The Bible

This book contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you.

It is the traveler's map, the pilgrim's staff, the pilot's compass, the soldier's sword, and the Christian's charter. Here paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed.

Christ is its grand object, our good the design, and the glory of God its end.

It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life and will be opened at the judgment and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.

Anonymous

The Word of God

Here is the spring where waters flow,
To quench our heat of sin;
Here is the tree where truth does grow
To lead our lives therein;

Here is the judge that stints the strife
When men's devices fail:
Here is the bread that feeds the life
Which death cannot assail.

The tidings of salvation dear
Comes to our ears from hence;
The fortress of our faith is here;
The shield of our defense.

Then be not like the swine that has
A pearl at his desire,
And takes more pleasure in the trough
And wallowing in the mire.

Read not this book in any case
But with a single eye:
Read not, but first desire God's grace,
To understand thereby.

Pray still in faith with this respect
To bear good fruit therein;
That knowledge may bring this effect,
To mortify thy sin.

Then happy you shall be in all your life,
What so to you befalls;
Yes, double happy you shall be
When GOD by death you calls.

-- From the first Bible printed in Scotland - 1576

Prayer

"Prayer is an all-efficient panoply, a treasure
undiminished, a mine which is never exhausted, a sky
unobscured by the clouds, a heaven unruffled by the
storm. It is the root, the fountain, the mother of a
thousand blessings. . . . The potency of prayer hath
subdued the strength of fire, it hath bridled the rage
of lions, hushed anarchy to rest; extinguished wars,
appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains
of death, expanded the gates of heaven, assuaged
diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from
destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested
the progress of the thunderbolt."
--John Chrysostom

Mercy and Grace

Mercy withholds the knife from the heart of Isaac.
Grace provides a ram in the thicket
--Genesis 22:11-14

Mercy runs to forgive the prodigal.
Grace throws a party with a robe, a ring, and a fatted calf.
--Luke 15:20-24

Mercy hears the cry of the thief on the cross.
Grace promises paradise that very day.
--Luke 23:39-43

Mercy converts Paul on the road to Damascus.
Grace calls him to be the great apostle.
Acts 9:1-6, 17

Mercy closes the door to hell.
Grace opens the door to heaven.
--Ephesians 2:8-9

...and the difference between mercy and grace is this

Mercy withholds from us what we deserve (punishment).
Grace gives us what we do not deserve (eternal life).
--Romans 5:20


Source: David Jeremiah

I Sit and Look Out

I Sit and Look Out
--Walt Whitman

I SIT and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,
and upon all oppression and shame;
I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men, at an-
guish with themselves, remorseful after deeds
done;
I see, in low life, the mother misused by her children,
dying, neglected, gaunt, desperate;
I see the wife misused by her husband—I see the
treacherous seducer of young women;
I mark the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love,
attempted to be hid—I see these sights on the
earth;
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny—I see
martyrs and prisoners;
I observe a famine at sea—I observe the sailors casting
lots who shall be kill'd, to preserve the lives of
the rest;
I observe the slights and degradations cast by arrogant
persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon ne-
groes, and the like;
All these—All the meanness and agony without end, I
sitting, look out upon,
See, hear, and am silent.

Each in His Own Tongue

A FIRE-MIST and a planet,
A crystal and a cell,
A jelly-fish and a saurian,
And caves where the cave-men dwell;
Then a sense of law and beauty
And a face turned from the clod --
Some call it Evolution,
And others call it God.

A haze on the far horizon,
The infinite, tender sky,
The ripe rich tint of the cornfileds,
And the wild geese sailing high --
And all over upland and lowland
The charm of the golden-rod --
Some of us call it Autumn
And others call it God.

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach,
When the moon is new and thin,
Into our hearts high yearnings
Come welling and surging in --
Come from the mystic ocean,
Whose rim no foot has trod, --
Some of us call it Longing,
And others call it God.

A picket frozen on duty,
A mother starved for her brood,
Socrates drinking the hemlock,
And Jesus on the rood;
And millions who, humble and nameless,
The straight, hard pathway plod, --
Some call it Consecration,
And others call it God.

William Herbert Carruth

Ghosts of Dreams

WE are all of us dreamers of dreams,
On visions our childhood is fed;
And the heart of a child is unhaunted, it seems,
By ghosts of dreams that are dead.

From childhood to youth's but a span,
And the years of our life are soon sped;
But the youth is no longer a youth, but a man,
When the first of his dreams is dead.

'Tis a cup of wormwood and gall,
When the doom of a great man is said;
And the best of a man is under a pall
When the best of his dreams is dead.

He may live on by compact and plan
When the fine bloom of living is shed,
But God pity the little that's left of a man
When most of his dreams are dead.

Let him show a brave face if he can;
Let him woo fame and fortune instead;
Yet there's not much to do, but to bury a man
When the last of his dreams is dead.

William Herbert Carruth

--My interpretation: There is nothing left to live for if your dream is dead. As Alber Schweitzer said, "The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he still lives."