Theodore L. Cuyler Quotations

You may not be able to leave your children a great inheritance, but day by day, you may be weaving coats for them which they will wear for all eternity.

Faith is trusting Jesus to lead us and going where He leads. What avails it to me to analyze Saratoga water, and to believe in its virtues? I must drink the water if I want its purifying power. And the soul that has not actually drunk of Christ can never be purged from sin.

For a few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze. So will it be with present feelings. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay.

Every man or woman who turns to Christ must bear in mind that they are breaking with their old master, and enlisting under a new leader. Conversion is a revolutionary process.

Conversion is the act of joining our hands to the pierced hand of the crucified Saviour. The new life begins with the taking of Christ's hand, and His taking hold, in infinite love, of our weak hands.

Conversion by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God's grace lights up the dark heart. And when a man has once been kindled at the cross of Christ, he is bound to shine.

God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments.

What right has a man to ask Jesus to forgive him, when his heart is still burning with hatred or festering with grudges against a fellow-creature? Confession, to be of any avail, must let go of its hold on the sin confessed.

It is a bad sign when a new-born babe has not lungs enough to make itself heard over the whole house. It is equally a bad symptom when the new convert is born dumb, and cannot find his voice to praise God audibly.

A genuine revival means a trimming of personal lamps.

In heaven, knowledge shall be commensurate with the enlarged powers of the glorified soul.

Seek for a fresh invoice of grace. Unbelief can scoff or growl; faith is the nightingale that sings in the darkest hour. Faith can draw honey out of the rock and oil out of the flint. With Christ in possession and heaven in reversion, it marches to the time of the One-hundred-and-third Psalm over the roughest road, and against the most cutting blast.

When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, "I have faith in that rope as well made and strong." But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion--it is an act. The miner lets go of every thing else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith.

Every step toward Christ kills a doubt. Every thought, word, and deed for Him carries you away from discouragement.

Blessed be the discipline which makes me reach out my soul's roots into closer union with Jesus! Blessed be the dews of the Spirit which keep my leaf ever green! Blessed be the trials which shake down the ripe, golden fruits from the branches.

Oh, be assured fellow teachers, that there is no time in life so favorable to sound conversion as early childhood.

It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such demons as selfishness, worldliness, and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct.

We never can create a public sentiment strong enough to suppress the dram-shops until God's people take hold of the temperance reform as a part of their religion.

Know what your sin is and confess it; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract.

The demand of the day is for a higher standard and style of Christian life. Every follower of Christ must represent His religion purely, loftily, impressively, before that multitude of "Bible-readers" whose only Bible is the Christian.

As a child walking over a slippery and dangerous path cries out, " Father, I am falling! " and has but a moment to catch his father's hand, so every believer sees hours when only the hand of Jesus comes between him and the abysses of destruction.

A large portion of Christ's miracles of love were wrought at the urgent request of parents for their suffering children. Is that ear gone deaf to-day? Will He not do for our children's souls what He did for the bodies of the ruler's daughter, and the dead youth at Nain?

When we read or hear how some professed Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed into drunkenness, or slipped from the communion table into open disgrace, it simply means than a human arm has broken. The man has forsaken the everlasting arms.

Exalt the Cross! God has hung the destiny of the race upon it. Other things we may do in the realm of ethics, and on the lines of philanthropic reforms; but our main duty converges into setting that one glorious beacon of salvation, Calvary's Cross, before the gaze of every immortal soul.

When you and I are inclined to nestle down in indolence and self indulgence. God "stirs up our nests" and bids us fly upward.

Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys.

A good book is the very essence of a good man. His virtues survive in it, while the foibles and faults of his actual life are forgotten. All the goodly company of the excellent and great sit around my table, or look down on me from yonder shelves, waiting patiently to answer my questions and enrich me with their wisdom. A precious book is a foretaste of immortality.

A happy and a glorious Easter will this one be to all of us who get a new vision of the risen Christ, and prostrate ourselves in humble adoration at His feet, and cry out: "Rabboni! Rabboni!" Then shall we set our hearts, lifted into a new atmosphere, on things above, and reach an actual higher life. We shall know more of what it is to live by Christ, in Christ, for Christ, and with Christ, till we reach the marvelous light around the throne in glory.

Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies.

You may not be able to leave your children a great inheritance, but day by day you may be weaving coats for them which they will wear through all eternity.

God always has an angel of help for those who are willing to do their duty.

Sufficient to each day are the duties to be done and the trials to be endured. God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on the top of them.

One day of good preaching is no match for six days of inconsistent practice. God will never honor His church with complete success until it completely honors Him.

As long as we work on God's line, He will aid us. When we attempt to work on our own lines, He rebukes us with failure.

Oh, my soul! why art thou so often disquieted within thee? How is it that thou hast so little faith? Wilt thou never learn that Jesus has even the least of His little boats always under His watchful eye, and all the winds and the waves obey Him?

When you sincerely embrace Jesus as your Saviour, and rest on His atonement for pardon, when you look to Him for daily direction, lean on Him for support, and are joined to Him in heart union, then you may be sure that you have got the everlasting rock bed underneath you.

Faith that trusts on Jesus alone for salvation, and not on your respectable life, and the obedience that follows Him, are the indispensable steps to salvation. You admit that you have not taken these decisive steps. Then, however near you are, you are not in Christ.

Tears never yet saved a soul. Hell is full of weepers weeping over lost opportunities, perhaps over the rejection of an offered Saviour. Your Bible does not say " Weep, and be saved." It says, "Believe, and be saved." Faith is better than feeling.

The Christian who will sit with sealed lips when his Master is assailed, when religion is attacked, when wickedness is broached and defended, when truth is denounced, is a denier of his Lord, as guilty as Simon Peter in Pilate's hall.

The most heaven-like spots I have ever visited, have been certain rooms in which Christ's disciples were awaiting the summons of death. So far from being a "house of mourning," I have often found such a house to be a vestibule of glory.

Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct.

I never yet have heard of a good man having fallen when he was trying to do Christ's will and trusting on Christ's help. Every fall without one exception came from venturing upon sinful ground or from venturing upon self-support.

The firmament of the Bible is ablaze with answers to prayer.

When God says to us, " Give me your load, trust me, what you cannot do, I will do for you,"He puts our faith to one of the strongest tests. He never consents to carry our burdens unless we give them to Him.

The disciples were not losing time when they sat beside their Master, and held quiet converse with Him under the olives of Bethany or by the shores of Galilee. Those were their school-hours; those were their feeding times.

A new year is upon us, with new duties, new conflicts, new trials, and new opportunities. Start on the journey with Jesus--to walk with Him, to work for Him, and to win souls to Him. The last year of the century, it may be the last of our lives! A happy year will it be to those who, through every path of trial, or up every hill of difficulty, or over every sunny height,, march on in closest fellowship with Jesus, and who will determine that, come what may, they have Christ every day.

Precious Saviour! come in spirit, and lay Thy strong, gentle grasp of love on our dear boys and girls, and keep these our lambs from the fangs of the wolf.

It is the easiest thing in the world to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark.

I have heard of a monk who in his cell had a glorious vision of Jesus revealed to him. Just then a bell rang, which called him away to distribute loaves of bread among the poor beggars at the gate. He was sorely tried as to whether he should lose a scene so inspiring. He went to his act of mercy; and when he came back the vision remained more glorious than ever.

Now let us gather into one bouquet, from the King's garden, these seven fragrant flowers: Jesus the Son of God; Jesus our sin-bearer; Jesus the giver of eternal life; Jesus the keeper of our undying souls; Jesus the hearer of our prayers; Jesus the chastener who can turn crosses into crowns; and Jesus the wonder-worker who changes us into eternal likeness unto Himself! These flowers will keep sweet till heaven dawns.

The Princess Elizabeth, of England, was found dead with her head resting on her Bible, open at these words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So may we all fall asleep at last when the day's work for Jesus is over, and wake up in heaven to find ourselves in the delicious rest that remaineth for the people of God.

It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He commands us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road. He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him.

Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of "revival," will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man's moods and moral caprice. If a church is declining, it may require a "revival" to restore it; but what need was there of its declining?

God does not give us ready money. He issues promissory notes, and then pays them at the throne. Each one of us has a check-book.

A sermon in shoes is often more eloquent than a sermon on paper.