Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.

Thee may tell Aunt Janet from me that she might as well try to stop the stars in their courses as to try to stop a love affair.

In the secret of God's tabernacle no enemy can find us, and no troubles can reach us. The pride of man and the strife of tongues find no entrance into the pavilion of God. The secret of his presence is a more secure refuge than a thousand Gibraltars. I do not mean that no trials come. They may come in abundance, but they cannot penetrate into the sanctuary of the soul, and we may dwell in perfect peace even in the midst of life fiercest storms.

I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outward surrender of the conquered slave.

For the mother is and must be, whether she knows it or not, the greatest, strongest and most lasting teacher her children have.

A feeling of real need is always a good enough reason to pray.

Before the acorn can bring forth the oak, it must become itself a wreck. No plant ever came from any but a wrecked seed.