But for the divine vigilance, an unseen Helper, what youth but would go down! In every hour when Achilles is about to be overborne by the number and strength of his enemies, Homer makes some goddess appear to lift a shield above the hero for protection. Again and again Thetis stands between her son and the enemy. Of your youth, how true it is that God hath interfered in your behalf!—N. D. Hillis.
(1665)
INTIMACY WITH CHRIST
When the great artist, Sir Alma-Tadema, was painting his “Heliogabalus,” which made a sensation during its exhibition at the British Royal Academy, and in which roses are a prominent feature, he was in the habit of receiving from Italy a fresh box of roses twice a week, so that he literally and actually had a new model for every individual blossom.
If the painter must live in close and delicate touch with nature, much more must the messenger of Christ abide in direct communion with the Savior if he would catch the virtue, the color and the aroma of celestial things. (Text.)
(1666)
INTOLERANCE
We should be thankful that such conditions as those described below no longer exist:
No religious meetings outside the ordinary services of the Church could be held without a license under the Toleration Act; and those taking part in such meetings, in order to secure the right to hold them, had to register themselves as Dissenters. This law extended to America, and so the first Methodist Church in the United States was adorned with that very unecclesiastical bit of architecture—a chimney. When a Methodist church was built it had to disguise itself as a house in order to secure the right to exist.—W. H. Fitchett, “Wesley and His Century.”