Remember, O Lord, to crown the year with Your goodness; for the eyes of all wait upon You, and You give them their meant in due season. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing….Happy is that people that is in such a case; yea, happy is that people whose God is the LORD.
- Lancelot Andrewes -
So glorious are your works that skies full of pearl, globes of gold, spheres of silver larger than the earth are dross and poverty in comparison to your treasures, all of which you offer me to partake of.
- Thomas Traherne -
And he showed me the robe, just as a bridegroom shows it to the bride whom he has loved a long time. It was neither of purple nor of scarlet, nor of silk, nor of woven gold, but it was a certain marvelous light that clothed the soul.
- Angela Of Foligno -
I have been reading Isaiah the Optimist. What an inspiring challenge he issues to Israel on Jehovah’s behalf: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations; spare not; lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right and on the left.” … Let us, like Carey, “Expect great things from God.”
- David De Forest Burrell -
O son, now I know why you are so pleasing in the eyes of God. Early have you learned the love which gives all and asks nothing, which suffers long and is ever kind, and this I have not learned. A small thing and too common it seemed to me, but now I see that it is holier than austerities and avails more than fasting and is the prayer of prayers.
- Simeon The Stylite -
And you, as long as you are pilgrim travelers in this mortal life, cannot walk without suffering, for because of sin the earth has produced thorns ….
- St. Catherine Of Siena -
A blow well given now would not merely disperse the mob and set the Nazarene free; it would be a trumpet call to Israel and precipitate the long-dreamt-of war for freedom …. The sovereign moment of his life was upon Ben-Hur. Could he have taken the offer and said the word, history might have been other than it is; but then it would have been history ordered by men, not God-something that never was and never will be.
- Lewis Wallace -
The weather, however, was so mild on the preceding day that it might have been spring, and I no longer dared hope for a fall of snow…. Then, turning toward the quadrangle, I saw that everything was covered with snow! What a delicate attention on the part of Jesus!… Where is the creature with power enough to make even one flake fall to please his beloved?
- St. Therese Of Lisieux -
I saw at once the way to salvation…. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun; and I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them, of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks alone to Him.
- Charles Haddon Spurgeon -
On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise, And the glory of His resurrection share; When His chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies, And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.
- James Milton Black -
…. amid the solemn silence which reigned-silence the more solemn and impressive because of the rage and fury of the tempest around-Mr. Draper stood up, the tears streaming down his face, but with a firm clear voice, said, “The captain tells us there is no hope, that we must all perish. But I tell you there is hope, hope for all.”
- Daniel J. Draper -
…. while we are called on to use all proper means and precautions of safety, God will sometimes show us our absolute and immediate dependence on Him by making the very means which we employ the occasion of bringing us to the very borders of the grave.
- Rev. Richard Cecil -
He who upholds the universe, with whom and through whom are all things, was brought forth by common childbirth. He at whose voice archangels and angels tremble, and heaven and earth and all the elements of this world are melted, was heard in childish wailing. The invisible and incomprehensible, whom sight and feeling and touch cannot gauge, was wrapped in a cradle….
- St. Hilary Of Poitiers -
Read the psalm of David and you’ll see there how all the contemplation and practice of the most holy prophet was to think on the commandments and the Law of God…. Consider as certain, then that this is the true contemplation, because from here the soul receives knowledge of the infinite goodness, greatness, and mercy of God; from here it comes to knowledge of its own smallness and wretchedness.
- Juan De Valdes -
… all saints of all the ages, whose faces in the flesh we never saw, whom we shall there both know and comfortably enjoy…. Those who now are willing ministering spirits for our good will willingly then be our companions in joy for the perfecting of our good…. I think, Christian, this will be a more honorable assembly than ever you beheld, and a more happy society than you were ever of before….
- Richard Baxter -
O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, laid thine hand upon me.
- Psalm 139:1-5 -
In the Fellowship [of true believers], cultural and educational and national and racial differences are leveled…. The scholar listens with joy and openness to the precious experiences of God’s dealing with the workingman…. The final grounds of holy fellowship are in God. Lives immersed and drowned in God are drowned in love, and know one another in Him, and know one another in love.
- Thomas R. Kelly -
There is one that passes all others and is the most diligent prelate and preacher…. And will you know who he is? I will tell you-it is the devil…. He is ever applying his business; you shall never find him idle, I warrant you…. Oh that our prelates would be as diligent to sow the corn of good doctrine as Satan is to sow cockle and darnel!
- Hugh Latimer -
Question 120: Why has Christ commanded us to address God thus: Our Father?
Answer: To awaken in us, at the very beginning of our prayer, that childlike reverence and trust toward God which are to be the ground of our prayer, namely, that God has become our Father through Christ and will much less deny us what we ask of Him in faith than our parents refuse earthly things….
- The Heidelberg Catechism -
For know that from the beginning of the world, life has betrayed those who have built upon it, it fopped those who sought it, and derided those who trusted in it. And there is so little security in it that one may well say one is completely deceived by it.
- St. Sebastian -
Human words fail when it comes to describing what he saw and heard…. His heart simultaneously hungry and appeased; his wishes were stilled and every desire found its fulfillment…. “If that was not a foretaste of heaven, then I do not know what heaven is. Now I am fully convinced that every suffering that can possibly come my way is a cheap price to pay for such gain….”
- Henry Suso -
…on reading the account as recorded in Mark, I was struck to see that [the colt]…could not possibly get free of itself, that the Lord had reserved it for His own special use, and that He had but to speak and then no cords or chains could bing it any longer. A little faith was raised up in my heart to believe that He was able to do the same for me….
- Mary Grace Banfeild -
For he that never doubted, never believed; for whosoever believes in truth, feels sometimes doubtings ans waverings. Even as the sound body feels many grudging of diseases, which if he had not health, he could not feel; so the sound soul feels some doubtings, which if it were not sound, it could not so easily feel.
- Arthur Dent -
Be praised, my Lord, for those who pardon others for Your love and endure it in peace, for by You, Most High, they will be crowned.
- Brother Leo -
No man’s sight is so strong that he can read in the dark; neither can reason without revelation guide us to heaven.
- Rev. William Scott Downey -
For this cause, yea, and for all things, I praise You, I bless You, I glorify You, through the eternal and heavenly High-priest Jesus Christ, Your beloved Son, through whom with Him and the Holy Spirit be glory to You both now and for the ages to come. Amen.
- St. Polycarp -
… morning, when as arising by little and little it goes changing and investing the horizon with the horizon with the light of the sun: so does the love of God change the just man that perseveres therein, giving him every day more and more light, until he is wholly transformed.
- Achilles Galliardi -
The weakest and the lowest, the roughest and the hardest, the most selfishly absorbed man and woman among us has lying in him or her dormant capacities for flaming up into such a splendor of devotion and magnificence of heroic self-forgetfulness and self-sacrifice as is represented in many words on the Bible.
- Rev. Alexander Maclaren -
Tell me the same old story, when you have cause to fear that this world’s empty glory is costing me too dear…..
- Katherine Hankey -
The next comparison was a spider. I didn’t like this at all, but [the speaker] said if we went into a gilded palace filled with luxury, we might see a spider holding onto something, oblivious to all the luxury below. It was laying hold of things above.
- Dwight L. Moody -
One must hold fast to the World of God, so that if I should behold all the angels and hear them telling me not to believe some verse of Scripture, not only ought I not to be moved by them, but I ought to close my eyes and ears, for they would be unworthy of being looked upon or listened to.
- Martin Luther -
I should like a great lake of the finest ale for the King of Kings. I should like a table of the choicest food for the family of heaven. Let the ale be made from the fruits of faith, and the food be forgiving love.
- “Brigid’s Feast” -
…. with eyes uplifted to heaven, [Simeon] says, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.” Joseph and Mary stand lost in wonder. How has this stranger come to see anything uncommon in this child?
- Willian Hanna -
If one reads the book of Psalms straight through, no matter how familiar many passages may be, the glory and splendor of the majestic poetry will come like a fresh revelation; and if one read the last three psalms aloud, one will feel how all the hymns of sorrow, delight, repentance, and adoration unite in one grand universal chorus of praise.
- William Lyon Phelps -
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee; take my voice and let me sing always, only, for my King.
- Frances Ridley Havergal -
We are going, we are going to a home beyond the skies, where the fields are robed in beauty, and the sunlight never dies.
- Fanny Crosby -
It was not good for men to see too many miracles. They would feast their eyes and then cease to wonder or think.
- George MacDonald -
What should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money?… Yet this is what Jesus did. He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured…. as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offenses.
- C. S. Lewis -
It was for this that the persecutors sought after the Saints-that there might be no one to teach [the Word]. For this cause the Saints endured all things, that the Gospel might be preached. Behold, while they were thus engaged in conflict with their enemies, they passed not the time of their flight unprofitably; not while they were persecuted, did they forget the welfare of others.
- Athanasius -
God forbid that we should bury anything. There is no earth that can touch my companion. There is no earth that can touch my child. The jewel is not in the ground. The jewel is gone from the casket, and I have buried the casket, not the jewel.
- Henry Ward Beecher -
All things for the good of the soul and body are promised to him that believes. O that the Lord may increase your faith and mine! In an hour of need may you find Him very, very near to your heart, and filling you with joy and peace in believing.
- William Romaine -
We are now to praise the Maker of the heavenly kingdom; the power of the Creator ad his counsel, the deeds of the Father of glory. How He, being the eternal God, become the author of all miracles, who first, as almighty preserver of the human race, created heaven for the sons of men as the roof of the house, and next the earth.
- Caedmon -
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Face the rising sun of our new day begun…God of our weary year, God of our silent tears, thou who hast brought us thus far on the way….
- James Weldon Johnson -
I say, this good old man was as dear a lover and constant practicer of angling as any age can produce; and his custom was to spend, beside his fixed hours of prayer,… a tenth part of his time in angling; and also (for I have conversed with those which have conversed with him) to bestow a tenth part of his revenue-and usually all his fish-amongst the poor…
- Izaak Walton About Dr. Alexander Nowel -
[Love's power] spreads because the beams of its goodness spread not only to friends and neighbors but to enemies and strangers as well. It binds because it unites the lover in action and will with Christ and other holy saints….And it transforms because it turns the lover into the beloved and bears one to the other.
– Richard Rolle Of Hampole -
You must stay perseveringly with him who I have made a bridge for you. Let neither thorn nor contrary wind, neither prosperity nor adversity nor any other suffering you might have to bear, make you turn back. You must persevere until you find me and I give you living water though the mediation of this gentle loving Word, my only-begotten Son.
– St. Catherine Of Siena -
Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet repose; with thy tenderest blessing may our eyelids close.
– Sabine Baring Gould -
No one can read God’s Holy Word but he will see that the greatest saints have been the greatest mourners. David “wept whole rivers”… St. Paul was humbled, and bewailed and wept for the sins of others; and our Lord himself when he “beheld the city wept over it.” Learn then of these great saints, learn of our most compassionate Savior to weep for the public and, weeping, to pray….
– Thomas Ken -
In that place you must wear crowns of gold and enjoy the perpetual sight and vision of the Holy One, for “there you shall see him as he is.” There also you shall serve him continually with praise, with shouting and thanksgiving, whom you desired to serve in the world, through with much difficulty because of the infirmity of your flesh.
- John Bunyan -
People who love themselves rightly, even as they ought to love their neighbor…. know what needs correction at home as well as elsewhere; they strive heartily and vigorously to correct it, but they deal with self as they would deal with someone else they wished to bring to God. They set to work patiently,….not being disheartened because perfection is not attainable in a day….
- Francois Fenelon -
And Winter may not pass a weary while, but when it passes Spring shall flower again; and in that Spring who weepeth now shall smile. Yea, they shall wax who now are on the wane, yea, they shall sing for love when Christ shall come.
- Christine Rossetti -
O Lord, ever, ever, and again did you deliver [your people] and send provision for them by your own covenant…. “This God is our God; we will make mention of his righteousness, and his only.” By his own providing, he will revive us. Amen.
- Isabella Graham -
But let us turn our attention to more important matters. The bride is in love with her husband and his bride is in love with Christ. I am a member of that mystical body and share her ecstasy.
- Eric Gill -
… Christ opened, little by little, Durtal’s closed house and gave it air; light entered into Durtal in a flood. From the windows of his senses, which had looked till then into he knew not what cesspool, into that enclosure, dank and steeped in shadow; he now looked suddenly, through a burst of light, on a vista which lost itself in heaven.
- Joris-Karl Huysmans -
… we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed
- Brother Lawrence -
You make us sorry for the lepers, who had only a coarse old peasant for their friend and father…. Or may I remind you that we have some reason to doubt if John the Baptist were genteel; and … Peter, on whose career you doubtless dwell approvingly in the pulpit, no doubt at all that he was a “coarse, headstrong” fisherman! Yet even in our Protestant Bibles, Peter is called a saint.
- Robert Louis Stevenson -
Nothing causes a man to sin so often as his tongue….
- St. Tikhon Of Zadonsk -
When he shall come with sound of trumphet in the clouds, as upon the wind, you shall come with him; and when he shall sit upon the throne of judgement, you shall sit by him; yea, and when he shall pass sentence upon all the workers of iniquity, let them be angels or men, you also shall have a voice in that judgement, because they were his and your enemies.
- John Bunyan -
Every “Thou shalt not” [in the Ten Commandments] is a disclosure of what men have done, and are prone to do, and would like to do again if they dared. The commandments sound like a shouting from the mountaintop of the secrets of many hearts. After each divine word which says, “Thou shalt not,” follows a human murmur which says, “But I will.”
- Henry Van Dyke -
And, therefore, if we want our prayers to reach not only the sky, but what is beyond the sky, let us be careful to reduce our soul, purged from all earthly faults and purified from every stain, to its natural lightness, so that our prayer may rise to God unchecked by the weight of any sin….
- St. John Cassian -
Now that the Daystar doth arise, beg we of God with humble cries hurtful things to keep away while we duly spend the day. Our tongues to guide so that no strife may breed disquiet in our life….
- John Cosin -
A divine, suffering, self-sacrificing Personality was then shown as the sacred heart of a living, striving universe: and for once the Absolute was exhibited in terms of finite human existence.
- Evelyn Underhill -
I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly; they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express the actions of their inward forms, and having past that general visitation of God, who saw that all he had made was good, that is, conformable to His will, which abhors deformity and is the rule of order and beauty….
- Sir Thomas Browne -
Love is a great thing, a great good indeed, which alone makes light all that is burdensome and bears with even mind all that is uneven. For it carries a burden without being burdened, and it makes all that which is bitter, sweet and savory. The love of Jesus is noble and spurs us on to do great things and excites us to desire always things more perfect.
- Thomas A Kempis -
The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly, simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold us. If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live.
- Oswald Chambers -
The tremendous figure which fills the Gospels towers in this respect, as in every other, above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall…. The Stoics, ancient and modern, were proud of concealing their tears. He never concealed His tears; He showed them plainly on His open face at any daily sight…. He never restrained His anger. He flung furniture down the front steps of the Temple….
- Gilbert Keith Chesterton -
I even suffered death on the cross so that you might be free from death….. Let all the works of earth proclaim… that no greater work could I have performed, nor needed to perform, to bind you devotedly to me, and me to you.
- Jacob Bidermann -
Surely we can both do and endure all things through Christ enabling us…. But the strength of God was made perfect in my weakness, and, therefore, it was that my heart stood fast, believing in the Lord. Oh, may Your grace be ever sufficient for me!
- Augustus Montague Toplady -
A woman is Christ’s first commissioned herald after his resurrection; a woman in whom seven devils had dwelt, his elect messenger to his followers; a woman not suffered to speak in the church, ambassador to the great apostles. It is God’s chosen way; he takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and the foolish to confound the wise, that no flesh may glory in his presence.
- Alexander Moody Stuart -
A woman is Christ’s first commissioned herald after his resurrection; a woman in whom seven devils had dwelt, his elect messenger to his followers; a woman not suffered to speak in the church, ambassador to the great apostles. It is God’s chosen way; he takes the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and the foolish to confound the wise, that no flesh may glory in his presence.
- Alexander Moody Stuart -
The unthinking libertine cries that there is no order… or that God has abandoned human life to the caprices of fate. But perhaps that which seems like confusion to you is really a hidden work of art, and if you could only find that point from which to view things properly, all inequalities would rectify themselves and you would see only wisdom where you saw only disorder before.
- Jacques Benigne Bossuet -
Your royal host I praise because You are my Sovereign. I have disposed my mind to be constantly beseeching You. I beseech a favor from You – that I may be purified from my sins….
- St. Oengus The Culdee -