The Prized Treasures

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  “Will the prized treasures of today always be the cheap trifles of the day before? Will rows of our willow-pattern dinner-plates be ranged above the chimneypieces of the great in the years 2000 and odd? Will the white cups with the gold rim and the beautiful gold flower inside (species unknown), that our Sarah Janes now break in sheer light-heartedness of spirit, be carefully mended, and stood upon a bracket, and dusted only by the lady of the house? . . . .   The “sampler” that the eldest daughter did at school will be spoken of as “tapestry of the Victorian era,” and be almost priceless. The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups; and travellers from Japan will buy up all the “Presents from Ramsgate,” and “Souvenirs of Margate,” that may have escaped destruction, and take them back to Jedo as ancient English curios.” Jerome K. Jerome, “T...

Going Back to Sin

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"Are you filled with an inexpressible gratitude for the 'unspeakable gift' of the Cross? Have you seen Jesus Christ 'evidently set forth and crucified?' Can you say with Paul, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world' (Galatians 6:14)? After seeing the love of the cross, how could we ever go back to the pleasures of sin? To do that, we have to trample underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ. We would have to count the sacrifice of Calvary as nothing. Instead, we willfully crucify ourselves to the world. We whisper with the hymnist, 'When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride.'"

(From Way of the Master Minute)

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