The Wall

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“What a dear old wall that is that runs along by the river there! I never pass it without feeling better for the sight of it. Such a mellow, bright, sweet old wall; what a charming picture it would make, with the lichen creeping here, and the moss growing there, a shy young vine peeping over the top at this spot, to see what is going on upon the busy river, and the sober old ivy clustering a little farther down! There are fifty shades and tints and hues in every ten yards of that old wall. . . . It looks so peaceful and so quiet, and it is such a dear old place to ramble round in the early morning before many people are about.” Jerome K. Jerome, “Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” Ch. 6 (1889)

Chambers on Holiness

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"Holiness is not an attainment at all, it is the gift of God, and the pietistic tendency is the introspection which makes me worship my own earnestness and not the Lord seriously at all. It is a pious fraud that suits the natural man immensely. He makes holy, He sanctifies, He does it all. All I have to do is come as a spiritual pauper, not ashamed to beg, to let go of my right to myself and act on Romans 12:1-2. It is never, 'Do, do and you'll be' with the Lord, but "Be, be, and I will do through you.' It is a case of 'hands up' and letting go, and then entire reliance on Him."

--Oswald Chambers, in a letter to a friend, 1901. McCasland, David. Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God. Oswald Chambes Publications Associations: Thomas Nelson, 1993

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