Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/T
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.
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 business, 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.
No man can live out a life of sin without also living out all the Godward talent of his soul.
The man that wrapped up his talent in the napkin and said, "Lo, there them 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.
"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 exterminated 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.
TEMPERANCE.
Temperance is reason's girdle and passion's bridle, the strength of the soul, and the foundation of virtue.
The whole duty of man is embraced in the two principles of abstinence and patience: temperance in prosperity, and courage in adversity.
Drinking water neither makes a man sick, nor in debt, nor his wife a widow.
TEMPTATION.
God is better served in resisting a temptation to evil than in many formal prayers.
On this earth all is temptation. Crosses tempt us by irritating 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.
The realization of God's presence is the one sovereign remedy against temptation.
In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,
Sweet Spirit, comfort me.
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.
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.
We are to keep ourselves from opportunities, and God will keep us from sin.
Christian! thou knowest thou carriest gunpowder about thee. Desire them that carry fire to keep at a distance. It is a dangerous crisis, when a proud heart meets with flattering lips.
The devil tempts us not; 'tis we tempt him,
Beckoning his skill with opportunity.
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.
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.
TENDERNESS.
There never was any heart truly great and generous that was not also tender and compassionate.
When death, the great Reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
While we would have our young sisters imitate, as they cannot 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.
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 Redeemer'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.
I was never fit to say a word to a sinner, except when I had a broken heart myself.
THANKFULNESS.
Many favors which God giveth us ravel out for want of hemming, through our own unthankfulness; for though prayer purchaseth blessings, giving praise doth keep the quiet possession of them.
God has two dwellings—one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.
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.
We can no more have exact religious thinking without theology, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathematics, or exact iron-making without chemistry.
The theological systems of men and schools of men are determined always by the character of their ideal of Christ, the central fact of the Christian system.
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.
All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass—"Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners."
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 resembles a missile from a catapult than bread from a Father's hand.
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 concerning Him, which thoughts put into words are a creed.
THOUGHT.
If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all?
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.
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 becomes 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 fragrance; 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 bulwarks. A good thought is a grand legacy to bequeath to the world.
They are never alone that are accompanied with noble thoughts.
An arrow may fly through the air, and leave no trace; but an ill thought leaves a trail like a serpent.
Every thought willingly contemplated, ever word meaningly spoken, every action freely done, consolidates itself in the character, and will project itself onward in a permanent continuity.
We cannot keep thieves from looking in at our windows, but we need not give them entertainment with open doors.
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 advancing in his journey, should employ his time in anticipating the falls he might suffer, or in weeping over the place where one had happened?
TIME.
Time wasted is existence, used is life.
Dost thou love life? then do not squander time; for that is the stuff life is made of.
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.
Time,—that black and narrow isthmus between two eternities.
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.
Observe a method in the distribution of your time. Every hour will then know its proper employment, and no time will be lost.
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 meaning 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.
The best general means to insure the profitable employment of our time, is to accustom ourselves to living in continual dependence 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.
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 repentance 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.
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 onwards. 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.
With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.
TRIALS.
Jesus wept once; possibly more than once. There are times when God asks nothing of His children except silence, patience, and tears.
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.
Under the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconscious to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side.
There will be no Christian but will have a Gethsemane; but every praying Christian will find that there is no Gethsemane without its angel!
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 I may live for Thee and Thee alone."
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.
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!
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.
It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what we 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 discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.
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 cannot 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.
All the lessons He shall send
Are the sweetest:
And His training, in the end,
Is completest.
"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.
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.
What disturbs us in this world is not "trouble," but our opposition to trouble. The true source of all that frets and irritates 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.
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.
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 stops, till that legend of the rough places fulfills itself at last, "per asfera ad astra" over steep ways to the stars.
The storms of wintry time will quickly pass,
And one unbounded spring encircle all.
When He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
TRUST IN CHRIST.
Exercise your God-given power of trust. Look up! Salvation is provided, and nothing remains to be done. Take hold! Take hold! Do not wait!
Lay hold on Christ with both your poor, empty hands.
Seek not only to know about the Saviour, but seek confidence in Him, seek to know Him as your own.
Trust Christ! and a great benediction of tranquil repose comes down upon the calm mind and the tranquil heart.
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.
We trust as we love, and we trust where we love; if you love Christ much surely you will trust Him much.
Do you ask why Mary Magdalene was the one chosen to whom first of all Christ should show Himself after the resurrection? 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.
Trust yourselves, my brethren, to the immortal love and perfect 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.
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 Thee, 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."
Thou knowest all—I lean my head;
My weary eyelids close;
Content and glad awhile to tread
This path, since Jesus knows!
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.
We must not close with Christ because we feel Him, but because God has said it, and we must take God's word even in the dark.
Can you by humble faith look to Jesus and say: "My substitute, 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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
To Him let us but cleave in all our strife; and the Tempter 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 tranquilizing peace of God will never be far from us.
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.
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.
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!
Let us take short views. If we look over the precipices, we shall grow dizzy. If we look too far ahead, we shall grow discouraged. 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."
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.
And therefore let us say, in utter faith, "Come as Thou seest best—but in whatsoever way Thou comest—even so come, Lord Jesus."
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.
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.
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 beautiful 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.
I do not ask my cross to understand
My way to see:
Better in darkness just to feel Thy hand
And follow Thee.
If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ.
Let good or ill befall,
It must be good for me,—
Secure of having Thee in all,
Of having all in Thee.
Make not Christ a liar in distrusting His promise.
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?
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."
TRUST IN GOD.
I believe in God, and I trust myself in His hands.
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.
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 guide us to the growing light; for the day shall come, and the release and triumph.
Ease of mind! But I think I can guess at what you mean. God became every thing to you as the world grew nothing.
Father, perfect my trust;
Let my spirit feel in death
That her feet are firmly set
On the rock of a living faith!
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.
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.
On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
O love Divine, forever dear:
Content to suffer, while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near!
I have never committed the least matter to Him that I have not had reason for endless praise.
We want to know more than the silent God deems it good to tell; to understand the "why" 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 catechised, and explain Himself to our vain mind; He is here for our trust.
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."
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.
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.
How calmly may we commit ourselves to the hands of Him who bears up the world!
What dost thou fear? His wisdom reigns
Supreme, confessed;
His power is infinite; His love
Thy deepest, fondest dreams above,
So trust and rest.
A friend called on me when I was ill, to settle some business. My head was too much confused by my indisposition to understand 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.
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.
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.
We come, in our trust, unto God, and the moment we so embrace 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.
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.
It is a view of God that 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 philosophical 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 singing sweetly to it, and rocking it. And the child thinks nothing of the explanation, but only of the mother.
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.
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.
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.
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 ourselves to His gifts, but to Him; and when He plunges us into the night of pure faith, let us still press on through the agonizing darkness.
We sleep in peace in the arms of God when we yield ourselves 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.
Turn your confidence and your fears alike into prayer.
"I 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.
Cast thy burden on the Lord,
Only lean upon His word;
Thou wilt soon have cause to bless
His unchanging faithfulness.
Toward the future let us look calmly, cheerfully, trustfully. The Lord is in it, and if we are His, we need fear no evil.
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.
"Mrs. M., you seem to be very sick." "Yes," said she, "I am dying." "And are you ready to die?" "Sir, God knows I have taken Him at His word, and I am not afraid to die."
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 according to His own good pleasure?
I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.
An undivided heart, which worships God alone, and trusts Him as it should, is raised above anxiety for earthly wants.
If, like Jacob, you trust God in little things, He may answer you by great things.
Trust in God for great things. With your five loaves and two fishes He will show you a way to feed thousands.
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.
Not till we come to a simple reliance on the blood and mediation 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.
For us—whatever's undergone,
Thou knowest, willest what is done.
Grief may be joy misunderstood:
Only the Good discerns the good.
I trust Thee while my days go on.
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.
Truth is power.
No pleasure is comparable to standing upon the vantage-ground of truth.
Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line.
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 importance.
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 qualification there for setting it forth or defending it. Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion.
Truth does not consist in minute accuracy of detail; but in conveying a right impression.
No truth can be said to be seen as it is until it is seen in its relation to all other truths. In this relation only is it true.
The deepest truth blooms only from the deepest love.
Truth and justice are the immutable laws of social order.
Peace, if possible, but the truth at any rate.
Truth will ever be unpalatable to those who are determined not to relinquish error.
It is one thing to wish to have truth on our side, and another thing to wish to be on the side of truth.
The advent of truth, like the dawn of day, agitates the elements, while it disperses the gloom.
God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose.
Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie;
A fault which needs it most grows two thereby.
He who seeks truth must be content with a lonely, little-trodden path. If he cannot worship her till she has been canonized 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.
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.
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.
How sweet the words of truth breathed from the lips of love!
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.
There is an inward state of the heart which makes truth credible the moment it is stated. It is credible to some men because 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.
In all matters of eternal truth, the soul is before the intellect; the things of God are spiritually discerned. You know truth by being true; you recognize God by being like Him.
We must not let go manifest truths because we cannot answer all questions about them.
We must never throw away a bushel of truth because it happens to contain a few grains of chaff.
Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their divineness 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.
Truth needs no flowers of speech.
Truth does not require your painting, brother; it 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."
Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.
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, service is joy, when such an idea becomes a commanding power.
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 do it. 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.
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.