Refinement Is The Lifting Of One's Self

That Which Men Suppose The Imagination To Be, And To Do, Is Often Frivolous Enough And Mischievous Enough; But That Which God Meant It To Be In The Mental Economy Is Not Merely Noble, But Supereminent. It Is The Distinguishing Element In All Refinement. It Is The Secret And Marrow Of Civilization. It Is The Very Eye Of Faith. The Soul Without Imagination Is What An Observatory Would Be Without A Telescope.

Whenever Education And Refinement Carry Us Away From The Common People, They Are Growing Towards Selfishness, Which Is The Monster Evil Of The World. That Is True Cultivation Which Gives Us Sympathy With Every Form Of Human Life, And Enables Us To Work Most Successfully For Its Advancement. Refinement That Carries Us Away From Our Fellow People Is Not God's Refinement.

It Is A View Of God That Compensates Every Thing Else, And Enables The Soul To Rest In His Bosom. How, When The Child In The Night Screams With Terror, Hearing Sounds That It Knows Not Of, Is That Child Comforted And Put To Rest? Is It By A Philosophical Explanation That The Sounds Were Made By The Rats In The Partition? Is It By Imparting Entomological Knowledge? No; It Is By The Mother Taking The Child In Her Lap, And Singing Sweetly To It, And Rocking It. And The Child Thinks Nothing Of The Explanation, But Only Of The Mother.

It Is Necessary, If One Would Read Aright, That He Should Read At Least Two Newspapers, Representing Both Sides Of Important Subjects.

What Could Make Me Love My Fellow Christian Better Than To See That God Loves Us All As We Were All One Soul?