Various

“ Imagination not unwillingly pictures to itself the strange and superb spectacle of a limitless ocean seething over its volcanic bed, and heaving in every direction its contending billows, kindled here and there by the blood-red lustre of a glowing sky, struggling through a dense and stifling mist; while in its waves myriads of invisible beings, embryos of future organisms fighting for life, and rising to the surface in quest of inspiring light, wait expectant, amidst the throes of the terrible stir and tumult all around them, the dawn of the true day upon a completed world. ”

“ I envy those men who are as gods, in spite of temperament, or clime, or any outward influence; who go on unchecked from one degree of glory to another, to the very heights of sanctity. I am always drifting along, awaiting the impulse of the sacraments, or the helping hand of some stronger friend, too glad if I do not recede. Ah! solitude brings us face to face with ourselves, and reveals to us our moral littleness. Nothing is more humbling than this revelation. Nothing makes us more distrustful of ourselves, and more willing to accept the appointed means of perfection. ”

“ How like heaven is our dear chapel when the Lamb of God is [63] thus exposed to our adoration! In a niche over the altar gleams the holy image of Mary. The Divinity is enshrined in light beneath her maternal eye, the air filled with incense, as if fanned by adoring angels. The arches are full of harmony. Every power of body and mind is captivated, and one abandons one's self to the impressions of the moment. It gives one a peculiar emotion to hear men chant the praises of Mary. What a reverence they must have for womanhood! ”

“ Thus closes the day with prayer, as it began. We all light our little tapers and go silently to our cells for the night. Such is the outline of our life, which is so well filled up that we have few leisure moments. We hear of lazy monks and nuns, but there are no drones in our busy hive, with our boarding-school, day and free schools, with their hundreds of pupils, and this vast building to keep in order. Night comes before we know it, and another day is gone. There is one day less in which to struggle with self, and, alas! one day less in which to sacrifice something for God! ”

“ In looking at the world, as it is now, so rapidly moving on, with its vast energies and untiring activity, its ever-increasing commerce, its intense worship of luxury, its oblivion of principle, its grasping after wealth, its restlessness and craving for change for change's sake, one feels like the traveller who crosses the Alps by that late feat of modern engineering, the Mont Cenis Fell Railway. ”

“ These words sounded enigmatically to Richard.
"I do not comprehend the meaning of your words, Fräulein Angela."
"Grief at the death of a relative is proper for us, because a beloved person has been taken from our midst. But the church, on the contrary, rejoices because an innocent, pure soul has reached the goal after which we all strive—eternal happiness. You see, Herr Frank, that the church considers the departure of a child from this world from a more exalted point of view, and comprehends it in a more spiritual sense, than the natural affection. ”

“ At the other pole of human thought and experience, I see a very few persons—indeed, so few that I might, perhaps, almost count them on the fingers of one hand—who plant themselves on the principle of liberty alone; who want nothing else; who stand without dogma, without creed, without priesthood, without Bible, without Christ, without any thing but the Almighty God working in their hearts. These two principles of authority and freedom have thus worked out for themselves, at last, consistent expression. Here are the two extremes—Romish Christianity and free religion ”

“ But if the divine basilica of Peter appears so beautiful and radiant when the sun surrounds it with an aureola of rubies and sapphires, what will it be when the look of faith, which discovers things invisible, sees it surrounded by the rays, a thousand times more brilliant, of divine and incorruptible truth? Such, nevertheless, will be the spectacle Catholic souls will enjoy when is accomplished what the bishops in a celebrated address have styled the great work of light—grande opus illuminationis. ”

“ Hours and days of weariness, of sadness occasionally steal in upon our worldly lives. Some new pleasure claims us, and in its presence past bitterness is soon forgotten. Thus are spent the best years of our lives, lost—religiously speaking—lost for ever. Our actions are useless, our thoughts frivolous, our existence devoid of all merit. And yet ought not our constant aim be to secure the happiness of our husband, and the salvation of his soul as well as of our own? to bring up our children in a Christian manner, and to edify the world by our example? ”

“ All races are here mingled. The Chinaman converses with the surprised Turk, and Gambia is questioned by Hindostan. The negro listens to the sweet chants of Greece, and in this choir of voices, constantly increasing, Providence has prepared a place for the Bedouin of Algiers.
Rome, it is in thy bosom that this union is effected! In the confusion of tongues which divides the nations, harmony is restored by union with thee. All souls join in thy universal hymn. The God of unity, whom thou alone proclaimest, hears the same accent of faith in our different languages. ”

“ Then turning in her sufferings toward the Heavenly Bridegroom, she earnestly said, "O Lord, who knowest the most secret thoughts of my heart, thou hast known how eagerly I have longed to spend all the powers of my being, even unto old age, in thy service; now that I feel thou desirest to recall me to thyself, all my desire of serving thee in this world is changed to such an ardent longing to behold thee, and be united to thee, that death, however bitter it may be to others, only seems sweet to me." ”

“ Do not some Catholic professors even begin to dogmatize and dispute the authority of the holy see?"
"We rejoice at the consoling fact that Catholic savants themselves break the fetters with which Rome's infallibility has bound in adamantine chains the human mind!" cried Lutz with enthusiasm.
"It appears strange to me when young men—scarcely escaped from the school, and boasting of all modern knowledge—cast aside as old, worthless rubbish what great minds of past ages have deeply pondered. The see of Rome and its dogmas have ruled the world for eighteen hundred years. ”

“ A very gay summer at a fashionable watering-place followed this wearisome winter, and Margaret entered upon her third season disposed for any thing but enjoyment. No one who saw her in society would have guessed her real character. High-spirited, gay, liking to astonish and slightly shock her friends by her behavior, a little of what is termed "a trainer," there lay underneath this careless exterior a depth of real sentiment that only one or two people whom she truly loved were aware of. To be loved for herself, and to love, were her aspirations. ”

“ We are not controversialists. We carry no sword in our hands. We wear no weapons concealed about our person. Our one word is peace—the word which is always most heartily responded to by earnest men. Religion means unity; the very definition of it signifies the power that binds men together; that binds all souls to the divine. The communion of saints—that is the religious phrase; and yet you will pardon me if I say that religion at present is the one word that means division. ”

“ It is only when the rights of man are resolved into the rights of God in and over man, that they are sacred and inviolable, or inalienable. But the American people have ceased so to resolve them, if, indeed, they ever did it, and recognize no more ultimate basis for liberty than humanity itself. If, as many of them do, they insist on religion as necessary to the maintenance of liberty, it is only as an external prop or support, not as its logical basis, or root, out of which it grows, and from which it derives all its sap and vigor. ”

“ Christianity itself is a bundle of religions. There is the vast Greek Church, with its patriarchs; there is the enormous Catholic Church, with its pope; here are all the families of the Protestant Church, with their clergy. They hold the same relative position. Protestantism does not subdue Romanism; Romanism will never subdue Protestantism. The Protestant Church and Roman Church have stood face to face for centuries; and thus they will continue to stand, as long as the populations have the genius that God gave them. What is Christendom but an army divided against itself? ”

“ The words and the music are the very embodiment of sorrow, and I felt myself with Mary at the foot of the cross, sharing the pain from that sword of grief.
The ceremonies of this holy time are, of course, far more simple in our chapel than at the cathedral, but perhaps not less touching. Nothing could be more so than, at the veneration of the cross on Good Friday, to see the long train of nuns reverently lay off their shoes, and, all enveloped in their long black veils, and bowed down by sorrow of heart, approach the crucifix, prostrating themselves to kiss the sacred wounds ”

“ Deeds are the test—deeds of self-denial, patience, and unselfish charity.
As for the sincerity of those who are seeking the truth, and are in fervor at the first sight of the Catholic faith, we have only to say that so long as they are obedient to the heavenly voice which calls every honest heart to the one home of holiness, it is well with their souls. When the crisis comes, and the hour when action must decide the forward or backward march of the intellect, moved and enlightened by grace, then is God chosen for ever, or renounced. ”

“ No one, on the strength of his own personal conviction alone, has the right to arraign and condemn what the common sense and experience of mankind in all ages and nations have sanctioned. It is no justification, no valid excuse even, for a man who promulgates and does his best to get accepted false and mischievous doctrines—doctrines which weaken the hold of religion on the conscience, pervert the moral sense, render the family impossible, and sap the very foundation of society—to say, "I am sincere; I really believe I am laboring for a true and much needed reform." ”

“ I became satisfied that even if ordinary souls are controlled by circumstances, (though even that point I did not concede,) the development of the saints has often been not only independent of circumstances, but inconsistent with them. Women, enslaved by vanity or passion, breaking through every bond and trampling on temptation to embrace a life of penance at which flesh trembles! Men, enthralled by false philosophy, becoming little children in faith and simplicity! ”

“ To appreciate, one must see the romantic beauty presented by the bold bluff of rocky formation against which the crystal waters of the Hudson dash in ceaseless waves and eddies. At points forming ascents from seventy to one hundred and forty feet above tide-water, it stretches away, with varying elevation and constantly changing scenery until it reaches Manhattanville. There, as if to make space to cradle the village in its rocky embrace, for a few blocks it disappears, only to rise in more stately proportions beyond, forming its crowning glory of landscape grandeur at Washington Heights. ”

“ No doubt the intrinsic excellence of the sacrifice of the eucharist is infinite, and therefore sufficient for the redemption of this world or a thousand others, if there were others needing redemption. The merit of the circumcision, the fasting, the prayer, the preaching, the poverty and humiliation, the labors and tears of our Blessed Lord was infinite, and fully adequate to the redemption of mankind, without the sacrifice of the cross. Every act of love to God the Father proceeding from the sacred heart of Jesus Christ in heaven is simply infinite in its intrinsic value. ”

“ We want all the aids to our moral training. We cannot spare the vision nor the virtue of the saints; but let it be by pure sympathy, not with any personal or official claim. If you are childish and exhibit your saint as a worker of wonders, a thaumaturgist, I am repelled. That claim takes his teachings out of logic and out of nature, and permits official and arbitrary senses to be grafted on the teachings. It is the praise of our New Testament that its teachings go to the honor and benefit of humanity—that no better lesson has been taught or incarnated. ”

“ Thy apostles, guided by thy star, go forth to every shore where a vessel can land, to bind all nations to their venerable head. Truth repairs the devastations of sin, and Rome, sublime antipode of Babel, restores the unity of the scattered human race. ”