This World Is Given As A Prize

There Is A Mighty Gulf Between Those Who Love And Those Who Do Not Love God To The One Class We Owe Civility, Courtesy, Kindness, Even Tenderness. It Is Only Those Who Love The Lord Who Should Find In Our Hearts A Home.

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.

Every Day His Servants Are Dying Modestly And Peacefully--not A Word Of Victory On Their Lips; But Christ's Deep Triumph In Their Hearts--watching The Slow Progress Of Their Own Decay, And Yet So Far Emancipated From Personal Anxiety That They Are Still Able To Think And Plan For Others, Not Knowing That They Are Doing Any Great Thing. They Die, And The World Hears Nothing Of Them; And Yet Theirs Was The Completest Victory. They Came To The Battle Field, The Field To Which They Had Been Looking Forward All Their Lives, And The Enemy Was Not To Be Found. There Was No Foe To Fight With.

Only In The Sacredness Of Inward Silence Does The Soul Truly Meet The Secret, Hiding God. The Strength Of Resolve, Which Afterward Shapes Life, And Mixes Itself With Action, Is The Fruit Of Those Sacred, Solitary Moments. There Is A Divine Depth In Silence. We Meet God Alone.

No One Can Be Great, Or Good, Or Happy Except Through The Inward Efforts Of Themselves.