Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

“ God can judge him,--I can't."
"You are too charitable, Doctor," the minister said. "I condemn him just as if he had carried out his project, which, they say, was to make it appear as if the schoolmaster had committed suicide. That's what people think the rope found by him was for. He has saved his neck,--but his soul is a lost one, I am afraid, beyond question."
"I can't judge men's souls," the Doctor said. "I can judge their acts, and hold them responsible for those,--but I don't know much about their souls. If you or I had found our soul in a half-breed body ”

“ On Saturday evening the Reverend Chauncy Fairweather received a note which was left at his door by an unknown person who departed without saying a word. Its words were these: "One who is in distress of mind requests the prayers of this congregation that God would be pleased to look in mercy upon the soul that he has afflicted." ”

“ The Old Mother says,--"Give me your ticket, my dear, and I'll feed you with my gold spoon off these beautiful old wooden trenchers. Such nice bits as those good old gentlemen have left for you!" There is no quarrelling with a man who prefers broken victuals. That's what the rougher sort will say; and then, where one scolds, ten will laugh. ”

“ Now, let me tell you, there is just the same difference in spiritual patients that there is in bodily ones. One set believes in wholesome ways of living, and another must have a great list of specifics for all the soul's complaints. You belong with the last, and got accidentally shuffled in with the others."
The minister smiled faintly, but did not reply. Of course, he considered that way of talking as the result of the Doctor's professional training. ”

“ The old Doctor saw plainly enough what was going on in his mind.
"I sha'n't quarrel with you," he said,--"you know that very well; but you mustn't quarrel with me, if I talk honestly with you; it isn't everybody that will take the trouble. You flatter yourself that you will make a good many enemies by leaving your old communion. Not so many as you think. This is the way the common sort of people will talk:--'You have got your ticket to the feast of life, as much as any other man that ever lived. Protestantism says,--"Help yourself ”