“ I am almost tempted to think, that, if, with the end of every pastorate, the church itself were disbanded and destroyed, to be gathered again by the succeeding teacher, we should thus secure an immortality of youth."
"A religious life is not a thing which spends itself. It is like a river which widens continually, and is never so broad or so deep as at its mouth, where it rolls into the ocean of eternity." ”

“ What a pin is, when the diamond has dropped from its setting, is the Bible, when its emotive truths have been taken away. What a babe's clothes are, when the babe has slipped out of them into death and the mother's arms clasp only raiment, would be the Bible, if the Babe of Bethlehem, and the truths of deep-heartedness that clothed his life, should slip out of it. ”

“ A great-hearted, eloquent, fervent, live man, full of religious emotion, of humanity and love,--no wonder he is dear to the people of America. Long may he bring instruction to the lecture associations of the North! Long may he stand in his pulpit at Brooklyn with his heavenly candle, which goeth not out at all by day, to kindle the devotion and piety of the thousands who cluster around him, and carry thence light and warmth to all the borders of the land! ”

“ How wretched a spectacle is a garden into which the cloven-footed beasts have entered! That which yesterday was fragrant, and shone all over with crowded beauty, is to-day rooted, despoiled, trampled, and utterly devoured, and all over the ground you shall find but the rejected cuds of flowers and leaves, and forms that have been champed for their juices and then rejected. Such to me is the Bible, when the pragmatic prophecy-monger and the swinish utilitarian have toothed its fruits and craunched its blossoms. ”

“ To him, office, money, social rank, and fame are but toys or counters which the game of life is played withal; while wisdom, integrity, benevolence, piety are the prizes the game is for. He digs through the dazzling sand, and bids men build on the rock of ages. ”

“ Our yearnings are homesickness for heaven; our sighings are for God; just as children that cry themselves asleep away from home, and sob in their slumber, know not that they sob for their parents. The soul's inarticulate moanings are the affections yearning for the Infinite, but having no one to tell them what it is that ails them. ”

“ It would almost seem as if there were a certain drollery of art which leads men who think they are doing one thing to do another and very different one. Thus, men have set up in their painted church-windows the symbolisms of virtues and graces, and the images of saints, and even of Divinity itself. Yet now, what does the window do but mock the separations and proud isolations of Christian men? For there sit the audience, each one taking a separate color; and there are blue Christians and red Christians, there are yellow saints and orange saints, there are purple Christians and green Christians ”

“ The minister of this Church of the Good Samaritans delivers the poor that cry, and the fatherless, and him that hath none to help him; he makes the widow's heart sing for joy, and the blessing of such as are ready to perish comes on him; he is eyes to the blind, feet to the lame; the cause of evil which he knows not he searches out; breaking the jaws of the wicked to pluck one spirit out of their teeth. In a world of work, he would have no idler in the market-place; in a world of bread, he would not eat his morsel alone while the fatherless has nought ”

“ Very beautiful is the presence of old men, and of that venerable sisterhood whose experienced temples are turbaned with the raiment of such as have come out of much tribulation, and now shine as white stars foretelling an eternal day. Young men all around, a young man in the pulpit, the old men's look of experienced life says "Amen" to the best word, and their countenance is a benediction.
The minister is not expected to appeal to the selfish motives which are addressed by the market, the forum, or the bar, but to the eternal principle of Right. ”

“ No minister in the United States is so well known, none so widely beloved. He is as well known in Ottawa as in Broadway. He has the largest Protestant congregation in America, and an ungathered parish which no man attempts to number. He has church members in Maine, Wisconsin, Georgia, Texas, California, and all the way between. Men look on him as a national institution, a part of the public property. Not a Sunday in the year but representative men from every State in the Union fix their eyes on him, are instructed by his sermons and uplifted by his prayers. ”

“ When the "contrary-minded" are called for, the Church Termagant holds up its hand. A turbulent people, and a troublesome, are these sons of thunder,--a brotherhood of universal come-outers. Their only concord is disagreement. It is not often, perhaps, that they have better thoughts than the rest of men, but a superior aptitude to find fault; their growling proves, "not that themselves are wise, but others weak." So their pulpit is a brawling-tub, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." ”

“ Last of all is the Church Beneficent or Constructant. Their work is positive,--critical of the old, creative also of the new. They take hold of the strongest of all human faculties,--the religious,--and use this great river of God, always full of water, to moisten hill-side and meadow, to turn lonely saw-mills, and drive the wheels in great factories, which make a metropolis of manufactures,--to bear alike the lumberman's logs and the trader's ships to their appointed place ”

“ How noisy is this great channel of business, wherein Humanity rolls to and fro, now running into shops, now sucked down into cellars, then dashed high up the tall, steep banks, to come down again a continuous drip and be lost in the general flood! ”

“ There are more than thirty thousand preachers in the United States, whereof twenty-eight thousand are Protestants, the rest Catholics,--one minister to a thousand men. They make an exceeding great army,--mostly serious, often self-denying and earnest. Nay, sometimes you find them men of large talent, perhaps even of genius. No thirty thousand farmers, mechanics, lawyers, doctors, or traders have so much of that book-learning which is popularly called "Education."
No class has such opportunities for influence, such means of power; even now the press ranks second to the pulpit. ”

“ God made the world to relieve an over-full creative thought,--as musicians sing, as we talk, as artists sketch, when full of suggestions. What profusion is there in his work! When trees blossom, there is not a single breastpin, but a whole bosom full of gems ”

“ The house of God should be a joyous place for the right use of all our faculties."
"There ought to be such an atmosphere in every Christian church, that a man going there and sitting two hours should take the contagion of heaven, and carry home a fire to kindle the altar whence he came."
"The call to religion is not a call to be better than your fellows, _but to be better than yourself_. Religion is relative to the individual." ”

“ When once the filial feeling is breathed into the heart, the soul cannot be terrified by augustness, or justice, or any form of Divine grandeur; for then, to such a one, _all the attributes of God are but so many arms stretched abroad through the universe, to gather and to press to his bosom those whom he loves. The greater he is, the gladder are we_, so that he be our Father still. ”

“ No man of science or letters has such access to men. Besides, he is to speak on the grandest of all themes,--of Man, of God, of Religion, man's deepest desires, his loftiest aspirings. Before him the rich and the poor meet together, conscious of the one God, Master of them all, who is no respecter of persons. To the minister the children look up, and their pliant faces are moulded by his plastic hand. ”

“ Religious emotion comes out in his prayers, sermons, and lectures, as the vegetative power of the earth in the manifold plants and flowers of spring.
"The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy. ”

“ Looked at without educated associations, there is no difference between a man in bed and a man in a coffin. And yet such is the power of the heart to redeem the animal life, that there is nothing more exquisitely refined and pure and beautiful than the chamber of the house. ”

“ Men of all denominations belong to this Church Catholic; yet all are of one _persuasion_, the brotherhood of Humanity,--for the one spirit loves manifoldness of form. They trouble themselves little about Sin, the universal but invisible enemy whom the Church Termagant attempts to shell and dislodge; but are very busy in attacking Sins. These ministers of religion would rout Drunkenness and Want, Ignorance, Idleness, Lust, Covetousness, Vanity, Hate, and Pride, vices of instinctive passion or reflective ambition. Yet the work of these men is to build up ”

“ Many of our churches defy Protestantism. Grand cathedrals are they, which make us shiver as we enter them. The windows are so constructed as to exclude the light and inspire a religious awe. The walls are of stone, which makes us think of our last home. ”

“ He does not analyze a matter to its last elements, put the ultimate facts in a row and find out their causes or their law of action, nor aim at large synthesis of generalization, the highest effort of philosophy, which groups things into a whole;--it is commonly thought both of these processes are out of place in meeting-houses and lecture-halls,--that the people can comprehend neither the one nor the other;--but he gives a popular view of the thing to be discussed, which can be understood on the spot without painful reflection. ”

“ Surely, no men have such opportunity of speech and power as these thirty thousand ministers. What have they to show for it all? The hunter, fisher, woodman, miner, farmer, mechanic, has each his special wealth. What have this multitude of ministers to show?--how much knowledge given, what wise guidance, what inspiration of humanity? Let the best men answer.
This ministerial army may be separated into three divisions. First, the Church Militant, the Fighting Church, as the ecclesiastical dictionaries define it. Reverend men serve devoutly in its ranks. Their work is negative, oppositional. ”

“ The young men and maidens are there,--such possibility of life and character before them, such hope is there, such faith in man and God, as comes instinctively to those who have youth on their side. There are the old: men and women with white crowns on their heads ”

“ There is the shepherd, and here is the flock, fenced off into so many little private pens. With dumb, yet eloquent patience, they look up listless, perhaps longing, for such fodder as he may pull out from his spiritual mow and shake down before them. What he gives they gather. ”

“ We walk among you, and gaze with loving eyes, and rest under your odorous shadows; nor will we, with sacrilegious hand, tear you, that we may search the secret of your roots, nor spoil you, that we may know how such wondrous grace and goodness are evolved within you! ”

“ From the day that the bride sanctifies it, to the day when the aged mother is borne from it, it stands clothed with loveliness and dignity. Cursed be the tongue that dares speak evil of the household bed! ”

“ There are some Christians whose secular life is an arid, worldly strife, and whose religion is but a turbid sentimentalism. Their life runs along that line where the overflow of the Nile meets the desert. ”

“ So while he entertains every old Truth, he looks out also into the crowd of new Opinions, hoping to find others of their kin: and the new thought does not lodge in the street; he opens his doors to the traveller, not forgetful to entertain strangers,--knowing that some have also thereby entertained angels unawares. He does not fear the great multitude, nor does the contempt of a few families make him afraid. ”

“ The worst lies, therefore, are those whose blade is false, but whose handle is true."
"It is not conviction of truth which does men good; it is moral consciousness of truth."
"A conservative young man has wound up his life before it was unreeled. We expect old men to be conservative; but when a nation's young men are so, its funeral-bell is already rung." ”

“ If among painters of the human face and form there should spring up a sect of the eyes, and another sect of the nose, a sect of the hand, and a sect of the foot, and all of them should agree but in the one thing of forgetting that there was a living spirit behind the features more important than them all, they would too much resemble the schools and cliques of Christians ”

“ He never makes attention painful. He illustrates his subject from daily life; the fields, the streets, stars, flowers, music, and babies are his favorite emblems. He remembers that he does not speak to scholars, to minds disciplined by long habits of thought, but to men with common education, careful and troubled about many things ”

“ I think the wickedest people on earth are those who use a force of genius to make themselves selfish in the noblest things, keeping themselves aloof from the vulgar and the ignorant and the unknown; rising higher and higher in taste, till they sit, ice upon ice, on the mountain-top of eternal congelation. ”

“ His life is daily argument. The public will understand this; men whose taste he offends, and whose theology he shocks, or to whose philosophy he is repugnant, have confidence in the integrity of the man. ”