Awe

“ I get hungry for her presence; and when I think of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I am filled with awe." ”

“ There has been bereavement in the miller's family."
"Men are a strange race," thought the Kyrkegrim; but he went to the priest and said—"The farmer is not afraid of death. You must find some subject of which men really stand in awe."
So when Sunday came round again, the preacher preached of Judgment—that dread Avenger who dogs the footsteps of trespass, even now! That awful harvest of whirlwind and corruption which [216] they must reap who sow to the wind and to the flesh! Lightly regarded, but biding its time, till a man's forgotten follies find him out at last. ”

“ But the pine rises in serene resistance, self-contained; nor can I ever without awe stay long under a great Alpine cliff, far from all house or work of men, looking up to its companies of pines, as they stand on the inaccessible juts and perilous ledges of the enormous wall, in quiet multitudes, each like the shadow of the one beside it—upright, fixed, spectral, as troops of ghosts standing on the walls of Hades, not knowing each other, dumb for ever. You cannot reach them, cannot cry to them: those trees never heard human voice; they are far above all sound but of the winds. ”

“ She saw how love and beauty and freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the soul of man, bound in its prison-house, had ever struggled to voice itself in words. ”

“ Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
—Pass by me, and hearken, and waken me not! ”

“ Seems shame to their love pure.
O Love, your eyes lose lure
⁠When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!
Your slender attitude
⁠Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed,
Rolling and rolling there
Where God seems not to care;
Till the fierce love they bear
⁠Cramps them in death's extreme decrepitude.
Your voice sings not so soft,—
⁠Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,—
Your dear voice is not dear,
Gentle, and evening clear,
As theirs whom none now hear,
⁠Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed. ”

“ But, through the bounty of the Beauty of Abha, as soon as thou didst hear the call, thou didst turn thy face toward the Lord of Hosts and became a believer in God and assured of His divine verses. Immediately the Most Great Name made an impression upon thee. Therefore, I hope thy breath may become also effective and in a short time, like unto dry wood, become enkindled and ignited.
Do not wonder at the mercy and bounty of God. Consider thou how one spark sets on fire a great forest. Therefore, there is great hope, and the favor and grace of the Almighty is limitless. ”

“ LAST Sunday you heard how God made the world, and put a man and woman to live in it. The man was named Adam; the woman was named Eve. God gave them a beautiful garden to live in, full of trees and flowers; and they had no pain, no trouble, nothing to vex them. Only one thing God told them: there was one tree whose fruit they must not eat. They might eat the fruit of all the other trees, but not of that one. As long as they obeyed, all was well and happy with them; but if they ate it they would die. But a bad spirit came and took the shape of the serpent, and talked to Eve. ”

“ They seem’d to cry out upon Eve, for a lazy and dull Sinner; whilst in every Oath they loudly swore, that Soul not worth damning, that could not sin without a Temptation. By their horrible and hideous Oaths they shew’d, as if indeed they had this desperate Design upon Almighty God, to render his sacred Name odious to the World, by taking it often in their profane Mouths. ”

“ The Lord should labour over her in a silent passion of Creation, and Adam should be tense as if in a dream of immortality, and Eve should take form glimmeringly, shadowily, as if the Lord must wrestle with His own soul for her, yet she was a radiance. ”

“ The soul, heaven, eternal life, all that the [Pg 36] old priest had formerly taught me, glided through my imagination as I sat at eventide before the open window. ‘The doctrine of the old curé,’ I said to myself, ‘was more comforting than the cold realities science has revealed to me.’ Then I looked at Eva, who still looked to heaven, whilst the bells of the village church sounded sweetly in the distance, and the rays of the setting sun made the steeple cross glitter against the sky. I often returned to sit opposite the poor widow, persevering in her grief as in her holy hopes. ”

“ Fancy a young man and a young woman stopping short and exclaiming, “This is just what every son of Adam and daughter of Eve has gone through before; why should we proceed?” Besides, it is the one emotion common to the whole world; we can all comprehend it. ”

“ Because I have bruised thee, and put thee to grief, thou shalt see thy seed, and prolong thy days; and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in thy hand. Because thou hast borne the sins of many, thou shall justify many. Because thou hast been numbered with the transgressors, and made intercession for them, thou shalt see of the travail of thy soul, and be satisfied. Because thou hast made thy soul an offering for sin, pouring it out unto death, I will divide thee a portion with the great, and thou shalt divide the spoil with the strong. ”

“ Who amongst us, beholding Eve in her beauty plucking the fruit which tempted her eye, would not have been ready to have echoed the first lie ever breathed on our planet, "thou shalt not surely die." Bright, guileless, and, until now, sinless being; God will not severely judge thee, He has threatened, but He will not perform. ”

“ I have searched my soul for some sin that, unbeknown to myself, I might have committed. Did I find any? No, indeed to goodness, now, I didn’t. Yet the Big Man’s hand is hard on the innocent. My clean heart is bowed with shame. ”

“ Once, when I was in great distress because of my offences against God, He said to me: "All thy sins in My sight are as if they were not. For the future, be strong; for thy troubles are not over."
5. One day, in prayer, I felt my soul in God in such a way that it seemed to me as if the world did not exist, I was so absorbed in Him. ”

“ Eve, weeping over the body of her beloved son, slain by the hand of his brother, is a type of the sorrowful Mother of God who stood, sorrowing, at the foot of the Cross on which hung her divine Son, slain by His brethren, the Jews.
Application. Envy is very easily aroused in our hearts. Have you never felt envious when others have been praised or rewarded? Detest envy, and overcome all temptations to it, for it is a hateful sin, and the source of many other sins. ”

“ All those imperceptible regrets, which never individually reach the consciousness, accumulate at last into a definite result; they become the voice of a feeling of emptiness and aspiration; their tone is melancholy itself. In youth the tone of these Aeolian vibrations of the heart is all hope—a proof that these thousands of indistinguishable accents make up indeed the fundamental note of our being, and reveal the tone of our whole situation. ”

“ Perhaps, having been all but so awfully parted, we can never afford, in this short life, to be otherwise than of one heart and one soul. Perhaps, my dear, in short, the love that kept faith through shame, and was cemented by fellow-suffering, can hardly do otherwise than flourish to our heart's best content in the sunshine of prosperity with which God has now blessed us. ”

“ Oh reader! who, brilliant as may be at this moment your position in life, may have been heretofore, or may be hereafter, placed in circumstances of dreadful suffering and peril, suffer him whose humble labors now for a moment occupy your attention, reverently to refer you again and yet again, to that memorable passage of holy writ! With danger surrounding him, with utter ruin staring him in the face, Mr. Aubrey read this passage of Scripture; his shaken spirit gathered from it calmness and consolation ”

“ He shewed unto mine understanding, in part, the blessed Godhead, stirring then the poor soul [2] to understand, as it may be said, that is, to think on, [3] the endless Love that was without beginning, and is, and shall be ever. And with this our good Lord said full blissfully: Lo, how that I loved thee, as if He had said: My darling, behold and see thy Lord, thy God that is thy Maker and thine endless joy, see what satisfying and bliss I have in thy salvation ”

“ In such a time and place, Adam and Eve might have begun the life of humanity on earth, and found in the loveliness and beauty of the world a fitting image of the tranquillity and tenderness that overflowed their guileless hearts. ”

“ Thou, O God, art the true and most brilliant light; all other lights are mingled with darkness. Thou art the sun that knowest no down-setting, that dwellest in inaccessible light. Thou art the end to which all flesh come. Thou art the only satisfaction of all the blessed.”
Eve.—“Adonai, Lord God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions. Thou before all things didst create the immovable heaven as a holy and exalted home, and Thou didst adorn it with angel spirits, to whom Thou didst in goodness65 declare thy purposes. ”

“ So the eternal spirit in him, God's essence, conscious of its past brotherhood, with the morning stars, the White Aeons, in its prisonhouse writhed with the meanness, till at last he cried, "I will struggle no longer; it is only agony of spirit to aspire here at all; I will sit and wait till the deep darkness has vanished." ”

“ A voice on my left murmured in a low tone the formula, which I repeated, Eveena accompanying my words in an almost inaudible whisper—
"Whatsoe'er within the Shrine
Eyes may see or soul divine,
Swear we secret as the deep,
Silent as the Urn to keep.
By the Light we claim to share,
By the Fount of Light, we swear." ”

“ Confidence and love should wing the darts which are to reach heaven. That name, thoroughly realised, banishes fear and self-will, and inspires submission and aspiration. To cry,' Abba, Father,' is the essence of all prayer. Nothing more is needed. ”

“ NOTWITHSTANDING the trial which deprives me of every feeling of enjoyment I can yet exclaim, "Thou hast given me delight, O Lord, in all Thou dost." [3] For is there a greater joy than to suffer for Thy Love? The more intense the suffering and the less apparent to human eyes, the more lovingly dost Thou smile upon it, O my God. ”

“ Out of this recollection grow a certain quietude and inward peace most full of comfort; for the soul is in such a state that it does not seem to it that it wants anything; for even speaking wearies it,--I mean by this, vocal prayer and meditation; it would do nothing but love. This lasts some time, and even a long time.
5. Out of this prayer comes usually what is called a sleep of the faculties; but they are not so absorbed nor so suspended as that it can be called a trance; nor is it altogether union.
6. Sometimes, and even often, the soul is aware that the will alone is in union ”

“ They felt small, half afraid, childish, and wondering, like Adam and Eve when they lost their innocence and realized the magnificence of the power which drove them out of Paradise and across the great night and the great day of humanity. ”

“ The words said between souls are not heard by the eavesdropping ear, but the soul also can eavesdrop, and tells in its time. That morning there must have come a moment to the poor pale boy, as he worked at his silly present in the little shed, when it was plain to him that the mother and the brother whom he had thought so kind were vulpine with love of each other, vulpine with hate of him. ”

“ As the ivy trails along the earth when it finds not a tree, to which it may cling and by which it may ascend, so does the soul lie prostrate till it has found God, to whom it may cling as to its beloved ”

“ VIII. Can Persons who are sensible of, and do heartily lament their want of the Love and Fear of God, their too great a Love of the World, the frequent Distractions of their Mind in Prayer, and the Unruliness of their Lusts and Passions, delight to frequent a Place where they are surrounded with Temptations to the Love of the World ”

“ Then close behind it came the two figures we knew so well, veiled, black, and bent, and clinging together in the agony of that struggle between faith and loss which every loving soul is some time called on to endure. As we leant out of the open window, crying bitterly in sympathy with them, and with the gloomy excitement of the occasion, they raised themselves a little and walked more steadily. ”

“ Could our eyes be touched by the seal of faith, where others see only the lonely wilderness and the dying girl, we, perhaps, should see one clothed in celestial beauty, waiting for that short agony to be over, that He might redeem her from all iniquity, and present her faultless before the presence of his Grace with exceeding joy! ”

“ While crying and panting for the supreme, the divine, the invisible love, he found his heart still craving the visible one,—the one so well known, revealing itself to the senses, and bringing with it the certainty of visible companionship. ”

“ Above man's nature in rule and dignity.
So that in terris Deus sum, saith he:
In earth I am a God, with sins for to dispense,
And for rewards I will forgive each manner of offence.
I said to Eve: tush, tush, thou shalt not die,
But rather shalt as God know everything;
My son likewise, to maintain idolatry,
Saith: tush, what hurt can carved idols bring? ”

“ The Seventh is [our] often feeling of weal and woe; (the feeling of weal is gracious touching and lightening, with true assuredness of endless joy; the feeling of woe is temptation by heaviness and irksomeness of our fleshly living;) with ghostly understanding that we are kept all as securely in Love in woe as in weal, by the Goodness of God. ”