Degeneracy

Perhaps too much attention is being paid to various theories concerning evolution and development. It might be well sometimes to devote at least a little consideration to the serious possibilities of devolution and degeneracy.

Dr Carpenter, a London zoologist, speaks thus of certain organisms brought to light by the scientific Atlantic dredging expedition: "This little organism is clearly a dwarfed and deformed representative of the highly developed Apiocrinus of the Bradford clay, which, as my friend Wyville Thomson said, seems to have been going to the bad for millions of years." thus we learn that a lowly creature living on the ocean floor is the degenerate result of that which has been going to the bad for millions of years.

But if such a vast course of degradation is possible in a sea-worm, what are the possibilities of degradation in a soul?

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Choice

(video from the skitguys.com)

Not what we have, but what we use,
Not what we see, but what we choose;
These are the things that mar, or bless,
The sum of human happiness.

The thing near by, not that afar;
Not what we seem, but what we are;
These are the things that make or break,
That give the heart its joy or ache.

Not what seems fair, but what it true;
Not what we dream, but good we do;
These are the things that shine like gems,
Like stars in fortune's diadems.

Not as we take, but as we give,
Not as we pray, but as we live;
These are the things that make for peace
Both now and after time shall cease.
--The Outlook.

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Fear Of God

Of all the memorials found in Westminster Abbey, there is not one that gives a nobler thought than the life lesson from the monument to Lord Lawrence. Simply his name and date of death, and those words: "He feared man so little because he feared God so much." Here is one great secret of victory. The prayer of the Rugby boy, John Laing Bickersteth, found locked up in his desk after his death, was: "Oh God, give me courage that I may fear none but thee."

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Higher Criticism

What if Moses did not write the Pentateuch? What if it were written by another man named Moses? When a child is hungry, it is not interested in a dispute whether John Smith or James Smith planted the apple tree. What it wants is the apple, because it is hungry. The patient has suffered a grievous accident, and the surgeon must operate. In that hour ether must be used, or the heart will not survive the agony. In such a critical moment, who cares whether Dr. Morton or Dr. Simpson discovered the saving remedy? It is ease from pain that the feeble heart demands. Your friend is in trouble in Europe, and you must send him a cable of relief. The English people claim that two Englishmen laid the Atlantic cable, and that Cyrus Field was only their American agent, occupying a very subordinate place, while Americans say that Mr. Field was the father of the Atlantic cable. When an emergency comes, and the child is in trouble in a foreign land, the father does not care to dispute over the precedency of inventors. What he wants to do is to send a message under the sea. Don't dispute over the Bible, therefore, but use the Bible. He who analyzes a flower must lose the sweet rose. When a pilgrim is crossing the desert, one handful of wheat for hunger is worth a bushel of diamonds. Remember the use and purpose for which the Bible was written. It is a guide to right living. It shows the path to God's throne.--N. D. Hillis.

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Hypocrisy

(video by IgniterMedia.com)

Little Willie--Say, pa, what is a hypocrite?

Pa--A hypocrite, my son, is a man who publicly thanks Providence for his success, then gets mad every time anybody insinuates that he isn't mainly responsible for it himself.--Tid-Bits.

When one proceeds after the fashion of certain processions, that take one step back every time they take two forward, what is there astonishing if he does not cover any appreciable distance? But man has the silly childishness to believe that what he does at certain hours and without the pale of that part of his life which is known, does not count. He flatters himself that the assets alone will figure in the final reckoning; that what he puts openly in the balance will be weighed, but that what he secretly withdraws will not be deducted. Like that merchant, at once pious and crafty, who, on Sunday closed his shop, but received his patrons through a side door, he honors God publicly, and, in secret, betrays Him. --Charles Wagner, "The Gospel of Life."

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Hour of Distress.

In the hour of
distress and misery
the eye of every
mortal turns to
friendship; in the
hour of gladness
and conviviality,
what is our want?
It is friendship.

W. S. Landor


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Gratitude.

A young girl in Scotland was in danger of perishing in a storm, when the stream was in flood. She vowed that if God would save her life and help her in the future, she would build a bridge over the dangerous chasm. Her prayer was heard. She lived to build the bridge, and to leave an endowment for the poor of the parish. On the keystone of the bridge were written these words: "God and We." That was the secret of success in her life-work.

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