"When children ask you questions about gray hairs, and wrinkles in the face, and sighs that have no words, and smiles too bright to be carved upon the radiant face by the hands of hypocrisy--when they ask you about kneeling at the altar, speaking into the vacant air, and uttering words to an unseen and in an invisible Presence--when they interrogate you about your great psalms, and hymns, and anthem-bursts of thankfulness, what is your reply to these? Do not be ashamed of the history. Keep steadily along the line of fact. Say what happened to you, and magnify God in the hearing of the inquirer."

13 likes

Source: Joseph Parker (1873). “Detached links, extracts from the writings and discourses of J. Parker, compiled by J. Lucas”, p.82

About the author

Joseph Parker

Poet

Joseph Parker is a professional boxer from New Zealand, known for his resilience and determination in the heavyweight division.

All quotes by Joseph Parker →

Same author

More quotes by Joseph Parker

See all →

"The man whose little sermon is ‘repent’ sets himself against his age, and will for the time being be battered mercilessly by the age whose moral tone he challenges. There is but one end for such a man—‘off with his head!’ You had better not try to preach repentance until you have pledged your head to heaven"

Read quote

"Everywhere I find the signature, the autograph of God, and he will never deny his own handwriting. God has set his tabernacle in the dewdrop as surely as in the sun. No man can any more create the smallest flower than he could create the greatest world."

Read quote

"Have no fear for the unsettlement or the disturbance of the Kingdom of heaven. It began in eternity, it will go on through everlasting; there is no panic in the divine personality. God is peace, God gives peace, God gives rest."

Read quote