Quotes by John Hall

20 quotations from Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), with the subject each one is filed under.

When the captain throws out his sheet-anchor, and the ship "rides at anchor," as it is called, there is a great strain on every link of that chain; and if one bad link breaks, off goes the anchor, and the ship is driven before the winds, and may be destroyed. Now, our character is very much like the chain; one bad piece vitiates and spoils it. So we must have a pure character.— filed under Character

When the Father would give men the light of the knowledge of His glory, how does He proceed? To what does He turn men's gaze? Not to His mighty works; not to creative or providential wonders; not to geological or astronomical facts; not to the data on which Paley and Bell and other admirable writers build up their argument from design; not to the still greater wonder of mind, but to "the face of Jesus Christ," that face that was more marred than any man's; that endured the ruffian blows; down which the blood drops trickled; that looked down on a mocking crowd from an ignominious cross.— filed under Christ's Sufferings and Death

A strong church is made up of well-ordered families, where intelligent, Christian parents bring up their children in the fear of the Lord, where the home of the week has its counterpart in the home of the Sabbath, where the hopes and joys of the living, and the blessed memories of the dead bind to the Lord and His church, where young men and maidens are glad when it is said to them, "Let us go unto the house of the Lord," where the tranquillity, and purity, and holy peace, the light and the love, form to the opening minds of the children a type and prophecy of the eternal Sabbath and the heaven above.— filed under Church

IO Congregations must justify their existence. If they only bring people together to be "very much pleased," why, the Lecture Bureaus will contract for all that. "Did you worship? Were you edified? Did the Lord speak to you? Did you speak to Him? Do you mean more seriously to be pure, honest, upright, generous, manly, holy, from what you did and heard to-day?" These are the questions which the best part of mankind feel to be proper, and to which we must have affirmative replies.— filed under Church

A lazy, indolent church tends toward unbelief; an earnest, busy church, in hand-to-hand conflict with sin and misery, grows stronger in faith.— filed under Church

Keep clear of personalities in conversation. Talk of things, objects, thoughts. The smallest minds occupy themselves with persons. Do not needlessly report ill of others. As far as possible, dwell on the good side of human beings. There are family boards where a constant process of depreciating, assigning motives, and cutting up character, goes forward. They are not pleasant places, One who is healthy does not wish to dine at a dissecting table. There is evil enough in man, God knows. But it is not the mission of every young man and woman to detail and report it all, Keep the atmosphere as pure as possible, and fragrant with gentleness and charity,— filed under Evil Speaking

We must keep up the standard of Christian living in the Christian laborer. Clean hands are needed to do Christian work. Character is before co-operation, being before doing. "Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine."— filed under Holiness

Culture is good, genius is brilliant, civilization is a blessing, education is a great privilege; but we may be educated villains, The thing that we want most of all is the precious gift of the Holy Ghost.— filed under Holy Spirit

The minister is to be a live man, a real man, a true man, a simple man, great in his love, great in his life, great in his work, great in his simplicity, great in his gentleness.— filed under Ministers

The minister, who would be most like the Master, must go and, like Him, lay the warm, kindly hand on the leper, the diseased, the wretched. He must touch the blind eyes with something from himself. The tears must be in his own eyes over the dead who are to be raised to spiritual life, Jesus is our great exemplar.— filed under Ministers

That pastor effects the most in the end who comes into closest personal contact with his charge. No amount of organizing, no skill in creating machinery and manipulating "committees” is a substitute for this. Who feels the power of a tear in the eye of a committee ?— filed under Ministers

As preachers we are to promote Christian culture, by bringing the dead branches to the living Vine, that, grafted into it, without a rag of human righteousness between, the life of Him may enter them; and by keeping them, as far as teaching and example can do it, abiding in Him, that they may bring forth fruit.— filed under Ministers

Do not fear the alleged "current of opinion." It was thus that Edwards, Brainard, Dwight, and Payson, preached, and the noblest and most enduring things in New England were the result. If the sentiment of the time is against their way, so much the worse for the sentiment! Paul and Peter and John and James so "reproved and rebuked and exhorted, with all long-suffering and doctrine.”— filed under Ministers

"How do you make your prayer-meetings interesting?" The whole subject is mixed up. "Interesting" to whom? The Lord? The suppliants? The spectators? The only way is to teach men to pray; to eliminate those who preach or rhapsodize or scold or "lament” interminably, to promote general fervor among the people, and apply to the meeting the ordinary principles of common sense. -— filed under Prayer-Meetings

Settle in your mind, that no sermon is worth much in which the Lord is not the principal speaker. There may be poetry, refinement, historic truth, moral truth, pathos, and all the charms of rhetoric; but all will be lost, for the purposes of preaching, if the word of the Lord is not the staple of the discourse.— filed under Preaching

Every sermon ought to have the doctrine of Christ in it in form or in solution. To get, then, the mind of Christ, and to declare it, is the primary end of the teaching offices of the church. The living body of sympathetic men, saturated with the truth and feeling of the Book, must bring it into contact with other men, through that marvelous organ the human voice, and with such aid as comes from the subtle sympathy that pervades assemblies of human beings.— filed under Preaching

Direct your arrows at objects without being personal; come near your hearers. Letters dropped into the post-office without address go to the dead-letter office, and are of no use to any body.— filed under Preaching

The text should sustain, suggest, and give tone to the ser- The main thought of the text should usually be the main thought of the sermon. A text must not be a pretext.— filed under Preaching

A leading Welsh minister - and Welsh ministers are, I think, among the best preachers - was invited to preach an anniversary sermon before one of the great societies in London. Naturally anxious to disregard no propriety, he consulted the proper authority, the secretary. "Should I read my sermon?" "Oh, it is no matter, only bring some of your Welsh fire with you." "But you cannot, my dear sir, carry fire on paper." "No, that is true; but you may use the paper to kindle the fire."— filed under Preaching

Of all qualities which a theologian must possess, a devotional spirit is the chief. For the soul is larger than the mind, and the religious emotions lay hold on the truths to which they are related on many sides at once. A powerful understanding, on the other hand, seizes on single points, and however enlarged in its own sphere, is never safe from its narrowness of view. We can no more have exact religious thinking without theology, than exact mensuration and astronomy without mathematics, or exact iron-making without chemistry.— filed under Theology

← Bishop Hall Newman Hall →