Three Thousand Selected Quotations from Brilliant Writers/O
OBEDIENCE.
To be a Christian is to obey Christ no matter how you feel.
True obedience to God is the obedience of faith and good works; that is, he is truly obedient to God who trusts Him, and does what He commands.
I find the doing of the will of God leaves me no time for disputing about His plans.
The virtue of paganism was strength; the virtue of Christianity is obedience.
—Guesses at Truth.
The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence:—they acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced in His will in all things.
Every man obeys Christ as he prizes Christ, and no otherwise.
"Sir," said the Duke of Wellington to an officer of engineers, who urged the impossibility of executing the directions he had received, "I did not ask your opinion, I gave you my orders, and I expect them to be obeyed." Such should be the obedience of every follower of Jesus.
"Arise, take up thy bed and walk." You are on your bed now. You put yourself there by your own sin. You have kept yourself there by your own choice. Every sinner is a sinner because he chooses to be; and you are no exception. Jesus commands you to repent and trust Him and follow Him. The moment you are willing to obey, He gives you strength to obey.
O that we could take that simple view of things, as to feel that the one thing which lies before us is to please God! What gain is it to please the world, to please the great, nay, even to please those whom we love, compared with this? What gain is it to be applauded, admired, courted, followed,—compared with this one aim of "not being disobedient to the heavenly vision?"
He praiseth God best that serveth and obeyeth Him most; the life of thankfulness consists in the thankfulness of the life.
The sound convert takes a whole Christ, and takes Him for all intents and purposes, without exceptions, without limitations, without reserves. He is willing to have Christ, upon His own terms, upon any terms. He is willing to bear the dominion of Christ as well as have deliverance by Christ. He saith with Paul, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"
Let the ground of all thy religious actions be obedience; examine not why it is commanded, but observe it because it is commanded. True obedience neither procrastinates nor questions.
O God, the strength of all those who put their trust in Thee; mercifully accept our prayer; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature, we can do no good thing without Thee, grant us the help of Thy grace, that in keeping Thy commandments we may please Thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
—Book of Common Prayer.
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the Great Master taught,
And that remaineth still,
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!
Worship is easier than obedience. Men are ever readier to serve the priest than to obey the prophet.
I believe that the fewer the laws in a home the better; but there is one law which should be as plainly understood as the shining of the sun is visible at noonday, and that is, implicit and instantaneous obedience from the child to the parent, not only for the peace of the home, but for the highest good of the child.
This is the secret of Christ's kingship—"He became obedient—wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him." And this is the secret of all obedience and all command. Obedience to a law above you subjugates minds to you who never would have yielded to mere will.
OBSTINACY.
An obstinate man does not hold opinions, but they hold him; for when he is once possessed with an error, it is, like a devil, only cast out with great difficulty.
His still refuted quirks he still repeats,
New-raised objections with new quibbles meets:
Till sinking in the quicksand he defends,
He dies disputing, and the contest ends.
—Cowper.
OCCUPATION.
One of the best maxims in determining our course in life is, to select, at the outset, that in which virtue and principle will be least likely to be put to a test, and in which, from the nature of the calling, a man may bring around him such associations and influences as will be an auxiliary in keeping him in the path of virtue.
Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High-Priest,—which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.
Let parents who hate their offspring rear them to hate labor, and to inherit riches; and before long they will be stung by every vice, racked by its poison, and damned by its penalty.
O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements.
—Chalmers.
OLD AGE.
The day of life spent in honest and benevolent labor comes in hope to an evening calm and lovely; and though the sun declines, the shadows that he leaves behind are only to curtain the spirit unto rest.
Thanks to that regular and temperate course of life I have ever lived, I am still capable of taking an active part in these public scenes of business. In fine, he who fills up every hour of his life in such kind of labors as those I have mentioned, will insensibly slide into old age without perceiving its arrival; and his powers, instead of being suddenly and prematurely extinguished, will gradually decline by the gentle and natural effect of accumulated years.
—Cicero.
The second childhood of a saint is the early infancy of a happy immortality, as we believe.
It is not so bad a thing to grow old; it is only getting a little nearer home; a little nearer to immortal youth.
—A. H. K..
Age is not all decay; it is the ripening, the swelling of the fresh life within, that withers and bursts the husk.
My God! my time is in Thine hands. Should it please Thee to lengthen my life, and complete, as Thou hast begun, the work of blanching my locks, grant me grace to wear them as a crown of unsullied honor.
An aged Christian with the snow of time on his head may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven.
Nobler than a ship safely ending a long voyage, and sublimer than the setting sun, is the old age of a just and kind and useful life.
The years of old age are stalls in the cathedral of life in which for aged men to sit and listen and meditate and be patient till the service is over, and in which they may get themselves ready to say "Amen" at the last, with all their hearts and souls and strength.
Lonely and old, in the dusk I am waiting,
Till the dark boatman with soft muffled oar
Glides o'er the waves, and I hear the keel grating,—
See the dim beckoning hand on the shore,
Wafting me over the welcoming river
To gardens and homes that are shining forever!
OPINION.
The world is governed much more by opinion than by laws. It is not the judgment of courts, but the moral judgment of individuals and masses of men, which is the wall of defense around property and life.
It is more true to say that our opinions depend upon our lives and habits than to say that our lives depend upon our opinions, which is only now and then true.
ORDER.
Order is the sanity of the mind, the health of the body, the peace of the city, the security of the State.
Order is the law of all intelligible existence.
Order is heaven's first law.
—Pope.