Character

What You Read – Oscar Wilde

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

– Oscar Wilde –

Just a Little – Thomas Brooks

A little hole in the ship sinks it; a small breach in a sea-bank carries away all before it; a little stab at the heart kills a man; and a little sin, without a great deal of mercy, will damn a man.

– Thomas Brooks –

Truth in the Inward Parts – Thomas Watson

Wherein does the beauty of the diamond lie, but in this, that it is a true diamond? If it is a counterfeit, it is worth nothing. So wherein does the beauty of a Christian lie, but in this, that he has the truth in the inward parts (Psalms 51:6)?

– Thomas Watson –
from The Godly Man’s Picture, 1666

The Importance of Humility – Charles Spurgeon

It is of the utmost importance to us to be kept humble. Consciousness of self-importance is a hateful delusion, but one into which we fall as naturally as weeds grow on a dunghill. We cannot be used of the Lord but that we also dream of personal greatness, we think ourselves almost indispensable to the church, pillars of the cause, and foundations of the temple of God. We are nothings and nobodies, but that we do not think so is very evident, for as soon as we are put on the shelf we begin anxiously to enquire, “How will the work go on without me?” As well might the fly on the coach wheel enquire, “How will the mails be carried without me?” Far better men have been laid in the grave without having brought the Lord’s work to a standstill, and shall we fume and fret because for a little season we must lie upon the bed of languishing? God sometimes weakens our strength in a way at the precise juncture when our presence seems most needed to teach us that we are not necessary to God’s work, and that when we are most useful, He can easily do without us. If this be the practical lesson, the rough schooling may be easily endured for assuredly it is beyond all things desirable that self should be kept low and the Lord alone be magnified.

– Charles Spurgeon –
from “Laid Aside, Why?,” The Sword and Trowel, May, 1876