“To-day the whole Christian world prostrates itself in adoration around the crib of Bethlehem and rehearses in accents of love a history which precedes all time and will endure throughout eternity. As if by an instinct of our higher, spiritual nature, there well up from the depths of our hearts, emotions which challenge the power of human expression. We seem to be lifted out of the sphere of natural endeavor to put on a new life and to stretch forward in desire to a blessedness which, though not palpable, is eminently real.” IfsWorldHumansWellsHeartRealWholeSeemsChristianSpiritualDesireNaturalChallengesEmotionExpressionHigherEternityInstinctDepthEndureChristmasAll TimeEndeavorSpheresAccentsNew LifeAdorationBlessednessBethlehemSpiritual Nature Author:James Gibbons
“And then the spirit brings hope, hope in the strictest Christian sense, hope which is hoping against hope. For an immediate hope exists in every person; it may be more powerfully alive in one person than in another; but in death every hope of this kind dies and turns into hopelessness. Into this night of hopelessness (it is death that we are describing) comes the life-giving spirit and brings hope, the hope of eternity. It is against hope, for there was no longer any hope for that merely natural hope; this hope is therefore a hope contrary to hope.” GivingKindMayPersonsChristianSpiritNightDiesTurnsHopeNaturalAliveEternityContraryHopelessnessDescribing Author:Soren Kierkegaard
“To look upon the soul as going on from strength to strength, to consider that she is to shine forever with new accessions of glory, and brighten to all eternity; that she will be still adding virtue to virtue, and knowledge to knowledge,--carries in it something wonderfully agreeable to that ambition which is natural to the mind of man.” MenMindLooksStillsSoulNaturalForeverVirtueAmbitionGloryEternityShiningLook UpCarrie Book:The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ... Source: The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...
“Profound meditation in solitude and silence frequently exalts the mind above its natural tone, fires the imagination, produces the most refined and sublime conceptions. The soul then tastes the purest and most refined delight, and almost loses the idea of existence in the intellectual pleasure it receives. The mind on every motion darts through space into eternity; and raised, in its free enjoyment of its powers by its own enthusiasm, strengthens itself in the habitude of contemplating the noblest subjects, and of adopting the most heroic pursuits.” MindIdeasSoulLosesImaginationNaturalSpacePleasureExistenceSilenceFireMeditationSubjectsProduceTasteSolitudeIntellectualEternityProfoundRaisedDelightPursuitEnthusiasmToneEnjoymentConceptionHeroicContemplatingSublimeRefinedAdoptingDarts Author:Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann