Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

“ A good school is never disorderly, yet it cannot be said that the best school is always the most orderly. Occasionally one sees a Sunday school where order has gone to the extreme of repressing all enthusiasm, where the program is too finely cut and too thoroughly dried, where the mechanism moves with the precision of the lockstep in a state prison. The ideal of the Sunday school is not that of the French minister of education who is reported to have stated that he could look at his watch and tell at that minute what question was before each class in every school in France! ”

“ If I understand Chautauqua, this is what it means: It finds its value in the vitality of its students. . . . It summons those who are alive with true human hunger to come and learn of that great world of knowledge of which he who knows the most knows such a very little, and feels more and more, with every increase of his knowledge, how very little it is that he knows. ”

“ When we open the Old Testament we find it, first of all, a book of history. We are apt to look upon the Bible as a dictionary of doctrine, wherein we are to search for sentences as proof-texts. But instead it contains the story of redemption in the form of a history. We see how God chose a family and pruned off its dead branches and caused it to grow into a nation; then, how he trained and disciplined that nation through fifteen centuries, until upon it blossomed the Divine Man. The history of the Bible is the history of humanity, of literature, of ethics, of religion, of doctrine ”

“ The harvest is the end of the world and the reapers are the angels of God. Just as the weeds are gathered from among the good grain and burned in the fire, so shall it be at the end of the world. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all that do evil and cause harm, and shall throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and wail and gnash their teeth. But in that day, the children of God, the true wheat, shall shine like the sun in the kingdom of their heavenly Father."
Then to his disciples, not to the crowd, Jesus gave three more parables. ”

“ His coming to earth was the culmination of all prophecy, the focus of all history, and the center of all doctrine; and the church which he founded has been for nineteen centuries the inspiration of the world's progress. There are two subjects in the New Testament with which every follower of Christ should be thoroughly acquainted, and they are its two most prominent themes: the life of Christ on earth, and the growth of the early church. In the life of Christ he should know the order of the leading events; he should grasp its principles, and should enter into its spirit. ”

“ Let me name only one reason more why we should know the story of Jesus: through him we have what we need most of all—the forgiveness of our sins. Suppose that someone who watches us all the time should keep a list of every wrong-doing, of every fiery temper, of every angry word, of every blow struck, of every time that one of us failed to do what is right, of every time that one let pass a chance to do some good act to another—what a long list it would be! There is such a list kept. An eye that never sleeps sees every act, the eye of God ”

“ I cried out in ecstacy, "Behold Mount Zion." Through the mists of earth I saw the splendors of heaven. The story of the transfiguration on Mount Hermon, in the days of Jesus, if taken literally, is not so marvelous as the history we call the life and character of Jesus. Both belong to the realm of the supernatural. The "life" granted, the transfiguration has no surprise in it. So I discover the strange blending of the natural and supernatural in the Land and the Book,—in the Land as to-day hallowed by the Book,—in the Book as to-day supported and made real by the Land. ”

“ Considering all the difficulties and discomforts of those early days—travel, baggage, no hotels nor boarding houses, a crowded dining hall with a hungry procession outside perhaps in the rain waiting for seats at the tables, the food itself none of the best—it is surprising that some thousands of people not only found the Assembly, but stayed to its conclusion, were happy in it, lived in an enchanted land for a fortnight, and resolved to return the very next year! ”

“ Special effort should be made in leading the scholars to personal consecration to Christ and to union with the Church; for if the great decision be not made before the age of sixteen is reached, there is great danger that it will never be reached. But that decision should include more than a formal profession. It should embrace a full surrender to the will of Christ, an inward, conscious spiritual life, an aim for completeness of Christian character, and especially a willingness to work for God and humanity. Youth is a season of ardor and of energy, a period of lofty ideals and noble endeavor. ”

“ The Christian doctrine was Jewish; and the Jewish mind was not given to subtle intellectual questions. But when Christianity ceased to be Jewish and began to Gentile it was dominated by the Greek spirit of restless inquiry. Asia Minor was the home of wild, uncontrolled thinking. Sects almost without number appeared, wrangled, and divided over every article of the creed. The more mysterious the question, the more apart from practical life and from human interest, the more fascinating became the study. ”

“ The New Testament is the outgrowth and development of the Old. There is no revelation in the gospels or the epistles which is not in its essence contained in the elder Scripture; though to make it manifest required the incarnation of God's Son and the descent of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to understand the New Testament it is necessary to study the Old Testament. We cannot appreciate Matthew's point of view of Christ as the Messiah until we have looked upon the throne of David, and Solomon in all his glory; the theology of Paul is blind until read in the light of Moses and Isaiah ”

“ You do not understand that whether Jesus is or is not a prophet coming from God, it is better that one man should die, instead of having all the people destroyed. Let us all agree that Jesus shall be killed, and that the people of Israel shall be saved from death."
These words of Caiaphas the high priest meant more than he knew when he spoke them. He was himself, being the high priest, speaking a prophecy, that Jesus was to die for the people; for that was what Jesus was soon to do. He was to die for the sins of the people; not only for the Jewish people but for all the people of the world. ”

“ We would unfurl bright maps and open new books, and delight them in a field of thought and research, in which healthful influences prevail, a field of fragrant and thornless flowers, of luscious and life-giving fruit. ”

“ Anyone can teach the scholar who is eager to learn; but to teach those who come to the class unprepared and careless, to send them away with a clear-cut understanding of the lesson, and an awakened intelligence and conscience—all this, under the conditions of the Sunday-school teacher's task, and in his peculiar relation to his scholars, requires not only ability, but also thoroughly trained ability. ”

“ Look through telescopes, but find God. Look for Him revealed in the throbbing life about you, in the palpitating stars above, in the marvelous records of the earth beneath you, and in your own souls. Study the possibilities which God unfolds, and make of yourself all that you can. The harder the struggle, the brighter the crown. ”

“ Then they were in a rage at him, and said, "You may be his disciple, but we are disciples of Moses, and we obey his laws. We know that God spoke to Moses, but we do not know where this fellow comes from!"
"Well, this is very strange!" answered the man. "You do not know where he comes from; and yet he has opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to bad men; but if any man is God-fearing, and does God's will, that man God will hear. Since the world began, no one ever heard before of a man that could open the eyes of one born blind. If this Jesus were not of God, he could do nothing." ”

“ At no time was peace prevalent over all the world at once. If Christ had come at that time it would have been impossible to establish the Gospel except through war and conquest. But kingdoms were absorbed into empires, empires rose and fell by turns, each with a larger conception of the nation than its predecessor. From the crude combination of undigested states in the Assyrian Empire to the orderly, assimilated, systematic condition of the Roman world was a great advance. ”

“ Yes, I tell you, John the Baptist was indeed a prophet, and more than a prophet. He was the King's messenger, to prepare the way for the King himself. Of a truth, I tell you all that no greater man was ever born into this world than John the Baptist. And yet he that is least in the Kingdom of God is higher even than John."
Jesus meant that those who could come into the Kingdom of God, as those who heard the gospel might come, were higher than even the greatest of those who prepare the way for the Kingdom. ”

“ You are not going to be put to death in Jerusalem; you are going to Jerusalem to sit on the throne of David, and reign over the land!"
But Jesus turned his back upon Peter, and looking upon his disciples, said:
"Get away from me, Satan! You would turn me away from doing God's will! For you look at things, not as God looks at them, but as man does!"
Jesus saw that in Peter's mind was the view of the kingdom that Satan had shown him in his great temptation on the mountain, not as a kingdom of God, but as a kingdom such as men were expecting, a kingdom like those of the world. ”

“ Jesus spoke to them this parable, but they did not understand its meaning. So he explained it to them.
"In truth I tell you," he said, "I am the Door for the sheep. All who ever came before me and not in my name, were thieves and robbers, but the sheep would not listen to them. I am the Door, whoever enters by me will be safe; and he shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.
"I am not only the Door, but also the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his own life for his sheep. ”

“ I will give you a sign from heaven. In the evening, at sunset you say, 'It will be fine weather, for the sky is as red as fire.' But in the morning, if the sky is red, you say, 'It will be a stormy day, for the sky is red as fire, and threatening.' You learn to read the signs in the sky, yet you do not know how to read the signs of the times. ”