The apostle James puts the emphasis of religion on doing, not hearing alone. The one definition of religion we have in Scripture, and that given by him, is suggestive of the divine order—the best way to keep oneself unspotted from the world is to be occupied in ministry to others. A good deacon once complained to Thomas Dixon that his sermons placed too much emphasis on doing and reminded him of Jesus’ command to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” Mr. Dixon replied: “That is what is the matter with you; I have fed you until you are so fat you can not walk.”—Charles Luther Kloss, “Proceedings of The Religious Education Association,” 1904.
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FEELING A FOUNTAIN
Feeling is a fountain that gushes life. Emotions in the soul are like songs, pouring forth from the birds in the thicket. Orange groves and peach orchards exhale perfume, and feeling is the soul’s fragrance, rising toward God and its fellows. The seas send up their whitest mists, and the soul ought to send up its emotions in whitest clouds of incense toward the throne of God and toward man’s soul.—N. D. Hillis.
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FEELING AND PRINCIPLE
You know the difference between feeling and principle. Yonder is an old sailboat out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and when the wind blows, she travels ten miles an hour, but let the wind lull, and she will lie there two weeks, within a hundred yards of where the wind left her. She doesn’t go anywhere. That is feeling. When the wind blows, off she goes.
What is principle? Yonder is a grand old ocean steamer, and when the wind blows she spreads her sails and works her steam, and on she goes; and when the wind lulls, the engineer pulls his throttle wider open, and she goes at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, whether the wind blows or not. And that is the difference between principle and feeling.—“Famous Stories of Sam P. Jones.”
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Feeling the Christian Spirit—See [Consistency].