirit of God and His law, receiving, every instant, whatever He is pleased to bestow ; consulting Him in every emergency requiring instant action, and having recourse to Him in our weaker moments when virtue seems to fail. — Fenelon. He who cannot find time to consult his Bible will one day find he has time to be sick ; he who has no time to pray must find time to die ; he who can find no time to reflect is most likely to find time to sin ; he who cannot find time for repent- ance will find an eternity in which repentance will be of no avail ; he who cannot find time to work for others may find an eternity in which to suffer for himself. — Hannah More. 584 TRIALS. 9 — How awful that silent, unceasing footfall of receding days is when once we begin to watch it ! Inexorable, passionless — though hope and fear may pray, " Sun, stand thou still on Gibeon, and thou moon in the valley of Ajalon," — the tramp of the hours goes on. The poets paint them as a linked chorus of rosy forms, garlanded and clasping hands as they dance on- wards. So they may be to some of us at some moments. So they may seem as they approach ; but those who come hold the hands of those that go, and that troop have no rosy light upon their limbs, their garlands are faded, the sunshine falls not upon the gray and shrouded shapes, as they steal ghostlike through the gloom. — Alexander Maclaren. With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness. — Thomas Chalmers. TRIALS. Jesus wept once ; possibly more than once. There are times when God asks nothing of His children except silence, patience, and tears. — Charles S. Robinson. God has not chosen to save us without crosses ; as He has not seen fit to create men at once in the full vigor of manhood, but has suffered them to grow up by degrees amid all the perils and weaknesses of youth. — Fenelon. Under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconscious to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side. — E. H. Chapin. TRIALS. 585 There will be no Christian but will have a Gethsemane; but every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel ! T. BiNNEY. Blessed be the discipline which makes me reach out my soul's roots into closer union with Jesus ! Blessed be the dews of the Spirit which keep my leaf ever green ! Blessed be the trials which shake down the ripe, golden fruits from the branches. — T. L. CUYLER. Never was there a man of deep piety, who has not been brought into extremities — who has not been put into fire — who has been taught to say, " Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." — Richard Cecil. Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties. It would seem that the more important the enterprise, the more severe the trial to which the agent is subjected in his preparation. — Edward Thomson. What are we, O blessed Jesus, that we should not take the baptism that Thou dost take, and be crowned, as Thou wert crowned, as Thou art, with glory ? We thank Thee for trials, for care, for trouble, for the yoke, for the burden, and for the fulfillment of Thy word, that Thy yoke is easy, and Thy burden light. — H. W. Beecher. In the time of Jesus the mount of transfiguration was on the way to the cross. In our day the cross is on the way to the mount of transfiguration. If you would be on the mountain, you must consent to pass over the road to it. — H. Clay Trumbull. 586 TRIALS. Every Calvary has an Olivet ; to every place of crucifixion there is likewise an ascension. The sun that was shrouded is unveiled, and heaven opens with hopes eternal to the soul which was nigh unto despair. — Henry Giles. By His trials, God means to purify us, to take away all our self-confidence, and our trust in each other, and bring us into implicit, humble trust in Himself. — Horace Bushnell. Oh, how often our all-wise Master puts us into a deep pit of trial, to subdue our pride, or to tame our passions, or to break our stubborn self-will. Blessed is he who can look up into the countenance of Jesus, and honestly say : " Master, my rebellious self is dead, that Thou mayest live in me, and that 1 may live for Thee and Thee alone." T. L. CUYLER. Nothing is intolerable that is necessary. Now God hath bound thy trouble upon thee by His special providence, and with a design to try thee, and with purposes to reward and crown thee. These cords thou canst not break, and therefore lie thou down gently, and suffer the hand of God to do what He pleases. — Jeremy Taylor. The way is dark, my child ! but leads to light ; I would not have thee always walk by sight. My dealings now, thou canst not understand. I meant it so ; but I will take thy hand. And through the gloom lead safely home My child ! Henry N. Cobb. TRIALS. 587 When our troubles are many we are often by grace made courageous in serving our God ; we feel that we have nothing to live for in this world, and we are driven, by hope of the world to come, to exhibit zeal, self-denial, and industry. — C. H. Spurgeon. It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what Ave like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the disci- pline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him. T. L. CUYLER. Purge me, oh Lord, though it be with fire. Burn up the chaff of vanity and self-indulgence, of hasty prejudice, second-hand dogmas — husks which do not feed my soul, with which I can- not be content, of which I feel ashamed daily — and if there be any grain of wheat in me, any word or thought or power of action which may be of use as seed for my nation after me, gather it, oh Lord, into Thy garner. — Charles Kingsley. All the lessons He shall send Are the sweetest : And His training, in the end, Is completest. — F. R. Havergal. " Tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope." That is the order. You cannot put patience and experience into a parenthesis, and, omitting them, bring hope out of tribulation, — Alexander Maclaren. 588 TRIALS. Chastising is an effect of love. It is not only consequential to, but springs from it ; wherefore there is nothing properly penal in the chastisement of believers. Punishment proceeds from love to justice, not from love to the person punished ; but chastisement is from love to the person chastised, though mixed with displeasure against sin. — John Owen. What disturbs us in this world is not " trouble," but our op- position to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irri- tates and wears away our lives, is not in external things, but in the resistance of our wills to the will of God expressed by external things. — Alexander Maclaren. ' Whether it be a poison from one serpent sting, or whether it be poison from a million of buzzing, tiny musquitoes ; if there be a smart, go to Him, and He will help you bear it. He will do more. He will bear it with you; for if so be that we suffer with Him, He suffers with us. — Alexander Maclaren. Life has no smooth road for any of us ; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim, the very roughness only stimulates the climber to steadier and steadier steps, till that legend of the rough places fulfills itself at last, ''^ per aspera ad astra," over steep ways to the stars. — Bishop W. C. Doane. The storms of wintry time will quickly pass, And one unbounded spring encircle all. — James Thomson. When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. — Bible. TRUST IN CHRIST. 589 TRUST IN CHRIST. Exercise your God-given power of trust. Look up ! Salva- tion is provided, and nothing remains to be done. Take hold ! Take hold ! Do not wait ! — Bishop Janes. Lay hold on Christ with both your poor, empty hands. — Elizabeth Prentiss. Seek not only to know about the Saviour, but seek confi- dence in Him, seek to know Him as your own. — James Hamilton. Trust Christ ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart. — Alexander Maclaren. We are to do what Paul meant, when he said that he had committed to Christ what He was able to keep. You have treasures that you dare not leave in your own house, and so you lock them up in some safety-deposit vault. When they are thus secured, you feel little anxiety regarding them. — Geo. C. Lorimer. We trust as we love, and we trust where we love ; if you love Christ much surely you will trust Him much. — Thomas Brooks. Do you ask why Mary Magdalene was the one chosen to whom first of all Christ should show Himself after the resur- rection ? This we know — she trusted in Him, and she loved Him ; she waited at His sepulchre ; she sought, she looked, she wept ; and if we would have Christ reveal Himself to us, we, too, must seek and wait and long and trust and love. — William Adams. 590 TRUST IN CHRIST. Trust yourselves, my brethren, to the immortal love and per- fect work of the Divine Saviour, and by His dear might your days will advance by peaceful stages, whereof each gathers up and carries forward the blessings of all that went before, to a death which shall be a birth. — Alexander Maclaren. We cannot come before the sinless and holy Lord with a stainless and holy life. We can at best bring Him the partial offerings of years. Yes, the holiest saint shall only at the last say, " Not for my righteousness." But if we can say with honest hearts: "I have striven to serve Th(§e, I have followed in Thy path, and clung to Thy cross, and pressed forward through the many falls and many repentings — I bring Thee a heart which asks nothing save Thy grace, claims nothing save Thy Divine love ; " then He will say, " Bring the best robe and put it on him." "Welcome to the joy of thy Lord." — E. A. Washburn. Thou knowest all — I lean my head ; My weary eyelids close ; Content and glad awhile to tread This path, since Jesus kiunvs ! We are only asking you to give to Christ that which you give to others, to transfer the old emotions, the blessed emotions, the exercise of which makes gladness in the life here below, to transfer them to Him, and to rest safe in the Lord. Faith is trust. — Alexander Maclaren. We must not close with Christ because we feel Him, but be- cause God has said it, and we must take God's word eve?i in the dark. — Robert McCheyne. TRUST IN CHRIST. 591 Can you by humble faith look to Jesus and say: " My sub- stitute, my refuge, my shield ; Thou art my rock, my trust ; in Thee do I confide ? " Then, beloved, to you I have nothing to say, except this: " Never be afraid when you see God's power ; for now that you are forgiven and accepted, now that by faith you have fled to Christ for refuge, the power of God need no more terrify you than the shield and sword of the warrior need terrify his wife and child." — C. H. SpurgeoNo When he abandoned all attempt to save himself, Jesus Christ saved him. This was all he knew about it. And more, this was all there was about it. • — ICHABOD SpENXER. Other refuge have I none ; Hangs my helpless soul on Thee ; Leave, ah, leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me ! All my trust on Thee is stayed. All my help from Thee I bring ; Cover my defenseless head With the shadow of Thy wing. — Charles Wesley. Remember that you are to venture the whole salvation of your soul on Christ, and on Christ only. You are to cast loose completely and entirely from all other hopes and trusts. You are not to rest partly on Christ and partly on doing all you can. In the matter of your justification Christ is to be all. — J. C. Ryle. Thomas passed on from the fact of the resurrection to the person of the risen : ".My Lord and my God !" Trust in the risen Saviour — that was the belief which saved his soul. 593 TRUST IN CHRIST. To Him let us but cleave in all our strife ; and the Temptei will flee ; the wilderness will be desolate no more ; angels will come and minister unto us ; and when we pass from them to the ministry of life, be it to the glory of a transfiguration, the sorrows of a Gethsemane, or the sacrifice of the cross, the tran- quilizing peace of God will never be far from us. — James Martineau. Scatter money in a crowd, how they scramble for it ; offer bread to the starving, how greedily they seize it ; throw a rope to the drowning, how he eagerly grasps it ! With like eagerness and earnestness may the Spirit of God help you to lay hold on Christ. — Thomas Guthrie. My trust is not that I am holy, but that, being unholy, Christ died for me. My rest is here, not in what I am or shall be or feel or know, but in what Christ is and must be, — in what Christ did and is still doing as He stands before yonder throne of glory. — C. H. Spurgeon. Nothing in my hand I bring, Simply to Thy cross I cling ; Naked, come to Thee for dress. Helpless, look to Thee for grace ; Vile, I to the fountain fly. Wash me, Saviour, or I die ! TOPLADY. Let us take short views. If we look over the precipices, we shall grow dizzy. If we look too far ahead, we shall grow dis- couraged. Let us rather put our weak hands into Christ's strong, loving grasp, and all the time listen to His cheering words, " Fear not; only trust.'''' — T. L. CUYLER. TRUST IN CHRIST. 593 Rather walking with Him by faith, Than walking alone in the light. O holy trust ! O endless sense of rest ! Like the beloved John To lay his head upon the Saviour's breast, And thus to journey on. — Longfellow. And therefore let us say, in utter faith, " Come as Thou seest best — but in whatsoever way Thou comest — even so come, Lord Jesus." — Charles Kingsley. On Thy compassion I repose, In weakness and distress, I will not ask for greater ease, Lest I should love Thee less ; Oh, 'tis a blessed thing for me To need Thy tenderness. When I am feeble as a child. And flesh and heart give way. Then on Thy everlasting strength With clinging trust I stay ; And the rough wind becomes a song, The darkness shines like day. — Anna Waring. The soul that on Jesus hath leaned for repose, I will not — I will not desert to his foes ; That soul — though all hell should endeavor to shake, I'll never — no never — no never forsake. — George Keith, 38 594 TRUST IN CHRIST. When my neighbor A — broke in business, and twenty-four hours made him a bankrupt, he came home, saying to himself, " Well, my money is gone, but Jesus is left." He did not merely come down to " hardpan," he came to something far more solid — to the everlasting arms. When another friend laid her beau- tiful boy in his coffin, after the scarlet fever had done its worst, she laid her own sorrowful heart upon the everlasting arms. The dear little sleeper was there already. The Shepherd had His lamb. — T. L. CUYLER. I do not ask my cross to understand My way to see : Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand And follow Thee. — A. A. Proctor. If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ. — Rutherford. Let good or ill befall. It must be good for me, — Secure of having Thee in all, Of having all in Thee. H. F. LvTE. Make not Christ a liar in distrusting His promise. — Rutherford. Will you tell Him frankly, that you cannot carry your load, and that you need help ? Will you suffer Him to help you in His own way, and be glad and thankful if He will only take you under His care, and direct the whole course of your life for you ? — W. Gladden. TRUST IN GOD. 595 Like dew on drooping blossoms, Like breath from Holy place, Laden with health and healing, Come Thy deep words of grace : " Thy strength is all in leaning On One who fights for thee ; Thine is the helpless clinging, And mine the victory." — Hetty Bowman. TRUST IN GOD. I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands. — J. A. Garfield. God lives ! there rest, my soul ; God hears ! before Him bow ; God sees ! and can control ; God leads ! then follow thou. God gives and loves, — Look up above ! O heart, be done with all thy care ! You shall live with Him there. SCHMOLKE. May we feel after Thee ; still calling out in the darkness, as children waking in the night call " Father," so may we call out for God ; and, at times, even if we do not hear Thy voice, may there be the form of a hand resting upon us, and that shall be enough ; for we shall take hold of it, though it be in the dark, and it shall guldens to the growing light; for the day shall come, and the release and triumph. — H. W. Beecher. Ease of mind ! But I think I can guess at what you mean. God became every thing to you as the world grew nothing. 596 TRUST IN GOD. Father, perfect my trust ; Let my spirit feel in death, That her feet are firmly set On the rock of a living faith ! — Phcebe Cary. If you tell your troubles to God, you put them into the grave ; they will never rise again when you have committed them to Him. If you roll your burden anywhere else, it will roll back again like the stone of Sisyphus. — C. H. Spurgeon. The believer is no burden to his God, and even if you should be carrying whole mountains of care and solicitude, they will not make you more burdensome or your case more difficult to the Creator of the ends of the earth. He fainteth not, neither is weary. — James Hamilton. On Thee we fling our burdening woe, O love Divine, forever dear : Content to suffer, while we know, Living and dying, Thou art near ! — O. W. Holmes. I have never committed the least matter to Him that I have not had reason for endless praise. — Anna Shipton. We want to know more than the silent God deems it good to tell; to understand the "a'^y" which He bids us wait to ask ; to see the path which He has spread on purpose in the dark. The Infinite Father does not stand by us to be cate- chised, and explain Himself to our vain mind ; He is here for our trust. TRUST IN GOD. 597 Like a blind spinner in the sun, I tread my days. I know that all the threads will run Appointed ways ; I know each day will bring its task, And being blind, no more I ask. I do not know the use or name Of that I spin ; I only know that some one came And laid within My hand the thread, and said, " Since you Are blind, but one thing you can do." — Mrs. H. F. Jackson. Ah, no ! henceforth my own desire shall be, That He who knows me best should choose for me; And so, whate'er His love sees good to send, I'll trust it's best, because He knows the end. — Mrs. C. Hobart If thou couldst trust, poor soul ! In Him who rules the whole, Thou wouldst find peace and rest; Wisdom and sight are well, but trust is best. — A. A. Proctor. How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up the world ! — Jean Paul Richter. What dost thou fear ? His wisdom reigns Supreme, confessed ; His power is infinite ; His love Thy deepest, fondest dreams above, So trust and rest. 598 TRUST IN GOD. A friend called on me when I was ill, to settle some business. My head was too much confused by my indisposition to under- stand fully what he said, but I had such unlimited confidence in him, that I did whatever he bid me, in the fullest assurance that it was right. How simply I can trust in man, and how little in God ! How unreasonable is a pure act of faith in one like ourselves, if we cannot repose the same faith in God. — Richard Cecil. When God says to us, " Give me your load, trust me, what you cannot do, I will do for you," He puts our faith to one of the strongest tests. He never consents to carry our burdens unless we give them to Him. T. L. CUYLER. My little fellow, about four years old, whom I brought with me, gave himself no trouble amid the boats, omnibuses, and railway coaches, on sea, land, and in dark tunnels ; his father was at his side, and never a care or fear or doubt or anxiety had he. May we have grace to be led by the hand, and trust to the care and kindness of a reconciled God and Father. — Thomas Guthrie. We come, in our trust, unto God, and the moment we so em- brace Him, by committing our total being and eternity to Him, we find every thing is transformed. There is life in us from God ; a kind of Christ-consciousness is opened in us, testifying with the apostle, — Christ liveth in me. — Horace Bushnell. We have nothing to do but to surrender ourselves to God each day, without looking farther ; He will carry us in His arms as a tender mother bears her child. Let us believe, hope, and love with all the simplicity of babes ; in every necessity turning a loving and trusting look towards our Heavenly Father. TRUST IX GOD. 599 It is a view of God tiiat compensates every thing else, and enables the soul to rest in His bosom. How, when the child in the night screams with terror, hearing sounds that it knows not of, is that child comforted and put to rest ? Is it by a philo- sophical explanation that the sounds were made by the rats in the partition ? Is it by imparting entomological knowledge ? No ; it is by the mother taking the child in her lap, and sing- ing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother. — H. W. Beecher. I have studied at Barcelona, at Salamanca, at Alcala, at Paris ; what have I learned ? The language of doubt ; but in me there was no harbor for doubt. Jesus came, and my trust in God has grown by the doubts of men. — Ignatius Loyola. You must cast yourself on God's gospel with all your weight, without any hanging back, without any doubt, without even the shadow of a suspicion that it will give — Alexander Maclaren. Upon Thy word I rest, So strong, so sure : So full of comfort blest, So sweet, so pure — The word that changeth not, that faileth never ! My King, I rest upon Thy word forever. — F. R. Havergal. Never should we so abandon ourselves to God as when He seems to abandon us. Let us enjoy light and consolation when it is His pleasure to give them to us ; but let us not attach our- selves to His gifts, but to Him ; and when He plunges us into the night of pure faith, let us still press on through, the agoniz- ins; darkness. 600 TRUST IN GOD. We sleep in. peace in the arms of God when we yield our- selves up to His providence, in a delightful consciousness of His tender mercies ; no more restless uncertainties, no more anxious desires, no more impatience at the place we are in, for it is God who has put us there, and who holds us in His arms. Can we be unsafe where He has placed us, and where He watches over us as a parent watches a child ? This confiding repose, in which earthly care sleeps, is the true vigilance of the heart ; yielding itself up to God, with no other support than Him, it thus watches while we sleep. This is the love of Him that will not sleep even in death. — Fenelon. Turn your confidence and your fears alike into prayer. — Alexander Maclaren. " / am trying to trust,'' said one to me this past week, who had heard the earth falling on the casket which held the cold form of the dearest human friend, " I am trying to trust," and so I have seen a bird with a broken wing trying to fly. When the heart is broken, all our trying will only increase our pain and unrest. But if, instead of trying to trust, we will press closer to the Comforter, and lean our weary heads upon His sufficient grace, the trust will come without our trying, and the promised "perfect peace" will calm every troubled wave of sorrow. A. E. KiTTREDGE. Cast thy burden on the Lord, Only lean upon His word ; Thou wilt soon have cause to bless His unchanging faithfulness. — Rowland Hill. Toward the future let us look calmly, cheerfully, trustfully. The Lord is in it, and if we are His, we need fear no evil. TRUST IN GOD. GOl I would sooner walk in the dark, and hold hard to a promise of my God, than trust in the light of the brighest day that ever dawned. — C. H. Spurgeon. "Mrs. M., you seem to be very sick." "Yes," said she, "I am dying." " And are you ready to die.'" "Sir, God knows / have taken Him at His word, and I am not afraid to die." — IcHABOD Spencer. Commit yourself then to God ! He will be your guide. He Himself will travel with you, as we are told He did with the Israelites, to bring them step by step across the desert to the promised land. Ah ! what will be your blessedness, if you will but surrender yourself into the hands of God, permitting Him to do whatever He will, not according to your desires, but ac- cording to His own good pleasure ? — Fenelon. I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air ; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. — Whittier. An undivided heart, which worships God alone, and trusts Him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants. — J. C. Geikie. If, like Jacob, you trust God in little things, He may answer you by great things. — J. R. Macduff. Trust in God for great things. With your five loaves and two fishes He will show you a way to feed thousands. — Horace Bushnell. 603 TRUTH. Trust arises from the mind's instinctive feeling after fixed realities, after the substance of every shadow, the base of all appearance, the everlasting amid change. — James Martineau. Not till we come to a simple reliance on the blood and medic- ation of the Saviour, shall we know what it is either to have trust in God, or know what it is to walk before Him without fear, in righteousness and true holiness. — Chalmers. For us — whatever's undergone, Thou knowest, wiliest what is done. Grief may be joy misunderstood: Only the Good discerns the good. I trust Thee while my days go on. — Mrs. E. B. Browning. So, whether on the hill-tops high and fair I dwell, or in the sunless valleys where The shadows lie — what matter .? He is there. And more than this : where'er the pathway lead. He gives to me no helpless, broken reed. But His own hand, sufficient for my need. So, where He leads me, I can safely go, And in the blest hereafter I shall know, Why in His wisdom He hath led me so. TRUTH. One of the sublimest things in this world is plain truth. BULWER. Truth is power. TRUTH. G03 No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage- ground of truth. — Lord Bacon. Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line. TiLLOTSON. Time, beneath whose influence the pyramids moulder into dust, and the flinty rocks decay, does not and cannot destroy a fact, nor strip a truth of one portion of its essential import- ance. Truth is a very different thing from fact ; it is the loving contact of the soul with spiritual fact, vital and potent. It does not work in the soul independently of all faculty or qual- ification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion. — George MacDonald. Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail ; but in conveying a right impression. — Dean Alford. No truth can be said to be seen as /'/ is until it is seen in its relation to all other truths. In this relation only is it true. — Elizabeth Prentiss. The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love. — Heine. Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order, — Laplace. Peace, if possible, but the truth at any rate. — Martin Luther. 604 TRUTH. Truth will ever be unpalatable to those who are determined not to relinquish error. — E. W. Montagu. It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another thing to wish to be on the side of truth. — Whatelv. The advent of truth, like the dawn of day, agitates the ele- ments, while it disperses the gloom. — E. L. Magoon. God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. — R, W. Emerson. Dare to be true ; nothing can need a lie; A fault which needs it most grows two thereby. — George Herbert. He who seeks truth must be content with a lonely, little- trodden path. If he cannot worship her till she has been can- onized by the shouts of the multitude, he must take his place with the members of that wretched crowd who shouted for two long hours, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians ! " till truth, reason, and calmness were all drowned in noise. — F. W. Robertson. Give us that calm certainty of truth, that nearness to Thee, that conviction of the reality of the life to come, which we shall need to bear us through the troubles of this. — H. W. Beecher. The golden beams of truth and the silken cords of love, twisted together, will draw men on with a sweet violence whether they will or not. CUDWORTH. TRUTH. 605 How sweet the words of truth breathed from the Hps of love ! — James Beattie. Pray over every truth ; for though the renewed heart is not " desperately wicked," it is quite deceitful enough to become so, if God be forgotten a moment. — Charles Kingsley. There is an inward state of the heart which makes truth cred- ible the moment it is stated. It is credible to some men be- cause of what they are. Love is credible to a loving heart ; purity is credible to a pure mind; life is credible to a spirit in which life beats strongly — it is incredible to other men. — F. W. Robertson. In all matters of eternal truth, the soul is before the intel- lect ; the things of God are spiritually discerned. You know truth by being true ; you recognize God by being like Him. — F. W. Robertson. We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them. — Jeremy Collier. We must never throw away a bushel of truth because it hap- pens to contain a feAv grains of chaff, — Dean Stanley. Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their di- vineness by sick-beds and in every-day work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness. — Charles Kingsley. Truth needs no flowers of speech. — Pope. 606 TRUTH. Truth does not require your painting, brother ; // is itself beauty. Unfold it, and men will be captivated. Take your brush to set off the rainbow, or give a new tinge of splendor to the setting sun, but keep it away from the " Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valley." — David Thomas. Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam. — Milton. Just as soon as any conviction of important truth becomes central and vital, there comes the desire to utter it — a desire which is immediate and irresistible. Sacrifice is gladness, ser- vice is joy, when such an idea becomes a commanding power. — R. S. Storrs. God planted the true seed, and He is confident that it will germinate and grow until its branches shall fill the whole earth. He has confidence in His truth ; have you .'' Can you not be content, like Him, to plant and nourish and water and tenderly prune and trust for the issue .-* It is perilous to separate thinking rightly from acting rightly. He is already half false who speculates on truth and does not doit. Truth is given, not to be contemplated, but to be done. Life is an action — not a thought. And the penalty paid by him who speculates on truth, is that by degrees the very truth he holds becomes a falsehood. — F. W. Robertson. In this life-long fight, to be waged by every one of us single- handed against a host of foes, the last requisite for a good fight, the last proof and test of our courage and manfulness, must be loyalty to truth — the most rare and difficult of all human qualities. UNBELIEF. G07 u. UNBELIEF. Unbelief makes a man guilty of the vilest contempt of Christ, and the whole design of redemption by Him. — John Flavel. Surely Scripture is right when it makes the sin of sins that unbelief, which is at bottom nothing else than a refusal to take the cup of salvation. vSurely no sharper grief can be inflicted upon the Spirit of God than when we leave His gifts neglected and unappropriated. — Alexander Maclaren. There is nothing I feel more than the criminality of not trust- ing Christ without doubt — without doubt. Oh, to think what Christ is, what He did, and whom He did it for, and then not to believe Him, not to trust Him ! There is no wickedness like the wickedness of unbelief. How deeply rooted must unbelief be in our hearts when we are surprised to find our prayers answered. — Guesses AT Truth. A refusal to believe that God loves us is the unbelief which destroys the soul. — E. N. Kirk. " He will reprove the world of sin " — not because men swear and lie and steal and get drunk and murder — " of sin because they believe not on me." — D. L. Moody. It is no advantage to be near the light if the eyes are closed. — St. Augustine. 608 UNION TO CHRIST. I know of no condition worse than that of the man who has Httle or no Hght on the supreme rehgious questions, and who at the same time is making no effort to come to the light. — E. F. Burr. Why does a man refuse to believe ? Because he has confi- dence in himself; because he has not a sense of his own sins; because he has not love in his heart to his Lord and Saviour. Unbelief men are responsible for. Unbelief is criminal because it is a moral act — an act of the Avhole nature. Belief or unbe- lief is a test of a man's whole spiritual condition, just because it is the whole being, affections, will, conscience, and all, as well as the understanding, which are concerned in it. — Alexander Maclaren. At the conscious approach of death, faith in the Biblical Re- ligion, with its God and Christ and written Revelation, never weakens, but almost or quite always strengthens, and very often advances to a splendid assurance ; while unbelief under the same circumstances never strengthens, but almost or quite always weakens and falters, and very often fails utterly. — E. F. Burr. UNION TO CHRIST. Unless we are wedded to Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His power, Christ is nothing to us. — Alexander Maclaren. Christ imparts to all believers all the spiritual blessings that He is filled with, and withholds none from any that have union with Him, be these blessings never so great, or they that re- ceive them never so weak and contemptible in outward re- spects. — John Flavel. UNION TO CHRIST. 609 Remember, you are not a tree, that can live or stand alone. You are only a branch. And it is only while you abide in Christ, as the branch in the vine, that you will flourish or even live. — Robert McCheyne. As long as we abide in Christ, our action is from Him, not from our own corrupt and broken nature. — Horace Bushnell. In having all things, and not Thee, what have I ? Not having Thee, what have my labors got ? Let me enjoy but Thee, what farther crave I ? And having Thee alone, what have I not ? — Francis Quarles. Our communion with Christ is not on a level of our common humanity, but we rise in it ; we scale the heavens where He sitteth at the right hand of God ; we send our longings up and ask to have attachments knit to Him ; to be set in deepest, holiest, and most practical affinity with Him ; and so to live a life that is hid with Christ in God. In such a life, we become partakers of His holiness, and, in the separating grace of that, partakers also of His power. — Horace Bushnell. • O ! to abide ever iji Christ — to know His fellowship, to keep our hearts resting upon His infinite love, and there to grow from spiritual infancy to the full stature in holiness and love and joy and peace. May this be your experience every day and hour, strong in Him, fruitful in Him, happy in Him, until with the crumbling of the tabernacle of clay, the fellowship is perfect in the house not made with hands, where we shall see Him as He is. A. E. KiTTREDGE. 39 610 UNIVERSE. If ye abide in me, and niy words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. As in mysterious and transcendent union the Divine takes in- to itself the human in the person of Jesus, and eternity is blended with time ; we, trusting Him, and yielding our hearts to Him, receive into our poor lives an incorruptible seed, and for us the soul-satisfying realities that abide forever mingle with and are reached through the shadows that pass away. — Alexander Maclaren. Jehovah is the Lord of the universe, and no responsible creature can feel itself in its right place except in cheerful loy- alty to its Creator. And Jehovah is the Joy of the universe, and no intelligent being but must feel a great void in its affec- tions, till once it love the Lord its God with all its strength and mind. — James Hamilton. Jesus, my life is Thine, And ever more shall be Hidden in Thee, For nothing can untwine Thy life from mine. — F. R. Havergal. UNIVERSE. What blessedness it is to dwell amidst this transparent air, which the eye can pierce without limit, amidst these floods of pure, soft, cheering light, under this immeasurable arch of heaven, and in sight of these countless stars ! An infinite uni- verse is each moment opened to our view. And this uni- verse is the sign and symbol of Infinite Power, Intelligence, Purity, Bliss, and Love. — W. E. Channing. VIRTUE. Gil All things are connected with all things throughout the uni- verse, from the insect to the archangel ; from the sand-grain to the mountain and the globe ; from the dew-drop to the ocean ; from the rain-drop to the rainbow ; from the pebble on the shore to the sun that blazes in the firmament ; from the zephyr that sings among the flowers of the field to the ocean that pours its wild bass in the great anthem of nature. Not only are all things connected with all things, but there is a con- catenation of events, so that the character and effects of no one event can terminate in itself. As each event owes some portion of its nature to that which preceded it, so it imparts some of its nature to that which succeeds it, and thus perpetu- ates the blended good or evil of itself and its predecessors. The single event may thus live on in its influence along the line of all the ages, assuming new shapes, or if clothing itself in the drapery of new events, ever marching onward and upward in the continually growing affairs of time. — John Lanahan. V. VIRTUE. Virtue consists in doing our duty in the several relations we sustain in respect to ourselves, to our fellow men, and to God, as known from reason, conscience, and revelation. — J. W. Alexander. We cannot have right virtue without right conditions. — H. W. Beecher. True elevation, an elevation essential and eternal, is one of merit, one of virtue. Birth, fortune, genius, are nothing be- fore God. For what is birth before God who was never born ? What is fortune before God who made the world .'' What is genius before God who is an infinite mind ? 012 WAITING. The paths of virtue, though seldom those of worldly great- ness, are always those of pleasantness and peace. — Sir Walter Scott. Virtue is not a mushroom, that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep, or regard it not ; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather. — Barrow. No state of virtue is complete, however total the virtue, save as it is won by a conflict with evil, and fortified by the strug- gles of a resolute and even bitter experience. — Horace Bushnell. What the world calls virtue is a name and a dream without Christ. The foundation of all human excellence must be laid deep in the blood of the Redeemer's cross, and in the power of His resurrection. — F. W. Robertson. A virtuous youth and frugal manhood always create a Pisgah for the veteran in righteousness, from which he may calmly survey the stars, and read his " title clear to mansions in the skies," while yet in the flesh he can soar on the wings of med- itation above the clouds, and catch glimpses of the heavenly world that lies in the placid and everlasting orient before him. — E. L. Magoon. W. WAITING. They also serve who only stand and wait. WAR. 613 Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted ; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. — Samuel Johnson. We are waiting. Master, waiting. Wayworn, pressed with toils and strife ; Waiting, hoping, watching, praying. Till we reach the gates of life. — Ray Palmer. Be patient, my friends ; time rolls rapidly away ; our longing has its end. The hour will strike, who knows how soon .'' — when the maternal lap of everlasting Love shall be opened to us, and the full peace of God breathe around us from the palmy summits of Eden. — Krummacher. Only waiting till the shadows Are a little longer grown. Only waiting till the glimmer Of the day's last beam is flown. Then from out the gathered darkness, Holy, deathless stars shall rise, By whose light my soul shall gladly Tread its pathway to the skies. Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. WAR. The fruits of the gospel are love, forbearance, meekness, purity, joy ; those of war are hatred, vengeance, lust, carnage, and misery. 614 WEARINESS. War will never yield but to the principles of universal justice and love, and these have no sure root but in the religion of Jesus Christ. — W. E. Changing. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of con- tinual warfare. — James Madison. WEARINESS. Jesus, give the weary Calm and sweet repose. With Thy tend'rest blessing May our eyelids close. — S. Baring-Gould. After all there is a weariness that cannot be prevented. It will come on. The work brings it on. The cross brings it on. Sometimes the very walk with God brings it on, for the flesh is weak ; and at such moments we hear softer and sweeter than it ever floated in the wondrous air of Mendelssohn, "O rest in the Lord," for it has the sound of an immortal requiem : " Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors." — James Hamilton. So tired ! Lord, Thou wilt come To take me to my home, So long desired : Only Thy grace and mercy send, That I may serve Thee to the end. Though I am tired. There the wicked cease from troubling ; and there the weary be at rest. WILL. 615 WILL. We lay it down as a first principle — from which we can no more depart than from the consciousness of existence — that man is free ; and therefore stand ready to embrace whatever is fairly included in the definition of freedom. — Archibald Alexander. Renew my will from day to day, Blend it with Thine, and take away All that now makes it hard to say, "Thy will be done." — Charlotte Elliott. What men want is not talent, it is purpose ; in other words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor. I believe that labor judiciously and continuously applied becomes genius. You cannot will to possess the spirit of Christ, that must come as His gift ; but you can choose to study His life, and to imitate it. — E. Prentiss. There may be some tenderness in the conscience and yet the will be a very stone ; and as long as the will stands out, there is no broken heart. — Richard Alleine. Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God's hand gives the impulse and direction. • — Alexander Maclaren. 616 WISDOM. Want of will causes paralysis of every faculty. In spiritual things man is utterly unable because resolvedly unwilling. — C. H. Spurgeon. The true servants of God are not solicitous that He should order them' to do what they desire to do, but that they may de- sire to do what He orders them to do. — St. Augustine, My will, not Thine be done, turned Paradise into a desert, " Thy will, not mine be done," turned the desert into Paradise, and made Gethsemane the gate of heaven. — Pressense. WISDOM. Be wise to-day ; 'tis madness to defer. — Young. What is it to be wise ? 'Tis but to know how little can be known, To see all other's faults, and feel our own, — Pope. Knowledge conies, but wisdom lingers. — Tennyson. The heart is wiser than the intellect. — J. G. Holland. For knowledge to become wisdom, and for the soul to grow, the soul must be rooted in God : and it is through prayer that there comes to us that which is the strength of our strength, and the virtue of our virtue, the Holy Spirit. — W^L Mountford. WOMAN. 617 The question is, whether, Uke the Divine Child in the Tem- ple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, un- derstanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law ; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father's business, and becoming wise to God. — F. W. Robertson. Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much ; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. — COWPER. The wise man is but a clever infant, spelling letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eter- nity. — T. Carlyle. What in me is dark, Illumine, what is low, raise and support. — Milton. WOMAN. Women of America ! You can give and serve a.nd pray. You can give self-denyingly. You can serve lovingly. You can pray conqueringly. The best example of self-denying liberality in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of loving service in the Bible is recorded of woman. The best example of conquering prayer in the Bible is recorded of woman. It was no great gift, no great service, no great prayer. The gift was a widow's mite. The service was the anointing of Jesus with a box of ointment. The prayer was a mother's prayer for a daughter possessed with a devil. But the gift and service and prayer were in self-denial and love and faith. And so in the sight of God they were of great price. — Herrick Johnson. 618 WORKS. Without religion, man is an atheist, woman is a monster. As daughter, sister, wife, and mother, she holds in her hands, under God, the destinies of humanity. In the hours of gloom and sorrow we look to her for sympathy and comfort. Where shall she find strength for trial, comfort for sorrow, save in that gospel which has given a new meaning to the name of *' mother," since it rested on the lips of the child Jesus ? — Bishop Whipple. Christ has lifted woman to a new place in the world. And just in proportion as Christianity has sway, will she rise to a higher dignity in human life. What she has now, and what she shall have, of privilege and true honor, she owes to that gospel which took those qualities peculiarly and which had been counted w©ak and unworthy, and gave them a Divine glory in Christ. — Herrick Johnson. WORKS. Although good works, which are the fruits of faith, and fol- low after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgments, yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by its fruit. — Articles of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The movement of the soul along the path of duty, under the influence of holy love to God, constitutes what we call good works. — Thomas Erskine. It is impossible that those who are implanted into Christ by a true faith, should not bring forth fruits of thankfulness. — Heidelberg Catechism. WORLD. 619 You never will be saved by works ; but let us tell you most solemnly that you never will be saved without \yox\?,. — T. L. CUYLER. Christian practice is that evidence^ which confirms every other indication of true godliness. — Jonathan Edwards. It is the hardest thing in the world not to think our good works better than they are. and to make the very best keep their distance in the office of justification. Though we must be judged by and according to our actions, yet we shall not be saved by them. Many shall seek ; do you strive. For wishing is one thing, and willing is another, and doing is yet another. And in regard to entrance into Christ's kingdom, our " doing " is trusting Him who has done all for us. " This is the work of God, that ye should believe on Him whom He hath sent." Does your wish lead to the acceptance of the condition ? Then it will be ful- filled. — Alexander Maclaren. When a man dies they who survive him ask what property he has left behind. The angel who bends over the dying man asks what good deeds he has sent before him. — Koran. W^ORLD. And what is this world in the immensity that teems with them ? And what are they who occupy it ? The universe at large would suffer as little in its splendor and variety by the destruction of our planet as the verdure and sublime magni- tude of a forest would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. 620 WORLDLINESS. Ownership in the world I have none, but I have an infinite interest in it ; for if not my own it is my God's ; and so it is mine in a higher than a legal sense. Yes, this is the beauty, this is the whole sublimity, this is the tender delight of life — that it is of God's governing. — Wm. Mountford. The world's history is a Divine poem, of which the history of every nation is a canto, and every man a word. Its strains have been pealing along down the centuries, and though there have been mingled the discords of warring cannon and dying men, yet to the Christian philosopher and historian — the humble listener — there has been a Divine melody running through the song which speaks of hope and halcyon days to come. ~J. A. Garfield. WORLDLINESS. Set not your heart upon the world, since God hath not made it your portion. — Rutherford. Lift thyself up, look around, and see something higher and brighter than earth, earthworms, and earthly darkness. — Jean Paul Richter. O my God ! close my eyes, that I may see Thee ; separate me from the world, that I may enjoy Thy company. — Christian Scriver. Worldliness consists in these three : attachment to the out- ward — attachment to the transitory — attachment to the unreal : in opposition to love for the inward, the eternal, the true : and the one of these affections is necessarily expelled by the other. WORLDLINESS. 621 Unworldliness is this — to hold things from God in the per- petual conviction that they will not last ; to have the world, and not let the world have us ; to be the world's masters, and not the world's slaves. — F. W. Robertson. There is such a thing as a worldly spirit, and there is such a thing as an unworldly spirit — and according as we partake of the one or the other, the savor of the sacrifice of our lives is ordinary, common-place, poor, and base ; or elevating, invigor- ating, useful, noble, and holy. — Dean Stanley. Conformity to the world has in all ages proved the ruin of the church. It is utterly impossible to live in nearness to God, and in friendship with the world. — Rowland Hill. Show me the men who imbibe the spirit of the world, who choose the company of the world, who imitate the example of the world, conform to the maxims of the world, are swallowed up in the gayety, fashions, and amusements of the world ; — behold, these are the ungodly, who are brought into desola- tion as in a moment. — Gardiner Spring. There is no surer evidence of an unconverted state than to have the things of the world uppermost in our aim, love, and estimation. — Joseph Alleine. Not by empty protestations against the pleasures of the world, and cynical denunciations of its enjoyments, but by our su- periority to its perishing greatness, to its fading beauties, and its impotent antagonisms, are we to express our redemption from its power. — Geo. C. Lorimer. 623 WORLDLINESS. We wonder why a certain church-member is so lax in his devotions and loose in his practices. The reason is that, while his trunk and his branches are over on the church side of the wall, his roots run under the wall and dwell in the bad soil on the other side. T. L. CUYLER. Christians should live in the world, but not be filled with it. A ship lives in the water • but if the water gets into the ship, she goes to the bottom. So Christians may live in the world ; but if the world gets into them, they sink. — D. L. Moody. The only true method of action in this world is to be in it, but not of it. — Madame Swetchine. A Christian making money fast is just a man in a cloud of dust, it will fill his eyes if he be not careful. — C. H. Spurgeon. Christianity does not condemn traffic, commerce, material activities of any kind. Its highest development is possible with the busiest life. To be a first-rate business man does not involve being a fourth-rate Christian. Buying, possessing, accumulating — this is not worldliness. But doing this in the love of it, with no love of God para- mount — doing it so that thoughts of eternity and God are an intrusion — doing it so that one's spirit is secularized in the process ; this is worldliness. — Herrick Johnson. They best pass over the Avorld who trip over it quickly ; for it is but a bog. If we stop, we sink. — Queen Elizabeth. WORTH — YOUTH. 623 I had as lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have deterinined to be rich, and to gain it by gambhng stakes, and madmen's ventures. — H. W. Beecher. WORTH. In all our noble -Anglo-Saxon language, there is scarcely a nobler word than worth ; yet this term has now almost exclu- sively a pecuniary meaning. So that if you ask what a man is worth, nobody ever thinks of telling you what he is, but what he has. The answer will never refer to his merits, his virtues, but always to his possessions. He is worth — so much money. — Richard Fuller. Dignity and rank and riches are all corruptible and worthless ; but moral character has an immortality that no sword-point can destroy. — John Gumming. Y. YOUTH. The greatest part ot mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable. — Bruyere. Use thy youth so that thou mayest have comfort to remem- ber it when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof. Use it as the spring-time which soon depart- eth, and wherein thou oughtest to plant and sow all provisions for a long and happy life. — Sir Walter Raleigh. No boy is well prepared for rough climbing, unless he is well shod with Christian principles. 624 YOUTH. Every stage of life has its own set of manners, that is suited to it, and best becomes it. Each is beautiful in its season ; and you might as Avell quarrel with the child's rattle, and ad- vance him directly to the boy's top and span-farthing, as expect from diffident youth the manly confidence of riper age. — Bishop Hurd. A youth thoughtless ! Avhen the career of all his days depends on the opportunity of a moment ! A youth thoughtless ! when all the happiness of his home forever depends on the chances or the passions of an hour ! A youth thoughtless ! when his every act is a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagina- tion a fountain of life or death ! Be thoughtless in any after years, rather than now — though indeed there is only one place where a man may be nobly thoughtless — his death-bed. No thinking should be ever left to be done there. — John Ruskin. Oh thou corrupter of youth ! I would not take thy death, for all the pleasures of thy guilty life, a thousand fold. Thou shalt draw near to the shadow of death. To the Christian these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth and mingles with its shadows. But to thee, these shall be shadows full of phantom-shapes. Images of ter- ror in the Future shall dimly rise and beckon : — the ghastly deeds of the Past shall stretch out their skinny hands to push thee forward ! Thou shalt not die unattended ! Despair shall mock thee. Agony shall tender to thy parched lips her fiery cup. Remorse shall feel for thy heart and rend it open. Good men shall breathe freer at thy death, and utter thanksgiving when thou art gone. — H. W. Beecher. When we are out of sympathy with the young, then I think our work in this world is over. — George MacDonald. ZEAL. 625 Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, lead you on until you are useless ; then, if the virtuous do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without a friend in the universe. — H, W. Beecher. ZEAL. It is only through a burning zeal for the salvation of the lost — a zeal glowing in the heart, and flashing out in the look and action and utterance — that the confidence of unbelief can be overcome, and the heedless travelers of the broad way won to the path of life and happiness. Love is the most potent logic ; interest and sympathy are the most subduing eloquence. — The Christian at Work. A zealous soul without meekness is like a ship in a storm, in danger of wrecks. A meek soul without zeal, is like a ship in a calm, that moves not so fast as it ought, — J. M, Mason. It is a coal from God's altar must kindle our fire ; and with- out fire, true fire, no acceptable sacrifice. — William Penn. 40 INDEX OF AUTHORS. [The figures refer to the pages. In many instances a parenthesis follows the name of the author giving his birthplace and his time of birth and death. In a few cases the name of the book or periodical is given.] Adams, John, (Amer., 1735-1826). 50. Adams, Nehemiah, D. D., (Amer., 1806-). 75, 259, 268, 460. Adams, Mrs. S. F., (Eng., 1805-1849). 282. Adams, Rev. Thomas, (Eng., 1701-1784). 167, 272, 582, 619. Adams, William, D. D., (Amer., 1707-1789). 4,91, 102, 163, 165, 210, 219, 222, 224, 230, 342, 396, 398, 448, 5S9. Addison, Joseph, (Eng., 1672-1719). 209, 337, 377, 484. Advance, The. 420. Aguilar, Grace, (Eng., 1816-1847). 578. Alex.\nder, J. Addison, D. D., (Vir., 1809-1860). 472.. 219. Alexander, Archibald, D. D., (Vir., 1772-1851). 580,615. Alexander, Mrs. C. P., (Ire., 1823-). 280. Alexander, J. W., D. D., (Vir., 1804-1859). 30, 274, 611. Alford, Dean HenrJ^ (Eng., 1810-1871). 2S0, 603. Alleine, Rev. Joseph, (Eng. , 1633-1688). 86, 163, 283, 320, 327, 336, 436, 448, 540, 550, 551, 621. Alleine, Rev. Richard, (Eng., 1610-1681). 143, 171. 277, 317. 462. 546, 615. Allen, Rev. James, (1734-1804). 371. Ambrose, St., (Treves, 340-397). 509. Angelus Silesius, 268. Anselm, St., (France, 1034-1109). 123. Anthony, C. H., (N. Y., 1812-1872). 382. Anthony, St., (Egypt, 251-256). 541. Arnold, Dr. Thomas, (Eng., 1795-1842), 22, 133, 254, 364. 628 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Arnot, William, D. D.,(Scot). 281,464. Arthur, Rev. William, (Ire., 1S19-). 83, 113, 190, 191,318,321,322, 323. 473. 491. 553- Articles of Methodist Episcopal Church. 361, 526, 618. Augustine, St., (Numidia, 354-430). 25, 62, 157, 267, 268, 277,296, 330, 351, 392. 395.433,449,462, 464.486, 5TI, 512, 515, 520, 523, 607, 616. Backus, Charles, D. D., (Conn., 1749-1S03). 375, 401, 491. Bacon, Ld. Francis, (Eng., 1561-1626). 18, 19, 189, 487, 521, 603. Bacon, Leonard, D. D., (Amer., 1802-1881). 511. Bailey, P. J., (Eng., 1816-). 9, 300,383, 459- Bailie, Joanna, (Scot., 1762-1851). 459. Ballard, Prof. Edward. 401. Bancroft, George, (Mass., 1800-). 22,425, 425, 481. Baptist Church Manual. 28, 81, 190, 509, 525, 527. Barbauld, AnnaL., (Eng., 1743-1825). 161, 176, 3S5. 433. Baring-Gould, Rev. S., (Eng., 1834-). 614. Barnes, Albert, D. D.,(N. Y., 1798-1870). 28,72, 114, 134,176,200, 206,272, 289, 293, 308, 316. 31S, 340, 342, 382, 383,437, 450, 452, 455, 532. Barrow, Isaac, D. D., (Eng., 1630-1677)- 612. Bascom, John, D. D., (Amer.). 213, 269. Basil, St., (328-379). 291. Battershall, W. W., D. D., (Amer.). 174. Baxter, Rev. Richard, (Eng., 1615-1691). 11, 36, 102. Bayne, Peter, (Scot.). 205. Beattie, James, (Scot., 1735-1803). 332, 33S, 605. Beddome, Rev. Benj., (Eng., 1717-1795). 514. Beecher, Rev. H. W., (Conn., 1813-). 11, 15, 28, 38, 43, 52, 58, 102, 106, T07, 109, 118, 120, 151, 170, 176, 179, 184, 185, 194,215,240, 273,292, 295. 302, 339. 341. 345, 349, 368, 390. 393, 404, 405,410,4", 4i4, 434, 438,441, 494, 496, 521, 523. 524, 566. 567, 585, 595, 599, 604,611, 623. 624, 625. Beecher, Lyman, D. D.,(Conn., 1775-). 162, 479. Bentley, Richard, (Eng., 1662-1742). 511. BERKELEY.Bp. George, (Ire., 1684-1753). 445. Bernard, St., (France, 1091-1153). 98, 213, 214, 329. 395,398. Berridge. Rev. John, (Eng., 1716-1793). 334, 480. Bethune, Geo. W., D. D., (Amer., 1805-1862). 54. Beveridge, Bp. W., (Eng., 1638-1708). 121. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 629 Bible. 15, 25, 27, 33, 36, 39, 40, 53. 58, 61, 65, 69, 78, 87, 90, 91, 92, 136, 154. 155. 161,163, 167, 208, 210, 235, 271,298, 302,304, 312,331, 348, 397, 407, 411, 424, 427, 434, 471, 475, 554. 588, 610, 613, 614. BiCKERSTETH, Rev. E. H.,(Eng., 1825-). 370,534- BiNNEY, Rev. Thomas, (Eng., 1800-). 469, 585. Blair, Hugh, D. D., (Scot., 1718-1S00). 4, 109, 175, 242, 345, 386, 420, 4S1, 493, 495, 501, 550. Blackie, Prof. J. S., (Scot., 1809-). 440. Blessington, Lady Margaret, (Ire., 1789-1849). 499. Boardman, Geo. D., D. D., (Ainer.). i, 7, 368. BoARDMAN, H. A., D. D., (Amer.). 39, 190. Bonaparte, Napoleon, (Corsica, 1769-1821). 64, 419, 423, 441. BoNAR, Horatius, D. D.. (Scot., 1808-). 7, 93, 125, 206, 308, 399, 434, 5", 538, 553, 555- Bonneval, Jacques. 18. Book of Common Prayer. 14, 74, 436, 441, 467, 552, 553, 565. Borgia, Csesar, (Italy, 1457-1507). 176. BoRTHWiCK, Jane, (Scot.> 1825-). 84, 518. Boston, Rev. Thomas, (Scot., 1676-1732). 207, 212. BovEE, C. N., (1820-), 205, 244, 365. Bowman, Hetty. 120, 432, 595. BowRiNG, Sir John, (Eng., 1792-1872). 171,272. Boyd, Rev. A. H. K., (Country Parson) (Scot., 1825-). 22, 194, 233, 401. Brackett, Anna C, (Mass., 1836-). 271. Broadus, John A.. D. D., (Amer.). 4S2. Brooks, Rev. Phillips, (Amer., 1835-). 11, 23,59,88, 108, 165, 193, 217, 381, 383, 415, 457, 458, 476, 477, 478, 4S0, 560. Brooks, Rev. Thomas, (Eng., 1608-1680). 9, 12, 16, 81, 95, 127, 171. 193, 221, 230, 245, 294, 365, 391, 395, 409, 435, 458, 462, 464, 471, 473, 486, 523, 531, 532, 537. 547. 551, 589. Brougham, Ld., (Eng., 1779-1871). 261, 274, 295, 366. Brown, Helen M. 131. Browne, Sir Thomas, (Eng., 1605-1682). 25, 330. Browning, Mrs. E. B., (Eng., 1807-1861). 49, 183, 247, 444, 514,516, 557, 602. Browning, F. G. 514. Browning, Robert, (Eng., 1812-). 474. Bruyere, Jean de la, (France, 1646-1696). 24, 623. Bryant, W. C, (Amer., 1794-1880). 353. BucHAN, Earl of, (Scot., 1742-1829). 156. 630 INDEX OF AUTHORS. BiJCHSEL, (Germany). 239. BuFFON, Georges Louis, Comte de, (France, 1707-1788). 444. BuiAVER, see Edward Bulvver Lytton. BuNYAN, John, (Eng., 1628-1688). 154, 191, 233, 333, 334, 341, 46S, 484, 577- Burke, Edmund, (Ireland, 1730-1797). 188, 261, 379,423,497. BURKITT, William, D. D., (Eng., 1650-1703). 435, 465. Burgh, James, (Scot., 1714-1775). 10. BuRNHAM, Rev. Rich. , (1749-1S10). 86. Burns, Robt. . (Scot., 1759-1796). 186. Burr, E. F., D. D., (Amer.). 35, 182, 389, 608. Burton, Rev. Robt., (Eng., 1576-1640). 157, 377, 522. BusHNELL, Horace, D. D., (Conn., 1S02-). 5, 39,45, 56, 59,60,70, 80, 85, 86, 89, 90, 106, 123, 132, 133, 140, 149, 156, 164, 199, 202, 212, 226, 232, 235, 237, 250, 275, 281, 288, 297, 307, 350, 355, 387, 388, 431,442,443, 488,489, 498, 500, 510, 519, 549, 551, 559, 575, 576, 586, 598, 601, 609, 612. Butler, Bishop Joseph, (Eng. , 1692-1752). 437. Butts, Mrs. M. F. 399. Byron, Ld. George Gordon Noel, (Eng., 1788-1824). 213. Caird, John, D D., (Scot., 1S22-). 495, 497, 523. Calvin, Rev. John, (Switz., 1509-1564). 157. Campbell, Emma. 89. Campbell, Thomas, (Scot., 1777-1844). 328. Cary, Alice, (Ohio, 1820-1871). 129. Cary, Phoebe, (Ohio, 1824-1871). 596. Carpenter, W. B., M. D., (Eng., 1812-). 530. Carlyle, J. D., (Eng., 1759-1804). 460. Carlyle. Thomas, (Scot., 1795-1881). 2, 6, 8,48,203,204,367,402,451, 479, 504, 505, 561, 617. Cato, Marcus Porcius, (Italy, 95 B. C). 215, Cecil, Rev Rich., (Eng., 1748-1810). 4, 9, 31, 32, 128, 197, 214, 245, 246, 249, 264, 31S, 324, 332, 345, 348, 394, 422, 423, 435, 471, 490,494, 501, 537- 549. 585. 598. Cervantes, Saavedra Miguel, (Spain, 1547-1616). 363. Chalmers, Thomas, D. D., (Scot., 1780-1847). 83, 180,186, 243, 317, 31S, 331, 438, 497, 573, 584, 602, 619. Chambers, Talbot W., D. D., (Amer.). 492, 546. Channing, W. E., D. D., (Amer.. 1780-1842). 12, 17,60, 61, 62, 66, 85, 201, 210, 239, 277, 299, 317, 385, 420, 440, 449, 454, 481, 483, 493, 495. 49S, 533. 536. 551. 55S, 559. 610, 614. INDEX OF AUTHORS. G31 Chapin, E. H., D. D., (N. Y., 1S14-1S80). 6, 20, 66, 143, 160, 251, 286, 323, 439, 450, 484, 531, 567, 584. Chapone, Hester, (Eng. , 1727-1S01). 363. Charlemagne, (France, 742-814). . 320. Chateaubriand, Francois, Auguste de, (France, 1768-1848). ig, 134, 33S. 35S, 421. Cheever, Geo. B., D. D„ (Maine. 1S07-). 486, 536. Child, Mrs. L. M.,(Mass. , 1802-1880). 47,49. Choate, Rufus, (Amer., 1799-1859). 481,482. Christian Advocate, The. 324, 463. Christian at Work, The. 121,625. Christian Intelligencer, The. 463. Christian Union, The. 324. Christlieb, Theodor, Prof., (Germany). 137, 316. Chrysostom, John, (Turkey, 347-407). 98, 329, 353, 459. Cicero, Marcus TuUius, (Rome, 106 B. C.-43 B. C). 438, 562, 573. Clarke, Adam, LL.D., (Ireland, 1762-1832). 3, 178. Clarke, J. F., D. D., (N. H., 1810-). 106, 121, 166, 167, 202,222, 287, 328, 387, 416, 447, 534, 536, 563, 565, 566, 583. Clark, J. K. 517. Clark, R. W., D, D., (Amer., 1813-). 524. Clark, Bishop T. M., (Amer., 1812-). 145,368. Clement of Alexandria, (Athens, 150-220). 104. Clough, a. H., (Eng., 1819-1861). 247. Cobb, Henry N. 586. Cobden, Rich., (Eng., 1804-1865). 503. Coleridge, Hartley, (Eng. , 1796-1849). 461. Coleridge. S. T., (Eng., 1772-1S34). 23, 33, 183, 219, 235, 295, 463,487, 488, 494, 581. Collier, Rev. Jeremy, (Eng., 1650-1726). 605. Collyer, Rev. Robert, (Eng., 1823-). 19,218. Colton, Rev. C. C, (Eng., -1832). 6, 14,23, 41,161,180,253,486,503 511,582. Conder, Josiah, (Eng., 1789-1855). 274. Confucius, (China, 550 B. C). 46, 442. Cook, Rev. Joseph, (N. Y.). 40, 148, 447, 484. Cooper, George, (N. Y.). 169. CowpER, William, (Eng., 1731-1800). 279, 377, 393, 409, 437, 617. Craik, Mrs. D. M., (Eng., 1826-). 203, 249, 270, 394. Cranch, C. p., (Amer., 1813-). 439 g. 632 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Croly, Geo., (Ire., 1 780-1860). 172, 444. Cromwell, Oliver, (Eng., 1599-1659). 426. CuDWORTH, Ralph, D. D., (Eng., 1617-1688). 16, 549, 604. Gumming, John, D. D., (Scot., 1810-), 350,623. CuMMiNGS, Jos., D. D., (Amer., 1817-). 561. Curtis, Geo. W., (Amer., 1S24-). 403. Curtis, Susan O. 170. CuYLER, T. L., D. D., (N. Y., 1822-). 8,21, 26, 50, 66, 89, 102, 115,116, 125, 145, 149, 151, 155, 159, 162, 163, 164, 184, 186, 189, 225, 227, 229, 234, 236, 239, 244, 251, 264, 303, 307, 346, 351, 355, 376.433, 435. 449, 456,471, 474, 475, 477, 503, 507, 516, 521, 554, 562, 572, 575: 585, 586, 5S7, 592, 594, 598, 619, 622, 623. Cyprian, St., (Carthage, 200-258). 460. Daggett, Bp. David S. 77, 211, 490, Dale, Rev. R. W., (Eng.). 357. Dana, Prof. J. D., (Amer., 1S13-). 35. Daniels, Rev. W. H., (Amer.). 230, 234. Dare, Rev. Jos. 259, 285, 421, 422. Darling, Henry, D. D., (Amer.). 152, 234, 507. DAubigne, Rev. Merle, (Switz., 1794-1873). 141. Davies, Rev. J. Llewellyn. 138. Davis, Wesley R., D. D., (Amer.). 393. Davy, Sir Humphrey, (Eng., 1778-1829). 241, 363. Dawson, Prin. J. W. 461. Decker, Thomas, (Eng.,-1639). 443. Deems, Charles P., D. D., (Md., 1820-). 20, 55. Demosthenes, (Athens, 385 B. C.-322 B. C). 455. Derzhavin, Gabriel Romanovitch, (Russia, 1743-1816). 283. Dickens, Charles, (Eng., 1812-1870). 143, 524. Dickson, Rev. Alex., (Amer.). 71, 183, 280, 326, 356, 442, 555, 569. Dickson, David, D. D., (Scot., 1583-1663). 233. Doane, Bp. G. W., (Amer., 1799-1859). 177. Doane, Bp. W. C, (Amer.). 109, 208, 426, 588. Dodge, Mar}' Mapes, (Amer.). 287. Doddridge, Rev. Philip, (Eng., 1702-1751). 262, 300,343,397. Donne, John, D. D.,(Eng.. 1573-1631). 191. Dorr, Julia C. R., (S. C, 1825-). 455. Douglas, Geo. 337. Dryden, John, (Eng., 1631-1700). 392 INDEX OF AUTHORS 633 Dunning, Rev. A. E., (Amer.). 352. DwiGHT, Timothy, D. D., (Mass., 1752-1817). 29, 273, 275 Dyer, John. (Eng , 1700-175S). 88. EcoB, J. H., D. D., (Amer.). 428. Eddy, T. M., D. D., (Amer., -1879). 433, 455. Edgeworth, Maria, (Eng., 1767-1849). 161. Edmeston, James, (Eng,, 1791-1867). 475. Edwards, Jonathan, D. D., (Conn., 1703-175S). 67,106, 119,332, 304, 331, 360, 396, 489, 492, 494, 509, 538, 540, 541, 542, 619. Edwards, Tryon, D. D., (Amer., 1809-). 203. Eggleston, Rev. E , (Amer.). 49. Eliot, George, see Mrs. Lewes. Elizabeth, Queen, (Eng., 1533-1603). 622. Elliott, Charlotte, (Eng., 1789-1871). loi, 231, 615. Elliott, C. W., (Amer.). 65. Elven, Rev. Cornelius, (1797-). 510. Emerson, R. W.,(Mass., 1S03-1882). 208,353,412,456,477, 544,559,604. Emmons, Nathaniel, D. D., (Amer., 1745-1840). i, 348, 4S1, 484,532. Epictetus, (Rome, 50-). 560. Erskine, Thomas, (Scot., 1748-1823). 32, 229, 541,618. Eusebius, Bp. Pamphili, (Turkey, 270-340). 103. Everett, Edward, (Mass , 1794-1865). 140, 141, 352. Faber, Rev. F. W., (Eng., 1814-1863). 44, 99, 215, 238, 260, 314, 363, 369, 386, 545, 567. Fairbairn, Rev. A. M. 426, 436. Faraday, Michael, (Eng., 1794-1867). 428. Farel, Wm., (France, 1489-1565). 409. Farrar, Rev. F. W., (Eng.). 113, 574. Feltham, Owen, (Eng., 1608-1678). 180, 333,406, 434, 535. Fenelon, Arch. FranQois, (France, 1651-1715). 43,48, 60, 12S, 151, 159, 169, 170, 185, 192, 193,203, 206,240,248, 249, 262, 264, 269, 270,271, 276, 280, 281, 283, 317, 333, 334, 396, 399, 407, 416, 446, 457, 458, 465, 466, 479, 534, 537, 540, 542, 543, 544, 545, 559, 565, 566, 577, 578, 5S2, 583, 584, 59S, 599, 600, 601. Fielding, Henry, (Eng., 1707-1754). 24. Fisher's Catechism. 7, 16, 34, 167, 236, 375, 508, 547. Flavel, Rev. John, (Eng., 1627-1691). 7, 85, 92, 152, 158, 166, 226, 228, 236, 255, 280, 315, 319, 320, 329, 375, 390, 398, 476, 488, 559, 560, 578, 607, 608. 634 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Fleming, Paul, (Ger., 1609-1640). 24S. Foss, Bp. C. D., (N. Y., 1834-). 132, 489, 570. Foster, Rev. John, (Eng., 1770-1843). 38, 487. Foster, Bp. R. S., (Amer., 1820-). 179, 184,212,239, 258, 291,300, 305, 306, 308, 337, 33S, 519. FoRSYTHE, Rev. Wm. 85. Fowler, C. H., D. D., (Amer., 1S37-J. 137, 217, 417, 476, 537, 564. Franck, Johann, (Ger., 1618-1677). loi. Franklin, Benjamin, (Amer., 1706-1790). 283, 381, 485, 582. French, J. Clement, D. D. 571. Froude, J. A., (Eng., 1S18-). 62, 156, 27S, 419, 534. Fry, Mrs. Caroline. 548. Fuller, Rev, Andrew, (Eng., 1754-1815). 552. Fuller, Rich., D. D., (Amer., 1808-). 6, 12,20, 45, 71, 73, 79, 95, 96, 97, 103, 117, 126, 131, 173, 189, 198, 225, 233, 245, 246, 261, 311, 314, 316, 356, 359, 360, 496, 508, 543, 549, 550, 623. Fuller, Thomas, D. D. , (Eng., 1608-1661). 49, 3S6, 470, 579. Garfield, J. A., (Ohio, 1831-1S81). 124, 310, 595, 620. Garrett, Edward, (Eng.). 388, 448, 462. Gates, Rev. D. W., (Amer.). 452. Gay, John, (Eng., 1688- 1732). 4S6. Geikie, J. C, D. D., (Scot.). 42, 46, 59, 73, 74, 76 b, 387,424, 516, 6ot, Gerhardt, Paul, (Ger., 1606-1676). 400. GiFFORD, Rev. O. P., (Amer.). 25S, 533. Giles, Henry, (Ire., 1809-). 2, 33, 41, 45, 47, 107, Ii8,"i2i, 140, 160, 287, 297, 369. 376, 378, 379. 384, 424. 427, 438, 445, 487. 573. 582, 586, 613. Gilpin, Bernard, (Eng., 1517-1583). 187. Gladden, Rev. W., (Amer., 1836-). 17, 98, 124, 135, 146, 152, 155, 200, 250, 300 f, 528, 552, 594. Godet, Prof. F., (Holland). 402. Godwin, Eliz. A. E., (Eng.). 508. Godwin, Parke, (Amer., 1816-). 48. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, (Ger., 1749-1S32). 223, 515. Goldsmith, Oliver, (Ire., 1728-1774). 24, 215. Goodell, Rev. Wm., (Amer.). 11, 497. GOODSELL, Rev. D. A., (Amer.). 413,415. Goodwin, T., D. D., (Eng., 1600-1679). 78. Gordon, Rev. A. J., (Amer.). 194, 396, 555. Gough, John B., (Eng., 1817-). 17, 37, 46, 208 217, 561. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 635 GOVVAND, C. 561. Grant, Sir Robt., (Scot., 1785-1S38). 75. Greenwell, Dora, (Eng. , 1822-). 88. Griffin, E. D., D. D.,(Conn., 1770-1837). gg, 358. Grout, Henry N., D. D., (Amer.). 371. Guesses at Truth. 65, 400, 434. 44g, 504, 543, 607, 20, 194, 200. GuizoT, Francois Pierre Guillaume, (France, 1787-1874). 141, 209. Gurney, J. H., (Eng., 1802-1862). 173. Gurney, J. J., (Eng., 1788-1847). 213. Guthrie, Thomas, D. D., (Scot., 1803-). 118, 128, ig2, 218, 256, 273, 285, 427, 429, 510, 546, 563, 5g2, 598. GuYON, Madame, (France, 1648-1717). 193, 194, 240, 297, 542, 543, 544. GuYSE, Dr. John, (Eng., 1689-1761). 362. Hale, Rev. E. E., (Amer., 1822). 150. Hale, Sir Mattliew, (Eng., 1609-1676). 526. Hale, Mrs. S. J. 524. Hall, Harvie. 304. Hall, John, D. D., 44, 70, 144, 146, 147, 214, 247, 316, 320, 411, 413, 414, 475, 477.478, 479, 483, 580. Hall, Bp. Jos., (Eng., 1574-1656). 14, 43, 339, 345, 366, 406, 461, 532. Hall, Newman, D. D., (Eng., 1816-). 205, 473. Hall, Rev. Robt., (Eng., 1764-1831). 10, 30, 35, 121,137, 212. 219, 241, 254, 300, 306. Hall's Family Prayers. 512. Halsey, Rev. L. J. 31. Hamilton, A. E. 238. Hamilton, James, D. D., (Eng., 1814-1871). 30, 32, 36, 48, 50, 58, 64, 74, 77, 83, 84, 86, 88, go, gi, g2, 99, 100, 103, 112, 172, 175, 177, 181, 182,183,185,195,196, 240, 250,253, 263, 268, 289,311, 321, 325, 326, 330, 331, 335, 342, 407, 453 515, 518, 525, 526, 528, 54S, 554, 558, 5Sg, 596, 600, 610, 614. Hamilton, Sir William, (Scot., 1788-1856). 573. Harbaugh, Rev. Henry, (Amer., 1818-1867). 160. Harris, Bp. Wm., (Amer.). 271. Haven, E. O., D. D., (Mass., 1S20-). 134. Haven, Bp. Gilbert, (Amer). 365. Havergal, F. R., (Eng., 1837-1879). 10, 159, 195, 251, 377, 398, 399, 447, 513. 515. 561, 587. 599, 610. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, (Mass., 1804-1864). 183, 336, 351, 477. 636 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Headley, Rev. J. T., (Amer., 1814-). 556. Heber, Bp. Reginald, (Eng., 1783-1826). 189, 213,445, 547. 55°- Hecker, Rev. I. T. 385, 494, 499. Hegeman, Mrs. Anna B., (Amer.). 362. Heidelberg Catechism. 81, 223, 618. Heine, Heihrich, (Ger., 1799-1856). 603. Helps, Sir Arthur, (Eng., i8t8-). 296, 539. Hemans, Mrs F. D.,(Eng., 1794-1835). 176, 253. Henry, Rev. Matthew, (Eng., 1662-1714). 9, 148, 241, 2S0, 281, 336, 445,502, 521, 528, 535. Henry, Patrick, (Vir., 1736-1799). 496. Henry, Rev. Philip, (Eng., 1631-1696). 189. Herbert, Rev. George, (Wales, 1593-1632). 128, 200, 242, 352, 364, 525, 604. Herder, Rev. J. G., (Ger , 1744-1803). 54. Herrick, Rev. Robert, (Eng., 1591-1674). 577. Herrick, S. E. 120. Hervey, E. L. 395. Hill, Rev. Rowland, (Eng., 1744-1833). 45,90, 188, 217, 269, 457, 470, 550, 600,621. Hippocrates, (Cos., 460 B. C.-). 384. Hobart, Mrs. C. 597. Hodge, A. A., D. D., (Amer.). 56. Hodge, Charles, D. D., (Amer., 1797-1878). 35, 87, 122, 227, 334. Hole, S. R. 500. Holland, J. G., M. D., (Mass., 1819-1882). 15, 25,26,27, 36,42, 47, 114, 115, 143, 147, 166, 168, 185, 218, 279. 290, 296, 324, 325, 349, 357, 367, 380, 393. 394. 404. 454. 497. 503, 505. 543, 564, 577, 580, 6o6d, 616, 410. Holmes, J. McC, D. D., (Amer.). iii, 112, 118, 165, i83, 194, 20S, 216, 299, 312, 402, 556, 562. Holmes, O. W., M. D., (Amer., 1809-). 27, 179, 380, 531.596- Holt, Mrs. N. A. 265. Hooker, Rev. Rich., (Eng., 1553-1600). 52, 374. Hopkins, Bp. Ezekiel, (Eng., 1633-1690). 442. Hopkins, Mark, D. D.. (Amer., 1802-). 5,45,53, 61,64, 71, loS, 113, 132, 133. 135. 139. 140, 146, 172, 187, 225, 238, 284, 312, 348, 393 403 418, 498, 504, 535, 560. Horne, Bp. Geo., (Eng., 1730-1792). 7, 480, 583. Howe, Rev. John, (Eng., 1630-1706). 495. INDEX OF AUTHORS. fi87 HowiTT, Wm., (Eng., 1795-). 60. HoYT, Wayland, D. D., (Eng.). 97, 389, 470, 572. Hughes, Thomas, (Eng., 1823-). 55, 80, 405, 6o6f. Hugo, Victor, (France, 1802-). 284, 339. HuLBURD, Rev. M., (Amer.). 255. Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm, (Ger., 1767-1835). 44, 192, 297, 404, 513. HuMPSTONE, Rev. John, (Eng.). 385. Huntington, Bp. F. D., (Amer., 1819-). 135, 145, 237, 314,322, 341, 344, 418. Huntingdon, Geo. 14. Huntingdon, Lady, (Eng., 1707-1791). 399. HuRD, Bp. Rich., (Eng., 1720-1808). 74,624. IDE, G. B., D. D. 527. Independent, The. 187. Ingelow, Jean, (Eng., 1825-). 474, 557. Irving, Washington, (N. Y., 17S3-1859). 143, 243, 292, 455, 557. Jackson, Mrs. H. F., (Mass., 1831-). 254, 597. Jacobus de Benedictis, (Italy, -1306). 172. James, John, D. D., (Scot.). 224. 226, 227. James, John Angel, (Ire., 1785-1859). 64, 69, 115, 116, 121, 126, 150, 192, 241, 314, 315, 362, 366, 380, 470,472. 478, 524, 554, 564, 565. James, William, D. D., (Amer.). 225. Jameson, Mrs. Anna, (Eng., 1797-1S60). 20,48. Janes, Bp. E. S., (Mass., 1807-1876). 589. Jeffrey, Francis, (Scot., 1773-1850). 381. Jerome, St., (Turkey, 340-420). 33, 345. Jerrold, Douglas, (Eng. , 1803-1857). 257. Johnson, Herrick, D. D., (Amer.). 29, 31, 38, 57, 70, 72, 132, 135, 173, 211, 288, 343, 355. 453, 475, 490, 521, 560, 617, 618, 622. Johnson, Samuel, LL D., (Eng., 1709-1784). 25, 242, 257, 296, 335, 336, 349,411,613. Jones, Wm., of Nayland, (Eng., 1726-1800). 275. Jones, Sir W., (Eng., 1746-1794.). 31, 564. Jonson, Ben, (Eng., 1573-1637). 43, 311. Jortin, John, D. D., (Eng., 1698-1770). 293. Joubert, Jos., (France, 1 754-1824). 22, 49,- 51, 200, 425, 504. Jowett, Prof., (Amer.). 195. Justinian, Flavius Ancius, (Turkey, 483-565). 361. 638 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Keble, Rev. John, (Eng., 1790-1866). 90, 1S2, 361. Keith, George. 593. Kemble, John, (Eng., 1757-1823). 40. Kempis, Thomas a., (Ger., 1379-1471). 37, 62, 124, 261, 293, 361, 365, 372, 442, 515, 536, 545, 548, 578. Kepler, Johann, (Ger., 1571-1630). 276. King, Henry M., D. D., (Amer.). 377. KiNGSLEY, Rev. Charles, (Eng., 1819-). 41, 72, 78, 84, 147,171, 198,209, 230, 257, 262, 263, 265, 26S, 276, 279, 286, 287, 377, 387, 405, 443, 456, 492, 529, 539, 545, 587, 593, 605. A. H. K. 10, 27, 278, 304, 305, 315, 395, 396, 439, 444, 557, 446. KiNNOUL, Thomas, Earl of. 75. Kirk, E. N., D. D.,(Amer., 1802-1874). 38, 258, 271, 411, 607. KiTTREDGE, A. E. , D. D.,(Amer.). 22, 32, 35, 39, 51, 54,69, 78, 87, 93, 94, 128, 144, 147, 149. 155.174, 234,324, 326, 327, 371, 372,374,416, 437, 441, 442, 555, 600, 609. Knox, Alex., (1831-). 96 Knox, Rev. John, (Scot., 1505-1572). 208. Koran. 619. Kossuth, Louis, (Hungar}^ 1802-). 278. Krummacher, F. W., D. D., (Ger., 1796-1868). 613. La Combe, Pierre, (France). 329, 464. Lacordaire, Jean Baptiste Henri, (France, 1802-1861). 611. Ladies' Repository, 383. Lanahan, John, D. D., 284, 389, 410, 425, 426, 611. Landor, W. S., (Eng., 1775-1864). 8, 12, 33. Laplace, Pierre Simon, (France, 1749-1827). 603. Latimer, Bp. Hugh, (Eng., 1472-1555). 395. Lavater, J. C, (Svvitz., 1741-1801). 4, 13, 26, 200, 246. Lawrence, Amos, (Amer., 1786-1852). 521. Lee, Ann, (Eng., 1736-1784). 383. Lee, Holme, 161. Leighton, Arch. Robt., (Scot., 1611-1684). 51,401, 449. Lewes, Mrs. G. H., (George Eliot), (Eng., 1820-). 198, 219, 393,443, 44S, 454, 466, 550, 563, 678. Lewis, Taylor, D. D., (Amer., 1802-1877). 546. Liddon, Cannon, H. P., (Eng., 1830-). i, 3,4,91,92, 126, 136, 138, 201, 209, 210. 366, 384, 457, 458, 512, 522, 533, 547- Lincoln, Abraham, (Ken., 1809-1865). 48, 221, 468. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 639 Lincoln, Prof. Heman, (Amer.). 162. Liturgy of Reformed Church. 370. Livingstone, Rev. David, (Scot., 1817-). 419. Lloyd, Rev. W. F., (1791-1853). loi. Locke, John, (Eng,, 1632-1704). 419, 507. LONGFELLOM?, H. W., (Maine, 1807-1882). 8, 9, 107, 203, 278, 309, 380, 387, 394, 419. 436. 525. 593- Longfellow, Marian, (Maine, 1849-). 5^9- Longfellow, Rev. Samuel, (Maine). 544. Lope de Vega, (Spain, 1562-1635). 89. LoRiMER, Geo. C, D. D., (Amer.). 26, 27, 57, 125, 147, 169, 188,204, 247, 267, 282, 505. 506, 517, 557, 589, 621. Louisa Henrietta, Electress of Brandenburg. 519. Lowell, J- R., (Mass., 1819-). 353. Loyola, Ignatius, (Spain, 1491-1556). 599. Luther, Martin, (Saxony, 1483-1546). 178, 186, 203, 220, 221, 224, 241,278,289,320, 375, 377, 409, 433, 434, 468, 518, 523, 526, 545, 603. Lutheran Evangelical Catechism. 223, Lynch, Bishop John. 481. Lyon, Mary, (Amer., 1797-1849). 201, 249, 444, 533. Lyte, Rev. H. F., (Eng., 1793-1847), 5, 49, 276, 329, 594. Lyttleton, Rev. W. H. 255. Lytton, Sir Edward Buhver, (Eng., 1805-). 53, 299, 602. Macaulay, T. B., (Eng., 1800-1859). 34. McCheyne, Rev. Robert M., (Scot., 1813-1843). 31,39,94, loi, 153, 155, 299, 449, 590, 609. McCosh, James, D. D., (Ire., 1810-). 58, 66, 139, 216, 329, 330, 420 429, 485. Macdonald, John. 472. MacDonald, Geo., (Scot., 1825-). 8, 95, 122, 148, 152. 199, 250, 257, 285, 286, 294, 327, 369, 382, 384, 434, 439, 461, 464, 479, 501, 511, 524, 603, 624. Macduff, Rev. J. R. , (Scot., 1820-). 46,66,159,230,256,283,431, 601. Mackay, Rev. W. P. 81, 125, 153, 230, 232, 246, 319, 337, 344, 375, 491. MACLEOD, Norman D. D.,(Scot., 1812-1872). 123, 266, 473. Macmillan, Hugh, D. D. 558. 640 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Maclaren, Alex., D. D. i, ii, i7> 42, 43, 56. 58,66, 68, 71, 78, 80, 82, 85, 88, 96 d, 100, 104, 107, 108. 109, no, 116, 120, 124, 127, 131, 153, 158, 160, 171, 17S, 180, 184, 187, 207, 212, 220,225, 228, 229, 230, 235. 237, 239, 240, 244, 24B, 259, 260, 263, 272, 273, 277, 290, 291,292, 294, 301, 303, 307, 308, 317, 329, 340, 354, 355, 356, 360, 365, 368, 369. 373, 376, 381, 382, 388 a. f., 389, 390, 391 e, 397, 398, 400, 405, 408, 412, 424, 429, 432, 448, 452, 461, 488, 490,491, 493, 496, 526, 533, 539, 54S, 559> 576, 5S0, 584, 587, 588, 589, 590, 599, 600, 607, 608, 610, 615, 619. Madison, James, (Amer., 1751-1836). 614. Magee, Arch. W., (Ire., 1765-1831). 132. Magoon, E. L., D. D., (Amer.). 2, 6, 13, 14, 160, 205, 252, 253, 292, 345, 346, 347, 354, 357.450. 451, 469, 476, 494, 515, 520, 554, 604, 612. Mandeville, Henry, D. D.,(Amer.). 222. Mann, Horace, (Mass., 1796-1859). 2, 3. 130,256,297. Manning, Arch. H. E. 356,456. Mansfield, Lord, (Scot., 1704-1793). 379. Martineau, James, D. D., (Eng., 1807-). 8, 15, 59, 61, 70, 97, 160, 281, 321, 351, 373, 382, 409, 431, 456, 466, 504, 505, 535, 537, 592, 596, 602. Martyr, Justin, (Palestine, 105-165). 207. Massillon, Jean Baptiste, (France, 1663-1742). 5,257, 348. Massinger, Philip, (Eng., 1854-1640). 48. Mason, J. M., D. D., (N. Y., 1770-1829). 86, 150, 471, 534, 554, 625. Matthews, Albert. 315. Maturin, Rev. C. R., (Ire., 1782-1825). 384. Maudsley, Henry, M. D., (Eng., 1835-). 333. Melanchthon, Philip, (Ger.. 1497-1568). 466. Melvill, Rev. Henry, (Eng., 1798-1871). 36, 86, loi, 181, 225, 231,294, 305, 317, 327, 340, 342, 344, 359. 364, 422, 423, 456, 4S8, 506, 527, 528 e, 529. 547- Menander, (Athens, 342 B. C.-299 B. C). 167. Meredith. Rev. R. R., (Amer.). 37. Merriam. Geo. S. 181. Methodist, The. 530. Methodist Book of Discipline. 370, 411. Michelet, Jules, (France, 1798-1874). 286. Mildway, Rev. Charles. 255. Miller. Hugh, (Scot., 1802-1856). 458. Millman, Dean H. H., (Eng., 1791-1868). 94, 180. Milton, John, (Scot., 1608-1674). 6, 309, 312, 364, 383, 573, 606, 612, 617. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 641 Mitchell, D. G., (Conn., 1S22-). 394. Montagu, Rev. E. W. 604. Montaigne, Micheleyquem, (France, 1533-1592;. 48. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, (France, 1689-1755). 375, 498, 502. Montgomery, James, (Scot., 1771-1854). 173, 177, 322, 359, 460. Moody, D. L. 3, 14,40. 52, 73. 83, loi, 145, 148, 152, 153, 154, 162, 164, 166, 168, 170, 173, 196, 244, 245, 261, 289, 304, 310, 318, 319, 329,340, 342, 343, 344, 346, 356, 360, 379, 380,391, 420, 446, 447, 506, 507, 532, 539, 562, 607, 622. Moore, Thomas, (Ire., 1 780-1852). 328, 429. Moravian Litany. 467. More, Hannah, (Eng., 1745-1833). 8, 348, 406, 458, 555, 568, 583. Mori, (Japanese Minister to AVashington). 34. Morris, Lewis, (Wales, 1702-1765). 19S. Moss, Lemuel, D. D., (Amer.). 530. MouNTFORD, Rev. Wm., (Eng.). 5, 177, 197, 210, 220, 221, 266, 302, 306, 310, 32S, 331, 332, 339, 344, 364,380, 381, 385,406, 407,421, 430, 438, 439, 466, 470, 500, 556, 595, 616, 620. Muhlenberg, Wm. A., D. D., (N. Y., 1796-1877;. 505. MuMFORD, T. J. 131. Muller, Prof. Max, (Ger., 1823-). 287, 288, 337, 562. Murray, John J. 52c. Mylne, G. W. 88, 114. National Baptist, The. 476c Neal, John, (Amer.). 576. Nettleton, Rev. Asahel, (Amer., 1783-1844). 129, 193. Newman, Cardinal J. H., (Eng., 1801-). 265,435. Newman, J. P., D. D.,(Amer., 1826 ). 301. Newton, Sir Isaac, (Eng., 1643-1727). 332. Newton, Rev. John, (Eng., 1725-1807). 213,266,281, 462,475,495,502. New York Observer, The. 298, 483. Nisard, J. M., (France, 1806-). 162. Noble, L. L., D. D., (Amer., 1812-). 527. Norton, Mrs. Julia. 291. Offord, Rev. R. M. 460, 462, 471. Old Russian Liturgy. ir8. Owen, Jchn.D. D., (Eng. 1616-1683). 10,492, 537, 546,552, 588. Paley, Wm., D. D., (Eng., 1743-1805), 242, 295, 467. 41 643 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Palmer, Ray, D. D., (Amer., 180S-). 158, 613. Parker, Jos., D. D., (Eng.). 214, 386. Parmlee, Helen L., (Amer., -1864). 303. Parsons, Rev. H. M. 569, 573. Pascal, Blaise, (France, 1623-1662). 157, 176, 244, 28S, 297, 403,452, 496. Patton, Francis L., D. D. 200. Paxton, J. R., D. D. 267. Payson, Edward, D. D.,(N. H., 1783-1827). 26, 125,283,335, 464,466, 472, 513, 579- Peabody, A. P., D. D., (Amer., 1811-). 498. Penn, Wm., (Eng., 1644-1718). 576, 625. Pentecost, Rev. G. F., (Amer.). 481. Pepper, Prof. D. B. 580. Perrine, Rev. W. H. 148. Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich, (Switz., 1745-1827). 581c. Petrarch, Francesco, (Italy, 1304-1374). 392. Phelps, Austin, D. D., (Mass., 1820-). 459,465, 467,478,548. Phelps, S. D., D. D., (Amer.). 129. PiERPONT, Rev. John, (Conn., 1785-1866). 28. Phillips, Wendell, (Mass. , 1811-). 352. Pike, Rev. J. G. , (Eng.). 174, 372. Plato, (Athens, 429 B. C.-347 B. C). 204. Pliny, (Italy, 23-79). 256. Plutarch, (Greece, 50-120). 14, 166. Pollock, Rev. Robt., (Scot., 1799-1827). 260. 335. Pope, Alexander, (Eng., 1688-1744). 184, 258, 298, 328, 429, 440, 605, 616. Porter, Jane, (Eng., 1 776-1 850). 29S. Porter, Noah, (Amer., 1811-). 133, 502. Powers, Rev. H. N., (Amer.). 63. Pratt, D. J., Ph. D., (Amer.). 428. Prentiss, Eliz. Payson, (Amer.). 119, 250,423, 538, 543> 568, 589, 6031 615. Presbyterian, The. 112. Pressel, (Ger.). 102. Pressense, Rev. Edmond Dihoult de, (France, 1824-) 616. Preston, John, D. D.,(Eng., 1587-162S). 304. Preston, Margaret J., (Vir., 1835-). 87, 407. Priest, N. A. W., (Amer., 1834-1870). 28, 305. Prime, S. Irenaeus, D. D., (Amer., 1812-). 12, 231, 232, 257, 341, 411, 461, 468, 572. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 643 Prior, Matthew, (Eng., 1664-1721). 194. Proctor, A. A., (Eng., 1826-1864). 52, no, 309,409, 583, 594, 597. PuBLius, Syrius, (Syria, 80 B. C). 20. PuNSHON, Wm. M., D. D., (Eng., 1823-). 41, 47,67, in, 114, 130, 131, 139, 189, 215, 216, 222, 247. 313, 341, 367, 371, 372, 373.374- 38S, 410, 414,452,453, 501, 519, 579. OuARLES, Francis, (Eng., 1592-1644). 25, 47, 353, 436, 485, 509, 609. QuESNEL, Rev. Pasquier, (France, 1634-1719). 252. QuiNCY, Josiah, (Mass., 1772-1864). 378. Raleigh, Sir Walter, (Eng., 1552-1618). 174, 623. Reid, Rev. J. M. 279. Reynolds, Sir Joshua, (Eng., 1723-1792). 367. Reynolds. Bp. Rich., (Eng.). 57, 273. RiCHTER, Jean Paul, (Ger., 1763-1825). 19, 59, 105, 213, 238, 313, 366, 368,416, 556, 568, 5Q7, 620. Riddle, Prof. M. B. 80. Robertson, Rev. F. W., (Eng. 1816-1853). 2, 21, 23, 47, 55, 65, 68, 77, 87, 93. 96, 104, no, III. 112, 117, 119, 120, 138, 153, 175, 182, 193, 195, 196, 198, 199, 205, 210, 211, 217, 220, 221, 234, 252, 262, 267, 268, 270, 271, 278, 285, 296, 298, 310, 314, 323, 330, 336, 339, 344, 375, 378, 394, 400,401, 402,415, 427,432,437,440,447.457,468,478,486, 506, 508, 510. 516, 517, 522, 523, 524, 533, 538, 540, 545, 574, 591, 604, 605, 606, 612, 617, 620, 621. Robinson, C. S., D. D., (Amen). 64, 151, 234, 321, 584. Robinson, Rev. Stuart, (Amer.). 29. Rochefoucauld, (France, 1613-1680). 336. RoMEYN. T. B., D. D., (Amer.). 381. RoscoE, Jane. 15. RoscoE, Wm., (Eng., 1753-1831). 353. Rousseau, J. J., (France, 1712-1778). 74. RowE, Elizabeth, (Eng., 1674-1737). 231, 272, 433. RowE, Nicholas, (Eng. , T673-1718). 24,407. RusKiN, John, LL. D., (Eng., 1819-). 122, 123, 134, 147, 168 g, 170, 198, 264, 267, 269, 325, 330. 403, 405, 438, 443, 446, 469, 563, 624. Rutherford, Rev. Samuel, (Scot., 1600-1661). 10, 51, 53, 93, 95, 97, 98, 105, 106, 124, 154, 165, 171, 206, 253, 265, 270, 274, 276, 277, 294, 300, 309, 346, 416, 444, 513, 516, 530, 594, 620. Rutledge, Bp. F. H. 24. Ryle, Rev. J. C, (Eng., 1816-). 16, 37, 297, 470, 52S, 530, 554, 591. 044 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Sales, Francis de, (Switz., 1567-1622). 373. Sargent, Epes, (Mass., 1814-1881). 558. Saurin, Rev. James, (France, 1677-1730). 270. Savile, Sir Henry, (Eng., 1549-1622). 4S6. Savonarola, (Italy, 1452-149S). 124,378, 481. Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, (Ger., 1759-1S05). 284. Schleirmacher, Rev. F. E. D., (Ger., 176S-1834). 143. ScHMOLKE, B., (Ger., 1731-). 595. Scholefield, C. C. 309. Scott, Sir Walter, (Scot., 1771-1832). 359,404,532,612. ScRiVER, Rev. Christian, (Ger., 1629-1693). 21, 50,83, 94, 100, 134, 161, 206, 334.. 376, 386, 439, 522, 537, 540, 561,620. Sears, E. H., D. D., (Amer.. 1810-1876). 177. Secker, Arch. Thomas, (Eng., 1693-1768). 251. Seelye, J. H., (Amer., 1825-). 136, 452. Selden, John, D. D., (Eng., 15S4-1654). 29. Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, (Rome, 5 B. C.-65 A. D.). 209, 292, 576. Seward, W. H..(N. Y., 1801-1S72). 142. Sewell, J. M., (Amer.). 549. Shairp, Prin. J. C, (Scot.). 37,61,127, 156, 168, 195, 269,332,406, 493. 503, 504. 530, 563.565. Shakspeare, Wm., (Eng., 1564-1616). 7, 12,22,23,46,207,278,279, 283, 353. 408, 463. 477- Shaw, Henry W., (Amer.). 349. Shedd, Prof. W. G. Y., (Amer., 1820-). 36, 113,267, 349. Sheppard, Prof. 151. Sheridan, R. B. , (Ire., 1751-1S16). 480. Sherlock, Bp. Thomas, (Eng., 1678-1766). 454, 487. Shipton, Anna, (Eng.). 246, 247, 362, 397, 474, 535, 568, 596. Sidney, Sir Philip, (Eng., 1554-1586^ to, 47, 581. SiGOURNEY, Mrs. L. H,, (Amer., 1791-1865). 51, 53, 324. SIMMS, Wm. G., LL. D., (Amer., 1806-1870). 378. Simpson, Bp. Matthew, (Ohio, 1811-). 34, 130. Smart, W. S., D. D., (Amer.). 184. S.MiLES, Samuel, M. D., (Scot., 1816-). 156, 198, 286, 351,404, 503. Smiley, Sarah. 243. Smith, Alex., (Scot., 1830-1S67). 243. Smith, F. Burge. 51. Smith, Caroline S. 181. Smith, Rev. James, (Eng.). 79, 251. INDEX OF AUTHORS. (545 Smith, Mrs. E. Oakes, (Anier., 1S06-). 21S. Smith, R. Payne, D. D., (Eng., 1S18-). 35. Smith, Rev. S. F., (Amer., 1805-). 123. Smith, Rev. S)'dne)', (Eng., 1771-1S45). 293, 364, 430, 476, 4S4. Socrates, (Athens, 470 B. C.-400 B. C). 161, 3S0, 382, 554. South, Robt., D. D., (Eng., 1633-1676). 167, 315, 495, 57S. SouTHEY, Robt., (Eng., 1774-1843). 440. Spencer, Ichabod, D. D., (Amen, 1798-). 53, 82, 122, 163, 186, 191, 201, 2S4, 319, 357, 421, 474, 485, 527, 553, 591, 601. Spenser, Edmund, (Eng., 1553-1599). 290,409. Spring, Gardiner, D. D., (Mass., 1785-). 106, no, 117, 164, 165, 192, 197, 226, 229, 231, 233, 241, 288, 293, 295, 332,365, 425, 506, 507, 509, 534, 535. 621. Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., (Eng, 1834-). 9, 10, 13, iS, 24, 37, 43,44, 73, 96 b, 104, no, 122, 128, 129, 137, 145, 148,149,163, 169, 180, 207, 217, 227, 228, 239, 294, 303, 315, 316, 323. 335, 336, 343, 345, 346,349.351, 3S3, 404, 420, 421, 430, 435, 442. 454, 460, 469, 480,482, 490, 537, 552, 580, 581, 587, 591, 592, 596, 601, 616, 622. Stael, Madame de, (France, 1766-1817). 115, 138, 157,255,392, 4S4. Stanley, Dean Arthur P., (Eng, , 1815-). 33, 58,64,98,103,105,115, 133, 149, 162, 197, 204, 211, 214, 249, 352, 357, 363, 376, 445, 495, 56S, 605, 621. Steele, Anne, (Eng., 1717-1778). 82, 328, 371. Steele, Sir Rich., (Ire., 1671-1729). 442. Stennett, Rev. Samuel, (Eng., 1727-1795). 448. Stephen, St., The Sabaite, (Greece, 725-794). 153. Stephens, Sir James, (Eng., 1792-1852). 115, 218. Sterne, Rev. Lawrence, (Ire., 1713-1768). 26, 157, 166, 168. 279, 349. Stewart, Dugald, (Scot., 1753-1828). 581. Stillingfleet, Bp. Edward, (Eng., 1635-1699). 19. Stock, Eugene, 391. Stone, A. L., D. D., (Amer.). 241. Storrs, R. S., D. D.,(Amer., 1S21-). 23, 130, 142, 347, 440, 477, 4S2 483,484,499, 522, 561, 606. Stowe, Mrs.H. B., (Conn., 1812-). 299, 343, 423, 431, 446. Street, Alfred B.,(Amer., 1811-1878). 431. Sumner, Charles, (Mass., 1811-). 242. Sunday School Times, The. 220, 275, 412, 488. Swetchine, Madame, (France, 1782-1857). 511, 622. Swift, Dean Jonathan, (Eng., 1667-1745). 13, 18. 646 INDEX OF AUTHORS. Synod of Dort. 75, 82. Talmage, T. De Witt, D. D., (Amer., 1S32-), 16, 30, 571. Tappan, Rev. Wm. B., (Amer., 1794-1854). 301 e. Taylor, B. F., (Amer., 1S22-). 109. Taylor, H. G., 65. Taylor, Jeremy, D. D., (Eng., 1613-1667). 13,18, 117, 191, 213,218,, 254, 274, 308, 392, 397, 461, 462, 465, 468, 469, 486, 501, 547, 574, 576, 5S2, 586. Taylor, Rev. T. R., (-1S35). 30S. Taylor, Wm. M., D. D., 44, So, in, 116, T26, 144, 151, 290, 417, 427, 453,465, 473, 506, 551. Temple, Sir William, (Eng., 162S-1699). 140. Tenney, Rev. E. P., (Amer.). 119, 1S6. Tennyson, Alfred, (Eng., 1809-). 174, 393, 536, 616. Tertullian, Ouintus Septimus Florens, (Carthage, 160-240). 285, 3S0. Theodoret, (Turke)^ 393-457). 263. Tholuck, Prof. A., (Ger., 1799-). 38,137, 291. Thomas, David, D. D.. (Eng.). 4, 12, 63, 105, 293, 296, 403, 566,606. Thomson, Bp. Edward, (Eng., 1810-1870). 63,65,69,75, 77,79,81,84, 100, 135, 138, 142, 157, 288, 311, 312, 374, 432, 491, 500, 531, 552, 585. Thomson, James, (Eng., 1700-1748.). 256, 430, 588. Thoreau, H. D., (Mass., 1S17-). 286. Thornton, Rev. Wm. L., (Eng., -1865). 505. TiLLOTSON, Arch. John, (Eng., 1630-1694). 167, 252, 603. TocQUEViLLE, Alexis de, (France, 1805-1859). 379, 426, 427. TONNA, Charlotte Elizabeth, (Eng., 1792-1846). 170. Toplady, Rev. A. M., (Eng., 1740, 1788). 77, 100, 592. Travers, Eva. 512. Trench, Arch. R. C, (Eng., 1807-). 455,467. Trumbull, H. C, D. D., (Amer.). 38, 89, 113, 116, 129, 168, 197, 221, 251. 315. 378.412, 502, 585. Trusler, Rev. John, (Eng., 1735-1820). 575. Tyng, S. H. Jr., D. D., (Amer.). 254, 302, 570, 572. Upham, T. C, D. D., ( N. H., 1799-1872). 201, 316. Usher, Arch. James, (Ire., 1580-1656). 49. Van Giesen, A. P., D. D. 53S. Van Lennep, A. O. 571. Vaughan, Henry, (Eng., 1621-1695). 43. INDEX OF AUTHORS. 647 Very, Rev. Jones, (Mass., 1813-1SS0). 390. Vincent, J. H., D. D., (Amer.). 62, 73, 206. 361, 414, 556, 569, 572. Vincent, M. R., D. D., (Amer.). 223, 232,235, 237. ViNET, A., D. t)., (Switz., 1797-1S47). 395. Wallace, Rev. J. A., (Amer.). 459. Walton, Isaac, (Eng., 1593-16S3). 579. Warburton, Bp. Wm., (Eng., 169S-1779). 349. Waring, Anna L., (Wales). 575, 593. Warner, Anna. 99, 169. Warren, Bp. H. W., (Amer.). 531. Washburn, E. A.,D. D. 590. Washington, George, (Vir., 1732-1799). 157, 215, 315, 426,487. Watson, Rev. Rich., (Eng., 1737-1816). 36, 105,266. Watson, Rev. Thomas, (Eng.,-1689). 159, 219,228,441. Watts, Isaac, D. D., (Eng., 1674-1748). 72, 82, 259, 261, 520, 542. Wayland, Francis, D. D.,(Amer., 1796-1865). 162,248. Webster, Daniel, (N. H., 1782-1S52). 33, 107, 157, 173, 199, 292, 330, 493> 525. Weiss, Rev. John, (Mass., 1818-1879). iiS. Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, (Eng., 1769-1852). 504. Wesley, Rev. Charles, (Eng., 170S-1788). 150, 273, 591. Wesley, Rev. John, (Eng., 1703-1791). 190, 285. Westminster Catechism. 7, 40, 223, 256, 361, 457, 490, 509, 529, 545, 551- Whately, Arch. Rich., (Eng., 1787-1833). 352, 500, 536, 604. Whelpley, Rev. Samuel, (Mass., 1766-1817). 29. White, Joseph Blanco, (Spain, 1775-1841). 179. Whitfield, Rev. Geo., (Eng., 1714-1770). 501 g, 518, 543. Whipple, Bp. H. B., (Amer.). 3, 95, 618. Whipple, E. P., (Amer., 1819-). 3S6. Whittier, J. G., (Mass., 1807-). 22, 252, 282, 382, 399, 513, 601. Wilberforce, William, (Eng., 1759-1833)- 222, 368. Wilcox, Carlos, (.\mer., 1794-1827). 3, 205, 384. WiLLETS, A. A., D. D., (Amer.). 290. WiLLi.wis, Rev. W., (Wales,-I79i). 263. Willis, N. P., (Maine, 1807-1867). 394. Wilson, John, (Christopher North), (Scot., 1785-1854). 136. WiNSLO\v, Mrs. Mar)\ 55. WiNSLOW, Octavius, D. D., (Eng.. 1S39-1861). 144, 458, 574. 648 . INDEX OF AUTHORS. WiNTHROP, Robt. C, (Mass., 1809-). 425. Wirt, William, (Amer., 1772-1834). 424. WiTHERSPOON, Rev. John, (Scot., 1722-1794). 243. WoLCOTT, Rev, Samuel. 22. * WORDSWORTH; Wm., (Eng., 1770-1850). 178, 198, 201, Wyckliffe, John, (Eng., 1324-1384). 2S8. Young, Edward, (Eng., 1684-1765). 9, 1S2, 206, 209, 212, 271, 291, 29S, 342, 348, 366> 392, 402, 447. 485> 582, 616. Zimmerman, John G., M. D., (Switz., 1728-1795). 301, 406. ZiNZENDORF, Nikolaus Ludwig Count von, (Ger., 1700-1760). 80. ZwiNGLE, Ulrich, (Switz., 1484-1530), 238. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. [The figures refer to the pages, the letters to the number of the selections; thus, 28 c, d, denotes the third and fourth extracts on page 28 ; and 45 b — 48 c all from the second selection on page 45 to the third on page 48 inclusive.] Ability, i. See also Talent. How developed, i b, c, 121 d-f. How lost, 563 b. Involves responsibility, i a. Accountability: 1-2. Sense of in eternity, 2 a. Sphere of, i d. Action: 2-6. ^&>i-sAso Earnestness- Exemplified, 3d — f. History of the church, 4 d. Man's end, 2 b. Measure of worth, 2 c Nature of, 2 e, 4 b, e, 6 a, 564 a, 566 b. Need of, 3 c, 112 e, 122 a. Prompt, 5 6 — f. Resolute, 6 b, c, g, 125 a. Results of, 3 a, b, e, 4 c, 5 b, c, 3 g. 243 a. Results of eternal, 2 d, 4 a, 6 d — f. 351 b, 551 f. Unselfish, 4 f, 242 e, 243 a. We shall meet it at the judgment, 361 b. A.DOPTION : 7. Cause of, 7 c, 489 e. Adoption (Continued). Nature of, 7 a, 362 a. Need of, 7 b. Result of, 159 a, 489 e. Adversity : 7-8. See also Trials. Deepened by impatience, 7 e. Develops strength, 57S c. Easier to bear than prosperity, 8 a. God's design in it, 7 d. Refuge in, 7 f. Affliction: 8-11. See also Be- reavement. Attend at once to its lessons, 10 a. Clears our spiritual vision, 8 f. Cup of salvation, a, 10 f. Extraordinar}', g a. Fits for heroic service, 9 h. God's presence in, 10 i, 11 b, c. How to bear it, 10 e, 10 g. How to give help in, 11 a. Leads to heaven, 9 c, d, 10 g. Lot of all, the, 8 g. May be God's light, 9 f, i. Means of development, a, 8 c 96. Meekness under, 11 d. 650 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Affliction (Continued). Prayer for comfort in, ii e. Removed, should produce grati- tude, lo h. Sanctified, 9 b, 10 b-d. School of virtue, a, 8 d. Shadow of God's wings, 8 b. Teachings of, 9 e. Test of character, a, 9 g. Weans us from the earth, 8 e. Ambition : 11-12. Effects of, 12 a, b. Nature of, 11 f, 12 b, c. Amusement : 12-13. Effect on religion, 12 d, e, 150 d. Effect in the Sunday-school, 572 f. Example of, 13 a. Innocent, 12 f. Proper in its place, 12 g, 452 c. Unlawful, 251 c, 383 h. Anger : 13-14. Folly of, 13 c, e. How to control it, 14 c. Nature and evil of, 13 b, d, 14 a. Unchristian, 14 b, d. Apostasy : 14-15. Exemplified, 14 e. "Is it I?" 14 f, 15 a. Asleep in Jesus. See Death of Christians. Aspiration : 15. Not murmurmg, 15 d. Prayer for God's aid, 15 f. Unsatisfied desire, 18 e. Assurance : 16-18. Best, the, 16 e, 17 c. Full, 18 a. How to obtain it, 16 d, 17 a, d. In its absence, practice the faith of adherence, 18 b. Assurance (Continued). In prayer, 460 c, d. Its nature and end, 16 a, b, d, 604 g. Seek to obtain it, 16 c. Unquestioning, example of, 17 b. Atheism : 18-20. Benefits no one, 19 a. Cause of, 19 f, 487 b. Choose between it and Chris- tianity, 20 a. Denies man's nobility, 19 c. Destitution, a, 19 b. Folly of, 18 c, d. Gives no comfort in death, 190. Practical, 20 b. Solitariness of, 19 d. Source of, iS e-f. Atonement. See Christ, Saviour. Avarice : 20-21. Nature and effects, 20 c-f. Prayer to be kept from, 21 a. Backsliding, cause of, 21 b-d. Baptism : 21-22. Holy Spirit, of. 22 a. Sign, a, 21 e. Beatitudes, 33 c. Beauty ; 22. and holiness, 22 c-f. Defined, 22 b. Belief : 22-23. See also Faith and Trust. Absence of, 23 d-e. Comfort of, 23 f. Defined, 22 g. Effects of, 23 a. How to secure it, 22 h, 23 b. In Christ, 103 d, 154 a, 364 c. Measure of, 23 c INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 651 Beneficence : 24-27. Antidote to worldliness, 24 e-f. Consecrates wealth, 24 e. Constant, 26 b. Duty, a, 25 e, 27 a, 574 d. Glory of, 24 a, 131 a. Law of creation, 26 a. Proper exercise of, 25 a-g. Reward of, 24 c, 26 c-f, 270 d. Seasonable, 24 g. Source of, 47 c, 574 b. Bereavement : 27-28. See also Affliction. Christ's presence in, 27 b. Friends gone before, 27 e, 28 a. Resignation in, 27 c, 28 b. Sympathy for bereaved, 27 d. Bible : 28-40. Brings light, 30 b. Character and claims, 28 c-32 d^ 33 d, 35 b-d, 36 c, 37 b, 40 e. Christ's word, 32 d. Delight in, 40 h. Destro3'S idolatry, 34 c. Establishes freedom and justice. 34 d, 569 d, 570 a. Given by Nature's God, 31 b,35 b. God's letter of afTection, 30 d. God's word, evidences of, 29 e, 34 e, 35 f. Holy Spirit its interpreter, 318 c. How to study it, 38 e, 39 a, 40 a- d, 572 d, 573 a. How to use it, 37 c, 38 c, 40 g, 365 b. Interprets nature, 31 a. Literary worth of, 31 c, e> i, 33 d-f, 34 a, 386 c. Mystery in, 422 a, b. Old Testament, 32 e. Own interpreter, 36 f. Bible (Continued). Place in the family, 39 c, d. Promotes morality, 34 b, 36 b. Proverbs, 33 b. Psalms, 33 a, b. Read it, 38 a, 39 c, 40 f. Reveals salvation, 29 e, f, 30 a-c, 32 b, 497 e. Simplicity of, 29 c. Sorrow unfolds it, 555 e. Submission to its teachings, 38 b,c. Substantial, 29 e, 36 e. Thought suggesting, 31 c, 364 d. Treasure, 30 b, c, 31 d, e, 39 e. Treasury, not an arsenal, 38 d. Truth of, 29 c, d, 36 e. 37 b. Unchanged, 35 e. Unity of, 32 c, d. Books. See Literature. Brotherhood : 41-42. Common level. 41 d. Christ's teaching, 41 b, 42 b, 136 a. Of man, 41 a, 84 d, 46 g, 47 a. Revealed by the Scriptures, 41 c. Sense of, how developed, 42 a. Brotherly Love. See Sympathy. Burden-bearing: 99 a-d, gS a-c, 253 b, c, 548 f, 554 f. Cares : 42-44. And meditation, 406 e. Basis of, 42 c, 43 a. Cast them on God, 43 c, 44 a. Climb above them, 43 f, 601 e. Keep them without thee, 43 b, c. Of riches, 521 d, 523 d. Why art thou troubled ? 43 f. Character : 44-46. Above intellect, 353 d. All we can take into eternity, 44 e, 623 c. 652 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Character (Continued). Children (Continued). At death, i8o c, d, 213 c, 623 c. What to teach them, 33 f. Christian, evidences of, 365 e. Why God has given them, 50 a. Faith its most essential ingre- dient, 45 b. How formed, 45 d, 46 d 254 e, 255 b, 581 b. How injured, 45 g, 46 a. Measure of enjoyment and suflTer- Choice ; 53. See also Decision, Decisive moments, 53 f. Imperative, 53 e-g, 435 d. Christ: 54-102. Advent of, 54 b, 55 a. Advocate, 88 c, d. ing, 45 a. All in all, 54 a. Strength of. 45 c. Tested, 44 c, 533 a, 534 e, f. Always the same, 64 a, 78 a, 93 d. e, 94 a. Tombstone, the best, 44 d. Atoning sacrifice. See Christ's Charity (Love) : 46-48. Sufferings and Death. How to foster it, 48 b. Beauty of, 54 a, 57 a, 96 c. In speaking, 47 g. Blood of, 87 e, f, 88 a, c. 74 e, 8i Motive for, 47 a. b, d,-83 d, 84 a. Nature and effect of, 46 e-g, 47 Brother, m}^ 93 a, c, 94 a, 100 b. b-f. 48 c. Burden, 98 a-d. Should begin at home, 48 a. Burden bearer, 61 e, 86 b. 98 e. Chastisement: 140 a, 5680,588 a. 99 a-d. See also Affliction, etc. Centre of world's histor}-, 56 b, Cheerfulness : 48-49. c, 59 d, 78 a. Cause of, one, 545 d. Character, grandeur of, 59 e, 60 c, Cultivate it, 49 a, b. 61 c, d, 64 f. Effect of, 48 e, f. Creator, 56 c. Honors God, 49 d. Cross of, 71 d, 72 a, b, 73 c, e, 78 In self-denial, 534 c, d, e. See also Cross of Christ. What it indicates, 48 g, h, Cross constantly before Him, 61 Children: 49-53. c, d,68 c. Bring them to Christ, 50 d, 145 b, Divine, 56 d, 57 a-sS d, 59 e,62 b, 571 b, 572 a, b. 138 b. Christ's method, 49 f, 50 c, 570 c. Embodiment of virtue, 65 c. Consider them lent to us, 51 e Enthusiasm of, 208 e. Death of, 51 f, 53 b, d. Ever lives, 75 e, 78 a. Don't despise them, 50 e. Exaltation of, 77 a-e. Educate us, 51 a, 545 e. Example, our, 62 e, 124 f, 391 e. How to train them, 50 b, 295 d. Faith in. See Faith in Christ. Need models, not critics, 49 g. Faith of, 61 d. Patience with, 51 d. Fame of, 60 a, 61 b, 78 a. Prayer for, 50 f. Fulfills all types, 69 b, c. We all are children, 51 b,c, 143c f. Fullness of, 95 c-96 b. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 653 Christ (Continued). Christ (Continued). Gives freedom, 60 b, 89 a. Obedience of, 68 b. Governs the ages, 59 d. Omnipotence of, 65 e, f, 66 a-c. Guide, 88 e, f, 89 a, b, f, 598 b. Only, 66 e. High Priest. See Christy Saviour. Parables of, 63 a, 65 d, e. Home, His gift, 325 c, 326 d, 327 a. Patience of, 63 b, 444 b, 453 d. Human and Divine. 55 c, 56 a, Peace of, 445 d-446 e, f. 61 a, 60 d. Perfections of, 54 a, 59 b, c, 60 c. Humility, 60 c, 67 b. 63 b, 67 b. Ideal of humanity, 54 b, c, 55 e, Pity of, 58 d, e, f, 97 b. 57 a, b, 77 c, 42 b. Praise of, 54 a. Incarnation of, 54 b, 55 a, 132 b, Presence of, 96 c-97 e, 95 b, 110 393 li- b, 250 e, 475 f, 568 e, 584 e. Intercession of, 473 b. Presence in heaven, 302 e, 303 In the Sunday-school, 572 a, 571 a, b, 570 b, c. a-d, 30S b, c. Power of God , 87 c. Invades the lives of others, 108 c. Prayers of, 63 a, 66 d, 71 c. Invitation of, 62 c, 85 a. Prophet, 91 a-e. See also Zt'arw- Joy of, 78 c, 356 b, c. ing of Christ. King, 77 e, 78 a-79 c, 85 d, 437 b. Ph3'sician, the great, 94 b, 154 b. Kingdom of, 500 c. Refuge, 100 a-ior f. Lamb of God, 86 a, b. Rejected of men, 60 c See also Last work of, 73 a. Rejection of Christ. Leader, 80 a-f . Remembrance of, 70 b. Life and ministr)'-, 54-68. Resurrection of, 75 e, 76 a, 137 Light, the, 65 b, c, 90 a, b, 91 c. Lord and God, my, 85 d. c. Reveals God, 62 a-c, 65 e, 2S5 d. Love of, 41 b, 58 e, f, 59 b, c, 65 a, 71 a, b, 82 c, 85 a, 92-94,311 c. Manifestation of God's love, 271 c-272 d. 431 d. Reveals immortality, 91 d, e. Rock of Ages, 100 d, e, loi a-f. Sacrifice, love's greatest effort, Manliness of, 55 d, 59 b. 77 b. Meekness of, 407 c. Sacrifice, sufficiency of, 82 a, 87 a. Mercy, sense of, 85 b. Saviour, 67 a, 81-87, 88 a, b, g, 91 Messiah, 76 b, 77 a. d, 92 a, 94 e, 95 b-f , 96 a, 97 d. Method of, 63 a. 162 e, 210 e, 246 d, f, 359 b, c, Miracle of the ages, 57 3,65, f, 78 a. 391 a, b, 416 e, 489 b, d, 490 a, Miracles of, 64 d, 65 f-66 d. 510 c, d, 529 b, 546 f, 5S0 d. Mission of, 559 g. 590 a. Nature, mystery of, 422 c, 423 e. Second coming of, 102 c-e. See Necessar}^ that He should go away, 68 d. also RlillennixiDi. Self-dedication of, 59 c. 654 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Christ (Continued). Shepherd, 59 a, 89 a, b, d, e. Simplicity of, 63 c, 64 a, 96 c Soul of the gospel, 288 e. Soul's rest, 559 e, Substitute, my, 72 d. Sufferings and death of, 69-75, 546 e, 585 e. Support in death, 183 e. Sympathy of, 92 b, 93 c, 94 a-c. Teacher, the great, 62 b, d, e, 63 a, 77 a, 140 d. Tears of, 58 d. Tenderness of, 59 b, c, 68 a, 82 c, 89 e, 91 b, 92 b, 93 c, 94 a-c, 5S4C, 593 d. Transfiguration of, 66 e, f, 67 a. Trials, little things, 59 e. Triumph of, is mine, 44 a. Truth, 59 a-c, 62 d, 63 a, 64 b-e, 65 a, 86 e, 91 a, b. Unselfish, 60 b. Waiting for me, 89 e. Watchfulness of, 89 c. Way, the, 90 b-e. Wisdom of God, 58 b, 59 a-c, 62 d, 63 a, 64 b, 65 d, 95 e. Words of, 59 a-c, 62 d, 63 a, 64 b-e, 65 d, e, 91 a, b. Work of, supernatural, 70 d. Yoke of, 98 a-d. Christians : 103-107. Death of, 176 c-e, 177 b-e, 178 a, b, d, 179 b, 182-186. Doubts of, 196 c. Earnestness of, 110 a. Entrusted with Christ's glory, 106 c. Example of, 116 c. Experience, 113 c Fearful ones, 106 e. Christians (Continued). Free from malice, 106 a, 115 f, 116 a, 520 c, d. Graces of, 119 a. Hope of, 327 e, 328 f . How to become one. 105 d, 152 a. Joys of, 355 c, 356 b, 447 e. See 2AS0 Joy. Like Christ, 104 b, 105 c, 552 b, 562 b. See also Likeness to Christ. Littleness of, 105 e. Living for Christ, 109 e. 249 b. Manhood of, 476 a. See also Manhood and ManHncss. Memory in heaven. 40S a. Patience of, 442 h. See also Pa- tience. Prayer necessarj^ 457 b. See also Prayer. Privilege of, 254 b. Purpose of, 120 ^, e, 121 c, 197 a, 296 e. Represent Christ, 103 e, 115 e. Safety in Christ, 107 a, no b. Satisfied only in part, 106 d. Simplicity of, 156 a. See also Simplicity. Testimony of, 106 b. See also Speaking for Christ. Union to Christ, 81 b, 105 b. See also Union to Christ. Useful, 105 a. See also Christian Sei-vice. Y'xciory oi, 108 d, 109 a, no a. What they are, 103-104, 250 a, 163 e, 434 d. Christian Conflict: 107-110. Christ with us, 577 a. Condition of spiritual growth, 564 b, c, 563 e, 612 c. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 655 Christian Conflict (Continued). Nature and end of, 107-110, 114 d, 115 a, b. Christian Fellowship : 110-112. Christ's love, bond of, 85 d, no d, III a, b, d, 143 b, 475 d. Rich and poor, inc. Christian Life: 112-119. Seealso Holiness and Piety. Action, 2 c, 5 a, 112 d, e, 554 a, 566 b. Culture and discipline, 113 d. Emotion, feeling, 114 c. End of, 118 b-f, 380 e-g. Following Christ, 113 a. Higher t)'pe of, 115 c, e. Intellect not a substitute for, 114 b. Light of, 116 c, d, 572 c. Mistakes of, 117 c, d. Nature of, 192 f. Need of self-denial, 533 a, f, 534 d. e, 535 c. Progress in, 116 a, b, 117 c, 118 f. Source of, 602 b. Strength and beaut)% 113 e, 114 a, 115 d. Test of, 117 a-c, 136 b, 278 a. Token of redeeming grace, 113 b. Trials of, 264 e, 265 d. See also Trials. Worship, a, 118 c. Christian Service : 119-131. Ability for, i a, c, 2 c-e, 3-6, 121 d-f, 122 a, 123 a-e. Calmness of, 124 a. Consecration to, 130 e. Danger in, 566 a. Delight in, 120 d, e, 121 a, b, 122 b, 125 b, 561 f. Christian Service (Continued). Desire for, 120 e, 121 a-c, 124 b, 561 g. Discouragements in, 122 e. Every day's work, 120 a. Glory of, 131 a-c God's guidance in, 125 a, c, d, 128 f, 129 a. Heartily as to the Lord, 126 a- 128 e, 130 a-e. Humility in, 122 d. Little things, 120 c, d, 561 b-d. Method of, 121 d,e, 122 d, 125 a, 129 e, 166 a, b, d, 169 e, 269 c, d, 363 c, f. Nature of, 120 b, 576 f. Necessit}' for, 122 a, b, 124 c-f, 368 a-c, 399 c. Patience in, 125 e, 442 h. Reward of, 131 a-c. Sinners brought to Christ, 129 b, c, d, f, 130 b, d. Christianity : 131-142. Adapted to man, 139 b, c, 140 b, f, 141 a-c, 142 a, b, c. And home, 326 a, c, d. And infidelit}'. See Infidelity. And woman, 6x8 a, b. Effects of, 134 b, c, 135 d, 136, a- d, 137 a, 139 b-e, 140-142, 143 a, 107 b, c, 614 a. Evidences of, 134 c-e, 135-138, 139 b, c, 140 f, 141 a, c, 143 a, 23 b, 501 d, e. Miracle, a, 133 d. Mother of freedom, 379 b, c. Nature of, 131 e, 132 a-133 e, 134 a, d, 135 a-c. Need of, 545 a. Triumphs of, 133 c, 136 a, c, 137 a, 141-142. G56 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Christianity (Continued). Unlike other systems, 133 a, e, ^35 c, 137 d, 140 f, 141 a, c, 143 a. Christmas : 143 b-e. Church : 143-150. And the Sunday-school, 569 d. Backsliding, 147 b. Best days of, 584 g. Christ its head, 144 a, b, 145 c, e, 148 c, 149 a, e. Christ with it in its dark days, 149 a, b. Coldness of, 148 a. Consecration of, 144 d. Counterfeit, a, 148 b. Divided, a, 148 c, d. Faith of, 146 c. God's covenant with, 143 g, 144b. Growth of, 144 a, 554 g. Heresy in, 147 f. Holy Spirit's presence in, 144 d, 145 f, 318 e, 321 e,322 b-d,323 a. Indolent, an, 147 c-e. In heaven, 360 a. See also Heaven. Mission of, 149 d. Missionary work, 150 b. See also Missions. Must cling to Christ, 145 c, 146 c Must honor Christ, 145 a. Peace of, 148 c-e. Piety, need of, 145 a-f, 146 a, 147 a-d. Pillar of civil liberty, 148 f. Power of, 144 d, 146 c, 147 a, d. Revivals, 145 d, e, 149 c. See also Revivals. Revivals, spasmodic effort, 149c. Unit)' of, 149 e, 150 a, 148 c, d. Visible, 144 c. Church (Continued). Working, a, 147 d, e, 455 f. Church (Sanctuary) : 150-151. Attendance upon ordinances, 150 c. Edifice, 151 a, b. Services, 146 a, 150 d. Coldness of Heart: 82 e. Coming TO Christ: 151-155. See also Repentance. Believing on Him, 153 f, 154 a. Condition of repentance, 506 a. He will receive you, 153 b, c. Method of, 151-153. Preparation for, 152 a-c. Renouncing sin, 154 a. Sense of sin, 153 d, e. Communion with God and Christ, 120 c, 296 a. See also Prayer and Devotion. Confessing Christ : 155-156. See also Last Supper. Duty of, 155 c. No secret Christians, 155 d-f. Confidence. See Faith and Trust. Conscience: 156-158. Evil, an, 157 d, h, i, 158 a. Good, a, 215 e. Nature and office of, 157 a-f, 389 b, 503 e. Seared, a, 158 a. Sunda}', a, 524 e. Tender, a, 552c,d, 553 b, 615 e. Consecration: 158-160. Entire, 158 c, 159 b, c, e, 610 d. Holy Spirit the agent, 159 a. Necessary to usefulness, 158 d. Of riches, 521 f, 522 a. Prayer for, 15S b, 159 b, 160 a. Produces peace and joy, 159 d, 160 a. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 657 Consolation, Christ's : 27 b. Ground of, 144 b. Contempt : 160. Contemptible, 160 e. Leaves a scar, 160 g. No room for, 160 d. Self-righteousness its source, 160 f. Spirit of Antichrist, 160 b, c. Contentment : 161. And aspiration, 300 a. Condition of, 161 b. In an)- state, 161 g. Is wealth, 161 a. Simple pleasures, 161 d-f. Two kinds, 161 c. Controversy : 162. See also De- iiominationalism . An evil, 38 d, 162 c, d, 480 d. Manliness in, 162 a. Needful to progress, 162 b. Conversion : 162-164. Evidence of, 163 c, f, 164 a, b, 436 a. Human instrumentality in, 122 d, 164 d. Nature of, 162 e-163 e, 164 c, 283 g- Spurious, 115 f. Conviction : 164-165. " Almost persuaded," 165 b. Difficult to the moralist, 164 f. Necessary to belief, 164 e. Not conversion, 165 a. Courage : 165-167. See also I/ero- ism and Manliness. Conscience its root, 167 a. Decisive energy of, 239 d. God's aid, 167 b. Kowto cultivate it, 166 f, 592 e. Need of, 165 c-i66 e, 16S g, 405 c. Source of, 165 d, e. 4:2 Covetousness : 167. Ambition of, 167 e, f. Cure for, 25 f, 167 g. Effect of, 167 d, h. Nature of, 167 c. Creation. See God Creator. Mystery of, 424 c, d, 425 a. Criticism : 168. Cant of, 168 a. Danger of, 168 c. Not religion, 168 b. Of Christian effort, 168 e. Of ministers, 16S d. Right kind of, 168 f. Cross Bearing : 168-171. Christ helps us, 169 b, 170 d. Fear of, 171 a. Method, the proper, 169 a, 405 e. Nature of, 168 g, 169 c, 170 c, 204 d. Need of, 171 d. Pleasure, a, i6g d, 170 a. Prayer for God's grace, 170 d, e. Privilege of, 171 b,c, 373 c, 443 a. Self the greatest cross, 170 b. Submission and acceptance of, 170 f. Cross of Christ; 171-173. And Christ inseparable, 73 c, 300 e. Effect of, 71 d, 141 c, 142 a, 172, 522 a. Glory of, 171 e-g. Looking to it, 173 a. Oblation of, 246 b. Prayer for its benefits, 173 d, e. Reveals God's goodness, 262 a, 568 a. Sign of victor)', 172 c, 56S a. Sinner's sanctuar)% 172 a, d, 173 b-d. 658 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Crucifixion of Christ. See Cht ist's Sufferings and Death. Culture and Religion, 320 a, 503 e-504 c, 504 e. Death : 173-186. All must die, 173 f, 174 a-c, 176 f, 178 e, 184 b, c. Awful to the sinner, 95 b, 175 c. Christ's support in, 95 b, 183 e. Comforter's presence in, 183 a. Debt of nature, 179 c. Does not change character, 180 c,d. End of earth, 174 e, 175 a, b. Faith in, 608 c Fear of, 170 b, 179 a, 181 a, 1S4 c, e, 183 e, 185 a. God's help in, 596 a, d. Going home, 185 d, e. Hour of, 175 a-176 a, 385 d. Illustrations of, 174 a, b, 176 d, e, 177 d, e. Lesson of, 186 a. Love triumphant in, 182 a-d, 1S4 e. Nearness of, 177 a-c. Of children, 51 f, 52 a-d, 53 a-d. Of Christians, 176 c-e 177 b, d, e, 178 a, d, b, 179 b, 182-186, 119 b, c, 295 b, 328 c, e. Of the old, 439 f, g. Prayer for God's aid in, 179 b, d, 181 b, 178 b. Preparation for, 176 b, 180 e, f, 181 b, c. Power of, 170 b, 174 c, d. Second, 181 d. See also Hell. Sleep, a, 181 d, 183 b, c, 184 b. Transition, 178 d. Untimely, 180 e, f. Visions of angels in, 182 d. Decision : 186-187. And toleration, 187 b. Decision (Continued). Need of, 53 f, So a, 108 b, 1S6 c, d, e, 187 a-e. Weakness is wickedness, 187 d, e- Deeds never die :2d, 4 a, 6d,ii9 e. Delay. See Procrastinatio7i. Denominationalism : 187-189. Need of Christian fellowship, 112 c, 149 e, 150 a, 18S a, 189 a-c. Need of different sects, 188 c-e. Difference, slight, 187 f. Denying Christ : 189. How Christians do it, 189 d, e. Depravity, Human : 189-191. See also Evil and Sin. In Christians, 605 b. In perdition, 311 a. Native, 190 c, d, igi a. Universal, 189 f, 190 a, d, 191 a. Despair : 191. See also Fear. Cause of, 191 d. Cure for, igi c, 499 d. Nature of, 191 b, c. Development in Heaven : 307 a- 308 e. Devotion : 192-194. See also Prayer. How to increase it, 192 d, 193 a-e, 194 a. Mistaken idea of, 193 f. Nature of, 192 a-193 d. Necessarj^ to the theologian, 579 e. Not the only business of life, 2 c, 508 d. Disappointment: 281 f. See also Trials. Discipleship.measureof: 126 d,i27 a. See also Clu-istian Service. Discipline of Life, 107 d, 109 c, no c, 115 a, 588 d. Dispositions, 420 b. / INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 659 Doctrine : 194-195. Duty (Continued). Belief in, 163 d. Obligation, 199 a-200 b, f, g, 201 How to explain it, 194 d. c, 202 a. How to know of it, 138 a, b, d. Of prayer, 474 d, e. 194 f, g. 195 a. Performed, efTects of, 197 d, 198 Leads to Christ, 154 c. a, c, igg a-e, 202 c, 297 e, 6ri c. Our proper attitude to, 194 c-195 a. Performed, courage in, 221 a. Purity of, 194 b. Performed, imperishable, 197 d. Doing Good : 41c, 121 c-e, 243 a. 198 a. See also Beneficence. Performed, weakness in, 202 a-d. Doubt : 195-196. Cold-hearted Christians, ig6 c. 203 b. Personal, igS b, e, g, 200 d. Cure for, 195 d, e, 196 a, 599 b. Rejection or neglect of, 155 d, 201 d-g. Submission to, 202 c, d. Trials fit us for, 5S5 d. Trust God in it, 197 c-e, igS b, 200 d, 201 g, 202-203. Eas}' entrance of, 195 b, c. Folly of, 605 e-g, 608 a. Produces wretchedness, 23 a. Duty: 197-205. See also Obliga- tion, Obedience, and Christian Service. Earnestness : 205-206. See also And crosses, 204 d. Action, Zeal, and Enthusiasm. And events, 197 c, 200 f, 204 c, Conquers the world, 205 b, d. 205 a. Exhortation to, 130 e. And fear, 201 a, b, 203 b. Gives happiness, iio a, 205 e. And interest, 534 f. In prayer, 462 c, 463 b, c. And knowledge, 198 f, 203 a. Nature of, 205 f. And pleasure, 162 g, 200 e. Necessarj% 205 c, 205 g, 206 a. And rights. 523 f, 524 b. Prayer for, 206 b. Christian's object, the, 197 a. Earth : 206-207. Consecrates life, 198 h. Should not be our chief end, 104 Ennoble it, 198 d. e, 206 e, 207 a-d. First, the, 197 b, e. Transitory, 206-237, 55g f, 620 c, How to do it, 197 b, ig8 g, 199 f, 621 d. b, c, 201 h, 202 a-204 b. Egotism sometimes fostered by Life, apprenticeship to, 385 b. alms-giving, 48 a. Little things, 198 d, e, 203 b, e, f, Enemies : 207-20S. 389 b. Have no power to harm you, 208 a. Love for, 197 e, 199 c, 200 d, g, Pray for them, 207 e. 201 b, h, 203 c, 378 c-e. Energy. See Action, Earnestness, Nearest, the, 198 b, 203 b, e, f, 204 Enthusiasm, and Zeal. a, b, 369 d. Enthusiasm : 208-209. See also Necessity, 200 c. Action. Earnestness, and Zeal. 660 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Enthusiasm (Continued). Be not afraid of it, 209 a. Christ our example, 208 e. Christian virtue, a, 116 e. Element of success, 208 b-d. In the )'Oung, 20S 6,209 t>. Envy : 209. Degradation of, 209 c. Of the great, 209 d, e. Eternal Life : 209-212. See also Heaven. Conditions of, 210 e-211 d, 598 d. Glory of, 211 e, 212 d. Nature of, 109 f, 209 f-210 g. Eternity : 212-213. And time, 583 c. Condition in, 2 a, 213 c. Incomprehensible to man, 212 e. Instinctive longing for, 602 a. Lends dignity to life, 381 e, 382 a, b. Memory in, 213 a, b, d. See also Aleinory. Never grows old, 213 a, b. Of actions, 286 f, 2S7 a. Thought of, 212 b, c, 584 b. Will unravel earthly myster)"-, 212 d. Evangelism. See Missions. Evil : 213-214. See also Sin. Cure for, 213 g, 214 a. National, 427 a-c. Nature of, 213 e, f. Source of, 213 h. Evil Speaking : 214-215. Antidote for, 215 b, d, e. Avoid it, 214 b-e, 215 a, f. Injures the slanderer, 214 d, e, 215 c. Evolution : 216. God's method of, 216 a-c. Evolution (Continued). Tends towards God, 216 d. Exaggeration, avoid it, 483 a. Example: 217. Bad, a, 217 d-f. Good, a, ri6 c, 217 b, c. Teacher, the best, 217 a, b. Experience, Christian: 112 e, 113 c. See also Christians. Faith : 218-223. And prayer, 221 d. Develops noble character, 220 e, 222 a, b. Fearlessness of, 221 g. Grasps the promises, 222 d. Habit, a, 219 a. In exercise, 218 c-f, 2ig c, 220 a- e, 221 a, c, e, g, 222 a, b, d. In the right, 221 a. Measure of, 221 b, c. Nature of, 218 a, b, f, 219 f, 220 a-c, 221 f, 488 a. Necessary in pra3'er, 460 e, f, 461 a-g, 462 d, g. Need of, 222 e, 223 a. Office of, 219 f, 220 a-c. Faith in Christ : 223-23S. See also Trust in Christ. And love, 228 c, 229 a, 230 d, e, 233 a, 234 b, f, 237 f. And obedience, 227 c, d, 229 d, 234 a,d. And sight. 251 a, 593 a. Appropriating principle, an, 224 b, 234 b. Better than feeling, 244 d, e, 245 a, b. Confidence, 225 b-e, 223 b. Evidence of, 527 d, 618 c, e, 619 a, b. Gift of God, 223 c, d. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 661 Faith in Christ (Continued). Family united in Heaven, 39 d. In death, 238 a, b, 60S c. See also Home and Heaven. In exercise, 104 f, 225 d, 226 b-d, Fault Finding. See Miinnuring. 227 c, d, 228 b, e, f, 229 a, 230 Fear : 243-244. See also Despair. b, c, g, 231 a-e, 232 b-d, 233 a, Base of, 243 d. c, d, 234 c, d, 235 e, 237 d. Cure for, 598 e, 599 a, 600 e. In, on and into, 225 c, 226 e, 227 a. Demoralizes the soul, 243 e. Instrument in justification, 223 b, Duty dispels it, 201 a, 203 b. 224 b, 226 b, 234 b, d, 236 c, d. Of death, 179 a, 181 a, 183 e, 184 Nature of, 154 a, 223 a-226 a, 226 c, e, 185 a. c-228 a, 22S b-229b, 229 e, 230 Of the cross, 170, e, 171 a. a, c, d, 231 a, b, 232 a-233 e, Preface to love, 244 c. 237 a, 396 b, 535 c. To do wrong, 201 b. Personal, SS a, b, 104 f, 223 c, Two kinds of, 243 f, 244 a, b. 226 b, 227 e, 232 c, d. Feeling : 244-245. Power of, 229 0, 230 a, 235 b-d, And duty, 502 d. 236 b, 237 b, c, 238 a, 498 b. And knowing, 366 f. Prayer for, 231 c, d, e, 233 e. Does not save the soul, 244 d, e. Trust, 224 c, 225 a, 226 a, 227 c, 245 a, b, 448 g, 506 c, d. f. 229 d, e, 230 b, 231 c, 232 a, d^ Not a test of Christian character, 233 a, 591 a. 126 d, 245 c. Faith in God : 238-241. Fellowship with Christ and Condition of His protection, 239 God: 245-247. b, f, 240 a-e, 241 b, d. Effect of, 247 a, 609 d, e. Exhortation to, 239 a. Habit, a, 245 d. Expression of, 239 e. How learned, 246 a-c, 543 c. Indispensable, 221 d, 241 a. In trial and weakness, 246 d-f, In exercise, 239 d, 240 c, d, 241 c, 247 b. e, f. Of the heart, 245 e. Nature of, 238 c-e, 239 a, b. Prayer for, 247 c. Personal, 239 c, 241 c. Fidelity : 247-249. Religion, 493 d. Admonition to, 247 d, e, 24S c. Falsehood : 241-242, Hesitancy in, 248 e. Cowardly, 242, a, b. Necessity for, 247 f, 248 a-c. Ephemeral, 241 g. Prayer for, 398 e. In trifles, 242 c. Reward of, 249 a. In youth, 242 d. Source of, 248 d. Fame : 242-243. Following Jesus : 249-251. An idle boast, 243 c. Duty of, 41 b, 249 b, c, f, 250 b,f, When permanent, 242 e, f, 243 a, 251 a-c, 553 e. b. Effect of, 249 e, 250 d, e. 662 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Following Jesus (Continued). Prayer for grace, 80 c, 251 d, 334 c. Privilege of, 249 c-d, 250 d, e, 543 d. Sign of sanctification, 249 f, 250 a. Two ways of, 249 e, 250 d, e. Forgiveness : 251-252. Christian grace, a, 251 e, 252 c, d, e. Christ's example, 252 c. Effect personal, 252 b. How to cultivate it, 252 a. Nobility of, 251 c, 252 d. Fortitude : 253. Christian, 118 e, 253 a, d. Exhortation to, 253 d-f. In trial, 253 b-f. Fretting : 254. Destroys peace, 254 a. Source of, 588 b. Without excuse, 254 b. Friendship : 254-255. Christian, 254C-e. Influence on character, 254 e, 255 b. Nature of, 255 a. Frivolity : 255. Of soulless professors, 255 d. Weakens character, 255 c. Gentleness: 255-256. And strength, 255 e. In rebuke, 256 a. Need of, 160 d. Glory : 256. Nature of, 256 b, c. Of earth, 567 c. Of heaven, 299 e, f, 300 b. Source of, 256 d. God : 256-285. Being of, 256 e, f, 257 a, b. God (Continued). Compassion of. Sqq God. Love of. Condescension of, 271 c-e, 272 a, b. Creator, 258 d, 259 a, b, 610 e. See also Nature- Delays of, 444 f. Eternity of, 259 c, d. Fatherhood of, 42 b, 260 a-d. Faithfulness of, 260 e, 261. Fullness of, 266 e. Glory and majesty of, 256 c, f, 258 d, 259 a, 273 f. Goodness of, 261 d-263 a, 553 a. Grace of. See GocTs Mercy. Guidance of, 263 b-266 d, 276 b,. 594 f, 601 c, 615 f. Holiness of, 256 f . Infinite, 266 e-267 d, 269 e, 271 d, 273 f, 274 a, d, 276 a, 546 c. Justice of, 267 e-268 d. Kingdom of, 151 f, 268 e-26g e. Love of, 270 a-272 c, 260 a, 265 c, 268 b, c, 488 f, 512 a, 607 e. Manifestations of, 258 a-c. Mercy of, 272 d-273 c. Mystery of. 256 e, f, 259 c, 267 a- d, 269 e, 279 f, 280 b, f, 282 a. Omnipotence of, 273 d-274 c. Omnipresence of, 274 d, e. Omniscience of, 275 a-276 d, 597 b, e. Pardon from, 440 f, 441 a. Patience of, 443 d. Presence of, 276 6-278 c, 332 f, 577 b, 602 d. Pity of. See GocTs Love. Providence of, 123 d, 203 c, e, 278 d-283 b, 5X2 d, 596 f, 597 a-e, 601 d. Providence, myster}' of, 423 a, b. Providence, special, 279 c, g. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 663 God (Continued). Refuge, 257 c, e, 259 d. Soul's rest, the, 257 c-f. Sovereignty of, 283 C-2S4 e, 616 b, 620 a, b. Trinit}' of, 2S5 a-c, 421 f. Truth of, 2S5 d-f, 599 d, 606. d. Unchangeable, 256 f. Will of. 436 d. Wisdom of. See God's Omnis- cience. Works of. See God, Creator. Wrath of, 271 e. Wrong views of, 257 a, b. Goodness : 286-287. Cherish it, 287 c, d. Duty to possess it, 155 f, 287 b. Glory of, 286 c, d. Longing for it, 286 b. Make it agreeable, 49 a. Nature of, 286 a. Never lost, 286 f, 287 a. Should have an object, 286 e. Gospel. 287-290. See also j^i^/i". Blessings of, 487 e. Call of, 82 a. Christ its centre, 288 c, e. Effect of, 288 a, d, g, 368 f, 613 f. Method of, 290 a. Nature of, 288 b, e, f, 289 a, b, 526 e, 580 d,f. Object of, 287 e, 2S8 a, d, 375 d, e, 489 a. Preaching it, 289 c, d. Unites itself to the beautiful, 22 c. Vengeance of, 289 e. Gratitude : 290. Beaut}' of, 290 c, e. Duty of, 290 f. Nature of, 290 b, d. To Christ, 120 e. Grave : 291-292. Lessons of, 291 e, 292 a, 33S a. Prospect it opens, 291 a,b, d, 292 b. Returning from, 291 f. Yawning abyss, a, 291 c, d. Greatness : 292-293 . Accomplishments of, 293 d. Characteristics of, 57S e. Condition of, 330 a-c. Mark for envy, 209 d. Method of, 293 e, 443 b. Nature of, 242 f, 292 c-293 c, 543 g. 544 a. Growth in Grace : 293-295. See also Spiritual Progress. Christian characteristic, a, 293 f- 294 a. .Exhortation to, 294 b, c. How to secure it, 294 e. Nature of, 294 a, b, d, g. Prayer for, 295 b. Sign of, 294 d, f , 295 a. Habit : 295-296. Effect on character, 295 c-296 d. Evil, resist it, 296 b, c, d. Evil, how to escape from it, 296 a, 387 e. Happiness : 296-298. Conditions of, 297 a, b, f, g, 298 b, 298 d, 498 a. Earthly, 298 a, 297 a, 296 f, 270 f. Not our being's end, 296 e,f. Of home, 323 d, e, 325 a, b. What it is, 297 c-e, 298 c. Hatred : 298. Not a Christian grace, 155a, 298 f, Proper object, 298 e. Health : 299. Means of enjoyment, 299 a. Necessar}' to usefulness, 299 c. 664 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Health (Continued). Thank God for it, 299 b. Heart. See also Soul. How to guard it, 108 c. Let ii be God's alone, 43 b. Heaven : 299-309. Begins here, 304 c-e. Closed against selfishness, 535 f, 561 e. Desirability of, 308 d. Development in, 307 a-3oS e. Foretaste of, 278 c. Friends in, 304 f-306 e, 310 d. Glimpses of, 381 f, 382 a. Glory of, 211 a, 212 a, 299 e, f, 300 b. Home, 302 e, f, 303 b, 308 e, f, 326 a-327 c. How gained, 564 b. Joy of, 303 a-304 b, 367 b, 309 c, 306 d. Longing for, 300 a; 302 a-e, 308 c, 309 a, 406 f, 613 c. Memories of, 407 c. Nearness of, 308 e, 309 b, 613 d. Prayer for, 309 c. Proof personal of, 339 c. Purity of, 302 a, b. Rest of, 299 d, 300 c, d, f, 'j02 c, d, 304 a, b, g, 306 e, 309 c, 517 d, e, 518 a-c, 613 b. Without sorrow or suffering, 300 c-f, 306 d, 309 b. Heavenly Influences : 309-310. All about us, 309 d-3iob, 318 a. Calling us upward, 28 a, 52 c, 310 a-d, 339 d. 564 d. Hell : 311-312. Absence of Holy Spirit, 311 a. Congenial, 311 a, 312 a, b. Labor for, 311 d, e. Hell (Continued). Memories of, 407, 408 b. Natural consequence of sin, 54S a, b, 549 a. Revealed bj' Christ, 311 c. Sorrow and suflTering of, 311 b, 401 a. Without repentance, 312 a, 546 d. Heroism : 312-314. Examples of, 313 a, b, 314 a. Influence of, 569 a. Needed to-da)-, 312 d. Springs from faith, 313 a, b. True character of, 312 c, e, 313 a- 314 a, 451 a, b. History, religion in, 49S d, 499 a,. 500 a. Holiness: 314-317. See also Christian Life, Piety, and Sanc- tificatio7i. Beauty of, 315 c. Beginning of, 491 e. Christ looks for it, 315 e, f . Effects of, 315 a, b, 316 a, c, 549 b. Exhortation to, 314 d, 315 g, 316 a, d, f, 317 b, e. How to strengthen it, 314 e. Nature of, 314 a-c, 315 b, f, g, 316 c, 317 e, 496 d. Opposed to selfishness, 536 a-e. Sign of discipleship, 315 d, 316 c, 317 a, c, d, 551 g. Through suffering, 108 a, 315 g, h, 486 g. Trust in, 541 c, d. Holy Spirit : 317-323. Conditions of its reception, 319 b, e, 321 d, 543 b. Fruits of, 320 a, 321 a, c. In the church, 144 d, 145 f, 148 c, 318 e, 321 e, 322 b-d, 323 a. INDEX OF SUBJECTS 665 Holy Spirit (Continued). Need of, 320 a-e, 321 e, 322 a-c. Operation of, isg a, 317 f, 318 a, 32c c, f, 490 a, 491 c. Power of, 318 e, 319 a, c, d, 583 d. Prayer for, 322 e, 323 a-c. Presence in death, 183 a. Welcome it, 321 b. Work of, 80 d, 159 a, 318 b-e, 319 c-e, 320 c, 322 b-d, 490 a, 491 c. Home: 323-327. American, 324 a, b. And Christ, 325 c, 326 d, 327 a. And heaven, 302 e, f, 308 e, f, 303 a, 326 a -327 c. Child of Christianity, 326 a, c, d. Christian, 323 f , 324 c, 327 a. Death, 185 d, e. Happy, a, 323 d, e, 325 a, b. Laws of, 437 a. Loves of, 325 a, c, 327 a-c. Pleasures of, 324 e, 325 a. Spirit of, 324 d. Without love, 324 f. Hope : 327-328. Beacon, a, 328 e, f. Christian, 87 b, 327 6-328 e. In death, 32S c, e. Pra3fer for, 28 b. ■ Proves immortalit}', 327 d. Purifying, 327 e. 328 a. Saved bj', 191 d. Humanity, failure of, 81 c. Humanity of Christ : 54 b, c, 55 a-c. Humility : 328-335. And wisdom, 616 e. Benefits of, 328 g, 329 b, 330 c, e, 331 b, 332 f, 332 c, d. Examples of, 332 a, e, 335 a. Humility (Continued). Gift of God, 331 a. Illustrations of, 333 a, d, 334 a. In exercise, 329 a, d-h, 330 a, g, 331 a-332 e, 333 b, c, 334, b, c, 335 a, b, 506 e. Longing for, 331 e, 334 b, c, e. Nature of, 328 g, 329 a-f, 330 a, g, 331 a> 332 a. Sense of God's mercy, 85 b. Source of other virtues, 32S g, 329 a, 330 c. Suitableness of, 4S4 f, h, 4S5, c, d, f. Test of greatness, 330 a, c. Hypocrisy : 335-336. Burden of villainy, 335 c. Leads to self-deception, 336 f. Religious, 46 d. 335 d-336 e. Idolatry and the Bible : 34 c. Ignorance: 336-337. Cure for, 337 a. Voluntary, 336 g. Immortality : 337-339- Arguments from nature, 337 d, 338 a, c, d, e. Belief in, 337 e. Christ reveals it, 91 d, e. Contemplation of, 337 b, c, 338 b. Heavenly influences, 339 d. Hope, proof of, 327 d. How to believe it, 339 c, e, f. Personal, 337 c, 339 a, b. Prayer recognizes it, 457 f. Reconciles Providence, 337 d. Impatience, avoid it, 51 d. Impenitent : 339-344. See Unbe- lief. Christ's call, 343 c, d. Forgetting God and Christ, 341 c, 344 a. 660 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Impenitent (Continued). God's call to, 342 a, c. God will excuse you, 343 e. Heavenly calls, 342 c. in eternity, 311 c, 475 b, 560 c, e. Labors for, 129 b-d. Lost state of, 340 a-341 b, 343 a- c, 560, b, d, 561 a. Method with, 344 b. Need of, 506 e, 508 a. Neutrality impossible, 341 d. Sense of unworthiness, 82 b, 83 a. Urged to come to Christ, 340 b, 341 b, 342 a-343 c, 527 b. View of God's mercy, 409 e. Warned, 358 a. Why remain so, 341 e. Importunity. See Prayer. Indifference : 344. Produces obduracj^ 344 d. Religious, alarming, 344 c, d. Indolence : 344-346. And truth, 604 d. Anti-christian, 344 f, 346 c. Crime, a, 367 e. Cure for, 346 d, e. Leads to faults and vices, 345 a-g. Worst enemy of the church, 344 e, 346 a, b. Industry: 346-347. See also Labor. Commanded by the gospel, 347c. Is genius, 347 a. Motive to, 346 f. Nature of, 347 b. Infidelity : 347-349. Advocates of, 349 e. Argument against, 258 b. Atheism its logical end, 348 d. Cause of, 34S b, c, g. Checks aspiration, 347 d. Crime to teach it, a, 36 b, 349 d. Cure for, 137 e, 348 f. Infidelity (^Continued). Destroys law and morality, 348 a. How to meet it, 349 f-h, 34S e, f. Not taught by motiiers, 349 a. Not wisdom, 349 c. Praj'er for deliverance from, 349 b. Test of, 1S2 c. Influence : 350-351. Unconscious, extent of, 350 a, b, 351 b-e, 611 a. Integrity : 352. Before genius, 352 d. Best policy, 352 b-f. Element in Christian character, 250 c, 352 a. Intellect : 353. See also Reason a7id Talents. And piet3^ 453 a, b. 565 e. Below character, 353 d. Has no conscience, 353 a. Permanent, 353 c. Should be my counsellor, 353 b. Intemperance : 353-354. Brings ruin, 353 g, 354 a. Mother of all vices, 353 e, f. Joy : 354-357- And sorrow, 45 a, 356 d, 555 c, d, f, 556 d, f, 557 a, 558 b, 569 c, 5S5 f. Duty, a, 357 a. Earthly, prelude to heavenly, 355 c. Gives strength, 354 b, 355 d. Give it heart-room, 356 b. Nature of, 264 d, 355 a, 356 e, 603 a. Necessary to rest, 356 a. Of God, 559 c. Of Heaven. 303 a-304 b. 306 a 307 b, 309 c. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 667 Joy (Continued). Knowledge (Continued). True, found only in Christ, 92 d, Laws of Nature, 428 e. 356 b, c. That leads to performance, 365 Judging : 357. c-f. Danger of, 357 b, e. How to cure it, 357 f- Labor : 367-369. See also Indus- How to do it, 357 b, c, d. try. Judgment-Day : 358-361. Glor)' of, 359 c, 360 a. No escape from, 360 b, 361 b. And pra^rer, 368 d, 469 a-d. Blessedness of, 3 a, 367 e, 368 f, 368 c. Sinners warned, 358 a. Cheerful, 369 a-e. See also Terrors of, 358 b-359 b, 360 b- C/msdan So-vicc as to tlw Lord. 361 b. We are approaching it, 360 c. Justice : 361. Basis of liberty, 379 d. Defined, 361 c. Curse, a, 367 a, 369 e. Develops character, 368 c, e. God's ordinance, 367 f-368 b. Nature of, 367 a, b, 369 b, c. Nobility of, 369 b, c. Must be satisfied, 361 d. Triumphs of, 367 b-f, 36S f, 369 Justification : 361-362. Completeness of, 362 d, 489 e. Ground of, 361 e, f, 591 d. Nature of, 362 a-c. b, 615 c. Last Supper : 370-374. Christ's command, 371 e, 372 a. Christ's love, 371 b, c. Emblem of feast in heaven, 372 b. Kindness : 362-363. Fellowship with Christ, 372 d, Influence of, 363, 561 c. 373 d. Let us show it now, 362 e. Fitness of, 371 b, c. Religious duty, 363 c, d. Kingdom of Heaven : 286 b. See Mutual pledge, a, 372 c, 374 a. Our faith and obedience, 370 a. also God's Kingdom. 371 a. Knowledge : 364-366. Our love for Christ, 371 b-d. All not desirable, 36^ c, 365 b. Our unworthiness, 370 b, c. 366 c, h, 406 d. And duty, 198 f, 203 a. Remembrance of Christ, 370-374. Vacant seats, 374 b. And faith, 530 d, e. And religion, 503 f-504 c, 504 e. And righteousness, 364 c-365 b. Law : 374-375. See also Justice and God's Justice. Cannot save us, 448 e. And wisdom, 365 f-366 b, d, 616 Moral, 375 g, h. f, h, 617 a, b. End of, 364 a, 365 c, 366. Nature of, 374C-375 e, 375 g. 473 d. Exhortation to obtain it, 366 f. Violated, 545 g, 546 a, b, 547 a. How to obtain it, 364 a, b, 581 c. Working of, 374 d, 375 b, c, f. 668 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Learning of Christ : ••376-377.' Measure of Christian character, 376 a-c. Method of, 376 b-d, 377 a, 517 c. Learning of God, 443 c, 573 c, 587 d. Liberty : 377-3S0. Conditions of, 377 d, g, 378 a-f, 379 a, 380 a, 549 b, 614 b. National, 278 f, 379 b-d. National, child of Christianit}', 34 d, 288 g, 289 c, 37S f. True, nature of, 377 C-37S f. Worth of, 377 b. Life r 380-385. Action, ^n, 606 e. And death, myster}^ of, 423 f . And religion, 382 d-f. Beautiful, 383 c, d. Consecrated b)- dut}% 19S h, 199 a. Dangers of, 380 d. End of, 380 f, g, 438 c. Fleeting, 584 a. Greatness of, 381 c-e, 382 b, c, 385 c, 565 c, 620 d-621 b. Hol3^ a, 382 d-383 b, 383 e-h. Leaving it, 385 d. Littleness of, 381 a-e. Measure of, 383 g, 563 d. Outlook towards heaven, 381 f, 382 a. Preparation for eternity, 3S0 e, f, 381 d, 383 a. Related to eternity, 3S4 f, 3S5 b, c, 566 d. Shortness of, 3S4 a, b, e. Useful, a, 4 c, -381 c 3S3 g-3S4 d, 5846. Wasting it, 384 c. What it is, 3 g, 380 b-e, h, 363 a, 381 a, d, 383 g, 385 a, b, 582 e, f. Likeness to Christ ; 129 f, 543 e, 563 e, 615 d. See also Follow- ing Christ. Literature. 385-386. Bad, a, 386 e. Power of, 3S5 f, 386 a. Pure, a, 386 b-e. Source of, 385 e. Use it judiciously, 386 b, d.' Little Things : 386-389. Christian service in, 386 f, 3S7 b- 38Sd. Controvers}' in, 162 c. Duties, 123 b, 198 e. Duties, ennoble them, 120 c, d, 198 d, 203 e. Heroism, 313 c, d. Importance of, 261 d,3S7 a, b, 388 a, e, f , 389 a, b. Make character, 45 e, f. Make life, 363 a. Seek God's guidance irin 264 c, 601 f. Sins of, 547 d, 54S d. Success in, 3S7d, 3S8 b, c. Longing for God : 389-390. Condition of finding Him, 389 c- 390 b. Expression of, 390 e. Spiritual instinct, a, 390 c, d. Looking to Jesus : 391. " And not to ourselves, 391 a-e. Our need of, 391 a, b, c. Spiritual blindness, 391 e. Lord's Prayer, 419 d. Love : .392-394. And truth, 603 g, 604 h, 605 a. As Christ loved, 393 h, 394 c, 412 d. Cultivate it, 363 c. Followed by peace, 446 b. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 669 Love (Continued). In exercise, 182 a-d, 392 b-g, 393 a-h, 394. 442 f, 533 c. 603 g. Nature of, 243 d, 392-393. Of home, 325 a-c, 327 a-c. Secret of, 386 f, 568 b. Love to Christ and God : 395-401. Active principle in faith, 396 b. Actuating principle, 80 e. And faith, 589 f, g. Conditions of,397 a, 398 c, f, 400 c, 401 c. Communion with, 245 e. Effects of,ii6 e,i2i a,i55 e, 395 h, 396, 397 b-e, 398 a, 430 d, 542 d. Expression of, 79 b, Si b, 85 c, 398 b, e, 397 d, f, 399 a-e, 400 b, 401 b, 542 e. Immortality of, 557 f . Intensifies service, 130 c-d. Location of, 399 f. Makes heaven, 395 d, 401 a. Nature of, 395. Need of, 396 a, d, f, 449 e, 559 b. Prayer for, 395 a, 397 d, 400 d, 575 a. Test of true religion, 398 d, 399 b, 400 a-e, 542 f. Malice : 401-402. See also Hatred. Avoid it, 48 c, 402 a. Cure for, 402 b. Unchristian, 106 a, 115 f, 155 a, 401 d, e. Man : 402-403. Chief end of, 382 f, 402 f. Dignit)' of, I b, 402 c-e, 403 a. Higher nature of, 403 b, e, 581 a. Progress through life, 403 c, d. Manhood; 404-405. Assertion of, 404 b. Manhood (Continued). Desirability of, 404 e, 405 a, 411 g, 414 c. Measure of, 365 c, 404 a. Nature of, 104 a, 168 g, 170 c, 404 c-g, 488 d. Manliness : 405. Bar to, 548 e. Desirable. See Fortitude. Nature of, 405 b-d, 606 f . Of Christ, 55 d, 59 b. Of Piety, 452 f, 453 a. Want of, 405 e. Meditation : 406-407. Effect of, 406 b, c. Exercise of, 406 e, f, 407 a. Nature of, 406 a. Want of, 406 d. Meekness : 407. Example of, 407 b. Nature of, 105 a, 407 b. • Memory : 407-408. Christians, of past sin, 408 a. In heaven, 407 e. In hell, 407 f, 408 b. Vast stores of, 407 d. Mercy : 40S-409. God's boundless, 409 c. God's, effect of, 409 d. To others, 408 c, 409 d. Merit : 409. Christ's, 489 c, d. Not justified by our own, 409 f. Millen.nium : 410-411. See also Christ's Second Corning. Approach of, 410 c. God's preparation for it, 410 a, 418 b. Longing for, 379 f, 410 b. Ministers: 411-415. 670 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Ministers (Continued). Murmuring (Continued). Influence of, 413 e. Easy accomplishment, an, 420 e. Life of, 411 d-g, 414 d. Prayer in a spirit of, 465 f. Methods of, 411 h, 412 d-413 d, Tendency in some, 420 f. 414 b, 415 b, d. Mystery : 421-425. Mission of, 411 b, c, 415 b, c. In every thing, 421 d, e. Needed, 414 c. In religion, 421 b, c. Needed characteristics of, 411 d- Of the Bible, 422 a, b. 412 d, 414 a, b. Of Christ's nature, 422 c, 423 e. Should handle the Bible rever- Of creation, 424 d, 425 a. entl)% 415 d. Of the Godhead, 421 f. Success of, 413 b, c, 414 a, 415 a, Of Infinite existence, 424 c, d. b. Of life and death, 423 f . Miracles : 416. -^ Of providence, 423 a,b. Holy spirit's power in, 137 b. Of redemption, 422 d, 423 d. Nature of, 416 a, b. Of soul and body, 424 a. Of Grace, 416 c-f. Of thought, 424 b. Missions : 417-419. Of union to Christ, 423 c Effect of, 417 d, 418 b. God's preparation for, 417 b. National : 425-427. Motives to activity in, 150 b, 417 c. Education, 364 f. g. God's providence in affairs of, Peculiar to Christianity, 417 a, 283 c, 284 a-e, 425 c, e, 426 418 a, 419 a. Mistakes, organize victory from e, 427 a. them, 117 c. Homes, 324 a, b. Money-Making, 13 a, 622 d-f, 623 Power, 455 e. a. Questions, 427 d. Morality : 419. Ruin, 427 a-c. And religion, 419 c, e, 495 e, 496 a. Nature : 427-431. Basis of, 419 b. Beauty of, 427 d, 429 d, 430 a. Public, keystone of, 524 g. Finite, 431 b-d. Mother's Prayers, 475 b. Gives no promise for society, 551 Motive : 420. e. And disposition, 420 b. How to study it, 428 a, 429 b, e. Opponent's, an, 420 c. 430 b-d. Springs from the will, 420 a. Interpreted by the Bible, 31 a, Murmuring : 420-421. 35 b. Avoid it, 444 d. Laws of, 428 b, c, 429 b, 431 b. Cure for, 420 d. Manifestation of God, 427 e-431 Deliverance from grumblers, 421 d. a. Not thegrandest revelation, 431 d. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 671 Nearness to God and Christ : 431-434- Experience of, 268 c, f, 431 e, 432 c, 433 b-d, e, 434 a. How to secure it, 432 a, b, 433 a, c, e. Joy of, 431 e, 432 d, 433 b, 434 a. Prayer for, 432 c, 433 b, f. Negligence : 434. Danger of, 434 c. Nature of, 434 b. Neighbor, love of, 47 b. Obedience : 434-437. And repentance, 507 c. Christian's desire for, 435 e, f, 436 a. Cure for doubt, a, 195 d, e, 196 a. Easy and difficult, 5S7 b. Nature of, 434 d-f. Necessary to the Christian, 62 a, 164 b, 434 d, g, 435 a-d, 436 a, b, d, 497 d. Of Christ, 437 b. Of home, 437 a. Of love, 375 b. Test of Christian character, 122 a, 164 b. Unquestioning, 435 c, d, 436 a. Obligation, ground of morality, 419 b. See also Duty. Obstinacy : 437. Effect of, 437 c . Expression of, 437 d. Occupation : 437-438. Change of, 438 a. Choice of, 437 e. Necessary for children, 438 b. Prayer for direction in, 438 c. Old Age : 438-439. And youth, 623 d, e. Old Age (Continued). Approach of, 51b, 438 d-439 t>- Close of, 439 f, g. Glory of, 439 d, e. Prayer for divine help m, 439 c. One thing needful, 43 f. See also Regeneration, Opinion : 440. Depends upon life and habit, 440 b. World governed by it, 440 a. OpportunitYj 263 c. Order, nature of, 440 c-e. Orthodoxy, not saving faith, 239c. Pardon : 440-441. God's method, 440 f-441 a, 509 f. Prayer for, 441 b. Parents : 441-442. Christian, 52 b, 441 d, e. Example of, 578 g. Exhortation to duty, 39 c, 50 b, d. 441 c. Love for their children, 442 a. Partaking OF Christ : 153 f. See also Last Supper. Passions : 442. Calmed by prayer, 465 d. Evil, 13 d. 442 c, 547 f. How to use them, 442 b. Prayer against, 550 d, 552 f. Patience : 442-444. Christian grace, a, 442 d-h, 444 b, d. Cultivate it, 444 a. Effect of, 587 e. Exhortation to, 442 d, e, 443 c, 444 d. In others, 443 f. Of God, 443 d. Prayer for, 444 c, g. 672 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Patience (Continued). Piety (Continued). Soul of peace, 443 e. Effect of, 452 d. Strength from, 48 f, 444 e. Female, 454b. Sublime, 122 e, 443 a, b, e. Gloom}-, 452 b. Patriotism : 445. In exercise, 452 a, b. Nature of, 445 a, c. Manly, need of, 452 f, 453 a. Work of, 445 b. Nature of, 451 c, 452 a, c. Peace : 445-448. See also Rest. Trial of, 5S5 c. Causes of, no b, 443 e, 545 c. Weak and spurious, 453 c, d. 612 a. Pity, 160 f, 454 c. Elements of, 447 a, e, f, 544 d. Pleasures. See Amitseinenis. Gift of Christ, 445 d. Of home, 324 e, 325 a. How to secure it, 122 b, 445 e, Poverty: 454-455- 446 c, 447 b-e, 448 a-c, 532 a. Acquiescence in God's will, in, 5S9 d, 592 a. 161 e. If possible, 603 i. And riches, 454 d, e, 455 d. Of God, 446 d, 447 b, c, f. Does not secure heaven, 455 a. Of the world, 446 d. Not a bar to heaven, 455 c. Prayer for, 446 e. Trials of. 455 b. Two kinds of, 448 d. Power : 455-456. Penitence : 448-449. See also Exercise of, 456 b. Repentance. Lasting, 455 e. Nature of, 448 e-g, 449 a. Of the church, 455 f. Prayer for, 449 b. Of death, 174 c, d. Perfection : 449. Of praj'er, 459 d, e, 465 d, 467 d, Nature and condition of, 449 e, f. 470 f. Our highest good, 449 c. Praise : 456. See also Gratitude Possible, 449 d. and Thankfulness. Persecution : 450. Auxiliary to prayer, 456 c. Destroys nothing good, 149 b, 450 In the church, 456 d. a. In trial, 49 c. Joy in, 339 e. Nature of, 435 f, 456 e. Method of development, 216 a. Prayer : 456-475. See also Devo- Perseverance : 450-451. tion. In prayer, 461 b, f. Achievements of, 459 g, 460 a. Nature of, 450 c, e. 46S b, e. Practice of, 3 g, 450 d, e, 451 a, b. And exertion, 469 a-d. Piety • 451-454. See also Holi- Answered, 474 a-c. ness and Christian Life. Assurance in, its ground, 460 d. And intellect, 453 a, b. Assurance in source of, 460 c. Cultivate it, 452 c, e, 454 a. 610 a. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 673 Prayer (Continued). Characteristics of, 461 f. 463 b-d, 464 e, 465 a, b. Christ's habit of, 66 d. Christ's method in, 465 a, e. Cold, 462 a. Complaining, 465 f. Constant, 464 a-d, f, 470 a, 571 c. Duty of, 474 d, e. Earnest, 462 c, 463 b, c . Ejaculatory, 470 b, c. Example of, 460 b, 464 b, 465 c, 466 e, 467 b, c, 468 f , 471 g. 472 a, 475 a. Famil)', 471 c-e. Gives happiness, 459 b, c. In faith, 239 e, 241 d, 460 e, f , 461 a-d, g, 462 d-g. Lifts us heavenward, 469 e. Lightens trouble, 466 d, f, 468 a, 469 f, 585 a, 588 c. Meeting our prayers in eternity, 475 c. Mother's, a, 475 b. Nature of, 456-458, 461 b, c, e, 464 c, 465 a, b, 467 d, e. Necessary to holiness, 459 a, 466 a-c, 470 e. Poor and feeble, 462 b, 463 a, Power of, 459 d, e, 465 d, 467 d, 470 f. Private, 471 a, b. Privilege of, 459 f. Public, 471 f, 472 b-d. Unanswered, 459 g. Prayer-Meetings : 475-476. Christ's presence in, 475 f. How to make them interesting, 475 e, 476 a. Profitable, 475 d. Ti^Speaking in, 575 b. 43 Preaching : 476-484. Argument in, 479 a, 480 d, e. Brevity in, 484 c. Character of, 476 f-483 b. Christ's method of extending His kingdom, 476 b. Doctrinal, 480 b, c, Easier than practice, 476 e, 477 a. Exaggeration in, 483 a. God should be the principal speaker, 477 f, g, 478 a, 482 d,e. How to hear it, 484 b. Model, 476 c. Need of Holy Spirit, 322 b. Object of, 476 d, 478 a-c. Pointed and earnest, 4796, f, 480 a, 482 f. Profound, 482 b, c. Simplicity, 478 c, d, 481 c-e, 482 a. Sincere, 413 c, 476 f, 477 b-d, 479 b-d. Style of, 481 a-482 c. Text of the sermon, 482 d. With notes, 483 b, 484 a. Prejudice: 484 d, 587 c. Pressing towards the mark, 109 b. Pride : 484-486. Conquer it, 485 a, f, g. How increased, 485 d,4S6c. In exercise, 485 b-d, 486 a, d. Nature of, 484 e, g, 485 c, e. Ruins of, 331 b. Unbecoming, 484 f, h, 486 b. Procrastination : 486. Effect of, 486 f, 486 e, g. Madness of, 616 d. Profanity: 486-487. One cause of atheism, 487 b. Sin of, 486 h, 487 a. Progress in Human Nature, 216 c Promises of God, 601 a, b. 674 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Promptness, 5 e. Religion (Continued). Prosperity, harder to bear than Faith in, 501 c. adversity, 8 a. False, a, 288 c, 500 c, d, 504 g. Purity of Christians, 545 b, 590b. Feeble, a, evils of, 501 g, 502 b- Purity of Heaven, 302 a, b, e, 503 a. In common life, 497 f, 503 d. Reason : 487-488. In exercise, 19 e, 495 a-d, 497 d- And religion, 488 a, c, 494 a, 505 b. f, 498-499, 502 a. Element in manhood, 488 d. In history, 498 d, 499 a, 500 a. Faith, continuation of, 488 a. Inspires art and literature, 385 e, Indebtedness of, to Christ, 4876. 499 c, 500 b. Limitations of, 487 c,d, f,488 b, c. Mistaken notions in regard to, Receiving Christ, 152 e. 497 b, c, 500 e, 501 a, 503 c. Redemption ; 488-490. Mystery in, 421 b, c. Christ's, 489 b-d. Need of Holy Spirit in, 321 e. Close of its offer, 490 c. Our need of it, 494 g, 496 d, 49S God's love in, 488 f. a-c, 504 d-f, 558 a. How applied, 490 a. Prayer for a higher personal Magnitude of, 488 f, 4S9 e, 490 b. standard of, 497 a. Myster}' of, 422 d, 423 d. " Respect for," 505 c. Steps in, 489 e. Safeguard, a, 498 b, 503 b. Regeneration: 490-492. Spirit of, 501 f. Absence of, 492 b, c. Test of, 398 d, 399 b, 400 a, c. Evidence of infinite powei;. 491 d. 501 d, e. Nature of, 490 d-491 a, d. Remorse, in Hell, 165 b. Operation of, 491 b, c, e, f, 492 a. Repentance : 505-511, See also Rejection of Christ : 492-493. Penitence. Effect on the soul, 493 a. Condition of pardon, 486 e, 509 f. Sin of, 492 d. Does not cancel guilt, 506 c. Religion : 493-505- Evidence of, 50S c-509 c. And culture, 503 e-504 c, e. Exhortation to, 510 a. And morality. See Morality. Expression of, 508 b, 510 d. And prayer, 466 c. Nature of, 505 d-f, 506 b, d, f, 507 Basis of free government, 425 b, b-f, 509 b-c. d, 426 a-d. Never too late for, 510 b. c. Binds the soul to God, 49S c. Not a substitute for obedience, Christian, nature of, 153 a, 168 b, 507 c. 400 e, 497 e, 501 b, 573 d, f. Sinner's need of, 506 e, 508 a. Defending it by argument, 505 a,b. Source of, 506 a, 507 a. Doctrinal purity of, 194 b. Reputation : 511. Elevates man, 498 e, 499 a, b. And character, 45 g, 46 a. 500 a. How lost, 511 c. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 675 Reputation (Continued). Let not thy peace depend upon it, 448 c. Not saved by, 511 d. Precious, 511 b. Resignation: 51 1-5 14. See also Submission . Effect of, 446 d, 447 a, 513 e, 569 a. E.xpression of, 28 b, 511 e, 512 b, d, 513 a-d, 514 a-c. Nature of, 511 f-512 c. Prayer for, 512 a-c. Wisdom of, 511 g. Resolution, Christian, 126 b. Prayer for strength of, 565 b. Responsibility, for belief, 608 b. Of riches, 522 c. Rest : 514-518. See also Heaven. Earthly, 515 a, 517 a. In Christ and God, 88 c, g8 a, e, 99 b, 100 b, 152 d, 276 f , 516 b, 590 d. 593 b, 595 c, e. Longing for, 514 d, 517 a. Of heaven, 517 d, e, 518 a-c. Prayer for, 515 e, 518 a, 614 c, e. True, nature of, 515 b-f, 516 a-e, 517 a-c. Resurrection : 518-520. In Christ's likeness, 518 e. Promise of, 51S d. State of, 519 a. Thoughts of, 519 b-520 b. Revenge : 520. Best kind of, 520 d. Unchristian, 520 c. Revival : 521. Christ's work, 521 b. Conditions of , 145 b, d. Nature of, 521 a. Where needed, 149 c. Riches : 521-523. At death, 619 e. Burden and risk of, 521 d, e, 522 a-523 a. 523 d, e. Consecration of, 521 f, 522 a. Do not bring peace and satisfac- tion, 521 d, e, 522 a, 523 d. Littleness of, 523 a. Love for, 167 f, h. Penalty of, 521 d, e, 522 a-523 b. Prayer in regard to, 161 e. Rights : 523-524. Christ's, 523 f. Ours, 524 a-c. Rock of Ages, 100 d, e, xoi a-f. Sabbath : 524-526. Glory and beaut}' of, 525 a, c, e. How to observe it, 525 d. Observance of, brings a blessing. 525 f, 526 a. Observance of, necessarv to pub- lic morals, 524 g. Observance of, test of piety, 524 d-f. Sacrament, benefits of, 526 b, c. Sadness, 49 d. Salvation : 526-529. By Christ, 319 c, d. See also Christ.^ Saviotir. Condition of, 527 d, 528 a-d, 529 b, 554 e, 589 a-f, 591 b-d, 619 c Free, 527 a-c. Great, 359 a, 527 e, 52S e, 529 a, 547 b, 559 g, 560 a. Miracle of, 416 c. Nature of, 495 d, 529 a-c. Neglect of, 434 c. Of grace, 81 a. Personal, 86 b. Praj'er for, 542 c, 548 c. Present, 526 d, e. 676 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Sanctification : 529-530. And justification, 491 e, 530 a. Nature of, 362 b. Strengthened, how, 530 b. Worli of God, 529 d-530 b. Science : 530-531. And religion, 530 e-531 a, 531 d. Limitations of, 530 c-d. Value of, 531 b, c, e. Second Death, 181 d. Security : 531-532. Dangers of, 532 b-e. False, 531 f. Genuine, 532 a, 589 e, 593 e, 600 a. Seeking for Christ, 153 b-d. See also Coming to Christ. Self-Control, test of character, 45 c. Self-Denial : 532-535. Necessary to Christian character, 532 f, 533 f. 534 d, e, 535 c, e. Not loss, 533 e, f, 534 a, b. Results of, 535 d. Strength for, 535 b. Take it cheerfully, 534 c. Test of character, 533 a, 534 e, f. True, nature of, 533 b-d, 534 a, d, e, f, 535 a;c, d. Self-Examination, should produce charit}', 48 b. / Selfishness : 535-539- ■^ And holiness, 536 a-e. Cure for, 529 e. God's estimate of, 537 b. In exercise, 536 f, 537 a, d, e, h, 53S a-d, 539 a. Longing for heaven, 302 a. Nature of, 536 f, 537 a, h. Prayer for deliverance from, 537 c, 538 f. Shuts us from heaven, 535 f. Victor}' over, 565 a. Self-Righteousness : 539-542. Danger of, 540 d. Deliverance from, 540 c. Embodiment of, 530 c. Folly of, 540 a, b, e, 541 a, c, 542 a. Separates us from God, 539 b-d, 540 d, 541. Signs of, 160 f, 539 d, e. Self- Sacrifice, 240 d, 297 a, b. See also Self-Denial. Test of character, 271 f. Self-Surrender : 542-543. Duty of, 542 d-f, 543 a, c. Effects of, 297 c, 543 a-e. Exhortation to, 542 b, e, 543 a. Prayer for, 542 c, 543 f. Simplicity: 543-545. And greatness. 543 g, 544 a. Blessedness of, 544 b, e, 545 b-d. Effect of, 298 b. Nature of, 544 d, 545 e. Need of, 156 a, 545 a, b. Pleasing to God, 544 c. Sin: 545-553. See also Depravity. Cure for, 86 f, 263 e, 548 f, 551 e, 552 a, e. See also Christ, Saviour. Debts that Christ only can pay, 81 d. EiTect of, X95 e, 448 a, 549 e-550 c, 551 f- God's estimate of, 552 d. How to avoid it , 577 f, 578 a, b. In the Christian, 551 g, 552 b, c. Just desert of, 551 d. Little, 547 d, 54S b, d, 551 c. Method of, 549 a, b, 577 e. Nature of, 545 f-546 e, 548 d, 549 c. Of unbelief, 195 e, 553 a. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 677 Sin (Continued). Prayer for deliverance from, 550 d, 552 f, 553 c. Punishment of, 547 f. 548 g. Ruin of, 547 b, 548 g, 550 e. Secret, 550 e, 551 a, b. Sense of, 507 f, 546 f, 547 b, 552 c. 553 b. Sincerity : 553-554- Basis of virtue, 553 d. Does not save the soul, 554 e. Effect of, 554 b, c. Examine it, 554 f. Exhortation to, 54 a, d, 553 e. Slavery, of sin, 549 b, 550 a. Society, influence of, 217 c-e. Song : 554-555- Church, 554 g. Exhortation to, 544 h. New, 555 a, b. Sorrow : 555-55S. Blessings of, 555 d, f, 55 6c-f, 557 a, 55Sb. Cure for, 124 e, 159 d, 511 f. Effect of, 555 c, e, 556 a, c-f, 557 a, b, e, f. God with us in, 245 e, 246 a, b, 555 i, 556 b, 557 a. Lessons of, 555 e, 556 a, c, d, 557 e, 558 a, 573 g. Not in heaven, 300 c-f. Tears in, 557 c, d. Trust in the midst of, 602 c. Soul: 558-561. And bod}', mystery of, 424 a. Lost, a, 549 e, 560 b-56i a. Longings of, 55 a, b. Magnitude and majesty of, 559 f, g, 560 a. Need of Christ, 562 c. Perception of truth, 605 c, d. Satisfaction for, 559 a-e. Speaking for Christ : 561-562. Christian impulse to, 561 e-f, 606 c. Dumb Christians, 562 a. Effects of, 554 b, 561 b-d. Prayer for usefulness in, 561 g. Speculations, avoid them, 407 a, 606 e. Spirituality, need of, 562 b-d. Spiritual Perception : 562-563. Destroyed, 563 b. Dullness of, 563 c, 607 g. Faculty for, 562 e, 563 a. Spiritual Progress : 563-566. Method of, 564 b, c, 565 c, e, 566 a-d. Motives to, 564 d, 566 e. Nature of, 563 d-564 a, 565 c-e, 566 e. Prayer for, 565 b. Sign of, 565 a, d. Station. See Occupation. Stoicism, not the true basis of for- titude, 253 a. Strength, from God, 447 f, 594 f- 595 a- Springs from joy, 354 b, 355 d. Springs from suffering, 567 d. Submission. See also Resignation. Basis of peace, 44S b. Prayer for, 543 f- To duty, 202 c, d. To God's will, 565 d, 615 b, 616 b, c. Success : 567. Condition of, 208 b. Description of, 567 a. In the Sundaj'-school, 570 d. Ministerial, 415 a. Worldly, nature of, 567 b. Suffering: 567-569- 678 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Suffering (Continued). And triumph, loS d. Condition of blessings, 568 a-c. Effect of, 567 d, e, 568 b-d. God knows it, 569 b. Lesson of, 569 c, 574 e. Prayer for aid in, 577 c. Reason of, 568 e. Result of sin, 550 b. Submission in, 513 b, c, 514 b, 568 f , 569 a. Universality of, 567 c. Sunday-school : 569-573. And the church, 569 d. Conditions of success in teaching, 570 d, 571 c, 572 c, d, 573 a-c. Conversions in, 572 b. Greatness of the work, 571 a. Hope of the world, 570 a. Methods in teaching, 572 e, f. Must teach Christ, 57° b, 571 b, 572 a. Warrant for, 570 c. Superstition : 573. Burden of, 573 e. Nature of, 573 d, f. Supernatural, as reasonable as the natural, 35 d. Sympathy : 573-575- Blessing of, 574 b, c. Cause of, 573 g, 574 e. Expression of, 574 c, d. Prayer for, 574 a. 575 a. With the young, 624 d. Talent: 575-576. See a.\so A diliiy. And labor, 615 c. How to increase it, 575 b. How to lose it, 575 d, 576 a, b. Splendid, not desirable, 575 c. Tears, 557 b-d. Temperance : 576. Duty of, 576 d. Effect of, 576 e. Nature of, 576 c. Temptation : 576-57S. All around us, 577 a. Antidote to, 100 a, 532 b, 577 b, 578 d. Attacks the idle, 345 f. Brings us into sympathy with man, 42 a. Dallying with, 577 e, f, 578 a, b. Prayer for aid in, 577 c. Resist it, 576 f, 577 d, e. Test of virtue, 578 c. Tenderness : 578-579. Characteristic of greatness, 578 e. Cultivate it, 578 g, 579 a. Necessary to successful work for Christ, 579 b. We never regret it, 578 f. Thankfulness, benefits of, 290 d, 579 c, d. Theology : 579-580. And science, 530 d, e. Comparative, 580 c. Devotion especially needed for its student, 579 e. Different systems of, 580 b. Necessary to correct religious thought, 580 a. Thought ; 581-582. Characteristic of manhood, 581 a. Effect of, 581 b, c, f, 582 a. Evil, 581 f, 582 b. Habitual, moulds character, 581 b. Mystery of, 424 b. Nature of, 581 d, e. Need of, 580 a. Not the end of existence, 2 b. Wandering, 582 c. Thoughtlessness, 624 b. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 679 Time: 582-5S4. Distribution of, 5S3 b. Effect of, 603 c . Littleness of, 5S4 b. Nature of, 582 g, 5S3 a. Passing, 584 a. Proper use of it, 582 e, 5S3 b-e. "Wasted, 5S2 c, d. Trials : 584-588. Blessedness of, 109 d, 585 b, e. Christ's presence in, 97 d, 5S4 e, 594 a-d. Effect of, 586 b-e, 5S7 d, e, 588 a. God's call to, 584 c, d, 585 c, d. God's help in, 275 c, 5S5 a, 5S8 c, 599 e. Of character, 44 c. Lightened by prayer, 466 d, f, 468 a, 469 f. Pra)'er for needed discipline, 587 c. Preparation for duty, 585 d, 5S6 c. 587 a, 588 d. Preparation for joy, 585 f, 586 a,e. Submission to, 283 b, 586 d, 587 e, 588 b. Termination of, 282 a, 588 e, f. Victory in, of faith, 586 c-e, 587 b. Trust in Christ : 589-595. See also Faith in Chiist. Blessedness of, 589 d, 590 a-c, 592 a, 593 a-e. Effect of, 592 a, 593 e, 619 d. Entire and fearless, 82 d, f, 97 c, 202 d, 538 e, 590 a-d, 591 a-d, 592 b-d, e, 593 a-c, 594 b-f, 595 a, 607 c. Exemplified, 591 e, 594 a. Exhortation to, 589 a-e, 590 a, 592 b, 594 e. Ground of, 590 e. Trust in Christ (Continued). Springs from love, 5S9 f, g. Suffering teaches it, 594 c Trust in God : 595-602. See also Faith in God. And love, 598 e. Effect of, 596 c, e, 597 c, 598 d, 599 a, 600 a, 601 e. Entire and fearless, 203 d, 274 b, 275 a, 596 d, f, 597 a, b, d, e, 598 a-599 e, 601 d, 602 c, d. Exemplified, 595 b. Exhortation to, 595 c, 600 d. e, 601 c. Ground of, 602 b. In doctrinal diffiqulty, 195 a. In exercise, 595 e, 596 a, b. In little things, 601 f, g. In trial and suffering, 271 b, 556 b, e, 587 a, b, 596 b-d, 597 c, d, 598 b, 599 e, 600 c, d, 601 a, b. Prayer for, 595 d, 596 a, d. Source of, 602 a. Trials strengthen it, 586 b-e. Trying to, 600 c. Turn it into prayer, 600 b. Truth : 602-606. Action, and not alone th.ought, 606 e. Alone is not religion, 495 c. And repose, 604 d. Before beauty, 194 c. Conviction of, 604 g, 606 c. Courage of, 604 e, 606 f. Discretion needed in proclaiming it, 215 a. Doubts, 605 e-g. Effects of, 603 a, 604 c, h. Faith in, 606 d. From reason, 4S7 d. Greatest, 245 e. 680 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. Truth (Continued). Virtue (Continued). How to find it, 195 a, 3S9 c, d, Conditions of, 611 c. 390 a. Gives true elevation, 611 d. Imperishable, 603 c. How strengthened, 612 c. Indispensable, 603 i. Nature of, 611 b, 612 b, d. Nature of, 602 e, f, 603 b, d, e, f, Results of, 612 a, e. h, 604 f, 605 a. Visions, of angels to dying saints, Old, 605 g. 182 d. Pray over it, 605 b. Volition, 582 a-e. See also ]Vul. Promulgation of, 290 a. Rock, a, 92 c. Waiting : 612-613. Simple, 605 h, 606 a. And weary, 613 b. Soiled, 606 b. Object of, 613 e. Source of, 603 g. Prayer for patience in, 613 a. Visions of. 603 f, 604 a, b. Service in, 612 f. When credible, 605 c, d. Will soon end, 613 c, d. War : 613-614. Unbelief: 607-608. See also Im- Antidote for, 614 a. penitaice. Destroys freedom, 614 b. At death, 608 c. Fruits of, 613 f. Criminality of, 607 a-608 b. Weakness, human, 202 a, d. Effect of, 607 a. Weariness : 614. Grieves Christ, 96 e. Prayer for rest, 614 c. Nature of, 607 b. Rest from, 590 c, 614 f. Self-confidence, 608 b. Sense of, 614 d, e. Union to Christ : 60S-610. Will : 615-616. Assurance of, 610 d. Direction of, 615 d. Blessedness of, 151 d, 6og c-6io c. Freedom of, 615 a. Effect of, 608 e. Gives strength to motive, 420 a. Mystery of, 423 c. God's, 616 b, c. Need of, 543 a, 608 d, 609 a- -d. In exercise, 615 c. Prayer for, 609 e. Obdurate, 615 e. Strengthened by discipline, 585 b. Prayer for renewal of, 615 b. Universe : 610-611. Surrender of, 544 b. All things connected, 611 a. Voice of, 615 f. Cannot give contentment, 558 d. Want of, 616 a. Immensity of, 610 e, 619 f. Wisdom; 616-617. Unworthiness : 152 b. See also And knowledge, 365 f, 366 b, d. Shi, etc. God's, 544 c. See also Gotfs Om-^ Usefulness, is joyous, 48 d. iiiscience. Immediate, 616 d. Virtue : 611-612. In exercise, 617 a-e. INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 681 Wisdom (Continued). Worldliness (Continued). Lasting, 241 g, 6r6 f. Evidence of, 621 e. Nature of, 616 e, g, h 617 a. In the church, 621 c, 622 a-f. Prayer for, 617 d. Nature of, 620 d, 621 a. Woman : 617-618, Prayer against, 620 e. And Christ, 618 b. Rise above it, 621 f. And religion, 618 a. Worship : 436 e. See also Church, Work of, 617 e. Praise and Prayer. Work. See Labor. Worth : 623. Motive for, 122 c. And money, 623 b. Permanent, 119 e. Moral, 623 c. Reward of, 125 b. Works : 618-619. See also Chrisi- Youth : 623-625. ian Service. Corrupters of, 624 c, 625 a. And faith, 618 c, 619 d. How employed, 623 d, e. Christian, 618 e. Idleness in, 345 d. Fruits of faith, 618 c. 619 a-c. Manners of, 624 a. Nature of, 618 d. Preparation for service, 623 f. Sent before us into eternity, 619 e. Sympathy for, 624 d. World : 619-620. Thoughtless, a, 624 b. History of, 620 b. Virtuous, a, 612 e. Littleness of, 619 f. Ownership of, 620 a. Zeal : 625. See also Earnestness. Worldliness : 620-623 And meekness, 625 c. And humanity, 623 a. How increased, 587 a. Avoid it, 622 b, c, 622 g- How kindled, 625 d. Effect of, 502 b, 621 b- ■d. Needed in the church, 625 b. \