“We are slow to master the great truth that even now Christ is, as it were, walking among us, and by His hand, or eye, or voice, bidding us to follow Him.  We do not understand that His call is a thing that takes place now.  We think it took place in the Apostles’ days, but we do not believe in it; we do not look for it in our own case.

Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it. 

God alone knows the day and the hour when that will at length be, which He is ever threatening; meanwhile, thus much of comfort do we gain from what has been hitherto, not to despond, not to be dismayed, not to be anxious, at the troubles which encompass us. They have ever been; they ever shall be; they are our portion.

God’s presence is not discerned at the time when it is upon us, but afterwards, when we look back upon what is gone and over.  The world seems to go on as usual.  There is nothing of heaven in the face of society, in the news of the day.

And yet the ever-blessed Spirit of God is here, ten times more glorious, more powerful, than when He trod the earth in our flesh.”

John Henry Newman