H. Clay Trumbull Quotes on Prayer, Soul-Winning, Doubt and Children
H. Clay Trumbull edited The Sunday School Times for almost thirty years, and before that he was a Sunday-school missionary and a Civil War chaplain. He spent his life talking with people one at a time: soldiers, travelers, students, parents and doubters. His books are full of plain, balanced sentences that come out of those conversations.
Every quotation below is copied exactly from his books in TheWay Library, with the book and chapter it comes from, so you can read each one in its setting. For his life story, see who was H. Clay Trumbull. For a guide to all five books, see H. Clay Trumbull books.
On prayer
Trumbull's book on prayer is careful and honest. He wanted Christians to trust God's promises fully, and not to expect what God never promised.
There is a vast difference between prayer in faith and faith in prayer.
Personal Prayer, chapter 7
Prayer is not to be depended on; but God is.
Personal Prayer, chapter 7
God's promises of answer to prayer never fail of their fulfilling; but man's hope of answers to his prayer beyond the promises of God are always liable to disappointment.
Personal Prayer, chapter 5
Faith does not decide for itself what it must have, but it leaves with God the decision of the desired supply, even while it makes known its desire to God.
Personal Prayer, chapter 8
It is not our saying, but our showing, that what we ask is asked in the name of Jesus, that God notes and takes into account.
Personal Prayer, chapter 6
Private prayer is the emptying of one's soul unreservedly to God; there need be no constraint in it whatsoever.
Personal Prayer, chapter 10
He also wrote about praying for others, and about the friendship God offers to those who pray:
Nothing that we can do for others is sure of a good result without God's blessing.
Personal Prayer, chapter 9
If we realized always that God is our friend, we should be readier to bear ourselves toward him as his friends.
Personal Prayer, chapter 12
Blessings that are promised in response to faith-filled prayer cannot be expected if faith-filled prayer is not offered.
Personal Prayer, chapter 16
On speaking to one person about Christ
Trumbull was won to Christ by one friend's letter, and he never forgot it. These lines come from his record of fifty years of personal work.
Not every man can be a great preacher to a great congregation; but every man can speak a timely word to an individual, if, indeed, his heart be set on so doing.
Individual Work for Individuals, chapter 1
In army life, as in quiet home life, the way to reach the many is to reach the one.
Individual Work for Individuals, chapter 6
Every Bible truth is like a many-sided crystal, — turn it which way you will, there is one facet that sends the light directly to your eye.
Individual Work for Individuals, chapter 7
If words for Christ to an individual are most effective in the winning of souls, why are they not more commonly spoken by those who love Christ and love souls?
Individual Work for Individuals, chapter 11
He believed conviction carries further than cleverness:
So long as he himself has any doubt on the subject he is not likely to convince those who are in doubt
Individual Work for Individuals, chapter 12
On doubt
Trumbull's counsel to doubters is patient and practical. He points them away from their own feelings and toward Christ.
Any one who is familiar with the workings of the human heart knows that more persons are ready to question or doubt than to rest and trust.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, Introductory
Christ is above us; let us look to him.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, chapter 2
As to his will, he did not have to give it up, but only to lift it up.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, chapter 3
On people who stay away from church until they feel good enough, he said the church is a place for the sick:
It is not as an exhibition hall, but as a hospital, that it calls for members and that members continue in it.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, chapter 4
And on a man terrified that he had committed the unpardonable sin:
He had been worrying over a sin which he had not committed; but which if he had committed, he would have ceased to worry about.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, chapter 6
God is ever ready to work wonders for and with those who come to him in need and desire.
How to Deal with Doubts and Doubters, chapter 13
On raising children
Hints on Child-Training is gentle and firm at once. These lines show why parents still read it.
Child-training does not change a child's nature, but it does change his modes of giving expression to his nature.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 1
Each child can be trained in the way he should go, but not every child can be trained to go in the same way.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 3
Will-training is an important element in child-training; but will-breaking has no part or place in the training of a child.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 5
A child's rights as an individual are as positive and as sacred as a man's; and it is never proper to ignore these rights in a child, any more than it would be in a man.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 8
Training a child not to tease, is a duty incumbent upon every parent; but, as a prerequisite to this training of the child, the parent must himself be trained.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 11
Every child has the instinct of faith, as surely as it has the instinct of appetite.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 14
Scolding is not always ruinous, but it is always out of place.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 22
Every burden of life — and life's burdens seem many — rests at its heaviest on a child's nature.
Hints on Child-Training, chapter 24
On missionaries and the shortness of life
Last, two lines from his memories of the missionary pioneers he knew.
But the men of that day were men of sublime faith and love and hope; and we have more to learn from them than from the progress that is making in our day.
Old Time Student Volunteers, chapter 1
Yet the truth is, death's brink is not before us; it is alongside of us.
Old Time Student Volunteers, chapter 9
Where to read more Trumbull
If you read one book of his, make it Individual Work for Individuals, his own story of being won to Christ and winning others. For prayer, read Personal Prayer. Parents should read Hints on Child-Training. All his books are on the H. Clay Trumbull author page.