Missionary life is simply a chance to die.
If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I am perturbed by the reproach and misunderstanding that may follow action taken for the good of souls for whom I must give account; if I cannot commit the matter and go on in peace and in silence, remembering Gethsemane and the cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
Can we follow the Savior far, who have no wound or scar?
Does it not stir up our hearts, to go forth and help them, does it not make us long to leave our luxury, our exceeding abundant light, and go to them that sit in darkness?
The night I sailed for China, March 3, 1893, my life, on the human side, was broken, and it never was mended again. But He has been enough.
God Hold us to that which drew us first, when the Cross was the attraction, and we wanted nothing else.
If I say, “Yes, I forgive, but I cannot forgive,” as though the God, who twice a day washes all the sands on all the shores of all the world, could not wash such memories from my mind, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
I would rather burn out than rust out.
There is always something to be happy about if we look for it: ‘Two men looked through prison bars, The one saw mud, the other stars.’
Nothing is worth doing at all, nothing is worth writing, which does not do something which will last.
Love accepts the trying things of life without asking for explanations. It trusts and is at rest.
Do not fight the thing in detail: turn from it. Look ONLY at your Lord. Sing. Read. Work.
Love knows how to do without what it naturally wants. Love knows how to say, ‘What does it matter.’
If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.
All life’s training is just exactly what is needed for the true Life-work, still out of view but far away from none of us. Don’t grudge me the learning of a new lesson.
If I fear to hold another to the highest goal because it is so much easier to avoid doing so, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I can enjoy a joke at the expense of another; if I can in any way slight another in conversation, or even in thought, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If I do not give a friend “The benefit of the doubt,” but put the worst construction instead of the best on what is said or done, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love...