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Heaven and God are best discerned through tears scarcely perhaps are discerned at all without them. The constant association of prayer with the hour of bereavement and the scenes of death suffice to show this.

James Martineau

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James Martineau
Age: 94 †
Born: 1805
Born: April 21
Died: 1900
Died: January 11
Philosopher
Norwich
Norfolk
Prayer
Scarcely
Hours
Scenes
Heaven
Association
Show
Hour
Death
Constant
Shows
Tears
Discerned
Best
Scene
Suffice
Without
Perhaps
Bereavement

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There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility.
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I bow in reverence before the emotions of every melted heart....The more intense the delight in their presence, the more poignant the impression of their absence....When the tears of bereavement have had their natural flow, they lead us again to life and love's generous joy.
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If it is permitted to the enlightened but baffled Statesman, when deserted and fallen from his place, to appeal from the voices of the moment to the judgment of more impartial times, with what right can we call in question the loftier form of the same prophetic trust which looks to a present God rather than to future men?
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We should count time by heart-throbs.
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There is no room in the universe for the least contempt or pride but only for a gentle and a reverent heart.
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There is no surer mark of a low and unregenerate nature than this tendency of power to loudness and wantonness instead of quietness and reverence. To souls baptized in Christian nobleness the largest sphere of command is but a wider empire of obedience, calling them, not to escape from holy rule, but to its full impersonation.
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Nothing less than the majesty of God, and the powers of the world to come, can maintain the peace and sanctity of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of patience and tender mercy in our hearts. Then will even the merest drudgery of duty cease to humble us, when we transfigure it by the glory of our own spirit.
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It was in His parting sorrow--that Jesus asked His disciples to remember Him and never was entreaty of affection answered so for ever since has His name been breathed in morning and evening prayers that none can count, and has brought down some gift of sanctity and peace on the anguish of bereavement, and the remorse of sin.
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Grief is only the memory of widowed affection. The more intense the delight in the presence of the object, the more poignant must be the impression of the absence.
James Martineau
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The mere lapse of years is not life. To eat, to drink, and sleep to be exposed to darkness and the light to pace around in the mill of habit, and turn thought into an instrument of trade-this is not life. Knowledge, truth, love, beauty, goodness, faith, alone can give vitality to the mechanism of existence.
James Martineau
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The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom.
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Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.
James Martineau
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All beneficent and creative power gathers itself together in silence, ere it issues out in might.
James Martineau
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The heavens, with their everlasting faithfulness, look down on no sadder contradiction than the sluggard and the slattern in their prayers.
James Martineau
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High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service.
James Martineau
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Every man's highest, nameless though it be, is his 'living God'.
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The pinafore of the child will be more than a match for the frock of the bishop and the surplice of the priest.
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Grief is only the memory of widowed affections.
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God has so arranged the chronometry of our spirits, that there shall be thousands of silent moments between the striking hours.
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Human character is never found to enter into its glory, except through the ordeal of affliction. Its force cannot come forth without the offer of resistance, nor can the grandeur of its free will declare itself, except in the battle of fierce temptation.
James Martineau