MARCH 25
All haughtiness, whether of heart, speech, or behavior, vanishes away where love prevails.
Works, vii. 497.
Another of his [Thomas a Kempis’] tenets … is that all mirth is vain and useless, if not sinful. But why then, does the Psalmist so often exhort us to rejoice in the Lord and tell us that it becomes the just to be joyful? I think one could hardly desire a more express text than that in the 68th Psalm: ‘Let the righteous rejoice and be glad in the Lord. Let them also be merry and joyful.’ And he seems to carry the matter as much too far on the other side afterwards, where he asserts that nothing is an affliction to a good man, and that he ought to thank God even for sending him misery. This, in my opinion, is contrary to God design in afflicting us.
to his mother, 1725
