It requires far more of the constraining love of Christ to love our cousins and neighbors as members of the heavenly family, than to feel the heart warm to our suffering brethren in Tuscany or Madeira. To love the whole Church is one thing; to love—that is, to delight in the graces and veil the defects—of the person who misunderstood me and opposed my plans yesterday, whose peculiar infirmities grate on my most sensitive feelings, or whose natural faults are precisely those from which my natural character most revolts, is quite another.
ELIZABETH CHARLES.
April 13
In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us.—ROM. viii. 37.
Thus my soul before her God
Lieth still, nor speaketh more,
Conqueror thus o'er pain and wrong,
That once smote her to the core;
Like a silent ocean, bright
With her God's great praise and light.
J. J. WINCKLER.
My mind is forever closed against embarrassment and perplexity, against uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety; my heart against grief and desire. Calm and unmoved, I look down on all things, for I know that I cannot explain a single event, nor comprehend its connection with that which alone concerns me. In His world all things prosper; this satisfies me, and in this belief I stand fast as a rock. My breast is steeled against annoyance on account of personal offences and vexations, or exultation in personal merit; for my whole personality has disappeared in the contemplation of the purpose of my being.
J. G. FICHTE.
April 14
All thing are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's.—I COR. iii. 21, 22, 23.