Pilate was merciful till it became risky.

There have been times when I think we do not desire heaven but more often I find myself wondering whether, in our heart of hearts, we have ever desired anything else.

Without sin, the universe is a Solemn Game: and there is no good game without rules.

You are certainly under the guidance of the Holy Ghost or you wouldn't have come where you now are.

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it, tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest - if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself - you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say 'Here at last is the thing I was made for.'

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion ('man's search for God'!) suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found Him? We never meant it to come to that! Worse still, supposing He had found us?