Clovis Gillham Chappell

“ Oh, men and women, let us who are fathers and mothers spare ourselves David's terrible agony. Let us spare our children Absalom's tragic ruin. Let us give ourselves the joys of this old time mother. While our children are about us, may we hear the very voice of God speaking to us on their behalf, saying: "Take this child and train it for me and I will give thee thy wages." And wages we shall receive just as surely as did this mother of Moses. We will be privileged to love, to give, to bless. And God Himself can give no richer reward than that. ”

“ But wherever it is, if you walk its streets you will walk them in the joy of the divine fellowship.
On the other hand, you may go to Tarshish. Tarshish is the city of "Have-Your-Own-Way." It is the city of "Do-As-You-Please." It is the city of "Take-it-Easy." It is the city with no garden called Gethsemane without its gates and no rugged hill called Calvary overlooks its walls. It is a city without a cross and yet it is a city where people seldom sing and often sob. It is a city where nobody looks joyously into God's face and calls Him Father.
I met Jonah that day on the wharf. ”

“ But when the storm ceases and the sun shines out he is quite ashamed of his weakness. He is so ashamed that he forgets altogether the promise that he made when the fear of death was upon him.
This is a side of human nature that is a bit disgusting, yet we dare not shut our eyes to it. There are scores listening to me at this very moment who have acted for all the world as Pharaoh acted. And you have done so with all the light that he had and far more. I do not know of a man that is in greater danger of being ultimately lost than that man who never cares for religion except when he is scared. ”

“ Every human soul that is in the Far Country is in want, is hungry for the Bread of Life and thirsty for the Water of Life.
Do you remember what the Greeks said to Andrew that day at Jerusalem? "'Sir, we would see Jesus.' We would have a vision of the face of God's Son." And this is a universal longing. It is a thirst that has burned in the heart of man from the beginning of human history. It is older than the pyramids. It is a cry that is the very mother of religion. ”

“ Jephthah was a child of shame. His father had chosen to sacrifice upon the wayside altar. His father had had his fling. He had sown his wild oats, and of necessity there was a harvest. His father suffered, but sad to say, he was not the only sufferer.
How we need to be reminded again and again that no man ever sins alone. No man ever walks from the path of virtue without he walks upon bruised and bleeding feet. He himself suffers, but what is sadder still, he causes somebody else to suffer. I cannot go to hell alone. ”

“ He was a child of sin, a child of blackness and of night, a child bereft of the inspiration of a good mother's life and the sweet uplift of a pious home.
And not only was this man wronged in what he missed, he was equally wronged in what he suffered. Early he was branded with a shame not his own. I know of few places where society has been so unjust and unkind as it has in its condemnation of those innocent ones who are the victims of another's sin. We forget that every child comes into the world with the Father's kiss upon its clean soul regardless of the circumstances of its birth. ”

“ And now, my brethren, do you not agree that we need more of the faith that made Peter undertake his mad enterprise? Isn't the tragedy of the Church to-day just this, that the average Christian is not walking by faith, but by sight? That is the reason we have so little of that high spirit of daring that marked the early Church. That is the reason that life for many of us is so dull and prosaic. What we need is faith. For faith is not a tame and spineless thing that dares nothing. Real faith dares something, something big and brawny, beyond the human. ”

“ If you do not believe in people no wonder you are miserable. If you do not believe that a fluctuating Simon can be changed into a rock; if you do not believe that a Magdalene can, through the grace of God, become a herald of the resurrection; if you do not believe that this world of men is a salvable world; then it is not to be wondered at that you are blue. If you do not believe in the honesty and goodness and purity of at least a few, I do not see how you can be in any other place than a veritable perdition. ”

“ But in admitting that God plans every life, can we believe that He plans for some to go wrong and for others to go right? Can we believe that He plans for one to become a Judas and the other a St. John? Is it the purpose of God that one shall develop into a Moses and the other right at his side shall grow up into a miserable and distorted wreck that we call Pharaoh? In other words, is Judas as much a part of the plan of God as John? If so we are of all men most miserable because we have a wicked God. ”

“ That is the first step in Christian Stewardship: that God owns all; He owns me; He owns my home; He owns my children; He owns my property. I have called your attention before to the fact that the modern idea of ownership is pagan. The Christian idea is this: that God is the absolute owner of all things.
I am sure that we are as ready as was Barnabas to acknowledge this fact. We nod our heads and agree, but a truth like this demands something more than simply a nod of the head. If God owns everything, then I am to acknowledge that ownership. ”

“ And believe me, my friends, when I tell you that this longing is universal. You have feared to speak to that acquaintance of yours who seems so flippant, who seems so utterly indifferent to everything that partakes of the nature of religion. But that is not the deepest fact about him. Whoever he is and wherever he is, there are times when he is restless and heartsick and homesick. There are times when he is literally parched with thirst for those fountains that make glad the city of God. Dare to speak to him as if he wanted Jesus Christ. ”

“ Few men have dirtier pages in their life's history than that of David's sin against the house of Uriah. But as his sin was whole-hearted so also was his repentance. We can hear his heart-broken cry for pardon across the centuries: "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness. According unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin; for I acknowledge my transgression and my sin is ever before me." It is the heart-broken cry of the penitent who has not one good word to say for himself. ”

“ Who would ever have thought that this outcast heathen had moments when she looked wistfully toward the heights and longed for a better life? I suppose nobody would ever have thought of it but the kindly Stranger who now sat upon the well curb talking to her. He knew that in spite of her wasted years, in spite of her tarnished past, in spite of the fact that the foul breath of passion had blown her about the streets as a filthy rag—there still was that within her that hungered and thirsted for goodness and for God.
And, my friend, you may assume that that thirst belongs to every man. ”

“ And the children of Israel were not only allowed to go, but they were hurried out of Egypt.
At last, at last, we say, with what infinite expense the man is brought to obey. But would you believe it the grass had not yet grown green upon the grave of his boy till he forgot his vow and turned back to the old life again. Oh, what a grip sin gets on us. Oh, how blind we become if we persistently refuse to follow the light. So Pharaoh brushed his tears out of his eyes, gathered his army and set out after the departing children of Israel. ”

“ It is not for us to test whether we have succeeded or whether we have failed. The truth of the matter is that we are not always competent to tell the difference between success and failure. There are some seeming successes that in reality are failures and there are some of the supreme failures that have turned out to be the most glorious successes.
The greatest failure in the eyes of men that was ever made, was the failure on Calvary, and yet it came to pass that the world's darkest night was in reality the mother of its brightest day ”

“ This man Jephthah has made a vow. And now the hour is upon him in which it is his duty to make the vow good. His vow involves far more than he ever expected. But that fact does not cause him to be untrue. He has given his promise. Pay day has come. His promise involves measureless sacrifice. To keep it is to put out every star in his sky. It is to pluck up every flower in his garden. It is to change life's music into discord. It is to take from him the one he loves far better than he loves his own life. ”