The Opal, Volume 3

Front Cover
State Lunatic Asylum, 1858

From inside the book

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 136 - ... not that I speak in respect of want; for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound ; every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
Page 136 - Not that I speak in respect of want : for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound ; every where and in all things I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need ; I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Page 136 - I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Page 135 - For since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss ; he that composes his spirit to the present accident hath variety of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble him because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune: and a wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes...
Page 136 - But, however, all these gifts come from Him, and therefore it is fit He should dispense them as He pleases ; and if we murmur here, we may at the next melancholy be troubled that God did not make us to be angels or stars. For, if that which we are or have do not content us, we may be troubled for every thing in the world which is besides our being or our possessions.
Page 136 - We are in the world like men playing at tables ; the chance is not in our power, but to play it is ; and when it is fallen we must manage it as we can; and let nothing trouble us but when we do a base action, or speak like a fool, or think wickedly : these things God hath put into our powers; but concerning those things which are wholly in the choice of another, they cannot fall under our deliberation, and therefore neither are they fit for our passions.
Page 133 - ... to a fanciful view, To weep for the buds it had left with regret, On the flourishing bush where it grew. I hastily seized it, unfit as it was For a nosegay, so dripping and drown'd, And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! I snapp'd it, it fell to the ground. And such...
Page 142 - THE PRACTICAL CHRISTIAN; Or, the Devout Penitent ; a Book of Devotion, containing the Whole Duty of a Christian in all Occasions and Necessities, fitted to the main use of a holy Life. By R. Sherlock, D D. With a Life of the Author, by the Right Rev. Bishop Wilson, Author of " Sacra Privata,
Page 135 - VIRTUES and discourses are, like friends, necessary in all fortunes ; but those are the best, which are friends in our sadnesses, and support us in our sorrows and sad accidents ; and in this sense, no man that is virtuous can be friendless ; nor hath any man reason to complain of the divine providence, or accuse the public disorder of things, or his own infelicity, since God hath appointed one remedy for all the evils in the world, and that is a contented spirit...
Page 136 - ... they sit down in peace and rejoice in the event ; and when the angel of Judea could not prevail in behalf of the people committed to his charge, because the angel of Persia opposed it, he only told the story at the command of God, and was as content, and worshipped with as great an ecstacy in his proportion, as the prevailing spirit.

Bibliographic information