Speaking of the murder of the younger Hanan, and other eminent nobles and hierarchs, Josephus says, "I cannot but think that it was because God had doomed this city to destruction as a polluted city, and was resolved to purge His sanctuary by fire, that He cut off these their great defenders and well-wishers; while those that a little before had worn the sacred garments and presided over the public worship, and had been esteemed venerable by those that dwelt in the whole habitable earth, were cast out naked, and seen to be the food of dogs and wild beasts."

If we would see the color of our future, we must look for it in our present; if we would gaze on the star of our destiny, we must look for it in our hearts.

And now I send these pages forth, not knowing what shall befall them, but with the earnest prayer that they may be blessed to aid the cause of truth and righteousness, and that He in whose name they are written may, of His mercy, "Forgive them where they fail in truth, And in His wisdom make me wise."

No true work since the world began was ever wasted; no true life since the world began has ever failed. Oh, understand those two perverted word, failure and success and measure them by the eternal, not the earthly, standard. When after thirty obscure, toilsome, unrecorded years in the shop of the village carpenter, one came forth to be pre-eminently the man of sorrows, to wander from city to city in homeless labors, and to expire in lonely agony upon the shameful cross -- was that a failure.

But in the life of every man there are influences of a far more real and penetrating character than those which come through the medium of schools or teachers.

If miracles be incredible, Christianity is false. If Christ wrought no miracles, then the Gospels are untrustworthy.

It is easy to be a slave to the letter, and difficult to enter into the spirit; easy to obey a number of outward rules, difficult to enter intelligently and self-sacrificingly into the will of God.