Quotes

The land of Beulah lies beyond the valley of the shadow of death. Many Christians spend all their days in a continual bustle, doing good. They are too busy to find either the valley or Beulah. Virtues they have, but are full of the life and attractions of nature, and unacquainted with the paths of mortification and death.

According to the Burman system, there is no escape. According to the Christian system, there is. Jesus Christ has died in the place of sinners, has borne their sins; and now those who believe on Him, and become His disciples, are released from the punishment they deserve. At death, they are received into Heaven and are happy forever.

Observe the seven seasons of secret prayer every day.

Let us die as soon as possible, and by whatever process God shall appoint. And when we are dead to the world, and nature, and self, we shall begin to live to God.

I am left alone in the wide world. My own dear family I have buried: one in Rangoon, and two in Amherst. What remains for me but to hold myself in readiness to follow the dear departed to that blessed world, 'Where my best friends, my kindred dwell, where God, my Saviour, reigns.'

I was seized on the 8th of June, 1824, in consequence of the war with Bengal and, in company with Dr. Price, three Englishmen, one American, and one Greek, was thrown into the death prison at Ava, where we lay eleven months - nine months in three pairs and two months in five pairs of fetters.

Missionaries must not calculate on the least comfort but what they find in one another and their work.

I have considered the subject of missions nearly a year and have found my mind gradually tending to a deep conviction that it is my duty personally to engage in this service.

I suppose they think me an old man and imagine it is nothing for one like me to resign a life so full of trials. But I am not old - at least in that sense; you know I am not. Oh, no man ever left the world with more inviting prospects, with brighter hopes, or warmer feelings - warmer feelings.

My views of the missionary object are, indeed, different from what they were when I was first set on fire by Buchanan's 'Star in the East' six years ago. But it does not always happen that a closer acquaintance with an object diminishes our attachment and preference.

I have to hold a meeting with the rising generation every evening, and that takes time. Henry can say, 'Twinkle, twinkle,' all himself, and Edward can repeat it after his father! Giants of genius! Paragons of erudition!

The course that I have uniformly pursued, ever since I became a missionary, has been rather peculiar. In order to become an acceptable and eloquent preacher in a foreign language, I deliberately abjured my own. When I crossed the river, I burnt my ships.

I am persuaded that the chief reason why we do not enjoy religion is that we do not try to enjoy it.

If we are interested in Christ by faith, notwithstanding our imperfections and sins, God will be our God through grace.

We cannot sit still and see the dear Burmans, flesh and blood like ourselves and, like ourselves, possessed of immortal souls that will shine forever in heaven or burn forever in hell - we cannot see them go down to perdition without doing our very utmost to save them. And thanks be to God, our labors are not in vain.

When any practice is proposed and enforced as a binding duty, we have a right to examine the grounds of the alleged obligation.

You will readily believe me when I say that on leaving my country, I little imagined that I should ever become a Baptist. I had not indeed candidly examined the subject of baptism, but I had strong prejudices against the sect, that is everywhere spoken against.

Embrace every opportunity of exercising kind feelings and doing good to others, especially to the household of faith.

I thought they loved me, and they would scarcely have known it if I had died. All through our troubles, I was comforted with the thought that the brethren in Maulmain and America were praying for us, and they have never once thought of us.

My prospects for life, though in a measure shaded with uncertainty, hardship and danger, are very animating and bright. My prospects for another life, blessed be God, are still brighter.

We should naturally expect that the baptism of infants, if enjoined at all, would have been enjoined in the law which instituted the ordinance of Christian baptism. But this law is silent on the subject of infants.

I never was deeply interested in any object; I never prayed sincerely and earnestly for anything, but it came at some time - no matter how distant, in some way, in some shape, probably the last I should have devised, it came. And yet, I have always had so little faith. God forgive me.

We had never before seen a place where European influence had not contributed to smooth and soften the rough features of uncultivated nature. The prospect of Rangoon, as we approached, was quite disheartening.

I take leave of Prome and her towering god, Shwa Lan-dau, at whose base I have been laboring with the kindest intentions for the last three months and a half. Too firmly founded art thou to be overthrown at present; but the children of those who now plaster thee with gold will yet pull thee down, nor leave one brick upon another.

There are two evil futurities and one good. A miserable future existence is evil; and annihilation, or nigban, is an evil - a fearful evil. A happy future existence is alone good.