The only satisfactory manifestations of religious character and life are associated with the reciprocal influences of spiritual experience and aggres… - John McClellan Holmes

The tree of human history, as it has grown from age to age, has been but the unfolding of a single germ — but the development of Christ and Him crucified.

Religion, as embodied in the character and conduct of its disciples, cannot survive without doctrinal purity. In the absence of this element, religious feeling inevitably decays; while even religious necessity becomes a thing of naught.

The church and the world alike demand that those who profess to love the Lord should be careful to love their brethren also. It is for them to have in essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, in all things charity. Only so can the church realize the ideal of its Divine Founder, and foreshadow its future excellence and beauty. Only so can this spiritual structure be celestial and glorious, revealing in all its fair proportions from dome and turret, from glittering spires and airy traceries, its marvelous symmetry and oneness, while at the same time it swells from every organ pipe, and chants in every choral anthem the praises of Him whose essence is love, and whose being is characterized by unity.