Christian Obedience Is Not Servitude

Some persons think of obedience as if it were nothing else, and could be nothing else, than servitude. And it must be admitted, that  constrained  obedience is so. He, who obeys by compulsion and not freely, wears a chain upon his spirit which continually frets and torments, while it confines him. But this is not Christian obedience. To obey with the whole heart, in other words to obey as Christ would have us, is essentially the same as to be perfectly resigned to the will of God; having no will but His. And he must have strange notions of the interior and purified life, who supposes that the obedience, which revolves constantly and joyfully within the limits of the Divine Will, partakes of the nature of servitude. On the contrary, true obedience, that which has its seat in the affections, and which flows out like the gushing of water, may be said, in a very important sense, to possess not only the nature, but the very essence of freedom.

— Religious Maxims (1846) IX.

True Peace of Mind

True peace of mind does not depend, as some seem to suppose, on the external incidents of riches and poverty, of health and sickness, of friendship and enmities. It has no necessary dependence upon society or seclusion; upon dwelling in cities or in the desert; upon the possession of temporal power, or a condition of temporal insignificance and weakness. "The kingdom of God is within you." Let the heart be right, let it be fully united with the will of God, and we shall be entirely contented with those circumstances, in which Providence has seen fit to place us, however unpropitious they may be in a worldly point of view. He, who gains the victory over himself, gains the victory over all his enemies.

— Religious Maxims (1846) VIII.

The Living Temple

The Temple once, which brightly shone
On proud Moriah's rocky brow;
Not there doth God erect His throne,
And build His place of beauty now.

The sunbeam of the orient day
Saw nought on earth more bright and fair;
But desolation swept away,
And left no form of glory there.

But God, who rear'd that chisel'd stone,
Now builds upon a higher plan;
And rears the columns of His  throne,
His  temple in the heart of man.

Oh man, Oh woman! know it well,
Nor seek elsewhere His place to find,
That God doth in the Temple dwell,
The temple of the holy mind.

— from Christ in the Soul (1872) II.

Christ Within

Why would'st thou teach my soul to rise,
And seek for Jesus in the skies?
Is He so far apart?
Are skies a better dwelling-place
Than man's celestial heart and face,
Made pure and bright with heavenly grace?
Oh, find Him in thy heart.

Why would'st thou teach my thirsty soul
To wait till death shall make it whole?
Is Christ so far away?
Oh, no! I see Him now and near;
In my own beating heart I hear
His throbbing life, His voice of cheer;
He turns my night to day.

Then cease thy looking here and there,
And first of all thy heart prepare,
By purity from sin;
And then, lit up with heaven's bright glow,
Thy soul of truth and love shall know,
That heaven above is heaven below,
And Christ is found within.

— from Christ in the Soul (1872) I.

Finding an Adequate Center of Love

The nature of the human mind is such, being limited and dependent, that it evidently requires an adequate centre of love, on which it can rest. No being, that is weak and dependent, and is conscious, as man is, of this weakness and dependence, can find a safe and satisfactory centre in itself. Accordingly the man, whose love reverts wholly or chiefly to himself, is always found to be more or less anxious and unhappy. And if our love fixes upon any being out of ourselves, but short of God and to the exclusion of God, it soon finds a weakness there, and becomes uneasy, and has a sort of instinctive consciousness, that the true centre is not yet found. Hence if our souls would find rest, they can find it only by an alienation of self and of all subordinate creatures, and by union with God. And what has now been said is not only obvious in itself, but it is believed, it will be found to be confirmed by the testimony of those, who have made the greatest advancement in holiness. In the transition they have passed through from the natural life to the true life of God in the soul, they have attached themselves, as it was perhaps natural they should do, to various inferior objects, to outward forms, to ministers, to church organization and ceremonies, to christian friends; and have endeavored for a time to find a rest of soul in these inferior things. But it has always eluded them. They have felt the foundation shake. They have realized an inward disquietude and weakness, till, leaving every thing else, however desirable in many respects and for many purposes it might be, they have reached the strong rock of salvation in God alone.

— The Interior of Hidden Life (1844), Part 1, Chapter 12.

If Thou, Oh God, Wilt Make My Spirit Free...

If thou, Oh God, wilt make my spirit free,

Then will that darkened soul be free indeed;
I cannot break my bonds apart from thee;
Without thy help I bow and serve and bleed.
Arise, oh Lord, and in thy matchless strength,
Asunder rend the links my heart that bind,
And liberate and raise and save, at length,
My long enthralled and subjugated mind.

— The Interior or Hidden Life (1844), Part 2, Chapter 10.

Reflections on the New Year

I.
HELD in their path of glory by the hand,
That rear'd all nature's bright and wondrous frame,
That made the sky, the ocean, and the land,
And all that dwell therein, whate'er their name;
Held by that wondrous hand of might and pow'r,
The distant stars their steady course have run,
The moon hath watch'd in her aerial tower,
Along his annual round hath march'd the sun,
Until his task once more, his Zodiac race, is done.

II.
Yes! Time's unwearied course hath borne us on;
Successively the rapid seasons pass'd;
Another twelve month's space is come and gone,
And a  New  Year upon the world is cast.
Time's noiseless wheel rolls on, and; oh how fast!
'Tis like the tide that rushes to the sea;
Uncounted things are on it — at the last,
Those of the earth shall perish, cease to be,
But souls, a spark of heaven, go to eternity.

III.
The earth, still subject to its ancient curse,
Hath felt its storms, and shook with thunder's dread,
And Death, to make its bosom populous,
Hath smitten down full many a weary head.
The young, the man of scatter'd locks and gray,
All ages to the grave's cold rest have gone,
The dwelling-place of silence and decay.
There dwells the worm; the serpent feeds upon
The soulless mass deformed, and twines the skeleton bone.

IV.
The living too, whose bosoms erst did beat
With promise high and unabated joy,
How many now in gloomy sorrow sit,
And constant woes their life and hopes annoy!
How many in the course of one short year,
Who love received, and love as warmly gave,
Now shed o'er sunder'd ties the burning tear!
Alas! earth's ties are often like the wave,
That brightly clasps the shore — then breaks, and seeks its
grave.

V.
See here a mother mourning o' er her son!
How desolate her soul! And seated there,
With countenance of deeper grief, is one,
New rob'd in widow's weeds. Into thin air
And blackness terrible hath sunk their light.
Oh! Happy they, when joys terrestrial fade,
Who rest on God's right arm and changeless might.
There's nothing firm of all things that are made,
But life shall wane to death, and substance change to shade.

VI.
Yes, there's a spirit of change in all things round,
Which shows itself, as year on year goes by;
Which at the last shall sink the solid ground,
Nor spare the brighter fabric of the sky;
Both heaven and earth shall be one cemetery.
Down from their home of light the stars shall fall,
The blaze, that lights the solar pathway, die,
While clouds and flame shall wrap this earthly ball,
Its  wither'd pomp depart, and fade its glory all.

VII.
Boast not, because these things have never been,
For we shall see them, though we see not now,
When rolls through heaven the final trumpet's din,
And lightnings bind the "seventh angel's brow."
Then months and New Years shall be o' er.
Ah, how That final. trump shall rock the land and sea!
Then shall the proud, majestic mountains bow,
The islands and the continents shall flee,
The solid earth go down, and time no more shall be.

VIII.
The years of earth shall pass; but heavenly years
Shall start upon their endless destiny.
The joys of earth shall perish; but no tears
Shall dim the brightness of the joys on high.
The scenes and things below shall fade away;
The brighter scenes of heaven shall be the same,
Without a blighting touch, without decay;
And all her hosts, in one sublime acclaim,
Shall pour their transports high, and shout the Saviour's name.

— The Religious Offering (1835).