September 28, 1899
RIGHT is mightier than might.
IT is ideas, not armies, that rule the world.
NO power but that of love can rightfully compel the conscience.
WHEN religion becomes a religion of law, it ceases to be a religion of love.
IF human law could benefit religion, the religion of the ancient Pharisees would have been the best on earth.
WHEN religion is incorporated into civil enactments, it is lowered from the plane of the divine law to that of the human.
PROTESTANTISM is a protest against the acceptance of human authority and human wisdom as a source religious obligation.
EVERY word of God is an opening into the mind of Omniscience—a pathway of light and knowledge reaching to infinity. Therefore no man can ever tell all that he ought to know, or set bounds to all he ought to believe.
EVERY man is the creator of its own destiny, and no man ever attained a happy destiny without a strong will and earnest effort to that end.
THE state cannot conform to Christian ethics, because “the moment it becomes generous, it ceases to be just.” It cannot donate to Peter without robbing Paul.
NO captain of an Atlantic liner ever entrusts the helm of his ship to the hand of “manifest destiny;” and no more can the ship of state be steered by “manifest destiny” to any safe harbor.
IT is just as possible defense in sunlight as it is to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath by civil enactments. Sanctity is a matter not merely of the outward deportment, but of the heart.