Dr. Bushnell’s mind was one of the rarest. What it was in his
books, that it was in private, with certain very piquant and
unforgettable flavors added.—_Dr. Burton._
I think he had no capacity, with all his eminent powers, for
enmity. Goodness and wisdom were the powers that amounted to
genius in him by being so great.—_Rev. C. A. Bartol._
WRONG RESISTED.—As it is said that ferocious animals are disarmed by the
eye of man, and will dare no violence if he but steadily look at them,
so it is when right looks upon wrong. Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you; offer him a bold front, and he runs away. He goes, it may be,
uttering threats of rage; but yet he goes.
GREAT MEN.—The great and successful men of history, are, commonly, made
such by the great occasions they fill. They are the men who had faith to
meet such occasions; and therefore the occasions marked them, called them
to come and be what the successes of their faith would make them. The
boy is but a shepherd, but he hears from his panic-stricken countrymen
of the giant champion of their enemies. A fire seizes him, and he goes
down to the army, with nothing but his sling, and his heart of faith, to
lay that champion in the dust. Next he is a great military leader, then
the king of his country. As with David, so with Nehemiah; as with him, so
with Paul, and Luther. A Socrates, a Tully, a Cromwell, a Washington—all
the great master-spirits—the founders and law-givers of empires, and
defenders of the rights of men, are made by the same law. These did not
shrink despairingly within the compass of their poor abilities, but in
their heart of faith embraced each one his cause, and went forth under
the inspiring force of their call to apprehend that for which they were
apprehended.
FAMILY RELIGION—WHY A FAILURE.—The father prays, in the morning, that
his children may grow up in the Lord, and calls it the principal good
of their life, that they are to be Christians, living to God and for
the world to come. Then he goes out into the field, or shop, or house
of trade, and, delving there all day in his gains, keeps praying from
morning to night, without knowing it, that his family may be rich. His
plans and works, faithfully seconded by an affectionate wife, pull
exactly contrary to the pull of his prayers, and to all their common
teaching in religion. Their tempers are worldly, and make a worldly
atmosphere in the home. Pride, the ambition of show, and social standing,
envy to what is above, and jealousy of what is below, follies of dress
and fashion, and the more foolish elation, when a son is praised, or a
daughter admired in the matter of personal appearance, or, what is no
better, a manifest preparing and foretasting of this folly, when the
son or daughter is so young as to be more certainly poisoned by the
infection of it. Oh, these unspoken, damning prayers! how many they are,
and how they fill up all the days! The mornings open with a reverent,
fervent-sounding prayer of words; and then the days come after piling
up petitions of ends, aims, tempers, passions and works, that ask for
anything and everything but what accords with genuine religion. The
prayer of the morning is that the son, the daughter—all the sons and
daughters—may be Christians; and then the prayers that follow are for
anything but that—in fact, for things most contrary to that. Is it any
wonder, when we consider this common disagreement between the prayers of
the family, and all other concerns, ends, and enjoyments of the common
life beside, that so many fine shows of family piety are yet followed by
so much of godless, and even reprobate, character in the children?