I was not at all shocked with this execution at the time. John died seemingly without much pain. He was effectually hanged, the ro...pe having fixed upon his neck very firmly, and he was allowed to hang near three quarters of an hour; so that any attempt to recover him would have been in vain. I comforted myself in thinking that by giving up the scheme I had avoided much anxiety and uneasiness.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access i...n one Spirit to the Father.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I wish most sincerely there was not a slave in this province. It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me--to fight ourselve...s for what we are daily robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Oh, the holiness of always being the injured party. The historically oppressed can find not only sanctity but safety in the state ...of victimization. When access to a better life has been denied often enough, and successfully enough, one can use the rejection as an excuse to cease all efforts. After all, one reckons, "they" don't want me, "they" accept their own mediocrity and refuse my best, "they" don't deserve me.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgro...wn, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to ...it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Fact is Our Lord knew all about the power of money: He gave capitalism a tiny niche in His scheme of things, He gave it a chance, ...He even provided a first instalment of funds. Can you beat that? It's so magnificent. God despises nothing. After all, if the deal had come off, Judas would probably have endowed sanatoriums, hospitals, public libraries or laboratories.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No doubt for the average man nationalism is no more than one of the faiths that live together in actual if illogical partnership i...n his heart and mind (illogical in the sense that some of these faiths, say Christianity and national patriotism, may have mutually incompatible ethical ideals). Yet it is hard to exaggerate the extent to which for many modern Western men the worship of the nation-state occupies a major part of their conscious relations with groups outside the family.... The ritual surrounding the flag, patriotic hymns, the reverent reading of patriotic texts, the glorification of national heroes (saints), the insistence on the nation's mission, the nation's basic consonance with the scheme of the universe--all of this is so familiar to most of us that unless we are internationalist crusaders in favor of a world-state or some other proposed means for securing universal peace we never even notice it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair,... Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness, In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »