Richard Steele on Humility

Humility will make you easy and contented in every condition of life; you will then be ready to commanded; easy to be pleased; hard to be provoked; and generally beloved. An humble mind thinks every good it receieves more than it deserves, and every evil less. It will not think itself too great or too good to stoop to the meanest services of an honest employment; nor be wanting in a modest and respectful behaviour to others. You will not then be disputing when you should obey; fretting when you should submit; envying those you should respect, or contemning those you should embrace. These are a consequence of pride in the heart; a disposition that will make you hateful to God, disrespected of men, and uneasy to yourselves; every labour will be thought too much, every reproof too galling, and every week a year, until the time of servitude expires, and then you will carry your chain with you, for what liberty can he have that is a slave to his pride and passions?

Chesterton on Motherhood

To be Queen Elizabeth within a definite area, deciding sales, banquets, labours, and holidays; to be Whitely within a certain area, providing toys, boots, cakes and books; to be Aristotle within a certain area, teaching morals, manners, theology, and hygiene; I can imagine how this can exhaust the mind, but I cannot imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other people about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious, but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.

At times men think of the two words, reformation and revival as standing in contrast one to the other, but this is a mistake. Both words are related to the word restore.

Reformation refers to a restoration to pure doctrine; revival refers to a restoration in the Christian’s life. Reformation speaks of a return to the teachings of Scripture; revival speaks of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit.

The Great moments of church history have come when these two restorations have simultaneously come into action so that the church has returned to pure doctrine and the lives of the Christians in the church have known the power of the Holy Spirit. There cannot be true revival unless there has been reformation; and reformation is not complete without revival.

Such a combination of reformation and revival would be revolutionary in our day—revolutionary in our individual lives as Christians, revolutionary not only in reference to the liberal church but constructively revolutionary in the evangelical, orthodox church as well.

May we be those who know the reality of both reformation and revival, so that this poor dark world may have an exhibition of a portion of the church returned to both pure doctrine and Spirit-filled life.

-Francis Schaffer, Death in the City-

Spurgeon on sufficiency of God

"'For thou art with me.' This is the joy of the Christian!...'Thou Art with me' I have in having thee, all that I can crave: I have perfect comfort and absolute security, for thou art with me" Charles Spurgeon

Spurgeon on God's mercy

"Goodness and mercy follow him always - 'all the days of his life' - the black days as well as the bright days, the days of fasting as well as the days of feating, the dreary days of winter as well as the bright days of summer. Goodness supplies our needs and mercy blots out our sins." Charles Spurgeon

Matthew Henry on the love of God

"The great God not only loves his saints, but he loves to love them, is pleased that he has pitched upon these objects of his love. He will joy over them with singing. He that is grieved for the sin of sinners rejoices in the graces and services of the saints, and is ready to express that joy by singing over them. The Lord takes pleasure in those that fear him, and in them Jesus Christ will shortly be glorified and admired."