Present suffering is not enjoyable, but life would be worth little without it. The difference between iron and steel is fire, but steel is worth all it costs. Maltbie Davenport Babcock More Quotes by Maltbie Davenport Babcock More Quotes From Maltbie Davenport Babcock It is the "where I am" that makes heaven. The life after death might become through its very endlessness a burden to our spirits, if it were not to be filled with the infinite variety and freshness of God's love. Some have shrunk from its very infinitude, because they have not realized what God's love can make of it. Human love helps us to understand this. When we have come to love any one with all our power of affection, then there is no monotony or weariness in the days and hours we spend with them. Maltbie Davenport Babcock future might heaven Is not this steadfastness to mark, to make, the character of your lives? Is it not God's will that we should press steadily on to our goal in obedience to Him, in channels of His choosing, whether in sunshine or shadow, in the cheer of spring or in the chill of winter, neither detained by pleasure nor deterred by pain? Maltbie Davenport Babcock pain cheer spring Although there is nothing so bad for conscience as trifling, there is nothing so good for conscience as trifles. Its certain discipline and development are related to the smallest things. Conscience, like gravitation, takes hold of atoms. Nothing is morally indifferent. Conscience must reign in manners as well as morals, in amusements as well as work. He only who is "faithful in that which is least" is dependable in all the world. Maltbie Davenport Babcock amusement faithful discipline Spirituality is best manifested on the ground, not in the air. Rapturous day-dreams, flights of heavenly fancy, longings to see the Invisible, are less expensive and less expressive than the plain doing of duty. To have bread excite thankfulness and a drink of water send the heart to God is better than sighs for the unattainable. To plow a straight furrow on Monday or dust a room well on Tuesday or kiss a bumped forehead on Wednesday is worth more than the most ecstatic thrill under Sunday eloquence. Spirituality is seeing God in common things, and showing God in common tasks. Maltbie Davenport Babcock dream monday heart God be thanked for that good and perfect gift, the gift unspeakable: His life, His love, His very self in Jesus Christ. Maltbie Davenport Babcock self perfect jesus Remember to think of your departed mother always as living, just away in another room of our Father's house. Maltbie Davenport Babcock mother father death Your love has a broken wing if it cannot fly across the sea. Maltbie Davenport Babcock sea wings love Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them. Maltbie Davenport Babcock life-opportunity values opportunity The workshop of character is everyday life. Maltbie Davenport Babcock workshops everyday character Loyalty to God is alone fundamental. Feelings, words, deeds, must be beads strung on the string of duty. Let the world tell you in a hundred ways what your life is for. Say you ever and only, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O my God." Out of that dutiful root grows the beautiful life, the life radically and radiantly true to God--the only life that can be lived in both worlds. Maltbie Davenport Babcock loyalty roots beautiful If we show the Lord's death at Communion, we must show the Lord's life in the world. If it is a Eucharist on Sunday, it must prove on Monday that it was also a Sacrament. Maltbie Davenport Babcock sunday monday world With time and patience, the mulberry leaf becomes satin. Maltbie Davenport Babcock chinese perseverance patience Life is what we are alive to. Maltbie Davenport Babcock alive life-is The root of honesty is an honest intention, the distinct and deliberate purpose to be true, to handle facts as they are, and not as we wish them to be. Facts lend themselves to manipulation. Many a butcher's hand is worth more than its weight in gold. What we want things to be, we come to see them to be; and the tailor pulls the coat and the truth into a perfect fit from his point of view. Maltbie Davenport Babcock honesty roots views Many a good intention dies from inattention. If, through carelessness or indolence, or selfishness, a good intention is not put into effect, we have lost an opportunity, demoralized ourselves, and stolen from the pile of possible good. To be born and not fed, is to perish. To launch a ship and neglect it is to lose it. To have a talent and bury it, is to be a "wicked and slothful servant." For in the end we shall be judged, not alone by what we have done, but by what we could have done. Maltbie Davenport Babcock selfishness wicked opportunity If a friend is the one who summons us to our best, then is not Jesus Christ our best friend, and should we not think of the Communion as one of His chief appeals to us to be our best? The Lord's Supper looks not back to our past with a critical eye, but to our future, with a hopeful one. The Master appeals from what we have been to what we may be. He bids us come, not because we are better than we have been, but because He wants us to be. To stay away because our hearts are cold is to refuse to go to the fire till we are warm. Maltbie Davenport Babcock eye heart jesus Good habits are not made on birthdays, nor Christian character at the new year. The vision may dawn, the dream may waken, the heart may leap with a new inspiration on some mountain-top, but the test, the triumph, is at the foot of the mountain, on the level plain. The workshop of character is every-day life. The uneventful and commonplace hour is where the battle is won or lost. Maltbie Davenport Babcock new-year christian life Opportunities do not come with their values stamped upon them.... To face every opportunity of life thoughtfully, and ask its meaning bravely and earnestly, is the only way to meet supreme opportunities when they come, whether open-faced or disguised. Maltbie Davenport Babcock faces opportunity way Jesus does not want us to say, dead, for, He said, all live unto Him, though they seem dead to us. Maltbie Davenport Babcock doe want jesus The kindness of Christmas is the kindness of Christ. To know that God so loved us as to give us His Son for our dearest Brother, has brought human affection to its highest tide on the day of that Brother's birth. If God so loved us, how can we help loving one another? Maltbie Davenport Babcock brother kindness son
