John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801 – 1890)
English convert to Catholicism, later made a cardinal.
So living Nature, not dull Art,
Shall plan my ways and rule my heart.
After he had gone over the mansion, his entertainer asked him what he thought of the splendours it contained; and he in reply did full justice to the riches of its owner and the skill of its decorators, but he added, "Lions would have fared better, had lions been the artists."
Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
Liberal Education makes not the Christian, not the Catholic, but the gentleman. It is well to be a gentlemen, it is well to have a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind, a noble and courteous bearing in the conduct of life.
Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.
O my brethren, O kind and affectionate hearts, O loving friends, should you know any one whose lot it has been, by writing or by word of mouth, in some degree to help you thus to act; if he has ever told you what you knew about yourselves, or what you did not know; has read to you your wants or feelings, and comforted you by the very reading; has made you feel that there was a higher life than this daily one, and a brighter world than that you see; or encouraged you, or sobered you, or opened a way to the inquiring, or soothed the perplexed; if what he has said or done has ever made you take interest in him, and feel well inclined towards him; remember such a one in time to come, though you hear him not, and pray for him, that in all things he may know God's will, and at all times he may be ready to fulfil it.
At dinner we talked of Newman, whose Dream of Gerontius Gladstone puts very high, so high that he speaks of it in the same breath with the Divina Commedia. At length he asked, "Which of his writings will be read in a hundred years?" "Well," said Henry Smith, "certainly his hymn, 'Lead kindly Light,' and 'The Parting of Friends,' the sermon he preached before leaving Littlemore." "I go further," said Gladstone. "I think all his parochial sermons will be read."
Growth is the only evidence of life.
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.
Christian! hence learn to do thy part,
And leave the rest to Heaven.
Sin can read sin, but dimly scans high grace.
There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower;
Touch'd by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.
There is a knowledge which is desirable, though nothing come of it, as being of itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labor.
Firmly I believe and truly God is Three, and God is One;
And I next acknowledge duly Manhood taken by the Son.
Ex umbris et imaginibus in veritatem!
Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home—
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet: I do not ask to see
The distant scene,—one step enough for me.
Nothing would be done at all, if a man waited till he could do it so well, that no one could find fault with it.
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.