MARCH 26
I can't think that when God sent us into the world, He had irreversibly decreed that we should be perpetually miserable in it. If it be so, the very endeavour after happiness in this life is a sin; as it is acting in direct contradiction to the very design of our creation. What are become of all the innocent comforts and pleasures of life, if it is the intent of our Creator that we should never taste them? If our taking up the cross implies our bidding adieu to all joy and satisfaction, how it is reconcilable with what Solomon so expressly affirms of religion -- that her ways are ways of pleasantness and all her paths are peace?
to his Mother, 1725
I will not buy a cross, though I can bear it.
letter, 15th January, 1770
