book in the presence of my enemiesMartin was in a reflective mood. He said, “I really don’t know why this has happened to us. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Psalm 100–what it says about serving the Lord with gladness. This may not seem much like serving the Lord, but that’s what we’re doing, you know? We may not leave this jungle alive, but we can leave this world serving the Lord ‘with gladness’; we can ‘come before his presence with singing'”

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Book The Curate's Awakening“If our Lord were to come again visibly now, which do you think would come crowding around him in greater numbers–the respectable churchgoers, or the people from the slums? … The fact that the church draws so few of those whom Jesus drew and to whom he most expressly came gives ground for question as to how much the church is like her Lord. Certainly many would find their way to the feet of the Master from whom the respectable churchgoer, the Pharisee of our time, would draw back with disgust.

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George MacDonald
The Curate's Awakening (Bethany House Publishers, 1985, first printed1876)