I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my at...tention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment--like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find, in everything, those certain bounds, quos ultra citrave nequit con...sistere rectum. These boundaries are marked out by a very fine line, which only good sense and attention can discover; it is much too fine for vulgar eyes. In manners, this line is good breeding; beyond it, is troublesome ceremony; short of it, is unbecoming negligence and inattention. In morals, it divides ostentatious Puritanism from criminal relaxation; in religion, superstition from impiety; and, in short, every virtue from its kindred vice or weakness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The essential is to go on squirming forever at the end of the line, as long as there are waters and banks and ravening in heaven a... sporting God to plague his creature, per pro his chosen shits.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If you have wit, use it to please, and not to hurt; you may shine, like the sun in the temperature zones, without scorching. Here ...it is wished for; under the Line it is dreaded.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line--the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in A...sia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea. It was a phase of this problem that caused the Civil War.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Here come the line-gang pioneering by. They throw a forest down less cut than broken.... They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Just as soon as we notice that someone has to force himself to pay attention when dealing and talking with us, we have a valid dem...onstration that he does not love us or that he does not love us anymore.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The attention of those who frequent the camp-meetings at Eastham is said to be divided between the preaching of the Methodists and... the preaching of the billows on the back side of the Cape, for they all stream over here in the course of their stay. I trust that in this case the loudest voice carries it. With what effect may we suppose the ocean to say, "My hearers!" to the multitude on the bank. On that side some John N. Maffit; on this, the Reverend Poluphloisboios Thalassa.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »