It is plain that there is one moral law for heaven and another for the earth. The pulpit assures us that wherever we see suffering and sorrow, which we can relieve and do not, we sin, heavily. There was never yet a case of suffering or sorrow which God could not relieve. Does He sin then?
It is the witness alone that can work without any desire, without any idea of going to heaven, without any idea of blame, without any idea of praise. The witness alone enjoys, and none else.
Heaven is eternal and Earth everlasting. They can be eternal and everlasting because they do not exist for themselves, And for this reason can exist forever.
For, rightly, every man is a channel through which heaven floweth, and, whilst I fancied I was criticising him, I was censuring orrather terminating my own soul.
Virtue, opening heaven to those who do not deserve to die, makes her course by paths untried.
[Lat., Virtus, recludens immeritis mori
Coelum, negata tentat iter via.]
The more a man denies himself, the more he shall receive from heaven. Naked, I seek the camp of those who covet nothing.
[Lat., Quanto quisque sibi plura negaverit,
A dis plura feret. Nil cupientium
Nudus castra peto.]