It is like a hideous cancer whose ravages no remedies can stay.
It is as the venomous plant that the gardener can never entirely eradicate. Only by a miracle can hatred be destroyed. At once then let us place a barrier in our hearts against the approach of coolness or indifference, and each Saturday night the head of the family shall thus address us: "Children, to-night we forgive, to-night we forget, and to-morrow begin life afresh in love, one towards another."
II.
When I have sinned, wrote a pious soul, I feel chastisement will fall upon me, and as if I could hide myself from God's Eye. I shrink into myself, and then I pray, I pray, [pg 115] and the chastisement not being sent, I again expand.
Chastisement is like a stone threatening to crush me; Prayer is the hand that withholds it while I make atonement.
Oh! how can those live peacefully who never pray?