William Morley Punshon (1824 – 1881)
English Nonconformist divine.
With quaint manners and quaint names these men had the hero's heart and the confessor's faith. Their faith was, indeed, their strength. Strong in the supremacy of conscience, in that real earnestness which springs from conviction, and which prompts to enterprise; far-sighted in political sagacity, because seeing Him that is invisible; shrewd enough to know that the truest policy for the life that now is, is a reverent recognition of the life that is to come, they were brave in endurance and patient under trial; and never losing sight of the principle for which they struggled, and of the purpose of their voyage afar, they "won the wilderness for God."
Amid the stirring and manifold activities of the age in which we live, to be neutral in the strife is to rank with the enemies of the Saviour. There is no greater foe to the spread of His cause in the world than the placid indifferentism which is too honorable to betray, while it is too careless or too cowardly to join Him.
The gospel proceeds on the basis of universal depravity; the gospel assimilates all varieties of human nature into one common experience of guilt and need and helplessness; and this is just what you do not like about it.
Labor is the true alchemist that beats out in patient transmutation the baser metals into gold.
Labor is not, as some have erroneously supposed, a penal clause of the original curse. There was labor, bright, healthful, unfatiguing, in unfallen Paradise. By sin, labor became drudgery — the earth was restrained from her spontaneous fertility, and the strong arm of the husbandman was required, not to develop, but to " subdue " it. But labor in itself is noble, and is necessary for the ripe unfolding of the highest life.
Let it be ours to be self-reliant amidst hosts of the vacillating — real in a generation of triflers — true amongst a multitude of shams; when tempted to swerve from principle, sturdy as an oak in its maintenance; when solicited by the enticement of sinners, firm as a rock in our denial.
We, too, must enter into the Saviour's sorrow. For us, if we believe in Him, He breaks the bread, and pours the wine: and when we eat and drink, we do show the Lord's death until He come. His death, not His life, though that was lustrous with a holiness without the shadow of a stain. His death, not His teaching, though that embodied the fullness of a wisdom that was Divine. His death, not His miracles, though His course was a march of mercy, and in His track of blessing the world rejoiced and was glad. His death! His body not glorious, but broken; His blood, not coursing through the veins of a conqueror, but shed, poured out for man. His death! Still His death! Grandest and most consecrating memory both for earth and heaven!
There are no trifles in the moral universe of God. Speak me a word to-day; — it shall go ringing on through the ages.