From 'Selections from the Published Works of Henry Ward Beecher',
compiled by Eleanor Kirk.
An intelligent conscience is one of the greatest of luxuries. It can
hardly be called a necessity, or how would the world have got along as
well as it has to this day?--SERMON: 'Conscience.'
A man undertakes to jump across a chasm that is ten feet wide, and jumps
eight feet; and a kind sympathizer says, "What is going to be done with
the eight feet that he did jump?" Well, what _is_ going to be done with
it? It is one of those things which must be accomplished in whole, or it
is not accomplished at all.--SERMON: 'The True Value of Morality.'
It is hard for a strong-willed man to bow down to a weak-willed man. It
is hard for an elephant to say his prayers to an ant.--SERMON: 'The
Reward of Loving.'
When Peter heard the cock crow, it was not the tail-feathers that crew.
The crowing came from the inside of the cock. Religion is something more
than the outward observances of the church.--SERMON: 'The Battle of
Benevolence.'
I have heard men, in family prayer, confess their wickedness, and pray
that God would forgive them the sins that they got from Adam; but I do
not know that I ever heard a father in family prayer confess that he had
a bad temper. I never heard a mother confess in family prayer that she
was irritable and snappish. I never heard persons bewail those sins
which are the engineers and artificers of the moral condition of the
family. The angels would not know what to do with a prayer that began,
"Lord, thou knowest that I am a scold."--SERMON: 'Peaceableness.'
Getting up early is venerable. Since there has been a literature or a
history, the habit of early rising has been recommended for health, for
pleasure, and for business. The ancients are held up to us for examples.
But they lived so far to the east, and so near the sun, that it was much
easier for them than for us. People in Europe always get up several
hours before we do; people in Asia several hours before Europeans do;
and we suppose, as men go toward the sun, it gets easier and easier,
until, somewhere in the Orient, probably they step out of bed
involuntarily, or, like a flower blossoming, they find their bed-clothes
gently opening and turning back, by the mere attraction of light.--'EYES
AND EARS.'
There are some men who never wake up enough to swear a good oath. The
man who sees the point of a joke the day after it is uttered,--because
_he_ never is known to act hastily, is he to take credit for
that?--SERMON: 'Conscience.'
If you will only make your ideal mean enough, you can every one of you
feel that you are heroic.--SERMON: 'The Use of Ideals.'
There is nothing more common than for men to hang one motive outside
where it can be seen, and keep the others in the background to turn the
machinery.--SERMON: 'Paul and Demetrius.'
Suppose I should go to God and say, "Lord, be pleased to give me salad,"
he would point to the garden and say, "There is the place to
get salad; and if you are too lazy to work for it, you may go
without."--LECTURE-ROOM TALKS: 'Answers to Prayer.'
God did not call you to be canary-birds in a little cage, and to hop up
and down on three sticks, within a space no larger than the size of the
cage. God calls you to be eagles, and to fly from sun to sun, over
continents.--SERMON: 'The Perfect Manhood.'
Do not be a spy on yourself. A man who goes down the street thinking of
himself all the time, with critical analysis, whether he is doing this,
that, or any other thing,--turning himself over as if he were a goose on
a spit before a fire, and basting himself with good resolutions,--is
simply belittling himself.--'LECTURES ON PREACHING.'
Many persons boil themselves down to a kind of molasses goodness. How
many there are that, like flies caught in some sweet liquid, have got
out at last upon the side of the cup, and crawl along slowly, buzzing a
little to clear their wings! Just such Christians I have seen,
creeping up the side of churches, soul-poor, imperfect, and
drabbled.--'ALL-SIDEDNESS IN CHRISTIAN LIFE.'
No man, then, need hunt among hair-shirts; no man need seek for blankets
too short at the bottom and too short at the top; no man need resort to
iron seats or cushionless chairs; no man need shut himself up in grim
cells; no man need stand on the tops of towers or columns,--in order to
deny himself.--SERMON-'Problem of Joy and Suffering in Life.'
Copyrighted by Fords, Howard and Hulbert, New York, 1887.