God, the church, and human hearts are all things our relationship to which
should hush our souls.
Let us not be victims of the idea that holiness excludes the sunshine.
The cardinal sins are less dangerous because we are more afraid of them.
Those who fail to obtain [life’s intellectual and spiritual necessities]
pay the penalty by living cramped lives and usually dying with their
deeper longings unsatisfied.
One cannot long conceal a lack of mind and soul with clothes and
paint.---The more flash and parade the ignorant indulge in,
the cheaper they look.
The deeper hunger is satisfied only with a world made beautiful with the
things that were whispered only into the more sacred chambers of the heart
of man—the beautiful and the unnecessary things.
The only happiness which has lasting quality comes from within. No one can
be happy long who is not happy in soul.
The person who treasures an unhappy spirit sins not only against himself
and his fellow men, but he also sins against the Almighty.
The person who thinks religion must be sombre has misread his Bible and
misinterpreted his Master. It may be serious and earnest, but never morose
and gloomy.---A despondent person is no ornament to religion. It is the
joy-lighted face which inspires and wins.
The people who are really living want a religion which is more than a
fashion or a convenience. It must include a working program which means
something and is not too easy.
When we widen it, plant primroses in it, and take the stones out of it,
we no longer have a path of salvation. Then real followers of God no
longer care to walk in it.
The nature of a man can be altered or reversed.---It is the power of the
will to resist or submit.
Whoever is not physically equal to an hour or two in the sanctuary is
hardly a fit candidate for the world’s responsibilities.
The problems of the age are ethical and social. Fundamental to ethical and
social problems are spiritual conditions. The Christian Gospel is an
ethical and social message based on spiritual principles.
The divine plan looks only to the constant narrowing of the chasm between
man and God.
We all know perfectly well that life is not all that it ought to be
without the presence of the Personality which completes us.
The only argument against [Jesus Christ] is an unfaithful follower, and
that is refuted by a follower who is true.
There is no danger that [Jesus Christ] will ever be driven out. If there
is any danger for Him today, it is that He be crowded out.---But many say,
“I haven’t time.”
Only one thing should lead one to dedicate his life to Christian work. It
is the great compulsion. One has it when he is conscious that he cannot do
anything else and be quite content.
Any great idea or interest, however spiritual in its nature, must be
incarnated in an institution or it will die.---An institution must make
them visual, real, and effective. Such is the reason for the existence
of the church.
The mission of the church is to make itself unnecessary. It will be
dispensable when all the world shall at last have conformed to the
purposes of God.
Jesus introduces a man and a truth to each other and sees that they
become friends.
[Jesus] will become the spiritual ruler of the hearts of men. No power
can go beyond that.
There is nothing in the purpose or the kingdom of God that needs fear the
light [i.e., knowledge of the truth]. What will not stand the light is not
of His designing. The best that His gospel and His power can ask is to be
investigated and tested.
The world has always had strange ways, however, of putting an indefinite
construction upon the words of Jesus. ...the wonder of them...their
beauty...their truth. They are not so many, however, who venture to take
them for a life program.
We look at the earth and think of it as hiding those whom we have loved
when we ought to look upward and think of them as in the keeping of
another world. We look backward and think of their lives as belonging to
the past when we ought to look onward and think of them as belonging to
the boundless future.
Not all the places by which [Jesus’s] footprints lead may seem
pleasant.---A valley of pain matters much less, however, when a mountain
of achievement lifts its head beyond.
A sunset would be a tragedy did one not know that the sun will rise again.
We cease to dread the twilight [of life] when we reflect that it is but
the pathway to another dawn.
The path to heaven lies directly through the earth.---This is a life of
opportunity, to be lived out with full appreciation and emphasis upon the
sweetness and the worth-whileness of each day and hour. Real religion will
strive to make it more and not less beautiful.
Truth does not always follow the processes of formal logic. The tests of
faith are not to be found in the syllogism but in life’s great laboratory.
...the object of religion is humanity. For the good of men are all laws
established, all warnings issued, and all promises given.
[The achieving of the present and future salvation of people] calls for
the actual application of religious principles in everyday thinking and
action. It has not achieved its end until testimony to its power and
blessing is borne by all social life and by every social institution.
It is nothing until it has come to be expressed in terms of life.
Where such a [social] force is the cause of men doing that which they
should not do, we can best do the work of our Lord by fighting the force
and not the act. We can not kill the dragon by cutting off the heads; we
must strike at the life-giving root of the evil.
Humanity is restless.---People seem to be afraid of themselves, and hence
the quiet chamber and closet of secret prayer is often unappreciated.---We
forget that great visions must be seen in solitude and then carried out
among the crowd. Our lonely Sinais must precede our deeds of leadership.
Every Calvary is preceded by its Gethsemane, and quietness and solitude
are not to be despised.---Only small minds are always tossing upon a sea
of restlessness. Great lives know how to be tranquil.
He who would die in the spirit of the cross must live there.
It is pitiable how often the offer [of Jesus’s yoke] is misconstrued as an
attempt to increase the burden when it really amounts to an offer to help
in carrying it.
[Christianity] can afford to invite the pragmatic test, for it is
supremely a workable religion. The best things never can be adequately
appraised at the first glance. They must be tried.
One is as old as the spirit within him.---The date of one’s birth may be
misleading, but the spirit of his soul never is.
We greatly need to understand that our meeting with [God] is not only a
future but also a present event.---He is the Silent Partner in all our
upward struggles. He is the Inevitable Factor with which we must reckon
in all our considerations. He is the Absolute Quantity to which we must
relate ourselves, and to whose standards we must conform.---We are the
children of One who takes into consideration but one tense.
His word is _NOW_.