“The love of gain, which is a large, incalculably large, element in every soul, when once applied to the desire for God, will bless the man who has it.”

Source: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (c.1565), Ch. XXIX, ¶ 16-17
Context: I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision, such as I have spoken of before. It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful — his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. Their names they never tell me; but I see very well that there is in heaven so great a difference between one angel and another, and between these and the others, that I cannot explain it.I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one. It is a caressing of love so sweet which now takes place between the soul and God, that I pray God of His goodness to make him experience it who may think that I am lying.</p

The Epitaph, St. 2
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.9
Context: The corporeal element in man is a large screen and partition that prevents him from perfectly perceiving abstract ideals; this would be the case even if the corporeal element were as pure and superior as the substance of the spheres; how much more must this be the case with our dark and opaque body. However great the exertion of our mind may be to comprehend the Divine Being or any of the ideals, we find a screen and partition between God and us.

Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845)
Context: Every relation, every gradation of nature is incalculably precious, but only to the soul which is poised upon itself, and to whom no loss, no change, can bring dull discord, for it is in harmony with the central soul. If any individual live too much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls, after a while, into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only becured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up. With a society it is the same.

From Evelyn Underhill, http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/asm/index.htm Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
The Spiritual Espousals (c. 1340)

Journal entry (18 November 1861), Ch. 5 : The Beginning of the War.
Lucy Larcom : Life, Letters, and Diary (1895)
Context: Much of our Christianity is not of a sufficiently enlarged type to satisfy an educated Hindoo; not that Unitarianism is necessary, for that system has but a surface-liberalism which can become very hard, and finally very narrow, as its history among us has often proved. It is not a system at all that we want: it is Christ, the "wisdom of God and the power of God," Christ, the loving, creating, and redeeming friend of the world, Christ, whose large, free being enfolds all that is beautiful in nature and in social life; and all that is strong and deep and noble in the sanctuary of every living soul. When Christians have truly learned Christ, they can be true teachers.

May We Borrow Your Husband? (1967)
Short Stories

To George Sand, A Desire http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/ebbrowning/bl-ebbrown-togeorge1.htm (1844).