Self-seeking is the gate by which a soul departs from peace; and total abandonment to the will of God, that by which it returns.

Oh, that we fully understood how very opposite our self-righteousness is to the designs of God!

We must forget ourselves and all self-interest, and listen, and be attentive to God.

The very discovery of these hidden things is in itself a purifying experience! The soul needs to discover what is inside. The self nature needs to see what it really is, and what it is like-right to the very bottom.

It is a great truth, wonderful as it is undeniable, that all our happiness - temporal, spiritual, and eternal - consists in one thing; namely, in resigning ourselves to God, and in leaving ourselves with Him, to do with us and in us just as He pleases.

Surrender yourselves then to be led and disposed of just as God pleases, with respect both to your outward and inward state.

God causes us to promise in time of peace what He exacts from us in time of war; He enables us to make our abandonments in joy, but He requires the fulfilment of them in the midst of much bitterness.