As the light proceeding from the natural sun produces the seven cardinal colours, viz., red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet, and with a proper mixture of these colours a spotless white is produced; so in like manner with the light proceeding form the Son of God, the seven cardinal graces are the outcome of His glory, viz., love, joy, patience, faith, meekness, temperance, and charity, which, when blended together in human natures, produce a perfect Christian, reflecting His glory and image.
Imagination is the ethereal unseen car that carries the twin angelic sisters, love and sympathy, through space and matter to visit the darkest and brightest spots of creation as a mission of affection, consolation, reproof, help, and encouragement to every fallen son of Adam.
A mother’s prayers are a life-belt that has saved thousands of young men and women from being lost amid the dark storms and wrecks of life, until they have been lifted into the life-boat and carried safe to shore beneath the silver rays of Biblical truth, which the lighthouse of heaven has been shedding o’er the troubled waters dashing against the rocks of land and rugged earth.
As the rose, pine-apple, and other deliciously scented fruits and flowers send forth the best fragrance when clouds are the darkest and lowest, atmosphere the heaviest, and rainstorms flying threateningly about, so in like manner do the most child-like, Christ-like, modest, and heavenly Christians send forth heavenly graces tinted with seraphic splendour when the storms of persecution are flying savagely about, afflictions weigh heavily, and Providence hidden from view.
As the beautiful white snow that flappers and flickers about us in winter appears shapeless and ragged to the naked eye, but when seen through a microscope presents prismatic forms and crystalline beauty beyond imagination, so in like manner the blessings, bounties, and mercies of God do to the eye of sinful nature and a bad heart; but when they are seen by the eye of sincerity, child-like simplicity, and faith, then the beauty and wonderful variety of God’s goodness to us are manifested as they descend with heavenly stillness in our rooms and round our paths.
Children seeking innocent, pure, and moral precepts among wicked street boys and girls, are running barelegged and barefooted after butterflies in a field of nettles and thistles.
A bed of affliction is the “gridiron” upon which God often puts His children when either their keel or propeller—faith and love—gets out of order. Sometimes when they have been very wayward, and have suffered severely, nothing less than being run into “dry dock”—afflictions and earthly losses—will meet their case.
As pearls and other precious gems can be brought out of the sea only by diving—no magnetic hand of an idle man is powerful enough to cause them to swim—so can a Christian fetch up the much more precious hidden mysteries of heaven by retiring from the world and engaging in closet prayer, and diving into God’s wonderful system of Divine love. The gems out of the sea adorn the body, while the pearls of heaven beautify the mind, enliven the soul, put a lustre upon the actions, and illumine the countenance with heavenly radiancy.
As the eyes and nose convey the delicious scents and beauty of creation to the natural man, so in like manner do faith and prayer convey to the soul the fragrance, delight, and beauty of heaven.
A man who seeks to be a philanthropist for worldly fame, with a heart full of pride, selfishness, vanity, levity, lust, babbling, hate, and deceit, has a compass upon his ship out of order. And he may also be compared to a vessel with eight “fo’c’sles” and no “poop,” with helm to steer, trusting to his flimsy sails of false hopes flappering in the breeze to guide him to heaven, but sure to run him aground to hell.