Too many people embrace religion from the same motives that they take a companion in wedlock, not from true love of the person, but because of a large dowry.

There is no better rule to try a doctrine by than the question, Is it merciful, or is it unmerciful? If its character is that of mercy, it has the image of Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Experience is retrospect knowledge.

The act of divine worship is the inestimable privilege of man, the only created being who bows in humility and adoration.

How quickly a truly benevolent act is repaid by the consciousness of having done it!

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Man, being not only a religious, but also a social being, requires for the promotion of his rational happiness religious institutions, which, while they give a proper direction to devotion, at the same time make a wise and profitable improvement of his social feelings.