Charles Reynolds Brown

“ It is easy for any man to fall in love with some beautiful woman—it is as easy as rolling off a log, and ever so much more delightful. It is easy for any man to inhale the sweet incense which arises from the devotion of some affectionate woman's heart. But where a man loves a man in an unsullied, unselfish friendship until his soul is knit with the soul of that man in an interlacing and interlocking of interest, then you have that harder, rarer form of human relationship which is rich with promise. ”

“ Let every man who looks down upon some lowly life beware lest he despise what God has blessed!
Here was a young man who had vision! He saw things. He did not merely "look," as would some dog that bays the moon. When he walked across the plains of Dothan his mind was not altogether upon wool and mutton—he was already dreaming of high achievement in his future years. When he was thrown into the pit and sold into slavery his brain was busy with the stars. When he faced temptation he saw it all with the eye of faith—how could he do this great wickedness and sin against God. ”

“ The ultimate shaping of its life is in the hands of the men who walk the busy streets and dusty lanes with their feet on the ground but with their heads and their hearts among the stars. The men of vision and faith sometimes lose a skirmish; now and then they are defeated in a battle; but when the war is fought through to a finish they are on the winning side. ”

“ Why not have men at their best in the mill and in the mine, on the farm and in the factory, in the counting-room and in the places of trade? The armies which are sent forth to save, to feed, and to clothe men's lives, no less than the armies of bloodshed have need of the same high discipline. They, too, are crippled and broken, they are driven back and hurled to defeat by those moral foes which march under the banner of self-indulgence.
Here is an evil traffic which flaunts its wares in our faces in every city block where the forces of righteousness have not risen in strength to cast it out. ”

“ If a man falls out of a fifth story window in New York, in Constantinople, or in Calcutta, the law of gravitation is there and the man gets hurt. The moral order never forgets anything, never overlooks anything. What men sow, they reap, though the harvest be long delayed. If they sow to the flesh, sometime, somewhere they go out with bruised hands and bleeding hearts to reap corruption. When they sow to the spirit they will in the same inevitable way reap life eternal. Here at last the man of purpose and of faith is reaping the results of discipline bravely met and nobly borne. ”

“ The hard task of presenting to Him a life which will bear His own eye and win His approval will mortgage the best strength of all your best years.
You may have the body of an athlete. You may have a mind with splendid capacity in it for real achievement. You may have a heart which reacts as promptly as gunpowder when a spark of genuine aspiration is applied to it. You may have all these—I hope you have—but unless you have learned the high art of staying by, of holding on, of keeping at it no matter what comes, you are doomed to defeat. ”

“ And when David increased year after year in stature, in wisdom, and in favour with God and men, Saul tried repeatedly to kill him. His soul cried out, "Let me feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him."
It is not easy for any man, especially a young man with hot, red blood in his veins and the sense of injustice rankling in his heart, to stand up in the face of hatred and malice and keep sweet about it. "Love your enemies. Bless them who curse you. Do good to them that hate you. Pray for those who despitefully use you." ”

“ The men of our country who have red blood in their veins and the sense of justice in their hearts are saying, "How long, O Lord, how long!" War is a terrible thing and no honest man ever speaks lightly of war. But there are things which are worse than war. The loss of all capacity for moral indignation is worse. The easy, lazy, cowardly acquiescence in lawlessness and crime is worse. The loss of the readiness to sacrifice one's very life, if need be, for those ends which are just and right, is infinitely worse. ”

“ He did it by changing men's thoughts about God—"To us there is but one God, the Father." He did it by changing men's conception of goodness—to be good is to be like Him, simple, genuine, spontaneous, in our love and practice of the right life. He did it by changing the hearts of men from within—"If any man is in Christ he is a new creature." He did it by setting in our human sky a fixed star of hope to shine on until the day dawns and the shadows flee away. ”

“ If it is good for men to be sober and clean in war time, why not at all times? Have we not sore need of these same qualities in the more exacting pursuits of peace? Every man who is worthy of the name of man is set to guard some sacred interest, though he carries neither gun nor sword.
Here is the everlasting fight being waged three hundred and sixty-five days in the year—and it is waged year in and year out for there is no discharge in that war—against hunger and cold, against disease and death, against poverty and crime! ”

“ The young chap who is never quite happy with his fellows, who must always have some adoring young woman present in order to be content, is not quite all there. He is a "softy." He is lath and plaster where there should be quartered oak. He has sentiment than principle; he has less muscle and more fat than go to the make-up of a virile manhood. The very absence of the glamour and mystery which enters into all attachments between those of opposite sex clears the air for the manifestation of some of those fine forms of fidelity and devotion which belong to friendship at its best. ”

“ Begin with those words on your lips, with that thought in your mind and with the filial spirit in your heart. When you worship "Worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." When you would turn away from the evil of your life say, "I will arise and go to my Father." When you want assurance say, "No man can pluck me out of my Father's hand." When you come to die say, "Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit." Death is the act of a tired child falling back into the arms of his Father. ”

“ This young man owed his ultimate success to the fact that he was a man of vision. There is a certain fascination in the story of any life which rises from obscurity to eminence. Whether the path lies from the log cabin of a rail splitter to the White House, from the lowly work of the lanyard to the head of victorious armies, or from a pit on the plains of Dothan to a palace on the banks of the Nile, there is something in the human heart which responds to the unfolding of such a life-story. ”

“ Through all those long hard years which lay between the pit of Dothan and the palace of Pharaoh, he was sustained by that vision of things divine which shone perpetually in his sky.
"A man in whom the spirit of God is"—here is the ultimate reason for every splendid advance! Here is the ultimate reason why any man is able to rise from those lower levels where wool and mutton are the main considerations to those higher levels where he becomes a trusted implement in the hand of God for a service that will endure. ”

“ It is up out of those moments of contrition when men are humbled and broken before God that the spiritual impulses come which are to beat back the forces of evil and make this earth at last as fair as the sky.
I care not what the man's outward station may be—he may live on the Avenue or he may live in the slums; he may be clothed in purple or he may be dressed in rags; he wear a Phi Beta Kappa key or he may be so untaught that he has to make his mark when he signs a mortgage—in any event here is a prayer which will fit his lips—it fits every pair of lips: "God be merciful to me, a sinner." ”

“ David was a man after God's own heart, not because he never did wrong, but because when he fell down he got up again. He got up again faced towards God and not away from Him, faced away from the evil which had thrown him down and not towards a further advance in wrong-doing. "The wise make of their moral failures ladders by which they climb towards Heaven. The foolish make of their moral failures graves wherein they bury all their highest hopes." ”

“ Have we not great need at this very hour of just such men! It has been given to you and to me to live through one of the great, searching crises of human history. The world has never seen a struggle so gigantic. We have been patient for more than two years with a certain nation across the sea—patient clear up to the border of what has seemed to some of our neighbours like a lazy acquiescence in lawlessness. ”

“ This young man of good fortune stood up in the temple in the presence of his fellows making his open confession of moral need. "Woe is me for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips."
In that very hour when this honest confession came from his lips his life was cleansed by the direct action of the divine spirit. He saw one of the winged seraphs flying towards him through the open spaces of Heaven. The angel took a live coal from the altar and laid it upon the lips of this young man. He cried out as he did it, saying, "Thine iniquity is taken away. Thy sin is purged." ”

“ The circular letter which Lord Kitchener, head of the War Office, sent to every British soldier when the English troops were ordered to the Continent reads like a classic:
"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King. The honour of the British Army depends upon your individual conduct. You have a task to perform which will need courage, energy, and patience. Be on your guard against excesses. You will find temptation both in women and in wine. Resist both and do your duty bravely. Fear God. Honour the King.
" (Signed) KITCHENER." ”

“ In that sterner war where there is no discharge, in that age-long, world-wide fight against the evils of earth this same sound principle holds. Money is needed; counsel is needed; organization and administrative ability are needed. The bringing in of that kingdom which is not meat and drink, nor shot and shell, but righteousness and peace and joy in the divine spirit, requires all these fine forms of effort. But nothing can ever take the place of that personal consecration of each man's own soul to the service of the living God. ”

“ Then Jesus showed the two men in the next world, Lazarus the beggar now in Abraham's bosom, and the son of good fortune enduring torment.
There is no hint that the Rich Man had gained a penny of his wealth wrongfully; no charge of lying or theft, of murder or adultery is laid at his door. He was damned not by the wicked things he had done, but for the lack of that generous and humane service which he had left undone. His sin was that of selfish indifference. The way to perdition is paved with moral neglect. The debt of privilege can no more be escaped than death or taxes. ”

“ He has taught us how to hope and to trust and in that sign to conquer.
He tasted the whole human situation for every man. He was tempted in all points like as we are, and tried by those ordeals which culminated on Calvary. "In this world," He said, "ye shall have tribulation." The word He used means literally "pressure." Life is not all music and refreshments. Every honest life must be lived under pressure. It is compelled to do its work under the steady weight of duty, obligation, responsibility. It is compelled to fight a good fight in order to keep its faith and finish its course. ”

“ There are interests which are worth fighting for and, if need be, they are worth dying for. The sanctity of womanhood and the safety of little children, the security of those interests which are essential to human well-being and the protection of our homes, the honour and integrity of our country, and the maintenance of those majestic principles of righteousness which underlie all social advance—these ends are worth dying for. ”

“ There you have all the necessary ingredients for a family explosion. When any young man is a favourite son, and a talebearer, and is filled to the eyes with self-conceit, he has in him the sulphur, the saltpeter, and the charcoal which enter into the composition of that sort of gunpowder which is liable to blow him up. You do not wonder that his brothers hated him. You are not surprised that when they saw him coming across the fields at Dothan they said with a sneer, "Behold, the dreamer cometh!" ”