Spirit

Spirits are supernatural beings or essences — transcendent and therefore metaphysical in nature.

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth unseen,
  Both when we wake, and when we sleep.
  • John Milton, p. 309.

• Hands of invisible spirits touch the strings
  Of that mysterious instrument, the soul,
  And play the prelude of our fate.
  • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, p. 309.

• Do we not hear voices, gentle and great, and some of them like the voices of departed friends,— do we not hear them saying to us, "Come up hither?"
  • William Mountford, p. 310.

• Yes, thank God! there is rest — many an interval of saddest, sweetest rest — even here, when it seems as if evening breeze; from that other land, laden with fragrance, played upon the cheeks, and lulled the heart. There are times, even on the stormy sea, when a gentle whisper breathes softly as of heaven, and sends into the soul a dream of ecstasy which can never again wholly die, even amidst the jar and whirl of daily life. How such whispers make the blood stop and the flesh creep with a sense of mysterious communion! How singularly such moments are the epochs of life — the few points that stand out prominently in the recollection after the flood of years has buried all the rest, as all the low shore disappears, leaving only a few rock points visible at high tide.
  • Frederick William Robertson, p. 310.

• There are times in the history of men and nations, when they stand so near the vail that separates mortals from the immortals, time from eternity, and men from their God, that they can almost hear the beatings, and feel the pulsations, of the heart of the Infinite.
  • James A. Garfield, p. 310.

• It may be that at this moment every battlement of heaven is alive with the redeemed. There is a sainted mother watching for her daughter. Have you no response to that long hushed voice which has prayed for you so often? And for you, young man, are there no voices there that have prayed for you? And are there none whom you promised once to meet again, if not on earth, in heaven?
  • Dwight L. Moody, p. 310.