Henry Giles
Overview
 
Henry Giles was a Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 minister and writer.
Born in County Wexford
County Wexford
County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...

 to a Roman Catholic family, Giles changed his religious belief several times, becoming a Protestant and a Dissenter
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....

, He studied for a time at the Royal Academical Institution of Belfast. before finally becoming a Unitarian and officiating as a minister of that denomination in Greenock, Scotland and chapel of Toxteth Park, in the edge of Liverpool, England.

It was during his three years preaching in Liverpool that Giles gained a reputation as a preacher of marked oratorical power.
Quotations

The Psalms are an everlasting manual to the soul; the book of its immortal wishes, its troubles, its aspirations, and its hopes; sung in every tongue, and in every age; destined to endure while the universe of God has light, harmony, or grandeur, while man has religion or sensibility, while language has sublimity or sweetness.

P. 33.

Enough of good there is in the lowest estate to sweeten life; enough of evil in the highest to check presumption; enough there is of both in all estates, to bind us in compassionate brotherhood, to teach us impressively that we are of one dying and one immortal family.

P. 41.

The materials of the first temple were made ready in solitude. Those of the last also must be shaped in retirement; in the silence of the heart; in the quietness of home; in the practice of unostentatious duty.

P. 45

Why should not our solemn duties, and our hastening end, render us so united, that personal contention would be impossible, in a general sympathy quickened by the breath of a forbearing and pitying charity?

P. 47.

The path which leads to the mount bf ascension does not lie among flowers; and he who travels it must climb the cold hillside, he must have his feet cut by the pointed rocks, he must faint in the dark valley, he must not seldom have his rest at midnight on the desert sand.

P. 107.

Bearing bravely the evils that beset us, doing cheerfully the duties that are near, trusting in God, guided by Christ, fear shall not confound us in the way, and death shall find us ready.

P. 118.

We are not to wait to be in preparing to be. We are not to wait to do in preparing to do, but to find in being and doing preparation for higher being and doing.

P. 121.

It awes by the majesty of its truths, it agitates by the force of its compunctions, it penetrates the heart by the tenderness of its appeals, and it casts over the abyss of thought, the shadow of its eternal grandeur.

P. 140.

The spirit of contempt is the true spirit of Antichrist; for no other is more directly opposed to Christ.

P. 160.

 
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