The Works of William E. Channing, D.D.

Couverture
 

Autres éditions - Tout afficher

Expressions et termes fréquents

Fréquemment cités

Page 90 - And is it in the flight of threescore years To push eternity from human thought, And smother souls immortal in the dust ? A soul immortal, spending all her fires, Wasting her strength in strenuous idleness, Thrown into tumult, raptur'd or alarm'd, At aught this scene can threaten or indulge, Resembles ocean into tempest wrought, To waft a feather, or to drown a fly.
Page 158 - ... for our minds by the pains it inflicts, by its obstinate resistance which nothing but patient toil can overcome, by its vast forces which nothing but unremitting skill and effort can turn to our use, by its perils which demand continual vigilance, and by its tendencies to decay. I believe that difficulties are more important to the human mind than what we call assistances. Work we all must, if we mean to bring out and perfect our nature.
Page 233 - Wherefore, let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.
Page 358 - For honourable age is not that which standeth in length of time, nor that is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age.
Page 340 - What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day ? and what is he more, if atheism be true ! Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering, having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would...
Page 199 - I see not why such a man, however coarsely if neatly dressed, should not be a respected guest in the most splendid mansions, and at the most brilliant meetings. A man is worth infinitely more than the saloons, and the costumes, and the show of the universe. He was made to tread all these beneath his feet. What an insult to humanity is the present deference to dress and upholstery, as if silkworms, and looms, and scissors, and needles, could produce something nobler than a man...
Page 159 - You will here see that to me labor has great dignity. It is not merely the grand instrument by which the earth is overspread with fruitfulness and beauty, and the ocean subdued, and matter wrought into innumerable forms for comfort and ornament. It has a far higher function, which is to give force to the will, efficiency, courage, the capacity of endurance and of persevering devotion to far-reaching plans.
Page 185 - They flash on us as lights from heaven. A man seriously given to the culture of his mind in virtue and truth, finds himself under better teaching than that of man. Revelations of his own soul, of God's intimate presence, of the grandeur of the creation, of the glory of disinterestedness, of the deformity of wrong-doing, of the dignity of universal justice, of the might of moral principle, of the immutableness of truth, of immortality, and of the inward sources of happiness; these revelations, awakening...
Page 328 - ... light, and whose providence is our only safety ! How fit to entreat him, that he would keep us to another day ; or, if our bed should prove our grave, that he would give us a part in the resurrection of the just, and awake us to a purer and immortal life. The most important periods of prayer have now been pointed out. Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening. Let our days begin and end with God. MEANS OF PROMOTING CHRISTIANITY.
Page 385 - Whilst the laity are slumbering, the ancient and free constitution of our churches is silently undermined, and is crumbling away. Since argument is insufficient to produce uniformity of opinion, recourse must be had to more powerful instruments of conviction ; I mean, to ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.

Informations bibliographiques