Georgia Harkness

The tendency to turn human judgments into divine commands makes religion one of the most dangerous forces in the world.

It is the Christian hope that to life lived in the presence of God. Death is but the entrance into a larger life. It is the Christian hope that in the larger fellowship of God’s sons for time and eternity there is no final separation from those we love. It is the Christian hope that whether life comes early or late, no life is fruitless, no personality prized by God as an infinitely precious creation is snuffed out like a candle in the dark.

I cannot believe that the life eternal is one endless idleness. If it were endless duration only, it would be endless boredom and scarcely willed by God. What we may be given to do in the next life we cannot say, and with so many forms of work in this life related to physical existence, it is useless to speculate. But if there is a fellowship of persons, God will give us tasks for their enrichment.

God is the source and goal of ideals by which to live triumphantly in the face of starkest grief. The sufferer who finds God as the strength and mainstay of his life does not merely acquiesce before the inevitable with stoic fortitude. He looks the tragedy in the face, and looks up to new heights of spiritual beauty to which he may mount by using his grief as a stairway to God’s glory.

Prayer is the opening of the soul to God so he can speak to us. “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance; it is laying hold of God’s willingness.”

The perpetual danger which besets religion is that it may substitute gentility and aestheticism for prophetic insight and power.

The act of praying centers attention on the higher emotion, unifies the spirit, crystallizes emotions, clarifies the judgments, releases latent powers, reinforces confidence that what needs to be done can be done.

Scientism and anthropocentric humanism are the attractive blooms that adorn a nearly rootless society.

The all-important question is not whether human life will survive upon this planet. Rather, it is whether the souls of men will be fit to use God’s gift of personal survival in an eternal fellowship.