Читать книгу I've been a Gipsying. Rambles among our Gipsies and their children in their tents and vans онлайн

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Every action of retaliation is a bunch of hard prickles, and it has in the centre of it a wasps’ nest, and the buzzing of the wasps can be heard and their stings felt by the bystanders; while every act of love is a collection of perfumed, fragrance-scented oils, with a cooing dove on the top as a guard.

Retaliation and revenge are a dark cave, sending forth sulphurous fumes and the groans of hell; while forgiveness and love are a lovely garden of fragrant flowers, with cooing doves and rippling water-brooks in the midst, sending forth heavenly music.

As the process of “inoculation” applied to flowers gives to us the most beautiful coloured, tinted, edged, and lovely flowers, so in like manner it is with the Spirit of Christ. When once the Spirit of Christ is brought into contact with our human nature, refined sentiment and feelings—the Christian graces—soon become manifest.

As the wind and storm shake off the fruit which has the least hold upon the tree, so in like manner it is with the members of Christian Churches and the State. Those members and citizens the most careless, loveless, and cold, who have the least hold upon the Church, God, and the State, storms and persecution readily bring to the ground.