Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/D
DEATH.
One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die as a man.
My friend, there will come one day to you a Messenger, whom you cannot treat with contempt. He will say, "Come with me;" and all your pleas of business cares and earthly loves will be of no avail. When his cold hand touches yours, the key of the counting-room will drop forever, and he will lead you away from all your investments, your speculations, your bank-notes and real estate, and with him you will pass into eternity, up to the bar of God. You will not be too busy to die.
God's finger touched him, and he slept.
O eloquent, just, and mighty Death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou only hast cast out of the world and despised; thou hast drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and ambition of men, and covered them all over with these two narrow words, "Hic jacet."
What a power has Death to awe and hush the voices of this earth! How mute we stand when that presence confronts us, and we look upon the silence he has wrought in a human life! We can only gaze, and bow our heads, and creep with our broken, stammering utterances under the shelter of some great word which God has spoken, and in which we see through the history of human sorrow the outstretching and overshadowing of the eternal arms.
Look forward a little further to the period when all the noise and tumult and business of this world shall have closed forever.
We shall be in the midst of some great work, when the tools shall drop from our relaxing fingers, and we shall work no more; we shall be planning some mighty project—house, business, society, book—when in one shattering moment all our thoughts shall perish. Life shall seem strong in us when we shall find that it is done. Oh, how happy they to whom all that remains is immortality; happy you who have that confidence in the Saviour, that, although nature start at the sudden midnight cry, "The Bridegroom cometh!" faith shall answer, the moment that we remember who He is, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"
However dreary we may have felt life to be here, yet when that hour comes—the winding up of all things, the last grand rush of darkness on our spirits, the hour of that awful sudden wrench from all we have ever known or loved, the long farewell to sun, moon, stars, and light—brother man, I ask you this day, and I ask myself humbly and fearfully, "What will then be finished? When it is finished, what will it be? Will it be the butterfly existence of pleasure, the mere life of science, a life of uninterrupted sin and self-gratification, or will it be, 'Father, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do?'"
How shocking must thy summons be, O Death!
To him that is at ease in his possessions!
Who, counting on long years of pleasure here,
Is quite unfurnished for the world to come.
In that dread moment, how the frantic soul
Raves round the walls of her clay tenement;
Runs to each avenue, and shrieks for help;
But shrieks in vain.
When we come to die, we shall be alone. From all our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends—the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities,—will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties—our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sisters, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Saviour,—from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who "sticketh closer than a brother"—One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.
When I lived, I provided for every thing but death; now I must die, and am unprepared.
Reflect on death as in Jesus Christ, not as without Jesus Christ. Without Jesus Christ it is dreadful, it is alarming, it is the terror of nature. In Jesus Christ it is fair and lovely, it is good and holy, it is the joy of saints.
To the Christian, these shades are the golden haze which heaven's light makes, when it meets the earth, and mingles with its shadows.
So fades a summer cloud away;
So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;
So gently shuts the eye of day;
So dies a wave along the shore.
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!
Soon for me the light of day
Shall forever pass away;
Then from sin and sorrow free,
Take me, Lord, to dwell with Thee.
All life is surrounded by a great circumference of death; but to the believer in Jesus, beyond this surrounding death is a boundless sphere of life. He has only to die once to be done with death forever.
Yes, death,—the hourly possibility of it,—death is the sublimity of life.
Death is a stage in human progress, to be passed as we would pass from childhood to youth, or from youth to manhood, and with the same consciousness of an everlasting nature.
Thus star by star declines
Till all are passed away,
As morning high and higher shines
To pure and perfect day:
Nor sink those stars in empty night;
They hide themselves in heaven's pure light.
Life's race well run,
Life's work well done,
Life's crown well won,
Now comes rest.
"God giveth His beloved sleep;" and in that peaceful sleep, realities, not dreams, come round their quiet rest, and fill their conscious spirits and their happy hearts with blessedness and fellowship. In His own time He will make the eternal morning dawn, and the hand that kept them in their slumbers shall touch them into waking, and shall clothe them when they arise according to the body of His own glory; and they, looking into His face, and flashing back its love, its light, its beauty, shall each break forth into singing as the rising light of that unsetting day touches their transfigured and immortal heads, in the triumphant thanksgiving, "I am satisfied, for I awake in Thy likeness."
When our earthly day is closing,
And the night grows still and deep,
Let us, in Thine arms reposing,
Feel Thy power to save and keep.
Blessed Jesus,
Give Thine own beloved sleep.
What is our death but a night's sleep? For as through sleep all weariness and faintness pass away and cease, and the powers of the spirit come back again, so that in the morning we arise fresh and strong and joyous; so at the Last Day we shall rise again as if we had only slept a night, and shall be fresh and strong.
Death, to a good man is but passing through a dark entry, out of one little dusky room of his Father's house into another that is fair and large, lightsome and glorious, and divinely entertaining.
Death is the quiet haven of us all.
Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew
Thee from report Divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven came;
And lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun? or who could find,
While fly and leaf and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we then shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?
And when no longer we can see Thee, may we reach out our hands, and find Thee leading us through death to immortality and glory.
"Paid the debt of nature." No; it is not paying a debt; it is rather like bringing a note to the bank to obtain solid gold for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long; you lay it down, and receive for it from the eternal treasures—liberty, victory, knowledge, rapture.
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust Thy mercy warms.
And mould it into heavenly forms.
Death is the waiting-room where we robe ourselves for immortality.
Death is like thunder in two particulars; we are alarmed at the sound of it; and it is formidable only from that which preceded it.
If life has not made you by God's grace, through faith, holy—think you, will death, without faith do it? The cold waters of that narrow stream are no purifying bath in which you may wash and be clean. No! no! as you go down into them, you will come up from them.
The character wherewith we sink into the grave at death is the very character wherewith we shall reappear at the resurrection.
He that always waits upon God is ready whenever He calls. Neglect not to set your accounts even; he is a happy man who so lives as that death at all times may find him at leisure to die.
Death cannot come
To him untimely who is fit to die;
The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality.
A joyful messenger of peace, whose kind hand opens to the weary pilgrim the gates of immortality, and lets the oppressed go free, is death.
No man who is fit to live need fear to die. Poor, timorous, faithless souls that we are! How we shall smile at our vain alarms when the worst has happened! To us here, death is the most terrible thing we know. But when we have tasted its reality, it will mean to us birth, deliverance, a new creation of ourselves. It will be what health is to the sick man. It will be what home is to the exile. It will be what the loved one given back is to the bereaved. As we draw near to it, a solemn gladness should fill our hearts. It is God's great morning lighting up the sky. Our fears are the terror of children in the night. The night with its terrors, its darkness, its feverish dreams, is passing away; and when we awake, it will be into the sunlight of God.
Tarry with me, O my Saviour!
Lay my head upon Thy breast,
Till the morning; then awake me—
Morning of eternal rest.
O that we may all be living in such a state of preparedness, that, when summoned to depart, we may ascend the summit whence faith looks forth on all that Jesus hath suffered and done, and exclaiming, "We have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," lie down with Moses on Pisgah, to awake with Moses in paradise.
Seek such union to the Son of God, as, leaving no present death within, shall make the second death impossible, and shall leave in all your future only that shadow of death which men call dissolution, and which the gospel calls sleeping in Jesus.
Love masters agony; the soul that seemed
Forsaken feels her present God again
And in her Father's arms
Contented dies away.
Every day His servants are dying modestly and peacefully—not a word of victory on their lips; but Christ's deep triumph in their hearts—watching the slow progress of their own decay, and yet so far emancipated from personal anxiety that they are still able to think and plan for others, not knowing that they are doing any great thing. They die, and the world hears nothing of them; and yet theirs was the completest victory. They came to the battle field, the field to which they had been looking forward all their lives, and the enemy was not to be found. There was no foe to fight with.
"Come and see how a Christian can die," said the dying sage to his pupil; how would it do to say, "Come and see how an infidel can die?" How would it have done for Voltaire to say this, who, in his panic at the prospect of eternity, offered his physician half his fortune for six weeks more of life?
Dying visions of angels and Christ and God and heaven are confined to credibly good men. Why do not bad men have such visions? They die of all sorts of diseases; they have nervous temperaments; they even have creeds and hopes about the future which they cling to with very great tenacity; why do not they rejoice in some such glorious illusions when they go out of the world?
Death is the crown of life.
And now, with busy, but noiseless process, the Comforter is giving the last finish to the sanctifying work, and making the heir of glory meet for home, till, at a signal given, the portal opens, and even the numb body feels the burst of blessedness as the rigid features smile and say, "I see Jesus," then leave the vision pictured on the pale but placid brow.
How well he fell asleep!
Like some proud river, widening toward the sea;
Calmly and grandly, silently and deep,
Life joined eternity.
O Earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!
O delvéd gold, the wailer's heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God makes a silence through you all,
And "giveth His beloved, sleep."
Earth has one angel less, and heaven one more since yesterday. Already, kneeling at the throne, she has received her welcome, and is resting on the bosom of her Saviour.
Beloved in the Lord, if you only will lay hold of the Saviour's strength, and cast yourself entirely on His kind arms, with His dying grace He will do wonders for you in the dying hour. A great trembling may come upon you when you think of going down to tread the verge of Jordan; "for ye have not passed this way heretofore." But Jesus has; and you shall see His footprints on the shore. He will be your guide unto death, and through death.
Dead is she? No; rather let us call ourselves dead, who tire so soon in the service of the Master whom she has gone to serve forever.
So we fall asleep in Jesus. We have played long enough at the games of life, and at last we feel the approach of death. We are tired out, and we lay our heads back on the bosom of Christ, and quietly fall asleep.
I do not know why a man should be either regretful or afraid, as he watches the hungry sea eating away this "bank and shoal of time" upon which he stands, even though the tide has all but reached his feet—if he knows that God's strong hand will be stretched forth to him at the moment when the sand dissolves from under him, and will draw him out of many waters, and place him high above the floods on the stable land where there is "no more sea."
When you take the wires of the cage apart, you do not hurt the bird, but help it. You let it out of its prison. How do vou know that death does not help me when it takes the wires of my cage down?—that it does not release me, and put me into some better place, and better condition of life?
The most heaven-like spots I have ever visited, have been certain rooms in which Christ's disciples were awaiting the summons of death. So far from being a "house of mourning," I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory.
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes!
I am not in the least surprised that your impression of death becomes more lively, in proportion as age and infirmity bring it nearer. God makes use of this rough trial to undeceive us in respect to our courage, to make us feel our weakness, and to keep us in all humility in His hands.
When at last the angels come to convey your departing spirit to Abraham's bosom, depend upon it, however dazzling in their newness they may be to you, you will find that your history is no novelty, and you yourself no stranger to them.
And when, in the evening of life, the golden clouds rest sweetly and invitingly upon the golden mountains, and the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, I wish you a peaceful and abundant entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life will be unfolded to you in the quick consciousness of a soul redeemed and purified.
Dear brethren, our ship is sailing fast. We shall soon hear the rasping of the shallows, and the commotion overhead which bespeaks the port in view. When it comes to that, how will you feel? Are you a stranger, or a convict, or are you going home?
Brethren, we are all sailing home; and by and by, when we are not thinking of it, some shadowy thing (men call it death), at midnight, will pass by, and will call us by name, and will say, "I have a message for you from home; God wants you; heaven waits for you."
Do we not all, in this very hour, recall a death-bed scene in which some loved one has passed away? And, as we bring to mind the solemn reflections of that hour, are we not ready to hear and to heed the voice with which a dying wife once addressed him who stood sobbing by her side: "My dear husband, live for one thing, and only one thing; just one thing,—the glory of God, the glory of God!"
DECISION.
Here I stand; I can do no otherwise. God help me. Amen.
Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character which I would wish to possess. I have always despised the whining yelp of complaint and the cowardly, feeble resolve.
Decision is a vastly important thing with a convicted sinner. He must choose, or he must be lost. If he will not do it, he may expect the Divine Spirit to depart from him, and leave him to his own way.
I take one decisive and immediate step, and resign my all to the sufficiency of my Saviour.
For a few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze. So will it be with present feelings. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay.
A man who has not learned to say "no"—who is not resolved that he will take God's way in spite of every dog that can bark at him, in spite of every silvery voice that can woo him aside—will be a weak and wretched man till he dies.
To be energetic and firm where principle demands it, and tolerant in all else, is not easy. It is not easy to abhor wickedness, and oppose it with every energy, and at the same time to have the meekness and gentleness of Christ, becoming all things to all men for the truth's sake. The energy of patience, the most godlike of all, is not easy.
I hate to see things done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly; if it be wrong, leave it undone.
In such a world as this, with such hearts as ours, weakness is wickedness in the long run. Whoever lets himself be shaped and guided by any thing lower than an inflexible will, fixed in obedience to God, will in the end be shaped into a deformity, and guided to wreck and ruin.
The souls of men of feeble purpose are the graveyards of good intentions.
DENOMINATIONALISM.
Sects differ; but, with few exceptions, they agree not only that a life of unselfish love will insure heaven, but that repentance and faith are the way by which one enters into this path of life.
I do not want the walls of separation between different orders of Christians to be destroyed, but only lowered, that we may shake hands a little easier over them.
Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriæ of old eruptions, grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn.
If God allows us to remain Methodist, Baptist, or Episcopalian, it may be on account of the unconverted, that they may be without excuse; that every type of man may be confronted with a corresponding type of doctrine and of method. Surely there are means adapted to your state, and ministries fitted to your peculiar temperament.
It is neither possible nor desirable to make all men think alike. Variety is the very basis of harmony; and, in the sphere of ecclesiastical experience, oneness of feeling is vastly preferable to unanimity of belief. The voice of God, however, as uttered in the events and experiences of the past hundred years, enjoins upon the private membership of the church the culture of that "unity of the Spirit" which is begotten of the Holy Ghost, and which derives from its Divine Author the life in which it resides, the elements of which it is composed, and the impulses under which it acts.
Were we all one body, we should lose the tremendous stimulation that comes from the present arrangement, and I fear that our uniformity would become the uniformity of death and the tomb.
God grant that we may contend with other churches as the vine with the olive, which of us shall bear the best fruit; but not as the brier with the thistle, which of us shall be most unprofitable.
It is not the actual differences of Christian men that do the mischief, but the mismanagement of those differences.
O for less of an abstract, controversial Christianity, and more of a living, loving, personal Christ.
DENYING CHRIST.
We deny our Lord whenever, like Demas, we through love of this present world forsake the course of duty which Christ has plainly pointed out to us.
The Christian who will sit with sealed lips when his Master is assailed, when religion is attacked, when wickedness is broached and defended, when truth is denounced, is a denier of his Lord, as guilty as Simon Peter in Pilate's hall.
DEPRAVITY.
The gospel proceeds on the basis of universal depravity; the gospel assimilates all varieties of human nature into one common experience of guilt and need and helplessness; and this is just what you do not like about it.
We believe that man was created in holiness, under the law of his Maker; but by voluntary transgression fell from that holy and happy state; in consequence of which all mankind are now sinners, not by constraint, but choice; being by nature utterly void of that holiness required by the law of God, positively inclined to evil; and therefore under just condemnation to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse.
There is not a beast of the field but may trust his nature and follow it; certain that it will lead him to the best of which he is capable. But as for us, our only invincible enemy is our nature.
Those that hold the doctrine of native depravity do not believe that there is a mass of corrupt matter lodged in the heart, which sends off noxious exhalations, like a dead body. But they maintain that the soul has entirely lost the image of God in which it was originally created; that there is nothing pure or good remaining in it; that in consequence of the withdrawment of those special Divine influences which were given to our first parents, the proper balance of the power is destroyed, they have lost their conformity to the law of God; and the holy dispositions, which were at first implanted in the soul, have given place to sinful dispositions, which are the source of all actual transgression.
If we take away this foundation, that man is by nature foolish and sinful, fallen short of the glorious image of God, the Christian system falls at once; nor will it deserve as honorable an appellation as that of a cunningly devised fable.
Human nature is said by many to be good; if so, where have social evils come from? For human nature is the only moral nature in that corrupting thing called "society." Every example set before the child of to-day is the fruit of human nature. It has been planted on every possible field—among the snows that never melt; in temperate regions, and under the line; in crowded cities, in lonely forests; in ancient seats of civilization, in new colonies; and in all these fields it has, without once failing, brought forth a crop of sins and troubles.
DESPAIR.
Despair is the damp of hell; rejoicing is the serenity of heaven.
It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent.
Disordered nerves are the origin of much religious despair, when the individual does not suspect it; and then the body and mind have a reciprocal influence upon each other, and it is difficult to tell which influences the other most. The physician is often blamed, when the fault lies with the minister. Depression never benefits body or soul. We are saved by hope.
Mr. Fearing had, I think, a slough of despond in his mind, a slough that he carried everywhere with him, or else he could never have been as he was.
DEVOTION.
"Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you." Keep near to the fountain-head, and "with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."
The Christian is not always praying; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love,—fires of desire, fervent longings,—which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer.
Real inward devotion knows no prayer but that arising from the depths of its own feelings.
All who wait upon the Lord shall rise higher and higher upon the mighty pinions of strong devotion, and with the unblinking eye of faith, into the regions of heavenly-mindedness; and shall approach nearer and nearer to God, the Sun of our spiritual day.
This is the spirit of prayer—sincere, humble, believing, submissive. Other prayer than this the Bible does not require—God will not accept.
The Christian life is a long and continual tendency of our hearts toward that eternal goodness which we desire on earth. All our happiness consists in thirsting for it. Now this thirst is prayer. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray. Do not think it necessary to pronounce many words.
It is not he who knows most, nor he who hears most, nor yet he who talks most, but he who exercises grace most, who has most communion with God.
Devotion is like the candle which Michael Angelo used to take in his pasteboard cap, so as not to throw his shadow upon the work in which he was engaged.
Only in the sacredness of inward silence does the soul truly meet the secret, hiding God. The strength of resolve, which afterward shapes life, and mixes itself with action, is the fruit of those sacred, solitary moments. There is a divine depth in silence. We meet God alone.
There are two principal points of attention necessary for the preservation of this constant spirit of prayer which unites us with God; we must continually seek to cherish it, and we must avoid every thing that tends to make us lose it.
Our activity should consist in placing ourselves in a state of susceptibility to Divine impressions, and pliability to all the operations of the Eternal Word.
That holy, humble, meek, modest, retiring Form, sometimes called the Spirit of Prayer, has been dragged from the closet, and so rudely handled by some of her professed friends, that she has not only lost all her wonted loveliness, but is now stalking the street, in some places, stark mad.
We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.
DOCTRINE
Religion, as embodied in the character and conduct of its disciples, cannot survive without doctrinal purity. In the absence of this element, religious feeling inevitably decays; while even religious necessity becomes a thing of naught.
The question is not whether a doctrine is beautiful, but whether it is true.
Doctrine is the frame-work of life; it is the skeleton of truth, to be clothed and rounded out by the living graces of a holy life. It is only the lean creature whose bones become offensive.
Live to explain thy doctrine by thy life.
Go on your knees before God. Bring all your idols; bring self-will, and pride, and every evil lust before Him, and give them up. Devote yourself, heart and soul, to His will; and see if you do not "know of the doctrine."
Don't turn your back upon your doctrinal doubts and difficulties. Go up to them and examine them. Perhaps the ghastly object which looks to you in the twilight like a sheeted ghost may prove to be no more than a table-cloth hanging upon a hedge.
We are not called on to believe this or that doctrine which may be proposed to us till we can do so from honest conviction. But we are called on to trust,—to trust ourselves to God, being sure that He will lead us right,—to keep close to Him,—and to trust the promises which He whispers through our conscience; this we can do, and we ought to do.
DOUBT.
Doubt comes in at the window when inquiry is denied at the door.
Doubt indulged soon becomes doubt realized.
You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, "What is truth?" In such an hour what remains? I reply, "Obedience." Leave those thoughts for the present. Act—be merciful and gentle—honest; force yourself to abound in little services; try to do good to others; be true in the duty that you know. That must be right, whatever else is uncertain. And by all the laws of the human heart, by the word of God, you shall not be left to doubt. Do that much of the will of God which is plain to you, and "You shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God."
To get rid of your doubts, part with your sin. Put away your intemperance, your dishonesty, your unlawful ways of making money, your sensuality, your falsehood, acted or spoken, and see if a holy life be not the best disperser of unwelcome doubts, and new obedience the most certain guide to fresh assurance.
Fear not to confront realities. The Saviour lives; and the first joy that you will give to Him is when, leaving off your false excuses, you throw yourself with a full heart and empty hands into His arms of mercy. The Saviour lives; and were you now to die looking for salvation only from that Friend of Sinners, verily this day should you be with Him in a better than Adam's paradise. The Saviour lives; and in full sympathy with that wondrous lover of men's souls, the Holy Spirit is even now ready if besought to begin His sanctifying process in your mind. The Saviour lives; and even now He stretches out toward you an arm which, if you only grasp in thankful love, your faith shall strengthen while you cling, and it will be from no weakness in that arm, if you are not erelong exalted to a point of holy attainment which at this moment you view with despair, and by and by to that region of unveiled realities where you will ask in wonder at yourself, "Wherefore did I doubt?"
Cold hearts are not anxious enough to doubt. Men who love will have their misgivings at times; that is not the evil. But the evil is, when men go on in that languid, doubting way, content to doubt, proud of their doubts, morbidly glad to talk about them, liking the romantic gloom of twilight, without the manliness to say, "I must and will know the truth." That did not John the Baptist. Brethren, John appealed to Christ.
People, when asked if they are Christians, give some of the strangest answers you ever heard Some will say if you ask them: "Well—well—well, I,—I hope I am." Suppose a man should ask me if I am an American. Would I say: "Well, I—well, I—I hope I am?"
DUTY.
The great object of the Christian is duty; his predominant desire, to obey God. When he can please the world consistently with these, he will do so; otherwise it is enough for him that God commands, and enough for them that he cannot disobey.
Attention is our first duty whenever we want to know what is our second duty. There is no such cause of confusion and worry about what we ought to do, and how to do it, as our unwillingness to hear what God would tell us on that very point.
Duties are ours; events are God's. This removes an infinite burden from the shoulders of a miserable, tempted, dying creature. On this consideration only, can he securely lay down his head, and close his eyes.
Duty reaches down the ages in its effects, and into eternity; and when the man goes about it resolutely, it seems to me now as though his footsteps were echoing beyond the stars, though only heard faintly in the atmosphere of this world.
Speak, Lord, our souls are hushed to hear what Thou hast to say to us. Great is the stake, overwhelming may be the risks—most glorious are the opportunities. Speak, Lord, and show us what our duty is—how high, how difficult, yet how happy, how blessed—show us what our duty is, and, O great God and Father, give us strength to do it.
Brethren, life is passing; youth goes, strength decays. But duty performed, work done for God—this abides forever, this alone is imperishable.
Do to-day's duty, fight to-day's temptation; and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.
If the duties before us be not noble, let us ennoble them by doing them in a noble spirit; we become reconciled to life if we live in the spirit of Him who reconciled the life of God with the lowly duties of servants.
The primal duties shine aloft like stars;
The charities that soothe, and heal, and bless,
Are scattered at the feet of man, like flowers.
Knowledge is the hill which few may hope to climb;
Duty is the path that all may tread.
The constant duty of every man to his fellows is to ascertain his own powers and special gifts, and to strengthen them for the help of others.
Life is of little value unless it be consecrated by duty.
The doing of things from duty is but a stage on the road to the kingdom of truth and love.
Let a man begin in earnest with, "I ought," and he will end, by God's grace, if he persevere, with, "I will." Let him force himself to abound in all small offices of kindliness, attention, affectionateness, and all these for God's sake. By and by he will feel them become the habit of his soul.
The moment you can make a very simple discovery; viz., that obligation to God is your privilege, and is not imposed as a burden, your experience will teach you many things,—that duty is liberty, that repentance is a release from sorrow, that sacrifice is gain, that humility is dignity, that the truth from which you hide is a healing element that bathes your disordered life, and that even the penalties and terrors of God are the artillery only of protection to His realm.
The most fruitful and elevating influence I have ever seemed to meet has been my impression of obligation to God.
In the sacred fact of obligation you touch the immutable, and lay hold, as it were, on the eternities. At the very centre of your being, there is a fixed element, and that of a kind or degree essentially sovereign. A standard is set up in your very thought, by which a great part of your questions are determined, and about which your otherwise random thoughts may settle into order and law.
Man not only owes his services but himself to God.
Christian obligation cannot be made to accord with a law of expediency. The Christian's maxims are, "Do right because you are bound to do right." "Do right though the heavens fall." There is a world of difference between "You had better" and "You are bound to."
It is not the profession of religion which creates the obligation for the performance of duty; for that existed before any such profession was made. The profession of religion only recognises the obligation.
Men must be either the slaves of duty, or the slaves of force.
Not until the soul is fastened in loving sympathies upon God as its centre, will it sweep the orbit of duty.
He who can at all times sacrifice pleasure to duty approaches sublimity.
Only when the voice of duty is silent, or when it has already spoken, may we allowably think of the consequences of a particular action.
When any duty is to be done, it is fortunate for you if you feel like doing it; but, if you do not feel like it, that is no reason for not doing it.
The consciousness of duty performed gives us music at midnight.
Do right! and thou hast naught to fear;
Right hath a power that makes thee strong.
The night is dark, but light is near;
The grief is short, the joy is long.
There is nothing in the universe I fear but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.
Stern daughter of the voice of God!
A deliberate rejection of duty prescribed by already recognized truth cannot but destroy, or at least impair most seriously the clearness of our mental vision.
No man living in deliberate violation of his duty, in willful disobedience to God's commands, as taught by conscience, can possibly make progress in acquaintance with the Supreme Being. Vain are all acts of worship in church or in secret, vain are religious reading and conversation, without this instant fidelity.
He who is false to present duty breaks a thread in the loom, and will see the defect when the weaving of a life-time is unrolled.
Neglect of one duty often renders us unfit for another. God "is a rewarder," and one great principle on which He dispenses His rewards is this—through our faithfulness in one thing He bestows grace upon us to be faithful in another.
We make time for duties we love.
Feeble are we? Yes, without God we are nothing. But what, by faith, every man may be, God requires him to be. This is the only Christian idea of duty. Measure obligation by inherent ability! No, my brethren, Christian obligation has a very different measure. It is measured by the power that God will give us, measured by the gifts and possible increments of faith. And what a reckoning will it be for many of us, when Christ summons us to answer before Him under the law, not for what we are, but for what we might have been.
Take your duty, and be strong in it, as God will make you strong. The harder it is, the stronger in fact you will be. Understand, also, that the great question here is, not what you will get, but what you will become. The greatest wealth you can ever get will be in yourself. Take your burdens and troubles and losses and wrongs, if come they must and will, as your opportunity, knowing that God has girded you for greater things than these.
Submission to duty and God gives the highest energy. He, who has done the greatest work on earth, said that He came down from heaven, not to do His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him. Whoever allies himself with God is armed with all the forces of the invisible world.
Go to your duty, every man, and trust yourself to Christ; for He will give you all supply just as fast as you need it. You will have just as much power as you believe you can have. Be a Christian; throw yourself upon God's work; and get the ability you want in it.
The great point is to renounce your own wisdom by simplicity of walk, and to be ready to give up the favor, esteem, and approbation of every one, whenever the path in which God leads you passes that way.
Let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen into day, lay this precept well to heart: "Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee," which thou knowest to be a duty! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
When faith and hope fail, as they do sometimes, we must trust charity, which is love in action. We must speculate no more on our duty, but simply do it. When we have done it, however blindly, perhaps Heaven will show us the reason why.
Put thou thy trust in God;
In duty's path go on;
Fix on His word thy steadfast eye;
So shall thy work be done.
Whatever our place allotted to us by Providence, that for us is the post of honor and duty. God estimates us, not by the position we are in, but by the way in which we fill it.
O thou sculptor, painter, poet,
Take this lesson to thy heart;
That is best which lieth nearest;
Shape from that thy work of art.
Our grand business is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.
Is there no reconciliation of some ancient quarrel, no payment of some long outstanding debt, no courtesy or love or honor to be rendered to those to whom it has long been due; no charitable, humble, kind, useful deed, by which you can promote the glory of God, or good-will among men, or peace upon earth? If there be any such, I beseech you, in God's name, in Christ's name, go and do it.
Let men of all ranks whether they are successful, or unsuccessful, whether they triumph or not—let them do their duty, and rest satisfied.
Not infrequently are Christians heard to speak of duties as crosses to be borne; and I am convinced that some among them regard their performance as a complete compliance with the law of self-denial. It is a cross to pray, to speak, to commend Christ to others, to attend church, to frequent the social meetings, and, indeed, to do any thing of a distinctly religious nature. By the force of their will and with the aid of sundry admonitions they bring themselves up to the discharge of those obligations, but, on the whole, they feel that it should entitle them to a place in "the noble army of martyrs." I am sorry to dissipate the comfortable illusion; but I am compelled to assure them that they totally misapprehend the doctrine of our Lord. He said that it was His meat and drink to do the will of His Father; and He never once refers to duty in any other way than as a delight. The cross was something distinct from it.
We should learn never to interpret duty by success. The opposition which assails us in the course of obedience is no evidence that we are mistaken.