Thomas Guthrie Quotes

It is not with a rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's character, and attain to perfect saintship; but step by step, foot by foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to heaven.

Perhaps God does with His heavenly garden as we do with our own. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age
flowers before they have bloomed and trees ere they begin to bear.

Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give.

The mental powers acquire their full robustness when the cheek loses its ruddy hue, and the limbs their elastic step; and pale thought sits on manly brows, and the watchman, as he walks his rounds, sees the student's lamp burning far into the silent night.

Heaven is the day of which grace is the dawn; the rich, ripe fruit of which grace is the lovely flower; the inner shrine of that most glorious temple to which grace forms the approach and outer court.

In the spangled sky, the rainbow, the woodland hung with diamonds, the sward sown with pearly dew, the rosy dawn, the golden clouds of even, the purple mountains, the hoary rock, the blue boundless main, Nature's simplest flower, or some fair form of laughing child or lovely maiden, we cannot see the beautiful without admiring it.

More tears are shed in playhouses than in churches.

Time that weakens all things else has but strengthened the impregnable position of the believer's faith and hope and confidence. And as, year by year, the tree adds another ring to its circumference, every age has added the testimony of its events to this great truth. The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, but the word of the Lord shall endure forever.

The new novel is sought more eagerly, and devoured more greedily, the New Testament.

The cry of distress lays hold of our Lord's omnipotence. It is as easy for God to supply thy greatest as thy smallest wants, even as it was within His power to form a system or an atom, to create a blazing sun as to kindle the fire-fly's lamp.

As in nature, as in art, so in grace; it is rough treatment that gives souls, as well as stones, their luster.

The more the diamond is cut the brighter it sparkles; and in what seems hard dealing, there God has no end in view but to perfect His people.

Every object in nature is impressed with God's footsteps, and every day repeats the wonders of creation. There is not an object, be it pebble or pearl, weed or rose, the flower-spangled sward beneath, or the star-spangled sky above, not a worm or an angel, a drop of water or a boundless ocean, in which intelligence may not discern, and piety adore, the providence of Him who took our nature that He might save our souls.

A sunny temper [an attitude of gratitude for what blessings and mercies there are] gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud.

Religion is the mortar that binds society together; the granite pedestal of liberty; the strong backbone of the social system.

The work that is done in love loses half its tedium and difficulty.

If the world is ever conquered for our Lord, it is not by ministers, nor by office-bearers, nor by the great, and noble and mighty, but by every member of Christ's body being a working member; doing his work; filling his own sphere; holding his own post; and saying to Jesus, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?

The Christian is not always praying; but within his bosom is a heaven-kindled love
fires of desire, fervent longings
which make him always ready to pray, and often engage him in prayer.