Various

“ Do we pray for righteous rulers and for a good government and then vote for profane, wicked men; for men of intemperate habits, men who are perfectly indifferent to the moral welfare of our country; men who will disregard the welfare of the nation by neglecting the elements of national greatness? If political parties triumph in this government through slander, trickery, whisky and corruption, and continue to do so, the time will inevitably come when we will realize the facts of national ruin. ”

“ Let no one suppose that the obligation to live a Christian life is a light one. Holiness is the highest attainment of a rational soul; it is the greatest good within the reach of man; it is the greatest good in the universe. Seek this, it is most sublime and excellent; seek to be virtuous and holy that your hearts may be won and subdued by the power of His own word. "Purify your souls in obeying the truth." There is nothing in the universe that can be a substitute for purity or holiness, it is an indispensable qualification for the heavenly world. ”

“ Is it not a melancholy state of being to be gliding down the stream of time under the fearful uncertainty whether we will land in the realms of bliss or the regions of anguish? You may be happy without power above your fellows, without influence over them, without great learning, without wealth, but you can not be happy without God. ”

“ From our best affections towards creatures up to the love of God there is a height as lofty as his ways and attributes are above the attributes and ways of mortals. No fear can haunt the mind that he may change in his character of love. He is beyond the reach of accident or change, perfect in goodness and power, and to those who trust in him, he is a sure and never-ending, and ever-increasing source of joy. ”

“ Never was there stronger evidence of folly than that man presents who chooses this world for his portion. If tears could quench the fires of torment they would be quenched at the remembrance of the folly which preferred this world's goods to the salvation of the soul. There is nothing upon earth that hurts the true-hearted, energetic Christian like the indifference with which those who have hope toward God are directing their way toward that "exceeding and eternal weight of glory." ”

“ So we must search for man's greatness outside of all these elements of character. Can we find no brighter, higher principles in the human character? To do so we must lay aside the animal nature of man altogether, and consider his character as it is blended with his intellectual and moral nature. In other words, we must consider man as man, not as an animal. We must consider him as a mind or spirit, and look to something higher than eating, laboring at the helm, and fighting, if we would discover his true greatness. In the improvement of mind is the true improvement of man in all his relations. ”

“ As Christians we learn to humble ourselves in view of the majesty and perfections of our heavenly Master. "Before honor is humility." The Savior commands an humble religion; its love is humble, its faith is humble; its repentance, its baptism, its hopes, its joys, its raptures are all humble. True greatness is not found except in an humble mind; never is an archangel more exalted, more truly great, than when he bows before the throne of Christ. The spirit of the world is self-will and insubordination, hard-heartedness and impenitence, or inflexible perseverance in sin. ”

“ We might as well think of a man having good health and living long upon the earth who takes poison into his stomach continually, as to think of future glory as a nation if we carry out our purposes by dishonest, illegal measures and by railing, in a slanderous and unjustifiable manner, against the best men of the nation. It has been said that political parties are necessary as checks to corruption, but when parties themselves indulge in all manner of corruption in order to succeed as parties, they are no longer checks, but abettors of corruption. ”

“ The spirit of the world is one of self-indulgence and guilty pleasure. Sinners are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. They are eager for enjoyment and obtain it in dissipated behavior, thought and feeling. Lawless pleasure is the idol of the sinner's heart and the rule of his life; it often leads him to shame, infamy and ruin. The religion of Christ gives, in the place of this, the love of God and duty. The pleasures of the Christian are much broader and brighter than the pleasures of the disobedient; they are far superior to the sinner's day dreams and pleasures of sense. ”

“ There is one true and original law conformable to reason and to nature, diffused over all, invariable, eternal, which calls to the fulfillment of duty and to abstinence from injustice, and which calls with that irresistible voice which is felt in all its authority wherever it is heard. This law can not be abolished or curtailed, nor affected in its sanctions by any law of man. A whole senate, a whole people, can not dispense from its paramount obligations. ”

“ It is respect for law that brings responsibilities home to the heart. Where there is no faith there is no respect for law pertaining to future rewards; and where this is the case there is no sense of moral [Pg 429] obligations connecting man with the future retribution. So there is nothing resting upon an unbeliever's heart that will serve as a check upon his passions, and deter him from living with reference to the gratification of a mere animal nature. Skepticism, by shutting God out of the mind, destroys the very idea of law. ”

“ Faith lets God down into the hearts of lawmakers, and a sense of accountability to him must, most certainly, have a grand tendency to refine laws in their first conception. At least it happens to be true that wherever God is feared and law made the basis of the legislation and policy of a nation, that nation is, in fact, found to excel in those interests which are essential to a nation's well-being and glory. We challenge any man, or set of men, to an estimate of the comparative purity and morals of the nations of the earth. ”

“ As well undertake to pluck the sun and stars from the heavens, and spread the black curtain of one long protracted night over the world, as to try to quench the light of immortal truth as it flows freely into the hearts of so many millions and stirs up the deep fountains of human spirits. ”

“ It is possible that we have in Indiana, and perhaps in some of the other states, sufficient law upon the subjects of slander, but law that is disregarded, being seldom enforced, amounts to nothing. Then, there is a disposition growing out of the pride of character to disregard the slanderer's tongue. Yet licentiousness tends to civil and social ruin all the same. That is to say, it destroys confidence, breeds retaliation and corruption, and inflames all the baser passions known in the dying agonies of a civil government. ”

“ Can you think of your relation and obligation to a being of whom you have never heard or learned? No. Neither could man in the beginning, nor at any subsequent time. Religion came not from earth. Human genius was not and could not have been its foundation. There is but one other possible source, which is simply the will and teachings of the creator. Religion is unearthly, and hence Divine in its origin. The stream always declares the nature of the fountain. ”

“ Give man all of this world that he desires, multiply around him the gratifications of sense and the pleasures of thought, and if God is not his joy and refuge the day is not far distant when he will feel as did the poor prodigal in a far country feeding upon husks in nakedness and want; but if you are a Christian you dwell with God in Christ, for "God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto them their trespasses," and if any man be in Christ he is a new creature. Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not—doth not serve sin. ”

“ No man should wait to be put into the open door, to be put into Christ, but should do as all the disciples of Christ did in the days of Christ and of his apostles—flee for refuge into an open door—not wait to be put in, but enter. You can be saved in heaven without being put into the office of an apostle or prophet, but you can not enter heaven without being sanctified and cleansed. Will you come and enter by the Lord Jesus, become a child of God by faith in Jesus Christ, being baptized into Christ? ”

“ It embraces all that is venerable in wisdom, wonderful in authority, and touching in goodness. Human greatness, blended with imperfections and many limitations, is seen only in detached and separate parts; never appears in any one character whole and entire; but in our Lord Jesus Christ these conceptions, or scattered rays of an ideal excellence, are brought together and constitute the real attributes of that Savior whom we worship, who stands in the nearest relation to us, who is the "head of all principality and power," and who pervades all nature with his presence. ”

“ When faith in God expired in France the entire social fabric steadily declined until all crumbled and fell as in the ruins of an earthquake. At the same time the inhabitants, [Pg 431] loosened from the restraints which faith in the living God imposes, stained every part of the country with blood, and its glory and grandeur perished. It has been well said that the rights of man can not be well secured and enjoyed unless he is viewed in his relations to God. Where government aims at and subserves this end it is a blessing. ”

“ As an American citizen I would warn our people to manufacture all the public sentiment possible against this low, vile, and debasing practice, by pleading with our countrymen against it. And let us never hold our peace until we shall have thrown such safeguard around our ballot-box as will put an end to all the abominable corruptions that now threaten our existence as a free people. ”

“ The ignorant, fossilized partisan who looks no higher than party will perhaps raise a yell of indignation against them, but at the same time he will continue the use of the same old argument, viz: the pool of politics is too filthy for preachers to meddle with. Is it a filthy pool? Then let us bring all the purifying elements of the nation to bear upon it and see if there is anything in it besides corruption. If there is not, the sooner we find it out the better, and if there is, the sooner we get it separated from its corruption the better. ”

“ Faith in God certainly places the maximum of greatness upon the human mind. The man who believes in the existence of mind apart from matter, and consequently looks upon death as a blessed state of rest to the good man which lies between the two great activities of time and eternity, and also believes in God and future rewards, has stronger motives to sound moral rectitude than the man who denies and ridicules these great truths. ”

“ First, was Polytheism or Monotheism the primitive religion? Second, is religion human or Divine in its origin? In answering these questions I shall gather facts, and from them deduce my conclusion, after the inductive method. First, universal history and tradition as far back as they can be traced, without one dissenting voice, locate the origin of man in Asia. From this point men migrated in every direction. Here, in Asia, their language and religion, if they had any, would be one and the same. This would, in the nature of the case, be true, whether religion was at first human or Divine. ”

“ In all nations and in every age it has been, is, and forever will be the same—one, as God, its greatest author, is one. Man is man, truly, as he yields himself to this divine influence. Faith in God implants this law in the individual and national heart. ”

“ THE LIFE AND CHARACTER OF OUR RELIGION.
The character which the gospel of Christ requires is made up of all that is lovely, is formed upon the highest model, but it is not composed of the insensibility, the anger, the pride, the egotism, the worldliness, which is so common among men. It is not the cold indifference of modern moralists; it is not the rank and scepticism of modern doubters, nor yet the intellectual rashness and moral phantoms of modern scientists. ”

“ When the Creator breathed the breath of life into the newly-formed body, and man became a living soul, he imparted more to it than simply air; and when the body dies, something more than simply air or breath has departed from it. ”

“ But life, mind, energy, holiness, are attributes of the God of the Bible. Whenever science divests the unknown force of these attributes which characterize Jehovah, she has left a cause wholly inadequate to the production of the universe. Whenever she invests the unknown force with life, power, intelligence and goodness, she has set up the God of the Bible.
Again, man is possessed of a mind and a religious element in his nature. If man's origin be due to the monkey or the tadpole, then the monkey or the tadpole must have a mind and a religious nature ”

“ Polytheism then could not, in the very nature of things, be the original religion with Monotheism engrafted upon it. Simple Polytheism never existed with any nation; it always displayed a supreme head, a Supreme God—father of gods and men. And even this form of Polytheism was acknowledged by a part of our race only. ”