The Life and Correspondence of John Foster, Volume 1Wiley & Putnam, 1846 |
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animated appear Battersea beautiful believe benevolence Bourton Bristol Calvinistic cause character Chichester Christian circumstances considerable conversation dear friend death deemed degree divine divine grace Downend Edinburgh Review effect essay eternal express fancy feel felicity felt Foster Frome grand habits happy hear heart heaven hope hour human ideas images imagination improvement indolence infinite instance interest JOHN FAWCETT JOHN SHEPPARD JOSEPH HUGHES kind labor less letter live look manner MANT means melancholy mind months moral mortified musing nature never object observe PARKEN pass passion perhaps person pleasure preaching present principles probably racter reason recollect reflection regret religion remarks respect Review scene Scott Waring seems sentences sentiment sermon social society Socinian sometimes soul spirit square miles sublime suppose tell things thought tion tremely truth uncon vanity vast walk whole wish writing
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Page 33 - The wide, th' unbounded prospect, lies before me; But shadows, clouds, and darkness rest upon it. Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works), he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in, must be happy. But when ! or where ! — This world was made for Caesar.
Page 33 - And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer...
Page 241 - L'homme n'est qu'un roseau le plus faible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant. Il ne faut pas que l'univers entier s'arme pour l'écraser. Une vapeur, une goutte d'eau, suffit pour le tuer. Mais quand l'univers l'écraserait, l'homme serait encore plus noble que ce qui le tue, parce qu'il sait qu'il meurt; et l'avantage que l'univers a sur lui, l'univers n'en sait rien.
Page 86 - Acre, and living thus, always, would be indeed a prospect of overwhelming despair ! But thanks to that fatal decree that dooms us to die — thanks to that gospel which opens the vision of an endless life, and thanks, above all, to that Saviourfriend who has promised to conduct all the faithful through the sacred trance of death into scenes of paradise and everlasting delight...
Page 125 - Paid the debt of nature.' No ; it is not paying a debt, it is rather like bringing a note to a bank to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In this case you bring this cumbrous body, which is nothing worth, and which you could not wish to retain long ; you lay it down and receive for it, from the eternal treasures, liberty, victory, knowledge rapture.
Page 112 - ... the false, after you enjoy it. 301. Ego. There is a want of continuity in your social character. You seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in fragments. Ego. But how much better to shine whole, like a mirror ? 302. Infidels assume, in subjects which from their magnitude necesBarily stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can, or cannot be.
Page 9 - ... and third of his letters on the aversion of men of taste to Evangelical religion, from which one may conjecture similar unfortunate influences to have operated on Mr. Foster's mind early in life. After he had finished his course under Dr. Fawcett at Brearly Hall, he came under the tutorship of Mr. Hughes, the founder and Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in the Baptist Seminary at Bristol. Mr. Hughes's mental vigor was " of such a nature," to use the expression of Foster himself,...
Page 198 - Everything is education ; — the trains of thought you are indulging this hour ; the society in which you will spend the evening ; the conversations, walks, and incidents of to-morrow. And so it ought to be ; we may thank the world for its infinite means of impression and excitement, which keep our faculties awake and in action, while it is our important office to preside over that action, and guide it to some divine result.
Page 80 - ... teach. Events like those which you have beheld, open the inmost temple of solemn truth, and throw around the very blaze of revelation. In such a school, such a mind may make incalculable improvements. I consider a scene of death as, being to the interested parties who witness it, a kind of sacrament, inconceivably solemn, at which they are summoned by the voice of heaven, to pledge themselves in vows of irreversible decision. Here then, Caroline, as at the high altar of eternity, you have been...
Page 111 - I have been reading some of Milton's amazing descriptions of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit or traverse ; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. I almost wished for death ; and wondered with great admiration what that life, and what those strange regions really are, into which death will turn the spirit free...