[The Christian Register]

Failures to think clearly are the most frequent facts of controversy. Earnestness and zeal for a cause make men commit sins of reasoning which would extend indefinitely the list of fallacies in text-books of logic. One idea screens their whole vision so they see everything in the changed colors produced by that idea. Thinking ceases to be a task of clearing a path of truth in the wilderness of experience and becomes merely gathering wood for the fire.

This is what makes so much discussion bootless and embittering. Each participant becomes an advocate rather than an explorer. He settles down in one place and fortifies it, instead of opening up a wider region for settlement. He contends for his own possessions, instead of developing the possibilities of the common good. He no longer seeks the truth, but only strives to have his one portion accepted as the whole.

The love of truth itself is higher than any denomination of it. If every one could feel that love, many divisions which set men against each other would disappear. The unpardonable sin is the assertion of what one wishes accepted as truth against what one knows, or ought to know, is the truth.

[Rev. E. Dean Ellenwood, as reported in Elgin (Ill.) Courier]

It is only necessary to contemplate the steady and almost phenomenal growth of two of the newer cults, widely differing in their philosophies and methods but both deeply spiritual in their aims and ideals, to realize that the drift away from the established institutions of religion is not a departure from religion, but merely a transfer of allegiance. A careful canvassing of the growing membership of both the Socialist and the Christian Science fellowship will discover the fact that to a surprising extent the persons who constitute the bone and sinew, the rank and file of these significant movements, received their earliest religious training in one or another of the great historic religious communions. For some reason the mother has ceased to feed and employ her offspring.

Just here, it appears to me, exists the great field of study for the present leaders of religion in all communions; and it is a study to which must be brought all of the common sense, historic perspective, tolerance, and disinterested human affection, actual or potential, in every one of us. Scolding will prove as unavailing as it is unlovely. Old authorities may not thus be restored, and I, for one, am very far from desiring a resurrection of the decadent authorities of "the religion of yesterday."

In all quarters we hear the hopeful prophecy that we are just at the threshold of a religious awakening such as the world has never known. In this hope we turn eagerly to the consideration of "the religion of tomorrow." It will reveal many of the characteristics of its parents and grandparents, "the religion of yesterday" and "the religion of today." It seems reasonably certain, however, that none of the ground gained religiously in our march up the slopes of time shall be lost. Therefore it is not too much to predict of "the religion of tomorrow" that its worship will be "in spirit and in truth" and its service social righteousness.

[The Congregationalist and Christian World]

Before all other wishes for the days to come we may well wish for a church of Christ serene in faith, dauntless in courage, patient in hope, persistent in its witness through good deeds to the love which was the law of our Redeemer's life and is the ideal of our own. Without that persistent and courageous witness of Christ's followers the future is black indeed,—a night of storm with no tokens of sunrise in the eastern sky.

But we belong to the sunrise. The dawning of the day-star has come already in our hearts. Surely we think too cheaply of ourselves and of him who is the light and hope of all men, when we deem ourselves unfit to carry on the great tradition of the heroic past! We have crippled our own souls by our regrets and our forebodings. We have refused the witness to which we are called when we cower shivering, instead of venturing forth in the name of the Lord to put all things to the test of obedience, in the assurance of his presence and his power to lead and guide.

[The Universalist Leader]

It is when we value essential righteousness more than any benefits it may procure that our conscience becomes most sensitive to distinctions between right and wrong. It is when we feel the kindness which we seek to express that the voice becomes most sympathetic and the smile most winning. It is when we are more anxious to bestow happiness than to gain approval that we are quickest to perceive in what way we may render amplest service to others. No selfish ambition could have enabled Jesus to practise that perfection of virtue which resulted from his love of moral excellence, his devotion to human welfare, and his reverence for his Father's will. There are heights of moral achievement which the feet of self-interest are powerless to scale but to which we easily rise on wings of love. In the realm of moral endeavor, as in every other department of effort, we do our work best when we enjoy it most.

[The Christian Intelligencer]

Life is a bigger interest than the making of a living; and consecrated business men have found it possible to combine a full business life with large, unselfish service for the kingdom. It is all a question of heart and will. If a man has the true estimate of life and is in sympathy with the work of Christ, and if God is given first place in his life, he will find it possible to make such adjustments and arrangements that the church will be able to count on his presence and influence. Business is not to become an enemy of the spiritual life; the true Christian soldier will make it an ally.

[Prof. A. T. Robertson, D.D., LL.D., in The Homiletic Review]

The church is lost today that relies upon culture, money, music, ecclesiastical machinery, architecture, eloquence, social prestige, instead of the Spirit of God. It is simple truth to say that the slow progress of the gospel through the ages is due to the paralysis of Christianity by the world spirit and the loss of energy from the loss of direct contact with God. In Acts we have the picture of men, simple and learned, weak and erring, yielding themselves to the leading of God and letting God use them, men filled with the Holy Spirit.

[The Christian Work]

The Bible should be often in our hands. It was written by men who lived in troubled and stirring times, and who kept their heart calm at the center of the storm. The Old Testament was written by men who in their own experience had proved that God can keep in perfect peace all who put their trust in Him, and the New Testament is the work of men whose lives were "hid with Christ in God."

[American Lutheran Survey]

Lack of spiritual religion is the cause of all sin and wickedness. It was the cause of Israel's discomfiture again and again. The Lord warned them most earnestly against their indifference to spiritual religion, their formalism, their hypocrisy, their forgetfulness of God, and their worldliness.