Withdrawal

“ A retreat, my dear boys, signifies a withdrawal for a while from the cares of our life, the cares of this workaday world, in order to examine the state of our conscience, to reflect on the mysteries of holy religion and to understand better why we are here in this world. ”

“ If we make partial withdrawal we find insistencies, conscious and unconscious, in those who supersede us that we might as well make it complete and the sense of being superfluous and no longer needed is bitter. ”

“ For there is a twofold kind [2] of withdrawal: there is one in the instance of an object that has shown itself and reached another, and is gone at once on being followed by it or on outrunning it, as is the case with racers when they graze each other in passing; and there is another in the instance of an object that has sojourned and tarried with another, and sat down by it, as in the case of a marauding band or a camp, and that after a time withdraws on being conquered, and on gaining the opposite of a success. ”

“ I can hardly agree with those who imagine that a special instinct of withdrawal is necessary to explain the prominence of retirement in the ordinances of religion. People wish to retire from 220the world because they are weary, harassed, driven by it, so that they feel that they cannot recover their equanimity without getting away from it. ”

“ The condition may even go on to a fatal result should morphine be continuously withheld, but injection of even a small quantity of morphine causes these symptoms to cease abruptly. The sudden withdrawal of morphine should therefore never be practised with takers of large quantities of the drug, but gradually diminishing doses given by the physician should be substituted. For the successful treatment of morphinism, complete isolation of the patient is necessary in a place where he is supervised so that he can obtain no morphine. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Constant and heart-felt resignation is a bulwark against every trial, and a foundation for solid peace, and joy transcendently pure. The whole state of a soul made perfect in love stands in that one petition, Thy will be done: and if we could but preserve that temper which these words describe, I know not what could hurt us. Suppose now when I first wake in a morning I should lift up my heart, “Lord I bless thee for this new day which thou hast given me. In this day I shall have fresh manifestations of thy will concerning me, either in comforts or in sufferings. ”

“ If I am to put an end to my life, I will do that. Death is at my will. What other alternative have I now but to die? But, whether I live or die, I have resolved not to return home. You have, for nothing, taken so much trouble—go back, I will not return. ”

“ All this is swept away like drift-wood before a rising tide, and as a result I retire into voluntary exile, a man burdened with a life-long sorrow. How I have suffered, both in body and mind, none will ever understand. ”

“ Suspense, more wearing even than sorrow, had held him on the rack. Sleep had seldom visited his eyes; and when it came, it had been broken and fitful.
Now the worst had befallen him. Suspense was over; certainty had come. This brought at first a kind of rest to the overtaxed mind and frame. He was as one who hears a sentence of death, but who is taken off the rack. ”

“ I well know that your departure will cost me my life; but the severest pangs that I shall suffer will be in dying for an ungrateful man, who abandons me at the very time that I stand most in need of his assistance. ”

“ But suppose all these misfortunes to meet in one person: suppose him blind and deaf—let him be afflicted with the sharpest pains of body, which, in the first place, generally of themselves make an end of him; still, should they continue so long, and the pain be so exquisite, that we should be unable to assign any reason for our being so afflicted—still, why, good Gods! should we be under any difficulty? For there is a retreat at hand: death is that retreat—a shelter where we shall forever be insensible. ”

“ Expiation will never end while I have breath to pray—not until the same grave that holds my victims covers me. You can not understand, because you know no more about love than the rubric! If you had ever felt your wife's lips on yours, or the clasp of your child's arms, and heard his glad, tender cry of 'father!'—you would realize that no expiation could be sufficient, if your hand had smitten them to ruin. ”

“ I will say nothing of renunciation; harder for me has been the feeling of abandonment, and the longing for human society has often tormented me unspeakably. Only the thought that renunciation is my expiation has comforted me. I have often gone out into the valleys, where people live in pleasant companionship. I have refreshed myself with the knowledge of their peace of conscience and of their contentment, and I have then returned to my cave in the ever-lonely Felsenthal and to the silent cross upon the stony ground. ”

“ As a man just released from the rack stands bruised and broken,—bleeding at every pore, and dislocated in every limb, and raises his eyes to heaven, and says, “God be praised! I suffer no more!” because to that past sharp agony the respite comes like peace—like sleep,—so we stand, after some great wrench in our best affections, where they have been torn up by the root; when the conflict is over, and the tension of the heart-strings is relaxed, then comes a sort of rest,—but of what kind? ”

“ Have not you thought, in hours when you were conscious of that shrinking of life into its smallest compass—that retirement of it from the confines of its territory, of which we have been thinking—that in that beggar's place you would keep up the fight no longer, but creep into some quiet corner, and there lay yourself down and sleep away into forgetfulness? ”

“ Our abandonment, then, should be, both in respect to external and internal things, an absolute giving up of all our concerns into the hands of God, forgetting ourselves and thinking only of Him; by which the heart will remain always disengaged, free, and at peace. ”

“ But I said I came not to reproach, nor do I. Many a bitter hour, many a pang of shame and mortification and misery, which have made scars in my heart that will never wear away, my wrongs have cost me; but let them pass. Let them not swell your future and last account whenever it be required. I am about to leave this country, with a heavy and foreboding heart; we may never meet again on earth. ”

“ Long have I been failing in my health, and long have my ministerial duties proved too great a call on my general strength, and especially my nervous system; but I still feel reluctant to retire from them. My wife and children were indeed repeatedly striving to bring me to the point, and represented to me the desirableness of withdrawing before such an attack should be experienced, as would render the residue of life burdensome to myself, distressing to my friends, and useless to all. ”

“ Whatever sins by turns have sway'd me,
Ambition never reach'd my heart;
Its lewd pretences ne'er betray'd me,
In publick ills to act a part.
Let others, fame or wealth pursuing,
Despise a mean but safe retreat ”

“ 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? ”

“ We quit business, give up property, resign office, abandon a habit or a trust. Relinquish commonly implies reluctance; the fainting hand relinquishes its grasp; the creditor relinquishes his claim. Abandon implies previous association with responsibility for or control of; forsake implies previous association with inclination or attachment, real or assumed; a man may abandon or forsake house or friends; he abandons an enterprise; forsakes God. Abandon is applied to both good and evil action; a thief abandons his designs, a man his principles. ”

“ I heard something of it, however, and, young as I was, could not help wondering how men who carried the worst passions of life into their retreat, could imagine that retreat was a refuge from the erosions of their evil tempers, the monitions of conscience, and the accusations of God. ”

“ Shall he retire far from the world, to evaporate, in continual invectives against it, the spleen and the rancour of his heart, and thus revenge himself of the injustice of men? But of what avail will be his retirement? It will afford only more leisure for retrospection, and fewer relaxations from chagrin. ”

“ You fell asleep, to awake in the morning to a new combat and a new - prayer. Now the habit of renunciation cools the heat of your desire, and the roses of your youth are growing pale in the - chlorosis of your heavenliness. The soul is saved, the body may perish! ”

“ We lay down our cherished plans with a sigh of resignation, but when baby eyes and baby lips are pleading, God forgive us if we are not so humbly patient, if we accept our burden not without a murmur, or yield not without a struggle! ”

“ Retirement from the cares and pleasures of the world has been often recommended as useful to repentance. This at least is evident, that every one retires, whenever ratiocination and recollection are required on other occasions; and surely the retrospect of life, the disentanglement of actions complicated with innumerable circumstances, and diffused in various relations, the discovery of the primary movements of the heart, and the extirpation of lusts and appetites deeply rooted and widely spread, may be allowed to demand some secession from sport and noise, business and folly. ”

“ We have had not only one incident for every day in the week, but two or three; we have not simply been stunned with the alarming noise of one terrific clash, but another, and another, and another, have followed upon each other's heels, like Job's messengers, till we have needed Job's patience and resignation to hear the dreadful tale of woes. ”

“ Let us, therefore, labour whilst we can to secure our being admitted into this happy rest. What do we behold in this perishable life, if not grief and mourning, and what ought above all to afflict the faithful,—a too great abandonment and contempt of the law of God. ”

“ Yet you surely can but resign what you own, what--if need be--you could defend; the possession of which you could dispute anyhow with your adversary to the last gasp. Despair does not resign, it only lets go what can no longer be held. ”

“ When we reflect on the departure of one, whose face and figure still dwell in the minds of many of us, it would be wise to remember, that we ourselves are making for the same point of our journey, the concluding scene of this short existence, the end of our probation. ”

“ The one object of Our retirement was to avoid becoming a subject of discord among the faithful, a source of disturbance unto Our companions, the means of injury to any soul, or the cause of sorrow to any heart. ”

“ She did not, however, prolong a situation so critical, but at once, and with an impetuosity that bespoke her intense anxiety, burst out into the story of her actual calamities. Never was there a narrative more difficult to follow; broken at one moment by bursts of sorrow, heart-rending regrets, or scarce less poignant expressions of a resignation that savored of despair. ”

“ The repose I enjoyed with ecstasy was disturbed by nothing but the fear of being deprived of it, and this inquietude was accompanied with some bitterness. I felt my situation so precarious as not to dare to depend upon its continuance. "Ah! how willingly," said I to myself, "would I renounce the liberty of quitting this place, for which I have no desire, for the assurance of always remaining in it. ”

“ He shall make riddance, a speedy riddance, of all those that dwell in the land, as the husbandman, when he rids his ground, cuts up all the briers and thorns for the fire. Note, Sometimes the judgments of God make riddance, even utter riddance, with sinful nations, a speedy riddance; their destruction is effected, is completed, in a little time. Let not sinners be laid asleep by the patience of God, for when the measure of their iniquity is full his justice will both overtake and overcome, will make quick work and thorough work. ”

“ Now there is a contemptible feeling which may be easily found lurking in the recesses of the human heart, that of preferring for one’s retirement the moment at which one might enjoy the embarrassment of one’s successor. ”

“ Death and Devastation are the certain Consequences of Delay; every Moment is infinitely precious; an Hour lost may deluge your Country in Blood, and entail perpetual Slavery upon the few of your Posterity who may survive the Carnage. ”

“ We deny, therefore, that the labours and sorrows of the present life, the loss of such joys as are left to us at its close, and the dreadful agonies and terrors with which death is often attended, have the nature of a penalty. ”

“ The destruction of this love of life, and the utter extinction of the hope of a recovery, are by no means essential to perfect resignation. Indeed the highest degree of resignation may exist when the desire to live is so strong as to prompt the sufferer to catch with eagerness at the slightest grounds of hope even to the last. ”

“ Having just moved our household goods for the fourth time in four years, we now find ourself in the singular state of trying to believe that the horrors of the event have added to our supply of spiritual resignation. ”