High above all earthly, lower happiness, the blessedness of those Eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself. They are white with the snows of eternity; they give a grace, a meaning, a dignity, to all the rest of the earth over which they brood.
Flit’st thou thus midway passion’s slave and jest,
When all so near, above, below, unchanging
Are Heaven and rest?
And all human peace is in some sort won by conflict and maintained by energy: it is never the triumph of inertia: it represents the victory of purpose over circumstance.
The whole universe in which we live is arranged in such a fashion that, if we would be at all in harmony with it, we must have patience.
The true felicity of life is to be free from perturbations; to understand our duties towards God and man; to enjoy the present without any serious dependence upon the future.
Noisy go the small waters, silent goes the vast ocean.
…having had the demoniac run towards him Jesus now sends him away with a new mission. No longer is he to be the one of whom his friends and family are frightened and perhaps even ashamed, but instead he is to:
‘Return home and tell how much God has done for you’.
You will succeed best when you put the restless, anxious side of affairs out of mind, and allow the restful side to live in your thoughts.
If you are going to make your present happiness depend on incalculable elements, you might as well be happy as miserable.
Look straight into the Light, and you will always have the shadows behind.
Suffolk Vicar 