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us from childhood - with a dream of something surprisingly fair, which has never yet been realized --- That which sweeps sweeps [sic] through the soul at times as a desolation, like the blast from the wings of the Angel of Death, leaving us stricken and silent in our loneliness --- That which has touched us in our tenderest [crossed out] (part) point, and the flesh has quivered with agony, and our mortal affections have shrivelled up with pain - That which comes, comes to us in aspirations of nobleness, and conceptions of super human excellence. Shall we say It or He? What is It? Who is It? Who is He? Those anticipations of Immortality and God --- what are they?

Are they the mere throbbings of my own heart, heard and mistaken for a living something beside me? Are they sound of my own wishes, echoing through the vast void of nothingness? or shall I call them God, Father, Spirit, Love? A living Being within or outside me? Tell me. Thy name, thou awful mystery of Loveliness! This is the struggle of all earnest life.

................................. Robertson's Jacob's Wrestling

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............ To fancy, as many do, that death is not only terrible and affrightening, but physically painful is quite a mistake, being to look for sensibility in the loss of sensibility. Death is a sleep rather than a sensation, a suspension of our faculties rather than a conflict with them; instead of a time of suffering, a time of deepening unconsciousness. Dr. Baillie tells us that his observation of death beds inclines him to the firm belief that nature intended we should go out of the world as unconcsciously as we come into it. ........... Mrs Jameson says ... The moment in which the spirit meets death, is probably like that in which it is embraced by sleep ... "To be conscious of the immediate transition from the waking to the sleeping state, never, [crossed out] (is) I suppose, happened to any one."

.................................... Grendon.

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................... Young men are prone to consider scepticism a proof of strong mindedness --- a[s] something to be proud of. Let Pilate be a specimen --- and a wretched one he is. He had clearminded [?] - a [crossed out] (something to be proud of) ......... enough to be dissatisfied with all the views he knew: enough to see through and scorn the squabbles and superstitions of priests and bigots. All well: if from doubt of falsehood he had gone on to a belief in a higher truth. But doubt, when it left him doubting --- why --- the noblest opportunity man ever had --- that of saving the Saviour, he missed; he became a thing for the people to despise, and after ages to pity. And that is scepticism. Call you that a manly thing? To believe is to be happy: to doubt is to be wretched. ..............................

Seventy years --- and - the most fevered brain will be still enough. --- ................. To believe is to be strong ... Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power; only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheefully, or do any thing that is worth doing. ..........................

.................. Young men! The only manly thing, the only strong thing is Faith. It is not so far as a man doubts, but so far as he believes, that he can achieve anything. "All things are possible to him that believes"

.................................... Robertson

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................ The sympathy of Jesus was fellow feeling for all that is human. He did not condole with Zaccheus upon his trials, --- He did not talk to him "about his soul," --- He did not preach to him about his sins, --- He did not force His way into his house to lecture him, --- He simply said "I will abide at thy house," thereby identifying himself with a publican ... thereby acknowledging a publican for a brother. Zaccheus a publican? Zaccheus a sinner? Yes; but Zaccheus was a man. His heart throbs at cutting words. He has a sense of human honour. He feels the burning shame of the world's disgrace. Lost? Yes: --- but the Son of Man, with the blood of the human race in His veins, is a brother to the lost.

......................... Robertson's Sermon

...................... Triumph over difficulties

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.................. Let us look the truth in the face. You cannot hide it from your- self. "Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards. Sorrow is not an accident, occurring now and then; it is the very woof [weft] which is woven into the warp of life. God has created the nerves to agonize, and the heart to bleed; and before a man dies almost every nerve has thrilled with pain, and every affection has been wounded. The account of life which represents it as probation is inadequate; so is that which regards it chiefly as a system of rewards and punishments. The truest account of this mysterious existence seems to be that it is intended for the development of the soul's life, for which sorrow is indispensable. Every son of man who would attain the true end of his being, must be baptised with fire. It is the law of our humanity, as that of Christ we must be perfected through suffering. And he who has not discerned the Divine Sacredness of Sorrow, and the profound meaning which, is concealed in pain has yet to learn what life is.

.......................... Robertson