Page:Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli (IA memoirsofmargare02fullrich).pdf/115

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PRAYER.
107

from the poor relics some miracles might be wrought, that should be for my fellows. Yet some of the saints were able to work in their generation, for they had renounced all!’


‘Forget, if you can, all of petulant or overstrained that may have displeased you in me, and commend me in your prayers to my best self. When, in the solitude of the spirit, comes upon you some air from the distance, a breath of aspiration, of faith, of pure tenderness, then believe that the Power which has guided me so faithfully, emboldens my thoughts to frame a prayer for you.’


‘Beneath all pain inflicted by Nature, be not only serene, but more; let it avail thee in prayer. Put up, at the moment of greatest suffering, a prayer; not for thy own escape, but for the enfranchisement of some being dear to thee, and the Sovereign Spirit will accept thy ransom.’


‘Strive, strive, my soul, to be innocent; yes! beneficent. Does any man wound thee? not only forgive, but work into thy thought intelligence of the kind of pain, that thou mayest never inflict it on another spirit. Then its work is done; it will never search thy whole nature again. O, love much, and be forgiven!’


‘No! we cannot leave society while one clod remains unpervaded by divine life. We cannot live and grow in consecrated earth, alone. Let us rather learn to stand up like the Holy Father, and with extended arms bless the whole world.’