|
PALMER, Ray Quotes
(1808-1887), American clergyman and poet
Old age is a blessed time. It gives us leisure to put off our earthly garments one by one, and dress ourselves for heaven.
A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth.—Instead of its bringing sad and melancholy prospects of decay, it should give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
As the vexations men receive from their children hasten the approach of age, and double the force of years, so the comforts they reap from them are balm to all their sorrows, and disappoint the injuries of time. Parents repeat their lives in their offspring; and their esteem for them is so great, that they feel their sufferings and taste their enjoyments as much as if they were their own.
We should never make enemies, if for no other reason, because it is so hard to behave toward them as we ought.
Learning, if rightly applied, makes a young man thinking, attentive, industrious, confident, and wary; and an old man cheerful and useful. It is an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity, an entertainment at all times; it cheers in solitude, and gives moderation and wisdom in all circumstances.
We may judge of men by their conversation toward God, but never by God's dispensations toward them.
A comfortable old age is the reward of a well-spent youth; instead of its introducing dismal and melancholy prospects of decay, it should give us hopes of eternal youth in a better world.
How calmly do those glide through all, even the roughest events, who can but make a right estimate of the happiness as well as the virtue of a governable will, resigned to the will of God.—It was a philosophical maxim, that a wise moral man could not be injured, or miserable. But it is much more true of him who has that divine wisdom of Christian resignation, which twines and enwraps all his choices with God's; and is neither at the pains nor the hazards of his own election, but is secure, unless omniscience can be deceived and omnipotence defeated, that he shall have what is really best for him.
If you would be free from sin, fly temptation: he that does not endeavor to avoid the one cannot expect Providence to protect him from the other. If the first sparks of ill were quenched, there would be no flame, for how can he kill, that dares not be angry; or be an adulterer in act, who does not transgress in thought; or be perjured, that fears an oath; or defraud, that does not allow himself to covet?
Wayworn, pressed with toils and strife, we are waiting, hoping, watching, praying, till we reach the gates of life.
|
