William H. Holcombe

“ I no longer wondered at the host of gods and goddesses which were conjured from the misty deeps of antiquity, to guard a nature so prolific and fair, and a people so perfect in form and so gifted in spirit.
The traditions of Greece, the poetry, the eloquence, the music, the philosophy, the art, and the divine architecture, which seemed a combination of them all, had so impressed and transformed my mind, that I looked back to my narrow circle of life and thought in Judea, as a man looks back upon the school-room and play-ground of his childhood. ”

“ Stand bravely a little longer in the imminent deadly breach, which is yawning between the North and the South, and stay, if it yet be possible, the bloody hand of fanaticism. Raise your eloquent voices once more for equality and fraternity, for justice and union. If it prove in vain, as alas! it will, keep firm at least to your principles and your faith; work without ceasing as a leaven of good in your infatuated communities ”

“ My spirit of self-sacrifice in achieving my lofty ends, is a mystery to your sluggish and ignoble souls. I have endured hunger and thirst and wakefulness and nakedness and heat and cold and solitude and plagues and wounds for mastery in the great path I have chosen. I have traversed the world from the frozen seas to the chasms of torrid heat. I have contended with wild beasts and with their guardians, the great spirits, by land and water. I have conquered the serpent and the leopard. The vulture lights on my shoulder like a sparrow; the lion crouches at my feet like a dog. ”

“ Those who cannot be reduced to bondage, like the American Indian, perish in their isolated and defiant barbarism. Freedom is the last result, the crowning glory of the long and difficult evolution of human society. Few nations have yet attained to that lofty standard. Those who say that the French, the Italians or the Prussians, are not yet fit for freedom, and are still unable to appreciate the blessings of constitutional liberty, would thrust the splendid privilege of Anglo-Saxon superiority upon the semi-barbarous negro! ”

“ He was not only weeping for me, as the Jews supposed who witnessed the external side alone of this wonderful scene. The loving heart of the Divine Being was touched with infinite, celestial pity for the innumerable multitude of the spiritually dead. It was a drop of that infinite pity which stirred my soul from the sleep of death. It was a drop of that infinite pity which trickled down the face of Jesus, as he wept in the garden for the brother of Martha and Mary.
That communication of the divine grief to me must have come from the spiritual side of my perceptions. ”

“ But if it be possible, in the mysterious providence of God, that we should fail and perish in our sublime attempt, let it come! Our souls may rebel against the inscrutable decree of such a destiny, but we will not swerve a line from the luminous path of duty. With our hands upon our hearts we will unitedly exclaim, let it come! The sons and daughters of the South are ready for the sacrifice. We endorse the noble sentiment of Robert Hall, that he has already lived too long who has survived the liberties of his country! ”

“ I understand it, Lazarus; I see, feel, know, comprehend the whole mystery. It may be the flower comprehends the sun better than the philosopher.
“We were born of water through the baptism of John. By the repentance and obedience taught by him, we are washed of the uncleanness and sensuality of our old life and enter upon the sweetness and purity of the new. Jesus will baptize us with the Spirit of divine love, as John did with the spirit of divine truth; and we shall be new creatures, born again as it were, into a spiritual kingdom of light and peace. ”

“ The grass would grow in the streets of our cities, our ships would rot in their harbors, our plantations would become a wilderness of cane-brakes. The re-subjugation of the negro, or the extermination of one race or the other would be inevitable, and in any event our children would be beggared with an inheritance of woe. Let us swear upon the altar of God, that as Christians and citizens we will resist to the death the first step which might lead us towards this awful abyss! ”

“ The spirits who accompanied me fled away, and I was left alone. I blended my being with that of the lost people. I became a skeleton among skeletons, a shade among shades. I conquered. I drew voices out of the silence, forms out of the darkness, life out of death. I summoned with difficulty and danger the ruling spirits of the perished race. I mastered their master. I made him my slave. I compelled him to disgorge the secrets of the wilderness and the grave. I have enriched myself with treasures of knowledge and power, of which no man even dreams. ”

“ The Northern race, bold, hardy, intelligent, proud and free, will receive into its embrace the heterogeneous spawn of European civilization, and mold it to its own shape, and prepare it for its own destiny. The Southern people are brave, courteous and gentle, credulous and forbearing—loving friends, chivalrous enemies and good masters, to whose strong and generous hands alone the Almighty would entrust the tutelage of his most helpless and degraded children. ”

“ When the object of Simon’s visit to Bethany began to reveal itself, they trembled with intense fear. When the horrible idea took distinct shape in her mind, Martha had almost burst into a wild shriek of agony. The shriek was with great difficulty suppressed. The terror and agony were borne in upon the young soul, and she fell into a long and fearful swoon which seemed death itself.
After a long, long time, when all was still and dark, Ethopus approached as softly as he had departed. He aroused Ulema from her trance of grief, and the two bore the unreviving form of Martha back to the chamber. ”

“ I waited a long time, listening intently. It suddenly occurred to me that when the robbers reached the tent of Barabbas, my escape would be discovered, and the swiftest runners despatched to overtake me. This thought brought the cold drops to my forehead; and I hurried breathless all the way up the ravine, actually thinking that I heard the footsteps of men behind me, and voices calling my name.
Escaped from the robbers, I fell into the arms of the desert. I could have extricated myself from the new danger if the sun had been shining. ”

“ I shall not wait long. After I left my prison in Antioch and mingled with the turbulent tide of human life, my spiritual visions left me, my spiritual senses were closed. They are opening again. I have the old, beautiful dreams. I hear the same heavenly music. I see the same auroral and rainbow flashes of light. These now are prophecies of death—nay, rather of life, of heaven. The gates stand ajar.
My eyes, my hopes, my heart are steadily fixed on that Land of Beauty, where the Son of the Desert will be united to Martha; and John the Baptist to Mary; and Lazarus to Magdalen ”

“ It is the gentle breath of the Divine Love which is converted into a burning fire when it enters the perverted and corrupt forms of their own souls!
“The same sphere of divine light approaching those who have some remnants of good and truth, and who can be saved, produces a profound self-abasement, a trembling contrition, a suffocation of the old life with all its wicked desires, and an inexpressible longing for a new life of purity, peace and love.” ”

“ I knew that no height of piety, no fervor of faith, no frenzy of love can secure a church from the cold and critical assaults of the human understanding. Devotion may be the soul of a church, but Truth is its body: and no religion without an impregnable basis of philosophy, can be anything but a transient fervor. It must inevitably perish by a gradual disintegration. For this mode of thinking I was indebted to the Athenian philosophers.
The disciples of Christ had no such foundation upon which to erect the great theological truths they were going to teach. ”

“ The harmony of souls in heaven is like that of an immense choir of music. Each has a distinct part, and each must be perfect in his part. Imagine thousands of good and pure spirits living in choirs of thought, choirs of feeling, choirs of acting; and you will begin to have a faint idea of the order, peace, beauty and felicity of the social life in heaven.
New-comers into the world of spirits are always anxious to be admitted into heaven. There is a process by which they can be elevated into heavenly societies, and shown the wonders and glories of the celestial life. ”

“ I exclaimed. “Let me contemplate a little longer this marvelous scene.”
“When all these spirits are judged,” continued my father, “and cast out of the world of spirits, the Greece and Rome of the natural world will become feeble and death-stricken. Their oracles will become silent; their arts will fail; their glory perish; their civilization decay. Their very languages will die. Their exact modes of thought will no more be possible to men. Ages of bondage and darkness will ensue, after the light they have perverted and the liberty they have profaned.” ”

“ I noticed after a while that these visits to the desert had a singular effect upon Mary. For some time preceding them, there was an exhilaration of spirits, a flush of expectation, a vivacity of manner, which added a new lustre to her charms, a new glow to her beauty. During the visit, however, she was timid, reticent and abstracted: and afterward for weeks there was an unusual quietness of demeanor, as well as a tearfulness of the eye and a pallor of the cheek.
“Lazarus,” said Martha to me one day, “had we not better bring our father’s remains to Bethany and bury them with our mother’s? ”

“ How life-giving, faith-giving, hope-giving is a sight of the sun, wrapping his mantle of softened glory about him, and descending trustfully to sleep in the kingdom of night, assured that Aurora will open duly her palace of pearl, and his golden chariot with its fiery steeds issue forth in the morning!
So does the Soul sink only to rise; sleep only to wake; die only to live: ever changing in state, ever the same in substance. ”

“ The shrubbery and flowers of this garden were the concentrated beauties of the floral world in all regions, cultivated here by art, and offering an incense of perfume to these Roman rulers, who aspired to conquer not only man but nature. Ivory statues of gods and goddesses, of nymphs and fawns and satyrs, added greatly to the beauty of the scene. But when a dozen dancing-girls alighted as it were from heaven upon this miraculous stage, and whirled among these statues and flowers, less perfect and beautiful than themselves, the fascination, to those who regarded such enchantments, was complete. ”