Let Us Endeavor To Commence

How Different The Peace Of God From That Of The World! It Calms The Passions, Preserves The Purity Of The Conscience, Is Inseparable From Righteousness, Unites Us To God And Strengthens Us Against Temptations. The Peace Of The Soul Consists In An Absolute Resignation To The Will Of God.

There Is But One Way In Which God Should Be Loved, And That Is To Take No Step Except With Him And For Him, And To Follow With A Generous Self-abandonment Every Thing Which He Requires.

Never Let Us Be Discouraged With Ourselves. It Is Not When We Are Conscious Of Our Faults That We Are The Most Wicked; On The Contrary, We Are Less So. We See By A Brighter Light; And Let Us Remember For Our Consolation, That We Never Perceive Our Sins Till We Begin To Cure Them.

I Had Often Heard Mentor Say, That The Voluptuous Were Never Brave, And I Now Found By Experience That It Was True; For The Cyprians Whose Jollity Had Been So Extravagant And Tumultuous, Now Sunk Under A Sense Of Their Danger And Wept Like Women. I Heard Nothing But The Screams Of Terror And The Wailings Of Hopeless Distress. Some Lamented The Loss Of Pleasures That Were Never To Return; But None Had Presence Of Mind Either To Undertake Or Direct The Navigation Of The Menaced Vessel.

Despondency Is Not A State Of Humility; On The Contrary, It Is The Vexation And Despair Of A Cowardly Pride--nothing Is Worse; Whether We Stumble Or Whether We Fall, We Must Only Think Of Rising Again And Going On In Our Course.