I could write down twenty cases wherein I wished that God had done otherwise than he did, but which I now see, if I had had my own way, would have led to extensive mischief.

Abraham teaches us the right way of conversing with God : "And Abraham fell on his face, and God talked with him." When we plead with Him, our faces should be in the dust.

Every man will have his own criterion in forming his judgment of others. I depend very much on the effect of affliction. I consider how a man comes out of the furnace; gold will lie for a month in the furnace without losing a grain.

God's way of answering the Christian's prayer for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.

Nothing can be proposed so wild or so absurd as not to find a party, and often a very large party to espouse it.

The only instance of praying to saints, mentioned in the Bible, is that of the rich man in torment calling upon Abraham; and let it be remembered, that it was practised only by a lost soul and without success.

An idle man has a constant tendency to torpidity. He has adopted the Indian maxim that it is better to walk than to run, and better to stand than to walk, and better to sit than to stand, and better to lie than to sit. He hugs himself into the notion, that God calls him to be quiet.