Quote: The Virtue of Rising Early

Hmmm. Maybe I should set that alarm a little earlier :)

If you were to rise early every morning, as an instance of
self-denial, as a method of renouncing indulgence, as a means
of redeeming your time and of fitting your spirit for prayer,
you would find mighty advantages from it. This method, though
it seem such a small circumstance of life, would in all
probability be a means [toward] great piety. It would keep it
constantly in your head that softness and idleness were to be
avoided and that self-denial was a part of Christianity... It
would teach you to exercise power over yourself, and make you
able by degrees to renounce other pleasures and tempers that
war against the soul.

William Law (1686-1761), A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life, ch. XIV [1728]

Quote: Inoculated with Christianity...

We have all been inoculated with Christianity, and are
never likely to take it seriously now! You put some of the
virus of some dreadful illness into a man's arm, and there is
a little itchiness, some scratchiness, a slight discomfort--
disagreeable, no doubt, but not the fever of the real disease,
the turning and the tossing, and the ebbing strength. And we
have all been inoculated with Christianity, more or less. We
are on Christ's side, we wish him well, we hope that He will
win, and we are even prepared to do something for Him,
provided, of course, that He is reasonable, and does not make
too much of an upset among our cozy comforts and our customary
ways. But there is not the passion of zeal, and the burning
enthusiasm, and the eagerness of self-sacrifice, of the real
faith that changes character and wins the world.

A. J. Gossip (1873-1954), From the Edge of the Crowd [1924]

Been Traveling Abroad Lately...

I apologize for the long absence of entries in the blog. I've been traveling for over a month now and will likely not have much time to blog until mid-August. That's bad for viewership :) But not much I can do about it. I'll throw some pics and quotes to you in the meantime.

Here we are below in the French Alps. Glaciers behind and below us. Amazing views of God's creation. Psalm 19:1..."The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands."