"Blessedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... began to run from my eyes—but easily, with no pain of the world in them. They flowed like a gentle stream—into the heart of God, whose depths were open to my gaze. The blessedness of those tears was beyond words. It was all true then! That heart ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... doctrines and practices of Friends at more length than I ever remember to have done before; after which the glad tidings of the gospel flowed freely, and the people were invited to come to Christ and partake of the full blessedness of his teaching by the Holy Spirit. A precious solemnity prevailed, and the serious attention of the company was great. A good many soldiers, and some officers, were present; but the expression of our dissent from all wars and fightings had not ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... New York, and Trix is pining in single blessedness still. We are going to alter all that shortly though—for further particulars, apply to Trix. Are you going? good-by, for ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Van Arden, my old friend, Are we "lucky dogs," indeed? Are we all that we pretend In the jolly life we lead?— Bachelors, we must confess, Boast of "single blessedness" To the world, but not alone— Man's best sorrow ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... painful words which demanded of him a saintly humiliation; he knelt, without answering, before the cross he had carved on the rock and kissed it eagerly at the point where the tragic arms meet, as if to draw into himself from the furrow in the stone, the symbol of sacrifice, its love, its blessedness, its strength its life and then, rising, ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... grateful to them." Here Mirah had turned to Mrs. Meyrick, and with a sudden lighting up of her whole countenance, she said, "Oh, if we ever do meet and know each other as we are now, so that I could tell what would comfort her—I should be so full of blessedness my soul would know no want ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... grey. Her eyes ached from the fixedness of intense thought; the sweet broad brow was marble, the disorder of her hair spoke of self-abandonment in anguish. She had no thought of seeking rest; very far from her was sleep and the blessedness of oblivion. She felt as though sleep ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... with any thing less than the severest punishment, and being placed beyond the means of escape. It required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass, in case I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind. How ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... on which so many human souls are wrecked, and may your little barque, wafted by gentle sunny gales, be safely steered across the great ocean of life, and at last be securely moored in that haven where blessedness and ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... expected to meet so pure and sweet a gaze of reverential welcome as beamed on him from the soft, dark eyes of the little white-checked maiden who sat on the bed, holding the sufferer in her arms. Still less had he anticipated the serene blessedness that sat on the wasted features of the dying girl, and all ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... appropriate hymn; after which the pastor reviewed and explained the meaning of the different exercises of the evening, and what they were intended to teach about the origin and truth and blessedness of Christianity. A prayer was offered, and the services closed with that noble hymn, beginning "All hail the power of Jesus' name," sung to that noble old ...
— Gems Gathered in Haste - A New Year's Gift for Sunday Schools • Anonymous
... dear and good one. She was one whom single blessedness had soured to the world. She often used to say, that I was the only thing in it which she loved; and, when she thought I was quitting it, she grieved over me with mother's tears. A partiality quite so exclusive my reason cannot ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... respective parties, making him out younger than he was and her a great deal older. But neither he nor she ever knew what was said, and they would not have cared if they had, for both were supremely happy and thankful for the peace and blessedness which had crowned their later life. Fifty and even sixty is not so very old, at least to those who have reached it, and Hannah neither looked nor felt old when in her becoming traveling dress of seal brown she stood up in ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... This morning I again spent in calling on the brethren and sisters, being enabled, every where, before learned and unlearned, to testify about the blessedness of adhering to the Scriptures as our only guide in spiritual things. I left Halle this afternoon, having received much love from the brethren, and drove fifteen miles further, to a beloved brother and old friend, brother ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, First Part • George Mueller
... finally landed—so the cutting was bound to be strictly fair. It made much fun—the bride herself cut the first slice—hoping it might hold the picayune, and thus symbolize good fortune. The ring presaged the next bride or groom, the darning needle single blessedness to the end, the thimble, many to sew for, or feed, the button, fickleness or disappointment. After the bridal party had done cutting, other young folk tempted fate. Bride's cake was not for eating—instead, fragments of it, duly wrapped and put under the pillow, were thought to make whatever ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... always present to his mind, and he urges as the ground of all virtuous effort the Character and Example of Christ. But the notion of Atonement finds no place in his thought. The virtuous will attain to eternal blessedness, and the vicious will perish in their vices. The free pardon of confessed sin—access to happiness through a Divine Mediation—in a word, the Doctrine of the Cross—seems, as far as his recorded utterances go, to have been quite alien ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... special celebration of this day," said Theodore. "Let us consecrate these two boys anew to the beloved Giver of all our blessedness." ...
— Three People • Pansy
... after a sleep, which, although dreamless, yet left behind it a sense of past blessedness, I awoke in the full morning, I found, indeed, that the room was still my own; but that it looked abroad upon an unknown landscape of forest and hill and dale on the one side—and on the other, upon the marble court, with the great fountain, ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... of all the blessed is the Empyrean,—the first circle, counting from above; but there are degrees in blessedness, each spirit enjoying according to its capacity; no one is ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... to sound like one affectionately resigned, decently renouncing, not as though he felt this blessedness of relief, absolved from dread, mercifully ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... days Lily's new ally, Emily Dunstable, seemed to Lily to be so happy! There was in Emily a complete realisation of that idea of ante-nuptial blessedness, of which Lily had often thought so much. Whatever Emily did she did for Bernard; and, to give Captain Dale his due, he received all the sweets which were showered upon him with becoming signs ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... the water-drops rained from the leaves, With music-laughter as they found their home. And from the woods came blossom-fragrance, faint, Or full, like rising, falling harmonies; Luxuriance of life, which overflows In scents ethereal on the ocean air; Each breathing on the rest the blessedness Of its peculiar being, filled with good Till its cup runneth over with delight: They drank the mingled odours as they lay, The air in which the sensuous being breathes, Till summer-sleep fell ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... with the Joy and movement of living. Not as consummate bliss can the dweller on the lower plane presume to command that transcendent life. At the utmost he can but echo the revelation that came to the troubled mind in "Sartor Resartus," "A man may do without happiness, and instead thereof find blessedness." It is no sublimation of hope, but the necessities of thought that compel us to seek the condition of true being and immortality elsewhere than in the satisfactions of individualism. True personality can only subsist in consciousness ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... clothes and adornments are gathered together. His soul cried out within him: Teach the Spirit of God. "The soul who ascendeth to worship God is plain and true."... Teach the Spirit, break daily new ground of giving and devotion. Growth of Spirit—that is blessedness! That is the exalted end of all suffering in the flesh. The world is good; all is good. There is no evil, but the ignorant uses of self-consciousness. Man has fallen into dark ways that belong to the awful ascent from the dim innocence of ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... (De Lib. Arb. i, 6) that "the eternal law is that by which the wicked deserve misery, the good, a life of blessedness." But those who are already blessed, and those who are already lost, are not in the state of merit. Therefore they are ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... oration at New Haven, in which he declared that according to the doctrines of Jacobinism "the greatest villain in the community is the fittest person to make and execute the laws." "We have now," said he, "reached the consummation of democratic blessedness. We have a country governed by blockheads and knaves." Here was an opposition which, if persisted in, might menace the integrity of ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... remind ourselves, very briefly, that we, in our own day, may share the blessedness of the Roman soldier who relieved the sufferings of Christ. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these My brethren, ye have ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... Votaress was then passing. They and the Gilmores were still down at the forward edge of the texas roof, the players finding the Carthaginians very attractive: fluent on morals, cuisine, manners, steamboats, the turf, fashions, the chase; voluble on the burdensomeness of the slave to his master, the blessedness of the master to his slave; but sore to the touch on politics and religion—with their religion quite innocently adjusted to their politics—and promptly going hard aground on any allusion to history, travel, the poets, ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... a little society enjoying much comfort and happiness in each other, yet falling short of that preeminent duty and superior blessedness of glorifying, as they ought to have done, the God of heaven, who fed them by his bounty, and offered them a full and free salvation in the gospel of his Son. No enjoyments nor possessions, however ample and acceptable, can crown the soul with peace and true felicity, ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... Bankruptcy Court, but the Bohemia that is as unreal as Shakespeare's "desert country near the sea," the land of light purses and light loves, set against the spiritual blight that sometimes follows on pecuniary and connubial blessedness. For, after all, morality is larger than a single virtue, and Charles Surface is always more agreeable than Joseph or Tom Jones than Blifil, even when Joseph or Blifil is as proper as he pretends. And if Tom or Charles is a poet ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... stayed on at Haworth for the six years that followed his wife's death. When Mr. Bronte died he returned to Ireland. Some years later he married again—a cousin, Miss Bell by name. That second marriage has been one of unmixed blessedness. I found him in a home of supreme simplicity and charm, esteemed by all who knew him and idolised in his own household. It was not difficult to understand that Charlotte Bronte had loved him and had fought down parental opposition in his behalf. The qualities of gentleness, sincerity, unaffected ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... Now don't get fidgetty. I'm real satisfied to lie here and think of my blessedness and comfort. It's gratifying to recall all your possessions in the night. They say worries stand out clearest then, but with me it's the other way. My troubles just vanish and every living, breathing pleasantness comes to the fore. Now, you, for example, Levi. I was praising God about ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... boys can understand who have never been away from home until they have suddenly gone upon a long and comfortless journey, and who then begin to realize, as never before, all the loving care of their parents, the kindness of brothers and sisters, and the blessedness of the dear old nest from ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... feather. I saw what she tried to conceal—the flash of success on her face. But she presently extinguished it, and rose and left the room. I thought with myself that such an arrangement would be the very best thing for Adela; and that, if the blessedness of woman lies in any way in the possession of true manhood, she, let her position in society be what it might compared with his, and let her have all the earls in the kingdom for uncles, would be a fortunate woman indeed, to marry such a man as Harry Armstrong;—for ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 1 • George MacDonald
... the power to control my mind and heart, that I may not be a slave to habits that may keep me from eternal love and blessedness. May I have sympathy and compassion for others, and cherish thy tenderness and mercy as I hold it ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... born, how could we know the bliss of dying, or enjoy the sweetness of death? Death is the end of being—the one sweet hope and crown and glory of life, the one desire and hope of every living man. The blessing is denied to none. Rejoice with me, oh Atam-or! you will soon know its blessedness as well as I." ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. (2) He who thinks himself the more blessed because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... responded the other with tender cheerfulness, "you are not to agitate yourself or to excite me. I've lived half a year more now than the doctors allowed me, and I've enjoyed it too. Besides, think of the blessedness of not having any pain. Do you know, the night after Mrs. Crapps had that scene in the hotel, I was in a panic of terror lest my old agony should come back; but it didn't. Then I said to myself: 'Of course I couldn't ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... as their portion. We have, it may be, felt so much joy in living, we have been so pierced through and through in every nerve and every faculty of the mind with pure rapture during our pilgrimage, that we would fain let all dwellers on earth share the blessedness that we have known. It is not to be; the gospel of pity must needs claim some of its disciples wholly—and sorrow is their portion. Perhaps under all their sadness there lurks a joy that passes all known to slighter souls—I hope so; I hope that they cannot be permitted to endure ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... means so well trained, taught or practiced in it; whence Helen had the unspeakable delight, one which only a humble, large and lofty mind can ever have, of consciously ministering to the growth of another in the very thing wherein that other is naturally the superior. The way to the blessedness that is in music, as to all other blessednesses, lies through weary labors, and the master must suffer with the disciple; Helen took Juliet like a child, set her to scales and exercises, and made ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... little disappointment. The books made it all so commonplace. They say it has a loud call like "kee-o"; but they do not say that it has a bugle note that can stir your very soul if you love the wild things, and voices more than any other thing on wings the glory of flight, the blessedness of being alive. ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... self-dependent, and the only Being who is such; moreover, that He is without beginning or Eternal, and the only Eternal; that in consequence He has lived a whole eternity by Himself; and hence that He is all-sufficient, sufficient for his own blessedness, and all-blessed, and ever-blessed. Further, I mean a Being who, having these prerogatives, has the Supreme Good, or rather is the Supreme Good, or has all the attributes of good in infinite intenseness; all wisdom, ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... mythology, and from doctrines of Divine government which outrage morality and set cruelty and injustice in the place of holiness. If we have to abandon cherished anthropomorphic visions of future Blessedness, the details of which are either of unseizable dimness or of questionable joy, we are at least delivered from quibbling discussions of the meaning of [Greek: aionios], and our eternal hope is unclouded by the doubt whether mankind is to be tortured ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... pretty nearly as much as St. Paul, have forgiven all my enemies all round, and shaken hands with the Marquis by proxy, while Puddleham has been man enough to maintain the dignity of his indignation. The truth is, that the possession of a grievance is the one state of human blessedness. As long as the chapel was there, malgre moi, I could revel in my wrong. It turns out now that I can send poor Puddleham adrift to-morrow, and he immediately becomes the hero of the hour. I wish your ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... almost an impossible world, I sometimes think. Froggy, I know you can be sentimental when you try. What should you do if you fell in love with a total stranger without ever knowing his name? Should you have the fidelity to live in single blessedness all your life for ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... itself the more he ascends upwards to it; the more he follows it, the further off it appears, by reason of its high excellence, according as it is said: Accedit homo ad cor altum, et exaltabitur Deus. Such blessedness of affection begins in this life, and in this state it has its mode of being. Hence the heart can say that it is within with the body, and without with the sun, in so far as the soul with its twin faculty, puts into operation two functions: the one to vivify and realize the animal body, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... blessedness of her attitude to Harding Powell. It was passionless, impersonal. She wanted nothing of Harding Powell except to help him, and to help Milly, dear little Milly. And never before had she been given so complete, so overwhelming ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... to till the fields. Ah! need I say, dear Friend! that to the brim My heart was full; I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness, which yet survives. Strange rendezvous! My mind was at that time A parti-colored show of grave and gay, Solid and light, short-sighted and profound; Of inconsiderate habits and sedate, Consorting in one mansion unreproved. The worth I knew of powers that I possessed, Though ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 7 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 12, 1850 • Various
... me to believe," said Kilcullen, with a gentle laugh, "that you are contented to live and die in single blessedness at Grey Abbey?—that your ambition does not soar higher than the interchange of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... and conceited reflections of Raphael Ben Ezra. That is why, in all Kingsley's novels, he is perpetually exciting himself in defence of marriage and the family life, as if any monkish ideas about the blessedness of bachelorhood were ever likely to drive the great Anglo- Saxon race into convents and monasteries. That is the very last thing we have to be afraid of; but Kingsley was afraid of it, and was eternally attacking everything Popish ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... of any change!" she said entreatingly. "You have been so good to me. Be good to me still. Let me stay here, as I am, in this heaven of rest and peace. Mrs. Murray will keep me. She is not tired of me. She loves to have me, and it is my one idea of blessedness and comfort and rest." ...
— A Beautiful Alien • Julia Magruder
... blessedness theirs, who like knights of renown Thus scatter such largesse o'er country and town, Their monument building in many a dome Like healthful and beautiful ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... to the result. There was no forecasting this strange girl's processes. She might awaken, it was true; and on the other hand, and with equal chance, he might be the wrong man for her, and his declaration of love might only more firmly set her in her views on single blessedness. ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... blessed reality to the Christian without his forfeiting, in the least, the dignity of self-identity and the glory of separate personal consciousness. To have the "life hid with Christ in God"; to be able triumphantly to exclaim—"I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me"; to experience the blessedness and power of abiding in Christ and to realize the answer to Christ's own prayer to the Father—"that they also may be in us"—all this is the joy and hope of the Christian in a manner and to a degree utterly impossible to the Hindu whose union with the supreme spirit is the loss and end of ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... celibates. Now, a celibate, one of the bachelor persuasion, is a person who considers himself or herself good enough company in this life, and chooses single blessedness in preference to the not unmixed joys of wedlock. This alone is sufficient to make one a celibate, and nothing more is required. Religious do not wed; but, specifically, that is all there is in common between them. All celibates are not chaste; celibacy is not necessarily ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... pregnant in the body only, betake themselves to women and beget children—this is the character of their love; their offspring, as they hope, will preserve their memory and giving them the blessedness and immortality which they desire in the future. But souls which are pregnant—for there certainly are men who are more creative in their souls than in their bodies—conceive that which is proper for the soul to conceive or contain. And what are these conceptions?—wisdom ...
— Symposium • Plato
... creation that it became plain that a partnership on these terms was out of the question, and Wordsworth withdrew altogether. If we must look for spiritual sustenence in the poem, we shall find it perhaps not so much in any definite warning against cruelty to creatures, as in the sentiment of the blessedness of human companionship and the omnipresence of God's mercy; in the ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Dom Felice instructs Fra Puccio how to attain blessedness by doing a penance. Fra Puccio does the penance, and meanwhile Dom Felice has a good time ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... lived a maiden sister, the Lady Julia. Bernard Dale's father had, in early life, run away with one sister, but no suitor had been fortunate enough to induce the Lady Julia to run with him. Therefore she still lived, in maiden blessedness, as mistress of Guestwick Manor; and as such had no mean opinion of the high position which destiny had called upon her to fill. She was a tedious, dull, virtuous old woman, who gave herself infinite credit for having remained all her days in the home of her youth, probably forgetting, in her present ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... his origin an angel; that is to say, a pure spirit, full of perfections, created by the Divinity to occupy a distinguishing situation in the celestial court, destined, like the other ministers of the Eternal, to receive his orders, and to enjoy perpetual blessedness. But he lost himself through ambition; his pride blinded him, and he dared to revolt against his Creator; he engaged other spirits, as pure as himself, in the same senseless enterprise; in consequence of his rashness, he was hurled ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... for Winter! If far from the days All the lilies have gone from the violet ways, There is joy that will dance o'er the meadows and sing, Where the carols of plenty their blessedness bring. ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... OF BLESSEDNESS; wherein Not one dim cloud hath crossed thy soul; No sigh of grief, no touch of sin, No frail mortality's control; Nor once hath disappointment stung, Nor care, world-weary, made thee pine; But rapture, such as human tongue Hath found ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... is this blessed Babe That hath made All the world so full of joy And expectation; That glorious Boy That crowns each nation With a triumphant wreath of blessedness? ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... object contemplated, independently of any faith, or hope that might be entertained as to their ulterior tendency. In this way, the true aesthetic culture would be realisable as a new form of the contemplative life, founding its claim on the intrinsic "blessedness" of "vision"—the vision of perfect men and things. One's human nature, indeed, would fain reckon on an assured and endless future, pleasing itself with the dream of a final home, to be attained at some still remote date, yet with a conscious, delightful home-coming ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... school-sermons is coming. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." The speaker speaks of the blessedness and glory of boyhood; the splendid inheritance of a Public School built on Christian lines; the unequalled opportunities of learning while the faculties are still fresh and the mind is still receptive; the worthlessness of all ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... H—t—d, where I also had an invitation. Lord Vincent meditated an excursion to Paris. Mr. Davison had already departed. Miss Trafford had been gone, God knows how long, and I was not at all disposed to be left, like "the last rose of summer," in single blessedness at Garrett Park. Vincent, Wormwood, and myself, all agreed to ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the believer is ushered into the beauties and blessedness of the beatic state. There is, therefore, nothing to be dreaded by the approach of the last enemy. For, says the prophet, He "will swallow up death in victory: and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... nothing else and nothing less than the divine nature itself; it is the divine nature incarnate, incorporate, and made manifest in man. And it is, therefore, immortal with the immortality of God, and blessed for ever with the blessedness of God. ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... all of them (for we proved in Part i., Prop. xvi., that an infinite number must follow in an infinite number of ways), but only those which are able to lead us, as it were by the hand, to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness. ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... Christian morality, that it might often seem as if he thought the very contemplation of so much excellence were a sufficient incentive to it. His constantly implied argument is, that if men, gifted with common reason, can be persuaded to think what goodness is, its blessedness alike in this world and the next, and on the other hand the present and future consequences of sin, surely reason itself will teach them to be wise. He is never the mere moralist. His Christian faith is ever present to his mind, raising and purifying his standard of what is ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... appetites: or for taking them again from us having had them; forgetting that humble and just acknowledgment of Job, "the Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken." To the first of which St. Paul hath promised blessedness; to the second, death. And out of doubt he is either a fool, or ungrateful to God, or both, that doth not acknowledge, how mean soever his estate be, that the same is yet far greater than that which God oweth him: or doth not acknowledge, how ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... unhealthy atmosphere such households as Vocco's are most notable. And that you, who seem by nature fitted for just such blessedness as has befallen Flexinna, should have been robbed of it by a strange series of peculiar circumstances wins for you our interest and our solicitude. Still more are our hearts drawn towards you by your unwavering fidelity, alike to your present duties and all that they imply and to that love which ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... the right thing to do," and put all the poetry of a nature exquisitely fine into her efforts to diffuse around her purity and peace and happiness. Her constant, utterly unselfish endeavors to this end contributed in ample measure to the blessedness of a delightful home, rich in the virtues, charities and graces which make home blessed. Veiled by her modest and retiring disposition, to few beyond the circle of her home were known the beauty and beneficence of her noiseless life; but those ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... Nay, Bacchus even to crime hath prompted, he The wine-infuriate Centaurs quelled with death, Rhoetus and Pholus, and with mighty bowl Hylaeus threatening high the Lapithae. Oh! all too happy tillers of the soil, Could they but know their blessedness, for whom Far from the clash of arms all-equal earth Pours from the ground herself their easy fare! What though no lofty palace portal-proud From all its chambers vomits forth a tide Of morning courtiers, nor agape they gaze On pillars with fair tortoise-shell inwrought, Gold-purfled robes, and bronze ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... name shall we call this beautiful twilight, this night of the soul, so starry with heavenly mysteries? Not happiness,—but blessedness. They who have it walk among men "as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing,—as poor, yet making many rich,—as having nothing, and yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... it and returning, angels flying between it and the earth, thunderbolts hurled down from it, mighty winds issuing from its corners, voices speaking from the upper floor to men on the lower, temporary openings of the floor of heaven to reveal the blessedness of the good, "signs and wonders" hung out from it to warn the wicked, interventions of every kind—from the heathen gods coming down on every sort of errand, and Jehovah coming down to walk in Eden in the cool of the day, to St. ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... wild dreams, in which my soul delighted, I was sometimes tempted to rise up a prophet, preach salvation to the poor, and confound the wise. Persecution I must expect, but in that I should glory: it was the badge of blessedness, the mark of election, the signing of the covenant. Elevated to these celestial heights, with what contempt did I look down on the doctors, proctors, and preachers of Baal (for such were all the unenlightened) and on their dignities, paraphernalia, and many ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... danger of pickpockets. Though, as the ferry sidled along the land, passed an English liner, and came close enough to the shore so that she could see the people who actually lived in the state of blessedness called New York, Una suddenly hugged her mother and cried, "Oh, little mother, we're going to live here and do ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... duties, at realising that most elementary thought which, like a great many other elementary thoughts, is impotent because we believe it so utterly, that wherever we are, we may have Him with us. It is the secret of blessedness, of tranquillity, of power, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... conversation, Carleton was at peace. He would find his work and ask no other blessedness. But how to find it, and to win his place as a recognized writer on the field was a question. Within our generation, the world has learned the value of the war correspondent. He has won the spurs of the knighthood of civilization. He wears in life the ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... broke as oceanic surf on the shores of my soul. The panoramic spheres finally melted in a sea of bliss. I lost myself in ever-surging blessedness. When I returned hours later to awareness of this world, the master gave me the ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... this new perception of blessedness, that he would fain have left the gay company, that he might pour out the beautiful thought that possessed him, to gladden the heart of Rosa; and when he looked his wish to her, she smiled, and whispered to him, "Eternity is ours, and we are not to live for ourselves ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... Materialism!—Scarce a line of division could be drawn between men and the brute beasts of the field! I consider,—though possibly I am only one among many of widely differing opinion,—that if you take the hope of an after-joy and blessedness away from the weary, perpetually toiling Million, you destroy at one wanton blow their best, purest, and noblest aspirations. As for the Christian Religion, I cannot believe that so grand and holy a Symbol is perishing among us,—we have a monarch whose title is 'Defender of the Faith,'—we ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... confess (if I may speak so much) like a Nazianzen, I am so desirous of a share in them, that if, being thrown overboard, were needful to allay the Storm, I should think Dying, a Trifle to be undergone, for so great a Blessedness. ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... that great blessedness You first reap'd of me: till you taught my nature Like a rude storm to talk aloud, and thunder, Sleep was not gentler than my soul, and stiller; You had the Spring of my affections: And my fair fruits I gave you leave to taste of: You must expect: the winter of mine anger: ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... land in ease and joyance and delight. I—their only child—had nor care nor trouble about any matter until one day of the days, when in the prime of manhood, I was a minded to take unto me a wife, a woman winsome and comely to look upon, that we might live together in mutual love and double blessedness. But Allah Almighty willed not that a model helpmate become mine; nay, Destiny wedded me to grief and the direst misery. I married a maid who in outward form and features was a model of beauty and loveliness without, however, one single gracious gift of mind or soul; and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... turn reveals a cascade or a castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories; whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint sayings and the nice little anecdotes which ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... chose rather to serve self: and thereby inscribed her name on one of the blackest pages of England's history, and handed down her memory to eternal execration. For "life is to do the will of God"—the true blessedness and glory of life here, no less than the ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... shall all created things help thee if thou be forsaken by the Creator? Therefore put all things else away, and give thyself to the Creator, to be well pleasing and faithful to Him, that thou mayest be able to attain true blessedness. ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... while up in Smith's Hotel, parents, friends and admirers, as the news spread, were standing four deep along the bar. They sold forty dollars' worth of lager alone that night, and Mr. Smith learned, if he had not already suspected it, the blessedness ...
— Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town • Stephen Leacock
... greatest lyrical poet in the ranks of the Phosphorists. His verses are wonderfully melodious and full of charm, in spite of the fact that his tendency to the mystical at times makes him obscure. Among the best of his productions are a cycle of lyrics entitled 'The Flowers'; 'The Isle of Blessedness,' a romantic drama of great beauty, published in 1823; and a fragment of a fairy drama, 'The Blue Bird.' He introduced the sonnet into Swedish poetry, and did a great service to the national literature by ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... lover-like attitude if you want to retain her. He also argued brightly in defence of his proposal to sell his own daughter to any man for a fiver; let fall a platitude or two in praise of the lot of the undeserving poor; and (having come in for a fortune) found that charity had lost its blessedness—that the touch of nature which makes the whole world kin was only admirable when you did the "touching" yourself. Not bad for a dustman, but ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 22, 1914 • Various
... through the glass darkly, you may not know or understand the blessedness of faith in Him as He would have you know it, but there is nothing that can dim the light that radiates from that birth in the rude cave back of the inn. Ah, it pierces through the darkness of that shrouding night. It shines to-day. Still sparkles the Star ...
— A Little Book for Christmas • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... peculiar miracles, which do not belong to all. This forged imagination we account of as having come from their sickly brain. Again, they believe that they shall be made righteous and holy by their own works, and that because of them God will give them salvation and eternal blessedness. ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... and more than praise And thankfulness, for some things done; And blessedness, and length of days As long as earth shall last, or sun! You first among the peoples spoke Sharp words and angry questionings Which burst the bonds and shed the yoke That made your men ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... qualifies her, and the paramount claims of undeniable duty shall permit. What returns shall she make? Her country asks but one. Fresh zeal in self-tuition and in training those subject to her charge, for domestic fidelity, for true citizenship, and for immortal virtue and blessedness. ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... He came one heart to bless (It is His cradle still), And evermore her blessedness Is theirs who do His will; A Child He trod the Temple-floor, By Mary Mother led; By children's voices evermore His ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... dreams of horror, comes again The welcome morning with its rays of peace. Oblivion, softly wiping out the stain, Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease: Remorse is virtue's root; its fair increase Are fruits of innocence and blessedness: Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release His young limbs from the chains that round him press. Weep not that the world changes—did it keep A stable, changeless state, 'twere cause ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... evermore." (Ps. xvi. 11.) While this company, brought out of great tribulation, to which they had been subjected in the centuries before the time of Constantine, are represented as in possession of eternal blessedness, the other company of the "sealed" ones, are by this mark furnished with the gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit, to enter the lists with the Dragon in a much more trying and prolonged contest. The latter company, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... continual use to this day. Whenever he addresses an audience, he dwells with great zest on his misdeeds before his pseudo conversion, with the effect of throwing into stronger relief his present state of blessedness; and he tells the story of that conversion over and over again, ending with exhortations to the hearers to come and be saved, and threats of the wrath that will overtake them if they refuse. At any revival meeting today the same thing may be heard, followed by the same conversions. ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... couldn't meet a bad man if you travelled the world over. Sure there's some that carry such an air of blessedness with them that every one they meet must, for very shame, show the best of his character. With me it's different, for it seems that where there's contention I am in the middle of it, though, God knows, I'm a man of peace, as my ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... crowned the end. The labours, the sorrows, the fiery trials were behind the back for ever, the faults and failures were forgiven or atoned for; after the stress of toil, the weariness of struggle, came the blessedness of rest; after humanity, divinity and the imperishable glory of high Olympus. Crude in its art, angular in its execution, there still was something of the soul of the worker stitched with the canvas. To Stephen La Mothe, touched at times by a poet's ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... life is real, earnest, Single blessedness a fib, Taken from man, to man returnest, Has ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... have worn trains and picturesque headdresses instead of shirtwaists and sports hats, and I should have called some man 'my Lord,' and have listened for his footsteps instead of ending my days in single blessedness with a type-writer as my ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... much consolation, being persuaded that God had preserved her for that hour. I am convinced that she has a very short time to live, but I trust, in the mercy of God, that in the other life she will obtain eternal blessedness through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gained it for her with His precious blood. From Cauayan I went to a little hamlet called Cotai, where I baptized eighty-three persons. From that place ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson
... 4: Samuel had not yet attained to the state of blessedness. Wherefore although by God's will the soul itself of Samuel foretold to Saul the issue of the war as revealed to him by God, this pertains to the nature of prophecy. It is not the same with the saints who are now in heaven. Nor does it make any difference that this is stated ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... can picture her joy,— So perfect, so thankful, so free from annoy, As her lips press the lotus-bound chalice, and drain That exquisite blessedness born out of pain! Oh! not in her maidenhood, blushing and sweet, When Douglass first poured out his love at her feet; And not when a shrinking and beautiful bride, With worshipping fondness she clung ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... Catherine clothed in waterproof from head to foot, walking beside him, the rays flashing now on her face, now on the wooded sides of the lane, while the wind howled through the dark vault of branches overhead. And then, as they talked or were silent, suddenly a sense of the intense blessedness of this comradeship of theirs would rise like a flood in the man's heart, and he would fling his free arm round her, forcing her to stand a moment in the January night and storm while he said to her words of passionate gratitude, of faith in an immortal union ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... rapidly passing away; old superstitions, old prejudices, and old notions are now bidding farewell to their old associates and companions, and giving way to one whose wings are plumed with the light of heaven and tinged by the dews of the morning. There is a remnant of blessedness that clings to her in spite of all evil influence, there is enough of the Divine Master left to accomplish the noblest work ever achieved under the canopy of the vaulted skies; and that time is fast approaching, when the picture of the true woman will shine from its frame of glory, to captivate, ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... nightmares, and many wakeful people come down late for breakfast in the morning. Upon that theory the cynic may explain the whole affair—exhilaration, nightmares, pomp of tongue and all. But, on the other hand, the peculiar blessedness of boyhood may itself be but a symptom of the same complaint, for the two effects are strangely similar; and the frame of mind of the invalid upon the Alps is a sort of intermittent youth, with periods of lassitude. The fountain of Juventus does not ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... think that the nobility of England are weak, vicious, unfeeling, proud, and self-indulgent. Some of the noblest characters of England are to be found in the peerage—men who "fear God and work righteousness." Their homes are often centres of diffusive blessedness; and were the nobility of England what too many here suppose them, the state could not last a twelvemonth. The queen is popular, and is clearly a woman of great tact. She would do at a crisis. Prince Albert is everything to her. He is a profoundly wise and prudent man, highly ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... sight from what she saw when she looked out in Addison square! If heaven be as different from this earth, and as much better than it, we shall be happy children—except indeed we be but fit to stand in a corner, with our backs to the blessedness. On each side she saw green, undulating lawn, with trees and meadows beyond; but just in front the ground sloped rapidly, still in grass, grew steep, and fell into the swift river—which, swollen almost to unwieldiness, went rolling and sliding brown and heavy towards the far off ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... immortal thoughts and loves and life, finds itself the ghastly prisoner of that which is inevitably decaying; but its immortality postpones the decent and appropriate end to an eternal mockery and doom. At last, in the tremendous close, it wakens to the unspeakable blessedness of not being satisfied with anything that earth can give, and so proves itself adequate for its own inheritance of immortality. In Thompson's poem the soul is never allowed, even in dream, to rest in lower things until satiety brings disillusion. The higher destiny is swift at her heels; ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... people, taking for the first time since his childhood a holiday on a work-day, seemed to comprehend the first notes of that great harmony of life which proves by the laws of sequence the last. The premonition of some final blessedness, to survive all renunciation and sacrifice, was upon him. He felt raised above the earth with happiness. Jerome seemed like another person to his companions. The wine of youth and certainty of joy stirred all the light within him to brilliancy. He had naturally a quicker, readier tongue ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... own blind and predestined enemy, has poured this of blessedness upon Spain—that the enormity of the outrages of which she has been the victim has created an object of love and of hatred, of apprehensions and of wishes, adequate (if that be possible) to the utmost demands of the human spirit. The heart ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... especially as having an immediate intercourse with God, such as the closest intimacies of earth dimly shadow forth;—when this thought of my future being comes to me, whilst I hope, I also fear; the blessedness seems too great; the consciousness of present weakness and unworthiness is almost too strong for hope. But when, in this frame of mind, I look round on the creation, and see there the marks of an omnipotent goodness, to which nothing is impossible, and from ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... an Aunt Peggy—an Aunt Patty—an Aunt Penelope, or an aunt something else; but every body hasn't had an Aunt POLLY—i. e. such an Aunt Polly as mine! Most Aunt Pollies have been the exemplars and promulgators of "single blessedness"—not such was she! But more of this anon. Aunt Polly was the only sister of my father, who often spoke of her affectionately; but would end his remark with "poor Polly! so nervous—so unlike her self-possessed and beautiful mother"—whose memory he devoutly ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... full of learning." But a short time after he was removed to Eton, and presently raised to the Provostship. Among many beautiful and pious customs, the memory of the dead was carefully preserved among the Eton scholars, and their verses on All Souls' Day were on the blessedness of those who die in the Lord. But Wayneflete is, of course, chiefly identified with Magdalen College, Oxford, said to be "the finest collegiate building in England," and of which he was the founder. ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... part of the mission has been one of blessedness and promise. And in this, as in everything else, I have aimed to teach self-development. In connection with the gathering of the people in religious meetings, I proposed to commence Sabbath and week-day schools, ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... indicated, the long and the short of the matter is that Thackeray created a lot of villains, and has therefore been called a cynic by those who don't even know what the word means, or that there is a literary blessedness in the making of villains to bring out the more excellent virtues of ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... deeper into it. Yesterday is as much our past as the bygone century, and sheltering in it from an uncongenial present, we are lost to our morrow. Thus things slid gently back with him into their old grooves. An era of blessedness had vanished, but was not lost; it was added to his life, gathered up into his being; it was dissolved into his consciousness, and interpenetrated his activity. Where there is no ground of regret, or shame, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... as men can understand. And the one reason is this: no one doubts, neither Philosopher, nor Gentile, nor Jew, nor Christian, nor any one of any sect, that they are either the whole or the greater part full of all Blessedness, and that those blessed ones are in a most perfect state. Therefore, since that which is here Human Nature may have not only one Beatitude, but two Beatitudes, as that of the Civil Life and that of the Contemplative, ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... world, I do not know, I cannot understand. But this I understand: that He has one world into which He will not let sin enter. He has notified us in advance that no sin, nothing that defiles, can enter Heaven, can mar the blessedness of that holy place. "Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully" We must get rid of sin to get into Heaven, ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... of the night; Higher yet that star ascends: Traveler! blessedness and light, Peace and truth, its course portends. Watchman! will its beams alone Gild the spot that gave them birth? Traveler! ages are its own, And it bursts o'er all ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." Endowed as they were with knowledge, it was a sin against the greatest light; surrounded as they were with motives, it was a sin against the greatest means; warned as they were of danger and promised eternal blessedness, it was a sin against the greatest reason; and placed as they were at the head of a numerous posterity, and in a sense the depositories and trustees of their happiness, it was a sin against the greatest ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... have been my Lord's. It seemed to me that He had come Himself—come from His cross—to raise two souls from the depths of Hell. Marie went into a convent, and died in peace and blessedness; I came home here, to do my duty if I could—and save my soul. That seems to you a mere selfish bargain with God—an 'egotism'—that you hate. But look at the root of it. Is the world under sin—and has a God died for it? All my nature—my intellect, my heart, my will, answer 'Yes.' But if ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... gracious and comforting even to her. Hundreds of years ago ignorant shepherds sat watching their flocks all the long starlight night, and then the song of the angels, the great promise, the new era, the blessedness for the whole world that each might ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... fond, Feast still my eyes and heart on thee, Asking no blessedness beyond Thy face from morn till night to see, Ensorcelled past all remedy; Even as those foolish bees am I, Though well I know my destiny— To taste ...
— A Jongleur Strayed - Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane • Richard Le Gallienne
... by day ere you take your flight into the world, night by night when you return from its soiling contacts, bathe your drooping plumes in this refreshing fountain. Let prayer sweeten prosperity and hallow adversity. Seek to know the unutterable blessedness of habitual filial nearness to your Father in heaven—in childlike confidence unbosoming to Him those heart-sorrows with which no earthly friend can sympathise, and with which a stranger cannot intermeddle. No trouble is too trifling to confide to His ear—no ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... teaches us, more than ever, the value of faith, and the glory of religion. That flat negation only makes the rejected truth more positive. The specimen of what existence is without God in the world, causes us to yearn more earnestly for the shelter of His presence, and the blessedness of His control. From the dark perspective of the skeptic's sensual view, the bleak annihilation that bounds all his hopes, we turn more gladly to the auroral promise of immortality, to the consolations ...
— The Crown of Thorns - A Token for the Sorrowing • E. H. Chapin
... glory of loving some one more than oneself! And oh, the blessedness of toiling together for something greater and more important than either! That is what makes it possible for the other thing to endure—not merely for a few mad, glad years, followed by drab duty and dull regret, but for a happy ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... case one, except that the young lady in question—now not so very young—is still living in single blessedness, and the chances of her ever being a wife or even somebody's sweetheart are rapidly vanishing. I might add that her fiance whom she discarded because of his lack of virginity was a very bright young physician, who is now very successful ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... another feature of Hebrew poetry; not only is there striking parallelism, but here past tenses are used to describe future events; the results of the coming of the Messiah are stated as though already achieved. In contrast with the blessedness of those that fear the Lord, "the proud," the rebellious, and unbelieving are pictured as "scattered" like the hosts of a defeated army; the oppressed are exalted while tyrants are dethroned; the hungry are filled and the rich are sent away "empty." These ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... do not think that, generally, this is actually credited. I think that, with many professions of religion, and much outward respect for it, and an extensive circulation of vague conceptions about it, it is not commonly felt and vitalized—it is not apprehended in its blessedness and power, and absolute excellence. To the habits of the soul it does not represent and mean realities as a written contract does, or a bank-bill—something that men precipitate themselves upon, and that sways the under-currents ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... Editor, I am what is called a lone woman. Shakspeare, through whose recklessness originate half the commonplaces of our land's language, thought proper to define such a condition as "SINGLE BLESSEDNESS"—though he aptly enough engrafts it on a thorn! For my part, I cannot enough admire the theory of certain modern poets, that an angel is an ethereal being, composed by the interunion in heaven, of two ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... rose from his knees 'rejoicing with a joy unspeakable, and full of glory;' and went down stairs to tell his fellow-servants, that he had found the pearl of great price, and how easy it was to believe: wishing them to share in the blessedness he felt. He added, 'O praise the Lord, O my soul!' 'My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth In God my Saviour!'—After meeting my class in the city, I started home, not intending to visit ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... imprisoned without being accused of other crimes. The former, on the contrary, were confined as homicides and wretches, thus suffering a double punishment. The one sort found repose in the honorable joys of martyrdom, in the hope of promised blessedness, in the love of Christ, and in the spirit of God the Father; the other were a prey to the reproaches of conscience. It was easy to distinguish the one from the other by their looks. The one walked joyously, bearing on their faces a majesty mingled with sweetness, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... sometimes disturbing to the authorities, to raise the standard of conduct and feeling among his pupils. When he became a parish priest, his preaching took a singularly practical and plain-spoken character. The first sermon of the series, a typical sermon, "Holiness necessary for future Blessedness," a sermon which has made many readers grave when they laid it down, was written in 1826, before he came to St. Mary's; and as he began he continued. No sermons, except those which his great opposite, Dr. Arnold, was preaching at Rugby, had appealed to conscience with such ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... dominant intellectual force and had become what it is today, a folk belief." In the "Tractus Theologico-Politicus," Spinoza states: "When people declare, as all are ready to do, that the Bible is the Word of God teaching men true blessedness and the way of salvation, they evidently do not mean what they say, for the masses take no pains at all to live according to Scripture, and we see most people endeavoring to hawk about their own commentaries ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... to hunt her down if she is strong enough to help herself—all this was gone by forever. She was afraid of nothing any more. She did not need to defend herself again. She had been taken out of all her misery, and placed in the safe shelter of a good man's love. What had she done to deserve such blessedness? What could she do to show her recognition of the same? She could only weep, poor child! and feel like a child, whom the Great Father has ceased to punish—forgiven, and taken ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... sample of such that I have in my audience now, as a rule believe as fully as we do the truths which they agree to neglect. Let me speak to them individually. You believe that death will introduce you into a world of two halves—that if you have been a good, religious man, you will dwell in blessedness; that if you have not, you will not—yet you never did a single thing, nor refrained from a single thing, because of that belief. And when I, and men of my profession, come and plead with you and try to get through that strange web of insensibility that you have spun round you, you listen, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... prodigal's misery are not exhibited in the light: fully exposed, they might have been shocking rather than impressive. Every height has its opposite and corresponding depth: as eye has not seen nor ear heard in all its fulness the blessedness that God hath prepared for them that love him; so neither can our faculties measure the miseries of sin, in their foretastes here and their fulness hereafter. How the prodigal fared under that veil, as his misery day by day increased to its climax, we know not; but at length he ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... sentences are rich in blessing, and the first section of the discourse is devoted to an explanation of what constitutes genuine blessedness; the lesson, moreover, was made simple and unambiguous by specific application, each of the blessed being assured of recompense and reward in the enjoyment of conditions directly opposite to those ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... her on her bed of suffering, says, "In some of my last visits to her, her expression of firm and loving reliance upon the Lord, whose support she had been wont to seek in the time of health, as well as in that of suffering, was a sweet testimony to the blessedness of having made him her portion. She told me how comforted she had been under great bodily weakness, when she felt unable definitely to put up her petitions, in the lively remembrance that she had a never- failing Advocate with the Father, touched with a feeling of ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... the enraptured soul to be astonished at the marvelous gain for so small a loss. The perfect love of Jesus now flows from his heart into the one which has yielded its all to him. The undivided affections now feel the blessedness of perfect unity with him—married indeed to him who ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... probably was the conception of Spinoza. Christ for him is the wisdom of God manifested in all things, and chiefly in the mind of man. Through him we reach the blessedness of an intuitive knowledge of God. Salvation is an escape from the "inadequate" ideas of the mortal human personality to the "adequate" ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... and she remembered Wilhelmina, and thought of the happiness of little Hilda Maginnis and her mother. Was it nothing that God had endowed her with this beneficent power? How could she shrink from the blessedness of dispensing the divine mercy? Her imagination took flame at the vision of a life of usefulness and devotion ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... for they do not, any more than their opposites, — but because they produce an image and echo of it in us aesthetically. We believe those things to be happy which it makes us happy to think of or to see; the belief in the blessedness of the supreme being itself has no other foundation. Our joy in the thought of omniscience makes us attribute joy to the possession of it, which it would in fact perhaps be very far ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... pray for. That silver-haired, wrinkled old man was the only father she had ever known; he had cradled her in his sinewy arms, and slept clasping her to his heart; had taught her to walk, and surrounded her with his warm, pitying love, making a home of peace and blessedness for her young life. Giving him, in return, the whole wealth of her affection, he had become the centre of all her hopes, joys and aspirations; now what remained? Bitter, rebellious feelings hardened ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... the evil and the unthankful. But I was thinking of the blessedness of those who have the daily and hourly sense of God's presence with them and His fatherly care over them. In time of trouble, and at all times, indeed, it is sweet to know that we have His word and promise for all that we ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... the little house," she admitted; "but I suppose what I like is the blessedness of its being here, in my own country and my own town; and then, of being alone in it." She spoke so low that he hardly heard the last phrase; but in his awkwardness he took ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... brightness of the heavens and dim the joy of the blest! Long, long before then, your and my remembrance, Faith, will have perished from the earth. You will be then a seraph, and I—. If there be ever an interval of pain, it will be when I think of your blessedness, and you, if angels sometimes weep, will drop a tear to the memory of your father, and it shall ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams |
