October 30

“How I long to be telling myself, and telling everyone, that the Hell we have to fly is ignorance of the perfect goodness, and separation from it; and the Heaven we have to seek is the knowledge of it; and participation in it. Then I have no fear of the message of the gospel and the church all manifesting itself to men in due time. But while that kind of notion of Christianity, which Christians seem to have taken up at one time, haunts the air, I do not see what we can expect but constant alternations of gloomy faith and gloomier unbelief. Punishment and reward to ourselves, instead of spiritual death from ignorance of God and sinking into self, and eternal life from knowing Him and deliverance from self.”

F. D. MAURICE

“O restless spirit, wherefore strain
Beyond thy sphere?
Heaven and hell, with their joy and pain,
Are now and here.

“Back to thyself is measured well,
All thou hast given,
Thy neighbour’s wrong is thy present hell,
His bliss, thy heaven.

“The Present, the Present is all thou hast,
For thy sure possessing;
Like the patriarch’s angel, hold it fast,
Till it gives its blessing.”

WHITTIER