Gambling with cards or dice or stocks is all one thing. It's getting money without giving an equivalent for it.

By religion I mean perfected manhood,--the quickening of the soul by the influence of the Divine Spirit.

Mirthfulness is in the mind and you cannot get it out. It is just as good in its place as conscience or veneration.

Expedients are for an hour, but principles are for the ages. Just because the rains descend and winds blow, we cannot afford to build on shifting sands.

Many men want wealth,--not a competence alone, but a live-story competence. Everything subserves this; and religion they would like as a sort of lightning-rod to their houses, to ward off by and by the bolts of Divine wrath.

Maple-trees are the cows of trees (spring-milked).

Affliction comes to the believer not to make him sad, but sober; not to make him sorry, but wise. Even as the plow enriches the field so that the seed is multiplied a thousandfold, so affliction should magnify our joy and increase our spiritual harvest.