No kind of knowledge is to be despised. The bee gathers honey from every flower. What shore so bleak, what moor so barren, what rocks so naked from which we may not carry home some interesting object, in the shape of plant or mineral? So there are no circumstances in which we are placed, or persons, the humblest, with whom we can associate, without learning something we did not know before; something of value which, while interesting, may not one day prove useful, an example of the familiar proverb, “Keep a thing for seven years, and you will find the use of it.” (T. Guthrie, D.D.)
Earnest seeking for virtues
Aman has lost a title-deed, or some paper that would decide a suit in his favour rather than against him. And with what alacrity does he search for it! How does he go through the house in quest of it! “My dear, have you seen that roll of paper with a great red seal on it?” “What was it? A newspaper?” “No, no! not a newspaper. I shall lose a suit if I cannot find it. And she searches in every drawer and every trunk, and every closet, and even under the carpets. Both of them search night and day, going over the same place twenty times, saying, “Maybe I did not look thoroughly.” And they cannot give it up. The man almost cries, he wants it so much. He will have it, so much depends upon it. And at last he finds it, and he says, “I would rather have had my house burned than not to have found this paper.” Now, when men search for victorious virtues in their souls as they would search for an important legal document, do you suppose they will be saying, “Perhaps others may be able to live a good Christian life, but I cannot”? You can. And when you want true religion, when your soul hungers for it, you will find it. (H. W. Beecher.)
