Category: Speaking to the Soul

The changes which have been taking place in our ideas about God have been mainly in the direction of a purified ethical conception of his character. We have been learning to believe, more and more, in the justice, the righteousness, the goodness of God. In the oldest times men thought him cruel and revengeful; then they began to regard him as willful and arbitrary—his justice was his determination to have his own way; his sovereignty was his egoistic purpose to do everything for his own glory.

Freedom is also the condition of a christianized social order. Men can have no fraternal relations until they face one another with a sense of freedom and of equal humanity. Despotism is always haunted by dread, and fear is not a symptom of the prevalence of fraternity. In tracing the moral evolution of the Family, the School, the Church, and the State, we saw that every social organization is on the road to redemption when it finds the path of freedom.

In fictitious writing, it is possible to find refuge from the hard and the terrible, by inventing scenes and characters of a more pleasing nature. No such resource is open in a work of fact; and the subject of this work is one in which the truth, if told at all, must needs be very dreadful.

The most powerful prayer, and almost the strongest of all to obtain everything, and the most honorable of all works, is that which proceeds from an empty spirit. The emptier the spirit, the more is the prayer and the work mighty, worthy, profitable, praiseworthy and perfect. The empty spirit can do everything.

A certain man came near to Christ the Savior of us all, saying, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.” Christ rejected the man, saying that the foxes have holes, and the birds of heaven a place to lodge in; but he had no place to lay his head.

God the Father, uncreated,

beyond grasp, invisible,

one God the maker of all;

this is the first and foremost article of our faith.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”

Most Eastern Orthodox Christians in America know Isabel Hapgood by name, but possibly not much about her life and activities. And yet, she merits to be remembered with respect and gratitude, as she was a champion in the awesome task of translating Orthodox liturgical texts from Church Slavonic into English.

O Lord, we come this morning

Knee-bowed and body-bent

Before Thy throne of grace.

O Lord—this morning—

Bow our hearts beneath our knees,

And our knees in some lonesome valley.

Dearest God in Heaven,

with awe and wonder, I look down upon this tiny face tonight. . . .

Pure magic, pure joy, pure love,

A living testament of your divine existence.