Trust

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (1) There was the faith of Moses’ parents. The story of their action is told in Exodus 2:1–10. Exodus 1:15–22 tells how the king of Egypt, in his hatred, tried to wipe out the male children of the Israelites by having them killed at birth. Legend tells how Amram and Jochebed, the parents of Moses (Exodus 6:20), were worried by the decree of Pharaoh. As a result, Amram had no contact with his wife, not because he did not love her, but because he wanted to spare her the sorrow of seeing her children killed. For three years they were apart, and then Miriam prophesied: ‘My parents shall have another son, who shall deliver Israel out of the hands of the Egyptians.’ She said to her father: ‘What have you done? You have sent your wife away out of your house, because you could not trust the Lord God that he would protect the child that might be born to you.’ So Amram, shamed into trusting God, took back his wife; and in due course Moses was born. He was so lovely a child that his parents determined to hide him in their house. This they did for three months. Then, according to the legend, the Egyptians struck upon a cruel scheme. The king was determined that hidden children should be sought out and killed. Now, when a child hears another child cry, the first child will cry too. So, Egyptian mothers were sent into the homes of the Israelites with their babies; there they pricked their babies until they cried. This made the hidden children of the Israelites cry, too, and so they were discovered and killed. In view of this, Amram and Jochebed decided to make a little ark and to entrust their child to it on the waters of the Nile. That Moses was born at all was an act of faith; that he was preserved was another. He began by being the child of faith.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  (c) It makes God able to help. He knows our problems because he has come through them. The best person to give you advice and help on a journey is someone who has already travelled that way. God can help because he knows it all. Jesus is the perfect high priest because he is perfectly God, and perfectly one with us. Because he has known our life, he can give us sympathy, mercy and power. He brought God to men and women, and he can bring them to God. AT HOME WITH THE WORLD AND WITH GODHebrews 5:1–10 Every high priest who is chosen from among men is appointed on men’s behalf to deal with the things which concern God. His task is to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins, in that he himself is able to feel gently to the ignorant and to the wandering because he himself wears the garment of human weakness. By reason of this very weakness it is incumbent upon him, just as he makes sacrifice for the people, so to make sacrifice for sins on his own behalf also. No one takes this honourable position to himself, but he is called by God to it, just as Aaron was. So it was not Christ who gave himself the glory of becoming high priest; but it was God who said to him: ‘You are my beloved Son; today I have begotten you.’ Just so, he says also in another passage: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.’ In the days when he lived this human life of ours, he offered prayers and entreaties to him who was able to bring him safely through death with strong crying and with tears. And when he had been heard because of his reverence, although he was a Son, he learned obedience from the sufferings through which he passed. When he had been made fully fit for his appointed task, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him, for he had been designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. NOW, Hebrews comes to work out the doctrine which is its special contribution to Christian thought – the doctrine of the high priesthood of Jesus Christ. This passage sets out three essential qualifications of the priest in any age and in any generation.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  There was one danger which the writer to the Hebrews wished at all costs to avoid. The doctrine of angels is a lovely thing; but it has one danger. It introduces a series of beings other than Jesus through whom men and women make their approach to God. In Christianity, there is no need for anyone else in between. Because of Jesus and what he did, we have direct access to God. As Tennyson in ‘The Higher Pantheism’ had it : Speak to him thou for he hears, and Spirit with spirit can meet – Closer is he than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet. The writer to the Hebrews lays down the great truth that we need neither human nor supernatural beings to bring us into the presence of God. Jesus Christ has broken every barrier down and opened a direct way for us to God. THE SALVATION WE DARE NOT NEGLECT Hebrews 2:1–4 We must, therefore, with very special intensity pay attention to the things that we have heard. For, if the word which was spoken through the medium of the angels proved itself to be certified as valid, and if every transgression and disobedience of it received its just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, a salvation of such a kind that it had its origin in the words of the Lord, and was then guaranteed to us by those who had heard it from his lips, while God himself added his own witness to it by signs and wonders and manifold deeds of power, and by giving us each a share of the Holy Spirit, according as he willed it? T HE writer is arguing from the less to the greater. He has in his mind two revelations. One was the revelation of the law which came by the medium of the angels , that is to say, the Ten Commandments. Now, any breach of that law was followed by strict and just punishment. The other was the revelation which came through the medium of Jesus Christ, the Son . Because it came in and through the Son, it was infinitely greater than the revelation of God’s truth brought by the angels; and therefore any transgression of it must be followed by a far more terrible punishment. If people cannot ignore the revelation which came through the angels , how much less can they ignore the revelation which came through the Son ? In the first verse, there may be an even more vivid picture than there is in the translation which we have used. The two key words are prosechein and pararrein . We have taken prosechein to mean to pay attention to , which is one of its most common meanings.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  That is what religion was to the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews. His mind was dominated with that idea. He found in Christ the one person who could take him into the very presence of God. His whole idea of religion is summed up in the great passage in Hebrews 10:19–22: Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh) … let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith. If the writer to the Hebrews had one text, it was: ‘ Let us draw near. ’ The Double Background The writer to the Hebrews had a double background, and this idea fitted into both sides. He had a Greek background. Ever since the time of Plato, 500 years before, the Greeks had been occupied in their thinking by the contrast between the real and the unreal, the seen and the unseen, things that exist in time and things that are eternal. It was the Greek idea that somewhere there was a real world of which this was only a shadowy and imperfect copy. Plato had the idea that somewhere there was a world of perfect forms or ideas or patterns , of which everything in this world was an imperfect copy. To take a simple instance, somewhere there was laid up the pattern of a perfect chair of which all the chairs in this world were inadequate copies. Plato said: ‘The Creator of the world had designed and carried out his work according to an unchangeable and eternal pattern of which the world is only a copy.’ The Jewish thinker Philo, who took his ideas from Plato, said: ‘God knew from the beginning that a fair copy could never come into being apart from a fair pattern; and that none of the objects perceivable by sense could be flawless which was not modelled after an archetype and spiritual idea, and thus, when he prepared to create this visible world, he shaped beforehand the ideal world in order to constitute the corporeal after the incorporeal and godlike pattern.’ When the Roman statesman Cicero was talking of the laws that people know and use on earth, he said: ‘We have no real and life-like likeness of real law and genuine justice; all we enjoy is a shadow and a sketch.’ The thinkers of the ancient world all had this idea that somewhere there is a real world of which this one is only a kind of imperfect copy. Here, we can only guess and feel our way; here, we can work only with copies and imperfect things. But, in the unseen world, there are the real and perfect things.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  God revealed to him that it was to be modelled on a bird’s belly and was to be constructed of teak wood. Noah planted a teak tree, and in twenty years it grew to such a size that out of it he was able to build the entire ark. Another story tells that, after he had been forewarned by God, Noah made a bell of plane wood, about five feet high, and that he sounded it every day – morning, noon and evening. When he was asked why, he answered: ‘To warn you that God will send a deluge to destroy you all.’ Another story tells that, when Noah was building the ark, the people laughed at him and thought that he was mad. But he said to them: ‘Though you mock me now, the time will come when I shall do the same to you; for you will learn to your cost who it is that punishes the wicked in this world and reserves for them a further punishment in the world to come.’ Even more than Abel and Enoch, Noah stands out as a man of faith. (1) Noah took God at his word . He believed the message which God sent him. God’s message might have appeared to be foolishness at the time; but Noah believed it and staked everything on it. Obviously, if he was going to accept that word of God, he had to lay aside his normal activities and concentrate on doing what that message commanded. Noah’s life was one continued and concentrated preparation for what God had said would come. The choice comes to each one of us either to listen to or to disregard the message of God. We may live as if that message is of no importance or as if it is the most important thing in the world. To put it another way: Noah was the man who heeded the warning of God; and, because he heeded, he was saved from disaster. God’s warning comes to us in many ways. It may come from conscience; it may come from some direct word of God to our souls; it may come from the advice or the rebuke of some good and godly person; it may leap out at us from the pages of the Bible or challenge us in some sermon. Wherever it comes from, we neglect it at our peril. (2) Noah was not deterred by the mockery of others . When the sun was shining, his conduct must have looked like that of a fool. Who in their right mind would build a great hulk of a ship on dry land far from the sea? Those who take God’s word may often have to adopt a course of action which looks like madness. We have only to think of the early days of the Church. One man meets a friend.

• From The Letter to the Hebrews (The New Daily Study Bible) (2002)

  In Numbers 12:7–8, we read of God’s verdict on him when there were those who were ready to rebel against him: ‘with him I speak face to face’. To put it simply: the secret of his faith was that Moses knew God personally. To every task, he came out from God’s presence. It is told that, before a great battle, Napoleon would stand in his tent alone; he would send for his commanders to come to him, one by one; when they came in, he would say no word but would look them in the eye and shake them by the hand; and they would go out prepared to die for the general whom they loved. That is like Moses and God. Moses had the faith he had because he knew God in the way he did. When we come to it straight from God’s presence, no task can ever defeat us. Our failure and our fear are so often due to the fact that we try to do things alone. The secret of victorious living is to face God before we face the world. THE FAITH WHICH DEFIED THE FACTS Hebrews 11:30–1 It was by faith that the walls of Jericho fell down after they had been encircled for seven days. It was by faith that Rahab, the harlot, did not perish with the disobedient because she had welcomed the scouts in peace. T HE writer to the Hebrews has been citing as examples of faith the great figures of the time before Israel entered into the promised land. Now he takes two figures from the period of struggle when the children of Israel were winning a place for themselves within Palestine. (1) The first is the story of the fall of Jericho. That strange old story is told in Joshua 6:1–20. Jericho was a strong fortified city with all gates barricaded. To take it seemed impossible. It was God’s commandment that, once a day for six days, and in silence, the people should march round it, led by seven priests marching in front of the ark and bearing trumpets of rams’ horn. On the seventh day, the priests were to blow upon the trumpets, after the city had been encircled seven times, and the people were to shout with all their might, ‘and the wall of the city will fall down flat’. As the old story tells it, so it happened.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  And now Stephen was to see yet another side of this strange and unexpected creature. With infinite courtesy and tact he went out of his way to make himself charming. Never by so much as a word or a look did he once allow it to be inferred that his quick mind had seized on the situation. Brockett’s manner suggested an innocence that he was very far from possessing. Stephen began to study him with interest; they two had not met since before the war. He had thickened, his figure was more robust, there was muscle and flesh on his wide, straight shoulders. And she thought that his face had certainly aged; little bags were showing under his eyes, and rather deep lines at the sides of his mouth—the war had left its mark upon Brockett. Only his hands remained unchanged; those white and soft skinned hands of a woman. He was saying: ‘So you two were in the same Unit. That was a great stroke of luck for Stephen; I mean she’d be feeling horribly lonely now that old Puddle’s gone back to England. Stephen’s distinguished herself I see—Croix de Guerre and a very becoming scar. Don’t protest, my dear Stephen, you know it’s becoming. All that happened to me was a badly sprained ankle;’ he laughed, ‘fancy going out to Mesopotamia to slip on a bit of orange peel! I might have done better than that here in Paris. By the way, I’m in my own flat again now; I hope you’ll bring Miss Llewellyn to luncheon.’ He did not stay embarrassingly late, nor did he leave suggestively early; he got up to go at just the right moment. But when Mary went out of the room to call Pierre, he quite suddenly put his arm through Stephen’s. ‘Good luck, my dear, you deserve it;’ he murmured, and his sharp grey eyes had grown almost gentle: ‘I hope you’ll be very, very happy.’ Stephen quietly disengaged her arm with a look of surprise: ‘Happy? Thank you, Brockett,’ she smiled, as she lighted a cigarette.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  These creeds, though they too have been controversial from time to time, have functioned for over a millennium and a half as a sign and symbol of Christian faith and life. Where you find this belief, Christians have said, you find the church, the body of Christ, the company of “true believers.” The creeds were dramatic developments within the early church. They stand to this day as a remarkable achievement of brevity, dense clarity, and evocative spiritual power. In the tradition to which I belong, we say the Apostles’ Creed twice a day and the Nicene Creed at every Eucharist or at least on Sundays. And yet. The one thing the creeds do not do—to return to the point I made a minute ago—is to mention anything that Jesus did or said between his birth and his death. Early Christians read and studied the gospels and tried to live by them. Their allegiance to them is not in doubt. But they saw no need to mention the central substance of the gospels in the creeds as well. This has had a massive, and I believe completely unintended, consequence. It is, in fact, one major part of the reason why Christians to this day find it so hard to grasp what the gospels are really trying to say. Take the second article of the short fourth-century statement of faith we know as the Apostles’ Creed : I believe…in Jesus Christ, God’s only son, our Lord; Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of the Virgin Mary; Suffered under Pontius Pilate; Was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into hell; On the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty; From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead. So much detail, and yet nothing at all about what Jesus did in between being conceived and born, on the one hand, and being crucified under Pontius Pilate, on the other. Why not? If the aim were to summarize the key focal points of Christian faith, did that imply that that faith didn’t really need, shall we say, Matthew 3–26? Would chapters 1–2 (Jesus’s birth) and 27–28 (his death and resurrection) have done just as well? Was Matthew, and were Mark, Luke, and John for that matter, wasting time telling us all that stuff in the middle? Were they just giving us the “backstory” to satisfy any lingering curiosity the church might have about the earlier life of the one Christians now worshipped as Lord? This problem, as we began to notice in the previous section, resurfaced in twentieth-century scholarship in the form of the question scholars associate with Rudolf Bultmann in particular (though with many antecedents and many followers): Why should the church, worshipping the living Lord, be bothered by the history of what he had done in the past?

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  John Tauler, called doctor illuminatus, was born in Strassburg about 1300, and died there, 1361. Referring to his father’s circumstances, he once said, "If, as my father’s son, I had once known what I know now, I would have lived from my paternal inheritance instead of resorting to alms."467 Probably as early as 1315, he entered the Dominican order. Sometime before 1330, he went to Cologne to take the usual three-years’ course of study. That he proceeded from there to Paris for further study is a statement not borne out by the evidence. He, however, made a visit in the French capital at one period of his career. Nor is there sufficient proof that he received the title doctor or master, although he is usually called Dr. John Tauler. He was in his native city again when it lay under the interdict fulminated against it in 1329, during the struggle between John XXII. and Lewis the Bavarian. The Dominicans offered defiance, continuing to say masses till 1339, when they were expelled for three years by the city council. We next find Tauler at Basel, where he came into close contact with the Friends of God, and their leader, Henry of Nördlingen. After laboring as priest in Bavaria, Henry went to the Swiss city, where he was much sought after as a preacher by the clergy and laymen, men and women. In 1357, Tauler was in Cologne, but Strassburg was the chief seat of his activity. Among his friends were Christina Ebner, abbess of a convent near Nürnberg, and Margaret Ebner, a nun of the Bavarian convent of Medingen, women who were mystics and recipients of visions.468 Tauler died in the guest-chamber of a nunnery in Strassburg, of which his sister was an inmate. Tauler’s reputation in his own day rested upon his power as a preacher, and it is probable that his sermons have been more widely read in the Protestant Church than those of other mediaeval preachers. The reason for this popularity is the belief that the preacher was controlled by an evangelical spirit which brought him into close affinity with the views of the Reformers. His sermons, which were delivered in German, are plain statements of truth easily understood, and containing little that is allegorical or fanciful. They attempt no display of learning or speculative ingenuity. When Tauler quotes from Augustine, Gregory the Great, Dionysius, Anselm or Thomas Aquinas, as he sometimes does, though not as frequently as Eckart, he does it in an incidental way. His power lay in his familiarity with the Scriptures, his knowledge of the human heart, his simple style and his own evident sincerity.469 He was a practical every-day preachers intent on reaching men in their various avocations and trials.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Luther returned thanks, and declared that his only aim was to bring about a reformation of the Church through the Scriptures, and that he was ready to suffer all for the Emperor and the empire, provided only he was permitted to confess and teach the word of God. This was his last word to the imperial commissioners. With a shake of hands they took leave of each other, never to meet again in this world. It is to the credit of Charles, that in spite of contrary counsel, even that of his former teacher and confessor, Cardinal Hadrian, who wished him to deliver Luther to the Pope for just punishment, he respected the eternal principle of truth and honor more than the infamous maxim that no faith should be kept with heretics. He refused to follow the example of his predecessor, Sigismund, who violated the promise of safe-conduct given to Hus, and ordered his execution at the stake after his condemnation by the Council of Constance.390 The protection of Luther is the only service which Charles rendered to the Reformation, and the best thing, in a moral point of view, he ever did.391 Unfortunately, he diminished his merit by his subsequent regret at Yuste.392 He had no other chance to crush the heretic. When he came to Wittenberg in 1547, Luther was in his grave, and the Reformation too deeply rooted to be overthrown by a short-lived victory over a few Protestant princes. It is interesting to learn Aleander’s speculations about Luther’s intentions immediately after his departure. He reported to Rome, April 29, 1521, that the heretic would seek refuge with the Hussites in Bohemia, and do four "beastly things" (cose bestiali): 1, write lying Acta Wormaciensia, to incite the people to insurrection; 2, abolish the confessional; 3, deny the real presence in the sacrament; 4, deny the divinity of Christ.393 Luther did none of these things except the second, and this only in part. To prevent his entering Bohemia, Rome made provision to have him seized on the way. § 58. The Ban of the Empire. May 8 (26), 1521. After Luther’s departure (April 26), his enemies had full possession of the ground. Frederick of Saxony wrote, May 4: "Martin’s cause is in a bad state: he will be persecuted; not only Annas and Caiaphas, but also Pilate and Herod, are against him." Aleander reported to Rome, May 5, that Luther had by his bad habits, his obstinacy, and his "beastly" speeches against Councils, alienated the people, but that still many adhered to him from love of disobedience to the Pope, and desire to seize the church property. The Emperor commissioned Aleander to draw up a Latin edict against Luther.394 It was completed and dated May 8 (but not signed till May 26). On the same day the Emperor concluded an alliance with the Pope against France. They pledged themselves "to have the same friends and the same enemies," and to aid each other in attack and defense.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the words of Christ "are spirit and are life." A book written by his own unerring hand, unless protected by a perpetual miracle, would have been subject to the same changes and corruptions in the hands of fallible transcribers and printers as the books of his disciples, and the original autograph would have perished with the brittle papyrus. Nor would it have escaped the unmerciful assaults of sceptical and infidel critics, and misinterpretations of commentators and preachers. He himself was crucified by the hierarchy of his own people, whom he came to save. What better fate could have awaited his book? Of course, it would have risen from the dead, in spite of the doubts and conjectures and falsehoods of unbelieving men; but the same is true of the writings of the apostles, though thousands of copies have been burned by heathens and false Christians. Thomas might put his hand into the wound-prints of his risen Lord; but "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed." We must believe in the Holy Spirit who lives and moves in the Church and is the invisible power behind the written and printed word. The form in which the authentic records of Christianity have come down to us, with their variations and difficulties, is a constant stimulus to study and research and calls into exercise all the intellectual and moral faculties of men. Every one must strive after the best understanding of the truth with a faithful use of his opportunities and privileges, which are multiplying with every generation. The New Testament is a revelation of spiritual and eternal truth to faith, and faith is the work of the Holy Spirit, though rooted in the deepest wants and aspirations of man. It has to fight its way through an unbelieving world, and the conflict waxes hotter and hotter as the victory comes nearer. For the last half century the apostolic writings have been passing through the purgatory of the most scorching criticism to which a book can be subjected. The opposition is itself a powerful testimony to their vitality and importance. There are two kinds of scepticism: one represented by Thomas, honest, earnest, seeking and at last finding the truth; the other represented by Sadducees and Pontius Pilate, superficial, worldly, frivolous, indifferent to truth and ending in despair. With the latter "even the gods reason in vain." When it takes the trouble to assail the Bible, it deals in sneers and ridicule which admit of no serious answer. The roots of infidelity he in the heart and will rather than in the reason and intellect, and wilful opposition to the truth is deaf to any argument. But honest, truth-loving scepticism always deserves regard and sympathy and demands a patient investigation of the real or imaginary difficulties which are involved in the problem of the origin of Christianity.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  Yet so it was, for during that evening Stephen met Martin and Martin met Stephen, and their meeting was great with portent for them both, though neither of them could know it. It all happened quite simply as such things will happen. It was Roger who introduced Martin Hallam; it was Stephen who explained that she danced very badly; it was Martin who suggested that they sit out their dances. Then—how quickly it occurs if the thing is pre-destined—they suddenly knew that they liked each other, that some chord had been struck to a pleasant vibration; and this being so they sat out many dances, and they talked for quite a long while that evening. Martin lived in British Columbia, it seemed, where he owned several farms and a number of orchards. He had gone out there after the death of his mother, for six months, but had stayed on for love of the country. And now he was having a holiday in England—that was how he had got to know young Roger Antrim, they had met up in London and Roger had asked him to come down for a week, and so here he was—but it felt almost strange to be back again in England. Then he talked of the vastness of that new country that was yet so old; of its snow-capped mountains, of its canyons and gorges, of its deep, princely rivers, of its lakes, above all of its mighty forests. And when Martin spoke of those mighty forests, his voice changed, it became almost reverential; for this young man loved trees with a primitive instinct, with a strange and inexplicable devotion. Because he liked Stephen he could talk of his trees, and because she liked him she could listen while he talked, feeling that she too would love his great forests. His face was very young, clean-shaver and bony; he had bony, brown hands with spatulate fingers; for the rest, he was tall with a loosely knit figure, and he slouched a little when he walked, from much riding. But his face had a charming quality about it, especially when he talked of his trees; it glowed, it seemed to be inwardly kindled, and it asked for a real and heart-felt understanding of the patience and the beauty and the goodness of trees—it was eager for your understanding.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Here are counsels to read the Scriptures, statements about the uses of adversity and advice for submission to authority, warnings against temptations, reflections upon death, the judgment and paradise. Here are meditations on Christ’s oblation on the cross and the advantages of the communion, and also admonitions to flee the vanities and emptiness of the world and to love God, for he that loveth, knoweth God. Christ is more than all the wisdom of the schools. He lifts up the mind in a moment of time to perceive more reasons for eternal truth than a student might learn over books in ten years. He teaches without confusion of words, without the clashing of opinions, without the pride of reputation,—sine fastu honoris,—the contention of arguments. The concluding words are: "My eyes are unto Thee. My God, in Thee do I put my trust, O Thou Father of mercies. Accompany thy servant with Thy grace and direct him by the path of peace to the land of unending light—patriam perpetuae claritatis."

• From A History of Christianity (1976)

  In his long negotiations with the Inquisition and the papacy, however, Loyola revealed himself as an astute operator and organizer – as his successor put it, ‘a man of great good sense and prudence in matters of business’. He insisted on an exceptionally long training for his men during which the principle of total obedience was absorbed. As Alfonso Rodriguez put it, the great consolation of the Jesuit – the equivalent of the Calvinist certainty of ‘election’ – is ‘the assurance we have that in obeying we can commit no fault. . . you are certain you commit no fault as long as you obey, because God will only ask you if you have duly performed what orders you have received, and if you can give a clear account in that respect, you are absolved entirely. . . . God wipes it out of your account and charges it to the superior.’ To illustrate the effectiveness of Jesuit discipline, Juan Polanco tells of the mortally ill novice who asked the Novice-Master for permission to die, ‘something which caused great edification’. Paradoxically, this insistence on total subordination of the will did not deter the able; from the start, Loyola recruited men of unusual ability, mainly from the higher classes. The creation of this remarkable human instrument gave the Tridentine papacy an opportunity to reinforce its educational policy. The only order which had hitherto specialized in ordinary education were the Flemish Brethren of the Common Life. The Jesuits were adept at training themselves. Why should they not train others in the faith? The alliance between the papacy and the Jesuits was consolidated during the first session of the Council of Trent, and the new order was given almost unlimited freedom to expand throughout Europe (and in the overseas Spanish and Portuguese missions) as propagandists and educators. By Loyola’s death in 1556 they had over 1,000 members and 100 establishments. What in fact they did was to provide an educational service on demand. If a Catholic prince or prince-bishop wanted an orthodox school, college or university established and conducted efficiently, he applied to the Jesuits; he supplied the funds and buildings, they the trained personnel and techniques. They were, in effect, rather like a modern multi-national company selling expert services. And they brought to the business of international schooling a uniformity, discipline and organization that was quite new. The Jesuits had originally intended to work among the poor and sick. In fact, the success of their educational mission cast their lot among the rich and the mighty: they became the specialists in upper-class schooling. Largely by chance, then, the Counter-Reformation forged itself a mighty instrument.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  This faith breathes through all his writings, dominated his acts, sustained him in his conflicts and remained his shield and anchor till the hour of death. This faith was born in the convent at Erfurt, called into public action at Wittenberg, and made him a Reformer of the Church.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  On seeing that he was a merchant, who was probably carrying a certain amount of money with him, these men resolved to rob him at the earliest opportunity. But in order not to arouse his suspicions, they assumed an air of simplicity and respectability, restricting their conversation to the subject of loyalty and other polite topics, and went out of their way to appear humble and obliging towards him. He consequently thought himself very fortunate to have met them, for he was travelling alone except for a single servant on horseback. As they went along, with the conversation passing as usual from one thing to another, they got on to the subject of the prayers that people address to God, and one of the bandits turned to Rinaldo and said: ‘What about you, sir? What prayer do you generally say when you are travelling?’ ‘To tell the truth,’ Rinaldo replied, ‘in matters of this kind I am rather simple and down-to-earth. I am one of the old-fashioned sort who likes to call a spade a spade, and I don’t know many prayers. All the same, when I am travelling it is my custom never to leave the inn of a morning without reciting an Our Father and a Hail Mary for the souls of Saint Julian’s father and mother, after which I pray to God and the Saint to give me a good lodging for the night to come. On many a day, in the course of my travels, I have met with great dangers, only to survive them all and find myself at nightfall in a safe place and a comfortable lodging. Now I firmly believe this favour to have been obtained for me from God by Saint Julian, in whose honour I recite my prayer; and if on any morning I neglected to say it, I would feel I could do nothing right the whole day, and would come to some harm before the evening.’ ‘Did you say it this morning?’ said the man who had asked him the question. ‘I did indeed,’ replied Rinaldo. The man, who by this time knew what was going to happen, said to himself: ‘A fat lot of good it will do you, for I reckon you are going to have a poor night’s lodging if all goes according to plan.’ Then he turned to Rinaldo and said: ‘I too have travelled a great deal, and although I have heard many people speak highly of this Saint, I have never prayed to him myself. Nevertheless, I have always managed to find good quarters. Perhaps we shall see this evening which of us is the better lodged: you, who have said the prayer, or I, who have not said it. Mind you, I do use another one instead, either the Dirupisti or the Intemerata or the De Profundis, all of which are extremely effective, or so my old grandmother used to tell me.’

• From The Decameron (1353)

  So Anichino got up and made his way to the garden with a switch of silver willow in his hand, and just as he was approaching the pine-tree, Egano, seeing him coming, stood up and came to meet him, as though with the intention of bidding him a most cordial welcome. But Anichino said: ‘So you came after all, did you, you filthy little whore? You thought me capable of wronging my master, did you? A thousand curses upon you!’ And raising his stick, he began to beat him. On hearing this outburst and catching sight of the stick, Egano took to his heels without saying a word, being closely pursued by Anichino, who kept on saying: ‘Take that, you shameless hussy, and may God punish you as you deserve! Mark my words, I shall tell Egano of this tomorrow!’ Bruised and battered all over, Egano returned as fast as he could to his bedroom, and his wife asked him whether Anichino had come to the garden. ‘Would to God that he hadn’t,’ said Egano, ‘for he mistook me for you, beat me black and blue with a cudgel, and addressed me by the foulest names that any wicked woman was ever called. I must say I thought it very strange that he should have spoken to you as he did with the intention of dishonouring me. But I see now that, finding you so gay and sociable, he simply wanted to put you to the test.’ Then the lady said: ‘Thanks be to God that he tested me with words, and saved his deeds for you! At least it can be said that his words tried my patience less severely than his deeds tried yours. But since he is so loyal to you, we should do him honour and hold him high in our esteem.’ ‘I agree with you entirely,’ said Egano. In view of what had happened, Egano came to the conclusion that he was blessed with the most faithful wife and the most loyal servant that any nobleman had ever possessed. And for this reason, whilst on many a future occasion they all three had a good laugh over the events of that particular night, at the same time it became far easier than it would otherwise have been for Anichino and the lady to do the thing that brought them pleasure and delight, at any rate for as long as Anichino chose to remain with Egano in Bologna.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  My fingers grow blind when I ask them the cause of that desolation.’ ‘I will pray for them both to the Sacred Heart which comprehends all things,’ said Mademoiselle Duphot . And indeed her own heart would have tried to understand—but Stephen had grown very bitterly mistrustful. And so now, in good earnest they turned to their kind, for as Puddle had truly divined in the past, it is ‘like to like’ for such people as Stephen. Thus when Pat walked in unexpectedly one day to invite them to join a party that night at the Ideal Bar, Stephen did not oppose Mary’s prompt and all too eager acceptance. Pat said they were going to do the round. Wanda was coming and probably Brockett. Dickie West the American aviator was in Paris, and she also had promised to join them. Oh, yes, and then there was Valérie Seymour—Valérie was being dug out of her hole by Jeanne Maurel, her most recent conquest. Pat supposed that Valérie would drink lemon squash and generally act as a douche of cold water, she was sure to grow sleepy or disapproving, she was no acquisition to this sort of party. But could they rely upon Stephen’s car? In the cold, grey dawn of the morning after, taxis were sometimes scarce up at Montmartre. Stephen nodded, thinking how absurdly prim Pat looked to be talking of cold, grey dawns and all that they stood for up at Montmartre. After she had left, Stephen frowned a little. 2 The five women were seated at a table near the door when Mary and Stephen eventually joined them. Pat, looking gloomy, was sipping light beer. Wanda, with the fires of hell in her eyes, in the hell of a temper too, drank brandy. She had started to drink pretty heavily again, and had therefore been avoiding Stephen just lately. There were only two new faces at the table, that of Jeanne Maurel, and of Dickie West, the much discussed woman aviator. Dickie was short, plump and very young; she could not have been more than twenty-one and she still looked considerably under twenty. She was wearing a little dark blue béret; round her neck was knotted an apache scarf—for the rest she was dressed in a neat serge suit with a very well cut double-breasted jacket. Her face was honest, her teeth rather large, her lips chapped and her skin much weather-beaten. She looked like a pleasant and nice-minded schoolboy well soaped and scrubbed for some gala occasion. When she spoke her voice was a little too hearty. She belonged to the younger, and therefore more reckless, more aggressive and self-assured generation; a generation that was marching to battle with much swagger, much sounding of drums and trumpets, a generation that had come after war to wage a new war on a hostile creation.

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  His clean-shaven face was slightly sardonic and almost disconcertingly clever; an inquisitive face too—one felt that it pried into everyone’s secrets without shame or mercy. It may have been genuine liking on his part or mere curiosity that had made him persist in thrusting his friendship on Stephen. But whatever it had been it had taken the form of ringing her up almost daily at one time; of worrying her to lunch or dine with him, of inviting himself to her flat in Chelsea, or what was still worse, of dropping in on her whenever the spirit moved him. His work never seemed to worry him at all, and Stephen often wondered when his fine plays got written, for Brockett very seldom if ever discussed them and apparently very seldom wrote them; yet they always appeared at the critical moment when their author had run short of money. Once, for the sake of peace, she had dined with him in a species of glorified cellar. He had just then discovered the queer little place down in Seven Dials, and was very proud of it; indeed, he was making it rather the fashion among certain literary people. He had taken a great deal of trouble that evening to make Stephen feel that she belonged to these people by right of her talent, and had introduced her as ‘Stephen Gordon, the author of The Furrow.’ But all the while he had secretly watched her with his sharp and inquisitive grey eyes. She had felt very much at ease with Brockett as they sat at their little dimly lit table, perhaps because her instinct divined that this man would never require of her more than she could give—that the most he would ask for at any time would be friendship. Then one day he had casually disappeared, and she heard that he had gone to Paris for some months, as was often his custom when the climate of London had begun to get on his nerves. He had drifted away like thistledown, without so much as a word of warning. He had not said good-bye nor had he written, so that Stephen felt that she had never known him, so completely did he go out of her life during his sojourn in Paris.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He first went to Wittenberg in disguise, and spent three days there in December, 1621. He stayed under the roof of Amsdorf, and dared not show himself in the convent or on the street. When the disturbances increased, he felt it his duty to reappear openly on the arena of conflict. He saw from the Wartburg his own house burning, and hastened to extinguish the flames. The Elector feared for his safety, as the Edict of Worms was still in force, and the Diet of Nürnberg was approaching. He ordered him to remain in his concealment. Luther was all his life an advocate of strict submission to the civil magistrates in their own proper sphere; but on this occasion be set aside the considerations of prudence, and obeyed the higher law of God and his conscience. His reply to the Elector (whom be never met personally) bears noble testimony to his sublime faith in God’s all-ruling providence. It is dated Ash Wednesday (March 5, 1522), from Borne, south of Leipzig. He wrote in substance as follows:487 — "Grace and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and my most humble service. "Most illustrious, high-born Elector, most gracious Lord! I received the letter and warning of your Electoral Grace on Friday evening [Feb. 26], before my departure [March 1]. That your Electoral Grace is moved by the best intention, needs no assurance from me. I also mean well, but this is of no account .... If I were not certain that we have the pure gospel on our side, I would despair .... Your Grace knows, if not, I make known to you, that I have the gospel, not from men, but from heaven through our Lord Jesus Christ .... I write this to apprise you that I am on my way to Wittenberg under a far higher protection than that of the Elector; and I have no intention of asking your Grace’s support. Nay, I believe that I can offer your Highness better protection than your Highness can offer me. Did I think that I had to trust in the Elector, I should not come at all. The sword is powerless here. God alone must act without man’s interference. He who has most faith will be the most powerful protector. As I feel your Grace’s faith to be still weak, I can by no means recognize in you the man who is to protect and save me. Your Electoral Grace asks me, what you are to do under these circumstances? I answer, with all submission, Do nothing at all, but trust in God alone .... If your Grace had faith, you would behold the glory of God; but as you do not yet believe, you have not seen it. Let us love and glorify God forever.