The energetic action of the times develops individualism, and the religious appear isolated. I esteem this a step in the right direction. Heaven deals with us on no representative system. Souls are not saved in bundles.
We pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall not be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very badcompany, and was never invited to dinner.
What Heaven has conferred is called The Nature; an accordance with this nature is called The Path of duty; the regulation of this path is called Instruction. The path may not be left for an instant. If it could be left, it would not be the path.
True joy is the earnest which we have of heaven, it is the treasure of the soul, and therefore should be laid in a safe place, and nothing in this world is safe to place it in.
Without going outside, you may know the whole world, without looking through the window, you may see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus the sage knows without traveling; he sees without looking; he works without doing.
The more a man denies himself, the more he shall receive from heaven. Naked, I seek the camp of those who covet nothing.
[Lat., Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit,
A dis plura feret. Nil cupientium
Nudus castra peto.]
To be constantly without desire is the way to have a vision of the mystery of heaven and earth. For constantly to have desire is the means by which their limitations are seen.
Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harm Nor question much That subtle wreath of hair, which crowns my arm; The mystery, the sign you must not touch, For 'tis my outward soul, Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone, Will leave this to control, And keep these limbs, her provinces, from dissolution.
Is it true, O Christ in heaven, that the highest suffer the most? That the strongest wander furthest and most hopelessly are lost? That the mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain? That the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain?