Poems by Louisa May Alcott

My Kingdom

A little kingdom I possess 

where thoughts and feelings dwell, 

And very hard I find the task 

of governing it well; 

For passion tempts and troubles me, 

A wayward will misleads, 

And selfishness its shadow casts 

On all my words and deeds. 

How can I learn to rule myself, 

to be the child I should, 

Honest and brave, nor ever tire 

Of trying to be good? 

How can I keep a sunny soul 

To shine along life's way? 

How can I tune my little heart 

To sweetly sing all day? 

Dear Father, help me with the love 

that casteth out my fear; 

Teach me to lean on thee, and feel 

That thou art very near, 

That no temptation is unseen 

No childish grief too small, 

Since thou, with patience infinite, 

Doth soothe and comfort all. 

I do not ask for any crown 

But that which all may win 

Nor seek to conquer any world 

Except the one within. 

Be thou my guide until I find, 

Led by a tender hand, 

Thy happy kingdom in myself 

And dare to take command. 

Louisa May Alcott

He That Is Down Need Fear No Fall

He that is down need fear no fall,

He that is low no pride.

He that is humble ever shall

Have God to be his guide.

I am content with what I have,

Little be it, or much.

And, Lord! Contentment still I crave,

Because Thou savest such.

Fulness to them a burden is,

That go on pilgrimage.

Here little, and hereafter bliss,

Is best from age to age! 

Louisa May Alcott

Poems by Emily Dickinson

Too Much

I should have been too glad, I see,

Too lifted for the scant degree

Of life's penurious round;

My little circuit would have shamed

This new circumference, have blamed

The homelier time behind.

I should have been too saved, I see,

Too rescued; fear too dim to me

That I could spell the prayer

I knew so perfect yesterday, --

That scalding one, "Sabachthani,"

Recited fluent here.

Earth would have been too much, I see,

And heaven not enough for me;

I should have had the joy

Without the fear to justify, --

The palm without the Calvary;

So, Saviour, crucify.

Defeat whets victory, they say;

The reefs in old Gethsemane

Endear the shore beyond.

'Tis beggars banquets best define;

'Tis thirsting vitalizes wine, --

Faith faints to understand.

Poems by Arthur Hugh Clough

Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth

SAY not the struggle naught availeth, 

The labour and the wounds are vain, 

The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 

And as things have been they remain. 

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; 

It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd, 

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers, 

And, but for you, possess the field. 

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, 

Seem here no painful inch to gain, 

Far back, through creeks and inlets making, 

Comes silent, flooding in, the main. 

And not by eastern windows only, 

When daylight comes, comes in the light; 

In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly! 

But westward, look, the land is bright! 

Arthur Hugh Clough

The Thread of Truth

Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there 

In small bright specks upon the visible side 

Of our strange being's parti-coloured web. 

How rich the universe! 'Tis a vein of ore 

Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast, 

But flowing full below. Like islands set 

At distant intervals on Ocean's face, 

We see it on our course; but in the depths 

The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps 

Its faithful way, invisible but sure. 

Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men 

Pass by so many marks, so little heeding? 

Arthur Hugh Clough

Blaise Pascal Quotes

Pascal Quotes

Self Love
The nature of self-love and of this human ego is to love self alone and consider only self. But what can a man do? He cannot prevent the object which he loves form being full of faults and misfortunes. He would like to be great, and sees that he is small. He would like to be happy and sees that he is miserable. He would like to be perfect, and sees himself full of imperfections. He would like to be the object of men's love and esteem, and sees that his faults deserve only their hatred and contempt. The dilemma in which he finds himself kindles in him...a mortal hatred for that truth which rebukes him and convicts him of his faults. He would like to annihilate it; and being unable to destroy it in its essence, he destroys it in so far as he can in his own mind and those of others. I mean that he makes every endeavour to conceal his faults both from others and from himself, and cannot endure having them pointed out to him or even seen.

We ought not be annoyed that they should know our faults and despise us, it being only right that they should recognize us for what we are, and despise us if we are despicable. These are the feelings that would arise in a heart full of equity and justice. What should we say of ours then, when we find it of the opposite disposition? For isn’t it true that we hate the truth and those who point it out to us? We like them to be deceived and want them to value us as other than we are.

In short, self has two qualities; it is intrinsically wicked, in that it makes itself the centre of everything; and it is a nuisance to others, in that it desires to enslave them; for every self is the enemy of all the rest and would like to tyrannize over them.

We never care for the present moment. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming... or we recall the past, to stay its too rapid flight. We are so foolish that we wander in times that are not ours and never think of the only time that belongs to us. We are so frivolous that we dream of the days that are not, and thoughtlessly pass over the only one that exists. ...So we never live, but hope to live; and since we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we shall never be so.

Our imagination so expands the present time for us by reflecting continually upon it, and so contracts eternity by never reflecting upon it, that we make a nothing of eternity and an eternity of nothing; and this habit is so deeply rooted in us that all our reason cannot save us from it...


They believe that only God deserves love and admiration, but have themselves desired the love and admiration of men, and do not recognize their own corruption. If they are filled with the desire to love and adore Him, and find their chief joy in this, let them think well of themselves; they have a right to. But if they find this repugnant and their only inclination is to strive for men's esteem; if moreover their idea of perfection is to make men - without forcing them - take pleasure in loving them, I say their ideal is horrible. What, have they known God, and yet wished men not to love Him alone, but to stop short at them? They have desired to be the object of men's willful delight!

"The God of the Christians is a God of love and consolation," Pascal wrote in his Pensees. "He is a God who fills the soul and heart of those whom he possesses: he is a God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and his infinite mercy: who united himself with them in the depths of their soul...who makes them incapable of having any other end but him."(1)

"All that Jesus Christ did was to teach men that they loved themselves, that they were slaves, blind, sick, unhappy, and sinful; that they needed Him to deliver, enlighten, bless, and heal them; that this could be done if they were to hate themselves, and follow Him in His suffering and death on the cross."

"It is pleasant to be in a storm-tossed ship when one is sure that one will not drown. The persecutions that affect the church are of this nature.”

''A mere trifle consoles us for a mere trifle distresses us.''

''The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion.''

"We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.''

''We do not weary of eating and sleeping every day, for hunger and sleepiness recur. Without that we should weary of them. So, without the hunger for spiritual things, we weary of them. Hunger after righteousness—the eighth beatitude.''

''If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.''

''Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.''

''People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others.''

''Can anything be more ridiculous than that a man should have the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of the water, and because his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have none with him?''

"They believe that only God deserves love and admiration, but have themselves desired the love and admiration of men, and do not recognize their own corruption. If they are filled with the desire to love and adore God, and find their chief joy in this, let them think well of themselves; they have a right to. But, if they find this repugnant, and their only inclination is to strive for men's esteem; if moreover their idea of perfection is to make men - (without forcing them) - take pleasure in loving them, I say their ideal is horrible. What, have they known God, and yet wished men not to love Him alone, but to stop short at them? They have desired to be the object of men's wilful delight!"


About Jesus Christ:
"What man ever had greater renown? The whole Jewish people foretell that He will come. The Gentiles worship Him after His coming. ...And yet what man ever enjoyed this renown less? For thirty of His thirty-three years He lived in obscurity. For three years He was taken as an impostor; the priests and the chief people rejected Him; His friends and His relatives despised Him. In the end, He died, betrayed by one of His followers, denied by another, and forsaken by all. What benefit had He from His renown? No man ever had so much; yet no man ever suffered greater ignominy. All that renown has served us alone, to make us recognize Him; and He had none of it for Himself."


About himself:
"I love poverty because He loved it. I love wealth because it gives us the means to assist the poor. I keep faith with everybody. I do not return evil to those who have hurt me; but I wish them to be in a state like mine... I try to be just, truthful, sincere, and faithful to all men; and I have a tender heart for those to whom God has most closely united me; whether I am alone, or in the presence of others, I perform all my actions in the sight of God, who must judge them, and to whom I have consecrated them all. These are my feelings, and every day of my life I bless my Redeemer who has implanted them in me, and who out of a man full of weaknesses, miseries, appetites, pride, and ambition, has made one free from all these evils by the strength of His grace, to which all glory for this is due, since in myself there is only misery and error."

The Memorial:

FIRE.

GOD of Abraham, GOD of Isaac, GOD of Jacob

not of the philosophers and of the learned.

Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.

GOD of Jesus Christ.

My God and your God.

Your GOD will be my God. 

Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD.

He is only found by the ways taught in the Gospel.

Grandeur of the human soul.

Righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you.

Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy.

I have departed from him:

They have forsaken me, the fount of living water.

My God, will you leave me?

Let me not be separated from him forever.

This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and the one that you sent, Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ.

I left him; I fled him, renounced, crucified.

Let me never be separated from him.

He is only kept securely by the ways taught in the Gospel:

Renunciation, total and sweet.

Complete submission to Jesus Christ and to my director. 

Eternally in joy for a day's exercise on the earth.

May I not forget your words. Amen.

Octavius Winslow Quotes

     “Has He converted us through grace by a way we had thought the most improbable?  Has He torn up all our earthly hopes by the roots?  Has He thwarted our schemes, frustrated our plans, disappointed our expectations?  Has He taught us in schools most trying, by a discipline most severe, and lessons most humbling to our nature?  Has He withered our strength by sickness, reduced us to poverty by loss, crushed our heart by bereavement? 

     And have we been tempted to exclaim, "All these things are against me?"  Ah! no! faith will yet obtain the ascendancy, and sweetly sing:  "I know in all things that befell, My Jesus has done all things well." 

     Beloved, it must be so, for Jesus can do nothing wrong.  Study the way of His providence and grace with the microscopic eye of faith, view them in every light, examine them in their minutest detail, as you would the petal of a flower, or the wing of an insect; and, oh, what wonders, what beauty, what marvelous adaptation would you observe in all the varied dealings with you of your glorious Lord!”
(adapted from Octavius Winslow's, "The Sigh of Christ")

Spurgeon Quotes

“Imitate your Lord in His magnanimity. He endured the Cross, despising the shame. Shame is a cruel thing to many hearts. Our Lord shows us how to treat it. See, He puts His shoulder under the Cross but He sets His foot upon the shame. He endures the one but He despises the other.”
~Spurgeon



"My witness is that those who are honored by their Lord in public have usually to endure a secret chastening or to carry a peculiar cross lest by any means they exalt themselves and fall into the snare of the Devil. ….This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry. The cloud is black before it breaks and overshadows before it yields its deluge of mercy."
~Spurgeon


The wilderness is the way to Canaan. The low valley leads to the towering mountain. Defeat prepares for victory. The raven is sent forth before the dove. The darkest hour of the night precedes the day-dawn.

~Spurgeon



“You cannot slander human nature; it is worse than words can paint it.”

~Spurgeon

Andrew Murray - "Humility"

"Brethren, here is the path to the higher life. Down, lower down. ... God is faithful. Just as water ever seeks and fills the lowest place, so the moment God finds the creature abased and empty, His glory and power flow in to exalt and to bless."

"Humility is the only soil in which the graces root; the lack of humility is the sufficient explanation of every defect and failure. Humility is not so much a grace or virtue along with others; it is the root of all, because it alone takes the right attitude before God, and allows Him as God to do all."

Evil can have no beginning but from pride, and no end but from humility.

He counted Himself the Servant of men, that through Him God might do His work of love. He never for a moment thought of seeking His honor, or asserting His power to vindicate Himself. His whole spirit was that of a life yielded to God to work in. I

If once we learn that to be nothing before God is the glory of the creature, the spirit of Jesus, the joy of heaven, we shall welcome with our whole heart the discipline we may have in serving even those who try to vex us.  When our own heart is set upon this, the true sanctification, we shall study each word of Jesus on self-abasement with new zest, and no place will be too low, and 
no stooping too deep, and no service too mean or too long continued, if we may but share and prove the fellowship with Him who spoke, "I am among you as he that serves".

Men sometimes speak as if humility and meekness would rob us of what is noble and bold and manlike. O that all would believe that this is the nobility of the kingdom of heaven, that this is the royal spirit that the King of heaven displayed,  that this is Godlike, to humble oneself, to become the servant of all! This is the path to the gladness and the glory of Christ's presence ever in us, His power ever resting on us.

The lesson is one of deep import: the only humility that is really ours is not that which we try to show before God in prayer, but that which we carry with us, and carry out, in our ordinary conduct; the insignficances of daily life are the importances and the tests of eternity, because they prove what really is the spirit that possesses us. It is in our most unguarded moments that we really show and see what we are. To know the humble man, to know how the humble man behaves, you must follow him in the common course of daily life. 

The question is often asked, how we can count others better than ourselves, when we see that they are far below us in wisdom and in holiness, in natural gifts, or in grace received. The question proves at once how little we understand what real lowliness of mind is. True humility comes when, in the light of God, we have seen ourselves to be nothing, have consented to part with and cast away self, to let God be all. The soul that has done this, and can say, So have I lost myself in finding You, no longer compares itself with others. It has given up forever every thought of self in God's presence; it meets its fellow-men as one who is nothing, and seeks nothing for itself; who is a servant of God, and for His sake a servant of all. A faithful servant may be wiser than the master, and yet retain the true spirit and posture of the servant. The humble man looks upon every, the feeblest and unworthiest, child of God, and honors him and prefers him in honor as the son of a King. The spirit of Him who washed the disciples' feet, makes it a joy to us to be indeed the least, to be servants one of another.

The chief mark of counterfeit holiness is its lack of humility.