Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.

By the grace of God we will never pluck unripe fruit. We will never press people to decision, because we'll lead them to damnation and not salvation.

There shall be a glorious reward to faithful ministers: to those who have been successful: Dan. xii. 3, "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever;" and also to those who have been faithful, and yet not successful: Isa. xlix. 4, "Then I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent my strength for nought: yet surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my reward with my God.

V. Our resolutions to cleave to and follow those that are turning to God, and joining themselves to his people, ought to be fixed and strong, because of the great difficulty of it.

So what is "heart"? It's courage, but courage to do what? The courage to do the right thing when all else tells you not to do it. The courage to rise above your surroundings and circumstances. The courage to be God's idea of a real man and to give of yourself for others when it costs you to do so and when everything tells you to look out for yourself first.

By the time Wilberforce experienced his "Great Change," all of the social problems that would plague eighteenth-century Britain had come to full flower, having been unchecked by the social conscience of genuine Christian faith for nearly a hundred years.

He could hardly recognize it as something that had grown out of what he had begun.

God wants to see human beings, not ghosts who shun the world. In the whole of world history there is only one real significant hour ... the present ... if you want to find eternity, you must serve the times.

A seed had been pressed into the soil of his soul, and had been watered, and would soon burst and sprout green and grow beyond all possibility of concealing.

As the world recognizes Wilberforce, his work, and his Savior, let us not fall into former pits of forgetfulness.

What happened is surprisingly simple: William Wilberforce was the happy victim of his own success.

There are greater issues in life than sport, and the greatest of these is loyalty to the great laws of the soul.