Excerpt
Happiness is perfectlyhollow unless there is ameaning behind it, unless ittells of intention somewhere,unless it means love. "Eat anddrink and be merry" is notthe end of it all. Whoever, by a Christian word he speaks or bya Christian life he lives, brings a new soul to seethe perfect life and take the perfect grace, haspoured out of his full hands a blessing on hisbrother that leaves utterly out of sight any giftthat riches can bestow on poverty.
e want a faith, a truth, a grace to help us now, ... and we can have it. One who was man, yet mightier than man, has walked the vale before us.
Every attempt to do right has a tendency to reveal to us more spiritual ways of doing right, and our need of spiritual helps in doing it.
The thought of life is like that untouched line we call the "sky," but which, when we try to reach it, proves to be not one single line, but an infinite depth ... stored with what strange uses and benefactions we dare not say.
Some men's faith only makesitself visible; other men's lightenseverything within its reach.There is positive proofin the single sunbeam ofthe existence of the sun.
trike God's iron on the anvil, see God's goods across the counter, put God's wealth in circulation, teach God's children in the school,—so shall the dust of your labor build itself into a little sanctuary where you and God may dwell together.
Make truth your friend and guide in all your hourly business,—truth of plan, and purpose, and labor... Whoever will not bow before this monarch you have crowned, let him be rebel to you.
If you are not spiritually minded, do not wait for mysterious light and vision. Go and give up your dearest sin. Go and do what is right. Go and put yourself thoroughly into the power of the holiness of duty.
All the world is an utterance of the Almighty.
It seems so far off,that Cross of Jesus, andit really is so near! Forit is lifted up so high thatthe waves of time rollunheeded and unmeaningat its foot. It is thepower of perfection for usto-day.
ach high achievement is a sign and token of the whole nature's possibility. What a piece of the man was for that shining moment, it is the duty of the whole man to be always.
May we not daily tread the same paths of holiness and sorrow, joy and love, that Christ has trodden, and see His footsteps on them still?
Even if you have to force yourself to your duty,—still, do it. Do your duty, even if duty be wearisome and hard, for then you are in the place where it can become joyous and easy to you.
We must answer for our actions; God will answer for our powers.
ome day certainly the fog shall rise, the clouds shall scatter, and in the perfect enlightenment of the other life the soul shall see its Lord, and be thankful for every darkest step that we took towards Him here.
Devotion is like the candle which Michael Angelo used to carry stuck on his forehead in a paste-board cap, and which kept his own shadow from being cast upon his work when he was hewing out his statues....