Persuasion
has often carried so much of self-will with it,—has often been so impregnated with the belief of personal desire and personal power,—that even its gentle use has sometimes been avoided when there is nothing which would have served a better purpose.
The
writer of the book of Hebrews, foreseeing the possibility of all true worshipers gaining the kingdom of heaven, admonished his readers in these words: "Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence.
A wise
writer has declared, "By friendship you mean the greatest love, the greatest usefulness, the most open communication, the severest truth, the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds of which brave men and women are capable.
Generally
speaking, men have believed when gifts have been presented to them that these gifts have been given with the expectation that they were to be used in such fashion as pleased the fancy of the recipients.
In
the forceful language which, in general, characterizes his letters, Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that the children of Israel owed their release from the many perils which attended their wilderness journeying to the fact that they "did all drink the same spiritual drink; for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ.