"A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded."
— G. K. Chesterton
Source: The Everlasting Man, Part II, ch. 1 "The God in the Cave"
"I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side."
— Abraham Lincoln
Source: as reported in F. B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (1866), p. 282
God, Truth, One Side
Views: 456
"China, happier in its foundation than any other nation under the sun, drew in the chief of the holy maxims of their ancient religion from the fountain head. ... Hoamti the third Emperor built a temple to the Sovereign Lord of Heaven; and although Judea had the honour of consecrating to him one more rich and magnificent, hallowed even by the presence of our Creator and the prayers of our Redeemer, it is no small glory to China to have sacrificed to their Creator in the most ancient temple of the world."
— Louis Le Comte
Source: Nouveaux mémoires sur l'état présent de la Chine (1696); Eng. tr. Memoirs and Observations ... Made in a Late Journey through the Empire of China (London, 1697), letter to Cardinal de Bouillon
"Caleb Cook Baldwin (1820–1911) was one of the first American Board missionaries to Fuzhou. He sailed for China with his wife Harriet in 1847 and reached Fuzhou in the spring of 1848, and the couple labored there together for forty-seven years (1848–1895). They learned the local language, founded and superintended schools in city and village, and traveled by boat and sedan chair to preach; with Robert S. Maclay he compiled the Alphabetic Dictionary of the Chinese Language in the Foochow Dialect (1870), he wrote A Manual of the Foochow Dialect (1871), and with his wife he translated much of the Bible into the Fuzhou dialect."
— Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia, "Caleb Cook Baldwin"
God, Heavenly Father, Night, Health, Light, Service
Views: 322
"God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called."
— Anonymous
Source: Modern Christian saying (often used to sum up Gladys Aylward's life; not her own words)
God, calling, power
Views: 308
""It always means suffering to be a pioneer in any work and in any land. But for the sake of those who are to follow in the way you have trod, can you not bear it?" ... "Go home every vacation and tell your villagers that it is for love of a new-found God that you remove the bandages which deform the body he claims for his temple. Keep on telling, and after a while they will understand, and you will have served your Savior and made things easier for all other girls who shall unbind their feet.""
— Mary Porter Gamewell
Source: Her words to her pupil Sarah Wang, in E. D. Hubbard, Under Marching Orders: A Story of Mary Porter Gamewell (1909)