This quote is taken from the last U.S. Senate prayer Peter Marshall wrote as chaplain before he died at age 46 in January 1949:
“Deliver us, our Father, from futile hopes and from clinging to lost causes, that we may move into ever-growing calm and ever-widening horizons. Where we cannot convince, let us be willing to persuade, for small deeds done are better than great deeds planned. We know that we cannot do everything. But help us to do something. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.”
Published in 1928, this is a book of devotionals that the pastor (George W. Phillips) shared during the Tenth Avenue Baptist Church’s daily radio broadcasts, which began in 1926 out of Oakland, California. Besides the call letters standing for the church’s name, its on-air backronym was “Knowledge, Truth, and Beauty.”
Published by The American Tract Society, this copy is 150 years old and was probably used by Sunday School teachers. The handwritten note inside says “Hickory Grove, SSL No 179, 1871.” Grace Abbott or The Sunday Tea-Party is the story of young Grace trying to keep Sunday special and devoted to God. It’s hard to do, though, with the tea parties and the mean girls tempting Grace to put aside what she learned about the Sabbath. In the end, Grace does prevail!
In 1894, Scottish evangelist Henry Drummond shared a message — The Greatest Thing in the World — based on 1 Corinthians 13. His little talk on the Bible passage was soon published, and it’s never been out of print. My copy is from the 1950’s, and written inside is “Janet, My love, Aunt Ruth.”
I remember when I first read the passage in the Bible and saw that the words describing true Love are all action words, not emotions. That was a lightbulb moment for me. Take time to read 1 Corinthians 13. Maybe what it says will give you a new idea about love, like it did for me.
The Holy Life: A Book for Christians Seeking the Rest of Faith was written in 1875 by the Rev. Evan H. Hopkins. My copy is embossed with a stamp that reads “Sea Pines School for Girls, Massachusetts, Incorporated 1911.”
After a few weeks of blog vacation, I am back to posting regularly this week. Thank you for taking the time to visit my new blog and read my stories over the past year. I hope you continue to come by for more in 2022.
(If anyone knows the name of this flower — from a floral arrangement that I received over the holidays — please leave the name in a comment!)
Reading Mr. Jones, Meet the Master, a book of sermons and prayers, triggered a significant change to my life. A friend encouraged me to buy a paperback we saw at a yard sale, I read it, and, through Peter Marshall’s words, I met a Jesus that no one had been telling me about. In these sermons, Jesus seemed so personal — someone I could really know — and I wondered why he was not being presented to me in that way.
God also used Marshall’s sermons to show my lack of Bible doctrine, even though I had been attending a church regularly for almost two years. I questioned and eventually left that church, and God led me to one that did not stray from the Gospel and the Bible’s truths.
Years later, during one of our church library giveaways, I found this 1953 hardcover edition to add to my collection of treasures.
Darla McDavid 