In this world the inclination to do things is of more importance than the mere power.

If angels stoop from visions of more than earthly beauty to spells of less than earthly worth, they are but fallen angels, mingling divine utterances with the babblings of madness, and the madness is not the divineness.

We have not the innocence of Eden; but by God's help and Christ's example we may have the victory of Gethsemane.

No language can express the power and beauty and heroism of a mother's love.

The devil has been painted swarthy, cloven-footed, horned, and hideous. Do we expect to see him in that shape? O, surely it would be better for us, if he did come in that shape! The trouble is the devil never does come in that shape. He comes by chance, with unregistered signals, and in all sorts of counterfeit presentiments.

A man can no more be a Christian without facing evil and conquering it than he can be a soldier without going to battle, facing the cannon's mouth, and encountering the enemy in the field.

No great truth bursts upon man without having its hemisphere of darkness and sorrow.