The Office Of Poetry Is Not To

It Is A Law Of Our Humanity, That Man Must Know Both Good And Evil; He Must Know Good Through Evil. There Never Was A Principle But What Triumphed Through Much Evil; No Man Ever Progressed To Greatness And Goodness But Through Great Mistakes.

As The Tree Is Fertilized By Its Own Broken Branches And Fallen Leaves, And Grows Out Of Its Own Decay, So Men And Nations Are Bettered And Improved By Trial, And Refined Out Of Broken Hopes And Blighted Expectations.

It Is Not The Number Of Books You Read; Nor The Variety Of Sermons Which You Hear; Nor The Amount Of Religious Conversation In Which You Mix: But It Is The Frequency And The Earnestness With Which You Meditate On These Things, Till The Truth Which May Be In Them Becomes Your Own, And Part Of Your Own Being, That Ensures Your Spiritual Growth.

The Christian Life Is Not Knowing Or Hearing, But Doing.

What We Are, And Where We Are, Is God's Providential Arrange Ment — God's Doing, Though It May Be Man's Misdoing; And The Manly And The Wise Way Is To Look Your Disadvantages In The Face, And See What Can Be Made Out Of Them.