Come, Holy Spirit, from above, Come, Lamp of every heart. O thou, of comforters the best, Our resting place from life's long care, O Light divine, all light excelling, Without thy pure divinity, Nothing in all humanity, Nothing is strong or holy. Wash out each dark and sordid stain— Guide those that guidance need. Give to the good, who find in thee Thy sevenfold power and love. How hard it is to feel that the power of life is to be found inside, not outside; in the heart and thoughts, not in the visible actions and show; in the living seed, not in the plant which has no root! How often do men cultivate the garden of their souls just the other way! How often do we try, and persevere in trying, to make a sort of neat show of outer good qualities, without anything within to correspond, just like children who plant blossoms without any roots in the ground to make a pretty show for the hour! We find faults in our lives, and we cut off the weed, but we do not root it up; we find something wanting in ourselves, and we supply it, not by sowing the divine seed of a heavenly principle, but by copying the deeds that the principle ought to produce.-[Temple.] my God and Father, I desire to love thee, and fear lest I should not love thee as I ought. I ask of thee an abundant and pure love. Thou seest this desire, for thou hast implanted it in me: regard, then, the want which thou beholdest in thy creature. O God, whose love to me is sufficient to inspire a boundless affection in return, look not upon the torrent of iniquity in which I was almost swallowed up, but rather on thy mercy. Lord, thou art the God of nature; thou art the soul of all being; thine are all things, and shall not my heart be thine, that heart which thou hast formed and dost keep in life? It is thine and no longer mine. Do with me as thou wilt, I care not since I love thee.-[Fenelon.] He needs no other rosary whose thread of life is strung with beads of love and thought.-[Persian.] D I thirst! Oh, grant the waters pure Which they who drink shall thirst no more. Which ever flows with heavenly gleam I thirst! O bounteous source of truth, I thirst! O God, great source of love, Infinite life streams from above, Oh, give one drop and let me live! [Frederika Bremer.] Let him rejoice and thank God, who in sincerity and fullness of heart can daily kneel down and commune with the Infinite; and if any consecrating power of habit, of times, of seasons, of thoughtful meditation, can bring to him one truthful, yearning aspiration after the Father, let him cling to that as the dearest portion and joy of his soul, the promise of his progress and prosperity, the talisman of his inward peace.—[Withington.] THE DEVOUT PHILOSOPHER'S PRAYER. com "Sublime and Living Will! named by no name, passed by no thought! I may well raise my soul to thee, for thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds within me, mine resounds in thee; and all my thoughts, if they be but good and true, live in thee also. In thee, the Incomprehensible, I myself, and the world in which I live, become clearly comprehensible to me; all the secrets of my existence are laid open, and perfect harmony arises in my soul. Thou art best known to the childlike, devoted, simple mind. To it thou art the searcher of hearts, who seest its inmost depths; the ever-present true witness of its thoughts, who knowest its truth, who knowest it though all the world know it not. Thou art the Father who ever desirest its good, who rulest all things for the best. To thy will it unhesitatingly resigns itself: Do with me,' it says, 'what thou wilt; I know that it is good, for it is Thou who doest it." 6 O make us apt to seek and quick to find, Give us love, hope and faith in thee to find, Remit all our offences, we entreat, Most good, most great! Grant that our willing though unworthy quest May, through thy grace, admit us 'mongst the blest. [Thomas Heywood.] As a countenance is made beautiful by the soul's shining through it, so the world is beautiful by the shining through it of a God.-[Jacobi.] 6 * * * "We have to work out our salvation,' but the work is mainly to be done by the unseen exertion of the invisible soul. * * * It is when sins of thought and feeling are indulged that they grow into sins of life and conduct; and after all, our great sins,—the main things we have to confess and seek pardon for,--are sins of thought and feeling rather than of life and conduct. Our great sins, in short, are the sins of the heart; and rightly to 'rule our spirit' is the sum, the essence of all our Christian duty. And to do that, what a noble work! how hard in its progress, how glorious in its results! All that shall make us like our Saviour, all that shall make us meet for heaven, lies in that work! No strength of our own is equal to it, but only his might who regenerates and sanctifies. Oh! may he be poured down upon us day by day! And so, through many duties, many trials, many temptations, many cares, we shall hold still that central peace of mind which is promised to the man whose mind is stayed upon his God; we shall be victors, in a noiseless battle, fighting day by day in many quiet places,-fought in by shrinking women and by men ;- -a battle which is the heaviest strain upon human pith and endurance, and yet which may end in the most glorious rewards which can ever be won by human being." I know of nothing to give unfailing moral energy to the mind but a living faith in a being of infinite perfections, and who is always with us to aid, strengthen, reward, reprove, chasten, and guide to immortality. [Channing.] |