I would, my dear brethren, that you would make your common toils Holiness unto the Lord. Come to look upon your meals as though they were sacraments, your clothes as though they were priestly vestments; your common words as though you were preaching daily sermons; and your every-day thoughts as though you were thinking for the Sabbath of holy things. It is not to be always talking religion, but to be talking religiously that makes the Christian; it is not to be performing outward symbols, it is to be possessing the inward spirit. I do believe that there is more piety in going to visit the poor and needy and scattering your substance among them; more piety in teaching the poor ignorant ragged child, more piety in seeking to help some poor struggling tradesman, than there is in many a long prayer, and many a sanctimonious whine, ay and in many a long and eloquent discourse.
That common piety which like common sense is oftenest the uncommonest of all, is what we need to have, and if I could make one man among you become thus consecrated, I should think I had, under God, done as much as though I poured you out in scores upon the plain of Hindostan, or sent you to edify the Chinese, or to instruct the Ethiopian. We want you as missionaries here; we want you as missionaries in daily life, and we must have you too, or else the Church will not increase, nor will the name of Christ be magnified.
From a sermon entitled "A Peal Of Bells," delivered July 7, 1861. Flickr photo by Noël Zia Lee; some rights reserved.
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