Frederic Dan Huntington Quotes

Indolence is the worst enemy that the church has to encounter. Men sleep around her altar, stretching themselves on beds of ease, or sit idly with folded hands looking lazily out on fields white for the harvest, but where no sickle rings against the wheat.

Christendom, as an effect, must be accounted for. It is too large for a mortal cause.

If the Church would have her face shine, she must go up into the mount, and be alone with God. If she would have her courts of worship resound with eucharistic praises, she must open her eyes, and see humanity lying lame at the temple gates, and heal it in the miraculous name of Jesus.

Every impulse and stroke of missionary power on earth is from the heart of Christ. He sows, and there is a harvest. He touches nations, and there arises a brotherhood, not only civilized by His light, but sanctified by His love. The isles of the ocean wait for Him. He spreads His net and gathers of every kind, and lo! the burden of the sea is not only fishes, but fishermen, who go and gather and come again. If there are activity, free giving, ready going, a full treasury, able men who say, " Here am I, send me," it is because through all the organization Christ lives, and His personal Spirit works. There is no other possible spring for that enthusiasm.

Holiness is religious principle put into motion. It is the love of God sent forth into circulation, on the feet, and with the hands of love to men. It is faith gone to work. It is charity coined into actions, and devotion breathing benedictions on human suffering, while it goes up in intercession to the Father of all piety.

It appears to me that, even within the recollection of living men, the Christian faith has come to be less and less regarded as a commanding and mighty power from heaven, a voice of authority, a law of holy life, but more and more as an easy going guide to future enjoyment, to a universal happiness and an indiscriminate salvation.

Consciously, distinctly, resolutely, habitually, we need to give ourselves, our business, our interests, our families, our affections, into the Spirit's hands, to lead and fashion us as He will. When we work with the current of that Divine will, all is vital, efficient, fruitful.

There is a test point about you somewhere. Perhaps it is pride; you cannot bear an affront; you will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity, ready to sacrifice every thing to display. Perhaps it is a sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up your moral forces just here, and, till that darling sin is brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut out of Christ's kingdom.