It is in those times of hopeless chaos when the sovereign hand of God is most likely to be seen.

Thousands of men breathe, move, and live; pass off the stage of life and are heard of no more. Why? They did not a particle of good in the world; and none were blest by them, none could point to them as the instrument of their redemption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spoke, could be recalled, and so they perished--their light went out in darkness, and they were not remembered more than the insects of yesterday. Will you thus live and die, O man immortal? Live for something.

Enthusiasm is a virtue rarely to be met with in seasons of calm and unruffled prosperity.

I want to feel my own nothingness, I want to give myself up in absolute resignation to God, to lie prostrate and passive at His feet, with no other disposition in my heart than that of merging my will into His will, and no other language in my mouth than that of prayer for the perfecting of His strength in my weakness.

Every man is a missionary, now and forever, for good or for evil, whether he intends or designs it or not.

I have no sympathy whatever with those who would grudge our workmen and our common people the very highest acquisitions which their taste or their time or their inclination would lead them to realize.

Acts of virtue ripen into habits; and the goodly and permanent result is the formation or establishment of a virtuous character.