The Story Books of Little Gidding: Being the Religious Dialogues Recited in the Great Room, 1631-2, from the Original Manuscript of Nicholas Ferrar

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E.P. Dutton & Company, 1899 - Christian life - 291 pages
 

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Page 117 - God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life; but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath: tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil...
Page 92 - E'en such is man ; — who lives by breath, Is here, now there, in life and death. The grass withers, the tale is ended, The bird is flown, the dew's ascended, The hour is short, the span not long, The swan's near death, — man's life is done...
Page 93 - twixt flood and ebb, Or like the spider's tender web, Or like a race, or like a goal, Or like the dealing of a dole Even such is man, whose brittle state Is always subject unto fate. The arrow's shot, the flood soon spent, The time no time, the web soon rent, The race...
Page xlii - And if ever women merited the title of the devout sex, these gentlewomen won it by their carriage and deserved to wear it; though to come to many particulars would so oppress the modesty of some yet alive, that such instances of their devotion are not yet to be made public.
Page xxvi - God and their kind uncle, they were sure not to want customers, which every year cost them a good round sum. None of them were nice of dressing with their own hands poor people's wounds, were they never so offensive ; but as for prescribing physic, their uncle understood it well himself, yet he never practised it, and he forbade them to tamper or meddle with it. And together with helps for the body, the virgins were expert and ready to administer good counsels, prayers, and comforts to their patients,...
Page xiv - ... Lord. If I go before, you must come shortly after : think it is but a little forbearance of me. It was God that gave me to you, and if He take me from you, be you not only content, but most joyful, that I am delivered from this vale of misery and wretchedness. I know that through the infinite mercy...
Page xvii - In the morning he went up into a neighbour mountain, where abundance of wild thyme and rosemary grew ; there with a book or two and with his God, Whom he met in the closest walks of his mind, having spent the day in reading, meditation and prayer, he came down in the evening to an early supper (his only set meal) of oil and fish. He omitted not his offices and exercises of devotion morning and evening and at midnight in his travels, for to serve and please his Maker was the travail of his soul.
Page xxii - ... from Bourne, that they all might live and serve God together at this their new purchase.
Page xiii - ... and folly in this, that through the common hope of youth have set death far from me : and persuading myself that I had a long way to run, have more carelessly walked than I should. The Good Lord be merciful unto me. " Indeed, I have a long way to run, if death stood still at the end of threescore years : but God knows if he be not coming against me, if he be not ready to grasp me, especially considering the many dangers wherein I am now to hazard myself, in every one of which death dwells, and...

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