Alfred Edersheim quotes:

There is ever the prior question of plain duty, with which nothing else, however tempting or promising of success, can come into conflict; and such seasons may be only those when our faith and patience are put on trial, so as to bring it clearly before us, whether or not, quite irrespective of all else, we are content to leave everything in the hands of God.

Let me be one of the upward and outward lookers, not one of the downward and inward lookers.

For God to explain a trial would be to destroy its purpose, calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience.

We cannot understand the meaning of many trials; God does not explain them. To explain a trial would be to destroy its object, which is that of calling forth simple faith and implicit obedience. If we knew why the Lord sent us this or that trial, it would thereby cease to be a trial either of faith or of patience.

So true is it that all sin is ultimately against the Lord; so bitter is the root of self.

God is the God of the present as well as of the future...even here on earth, He reigneth, dispensing good and evil.

An outward observance without any real inward meaning is only a ceremony.