Some Reasons We Believe

The most compelling reasons that we believe the Bible, are the following;
When we see how exactly the rule of duty prescribed in the Bible agrees with that enforced by our own conscience.
When we see how the account which the Bible gives of human nature, coincides with our human experience.
When we see how powerfully the truths presented there operate to purify our soul.
When we feel how completely the truths presented console and sustain our soul.

Happiness

" All real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just as possible to him since first he was made of the earth as they are now; and they are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over plowshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray- these are the things that make men happy... Now and then a wearied King, or a tormented slave, found out where the true kingdoms of the world were, and possessed himself, in a furrow or two of garden ground, of a truly infinite dominion." John Ruskin.

Peroxide, Studs and Gestapo Boots

A while back I had a friend who was having trouble with his teenager. So I thought I would
write him a little ditty of encouragement.


Peroxide, Studs and Gestapo Boots

Somewhere between innocence and arrogance
Lie those years with no defense.
A time when brains seep out the seams
those cherished years called the “Teens!”

Hating school, church, and home
and under that leaking peroxide dome,
is attitude, and barbed wire speech
lucky to stay outta Dad’s reach
when tempers flare like fire!!!

Loving smile they used to share
replaced with venom and hardware.
Innocent pursuits, now lame and dull,
now it’s “Pops, check out my tattooed skull.”

Studded tongues, nose with a ring,
I just don’t understand a thing!
Gestapo boots, chains and chants,
Damn it, pull up those baggy pants!

Compose myself, settle down.
Remember--
I once terrorized my little town.
Fred Blauer 2-2000

Nursing home memory

I talked with a motivated Christian last week who had an interest in Nursing home ministry.
It reminded me of this experience I had a few years back. I was working with a woman named Joyce at the time, she is referenced in this account.

I had a haunting experience yesterday at the rest home. During the service about mid-way through a person was brought in with the metal cage type apparatus that fits your head when it's mandatory that your head does not move. It appears to be bolted into your head. Do you know the type of cage I'm talking about? This woman who wore this was, I assessed, in her mid sixties. which is young for the rest home. I could see traces of youthful beauty in her eyes. Although the Lord allows me to see the youth in most of the residents there. Anyway, this was her first visit to the service and I tried not to stare. As we sang and carried on in our normal fashion, Joyce was very moved that this lady was weeping and felt it necessary to tell me in the middle of a song. Joyce always has a way of putting people on the spot. which just makes me squirmy! Anyway I'm just sure this lady knows we're talking about her, so I make sure as not to stare. Anyway when the songs over Joyce goes up to her while I continue the service. Then Joyce stops me and has to put this lady on the spot just like I feared! Well, it turns out this lady wasn't uncomfortable about talking and she answers Joyce's inquiry about her tears by explaining that all her life she ran from God and was involved with drugs and the like, till November 10th, it all came to a head when her husband tried to kill her! In fact he actually did! She was pronounced dead, but was revived. She turned her life over to Christ after this experience and was so filled with joy that we all just rejoiced with her. She said she wanted to talk to me and Joyce after the service. Needless to say the hair is just now laying down on my neck. The balance of the service took on a different enthusiasm than the beginning, you can just imagine.
No way to exaggerate it.
After service I asked her if she wanted a ride home and so I took her to her room where we talked and I found out more detail. It turns out she is 46! One year older than Sue. It is impossible to tell because of her condition. The method her husband used to try and kill her was to run over her with his car! He crushed her skull, broke her neck in two places and to repair her neck they had to go in from the front so they had to slice her throat! Her hair was shaved and she had stitches all over her skull. Her skin was jaundice and she is very dehydrated and so her skin appears very old. She is just a mess. But she is on fiiiiiiiiiirrrrre with God!
She is in pain and can't lay down with that cage, she is in physical therapy daily to learn how to walk and to speak, which she does well, a little slow but clear. In all this horror she has a Jesus smile on her face that went the length of the corridor.
I'm ashamed to admit that in my church the testimonies are fewer than they should be. And the miracles are almost non-existent. But yesterday I sat and talked with a walking miracle of grace.
I can hardly shake her from my thoughts. I woke up last night with her face etched in my mind.
God still raises the dead, and saves the lost!!!!

Absolute Truth?

We live in an age when absolute truth is questioned. Some espouse there is no such thing as absolute truth and each creates and lives in his own reality. I think if we take a moment to reflect on the value of truth in our lives, we will see how important absolute truth is and how we all have the same need for it.
Every person is bound to love the truth. We recoil when we find truth absent from love, marriage, our government and courts. Whether it be in law, science, medicine or marriage, no progress can be made without absolute truth.
There is no justice without truth and scarcely a contract can be made without absolutes.

We are bound to love the truth in personal affairs as well, even in the smallest matters. Think about the importance of truth in the following-
In our daily thoughts; in our feelings; in our personal taste; in trifles as well as things of great importance; in matters of praise or blame; in good humored satire an wit; in that immense microscopic realm of human life down below human law, and even below the reach of public sentiment, where people are themselves the sole spectators of themselves.

Truth and justice, therefore are the soil out of which all moral faculties may be said to grow. Regardless where we are born or what culture we are in, we all share the same love for truth.
Charles Hodge

The Cynic

The Cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one.
He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness and blind to light, mousing for vermin,
and never seeing noble game.
The Cynic puts all human actions into only two classes – Openly bad, and secretly bad.
All virtue and generosity and disinterestedness are merely the appearance of good, but selfish at the bottom. He holds that no man does a good thing except for profit.
The effect of his conversation upon your feelings is to chill and sear them; to send you away sore and morose. His criticisms and innuendoes fall indiscriminately upon every lovely thing, like frost upon flowers. If a man is said to be pure and chaste, he will answer:
Yes, in the day time. If a woman is pronounced virtuous, he will reply: yes, as yet.
Mr. A is a religious man: Yes, on Sundays.
Mr. B. has just joined the church: certainly, the elections are coming on.
Such a man is generous: of other men’s money. This man is obliging: to lull suspicion and cheat you. That man is upright: because he is naïve.

Thus his eye strains out every good quality and takes in only the bad. To him religion is hypocrisy, honesty a preparation for fraud, virtue only want of opportunity, and undeniable purity, asceticism. The live long day he will coolly sit with sneering lip, uttering sharp speeches in the quietest manner, and in polished phrase, transfixing every character which is presented: His words are softer than oil, yet are they drawn swords.

All this, to the young, seems a wonderful knowledge of human nature; they honor a man who appears to have found out mankind. They begin to indulge themselves in flippant sneers; and with supercilious brow, and impudent tongue, wagging to and empty brain, call to naught the wise, the long tried, and the venerable.

I do believe that man is corrupt enough; but something of good has survived his wreck; something of evil restrained, and something partially restored; yet, I look upon the human heart as a mountain of fire. I dread its crater. I tremble when I see its lava roll the fiery stream. Therefore, I am the more glad, if upon the old crust of past eruptions, I can find a single flower springing up. So far from rejecting appearances of virtue in the corrupt heart of a depraved race, I am eager to see their light as ever a mariner was to see a star in a stormy night…..

Henry Ward Beecher, one of the finest preachers of the 19th century.

The Sex Problem

No easy solution to the “sex problem” has ever been discovered and none ever will be. From the foundations of the world it was ordained that this problem should be difficult to the sons and daughters of men. Nobody has yet been able to circumvent nature at that point. Socrates seems to have recognized this when he replied to the young man who consulted him about getting married, “whether you marry or refrain from marrying, you will regret it afterward.” Should we not all be in a better position for dealing with the sex problem if we frankly recognized from the outset that we were up against “a very difficult affair” and that a short and easy cut to the solution is impossible for everybody ? Here, if nowhere else nature seems to have resolved that mankind shall struggle till the end of his days. There is no escape for anybody. The self of a human being is a complicated and many-sided affair, in which the sex element, though always present and unquestionably important, is only one of a thousand demands which have to be satisfied before anything worthy can be attained.
Man, by nature, is a skill hungry animal. His nature is defined by his function; and his function, as revealed alike by the structure of his body and his mind, is the exercise of skill. Taking the “self” all round, it seems to me that its hunger for skill is the most important and universal feature of it........... Here it is [in skillful activity] that the self most completely attains the joyous satisfaction of its deepest needs, while satisfying at the same time the needs of the social environment, with which it is integrally one. Without some form of skillful activity on lines that are socially valuable, self-expression is impossible.
L.P. Jacks -turn of the 19th century.

The Volunteer Organist

The great big church wus crowded full uv broadcloth an’ uv silk.
An’ satin rich as cream that grows on our ole Brindle’s milk;
Shined boots, b’iled shirts, dickeys an’ stovepipe hats were there.
An’ doods ‘ith trouserloons so tight they couldn’t kneel down in prayer.

The elder, in his poolpit high, said as he slowly riz:
“our organist is kep’ to hum, laid up ‘ith rheumatiz,
An’ as we hev no substitoot, as Brother Moore ain’t here,
Will some’un in the congregation be so kind’s to volunteer?”

An’ then a red-nosed drunken tramp of low an’ rowdy style
Give an introductory hiccup an’ then staggered up the aisle.
Then thro’ thet holy atmosphere there crep’ a sense ov sin.
An’ thro’ thet air uv sanctity the odor uv ole gin.

Then Deacon Purington he yelled, his teeth all set on edge;
“This man perfanes the house uv God, W’y, this is sacrilege!”
The tramp didn’t hear a word he said, but slouched ‘ith stumbling feet,
An’ sprawled an’ staggered up the stairs an’ gained the organ seat.

He then went pawin’ thro’ the keys, an’ soon there rose a strain
That seemed to jest bulge out the heart an’ ‘lectrify the brain.
An’ then he slapped down on the thing ‘ith hands an’ head an’ knees;
He slam dashed his whole body down kerflop upon the keys.

The organ roared, the music flood went sweepin’ high an’ dry;
It swelled into the rafters an, bulged out into the sky.
The old church shook an’ staggered and seemed to reel an’ sway,
An’ the elder shouted “Glory!” an’ I yelled out “Hooray!”

An’ then he tried a tender strain that melted in our ears,
That brought up blessed memories and drenched ‘em down ‘ith tears;
An’ we dreamed of old-time kitchens, ‘ith Tabby on the mat,
Uv home an’ love and baby-days, an’ mother an’ all that.

An’ then he struck a streak of hope, a song from souls forgiven,
They burst the prison bars uv sin an’ stormed the gates of Heaven;
The morning stars they sung together, no soul wus left alone,
We felt the universe was safe an’ God wus on His throne.

An’ then a wail of deep despair and darkness came again,
An’ long black crepe hung on the door uv all the homes of men;
No luv, no light, no joy, no hope, no songs uv glad delight,
An’ then – the tramp he staggered down and reeled into the night.

But he knew he’d tol’ his story, though he never spoke a word,
An’ wuz the saddest story that our ears had ever heard;
He hed tol’ his own life history, an’ no eye wuz dry that day,
When the elder rose an’ simply said, “My brethren, let us pray!”
Sam Walter Foss

Ritual and Sacraments

I was reading a sermon by Edwin Hubbell Chapin, one of the finest orators of his time, and he was describing the different ways that people worship, and this paragraph, on those that find meaning in Ritual and Sacraments, I found interesting. I have walked into a Catholic church a few times in my life and was taken by the grandeur and sensed a reverence within the beauty. In this piece he flushes out those feelings I had.


There are those who can find peace only in the arms of an hereditary Faith: who can feel the inspiration of worship only among forms that have kindled worship in others for a thousand years: with whose earliest thoughts and dearest memories is entwined a Ritual and an Established Church, so that personal affection and household sanctity, as well as religious feeling, demand that every great act of life -- as well as joy or sorrow-- should be consecrated by the familiar sacrament. For that church, too, their fathers have died in darker times, and beneath its chancels, sainted mothers moulder into dust. All, too, that can exalt the ideal, or wake the pulses of eloquent emotion, is connected with such a church. To them it opens a traditional perspective, the grandest in all history.
Behind its altars, sweep the vestments of centuries of priests, and rises the incense of centuries of prayer. In its stony niches, stand rows of saints, who have made human life sublime, and who, through all the passing ages, look down upon the turmoil of that life with the calm beatitude of heaven; while its flushed windows still keep the blood-stain of its own martyrs, plashed against it ere yet it had become an anchored fact, and while it tossed upon the stormy waves of persecution. I can understand, then, how an imaginative and reverential mind can find the truest religious life only in connection with Ritual and Sacrament.

In the following paragraph he describes those that find satisfaction in the discipline of a spontaneous devotion; also the faith of the Puritans with their rugged independence of soul, that faithfulness to the individual conscience, that sense of the Divine Sovereignty, which could kneel at no man's altar, and to God alone. And other modes of worship as well.
Let them all continue.

We must.....

The message today was on Jesus talking with the Samaritan woman. I was eager to hear what new insights the Pastor would reveal from this famous passage. He picked up in
John 4:4 It begins saying—“Now he had to go through Samaria.” He stopped there and I wondered what he would say about that simple statement. He posed the question, ‘why did Jesus have to go through Samaria?’ Certainly this was not a story about travel directions, He certainly did not have to go through Samaria. In fact, it would be rare for a Jew to go through this town of mixed races and mixed religions. Many would never take this route. But Jesus HAD to go? Jesus always seems to do as he sees fit and surely no one compelled him to go.
The Pastor then began to surmise that this chance encounter with the Samarian woman was not chance but rather the reason Jesus chose this route. Her need compelled Jesus and he MUST go, not to get something from her but to give her the deepest need of her soul. He was interested in her. Because of her he had to go that way. He must.

The Pastor had a picture of Madonna the singer on the overhead to demonstrate how we tend to see the surface and often overlook the needs of the heart. Of course my first reaction was a middle age repulsion of this embodiment of evil, so his modern day illustration of the repulsion of the Jews was effective. The Jews had two sayings about Samaritans; “to eat Samaritan bread is to eat swine’s flesh, and, Samaritan women are always unclean.” I guess I kind of felt that way about Madonna. But Jesus HAD to go to through Samaria.
I left church today with a greater sense of the heart of God. I felt if the living Christ truly lives in us, and in a world with needs at every turn, then we too must go.

Prepared to do any good work

In my reading recently I came upon this – “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble.
If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”

I met a niece about five months ago; Married to truly great guy, they rear their four children in a devoted Christian home. But their children came through much difficulty; Mary, my niece, had great difficulty with each childbirth; health problems, premature births and one little girl who died after only an hour and a half of life. This tiny little angel, Mariah, lay in a hospital blanket, no clothing available for one so small.
Now Mary can knit and crotchet. Soon God moved on her to use this talent to knit tiny clothes for other women that have premature babies. She found that all over the country in Neonatal facilities, in Pregnancy Resource Centers and the like, there is a need for these tiny infants. That was a few years back and now she has a charity in all 50 states where women, and some men, knit clothing for children in need. Now till I met Mary, I never knew the need existed. But God did and he moved on Mary, a woman “prepared to do any good work.”

I read on the Free Burma Ranger site that high in the mountains of Burma they have a need for hats for the young children to protect from the cold. I mentioned this to Mary and that day she posted the need on her web-site and that week she had members knitting hats to fill the need. Now Burma has a permanent place on her web-site and she asked me to manage that site with information, updates and needs.

Now Tabitha, immortalized in the Bible, was always doing good, making robes and clothing for the poor: a noble, holy work, useful to the Master.
She was prepared to do any good work.

Please visit Mary’s web-site at Heavenly Angels in Need .com

"Be Short"

I was reading a brief biography of Cotton Mather, a Early American Puritan- born 1663
The following piece interested me and maybe you as well?

"No person in America read or possessed so many books or retained so much of what he read.
So precious was time to him that "Be short" was inscribed over his study door to prevent visits of unnecessary length. His publications amounted to 382. His "Essays to do Good" is a most excellent publication, to which Dr. Benjamin Franklin ascribes all his own later usefulness."

I can just imagine visiting his study and the intimidation that little sign would cause.
Also, not a bad recommendation to have Franklin ascribe his usefulness to you, wouldn't you say?

The Power and Influence of Young Women

I was reading in a book called Portraits and Principles, an anthology of essays by successful people and how they got that way, when I read this one addressed to young women. I have one fourteen year old granddaughter, and others growing up quickly, that I want to pass this on to.
When I finished it I thought there may be others that would like it for the same purpose.

The following piece is a paraphrase from an essay titled-
The Influence of Young Women by Lady Henry Somerset – She was the President of a British women’s Temperance union in the late 1800s.
I might rename it The Power and Influence of Young Women because as I read it I became aware of power women have. She begins with what seems as a unrelated issue, stating that mankind can develop nature but not improve upon it.
“All the present deliciousness of fruits or flowers was contained in the original seeds out of which they were developed. Men have added nothing to nature.”
Her point being that fruits and flowers are and can be improved upon, and then she likens this to the family of man, and that through the home it can be improved as well. “ Without one’s family, what were all else of life?
Without them would life be worth the living? How could there be love, and hope and ambition, without the family? There might be lust of appetite, or gaining things, of conquest, for mere existence, but how could holy love exist without the family relation? And love is life. In the Bible the words are almost interchangeable in meaning.”

She makes this general statement, although made over a hundred years ago I think it is as true today as then. “Now men are ruled by their appetites, and women by their affections, until education has taught them the proper uses of both.”
Now she goes on and this is where it gets interesting to me; she begins to encourage young women on how to pick out a man and in doing so exert her power over all of society.
“The young women of today will be the matrons of tomorrow, and while they never can make over the young men whom their mothers have made years ago,
(She mentions earlier that as a rule the first seven years of life determine the future of the child and so of the man.) they can almost wholly determine the character of the next generation, by wisely using their influence with the present one. What kind of associates, what kind of companions, will you choose among men? Fate will not fix it for you, but you must determine it.
There are serious vices among men, foul blots on humanity that impair its energies, that bar all upward progress of the race, that are steadily dragging it downward to that of a beast and actions of the devil – vices that breed crimes, natural and unnatural, preternatural ( unlike ordinary natural occurrences ), by which and from which woman has been and is the silent, and greatest sufferer.
Shall these be continued? On its answer hangs the destiny of the ages. Shall the vice of the father be fastened on your innocent child through you?
That is the problem you are to solve.
Over against the world’s misery stand the young women of the day with the power not merely to lessen it but to blot it out. Will they do it? Do you ask how?

By resolutely refusing to be the medium for its perpetuation.

Demand purity of thought, purity of purpose, purity of deed that is unyielding, with the young men with whom you accompany.
How long would the vice of drink, the use of drugs, the delirium of gambling, the leper-seeking of lust with all of its perversions, dwell in the world, if the young women in it were to refuse to accompany any young man tainted by them?
Not a generation.”

She goes on to give countless example of how young women take as friends for themselves young men who have habits that inevitably end up hurting themselves, because the young man is cute or clever, rich or has position.

The main point of the essay is to point out the power young women have.
They can by right choices for themselves, not only help themselves, but, when married and if children come, bless the children by their choice, and all of society.

Poor but content

This is another good story custom made for parents to use as a training tool for their children.

“ In a time of famine a rich man sent for the poorest children of the town, and said to them;
“There is a basket full of bread; you may come every day and take a loaf until it pleases God to send better times.”
The children attacked the basket, and disputed as to which should have the largest loaf, and then went away without thanking their benefactor.
Only Frances, a very poor but cleanly girl, modestly remained behind, and had the smallest loaf which was left in the basket. She gratefully returned thanks and went home quietly. One day the children behaved very badly indeed, and poor Frances received a loaf very much smaller than the rest; but when she took it home, and her mother cut it open, a number of pieces of silver fell on the floor.
The poor woman was astonished and said:
“Go and return this money immediately, it must have been a mistake.”
Frances went directly with it to the gentleman, who said:
“My dear child, it was no mistake. I had the money put into that loaf to reward you. Remain always as peaceable and contented. Those who are satisfied with a little always bring blessing upon themselves and family, and will pass happily through the world. Do not thank me, but thank God, who put into your heart the treasure of a contented and grateful spirit, and who has given me the will and opportunity to be useful to those who are in need of assistance.”

Purpose and Direction

The thing, which an active mind most needs, is a purpose and direction worthy of its activity. The dread that we have that precious hopes will never be realized is more than half of the burden that we have to bear. Better fail a thousand times and in everything else, than attempt to shape for yourself a life without God, without hope in Christ, and without an interest in heaven. But those who have a high, pure aim in life, some noble end to be accomplished for the benefit of our fellow creatures, and the advancement of the interests of the Redeemer’s kingdom, if such an object is labored and striven for, in the strength of the Lord, something precious and beautiful in the sight of God and the angels will be formed, a full and completely rounded life, answering the end for which it was created. Well Springs of Truth

Patience and Forbearance

The horse of a pious man in Massachusetts happened to stray into the road. A neighbor of the man who owned the horse, caught him and put him in the pound.
Meeting the owner soon after, he told him what he had done, and added,
“If ever I catch him in the road hereafter, I’ll do just so again.”
“Neighbor” replied the other, “Not long since, I looked out of my window in the night, and saw your cattle in my mowing-ground; and I drove them out, and shut them in your stable;
and I’ll do it again.”
Struck with the reply, the man liberated the horse from the pound, and paid the charges himself.
Well Springs of Truth 1883

Tingling nerves

What is the true test of piety? Plain matter-of-fact, un-ecstatic obedience as of a child to a father; that is the test. The only true joy is born of such obedience. Ecstasies that come from any other source do not belong to the legitimate family circle of heavenly joys. They are the result of that which it does not take heaven to explain. They can be produced at any time and on any occasion by a combination of earthly forces. Singing can produce them. A sympathetic voice can charge the mystic thrill along the nerves till they tingle. Eloquence can produce them. How often under the orators power men and women weep, groan and shout in loud acclaim! The mesmeric influence which hovers over marsh land during a summer heat can communicate by subtle and untraceable potency its deceptive and transitory excitement, so that the vast multitude shall be charged full of the current whose expression might deceive the very elect.
Many suppose that this kind of feeling is legitimate, spiritual, and represents the real power of God. Yea, many gauge their piety by the presence or absence of these feelings; which are feelings that reach no farther than the muscles, and have their home in nothing more divine than the nervous tissues. The piety of Jesus consisted in obedience. His great aim was to do the will of God. He loved God perfectly, and loved man perfectly, and so perfectly fulfilled the law; and so had perfect happiness. Obedience to God lies in natural duties as truly as what are known as technically spiritual. The perfect life stands parent to the perfect joy. Well Springs of Truth

My experience as a Christian was birthed in emotion. When I came to Christ I was raptured away with such a sense of divine presence and heavenly encouragement that I was compelled to go on and follow this Jesus and his gift of peace. Throughout my Christian walk there have been times of great emotion, and heavenly euphoria. So, as I read this piece I first leaned towards disagreement. But after further consideration I agree more than disagree. I have witnessed many over the years that find a consolation in emotion and pursue meetings that bring them into this state of pleasure without much change. So I think this piece is good to urge us to balance, and to test our own spirit by obedience. What other measuring rod is there?

Be it small or great.

“My sister, a woman of your ability and culture might grace earth’s highest salons, and your beauty properly arrayed would adorn a palace. But God has put you in a humble home, and given you a needle for your equipment. Do not, therefore, stitch a complaint and a story of former wealth into every seam. Show your ability by the excellence of your work.
If we are not superior in little things, we would not be superior in the great things of which we dream ourselves capable. In nothing is true ability – not a mere sham pretense of talent – shown more clearly than in doing thoroughly whatever comes to hand, be it small or great.”

Well Springs of Truth 1883

Loyalty to Duty

There are dogs of Herculaneum which display faithful loyalty to duty. One such dogs cast was taken from the ash cavity in which he was discovered. He died of suffocation and agony. But, like the sentinel, he never left his post. The Herculaneum dog Delta has left behind him a wonderful record of valor. In the disinterment of the buried city, his skeleton was found stretched over that of a boy of about twelve years old, most probably clasping his charge to prevent his being suffocated or burned. The boy perished as well as the faithful Delta, but a collar remains to tell of the noble courage of the dog. It relates that he had three times saved the life of his master—from the sea, from robbers, and from wolves.”
If there is such a spirit of loyalty to duty to be found in poor brutes, how much more ought human beings to cultivate this quality?. Well Springs of Truth 1883

Learn to condense

Matt, you're going to love this post!

Southey says, “If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams—the more they are condensed the deeper they burn.” Long visits, long stories, long exhortations and long prayers seldom profit those who have to do with them. Life is short. Time is short. Moments are precious. Learn to condense, abridge and intensify. We can endure many an ache and ill if it is soon over, while even pleasures grown insipid and pain intolerable if they are protracted beyond the limits of reason and convenience.” Learn to be brief. Lop off branches; stick to the main facts in your case. If you pray ask for what you would receive, and get through; if you speak tell your message, and hold your peace; boil down two words into one, and three into two.” Well Springs of Truth 1883