The history of all the great characters of the Bible is summed up in this one sentence: They acquainted themselves with God, and acquiesced His will in all things.

The first step towards knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.

Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.

We ought not to judge of men's merits by their qualifications, but by the use they make of them.

God's way of answering the Christian's prayer for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.

Providence is a greater mystery than revelation. The state of our world is more humiliating to our reason than the doctrines of the Gospel. A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment, and to exercise his faith, in the state of things between Temple Bar [in Dublin] and St. Paul's [in London], than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation.