“Ah, my brother, it is a far harder thing, and it is afar higher proof of a thorough-going, persistent, Christian principle woven into the very texture of my soul, to go on plodding and patient, never taken by surprise by any small temptation, than to gather into myself the strength which God has given me, and, expecting some great storm to come down upon me, to stand fast, and let it rage. It is a great deal easier to die once for Christ than to live always for Him.” SoulChristianDiesGivenChristDealsPrinciplesTakenBrotherGoes OnHigherEasierHarderSurprisePatientStormProofRageTemptationMy SoulMy BrotherExpectingPersistentTextureWovenThoroughAfar Author:Alexander MacLaren
“Hope is to a man as a bladder to a learning swimmer--it keeps him from sinking in the bosom of the waves, and by that help he may attain the exercise; but yet it many times makes him venture beyond his height, and then if that breaks, or a storm rises, he drowns without recovery. How many would die, did not hope sustain them! How many have died by hoping too much! This wonder we find in Hope, that she is both a flatterer and a true friend.” IfsMenMayHelpingDiesHopeWonderBreakToo MuchExerciseDiedWaveStormRecoveryHeightVentureTrue FriendBosomsSinkingSwimmerFlattererBladder Author:Owen Feltham
“Man alone knows that he must die; but that very knowledge raises him, in a sense, above mortality, by making him a sharer in the vision of eternal truth. He becomes the spectator of his own tragedy; he sympathizes so much with the fury of the storm that he has no ears left for the shipwrecked sailor, though the sailor were his own soul. The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.” KnowsMenSoulDiesLeftVisionTruth IsEternalEarsTragedyRaisesStormMortalitySpectatorsFurySailor Author:George Santayana