Prehension

“ This store which men and women set on pleasure and pain, Prendick, is the mark of the beast upon them,—the mark of the beast from which they came! Pain, pain and pleasure, they are for us only so long as we wriggle in the dust. ”

“ The eyes straining to look through all the experiences and troubles that their life has held to plead, as only eyes can plead, to one who can, if she will, perform their miracle for them. And the mouths,—the sensitive human mouths,—each one distorted by the tragedy against which it was praying. ”

“ LIII. And to be true, and speak my soul, when I survey the occurrences of my life, and call into account the Finger of God, I can perceive nothing but an abyss and mass of mercies, either in general to mankind, or in particular to my self. And (whether out of the prejudice of my affection, or an inverting and partial conceit of His mercies, I know not; but) those which others term crosses, afflictions, judgements, misfortunes, to me, who inquire farther into them then their visible effects, they both appear, and in event have ever proved, the secret and dissembled favours of His affection. ”

“ He has bought you with a price, and you are no longer your own. 'But,' you may reply, 'this is contrary to my nature. I love my own way. I desire ease and pleasure; I desire to go to heaven, to be carried thither on a bed of flowers. ”

“ He, whom I am going to see, is the source of intense pleasure—the source of extreme pain. But thou canst, O father, quiet my rebellious thoughts. Do thou in mercy give me sufficient strength of mind not to turn aside from the path of virtue. ”

“ It imposes restraint on all the members of the body, that they be modest and temperate: let the eye not look where it should not, but hold before itself earth, and heaven; let the tongue flee idle and vain speech, and be disciplined to proclaim the word of God for the salvation of the neighbour, and to confess its sins: let the ear flee agreeable, flattering, dissolute words, and any words of detraction that might be said to it; and let it hearken for the word of God, and the need of the neighbour, willingly listening to his necessity. ”

“ And we, Lord, full of wants, empty of sincere fruits of penitence, made up wholly of effeminacy and sensualities, lukewarm, and without desire, fixed in a certain state of languishing and imperfect piety, more sustained by habitude and the engagements of a holy profession than by thy grace or by a lively and solid faith, alas! we make thy body our ordinary food. ”

“ I do not accuse Thee, O Lord, for having created me with this inclination; but I confess before Thee my frailty, and open unto Thee my passions. I confess, and say, and cry out, and declare, that the man of dust cannot be justified but by Thy mercy, and through Thy compassion. ”

“ For my own part, I am glad even to perceive a faint desire, a feeble longing, a degree of uneasiness, or a measure of weariness of sin, or a craving after mercy. Will it not be wise for you, also, to allow things to begin at the beginning, and to be satisfied with their being small at the first? See the blade of desire, and then watch for more. ”

“ Perchance your presence and the exhortations of some among you will better induce her to humility and obedience, and turn her back from 112continuing obstinate in her own ideas; perchance she will believe the counsels of worthy men, of the wise, versed in the science of the laws, divine and human; she will cease to expose herself to the gravest dangers into which body and soul can fall. ”

“ O, do Thou pardon us in Thy all-merciful grace for this 'deadly sin' against Thy Holy Spirit While Thou trainest and teachest even by attracting and fastening our attention and our interest upon that larger life into whose all-including range Thou transplantest affection after affection and love after love, we grieve and cry, we sob and moan, we call black names and think hard thoughts. ”

“ Who shall read the Divine countenance when a wretched creature stands before Him, lifts its head with its racked brain, extinguished eyes, and trembling voice, and pressing its empty stomach with cracked and bony hands, prays without a voice, without a language ”

“ When thou prayest speak unto God in a quiet voice and say, ‘How can I possess Thee, O Lord? Thou knowest full well that I am a beast, and that I know nothing. Thou hast brought me to the prime of this life, deliver me then for Thy mercy’s sake ”

“ Nay more, speech is assuredly subject to the empire of the will, and yet instinct can also dispose of this organ according to its whim, and even of this and of the mind, without consulting beforehand the will, directly a sharp pain, or even an energetic affection, takes us by surprise. ”

“ I confess, O my God, not only in Thy presence, who seest the secrets of hearts, but in the presence of all the blessed in heaven, and the faithful on earth, that I have often and grievously offended Thee, by thought, word, deed, and omission. ”

“ Here and there, moreover, a soul bowed under the weight of recent affliction, or shaken with the terrors of a newly-awakened conscience, was both awed and glad to be able to give itself audible expression in words so fit and forcible as those of the Confession and the Litany, and thankful if it might pick up so much as a crumb of pardon and peace from the Master's bountiful table. ”

“ And every improper sight and sound, to speak in a word, and every shameful sensation of licentiousnes—which, in truth, is privation of sensation—must by all means be excluded; and we must be on our guard against whatever pleasure titillates eye and ear, and effeminates. ”

“ One, we say, is cunning, another is open and ingenuous, a third is vain, a fourth cruel, a fifth is refined and gentle, and a sixth is sensual and gross. These expressions have been developed on the face, by the exercise and indulgence through life of the several qualities of cunning, of frankness, of vanity, of cruelty, of refinement, or of sensuality. ”

“ Look at the other class of pleasures which have no antecedent pains and you will no longer suppose, as you perhaps may at present, that pleasure is only the cessation of pain, or pain of pleasure.
What are they, he said, and where shall I find them?
There are many of them: take as an example, the pleasures of smell, which are very great and have no antecedent pains; they come in a moment, and when they depart leave no pain behind them. ”

“ "Even in the greatest afflictions, we ought to testify to God, that, in receiving them from his hand, we feel pleasure in the midst of the pain, from being afflicted by Him who loves us, and whom we love. ”

“ I do resume my sight,
And pilfring what I once did give,
Disseize thee of thy right.
How know I, if thou shouldst me raise,
That I should then raise thee?
Perhaps great places and thy praise
Do not so well agree. ”

“ Nor can I otherwise than esteem the ancient proverb as a very fine one, and one which we may gladly claim for our own: Many meet the gods, but few salute them. How often do the gods, (for I will keep in the language which this proverb suggests and supplies,) meet men in the shape of a sorrow which might be a purifying one, of a joy which might elevate their hearts to thankfulness and praise ”

“ The devotee, in the midst of his orisons, was aware of the footstep of possible pleasure falling lightly, distant, doubtful, towards his cell. Some good men pray the louder for this sweet and perilous prescience. ”

“ O my God, and my mercy! with true contrition I bend the knees of my heart, and with extreme anguish of soul I humbly accuse myself, and in presence of thy divine Majesty acknowledge my fault, by confessing all my sins, and all the abominations I have committed in my whole life, by pride, avarice, sensuality, gluttony, anger, sloth, and by all the vices that proceed from them, because, alas! ”

“ Surely, if Pleasure and Pain are Sensations, developed probably early, perhaps earlier than any others, in the history of our race, we ought to be able to identify in the cortex the centres of their coincident activities, as we have done those of many of the other senses, or else some adequate explanation should be forthcoming for their non-appearance. ”

“ The sight, the smell, the hearing, the touch, and the taste, are taught to exercise themselves upon objects revolting to their original inclinations. They learn to minister to the will without displaying one rebellious symptom. ”

“ But those who trust in their own strength rejoice in a thing of nought, and so they will find. Probably they did not say this with their lips, totidem verbis—in so many words, but it was the language of their hearts and of their actions, both which God understands. ”

“ In examining this view, we must first make clear the meaning of pleasure. In ordinary speech we talk of pleasures as if they were definite things. We say that a certain man is "a lover of pleasures rather than a lover of God," and we speak of the pleasures of the chase or the pleasures of love or the pleasures of reading. ”

“ Being mindful that before I address the Deity, my soul ought to be calm and serene, free from Passion and Perturbation, or otherwise elevated with Rational Joy and Pleasure, I ought to use a Countenance that expresses a filial Respect, mixed with a kind of Smiling, that Signifies inward Joy, and Satisfaction, and Admiration. ”

“ It is condescension in him to behold the things in heaven, to support the beings, direct the motions, and accept the praises and services, of the angels themselves; for he needs them not, nor is benefited by them. [2.] Much more is it condescension in him to behold the things that are in the earth, to visit the sons of men, and regard them, to order and overrule their affairs, and to take notice of what they say and do, that he may fill the earth with his goodness, and so set us an example of stooping to do good, of taking notice of, and concerning ourselves about, our inferiors. ”

“ All the 'fainter' forms of pleasure and pain, — those which constitute the agreeable or disagreeable element in all our judgments, emotions, desires, and passions, whether 'sensual,' aesthetic, moral, or religious, — all these we shall explain, on their physical side, by tracing them to the central modes of neurosis corresponding to the similar central processes of seeing and hearing and of thinking in general. ”

“ For who was present in the counsel of our Lord, and hath seen and heard his speech, who hath considered of his word, and hearkened thereunto? Behold, the whirlwind of the indignation of our Lord passeth out, and a tempest breaking forth, shall fall upon the heads of the wicked; the fury of our Lord shall not return, until the time that he worketh, and until he fulfilleth the cogitation of his heart. ”

“ Be patterns to all, of denying yourselves, and taking up your cross daily. Let them see that you make no account of any pleasure which does not bring you nearer to God, nor regard any pain which does; that you simply aim at pleasing him, whether by doing or suffering ”

“ Sensation, and the capacity of receiving it, being, according to this psychology, the only original quality or endowment of our nature; and sensation being always an expression either of pleasure or of pain, and the sensational capacity being a susceptibility of these feelings, it follows that pleasure and pain, and a susceptibility thereof, form originally the whole staple and essence of our constitution. ”

“ Does your conscience tell you that you give sufficient thanks for what God in His great mercy has vouchsafed to you? Lip-service every seventh day!—a form of words gone through before you take your afternoon walk! ”

“ Pleasure begins in the restlessness of desire, and ends in repentance. Even the pure pleasures of home may turn to gall and bitterness.—CH. VIII. All fail, then, to give what they promise. There is, moreover, some accompanying evil involved in each of these aims. Beauty and bodily strength are likewise of little worth. ”

“ too often conscience sleeps,
When pleasure's syren numbers lull its rest.—
Oh, Love! ”

“ From this point he could trace two predominant processes of mental change in him—the growth of an almost diseased sensibility to the spectacle of suffering, and, parallel with this, the rapid growth of a certain capacity of fascination by bright colour and choice form—the sweet curvings, for instance, of the lips of those who seemed to him comely persons, modulated in such delicate unison to the things they said or sang,—marking early the activity in him of a more than customary sensuousness, "the lust of the eye," as the Preacher says, which might lead him, one day, how far! ”

“ Yet in all that raucous early morning hour together neither man nor girl suffered towards the other the slightest personal sense of contrition or resentment, for each mind was trained equally fairly,—whether reacting on its own case or another's—to differentiate pretty readily between mean nerves and a—mean spirit. ”

“ I employ this word “tendency” as synonymous with needs, appetites, instincts, inclinations, desires; it is the generic term of which the others are varieties; it has the advantage over them of embracing at the same time both the psychological and physiological aspects of the phenomenon. All the tendencies suppose a motor innervation; they translate the needs of the individual, whatever they may be, physical or mental; the basis, the root of 3the affective life is in them, not in the consciousness of pleasure and pain which accompanies them according as they are satisfied or opposed. ”

“ To His pupils all things are Divine words variously embodied, and the Word made Flesh is the one all-comprehending Mystery, the eternal, all-revealing, and all-sufficing Sacrament. That Word is a Divine Person, Whose Manhood is a living, abiding, ever-energising Mediatorial Agency. ”