Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert

“ I tell you, when the end shall come, and God Almighty shall gather into His kingdom the souls and bodies of men saved upon the earth, they will reach the pinnacle of eternal life in all its splendor! Happy, happy will be the day when you and I, by God's grace, stand in full proportion on the granite platform of an eternal, happy immortality! ”

“ None can comprehend eternity but the eternal God.
—Boston. Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or of suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance, entirely its own. It gives that weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance. ”

“ The youth of the soul is everlasting, and eternity is youth.
—Jean Paul Richter. Eternity has no gray hairs! The flowers fade, the heart withers, man grows old and dies, the world lies down in the sepulchre of ages, but time writes no wrinkles on the brow of Eternity. ”

“ ENTHUSIASM.
Enthusiasm is the element of success in every thing. It is the light that leads, and the strength that lifts men on and up in the great struggles of scientific pursuits and of professional labor. It robs endurance of difficulty, and makes a pleasure of duty.
—Bishop Doane. Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is the triumph of enthusiasm.
—R. W. Emerson. Those who have arrived at any very eminent degree of excellence in the practice of an art or profession have commonly been actuated by a species of enthusiasm in their pursuit of it. ”

“ We have the hunger for eternity in our souls, the thought of eternity in our hearts, the destination for eternity written on our inmost being, and the need to ally ourselves with eternity proclaimed by the most short-lived trifles of time. ”

“ We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to despise them.
—Marcus Porcius Cato. And so the blasts of calumny, howl they ever so fiercely over the good man's head, contribute to his juster appreciation and to his wider fame. Preserve only a good conscience toward God, and a loving purpose toward your fellow men, and you need not wince nor tremble, though the pack of the spaniel-hearted hounds snarl at your heels. ”

“ You cannot undo your acts. If you have depraved another's will, and injured another's soul, it may be in the grace of God that hereafter you will be personally accepted, and the consequence of your guilt inwardly done away; but your penitence cannot undo the evil you have done. The forgiveness of God—the blood of Christ itself—does not undo the past. ”

“ God has been always working, evolving, in His quiet power, from the seeming, the real, from the false, the true. Not for nothing blazed the martyr's fires—not for nothing toiled brave sufferers up successive hills of shame. ”

“ Life everywhere is in vast and endless variety. So it is with life eternal, that gift of God, constituting, in its length and breadth and height and depth, the reward of the righteous. The penitent, dying thief is not going into heaven like the triumphant, dying Paul. ”

“ Do not wade far out into the dangerous sea of this world's comfort. Take the good that God provides you, but say of it, "It passeth away;" for, indeed, it is but a temporary supply for a temporary need. Never suffer your goods to become your God. ”

“ The more we can be raised above the petty vexations and pleasures of this world into the eternal life to come, the more shall we be prepared to enter into that eternal life whenever God shall please to call us hence. ”

“ What you learn from bad habits and in bad society, you will never forget, and it will be a lasting pang to you. I tell you in all sincerity, not as in the excitement of speech, but as I would confess and have confessed before God, I would give my right hand if I could forget that which I have learned in bad society. ”

“ They are not pleasant places. One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all. Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity.
—John Hall. If there is any person to whom you feel a dislike, that is the person of whom you ought never to speak. ”

“ The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. ”

“ No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle, pure, and good, without the world being the better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness. ”

“ A doctor might as well stand with his saddle-bags and scatter their contents through the community as a man tell all that he knows about people indiscriminately. Medicine is to be administered carefully. ”

“ Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth. ”

“ Too low they build who build beneath the stars.
—Young. Our earthly possessions will indeed perish in the final wreck of all things; but let the ship perish, let all we have sink in the deep, if we may come "safe to land." ”

“ Though Manasseh repented, his son Amon followed in the footsteps of his father in his wickedness, but not in his righteousness. Children will imitate their fathers in their vices, seldom in their repentance. ”

“ EVIL SPEAKING.
Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. ”