Great Throughts Treasury

"There is not a vice which more effectually contracts and deadens the feelings, which more completely makes a man’s affections center in himself, and excludes all others from partaking in them, than the desire of accumulating possessions. When the desire has once gotten hold of the heart, it shuts out all other considerations, but such as may promote its views. In its zeal for the attainment of its end, it is not delicate in the choice of means. As it closes the heart, so also it clouds the understanding. It cannot discern between right and wrong; it takes evil for good, and good for evil; it calls darkness light, and light darkness. Beware, then, of the beginning of covetousness, for you know not where it will end."

"Animated by Christian motives and directed to Christian ends, it shall in no wise go unrewarded: here, by the testimony of an approving conscience; hereafter, by the benediction of our blessed Redeemer, and a brighter inheritance his Father's house."

"Insensibility, in return for acts of seeming, even of real, unkindness, is not required of us. But, whilst we feel for such acts, let our feelings be tempered with forbearance and kindness. Let not the sense of our own sufferings render us peevish and morose. Let not our sense of neglect on the part of others induce us to judge of them with harshness and severity. Let us be indulgent and compassionate towards them. Let us seek for apologies for their conduct. Let us be forward in endeavoring to excuse them. And if, in the end, we must condemn them, let us look for the cause of their delinquency, less in a defect of kind intention than in the weakness and errors of human nature. He who knoweth of what we are made, and hath learned, by what he himself suffered, the weakness and frailty of our nature, hath thus taught us to make compassionate allowances for our brethren, in consideration of its manifold infirmities."

"Correct opinions well established on any subject are the best preservative against the seduction of error."

"Every deviation from the rules of charity and brotherly love, of gentleness and forbearance, of meekness and patience, which our Lord prescribes to his disciples, however it may appear to be founded on an attachment to Him and zeal for His service, is in truth a departure from the religion of Him, "the Son of Man," who "came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them.""

"Morality, distinguished from and independent of Christian faith, is nothing; but Christian morality is of the very essence; it is the true fruit, the sure testimony, the faithful companion, the glory and perfection, yea, the very life and soul of true Christian faith. Let us beware, that we do not confound things so different as worldly and Christian morality; as the works of the natural man and those of the disciples of Christ."

"It is in the time of trouble, when some to whom we may have looked for consolation and encouragement regard us with coldness, and others, perhaps, treat us with hostility, that the warmth of the friendly heart and the support of the friendly hand acquire increased value and demand additional gratitude."

"The strength of opening manhood is never so well employed as in practicing subserviency to God's revealed will; it lends a grace and a beauty to religion, and produces an abundant harvest."

"That call not education, which decries God and his truth, content the seed to strew of moral maxims, and the mind imbue with elements which form the worldly wise; so call the training, which can duly prize such lighter lore, but chiefly holds to view what God requires us to believe and do, and notes man's end, and shapes him for the skies."

"That which is good to be done cannot be done too soon; and if it is neglected to be done early, it will frequently happen that it will not be done at all."

"That man strangely mistakes the manner of spirit he is of who knows not that peaceableness, and gentleness, and mercy, as well as purity, are inseparable characteristics of the wisdom that is from above; and that Christian charity ought never to be sacrificed even for the promotion of evangelical truth."

"The consciousness of doing that which we are reasonably persuaded we ought to do, is always a gratifying sensation to the considerate mind: it is a sensation by God"