So I think it will be with humanity in the hands of the great Artist. God is picking up the little worthless pieces of stone and brass that might be trodden under foot unnoticed, and is making of them His great masterpiece.--_Bishop Simpson._
Our business as Christians is to serve the Lord in every business of life.--_Mark Guy Pearse._
Soft peace she brings; wherever she arrives She builds our quiet as she forms our lives; Lays the rough paths of peevish Nature even, And opens in each heart a little heaven.
Turn over a new leaf.
The photographer must have a negative, as he calls it, in order to furnish you with a picture. Now, the earthly cross is the negative from which the heavenly crown is to be made; the suffering and sorrow of the present time determining the glory, honor and immortality of the life to come.--_A. J. Gordon._
Why would you say that?” “It’s true enough. His father’s name is Caleb. He’s my uncle. He’s one of the leaders of our people. He’s from a very fine family, but I’m not.” “I don’t believe that.” “If you ever visit our camp, just ask about me.” He smiled at her. He was a good-looking fellow, she noted, with an easy manner about him, quite unlike his cousin. “They wouldn’t send a man who wasn’t reliable on a mission like this,” she said. “You know I haven’t figured that out yet. It was a strange choice.” Rahab was quiet for a time, and he studied her. She was one of the most attractive women he had ever seen, much fairer than the women of his people.
The best way of eradicating error is to publish and practice truth.--_W. Arnot._
The greatest hatred, like the greatest virtue and the worst dogs, is quiet.
O believer, in your walk through the world to-day, be strengthened, be comforted, be inspired, by the spectacle of the Captain of your salvation thus going up to Jerusalem! And remember, in all those apparently _downward_ passages of life, where sorrow, and it may be death, lie before you, that all such descents, made or endured in the Spirit of Jesus, are really _upgoing_ steps, leading you to the mount of God and the resurrection glory.--_J. B. Stratton._
Be not downcast if difficulties and trials surround you in your heavenly life. They may be purposely placed there by God to train and discipline you for higher developments of faith. If He calls you to "toiling in rowing," it may be to make you the hardier seaman, to lead you to lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, and, above all, to drive you to a holier trust in Him who has the vessel and its destinies in His hand, and who, amid gathering clouds and darkened horizon and crested billows is ever uttering the mild rebuke to our misgivings--"Said I not unto thee, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldst see the glory of God."--_Macduff._
The secret of walking closely with Christ, and working successfully for Him, is to fully realize that we are His beloved. Let us but feel that He has set His heart upon us, that He is watching us from those heavens with tender interest, that He is working out the mystery of our lives with solicitude and fondness, that He is following us day by day as a mother follows her babe in his first attempt to walk alone, that He has set His love upon us, and, in spite of ourselves, is working out for us His highest will and blessing, as far as we will let Him, and then nothing can discourage us. Our hearts will glow with responsive love. Our faith will spring to meet His mighty promises, and our sacrifices shall become the very luxuries of love for one so dear. This was the secret of John's spirit. "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us." And the heart that has fully learned this has found the secret of unbounded faith and enthusiastic service.--_A. B. Simpson._
Our business is not to build quickly, but to build upon a right foundation, and in a right spirit. Life is more than a mere competition as between man and man; it is not who can be done first, but who can work best; it is not who can rise highest in the shortest time, but who is working most patiently and lovingly in accordance with the designs of God.--_Joseph Parker._
Obedience to a divine prompting transforms it into a permanent acquisition.--_F. B. Meyer._
Desire, it is a dainty word! It were much that He should satisfy the _need_, the _want_; but He goeth far beyond that. Pity is moved to meet our need; duty may sometimes look after our wants; but to satisfy the _desire_ implies a tender watchfulness, a sweet and gracious knowledge of us, an eagerness of blessing. God is never satisfied until He has satisfied our desires.--_Mark Guy Pearse._
Let me ponder this, for it has been so with me, too. I have sometimes felt myself impelled to act by an influence which seemed above me--constrained to put to sea. The belief that I was constrained gave me confidence, and I was sure of a calm voyage. But the result was outward failure. The calm became a storm; the sea raged, the winds roared, the ship tossed in the midst of the waves, and my enterprise was wrecked ere it could reach the land.
There is nothing so beautiful as being alone with nature; one sees how God's will is fulfilled in each bud and leaf that blooms and withers, and one learns to recognise how deeply rooted in one is this thirst for nature. In living with men one is only too easily torn from this real home; then one's own plans and wishes and fears spring up; then we fancy we can perfect something for ourselves alone, and think that every thing must serve for our own ends and enjoyments, until the influence of nature in life, or the hand of God, arouses us, and warns us that we live and flourish not for enjoyment, nor for undisturbed quiet, but to bear fruit in another life.
Courtship consists in a number of quiet attentions, not so pointed as to alarm, nor so vague as not to be understood.
When God does the directing, our life is useful and full of promise, whatever it is doing; and discipline has its perfecting work.--_H. E. Cobb._
The considerable actions in the world have usually very small beginnings. Of a few letters, how many thousand words are made! Of ten figures, how many thousand numbers! A point is the beginning of all geometry. A little stone flung into a pond makes a little circle, then a greater, till it enlarges itself to both the sides. So from small beginnings God doth cause an efflux through the whole world.--_Charnock._
No sooner is there a good thing in the world than a _division is necessary_. Light and darkness have no communion; God has divided them, let us not confound them. Sons of light must not have fellowship with deeds, doctrines, or deceits of darkness. The children of the day must be sober, honest, and bold in their Lord's work, leaving the works of darkness to those who shall dwell in it forever.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
We answer, "No; of ourselves we have nothing but hunger and starvation. O God, we cannot feed ourselves!"
The very fact of a Christian being here, and not in heaven, is a proof that some work awaits him.--_William Arnot._
God never leaves His child to fail when in the path of obedience.--_Theodore Cuyler._
The serene beauty of a holy life is the most powerful influence in the world next to the might of God.--_Pascal._
. . . If you ask the way to the crown--'tis by the cross; to the mountain--'tis by the valley; to exaltation 'tis he that humbleth himself.--_J. H. Evans._
Conformity may give you a quiet life; it may even bring you to a University Chair. But all change in history, all advance, comes from the nonconformists. If there had been no trouble-makers, no Dissenters, we should still be living in caves.
Think with awe on the slow, the quiet power of time.
This is the prayer we need to pray for ourselves and for one another, "Lord, open our eyes that we may see"; for the world all around us, as well as around the prophet, is full of God's horses and chariots, waiting to carry us to places of glorious victory. And when our eyes are thus opened, we shall see in all the events of life, whether great or small, whether joyful or sad, a "chariot" for our souls. Everything that comes to us becomes a chariot the moment we treat it as such; and, on the other hand, even the smallest trial may be a Juggernaut car to crush us into misery or despair if we so consider them. It lies with each of us to choose which they shall be. It all depends, not upon what these events are, but upon how we take them. If we lie down under them, and let them roll over us and crush us, they become Juggernaut cars, but if we climb up into them, as into a car of victory, and make them carry us triumphantly onward and upward, they become the chariots of God.--_Smith._
The wonder of the life in Jesus is this--and you will find it so, and you have found it so, if you have ever taken your New Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily life--that there is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you need be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as to what Jesus Christ, if He were here, Jesus Christ being here, would have you do under those circumstances and with the material upon which you are called to act. The soul that takes in Jesus' word, the soul that through the words of Jesus enters into the very person of Jesus, the soul that knows Him as its daily presence and its daily law--it never hesitates.--_Phillips Brooks._
The most common actions of life, its every day and hour, are invested with the highest grandeur, when we think how they extend their issues into eternity. Our hands are now sowing seeds for that great harvest. We shall meet again all we are doing and have done. The graves shall give up their dead, and from the tombs of oblivion the past shall give up all that it holds in keeping, to bear true witness for or against us.--_Guthrie._
If you will go to the banks of a little stream, and watch the flies that come to bathe in it, you will notice that, while they plunge their _bodies_ into the water, they keep their _wings_ high out of the water; and, after swimming about a little while, they fly away with their wings unwet through the sunny air. Now, that is the lesson for us. Here we are immersed in the cares and business of the world; but let us keep the wings of our soul, our faith and our love, out of the world, that, with these unclogged, we may be ready to take our flight to heaven.--_J. Inglis._
Remember your life is to be a singing life. This world is God's grand cathedral for you. You are to be one of God's choristers, and there is to be a continual eucharistic sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving going up from your heart, with which God shall be continually well pleased. And there should be not only the offering of the lips, but the surrender of the life with joy. Yes, with _joy_, and not with _constraint_. Every faculty of our nature should be presented to Him in gladsome service, for the Lord Jehovah is my song as well as my strength.--_W. Hay Aitken._
Why? Because there is a cruel king who will seek the young child's life.
One of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: You’re bored. You’re depressed. You’re shy. You’re stuck up. You’re judgmental. When others can’t read us, they write their own story—not always one we choose or that’s true to who we are.
What men want to rally them for God is an example to lead them. All your commands to others to advance amount to nothing so long as you stay behind. To effect them aright, you need to start for heaven yourself, looking back only to give the stirring cry of "Men, follow!"--_T. DeWitt Talmage._
By lifting the burdens of others we lose our own.--_Selected._
It is true that these good tidings of great joy were to be "for all people," but not _first_. The message falls on our own ears, and is first for our own souls.
Low stir of leaves and dip of oars And lapsing waves on quiet shores.
The mastiff is quiet while curs are yelping.
We speak of the mark of Cain as if it was the mark of a curse. In reality it was the mark of God's mercy, a defence against his enemies.--_D. J. Burrell._
We should ever bear in mind that the discipline of our heavenly Father's hand is to be interpreted in the light of our Father's countenance; and the deep mysteries of His moral government to be contemplated through the medium or His tender love.--_Selected._
This holds good in every case. We can never fail if we only cling to the living God. We can never run dry if we are drawing from the fountain. Our tiny springs will soon dry up; but our Lord Jesus Christ declares, "He that believeth in Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."--_C. H. M._
The worst of all mockeries is a religion that leaves the heart unchanged: a religion that has _everything_ but the love of Christ enshrined in the soul.--_F. Whitfield._
When in the Mexican war the troops were wavering, a general rose in his stirrups and dashed into the enemy's line, shouting, "Men, follow!" They, seeing his courage and disposition, dashed on after him, and gained the victory.
But quiet to quick bosoms is a hell.
True fortitude I take to be the quiet possession of a man's self, and an undisturbed doing his duty, whatever evil besets him or danger lies in his way.
Parents are not interested in justice, they're interested in peace and quiet.
It is the little words you speak, the little thoughts you think, the little things you do or leave undone, the little moments you waste or use wisely, the little temptations which you yield to or overcome--the little things of every day that are making or marring your future life.--_Selected._
An active faith can give thanks for a promise, though it be not yet performed; knowing that God's bonds are as good as ready money.--_Matthew Henry._
Enjoy the precious years God has added to your life, with constant gratitude, with quiet and purity of soul, looking more to the heavenly than to the earthly: that gives true joyfulness of soul, if we _every moment_ recollect what is eternal, and never quite lose ourselves in the small, or even the large cares of life.
God sometimes bestows gifts just that love may have something to renounce. The things that He puts into our hands are possibly put there that we may have the opportunity of showing what is in our heart. Oh, that there were in us a fervor of love that would lead us to examine everything that belongs to us, to ascertain how it might be made a means of showing our affection to Christ!--_George Bowen._
Solitude is the antechamber of God; only one step more and you can be in His immediate presence.--_Landor._
The natural temptation with every difficulty is to plan for it, to put it out of the way yourself; but stop short with all your planning, your thinking, your worry, and talk to Him! "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." You may not always be able to do this in a moment or two. Then keep on with supplication until you know He has it, and prayer becomes praise. Rest, trust, and wait, and see how He does that which you wanted to do, and had so much care about. "Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord."--_A. E. Funk._
"Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not." My soul, this is also thine experience! How often hast thou said in thy sorrow, "Verily thou art a God that hidest Thyself!" How often hast thou slept for very heaviness of heart, and desired not to wake again! And when thou didst wake again, lo, the darkness was all a dream! Thy vision of yesterday was a delusion. God had been with thee all the night with that radiance which has no need of the sun.
More dear in the sight of God and His angels than any other conquest is the conquest of self, which each man, with the help of heaven, can secure for himself.--_Dean Stanley._
Study to be quiet; contain yourself within your own business, and let the prying, censorious, the vain and the intriguing world follow their own devices.
The Tree of Life, according to some of the old rabbinical legends, lifted its branches, by an indwelling motion, high above impure hands that were stretched to touch them; and until our hands are cleansed through faith in Jesus Christ, its richest fruit hangs unreachable, golden above our heads. The fullness of the life of heaven is only granted to those who, drawing near Jesus Christ by faith on earth, have thereby cleansed themselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit.--_Alex. McLaren._
Do we, like Him, combine the two great elements of human character? Are our _public_ duties, the cares, and business, and engrossments of the world, finely tempered and hallowed by a _secret_ walk with God? If the world were to follow us from its busy thoroughfares, would it trace us to our family altars and our closet devotions?
We talk about the telescope of faith, but I think we want even more the microscope of watchful and grateful love. Apply this to the little bits of our daily lives, in the light of the Spirit, and how wonderfully they come out!--_Frances Ridley Havergal._
"Only one life; 'twill soon be past-- And only what's done for Christ will last."--_Selected._
There is a path in which every child of God is to walk, and in which alone God can accompany him.--_Denham Smith._
There are many Christians of whom this is true. They are compelled to bear the cross, but how does it come? It comes by their running away from it. They make up their minds they won't have Christ's cross; and they find when the cross does come that it comes in a more terrible form, with a more crushing weight than ever it would have come had they only been content to submit themselves to the divine direction; for the cross has to come to all who are to be prepared for glory hereafter.--_W. Hay Aitken._
Let not thy praises be transient--a fit of music, and then the instrument hung by the wall till another gaudy day of some remarkable providence makes thee take it down. God comes not guestwise to His saints' house, but to dwell with them. David took this up for a life work: "As long as I live, I will praise thee."--_Gurnall._
There is a strength of quiet endurance as significant of courage as the most daring feats of prowess.--_Tuckerman._
And soon Lot moved into Sodom; and before long Sodom moved into him.--_Theodore Cuyler._
Scaffoldings are for buildings, and the moments and days and years of our earthly lives are scaffolding. What are you building inside it? What kind of a structure will be disclosed when the scaffolding is knocked away? Days and years are ours, that they may give us what eternity cannot take away--a character built upon the love of God in Christ, and moulded into His likeness.
I prize the soul that slumbers in a quiet eye.
You can furnish one Christian life. You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed, phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is.--_Phillips Brooks._
In that temple of silence and reconciliation where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall.
I expect to pass through this world but once--therefore, if there be any kindness I can show or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.--_Marcus Aurelius._
Anything for a quiet life.
Go away,” I say. He raises his hands in surrender and takes a step back. “This far?” “Farther.” Another step. “Better?” “Yes,” I smart. Silas grins. “I don’t know myself well, but I can tell I have a lot of game.” “Oh, please,” I say. “If you were a game, Silas, you’d be Monopoly. You just go on and on and everyone ends up cheating just to be over with it.” He’s quiet for a minute. I feel bad for saying something so awkward even if it was a joke. “You’re probably right,” he laughs. “That’s why you cheated on me with that asshat, Brian. Lucky for you, I’m not Monopoly Silas anymore. I’m Tetris Silas. All my pieces and parts are going to fit into all of your pieces and parts.
Freedom is not an empty sound; it is not an abstract idea; it is not a thing that nobody can feel. It means, — and it means nothing else, — the full and quiet enjoyment of your own property. If you have not this, if this be not well secured to you, you may call yourself what you will, but you are a slave. [ A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland , 1827, §456.]
How sweet the music of this first heavenly chime floating across the waters of death from the towers of the New Jerusalem. Pilgrim, faint under thy long and arduous pilgrimage, hear it! It is REST. Soldier, carrying still upon thee blood and dust of battle, hear it! It is REST. Voyager, tossed on the waves of sin and sorrow, driven hither and thither on the world's heaving ocean of vicissitude, hear it! The haven is in sight; the very waves that are breaking on thee seem to murmur--"_So He giveth His beloved_ REST." It is the long-drawn sigh of existence at last answered. The toil and travail of earth's protracted week is at an end. The calm of its unbroken Sabbath is begun. Man, weary man, has found at last the long-sought-for _rest_ in the bosom of his God!--_Macduff._
What does this teach us? God does not place His people in luxuriance here. The world's abundance might withdraw their affections from Him. He gives them not the river, but the brook. The brook may be running to-day, to-morrow it may be dried up.
Sweet morning! There is hope in its music. Blessed is the day whose morning is sanctified! Successful is the day whose first victory was won in prayer! Holy is the day whose dawn finds thee on the top of the mount! Health is established in the morning. Wealth is won in the morning. The light is brightest in the morning. "Wake, psaltery and harp; I myself will awake early."--_Joseph Parker._
Walk a single path, becoming neither cocky with victory nor broken with defeat, without forgetting caution when all is quiet or becoming frightened when danger threatens.
So in the passions, there is pleasure in seeing the shock of two contraries, but as soon as one gains the mastery it becomes mere brutality. We never seek things in themselves, but only the search for things. So on the stage, quiet scenes which raise no emotion are worthless, so is extreme and hopeless misery, so are brutal lust and excessive cruelty.
Kind words produce their own image in men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe and quiet and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose, unkind feelings. We have not yet begun to use kind words in such abundance as they ought to be used.--_Pascal._
You that have faith in the Fountain, _frequent it_. Beware of two errors which are very natural and very disastrous. Beware of thinking any sin too great for it; beware of thinking any sin too small. There is not a sin so little, but it may be the germ of everlasting perdition; there is not a sin so enormous, but a drop of atoning blood will wash it away as utterly as if it were drowned in the depths of the sea.--_James Hamilton._
There is a very beautiful device by which the Japanese are accustomed to express their wishes for their friends. It is the figure of a drum in which the birds have built their nest. The story told of it is that once there lived a good king, so anxiously concerned for the welfare of his people that at the palace gate he set a drum, and whoever had any wrong to be redressed or any want, should beat the drum, and at once, by day or night, the king would grant the suppliant an audience and relief. But throughout the land there reigned such prosperity and contentment that none needed to appeal for anything, and the birds built their nests within it and filled it with the music of their song.
The Christian knows no change with regard to God. He may be rich to-day and poor to-morrow; he may be sickly to-day and well to-morrow; he may be in happiness to-day, to-morrow he may be distressed--but there is no change with regard to his relationship to God. If He loved me yesterday, He loves me to-day. My unmoving mansion of rest is my blessed Lord. Let prospects be blighted; let hopes be blasted; let joy be withered; let mildews destroy everything; I have lost nothing of what I have in God. He is "my strong habitation whereunto I can continually resort." I am a pilgrim in the world, but at home in my God. In the earth I wander, but in God I dwell in a quiet habitation.