“Consider first, my soul, that not very long ago thou hadst no being at all, nor any share in the transactions of the world; thou was not even so much as thought of by any creature upon earth. In this low abyss of nothing thou hadst been ingulphed from all eternity; and there of thyself thou must have remained to all eternity, infinitely beneath the condition even of the meanest insect, or the most inconsiderable of all God’s creatures; so that whatsoever thou hast at present above this mere nothing is no acquisition of thy own, nor any property of thine, but the pure gift of thy Maker. Down, then, with all self-conceit and presumption; down with all vain-glory; acknowledge thy true original, thy original nothing; sit always down in the lowest place; ascribe nothing to thyself as of thy own growth, but thy manifold sins; give the whole glory of all the rest to thy Maker.”

— Bishop Richard Challoner, 1807

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