The minister should preach as if he felt that although the congregation own the church, and have bought the pews, they have not bought him. His soul is worth no more than any other man's, but it is all he has, and he cannot be expected to sell it for a salary. The terms are by no means equal. If a parishioner does not like the preaching, he can go elsewhere and get another pew, but the preacher cannot get another soul.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinThe sluices of the grog-shop are fed from the wine-glasses in the parlor, and there is a lineal descent from the gentleman who hiccoughs at his elegant dinner-table to the sot who makes a bed of the gutter.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinSwift calls discretion low prudence; it is high prudence, and one of the most important elements entering into either social or political life.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinDeath, is not an end, but a transition crisis. All the forms of decay are but masks of regeneration--the secret alembics of vitality.
Edwin Hubbel ChapinHe who today utters a bold truth that seems to shock some old institution with the premonition of destruction, and that scares men from their propriety, will a hundred years hence be regarded as a remarkably conservative man. And yet the people who stand peculiarly upon what they call the foundations of conservatism, and hold to hard, practical facts, now stand upon that which one hundred years ago was rank heresy.
Edwin Hubbel Chapin