Page:Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers.djvu/303

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HABIT.
295

If you have nothing of the spirit of prayer, nothing of the love of the brotherhood, nothing of mortifying the spirit of the world, nothing of growth in grace, of cordial, habitual, persevering obedience to the Divine commands, how can it be that you have been brought nigh by the blood of Christ?


May we grow more and more like God and heaven, more gracious, helpful, and sweet-minded; and when at last Thou hast served Thyself by us, may we fall asleep in Jesus, and find it no sleep, but everlasting waking in Jesus.


H.

HABIT.

A large part of Christian virtue consists in right habits.

Paley.

Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth—of carefully respecting the property of others—of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into the element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying or cheating or stealing.


Centres, or centre-pieces of wood, are put by builders under an arch of stone while it is in the process of construction till the key-stone is put in. Just such is the use Satan makes of pleasures to construct evil habits upon; the pleasure lasts till the habit is fully formed; but that done, the habit may stand eternal. The pleasures are sent for firewood, and the hell begins in this life.