Endearment

“ When I look back on duties neglected, on self-complacencies, on purposes fulfilled on the surface but not in the spirit, on cold-hearted devotions, on a thousand treasons against the Banner of Love, I can only cry out, "Where Lord?" ”

“ Is there no selfish hope to sustain me, through the trials and hardships, that I am called to endure? If not, then why should I thus serve God for naught? Why should I spend this life, seeking to be useful, with no other hope than that of being permitted to spend eternity in the same way? ”

“ The Household lost their hope and soul's delight.
—But Providence, that gives and takes away
By his own law, is merciful and just;
Time wants not power to soften all regrets,
And prayer and thought can bring to worst distress
Due resignation. ”

“ That we receive all the punishment we deserve before the change named death is quite as impossible as that we have all our rewards here. Is toil and sacrifice bearing the cross, only to see our motives mocked and trials multiply, sufficient from the hand of Love? ”

“ Are we really redeeming the past by a true penance? Are we diligent in prayer, watchful against temptation, watchful of the company we keep, watchful of the influence we exert, watchful over our tempers, watchful to fulfil our duties, watchful against habits of sin? Are we living the lives God intended us to live? Can we say, "I am fulfilling the requirements of my conscience, in the standard which I propose to myself?" Ah! is not this our misery, that we have left off striving? that we are doing nothing, or at least nothing serious and worthy of our salvation? "Why stand ye all the day idle?" ”

“ And in my heart fight selfishness and sin: Yet, Lord, I do not seek Thy helping hand; Rather let me my own salvation win: Let me through strife and penitential pain Onward and upward to the heights attain. Yea, let me live my life, its meaning seek; Bear myself fitly in the ringing fight; Strive to be strong that I may aid the weak; Dare to be true — O God! ”

“ We will endure;
We will try not to wince
When he crushes and rends us.
If indeed it is for your sakes,
If we perish or moan in torture,
Or stagger under sordid burdens
That you may live—
Then we can endure. ”

“ That should be a blessing to some of you who have been fighting against evil and trying to do right with more or less success, more or less interruptedly and at intervals, and have felt the effort to be a burden and a wearisomeness. Here is a promise of emancipation from all that constraint and yoke of bondage which duty discerned and unloved ever lays upon a man's shoulders. ”

“ If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race.
When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving. Love is not hasty to deliver us from temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and purified. ”

“ If I shall walk in the midst of trouble, Thou wilt enliven me; and upon the wrath of my enemies Thou hast stretched Thy hand, and Thy right hand has saved me.
The Lord will repay for me; Thy mercy, Lord, is for ever; despise not the works of Thy hands. ”

“ Though our power of action is undiminished, our power of endurance may ebb. We may begin to cry, in our impatience, "Lord, how long?"; to repine against the fate which condemns us to this protracted agony; Page 214 to question within ourselves whether the cause which we profess to serve is really worth the sacrifices which it entails. ”

“ You carry a burden on your back whether you realise the fact or no, a burden that clogs all your efforts, and that will sink you deeper into the darkness and the mire. 'Come unto Me, all ye that labour,' and with noble, but, at bottom, vain, efforts have striven after right and truth. 'Come unto Me all ye that are burdened,' and bear, sometimes forgetting it, but often reminded of its pressure by galled shoulders and wearied limbs, the burden of sin on your bent backs. ”

“ The child who, from love, bears trials and burdens placed upon him by the father, the slave who, from fear of the lash, bears trials and burdens placed upon him by the master, the hireling who, from desire for the wages, bears trials and burdens, and the stoic who, from sheer force of will, or from a cold sense of duty, bears trials and burdens, because he must,—are developing altogether different characters. ”

“ It was of the stern and pitiless kind that called for sacrifice and penance, and all those uncomfortable and unnecessary forms by which too many good people, even in this more enlightened day, think to ease their troubled consciences, or to satisfy the fancied demands of the Good Father, who really requires none of these foolish and most unpleasant self-punishments. ”

“ But do you summon up the most real things in your life—the duty that is a disgust: the sacrifice for others from which you shrink. Summon up your besetting sin—the temptation which, for all your present peace, you know will be upon you before twenty-four hours are past. ”

“ I must be pardoned for giving these distressing details; but how otherwise can I depict the misery, moral and physical, which we are enduring? And with it all, I dare not venture to hope that we have reached the climax of our sufferings. ”

“ But when, in the regular course of our duty, temptations are presented to us, inviting us to sin,—"Now," we should say to ourselves, "now is the opportunity for self-conquest,—now is the opportunity for moral and spiritual advancement,—now can we, by an effort, take a leap towards the kingdom of heaven." ”

“ Beloved sufferings, which, in depriving me of all human aids, restore me to God, and render him mine only resource in all my sorrows! Precious afflictions, which in turning me aside from all creatures, are the cause that I now become the continual object of the remembrance and of the mercies of my Lord! ”

“ These ill thoughts
Must not be cherish'd. That all righteous Power,
Whose hand inflicts, knows to reward our patience:
Farewell! command me ever as your servant,
And take the poor man's all, my prayers and blessing. ”

“ Does the "charity which, seeking not her own," but denying self, and sacrificing inclination at the shrine of duty, or in the endeavour to bestow comfort upon the needy, require no effort in its practice? ”

“ Are you, after a life of indulgence, come to such a pass that you can only indulge yourself in one thing more? Are you"—he kept lowering his voice as he went on—"are you going to give yourselves that last indulgence! Are you going to avoid the consequences of your folly by the one infallible and easy path? ”

“ Some repugnance you will feel at the practice of the profession at first, but it is soon overcome, for the rewards held out are too glorious, to allow us to dwell for a moment on the means we use to attain them. Besides, it is Fate,—the decree of the blessed Alla! and who can withstand it? If he leads us into the undertaking, he gives us firm and brave hearts, a determination which no opposition can overcome, and a perseverance which never yet failed to accomplish its object. ”

“ We envied the fate of those whom we had seen perish at our sides; and we said to ourselves, ‘When we shall be in want of everything, and when our strength begins to forsake us, we will wrap ourselves up as well as we can, we will stretch ourselves on this platform, the witness of the most cruel sufferings, and there await death with resignation.’ At length, to calm our despair, we sought for consolation in the arm of sleep. ”

“ Soon the stewardship will be taken from us. “When ye fail,”—that is, when we can no longer retain our hold of time and life; when flesh and heart are failing; when a mist comes over the eye, so that it can no longer see the circle of weeping friends that stand round the bed of death,—have we an everlasting habitation ready to receive the departing spirit? ”

“ Hence the beautiful, noble efforts which are from time to time brought to light, as being continuously made by those who have once hung on the cross of agony, in order that others may not suffer as they have done; one of the grandest ends which sorrow can accomplish; the sufferer wrestling with God's messenger until a blessing is left behind, not for one alone but for generations. ”

“ My sons, among whom I have so long been, and to whom I have so many years preached the true doctrine, which you ought to follow, and have taught you that which you ought to observe for the good of your souls, I am greatly grieved to see the mistaken path which you take, casting yourselves over precipices where destruction is certain, and from which your rescue is difficult. ”

“ Can I help being most unutterably wretched? Tell me not of the benevolence shewn in the organisation of this world; in every part pain and sorrow reign triumphant. True, we are promised a reward hereafter ”

“ What Indulgence!—You suffer, and call upon us to be indulgent towards you, even when in your suffering you are unjust towards things and men! But what does our indulgence matter! You, however, should take greater precautions for your own sake! That's a nice way of compensating yourself for your sufferings, by imposing still further suffering on your own judgment! ”

“ There are two sorts of content; one is connected with exertion, the other habits of indolence. The first is a virtue; the other a vice.
—Maria Edgeworth.
Oh send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me:
Let them bring me unto thy holy hill,
And to thy tabernacles.
—Psalm 43. 3.
Almighty God, lead me in the search for life. Teach me what is important and what is unimportant; what is false, and what is true. Remove the hindrances that keep me from the worthiest deeds, and grant that I may have the peace that comes with surrender of self to thy will. Amen. ”

“ What we should expect, in reason, to be done to us, either in justice or charity, by others, if they were in our condition and we in theirs, that, as the matter stands, we must do to them. We must put our souls into their souls' stead, and then pity and succour them, as we should desire and justly expect to be ourselves pitied and succoured. ”

“ It is just with God to disappoint those expectations of mercy which his providence had given cause for when we disappoint those expectations of duty which our professions, pretensions, and fair promises, had given cause for. If we repent of the good we had purposed, God will repent of the good he had purposed. With the froward thou will show thyself froward. ”

“ He knew every saving clause in the history of the life that had ended—what relentings and repentances and upward wistful glances there had been, and how fierce was the struggle between the better and the worse nature of the man! ”

“ Your opponent has suffered twelve years already because of a terrible obligation: for him every pleasure of life has been embittered, before him the future eternity has been overclouded; be contented with that sacrifice, and do not ask for the greatest too. ”

“ When we have gone as far as Conscience, Honour, Industry, and Human Prudence can carry us, toward the preventing, or the averting of the Danger that threatens us, we are to remit the rest to Providence, and wait the good Pleasure of Heaven with Patience, Humility and Resignation. ”

“ I hope the heart that's hungry For things above the floor, Will find within its portals An item rich in store; That melancholy mortals Will count their mercies o'er, And learn that Truth and wisdom Have many items more; That when a wrong is done us, It stirs no thought of strife; And Love becomes the substance, As item, of our life; That every ragged urchin, With bare feet soiled or sore, Share God's most tender mercies, — Find items at our door. Then if we've done to others Some good ne'er told before, When angels shall repeat it, 'T will be an item more. ”

“ Our atonement shall be a sweet offering, the performance of our duties. Let us bear all that may be put upon us like men bound to the sacrifice, without one thought of the results. Each day has its weight of troubles. ”

“ The arrows of the Almighty have pierced us—shall we any longer strive against our Maker? We will humble ourselves in the dust, O righteous Judge, and will return to duty: if it be not yet too late—if our parents still live—incline their hearts to forgive! ”

“ This word example reminds us of another fine word which is in use upon these occasions—encouragement. "People in our sphere must not be thought to give encouragement to such proceedings." To such a frantic height is this principle capable of being carried, that we have known individuals who have thought it within the scope of their influence to sanction despair, and give éclat to—suicide. A domestic in the family of a county member lately deceased, for love, or some unknown cause, cut his throat, but not successfully. ”

“ Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; and we condemn ourselves and our evil ways, with a true repentance beseeching that Thy grace may relieve our distress. ”

“ Repentance and prayers, patience and tears, were their weapons. "It is not with us," said they, "as with other men, whom small things can discourage or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again." ”

“ But you have neglected a plain and positive duty—a duty which is engraven on your heart and wound into your nature: and a duty neglected is sure, sooner or later, to come back again as an avenger to punish ”

“ The inflexible decree of Providence happily condemns these wretches to a life of unmitigated suffering. Their short span of life is spent in abject bondage to quacks in a futile quest after a remedy that will rid them of their suffering. ”

“ Hunt, surrounded with so many blessings, and appearing so much to enjoy such a rational, desirable, delightful occupation, should have been led away, should have been betrayed into the guilt of dissipation? ”

“ If you do not do these things, you will see sorrow. My heart says, "O Lord God, have mercy on this people, and help them to do thy will, and keep them in thy truth. I pray and weep, lest the unrighteous among us lead away the righteous. ”