Great trials seem to be a necessary preparation for great duties. It would seem that the more important the enterprise, the more severe the trial to which the agent is subjected in his preparation.

The longer men sin, the more easily they can for every act of transgression weakens conscience, stupefies intellect, hardens hearts, adds force to bad habits, and takes force from good example. And, surely, there is nothing in such associations as wicked affinities will insure to the sinner in the future state, to incline him to repentance.

There is in man a conscience which outlives the sensations the sensations, resolutions, and emotions of the hour, and rises above them all.

One has said that Christ excelled all other moralists in this, that He puts the padlock not upon the hand, but upon the heart. But He does not use the padlock at all, He renders such a thing unnecessary. He takes the tiger from the heart, and replaces it with the lamb.

Lincoln did but pour the soul of the nation into the monumental act of universal liberty and that soul was inspired by the gospel.

You may be a dreadful failure. Christ is a divine success. Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.