Quotable

“You’re just out of date,”
   said young pastor Bate
To one of our faithful old preachers
Who had carried for years
   in travail and tears

The gospel to poor sinful creatures.
“You still preach on Hades,
   and shock cultured ladies
“With your barbarous doctrine of blood!
“You’re so far behind
   you will never catch up—
“You’re a flat tire stuck in the mud!”

For some little while, a bit of a smile
Enlightened the old preacher’s face.
Being made the butt of ridicule’s cut
Did not ruffle his sweetness and grace.
Then he turned to young Bate,
   so suave and sedate.
“Catch up, did my ears hear you say?
“Why, I couldn’t succeed
   if I doubled my speed,

“My friend, I’m not going your way!”

—Author unknown [We have since found attribution to C. T. Studd]

If religious literature is not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end.

—Daniel Webster, 1823

The truth was in Gaius, and Gaius walked in the truth. If the first had not been the case, the second could never have occurred; and if the second could not be said of him the first would have been a mere pretense. Truth must first enter into the soul, penetrate and saturate it, or else it is of no value.

—Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Morning and Evening