Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

American Presbyterian Minister and Religious Writer

"Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and conduct."

"Conversation by the Holy Spirit is a spiritual illumination of the soul. God’s grace lights up the dark heart."

"Every man has in himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul."

"It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He command us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him."

"Know what your sin is and confess it; but do not imagine that you have approved yourself a penitent by confessing sin in the abstract."

"Let your religion be seen. Lamps do not talk, but they do shine. A light house sounds no drum, it beats no gong; yet, far over the waters, its friendly light is seen by the mariner."

"A precious book is a foretaste of immortality."

"Tears never yet saved a soul. Hell is full of weepers weeping over lost opportunities, perhaps over the rejection of an offered Saviour. Your Bible does not say, “Weep, and be saved.” It says, “Believe, and be saved.” Faith is better than feeling."

"You never will be saved by works; but let us tell you most solemnly that you never will be saved without works."

""Follow me!" The publican "rose up." This implied immediate action. It was now or never with him. So you must act with prompt obedience. He did the first thing Jesus bade him do. Are you willing to do as much? If not, you are deciding against Christ, and that means death."

"A good book is the very essence of a good man. His virtues survive in it, while the foibles and faults of his actual life are forgotten. All the goodly company of the excellent and great sit around my table, or look down on me from yonder shelves, waiting patiently to answer my questions and enrich me with their wisdom. A precious book is a foretaste of immortality."

"Answered prayers cover the field of providential history as flowers cover western prairies."

"Any church which forsakes the regular and uniform for the periodical and spasmodic service of God, is doomed to decay; any church which relies for its spiritual strength and growth entirely upon seasons of "revival," will very soon have no genuine revivals to rely on. Our holy God will not conform His blessings to man's moods and moral caprice. If a church is declining, it may require a "revival" to restore it; but what need was there of its declining?"

"As a child walking over a slippery and dangerous path cries out, "Father, I am falling!" and has but a moment to catch his father's hand, so every believer sees hours when only the hand of Jesus comes between him and the abysses of destruction."

"As long as we work on God's line, He will aid us. When we attempt to work on our own lines, He rebukes us with failure."

"Blessed be the discipline which makes me reach out my soul's roots into closer union with Jesus! Blessed be the dews of the Spirit which keep my leaf ever green! Blessed be the trials which shake down the ripe, golden fruits from the branches."

"For a few brief days the orchards are white with blossoms. They soon turn to fruit, or else float away, useless and wasted, upon the idle breeze. So will it be with present feelings. They must be deepened into decision, or be entirely dissipated by delay."

"God always has an angel of help for those who are willing to do their duty."

"God does not give us ready money. He issues promissory notes, and then pays them at the throne. Each one of us has a check-book."

"God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on the top of them."

"God sometimes washes the eyes of His children with tears in order that they may read aright His providence and His commandments."

"I have heard of a monk who in his cell had a glorious vision of Jesus revealed to him. Just then a bell rang, which called him away to distribute loaves of bread among the poor beggars at the gate. He was sorely tried as to whether he should lose a scene so inspiring. He went to his act of mercy; and when he came back the vision remained more glorious than ever."

"I dare not drink for my own sake, I ought not to drink for my neighbor's sake."

"I never knew a child of God being bankrupted by his benevolence. What we keep we may lose, but what we give we are sure to keep."

"In our father's house it will not be the pearl gate or the streets of gold that will make us happy. But oh, how transcendently glad shall we be when we see our Lord. Perhaps in that "upper room," also, He may show us His hands and His side, and we may cry out with happy Thomas, "My Lord and my God!""

"It will require more than a few hours of fasting and prayer to cast out such demons as selfishness, worldliness, and unbelief. Repentance, to be of any avail, must work a change of heart and of conduct."

"Let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself."

"Never despair of a child. The one you weep the most for at the mercy-seat may fill your heart with the sweetest joys."

"None but a theology that came out of eternity can carry you and me safely to and through eternity."

"Oh, be assured fellow teachers, that there is no time in life so favorable to sound conversion as early childhood."

"Religion's home is in the conscience.—Its watchword is the word "ought."—Its highest joy is in doing God's will."

"Sufficient to each day are the duties to be done and the trials to be endured. God never built a Christian strong enough to carry today's duties and tomorrow's anxieties piled on the top of them."

"The best days of the church have always been its singing days."

"The Bible is full of trees; from the time when Adam and Eve sat under their shadow in Eden, on to that splendid vision of the, New Jerusalem, where the tree of life bears twelve manner of fruits and its leaves are for the healing of the nations. Absalom's oak, and Elijah's juniper, and Jonah's gourd, and the sycamore which hoisted little Zaccheus into notice, are all familiar to every Sunday school scholar. Our Lord hung one of His most solemn parables on the boughs of a barren fig tree, and drew one of His most apt illustrations of the growth of His kingdom from the mustard which becomes tall enough for the birds to nestle in its branches."

"The firmament of the Bible is ablaze with answers to prayer."

"The Master will not keep His hand under our arms when we go on forbidden ground. Presumptuous Peter needed, a sharp lesson, and he got it. That bitter cry at the foot of the stairs bespoke an awful fall. How many such are rising daily into God's listening ears."

"To forecast our sorrows is only to increase the suffering without increasing our strength to bear them.—Many of life's noblest enterprises might never have been undertaken if all the difficulties and defects could be foreseen."

"We never can create a public sentiment strong enough to suppress the dram-shops until God's people take hold of the temperance reform as a part of their religion."

"When a miner looks at the rope that is to lower him into the deep mine, he may coolly say, "I have faith in that rope as well made and strong." But when he lays hold of it, and swings down by it into the tremendous chasm, then he is believing on the rope. Then he is trusting himself to the rope. It is not a mere opinion--it is an act. The miner lets go of everything else, and bears his whole weight on those well braided strands of hemp. Now that is faith."

"When we read or hear how some professed Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed into drunkenness, or slipped from the communion table into open disgrace, it simply means that a human arm has broken. The man has forsaken the everlasting arms."

"You may not be able to leave your children a great inheritance, but day by day, you may be weaving coats for them which they will wear for all eternity."