C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Albert Barnes
Christianity may produce agitation, anger, tumult as at Ephesus; but the diffusion of the pure gospel of Christ, and the establishment of the institutions of honesty and virtue, at whatever cost, is a blessing to mankind.
I entreat you to devote one solemn hour of thought to a crucified Saviour—a Saviour expiring in the bitterest agony. Think of the cross, the nails, the open wounds, the anguish of His soul. Think how the Son of God became a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, that you might live forever. Think as you lie down upon your bed to rest, how your Saviour was lifted up from the earth to die. Think amid your plans and anticipations of future gaiety what the redemption of your soul has cost, and how the dying Saviour would wish you to act. His wounds plead that you will live for better things.
It has become a settled principle that nothing which is good and true can be destroyed by persecution, but that the effect ultimately is to establish more firmly, and to spread more widely, that which it was designed to overthrow. It has long since passed into a proverb that “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.”
It is not the profession of religion which creates the obligation for the performance of duty; for that existed before any such profession was made. The profession of religion only recognizes the obligation.
It is, in a great measure, by raising up and endowing great minds that God secures the advance of human affairs, and the accomplishment of His own plans on earth.
Our earthly possessions will indeed perish in the final wreck of all things; but let the ship perish, let all we have sink in the deep, if we may come “safe to land.” From these storms and billows—these dangerous seas—these tempestuous voyages—may we all be brought at last safe to heaven.
Such was God’s original love for man, that He was willing to stoop to any sacrifice to save him; and the gift of a Saviour was the mere expression of that love.
The Bible, as a revelation from God, was not designed to give us all the information we might desire, nor to solve all the questions about which the human soul is perplexed, but to impart enough to be a safe guide to the haven of eternal rest.
The idea of preaching the gospel to all nations alike, regardless of nationality, of internal divisions as to rank and color, complexion and religion, constituted the beginning of a new era in history. You cannot preach the gospel in its purity over the world, without proclaiming the doctrine of civil and religious liberty,—without overthrowing the barriers reared between nations and clans and classes of men,—without ultimately undermining the thrones of despots, and breaking off the shackles of slavery,—without making men everywhere free.
When life has been well spent; when there is a conscience without reproach; when there is faith in the Saviour; when there is a well-founded hope of heaven, there can be nothing that should disquiet us.
When we come to die, we shall be alone. From all our worldly possessions we shall be about to part. Worldly friends—the friends drawn to us by our position, our wealth, or our social qualities,—will leave us as we enter the dark valley. From those bound to us by stronger ties—our kindred, our loved ones, children, brothers, sisters, and from those not less dear to us who have been made our friends because they and we are the friends of the same Saviour,—from them also we must part. Yet not all will leave us. There is One who “sticketh closer than a brother”—One who having loved His own which are in the world loves them to the end.