Christianity is within a man, even as he is gifted with reason; it is associated with your mother's chair, and with the first remembered, tones of her blessed voice.
The paternal and filial duties discipline the heart, and prepare it for the love of all mankind. The intensity of private attachment encourages, not prevents, universal benevolence.
Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.
Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty.
I do not wish you to act from these truths; no, still and always act from your feelings; only meditate often on these truths that sometime or other they may become your feelings.
I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit; in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy.
Great old books of the great old authors are not in everybody's reach; and though it is better to know them thoroughly than to know them only here and there, yet it is a good work to give a little to those who have neither time nor means to get his own belief.
The act of praying is the very highest energy of which the human mind is capable; praying, that is, with the total concentration of the faculties. The great mass of worldly men and of learned men are absolutely incapable of prayer.