Martin Thornton

“Our souls, that is our selves, are like a jumbled heap of pins: interests, thoughts, emotions, volitions, and feelings -- our life at work, our life of play, our domestic and social life, our life in the limelight, and our life alone -- all a heap of pins pointing in all directions and getting in one another's way. But the slow approach of a magnet sorts the jumble out in a remarkable way, confusion becomes a pattern, each pin points in the same direction, and all is achieved by the focus of magnetic power. It is superfluous to add that the only magnet which can sort out all the intricacies of the human soul is God. In short the state of perfect recollection is that most characteristic expression of the work of the Holy Ghost; the creation of order out of chaos.”
― Martin Thornton, Christian Proficiency

“You can make so much noise scaring off the demons that you can never hear God knocking; You can take such pains to avoid sin that there is no outlet, or inlet, for grace.”
― Martin Thornton, My God: A reappraisal of normal religious experience