Category: Sermons

And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.—Paul. The canons of society, growing out of that something we call good taste, have succeeded in banishing from conversation nearly all allusions to personal affairs. The prohibition is based upon two […]

Be not slothful in business; be fervent in spirit; serve the Lord.—Paul. By common usage a distinction is made between the term business and the term work. When, singly or in groups, persons toil for some end with brain or muscle their activity is called work. If a certain amount of capital is involved with […]

God setteth the solitary in families. Hebrew Poetry. Whatever is excellent in the state must always begin at the fireside.—Plato. If that which the men of science teach is true, these two sentences must have been written a very long time after the human race appeared on earth. They both belong to a far remote […]

I have called you friends. Jesus. The fountains of my hidden life Are through thy friendship fair. Emerson. In his entire being man stands related to many things. First, he comes in contact with a material world. With his feet he presses upon the unyielding earth. His hands grasp a hundred tangible objects. The sense […]

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.-Hebrew Proverb. This is what I call debasing the moral currency; lowering the value of every inspiring fact and tradition.-George Eliot. Many of us must have frequently reflected over the origin, the development, the present meaning, and the probable future of the words […]

The flesh profiteth nothing; it is the spirit maketh alive. Lo! I am with you always.—New Testament. It is the fate of every notable man to suffer from misrepresentation. His good and bad qualities are equally exaggerated. Perhaps no absolutely correct biography has ever been or ever can be written. Doubtless Boswell overpraised Johnson and […]

Continue in prayer.-Paul. Prayer is a study of truth ; a sally of the soul into the unfound infinite.-Emerson. Let every man study his prayers, and read his duty in his petitions.-Jeremy Taylor. A German writer calls man the “endless cause-seeker.” This designation contains much truth, for no sooner is an object or event presented […]

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him.-Jesus. Prayer purifies. it is a self-preached sermon.-Richter. God helps them that help themselves.-Franklin. We have long since abandoned hope of finding all good persons ranged on one side of any question whose solution depends upon logic. With the exception of a few […]

For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ.-PAUL. The beginnings of things are usually small and unpromising. In that company of men and women and children, fleeing out of Egypt by night, an observer could not have seen much prospect of a coming nation whose acts would some time be-come history, and whose […]

Strive to enter in at the strait gate.— New Testament. So he went on with haste like one treading on forbidden ground ; neither spake he to any man by the way. So in process of time Christian got up to the gate. Pilgrim’s Progress. These sentences might be supplemented by many others of similar […]