Frederick William Faber

"The one chosen shadow of God upon earth."

O Paradise! O Paradise! The world is growing old; Who would not be at rest and free Where love is never cold?

O Paradise! O Paradise! Who doth not crave for rest? Who would not seek the happy land, Where they that love are blest?

Hark! Hark! my soul, angelic songs are swelling O’er earth’s green fields and ocean’s wave-beat shore; How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling Of that new life when sin shall be no more!

Dear Lord! in all our loneliest pains Thou hast the largest share, And that which is unbearable 'Tis Thine, not ours, to bear.

Labour itself is but a sorrowful song, The protest of the weak against the strong.

The sea, unmated creature, tired and lone, Makes on its desolate sands eternal moan.

If our love were but more simple, We should take Him at His word; And our lives would be all sunshine In the sweetness of the Lord.

For right is right, since God is God; And right the day must win; To doubt would be disloyalty, To falter would be sin.

Labor is sweet, for Thou hast toiled, And care is light, for Thou hast cared; Let not our works with self be soiled, Nor in unsimple ways ensnared. Through life's long day and death's dark night, O gentle Jesus! be our light.

I have no cares, O blessed Will! For all my cares are Thine; I live in triumph, Lord! for Thou Hast made Thy triumphs mine.

O Majesty unspeakable and dread! Wert Thou less mighty than Thou art, Thou wert, O Lord! too great for our belief, Too little for our heart.

There is hardly ever a complete silence in our souls. God is whispering to us wellnigh incessantly. Whenever the sounds of the world die out in the soul or sink low, then we hear these whisperings of God. This is so invariable that we come …

Other things being equal, a person beginning the spiritual life with a taste for reading has a much greater chance both of advancing and of persevering than one who is destitute of such a taste. Experience shows that it is almost equal to …

I find great numbers of moderately good people who think it fine to take scandal. They regard it as a sort of evidence of their own goodness, and of their delicacy of conscience; while in reality it is only a proof either of their …

A spiritual life without a very large allowance of disquietude in it is no spiritual life at all. It is but a flattering superstition of self-love.

There is a great deal of self-will in the world, but very little genuine independence of character.

To children is there any happiness which is not also noise?

The very attempt to be like our dearest Lord is already a well-spring of sweetness within us, flowing with an easy grace over all who come within our reach.

We must have passed through life very unobservantly, if we have never perceived that a man is very much himself what he thinks of others.

The habit of judging is so nearly incurable, and its cure is such an almost interminable process, that we must concentrate ourselves for a long while on keeping it in check; and this check is to be found in kind interpretations.… We must …

Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or kind deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they imply also a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This …

Holiness is an unselfing of ourselves.

This world is … only the porch of another and more magnificent temple of the Creator's majesty.