Presentiment

“ Thoughts conceived under the dominion of that spell are often realized; but we then attribute their pre-vision to a power we call presentiment,—an inexplicable power, but a real one,—which our passions find accommodating, like a flatterer who, among his many lies, does sometimes tell the truth. ”

“ Since that experience, in many voyages I have made it an object to inquire of travelers and others concerning presentiments, and have found that they are very common, occasionally fulfilled, generally not so; and that it is the tendency with practically all persons who have had one presentiment come true to force themselves into all conversations, and to become tyrants over those dependent upon them or traveling with them. ”

“ He explains these conditions by saying that you must not be ill and think you have a presentiment that you will not recover; you must not be away from home and think that some calamity has happened there; you must not know that a friend is in danger and have a presentiment of his death; you must not have reason to suspect a man and have a presentiment that he will cheat you. ”

“ If you cultivate the habit of having presentiments, and of regarding them as significant, is it strange that they should become more and more frequent, and that among the many, some should be vaguely suggestive, or even directly corroborative of actual occurrences? ”

“ Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. ”

“ Yea, tho' it spake and bared to view
⁠A fact within the coming year;
⁠And tho' the months, revolving near,
Should prove the phantom-warning true,
They might not seem thy prophecies,
⁠But spiritual presentiments,
⁠And such refraction of events
As often rises ere they rise. ”

“ I said I was glad to find that there was some one who would discourse with me, and that it was not considered so great a crime at that Court for people to hold converse together. 'Chieftain,' said the man, 'we would have talked to thee sooner, but we feared to disturb thee during thy repast; now, however, we will discourse.' Then I told the man who I was, and what was the cause of my journey; and said that I was seeking whether any one was superior to me, or whether I could gain the mastery over all. ”

“ These are Thy servants who have gathered in this meeting, have turned unto Thy kingdom and are in need of Thy bestowal and blessing. O Thou God! Manifest and make evident the signs of Thy oneness which have been deposited in all the realities of life. Reveal and unfold the virtues which Thou hast made latent and concealed in these human realities.
O God! We are as plants, and Thy bounty is as the rain; refresh and cause these plants to grow through Thy bestowal. We are Thy servants; free us from the fetters of material existence. We are ignorant; make us wise. ”

“ If good counsel gain Due audience from your wisdom, my lord envoy, You will be cautious how you show yourself In public for some hours to come—or hardly Will that gold key protect you from maltreatment. ”

“ So that there in the truth stand clear and single. But such as are tender, if they should be moved to bubble forth a few words and speak in the seed and lamb’s power, suffer and bear that that is the tender. And if they should go beyond their measure bear it in the meeting for peace sake and order, that the spirits of the world be not moved against you, but that when the meeting is done then if any thing should be moved of anyone to speak to them between yourselves or one or two of you that feel it in the life and the love and wisdom that is pure ... ”

“ I shall conduct all discussions in future with a mild firmness and with an absence of all personal offence where none is given, still resolved to pursue redress for the past. When I heard that my recognizances had been abrogated, I acknowledge that I felt and pronounced it a finish to my triumph, but in every other respect my quitting the gaol was to me mentally but as a change of lodging. Yet I am fully alive to what I have done and what I intend to do. ”

“ With such opportunities and such dangers before us, it is our duty to examine the problems to be solved with candor and impartiality. It will be impossible for me to discuss in the narrow compass of a single speech all questions of importance. I am obliged to confine myself to-night to those which are at this hour the most prominent, leaving others to future occasions. ”

“ For want of timely repentance of our sins, Thou givest us cause to Repent of those Remedies we too late apply.
Yet I doe not repent of my calling the last Parliament, because O Lord, I did it with an upright intention to thy glory, and My Peoples good.
The miseries which have ensued upon me and my Kingdoms, are the just effects of thy displeasure upon us; and may be yet, through thy mercy, preparatives of us to future blessings and better hearts to enjoy them. ”

“ Reflect deeply on the duty which you have already incurred. Think upon your strength of mind, and be careful not to lay yourself under impracticable obligations. It will always be in your power to recede. Even after you are solemnly enrolled a member, you may consult the dictates of your own understanding, and relinquish your post; but while you live, the obligation to be silent will perpetually attend you.
We seek not the misery or death of any one, but we are swayed by an immutable calculation. ”

“ But undoubtedly in the twentieth century, as in the sixteenth, the faculty which is of the highest importance in the art of the Speakership is sagacity, prudence, circumspection—making allowances for the weaknesses and eccentricities of human nature. ”

“ He would listen with unparalleled eagerness to the momentous sentences uttered for the first time in the ears of men, and to the discussion upon them, impatient of mere formalities and technicalities. Should a thought be sprung of important bearing, or an overlooked contingency be brought forward, how intently would its effect be watched. ”

“ Such are the melancholy offices which we shall one day perhaps have to render to you; you, in your turn, will call upon us, and, in place of a soothing conversation with you on the advantages which a holy death promises to the believer, we shall then be solely employed in receiving the narration of the crimes of your life. ”

“ This note of preparation is calling the people together. Their ear is open to listen. In every place this hearing is bringing faith in its train; men are turning to God; intensity is given to those silent cases of conviction where for months or years there has been concern ebbing and flowing with circumstances. ”

“ When the Lord wishes to give a revelation to His people, when He wishes to reveal new items of doctrine to them, or administer chastisement, He will do it through the man whom He has appointeth to that office and calling. ”

“ Can we think that he takes a sufficiently discerning and religious view of her office and destiny, ever to do her justice, except when prompted by sentiment, accidentally or transiently, that is, for the sentiment will vary according to the relations in which he is placed. ”

“ XXVIII. Whether thou speak in the Senate or whether thou speak to any particular, let thy speech In always grave and modest. But thou must not openly and vulgarly observe that sound and exact form of speaking, concerning that which is truly good and truly civil; the vanity of the world, and of worldly men: which otherwise truth and reason doth prescribe. ”

“ The same principle will hold, of course, in a myriad cases; if we have to-morrow, or even at a later date, to plead a cause, to make an after-dinner speech, to write a report or an article, to learn a lesson, to entertain guests, to handle a difficult case of discipline, we have only to take this counsel of our pillow, to reënforce it with our first morning thought, and we shall find ourselves making a new record of success. ”

“ The meeting for discipline appeared to be pretty well conducted, there being, I believe, a remnant honestly engaged for the promotion of the cause of truth; and these the Lord delights to favour, and furnish with strength to carry on his own work of truth and righteousness in the earth; and he will continue to reward these with the real enjoyment of his life-giving presence; while those who sit as mere idle spectators, will be sent empty away. ”

“ That you have performed your duties most faithfully, most honestly, I can bear testimony. [Applausei] Whatever else may be said, the truth of that assertion cannot be denied. You have done your work, and it remains now to be submitted to the people, and whatever may be the result—if it be the judgment that your work is good, or that it is ill, we must be satisfied. ”

“ We live in changed times, under a different rule. What do the Lord's servants owe him now?
The speaker had gone on with the utmost quietness of manner from one of these instances to another; using hardly any gestures; uttering only with slow distinctness and deliberation his sentences one after the other; his face and eye meanwhile commanding the whole assembly. He went on now with the same quietness, perhaps with a little more deliberateness of accentuation, and an additional spark of fire now and then in his glance. ”

“ The omissions, which, in the period of fervour for duty and religion, would have excited in you the warmest compunctions, are now no longer regarded even as faults. The principles, the judgment, the light of the mind, are all changed. ”

“ When I say 'demands,' I mean chiefly the duties of a ceremonial and representative nature which are inseparable from my position—and that's the bond of connexion with the conversation we had just now at Ditlinde's. The performance of these duties may be a happiness when a contact with the people, a relationship, a beating of hearts in unison exists. ”

“ The wisdom of the warning in Proverbs 27:2, "Let another man praise thee, and not thine own mouth," has seldom been more strikingly illustrated than at a large convention when several thousand people listened attentively as a speaker of reputation was introduced to them. ”

“ He could afford to stand forth in the bare simplicity of steadfastness and sincerity before the eyes of the people he had come to govern, and being known to be received by them for all in all, or not at all. ”

“ All, therefore, that we ask from your hands is a patient hearing and an unbiassed judgment, for, as the Apostle says, speaking on the authority of Divine inspiration, “we can do nothing against the truth―but for the truth.” ”

“ But not only in these higher forms of seeking after reputation, but in lower forms, this trembling before, and seeking to conciliate, the tribunal of what we call ‘general opinion,’ which means the voices of the half-dozen people that are beside us and know about us, besets us all, and weakens us all in a thousand ways. ”

“ But our comfort is, the Testimony of our Consciences. That the grounds of this our present undertaking, are neither pragmaticalness of spirit, nor to vent our own spleen, in aspersing others; nor affectation of domination over others ”

“ I thought I heard him say; "either he must listen to reason, or I must have recourse to the last resource of civilization." Then, addressing me in a louder tone, he hurriedly exclaimed, "Listen: no stranger must witness what you have witnessed. ”

“ For where the Lord hath not peremptorily astricted his confessors to such rules of prudence, but hath both promised, and usually gives his Spirit's conduct, encouraging and animating them to boldness, so as before hand they should not take thought how or what they shall speak, and in that same hour they find it given them, it were presumption for us to stint them to our rules of prudence. ”

“ We are required, for instance, to say nothing more forcible than—we are not devoted to our governess, and not partial to bread-and-butter pudding. We are instructed either to keep silence altogether relative to our feelings, which is best of all, a counsel of perfection ”

“ And I may here add that there is no use in telling the servants a thing once—they must be told again, again, and again. At last they give in to your persistence, and being, like most people in the world, a good deal creatures of habit, go on fairly well. ”

“ Every thing must render its reason, and show cause for its being. We will not be commanded, at least only by such as we choose to obey. Does some one say, "Thou shalt," or "Thou shalt not," we ask, "Who are you?" ”

“ In these communications the power to see is not separated from the will to do, but the insight proceeds from obedience, and the obedience proceeds from a joyful perception. Every moment when the individual feels himself invaded by it is memorable. By the necessity of our constitution a certain enthusiasm attends the individual’s consciousness of that divine presence. ”

“ He who should content himself with waiting for the occasion, and with literally observing the rule when the occasion offered, would do nothing or worse than nothing; but he who considers the character and disposition which is hereby inculcated, and places that disposition before him as the model to which he should bring his own, takes, perhaps, the best possible method of improving the benevolence, and of calming and rectifying the vices of his temper. ”

“ Disclaiming right at the outset all intention of speaking as one clothed with authority, fully realizing that what I may say is binding upon no one, my mission is simply to set forth what pragmatism is, as I understand it. ”

“ Regarding the situation solemnly is fatal to facility. The situation is not, and cannot be, intrinsically solemn, being devised to get away from solemnity. The talk is no more momentous than the tea. Neither is an end, but only a means. ”

“ Impartial judges of events, we will describe them, not as unhappy victims of the consequences of this desertion, but as men free from all personal resentment, and who listen only to the voice of truth. ”

“ It is an imperfect and partial preparation in this respect, which so often renders the manner awkward and embarrassed, and the discourse obscure and perplexed.11 But when the preparation is faithful, the speaker feels at home; being under no anxiety respecting the ideas or the order of their succession, he has the more ready control of his person, his eye, and his hand, and the more fearlessly gives up his mind to its own action and casts himself upon the current. Uneasiness and constraint are the inevitable attendants of unfaithful preparation, and they are fatal to success. ”