“September 1.—­There are two ways in which the spirit may live itself out.  One is to leave all these conditions, purchase a spot of ground, and live according to its daily dictates.  The other is to make these conditions as harmonic as possible by giving the men” (workmen) “an associative interest in the accumulations of our associative labor.  Both extremes require renunciation of property and of self.  Love, universal love is the ruler, and only by it can the spirit find peace or be crowned with the highest happiness.”

“The mystery of man’s being, the unawakened capacities in him, we are not half aware of.  A few of the race, the prophets, sages, and poets, give us a glimpse of his high destiny.  Alas! that men should be on the borders of such mighty truths and stand as blind and dumb as lower animals before them!”

“Balaam sometimes, but ignorantly, utters true prophecies.  A remark I heard to-day leads me to say this.  Speaking of diet a man said:  ’Why, what do you intend?  At last you will have men to live on God.’  We must become God-like, or God-full.  Live as He lives, become one with Him.  Until we are reconciled with our Father we are aliens, prodigals.  Until we can say, My Father and I are one, we have not commenced to be.  We must fulfil what the Apostle said (and it means, perhaps, more than we commonly imagine):  ’In God we live and move and have our being.’”

“The deeper and more profound a truth is, the less proof can you give in its support.”

“September 8.—­On the evening of the 6th I went to see the French Opera Company in Auber’s ‘Black Domino.’  It did not please me as well as some music I have heard, though parts of it were very beautiful.  The hymns of the nuns were very sweet.  The thought occurred to me that if the Church does not provide religious gratifications for the true wants of humanity, she must be silent if men feed them profanely.  It is because the Church has not done her duty that there are so many secular societies for Reformation, Temperance, and so on.  The Church has provided for the salvation of the sinner’s soul by means of spiritual acts, such as prayer, penance, the Eucharist and other sacraments.  But now she must provide terrestrial sacraments for the salvation and transfiguration of the body.”

“We should strive constantly to actualize the ideal we perceive.  When we do realize all the beauty and holiness that we see, we are not called to deny ourselves, for then we are living as fully on all sides as we have capacity to do.  Are we not in this state?  Then, if we are sincere, we will give up lower and unnecessary gratifications for the sake of the ideal we have in view.

“I would die to prove my immortality.”

“At times we are called to rely on Providence, to be imprudent and reckless according to the wisdom of the world.  So I am willing to be thought.  Each of us has an individual character to act out, under the inspiration of God, and this is the highest and noblest we can do.  We are forms differing from one another, and if we are acting under the inspirations of the Highest, we are doing our uttermost; more the angels do not.  What tends to hinder us from realizing the ideal which our vision sees must be denied, be it self, wealth, opinion, or death.”