Part 15
It is as natural and reasonable for a dependent creature to apply to its Creator for what it needs, as for a child thus to solicit the aid of a parent who is believed to have the disposition and ability to bestow what it needs.--ARCHIBALD ALEXANDER.
Prayer is the first breath of Divine life; it is the pulse of the believing soul;--by prayer "we draw water with joy from the wells of salvation;" by prayer faith puts forth its energy, in apprehending the promised blessings, and receiving from the Redeemer's fullness; in leaning on His almighty arm, and making His name our strong tower; and in overcoming the world, the flesh and the devil.--T. SCOTT.
No man can hinder our private addresses to God; every man can build a chapel in his breast, himself the priest, his heart the sacrifice, and the earth he treads on the altar.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly.--MATTHEW 6:6.
Prayer moves the hand that moves the universe.
Holy beginning of a holy cause, When heroes, girt for freedom's combat, pause Before high Heaven, and, humble in their might, Call down its blessing on that coming fight. --MOORE.
It is so natural for a man to pray that no theory can prevent him from doing it.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
The Lord's Prayer contains the sum total of religion and morals. --WELLINGTON.
It lightens the stroke to draw near to Him who handles the rod. --WASHINGTON IRVING.
I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer.--MADAME DE STAEL.
In prayer it is better to have a heart without words than words without a heart.--BUNYAN.
Between the humble and contrite heart and the majesty of Heaven there are no barriers. The only password is prayer.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts; it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness.--JEREMY TAYLOR.
Our prayer and God's mercy are like two buckets in a well; while the one ascends, the other descends.--BISHOP HOPKINS.
Prayer is the voice of faith.--HORNE.
We should pray with as much earnestness as those who expect everything from God; we should act with as much energy as those who expect everything from themselves.--COLTON.
PREACHING.--That is not the best sermon which makes the hearers go away talking to one another, and praising the speaker, but which makes them go away thoughtful and serious, and hastening to be alone.--BURNET.
Be short in all religious exercises. Better leave the people longing than loathing.--NATHANIEL EMMONS.
A good discourse is that from which one can take nothing without taking the life.--FÉNELON.
We must judge religious movements, not by the men who make them, but by the men they make.--JOSEPH COOK.
The world looks at ministers out of the pulpit to know what they mean when in it.--CECIL.
I preached as never sure to preach again, And as a dying man to dying men. --BAXTER.
Let all your preaching be in the most simple and plainest manner; look not to the prince, but to the plain, simple, gross, unlearned people, of which cloth the prince also himself is made. If I, in my preaching, should have regard to Philip Melancthon and other learned doctors, then should I do but little good. I preach in the simplest manner to the unskillful, and that giveth content to all. Hebrew, Greek and Latin I spare until we learned ones come together.--LUTHER.
It requires as much reflection and wisdom to know what is not to be put into a sermon as what is.--CECIL.
To endeavor to move by the same discourse hearers who differ in age, sex, position and education is to attempt to open all locks with the same key.--J. PETIT-SENN.
Men of God have always, from time to time, walked among men, and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer.--EMERSON.
I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching.--LUTHER.
I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vainglory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.--MASSILLON.
PRECEPT.--Precepts are the rules by which we ought to square our lives. When they are contracted into sentences, they strike the affections; whereas admonition is only blowing of the coal.--SENECA.
He that lays down precepts for the government of our lives and moderating our passions obliges human nature, not only in the present, but in all succeeding generations.--SENECA.
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.--SENECA.
Precept must be upon precept.--ISAIAH 28:10.
PREJUDICE.--Prejudice is the child of ignorance.--HAZLITT.
As those who believe in the visibility of ghosts can easily see them, so it is always easy to see repulsive qualities in those we despise and hate.--FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
Prejudice squints when it looks, and lies when it talks.--DUCHESS D'ABRANTES.
Human nature is so constituted that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.--TERENCE.
To all intents and purposes, he who will not open his eyes is, for the present, as blind as he who cannot.--SOUTH.
The prejudices of ignorance are more easily removed than the prejudices of interest; the first are all blindly adopted, the second willfully preferred.--BANCROFT.
Prejudice may be considered as a continual false medium of viewing things, for prejudiced persons not only never speak well, but also never think well, of those whom they dislike, and the whole character and conduct is considered with an eye to that particular thing which offends them.--BUTLER.
Prejudice is the twin of illiberality.--G.D. PRENTICE.
Remember, when the judgment is weak the prejudice is strong.--KANE O'HARA.
Prejudice and self-sufficiency naturally proceed from inexperience of the world and ignorance of mankind.--ADDISON.
How immense to us appear the sins we have not committed.--MADAME NECKER.
PRESENT.--Busy not yourself in looking forward to the events of to-morrow; but whatever may be those of the days Providence may yet assign you neglect not to turn them to advantage.--HORACE.
Make use of time, if thou lovest eternity; know yesterday cannot be recalled, to-morrow cannot be assured: to-day is only thine; which if thou procrastinate, thou losest; which lost, is lost forever: one to-day is worth two to-morrows.--QUARLES.
He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has.--SCHILLER.
Abridge your hopes in proportion to the shortness of the span of human life; for while we converse, the hours, as if envious of our pleasure, fly away: enjoy, therefore, the present time, and trust not too much to what to-morrow may produce.--HORACE.
If we stand in the openings of the present moment, with all the length and breadth of our faculties unselfishly adjusted to what it reveals, we are in the best condition to receive what God is always ready to communicate.--T.C. UPHAM.
Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other--it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future are not come.--COLTON.
Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,--as though that time should be of another make from this, which has already come and is ours.--FULLER.
Let us attend to the present, and as to the future we shall know how to manage when the occasion arrives.--CORNEILLE.
We may make our future by the best use of the present. There is no moment like the present.--MISS EDGEWORTH.
Take all reasonable advantage of that which the present may offer you. It is the only time which is ours. Yesterday is buried forever, and to-morrow we may never see.--VICTOR HUGO.
Every day is a gift I receive from Heaven; let us enjoy to-day that which it bestows on me. It belongs not more to the young than to me, and to-morrow belongs to no one.--MANCROIX.
One of the illusions is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that every day is Doomsday.--EMERSON.
What is really momentous and all-important with us is the present, by which the future is shaped and colored.--WHITTIER.
PRESS.--In the long, fierce struggle for freedom of opinion, the press, like the Church, counted its martyrs by thousands.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
The productions of the press, fast as steam can make and carry them, go abroad through all the land, silent as snowflakes, but potent as thunder. It is an additional tongue of steam and lightning, by which a man speaks his first thought, his instant argument or grievance, to millions in a day.--CHAPIN.
Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights.--JUNIUS.
The liberty of the press is the true measure of all other liberty; for all freedom without this must be merely nominal.--CHATFIELD.
The invention of printing added a new element of power to the race. From that hour, in a most especial sense, the brain and not the arm, the thinker and not the soldier, books and not kings, were to rule the world; and weapons, forged in the mind, keen-edged and brighter than the sunbeam, were to supplant the sword and the battle-axe.--WHIPPLE.
PRETENSION.--It is worth noticing that those who assume an imposing demeanor and seek to pass themselves off for something beyond what they are, are not unfrequently as much underrated by some as overrated by others.--WHATELY.
Where there is much pretension, much has been borrowed: nature never pretends.--LAVATER.
When you see a man with a great deal of religion displayed in his shop window, you may depend upon it he keeps a very small stock of it within.--SPURGEON.
True glory strikes root, and even extends itself; all false pretensions fall as do flowers, nor can anything feigned be lasting.--CICERO.
It is no disgrace not to be able to do everything; but to undertake, or pretend to do, what you are not made for, is not only shameful, but extremely troublesome and vexatious.--PLUTARCH.
He who gives himself airs of importance, exhibits the credentials of impotence.--LAVATER.
The desire of appearing clever often prevents our becoming so. --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The more honesty a man has, the less he affects the air of a saint. --LAVATER.
PRIDE.--Without the sovereign influence of God's extraordinary and immediate grace, men do very rarely put off all the trappings of their pride, till they who are about them put on their winding-sheet. --CLARENDON.
Pride and weakness are Siamese twins.--LOWELL.
Of all the causes that conspire to blind Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind, What the weak head with strongest bias rules, Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools. --POPE.
It is hardly possible to overvalue ourselves but by undervaluing our neighbors.--CLARENDON.
The sin of pride is the sin of sins; in which all subsequent sins are included, as in their germ; they are but the unfolding of this one. --ARCHBISHOP TRENCH.
Some people are proud of their humility.--BEECHER.
Pride requires very costly food--its keeper's happiness.--COLTON.
Pride, of all others the most dangerous fault, Proceeds from want of sense, or want of thought. --ROSCOMMON.
If a man has a right to be proud of anything, it is of a good action done as it ought to be, without any base interest lurking at the bottom of it.--STERNE.
There is this paradox in pride,--it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.--COLTON.
In reality, there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as you please, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself.--FRANKLIN.
Men say, "By pride the angels fell from heaven." By pride they reached a place from which they fell!--JOAQUIN MILLER.
Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.--FRANKLIN.
Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. --PROVERBS 16:18.
If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime. --LEGOUVÉ.
I think half the troubles for which men go slouching in prayer to God are caused by their intolerable pride. Many of our cares are but a morbid way of looking at our privileges. We let our blessings get mouldy, and then call them curses.--BEECHER.
When pride and presumption walk before, shame and loss follow very closely.--LOUIS XI.
How can there be pride in a contrite heart? Humility is the earliest fruit of religion.--HOSEA BALLOU.
In beginning the world, if you don't wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions. Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the side next to the skin. --LYTTON.
Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.--DR. JOHNSON.
An avenging God closely follows the haughty.--SENECA.
Charity feeds the poor, so does pride; charity builds an hospital, so does pride. In this they differ: charity gives her glory to God; pride takes her glory from man.--QUARLES.
The proud man is forsaken of God.--PLATO.
PROCRASTINATION.--Faith in to-morrow, instead of Christ, is Satan's nurse for man's perdition.--REV. DR. CHEEVER.
To be always intending to live a new life, but never to find time to set about it; this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking and sleeping from one day and night to another, till he is starved and destroyed.--TILLOTSON.
By the streets of "By and By" one arrives at the house of "Never." --CERVANTES.
By one delay after another they spin out their whole lives, till there's no more future left for them.--L'ESTRANGE.
Procrastination is the thief of time.--YOUNG.
For Yesterday was once To-morrow.--PERSIUS.
Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.--FRANKLIN.
Indulge in procrastination, and in time you will come to this, that because a thing ought to be done, therefore you can't do it.--CHARLES BUXTON.
PROGRESS.--He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering into living peace.--RUSKIN.
"Can any good come out of Nazareth?" This is always the question of the wiseacres and the knowing ones. But the good, the new, comes from exactly that quarter whence it is not looked for, and is always something different from what is expected. Everything new is received with contempt, for it begins in obscurity. It becomes a power unobserved.--FEUERBACH.
Look up and not down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.--E.E. HALE.
I must do something to keep my thoughts fresh and growing. I dread nothing so much as falling into a rut and feeling myself becoming a fossil.--JAMES A. GARFIELD.
Humanity, in the aggregate, is progressing, and philanthropy looks forward hopefully.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Human improvement is from within outwards.--FROUDE.
An original sentence, a step forward, is worth more than all the centuries.--EMERSON.
Let us labor for that larger and larger comprehension of truth, that more and more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.--HORACE MANN.
We can trace back our existence almost to a point. Former time presents us with trains of thoughts gradually diminishing to nothing. But our ideas of futurity are perpetually expanding. Our desires and our hopes, even when modified by our fears, seem to grasp at immensity. This alone would be sufficient to prove the progressiveness of our nature, and that this little earth is but a point from which we start toward a perfection of being.--SIR HUMPHRY DAVY.
By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression.--BURKE.
We are either progressing or retrograding all the while; there is no such thing as remaining stationary in this life.--JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE.
It is wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the frontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it comes a Latin grammar, and one of those tow-head boys has written a hymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here is one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer's iron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands. --EMERSON.
A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.--LYTTON.
The wisest man may be wiser to-day than he was yesterday, and to-morrow than he is to-day. Total freedom from change would imply total freedom from error; but this is the prerogative of Omniscience alone.--COLTON.
PROSPERITY.--Watch lest prosperity destroy generosity.--BEECHER.
Prosperity seems to be scarcely safe, unless it be mixed with a little adversity.--HOSEA BALLOU.
The increase of a great number of citizens in prosperity is a necessary element to the security, and even to the existence, of a civilized people.--BURET.
Prosperity is the touchstone of virtue; for it is less difficult to bear misfortunes than to remain uncorrupted by pleasure.--TACITUS.
Prosperity demands of us more prudence and moderation than adversity. --CICERO.
We must distinguish between felicity and prosperity; for prosperity leads often to ambition, and ambition to disappointment.--LANDOR.
He that swells in prosperity will be sure to shrink in adversity. --COLTON.
Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too dear.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Prosperity, in regard of our corrupt inclination to abuse the blessings of Almighty God, doth prove a thing dangerous to the soul of man.--HOOKER.
It is one of the worst effects of prosperity to make a man a vortex, instead of a fountain; so that, instead of throwing out, he learns only to draw in.--BEECHER.
Prosperity makes some friends and many enemies.--VAUVENARGUES.
They who lie soft and warm in a rich estate seldom come to heat themselves at the altar.--SOUTH.
Take care to be an economist in prosperity: there is no fear of your being one in adversity.--ZIMMERMAN.
PROVIDENCE.--The Providence of God is the great protector of our life and usefulness, and under the divine care we are perfectly safe from danger.--SPURGEON.
I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. --WHITTIER.
The decrees of Providence are inscrutable. In spite of man's short-sighted endeavors to dispose of events according to his own wishes and his own purposes, there is an Intelligence beyond his reason, which holds the scales of justice, and promotes his well-being, in spite of his puny efforts.--MORIER.
Divine Providence tempers his blessings to secure their better effect. He keeps our joys and our fears on an even balance, that we may neither presume nor despair. By such compositions God is pleased to make both our crosses more tolerable and our enjoyments more wholesome and safe.--W. WOGAN.
He who ruleth the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to His Holy Will. O Abner, I fear my God, and I fear none but Him.--RACINE.
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.--CECIL.
Yes, thou art ever present, power supreme! Not circumscribed by time, nor fixt to space, Confined to altars, nor to temples bound. In wealth, in want, in freedom or in chains, In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee! --HANNAH MORE.
We must follow, not force Providence.--SHAKESPEARE.
Go, mark the matchless working of the power That shuts within the seed the future flower; Bids these in elegance of form excel. In color these, and those delight the smell; Sends nature forth, the daughter of the skies, To dance on earth, and charm all human eyes. --COWPER.
A man's heart deviseth his way: but the Lord directeth his steps. --PROVERBS 16:9.
PRUDENCE.--Men are born with two eyes, but with one tongue, in order that they should see twice as much as they say.--COLTON.
Prudence is that virtue by which we discern what is proper to be done under the various circumstances of time and place.--MILTON.
When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end. --SIR J. DENHAM.
The prudence of the best heads is often defeated by the tenderness of the best of hearts.--FIELDING.
Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.--JEREMY COLLIER.
No other protection is wanting, provided you are under the guidance of prudence.--JUVENAL.
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.--BURKE.
The rules of prudence, like the laws of the stone tables, are for the most part prohibitive. "Thou shalt not" is their characteristic formula.--COLERIDGE.
PUNCTUALITY.--I give it as my deliberate and solemn conviction that the individual who is habitually tardy in meeting an appointment, will never be respected or successful in life.--REV. W. FISK.
I have always been a quarter of an hour before my time, and it has made a man of me.--LORD NELSON.
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time. --HORACE MANN.
It is no use running; to set out betimes is the main point.--LA FONTAINE.
I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.--EMMONS.
PURITY.--Purity in person and in morals is true godliness.--HOSEA BALLOU.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.--MATTHEW 5:8.
God be thanked that there are some in the world to whose hearts the barnacles will not cling.--J.G. HOLLAND.
While our hearts are pure, Our lives are happy and our peace is sure. --WILLIAM WINTER.
Purity lives and derives its life solely from the Spirit of God.--COLTON.
I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within.--SOCRATES.
QUARRELS.--Quarrels would never last long if the fault was only on one side.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.
The quarrels of lovers are like summer storms; everything is more beautiful when they have passed.--MADAME NECKER.
I will rather suffer a thousand wrongs than offer one. I have always found that to strive with a superior is injurious; with an equal, doubtful; with an inferior, sordid and base; with any, full of unquietness.--BISHOP HALL.
He that blows the coals in quarrels he has nothing to do with has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face.--FRANKLIN.
Those who in quarrel interpose, Must often wipe a bloody nose. --GAY.
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel, Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted. --SHAKESPEARE.