Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert

“ But the time shall come, and perhaps sooner than we look for it, when the countenance of that pale watcher shall gather into intenser expectancy, and when the challenge shall be given, with the hopefulness of a nearer vision, "Watcher, what of the night?" and the answer will come, "The darkness is not so dense as it was; there are faint streaks on the horizon's verge; mist is in the valleys, but there is a radiance on the distant hill. It comes nearer—that promise of the day. The clouds roll rapidly away, and they are fringed with amber and gold. ”

“ Give us an age in which Christian manhood shall assert itself as the highest earthly thing and the noblest earthly estate. Give us an age that, instead of whining and groaning under the truth, shall rejoice in the truth. ”

“ To be useful as a Christian, a man must keep himself free from all malign feelings, from all bitterness of resentment. Even righteous indignation must not drag Love from her throne. Over all the soul's passions Love must preside in serene majesty. The Christian worker must learn (and the sooner the better) if he has not already learned, that there is something better for a Christian than to plan revenge, and nurse resentment, and call down fire from heaven, even on those who show themselves base and unworthy. ”

“ Man has wants deeper than can be supplied by wealth or nature or domestic affections. His great relations are to his God and to eternity.
—Mark Hopkins. In that vast march, the van forgets the rear; the individual is lost; and yet the multitude is many individuals. He faints and falls and dies; man is forgotten; but still mankind move on, still worlds revolve, and the will of God is done in earth and heaven.
—G. W. Curtis. The Divine government of the world is like a stream that rolls under us; men are only as bubbles that rise on its surface ”

“ A Christian is the gentlest of men; but then he is a man.
—C. H. Spurgeon. There is a great deal more correctness of thought respecting manhood in bodily things than in moral things. For men's ideas of manhood shape themselves as the tower and spire of cathedrals do, that stand broad at the bottom, but grow tapering as they rise, and end, far up, in the finest lines, and in an evanishing point. Where they touch the ground they are most, and where they reach to the heaven they are least. ”

“ One great want of the times is a commanding ministry—a ministry of a piety at once sober and earnest, and of mightiest moral power. Give us these men, "full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," who will proclaim old truths with new energy, not cumbering them with massive drapery nor hiding them beneath piles of rubbish. ”

“ Can any thing be more mysterious than the union of soul and body, unless it be the still greater mystery, which some have professed to believe, that matter can be so organized as to produce the amazing intellectual results which we witness in man? In believing our own existence we believe a mystery as great as any that the Christian religion presents. ”

“ As preachers we are to promote Christian culture, by bringing the dead branches to the living Vine, that, grafted into it, without a rag of human righteousness between, the life of Him may enter them; and by keeping them, as far as teaching and example can do it, abiding in Him, that they may bring forth fruit.
—John Hall. Every discourse of a true minister has an influence for good or evil, and that for eternity. Every word tells for the everlasting rise or fall, weal or woe, life or death, of souls. ”

“ Certainly it is one of the most blessed things about "the faith that is in Christ Jesus," that it makes a man remember his own sinfulness with penitence, not with pain—that it makes the memory of past transgressions full of solemn joy, because the memory of past transgressions but brings to mind the depth and rushing fullness of that river of love which has swept them all away as far as the east is from the west. ”

“ My friend, picture to yourself this—a human spirit shut up with the companionship of its forgotten and dead transgressions! There is a resurrection of acts as well as of bodies. Think what it will be for a man to sit surrounded by that ghastly company, the ghosts of his own sins! ”

“ Were there no mysteries in the Bible, we should doubt its being the transcript of the Eternal Mind. The "mystery of godliness" adapts it to our ruined race. Those mysteries of the Bible are like the mountains of the world; they give grandeur to the landscape and fertility to the soil. ”

“ Let us not undervalue the dignity of human nature. Man, although fallen, still retains some traces of his primeval glory and excellence—broken columns of a celestial temple, magnificent, even in its ruins. ”

“ Some people are never content with their lot, let what will happen. Clouds and darkness are over their heads, alike whether it rain or shine. To them every incident is an accident, and every accident a calamity. ”

“ Whoever believes in a God at all, believes in an infinite mystery; and if the existence of God is such an infinite mystery, we can very well expect and afford to have many of His ways mysterious to us. ”

“ On the American Continent, what a wonderful amalgamation of races we have witnessed, how wonderfully they have been fused into that one American people!—type and earnest of a larger fusion which Christianity will yet accomplish, when, by its blessed power, all tribes and tongues and races shall become one holy family. The present popularity of beneficences promises well for the missionary cause in the future. Men's hearts are undergoing a process of enlargement. Their sympathies are taking a wider scope. The world is getting closer, smaller, quite a compact affair. ”

“ Nothing humbles and breaks the heart of a sinner like mercy and love. Souls that converse much with sin and wrath, may be much terrified; but souls that converse much with grace and mercy, will be much humbled. ”

“ A true minister is a man whose manhood itself is a strong and influential argument with his people. He lives in such relations with God, and in such genuine sympathy with man, that it is a pleasure to be under the unconscious influence of such a mind. ”

“ The nature of Christ is, I grant it, from one end to another, a web of mysteries; but this mysteriousness does not correspond to the difficulties which all existence contains. Let it be rejected, and the whole world is an enigma; let it be accepted, and we possess a wonderful explanation of the history of man. ”

“ We know, and we feel, that the vast business of our redemption, arranged in the councils of the far-back eternity, and acted out amid the wonderings and throbbings of the universe, could not have been that stupendous transaction which gave God glory by giving sinners safety, if the inspired account brought its dimensions within the compass of a human arithmetic, or defined its issues by the lines of a human demarcation. ”

“ The minister, who would be most like the Master, must go and, like Him, lay the warm, kindly hand on the leper, the diseased, the wretched. He must touch the blind eyes with something from himself. The tears must be in his own eyes over the dead who are to be raised to spiritual life, Jesus is our great exemplar. ”

“ He is "traveling in the greatness of His strength;" and as surely as the throne of God abides, we know He shall yet reach the height and splendor of the highest noon, and that the light of millennial glory shall yet flood the earth. ”

“ In proportion as man gets back the spirit of manliness, which is self-sacrifice, affection, loyalty to an idea beyond himself, a God above himself, so far will he rise above circumstances, and wield them at his will. ”

“ We are to be neither book-worms nor male gossips, but Christian gentlemen, with a side towards mental culture, and a side to practical life. We are to learn how to talk to the people by being with the people, and we are to learn how to raise them up by raising ourselves. We are never to forget that ministry is service, not mastery. ”

“ We are children shut up as yet in the narrow hollow of our native valley, with all the universe, outside the closely engirdling hills, for a great wonderland, of which we dream childish dreams, as the light of morning or evening kindles from beyond. ”

“ A miracle is a supernatural event, whose antecedent forces are beyond our finite vision, whose design is the display of almighty power for the accomplishment of almighty purposes, and whose immediate result, as regards man, is his recognition of God as the Supreme Ruler of all things, and of His will as the only supreme law. ”

“ Beware of that which becomes the slanderer's life, of magnifying every speck of evil and closing the eye to goodness, till at last men arrive at the state in which generous, universal love (which is heaven) becomes impossible, and a suspicious, universal hate takes possession of the heart, and that is hell. ”

“ It was a great thing to open the eyes of a blind man, but it is a greater thing to open the eyes of a blind soul. It was a great thing to bring a dead body back to life, but it is a greater miracle to bring a soul dead in sin back to life. ”

“ There is no cure for ossification of the heart. Oh, that miserable state, when to the jaundiced eye all good transforms itself into evil, and the very instruments of health become the poison of disease. ”

“ He that would speak Divine things in a language which living men of to-day can comprehend, must keep up with the researches and discoveries of men who study nature, and put her words into the speech of the present. ”

“ As we love our neighbor, we must try to do him good; but if we love only ourselves and our homes, we must be at work to make the world better. If Christians do not make the world better, the world will surely make the church worse. ”

“ You want to be radiant, eloquent ministers, ministers of great influence and success. Do you want to sit on the Lord's right hand and on His left? Then give Him your heart, so that in humility, in gentleness, in unfailing sweetness, in patience under all circumstances, you shall be like Him. ”

“ Only a loving heart can effectually present a loving gospel; only one who himself loves sinners, and is willing to deny himself for their sakes, can faithfully and persuasively represent Him who loved and gave Himself for sinners. ”

“ A man may make his way across the Atlantic in a skiff, for all I know; but if you are intending to cross the sea, take my advice, and secure passage in a first-class steamer, and you will be more likely to get there. ”

“ If there are activity, free giving, ready going, a full treasury, able men who say, "Here am I, send me," it is because through all the organization Christ lives, and His personal Spirit works. There is no other possible spring for that enthusiasm. ”

“ Nothing is easier than fault-finding. No talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, is required to set up in the grumbling business. But those that are moved by a genuine desire to do good have little time for murmuring or complaint. ”

“ So, if we may credit the geologists, has this earth reached its present state. So have moved on the great empires. So retribution follows crime. So rise the tides. So grows the tree with long intervals of repose and apparent death. ”

“ Obedience, submission, discipline, courage—these are among the characteristics which make a man.
—Samuel Smiles. The man, whom I call deserving the name, is one whose thoughts and exertions are for others rather than himself. ”

“ But many of us are for the most part thinking, not of what we are to do, but of what we are to get; and the best of us are sunk into the sin of Ananias, and it is a mortal one—we want to keep back part of the price ”

“ In the eye of that Supreme Being to whom our whole internal frame is uncovered, dispositions hold the place of actions.
—Blair. In general, we do well to let an opponent's motives alone. We are seldom just to them. Our own motives on such occasions are often worse than those we assail. ”