Viciousness

“ By what impure magic has some demon bound our souls together? Souls so unlike one another! Mine, that of a man of action with a bent for repose; and his, the soul of a large-mouthed fledgling, who is as cunning as a conspirator, and as cautious as a coward. ”

“ How often are the perceptions of truth darkened in the mind, and the man walks about, even at noon-day, as in a mental night, his spirit wrapped as in a shroud, and bound hand and foot! God and heaven seem to be blotted out, and the whole universe appears a blank. And then, in the darkness, lurid fires of lusts are kindled in the heart, and the man is invited to seek relief in sensuality and sin, and sometimes even in self-murder. ”

“ This demon of the worship of the body and of the things of the body has entered into us all. We may indulge in tall talk and take very high flights, but we are like vultures all the same; our mind is directed to the piece of carrion down below. ”

“ The soul itself its awful witness is. Say not in evil doing, "No one sees," And so offend the conscious One within, Whose ear can hear the silences of sin. Ere they find voice, whose eyes unsleeping see The secret motions of iniquity. Nor in thy folly say, "I am alone." For, seated in thy heart, as on a throne, The ancient Judge and Witness liveth still, To note thy act and thought; and as thy ill Or good goes from thee, far beyond thy reach, The solemn Doomsman's seal is set on each. ”

“ This sinful heart and those impure eyes are but sources of poison which bring death to anyone who looks at or listens to them. How do such monsters of iniquity dare to present themselves before a God Who is so holy and so set against impurity! ”

“ Soul, mind and body were in revolt to-night. Even faith, the simple faith in God that she had known since childhood, was wavering. There seemed nothing but horror around her, a mental horror, a physical horror ”

“ Does any human soul, driven by dissatisfaction and heartache, seek to lift the veil and penetrate to the secret shrine of the universe, or to pierce the “rose mesh” of mystery that surrounds us and ascend to the divine Spirit above and beyond it, how quickly is the fascinating smile of the world turned to bitter scorn, and its smooth flattery to remorseless persecution! ”

“ Doubtless there was something of God in the villainous men, deep in the hearts of them, as there is something of God in all things; and the rest (to speak truly) is but distortion and shadow and absence and darkness. ”

“ This is designed to arrest our attention, and call forth our love, wonder, admiration, and praise—to lead us to the contemplation of his Agony and bloody Sweat—when in a cold night, such was the agitation of his Soul, beneath the Wrath of God, the Guilt of our Sin, and his Struggles with the Powers of Hell, that he exclaimed My Soul (being truly human) is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. ”

“ It has drawn a sable curtain over the mildly radiant countenance of our Father in heaven, and in room of leading the mind to contemplate the Divine Being with pleasure and delight, it has attached a horror to the sacred name, which gives a stupefying chill to the heart, repels the mind, and forces it to seek relief in the contemplation of visible and sensible objects; and after becoming the author of this horror and disgust in the soul, it artfully takes the advantage of the deception, to inculcate a belief that the reason of these feelings is the natural depravity of the human heart! ”

“ What was dominion over one heart compared to the knowledge that the wild, fierce spirits of a thousand savage beings were quelled by the sound of my footsteps?—not with a physical and cowardly fear, but with an awe which was of the spirit—a superstitious dread, which was to them a religion. ”

“ However much the body rebels, however much the mind rebels, in the midst of the uttermost darkness, in the midst of agonising tortures, in the uttermost despair, repeat this, once, twice, thrice, ever more. Light comes gently, slowly, but surely it comes. ”

“ Strike a match and light comes in a moment. What good will it do you to think all your lives, "Oh, I have done evil, I have made many mistakes"? It requires no ghost to tell us that. Bring in the light and the evil goes in a moment. Build up your character, and manifest your real nature, the Effulgent, the Resplendent, the Ever-Pure, and call It up in everyone that you see. ”

“ To draw the dazed, adoring eyes of men:
I am thy arm of vengeance, I the hand
Bestowing thy good gifts: I am thy Voice
Of mystic prophecy and divination
Thro' which thou keep'st thy fingers on men's souls. ”

“ Whether the cause be referred to mental, physical, or spiritual conditions, everyone knows the effect; every one has felt that the looks, the actions or gestures of the beloved awaken some vestige of tenderness in those most deeply sinned against and grievously wronged. ”

“ For the only hope of this cause is in the increased insight, and it is to be accomplished by the spontaneous teaching, of the cultivated soul, in its secret experience and meditation,—that it is now time that it should pass out of the state of beast into the state of man; it is to hear the voice of God, which bids the devils, that have rended and torn him, come out of him, and let him now be clothed and walk forth in his right mind. ”

“ In the spiritual passage from the sleep of natural ignorance to the wakefulness of the supernatural understanding, which is the beginning of trance or ecstasy, the spiritual vision then revealed makes the soul fear and tremble. ”

“ Her real spirit seemed to be looking forth from those wide limpid eyes for an instant, the spirit of a coward who had been fooling the world; the spirit of a lost soul who had grown old in sin; the spirit of a soul who had stepped over the bounds and sinned beyond her depth. ”

“ Ah! give me, Lord, the tender Heart,
That trembles at the Approach of Sin,
A godly Fear of Sin impart,
Implant, and root it deep within,
That I may dread thy Gracious Power,
And never dare offend Thee more. ”

“ Whether it was the spirit of the child that returned into his body to animate it anew, or the demon who replaced his soul, the puzzle appears to me the same; in all this circumstance we behold only the work of the evil spirit. ”

“ The confession of a low, usurping devil is there made, and the observer shall seem to feel the stirring of owls, and bats, and horned hoofs, where he looked for innocence and simplicity. 'Tis remarkable, too, that the spirit that appears at the windows of the house does at once invest himself in a new form of his own, to the mind of the beholder. ”

“ And then, as life wanes, and death draws on, and conscience, it may be, pricks, and the evil one himself, perchance, mocks and triumphs, and no remedy, in either external things or in our own selves, is to be found,—how darkly and sadly does the night close in upon man in his mere natural condition! ”

“ When the bodily life is too far invigorated and awakened, and draws the intellect, the flower and summity of the soul, into a conspiration with it, then are we subject and obnoxious to magical assaults. ”

“ What is that unknown fluid which certainly exists and which, quicker and more active than light, flies in less than the twinkling of an eye into all the channels of life—produces sensations, memory, joy or grief, reason or frenzy—recalls with horror what we would choose to forget, and renders a thinking animal, either a subject of admiration or an object of pity and compassion? ”

“ Endeavour, therefore, to withdraw thy heart from the love of visible things and to turn thyself to the invisible. For they that follow their lusts stain their own consciences and lose the grace of God. ”

“ Miracles, spells, incantations, witchcrafts, in short all the facts that are incorrectly called supernatural, can only be possible and accounted for by the authority with which some other mind compels us to accept the effects of a mysterious law of optics which magnifies, or diminishes, or exalts creation, enables it to move within us independently of our will, distorts or embellishes it, snatches us up to heaven, or plunges us into hell—the two terms by which we express the excess of rapture or of pain. These phenomena are within us, not outside us. ”

“ Hunted and branded, and a prey, Our watch amidst the darkness keeping, Oh, for that hidden strength which can Nerve unto death the inner man Oh, for thy spirit, tried and true, And constant in the hour of trial, Prepared to suffer, or to do, In meekness and in self-denial. ”

“ The devil that you waken in the hearts
You snare and bind in your enticing arts,
The thin, pale stuff that in your veins doth flow
Would freeze in terror.
Strange you have such power
To please, or pain us, poor, weak, soulless things—
Devoid of passion as a senseless flower! ”

“ Many of our thinking brains have undertaken to drive out by mockery this heavenly instinct from the human soul, to efface the effigy of Deity in the soul, and to dissolve this energy, this noble enthusiasm, in the cold, killing breath of a pusillanimous indifference. ”

“ From these nightly vigils came the fruitful conception of an invisible influence radiating from the heavenly bodies—an influence potent for good and evil, yet transcending the limitations of mortal senses. ”

“ Their gross unconsciousness survive Thy godlike energy of thought? In thoughts which answer to my own, In words which reach my inward ear, Like whispers from the void Unknown, I feel thy living presence here. ”

“ That excess of subjectivity—those visionary raptures and supernatural exaltations, which we regard as the symptoms of spiritual disease, are, in the eyes of these writers, the choice rewards of sufferings and of aspirations the most intense,—they are the vision of God and things celestial enjoyed by the pure in heart,—the dazzling glories wherewith God has crowned the heads of a chosen few, whose example shall give light to all the world. ”

“ When I look strictly into my deceitful and wicked heart, I find it so full of this abominable vice, that I regard myself with horror and amazement; and yet perhaps the next moment, indulge in airy schemes and self-complacency. Sure there is not in the whole universe, so vain and sinful a wretch as I am! ”

“ I Know it is my sinne, which locks thine eares,
And bindes thy hands,
Out-crying my requests, drowning my tears;
Or else the chilnesse of my faint demands.
But as cold hands are angrie with the fire,
And mend it still ”

“ And whosoever exalts the spirit over the flesh, by his own creed avers that a crime of the spirit is vastly more terrible than a crime of the flesh. Thus stand the somnambulists convicted by their own creed—only they are not real men, alive and awake, and they proceed to mutter magic phrases that dispel all doubt as to their undiminished and eternal gloriousness. ”

“ And thy strange, startled fearfulness, when thou
Didst learn its sinful cause, and thy dear words
Of kind and holy counsel, teaching me
What my best days knew not of holiness—
How all these memories reproach my sin!
But still they feed the ever-burning flame
Thyself didst kindle by thy purity,
And coldness can not conquer.
(A mysterious voice answers.)
⁠Voice.⁠Cease, babbler!
Thine is a passion vain as most unholy.
⁠Her. Who mocks me with rehearsal of my grief?
Demon or mortal, whosoe'er thou art,
Say not again what I now know too well,
If thou canst aid me, do it ”

“ The Soul as a Shadow and a Reflection.—But the spiritual dangers I have enumerated are not the only ones which beset the savage. Often he regards his shadow or reflection as his soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, and as such it is necessarily a source of danger to him. ”

“ Even on surface earth, where the matter side of man dominates, a vicious spirit will produce a villainous countenance, a mediocre mind a vapid face, and an amorous soul will even protrude the anterior part of the skull. ”

“ But when the soul has been previously disturbed, or is moved in the interim, or the body intervenes, and confounds the divine harmony, then divinations become turbulent and false, and the enthusiasm is no longer true nor genuine. ”

“ Let it suffice that some playful god had injected into his blood a drop of the divine essence, enough merely to visit upon him the fleeting moods of the dreamer and the restless longings of those who seek the light that never was. ”

“ I do (says he) praise God unfeignedly, for with-holding me from my own actual wickedness, and preventing my leading others into the cursed and detestable abomination. But I abhor and condemn myself for the concupiscence and wickedness of my heart, which (with grief and horror God knoweth I speak it!) discovered itself in other respects, such as it is a shame even to mention. ”

“ When this Spirit is not resisted, grieved, and quenched, but its inspirations and motions suffered to grow and increase in us, to unite with God, and get power over all the lusts of the flesh, then the nature, Spirit, and tempers of Jesus Christ are opened in our souls. On the other hand, when the flesh, hath resisted and quenched this Spirit; then the works of the flesh, adultery, fornication, murders, lying, hatred, envy, wrath, pride, foolishness, worldly wisdom, carnal prudence, false religion, hypocritical holiness, and serpentine subtilty, set up their kingdom within us. ”

“ Indeed, with the appearance of the religious standards and certitudes, that crushing universal feeling of melancholy and of positive disgust breaks up, and yields to contrasted joys and sorrows, and to a buoyant energy in the very midst and through the very means of suffering and of sacrifice. ”

“ But daily and hourly, in every step that you take, see to the spirit that is within you, whether it be heaven, or earth that guides you. And judge every thing to be sin and Satan, in which your earthly nature, has any share of life in you; nor think that any goodness is in you, but so far as it is an actual death to the pride, the vanity, the wrath, and selfish tempers of your fallen, earthly life. ”

“ And thus, the simpler and the purer is this Divine light in its assault upon the soul, the more does it darken it, void it and annihilate it according to its particular apprehensions and affections, with regard both to things above and to things below ”