Quote of the Day

"...It seems a strange thing that every day must die and be followed by a night. When we have seen the hills clad with verdure to their summit, and the seas laving their base with a silver glory; when we have stretched our eye far away, and have seen the widening prospect full of loveliness and beauty, we have sad that the sunlight should ever set upon such a scene, and that so much beauty should be shrouded in the oblivion of darkness. But how much reason have we to bless God for nights! for it were not for nights, how much beauty would never be discovered? Never should I have considered the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, O my God, if thou hadst not first covered the sun with a thick mantle of darkness: the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained, had never been more bright in mine eyes if Thou hadst not hidden the light of the sun and bidden him retire within the curtains of the west. Night seems to be the great friend of the stars: they must be all unseen by the eyes of men, were they not set in the foil of darkness. It is even so with winter. We might feel sad that all the flowers of summer must die, and all the fruits of autumn must be gathered into their storehouse, that every tree must be stripped, and that all the fields must lose their fair flowers. But were it not for winter, we should never behold the beauteous festoons of the icicles that hang from the eaves. Much of God's marvelous miracles of hoar frost must be hidden from us, if it had not been for the cold chill of winter, which, when it robs us of one beauty, gives us another - when it takes away the emerald of verdure, it gives us the diamond of ice - when it casts from us the bright rubies of the flowers, it gives us the fair, white ermine of snow... My dear friends, if you and I had been without trouble, we never could have had such a promise as this given to us: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be" (Duet. 33:25). It is our weakness that has made room for God to give us such a promise as this... We do not love nights, but we do love stars; we do not love weakness, but we do bless God for the promise that is to sustain us in our weakness; we do not admire winter, but we do admire the glittering snow..." 

   

                                                    - Charles H. Spurgeon