Quotes from ROBERT HUGH BENSON

It is possible to find within the limits of a stone's throw one Anglican divine who preaches practically the entire cycle of Catholic doctrine with the exception of that bearing upon the prerogative of Peter; another who denies in scarcely veiled language the Corporal Resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as His birth of a Virgin; another whose utterances are so calculated and obscure as to defy reasonable analysis.

Every code must be reversed; every barrier thrown down; party must unite with party, country with country, and continent with continent.

When religion fails us, we console ourselves with the arts; when love or ambition disappoint us, we plunge into physical pleasures; when the body refuses to respond, we take refuge in our indomitable pride; and when that in its turn crumbles to nothing, we look to suicide and hell as a more tolerable environment. There seems no depth to which we will not go, in our passionate determination to make ourselves tolerable to ourselves.

we add a fourth intention, namely, that of a desire to receive the crown of martyrdom and a purpose of embracing it.

Humanity-Religion could only be true if at least half of man's nature, aspirations and sorrows were ignored. Christianity, on the other hand, at least included and accounted for these, even if it did not explain them.

The human race was now a single entity with a supreme responsibility towards itself; there were no longer any private rights at all, such as had certainly existed, in the period previous to this. Man now possessed dominion over every cell which composed His Mystical Body, and where any such cell asserted itself to the detriment of the Body, the rights of the whole were unqualified.

Therefore she is bound, when her supernatural principles clash with human natural principles, to be the occasion of disunion. Her marriage laws, as a single example, are at conflict with the marriage laws of the majority of modern States. It is of no use to tell her to modify these principles; it would be to tell her to cease to be supernatural, to cease to be herself. How can

We offer no rewards except those which God Himself has promised to those that love Him, and lay down their life for Him; no promise of peace, save of that which passeth understanding; no home save that which befits pilgrims and sojourners who seek a City to come; no honour save the world's contempt; no life, save that which is hid with Christ in God.

there should be established the peace of man with God, and after that the unity of man with man will follow.

No, father, we are losing; and we shall go on losing, and I think we must even be ready for a catastrophe at any moment.

These things were as the bones of the Universe—facts beyond doubting—if they were not true, nothing anywhere was anything but a dream.

there should be established the peace of man with God, and after that the unity of man with man will follow. Seek ye first, said Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God—and then all these things shall be added unto you.

And now, you till come,

the grey haze of London, really beautiful, this vast hive of men and women who had learned at least the primary lesson of the gospel that there was no God but man, no priest but the politician, no prophet but the schoolmaster.

It was hard to perceive Calvary here; it was surely the air of Bethlehem, the celestial light, not the supernatural darkness, that beamed round the simple altar. It was the Child called Wonderful that lay there beneath the old hands, rather than the stricken Man of Sorrows.

Outside the walls the confusion was indescribable. If the city represented a carved miniature of the world, the suburbs represented the same model broken into a thousand pieces, tumbled in a bag and shot out at random.

six millions of souls who lived here for love of religion. It was these who had despaired of modern life, tired out with change and effort, who had fled from the new system for refuge to the Church,

Himself, the sun had dawned in the west; and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth.

and now with horror and loathing they had seen the clouds gather once more in the quarter whence all superstition had had its birth.

Seen from this great height they were in themselves comparatively insignificant, but they at least suggested the vastness of the bastions of which they were no more than buttresses.

the gold of loyal hearts, the myrrh of desired martyrdom, and the incense of a pure faith.

it is difficult for any soul to sin very outrageously so long as she feels the pressure of Christ's hand in hers.

Henceforth He demands that all such conventions should cease; that we should be entirely open and honest with Him, that we should display ourselves as we really are -- that we should lay aside, in a word, all those comparatively harmless make-believes and courtesies, and be utterly real.

Their nakedness was their armour, their slow tongues their persuasiveness, their weakness demanded God's strength, and found it.