Good Cheer for a Year Selections Author:Phillips Brooks General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1896 Original Publisher: E.P. Dutton Subjects: Devotional exercises Religion / Christian Life / Devotional Religion / Devotional Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the ... more »General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: " Comest thou as friend ? Comest thou as foe ? " " Nay, 'tis thou wilt bend Me to weal or woe. As thou usest me, Shall I be to thee Friend or foe." J. L. M. W. TTHINGS are what they are used for. . . . The artist uses a stone, and it is a statue; the mason uses a stone, and it is a doorstep. And beyond mere nature. See how we use men. We are each other's raw material. I make you up in some shape into my life, and you in some way make me up into yours. But what man is of so fixed a character that he can be made up only into one invariable thing ? Each man makes of his neighbor that for which he uses him. . . . So of all influences and motives. The same educations wall and press upon two lives. One rises on them into greatness, the other drags them down upon it and is crushed beneath them into ruin. . . . How is it that the Pharisee and the Publican came down the same temple steps, one cold, and proud, and bitter, and the other with his heart full of tenderness, and gratitude, and humblest charity ? VI. 25, 26. chapter{Section 4 Shine as lights in the world; Holding forth the word of life. -- Phil. ii. 15, 16. A MAN'S place is made ready for him in the mind of God; the man's life is set here as a positive, clear fact; and what comes next ? There is no doubt what ought to come. That life must tell. It must go out beyond itself. It must have influence. It must testify and supplement the mere fact of its existence by making other existences be something which they w...« less