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The Hidden Life Gleanings from the journal of Whitmore Winslow written at the age of 16 to 18. His journal, which was previously unknown to his family, was found among his papers after his unexpected death, at the age of 21. He died in 1856, and was the son of Octavius Winslow. When He afflicts, it is only out of kindness Sweet it is not only to believe, but also to experience that as much affliction as God is pleased to give, so much of His divine blessing He invariably bestows with it. He causes us to feel His rod that His blessing may be experienced the more. He makes us to taste the bitter only to prepare us for the sweet. And when He finds that prosperity weans us from Him and assimilates to the world, He chastens us. Oh, how sweet to be resigned to His will, feeling assured that He does all things for our best welfare; that when He afflicts, it is only out of kindness; and that when He accomplishes the end, He returns to us laden with blessing. O the demon SELF! Alas! our noblest actions are so mixed with SELF. Such is the real fact, I need not disguise it. This it is that chills our warmest feelings, and mars our happiness in looking to Jesus. O the demon SELF! it will ever come in to spoil that which is holy. Alas, alas! how cold we are! How insensible to the greatest mercies, perpetually reminded that we are not only mortal, but sinful. When I reflect upon the spiritual blessings which I have received, and feel how insensible I am, oh it is a cause of mourning. I think nothing is so ungracious as a thankless spirit, and yet how often do we manifest it when God has been so good! We take care not to be ungrateful to an earthly friend for the slightest benefit, and yet how careless in thanking God! How has God led me these many years! How has He been the Protector and Guide of my youth! And how has He brought me to what I am! When I thought of all this I did lift up my heart in gratitude. What He has done for me is overwhelming. Oh, my precious Savior What a blessed thing it is that we are not to live here always, that our existence is not bounded by this lower sphere! Holy Father, may our hearts, while aching, praise You that Your chastenings but wean us from this sinful and disappointing world, and fill our minds with holy joy, and longing hope for the blessed heaven to come. Oh, may Your love more completely fill these truant hearts! May Your ceaseless affection, changeless ever, when we wander, link our souls in closer union with You. Oh, my precious Savior, may that look of pity and love, which beamed so gloriously from Calvary, light upon Your weak and sinful child! May I find in Your loving bosom a shelter from the storm. And though the world, or those I love, cease to sympathize, precious Savior, You will never look coldly down, but will open Your heart of love to receive me. How low and humbled do we feel As truly as the sinner feels himself unfit for heaven and for heavenly society on earth, so truly does the child of God feel sad and unhappy when in the society of the wicked. How low and humbled do we feel when accidentally or necessarily obliged to listen to unholy conversation, or to witness some open act of sin. Alas! next to our own sinfulness we ought to deplore the wickedness of those we are constantly coming in contact with. All we can do is to observe a marked silence, and show by our conduct and example how painful it is to our spirits, though we would desire openly to rebuke. Words, however, are sometimes less significant than conduct, and I have often found how powerful is the effect of silent example. But we need much wisdom and much grace both to speak and to act as we ought and when we ought. But, blessed thought, that with all our deficiencies, the righteousness of Christ is our complete covering, and by its merit we shall soon reach the realms of purity where sin can never enter. O Father, preserve me from the deadening influence of all within and without; and grant me an eye to see, and a heart to feel, all your tenderness, forbearance, and love. It grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary splendor Amid all the characters given by poets and philosophers to Life, perhaps the least regarded is the IMAGINATION. Life in its loveliest forms consists in a great measure in the imagination. Thus thought loves to dwell upon scenes of future or imagined happiness, grouping into the most felicitous shapes all one's future career. Thus it grasps an airy bubble floating by in momentary splendor, and builds upon it a destiny of the highest and most substantial happiness. How one's youthful imagination seems to bear us on, blind to the misery and woe all around us; blind to the stern and sometimes sickening realities of existence, and alive only to the beautiful and happy, the gay and glorious. How imagination, that wonderful power of the soul, can magnify a transient beam of sunshine into an ever abiding and increasing stream of effulgent radiancy! How a look from the eye, a smile of the countenance, a trifling act of love, can kindle a flame in the soul, which our fond imagination would persuade us to believe is enduring, giving power and warmth! How gladdening are feelings of youth; how keen its susceptibilities to the beautiful! But alas, alas! how Life in its onward progress alters this beautiful picture! How soon do the dark shades pencilled by the experience of sin and sorrow cast their chilling influences upon the canvas once so gaily tinted! How soon the keen blast of adversity sweeps away, as with a whirlwind, all that before seemed so beautiful and promising! How soon the slow but fearfully sure disease cuts down the budding flower! Yes, how strange a mystery is Life! Yes, when once the eye has been turned in the right direction, and the mists and phantoms have disappeared, we shall see that life is the theater of action, and the prelude to eternity; an eternity whose untold wonders are beyond the highest flight of the imagination! Can a man suppose that he was made for himself? What a glorious motto for a man, "I Live for God!" It is religion's truest definition. It is a motto for a life. Can a man suppose that he was made for himself? Miserable thought! Yet the world acts upon this belief. They devise, and scheme, and accomplish apparently for others; but the spring of action and the end of action is, SELF. This is a course abhorrent to God. A mere bubble, a toy, an insignificant nothing! How blessed when one is low and downcast in mind and body, to feel a little uplifting, and to trace, yet more blessed, the healing hand of the Great Physician. To see the Shepherd of the sheep stooping to take and embrace in His arms of love the weak and feeble lamb. "When men are cast down, then You shall say, There is lifting up." Oh, the delightful feeling, this 'lifting up!' Who can express it but the man who has been down into the lowest depths, and then brought up so high that the world appears, as it were, a mere bubble, a toy, an insignificant nothing! The world no longer is visible to him; lost in the glorious light shed upon his soul by the sight of Jesus. We sometimes reason ourselves into the belief, that the world, with all its grandeur, beauty, and wonder, must be something worth our attention. But, oh! five minutes' communion with God, in spite of reason and of ourselves, convinces us that nothing but the object upon which our soul rests is truly great. The way we read the Bible What a difference there is in the way we read the Bible; taking it up sometimes as a matter of form and duty, perusing some of its most precious truths, and laying it down again without sensible benefit. There can be no mistake as to where the fault lies; a cold or worldly heart, an eye covered with the film of sensuous objects, are the real causes. We do not know what Popery really is! (The following was written by Whitmore Winslow at the age of 18, after visiting a Roman Catholic Cathedral in France.) In England, we do not know what Popery really is! We imagine it to be something repulsive, and cannot conceive how people can be deceived by it. But once to witness it as it really is, with its gorgeous paraphernalia, you are admitted to the secret of its power. The whole structure seemed to look down upon you in conscious magnificence, and is intended to inspire you with awe and reverence. No system could possibly have been invented more captivating to the senses, or better adapted to the natural heart. It allows its devotee free scope to sin, while covering him with a cloak of religion.

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