Actually, all gifts have been given for reasons of temporal use and need and they will surely pass away at the end of the present dispensation. Love, however, will never be cut off. It works in us and for us, and not simply in this life. For when the burden of physical need has been laid aside in the time to come it will endure, more effectively, more excellently, forever unfailing, clinging to God with more fire and zeal through all the length of incorruption.

When the soul is solidly rooted in... peacefulness, when it is freed of the bonds of every carnal urge, when the unshaking thrust of the heart is toward the one supreme Good, then the words of the apostle will be fulfilled. 'Pray without ceasing,' he said (I Thes. 5:17). 'In every place lift up pure hands, with no anger and no rivalry' (I Tim 2:8). Sensibility is, so to speak, absorbed by this purity. It is reshaped in the likeness of the spiritual and the angelic so that all its dealings, all its activity will be prayer, utterly pure, utterly without tarnish.

... there is clearly expressed for us? what it is we must attribute either to free will or to the decision and daily assistance of the Lord. We are characterized by whether we respond zealously or lackadaisically to the kindly dispensations of God. This perspective is plainly expressed in the healing of the two blind men. Jesus was passing by, a fact made possible by God's provident grace. And the achievement of their own faith and belief was to cry out 'Lord, son of David, have mercy on us' (Mt. 20:31). The restored sight of their eyes is the gift of divine mercy.

Men seized of the urge to have a knowledge of God and to be pure in mind devote all their gathered energies to this one task. While they still live in the corruption of the flesh they give themselves to that service in which they will persevere when the corruption has been laid aside. And already they come in sight of what the Lord and Savior held out when He said, 'Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God' (Mt. 5:8).

It is not our free will but 'it is the Lord who sets the captive free' (Ps. 145:7). It is not our own virtue but 'it is the Lord who lifts up those who were laid low' (Ps. 145:8). It is not application to reading but 'it is the Lord who gives light to the blind' (Ps. 145:8). It is not our cautiousness but 'it is the Lord who protects the stranger' (Ps. 145:9). It is not our endurance but 'it is the Lord who raises or gives support to the fallen' (Ps. 144:14).

The bond between friends cannot be broken by chance; no interval of time or space can destroy it. Not even death itself can part true friends.

...unless the grace of God comes to the help of our frailty, to protect and defend it, no man can withstand the insidious onslaughts of the enemy nor can he damp down or hold in check the fevers which burn in our flesh with nature's fire.