[I]n life there are so many factors involved that mathematical enumeration is the smallest and often the least important element involved. No illustration is more apt than the time-worn example of the logics, wherein it is presumed that if one man could dig a well in ten days, ten men could dig it in one. The mathematics is, of course, perfect, but worthless as overlooking the fact that ten men would, in that kind of a task, be in each other’s way.  —Ralph Tyler Flewelling (1926)

It has been said that modern civilization could not have been built upon any such foundation as the words of Jesus. That may be true. Quite imaginably it is also true that what could be built upon his words would be a better thing than modern civilization is. —W. R. Bowie (1928)

A belief becomes a faith when it shapes the way of one’s living, when it determines what one shall live for. It is not a faith merely when it is accepted as true. A proposition accepted as true is a mere belief. The conviction or certainty is not what makes it faith. It is the way it controls the living of the believer.  —Henry Nelson Wieman (1935)

True religion exists only so far as “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” … It is not a special group of propositions but a special kind of insight and of trust. —John Baillie (1928)

In a recent classroom discussion, one student defined prayer as a charging of the battery of the soul through contact with the Infinite God. This figure has in it much of truth, but the class put it in second place when another student contributed his definition. “Prayer,” he said, “is a tuning-in of the radio of the soul, to catch the music and message of the eternal.” —Benjamin Willard Robinson (1930)

When we recall what keen interest children take in all work with tools, how they follow eagerly each process, and what pleasure they derive from using chips, blocks, and shavings as playthings, we may be sure that however humble the carpenter’s shop of Joseph, it afforded inexhaustible delight to the child Jesus and his playmates. —George A. Barton (1922)

Somehow, in all this, the significant destiny of man begins dimly to be seen—only dimly, indeed, for the ultimate destiny is doubtless beyond us. But dimly we can see man, the curious dreamer of dreams, casting his dreams ahead of him—catching up to them—and again casting them ahead. —H. A. Overstreet (1931)

Vultures soar into the blue until they are invisible, mounting in a spiral, but never moving their wings. Their outspread wings, while motionless, are kept adjusted to the upper currents of air in such a way that they are lifted ever higher…. Prayer is adjusting the personality to God in such a way that God can work more potently for good than he otherwise could, as the outstretched wings of a bird enable the rising currents to carry it to higher levels.  —Henry Nelson Wieman and Regina Westcott-Wieman (1935)

Renunciation really taught a great life-policy, though no one was aware of it. It is the method, in its refined form, of increasing life’s fraction by lowering the denominator of demands instead of striving always to increase the numerator of satisfactions. It comes to be one of the great life-philosophies. —Sumner & Keller (1927)

The boastful records of a Rameses III are worthy of credence. In a reign of thirty-three years, he had given to the various temples 113,433 slaves, 493,386 head of cattle, 88 barks and galleys, and 2,756 golden images. Further contributions were 331,702 jars of incense, honey, and oil; 228,380 jars of wine and drink; 680,714 geese; 6,744,428 loaves of bread; and 5,740,352 sacks of coin. To get this wealth the king taxed his subjects; he did not create it himself. The burden rested squarely and heavily upon the population. —Sumner & Keller (1927)