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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20711-h.zip b/20711-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f2f2bd --- /dev/null +++ b/20711-h.zip diff --git a/20711-h/20711-h.htm b/20711-h/20711-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4b0f61d --- /dev/null +++ b/20711-h/20711-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6127 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Daily Thoughts</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + TD { vertical-align: top; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Daily Thoughts, by Charles Kingsley</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Daily Thoughts, by Charles Kingsley, Edited +by Fanny Kingsley + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Daily Thoughts + selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Editor: Fanny Kingsley + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #20711] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAILY THOUGHTS*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1885 Macmillan and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>DAILY THOUGHTS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">Selected from the Writings<br /> +<span class="smcap">of</span><br /> +CHARLES KINGSLEY</p> +<p style="text-align: center">BY HIS WIFE</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">second +edition</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">London<br /> +MACMILLAN AND CO.<br /> +1885</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><!-- page ii--><a +name="pageii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ii</span><i>Printed +by</i> <span class="smcap">R. & R. Clark</span>, +<i>Edinburgh</i>.</p> +<p><!-- page iii--><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +iii</span><i>This little Volume</i>, <i>selected from the MS. +Note-books</i>, <i>Sermons and Private Letters</i>, <i>as well as +from the published Works of my Husband</i>, <i>is dedicated to +our children</i>, <i>and to all who feel the blessing of his +influence on their daily life and thought</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>F. E. K.</i></p> +<p><i>July</i> 10, 1884.</p> +<h2><!-- page 1--><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>January.</h2> +<p>Welcome, wild North-easter!<br /> + Shame it is to see<br /> +Odes to every zephyr:<br /> + Ne’er a verse to thee.<br /> +. . . . .<br /> +Tired we are of summer,<br /> + Tired of gaudy glare,<br /> +Showers soft and steaming,<br /> + Hot and breathless air.<br /> +Tired of listless dreaming<br /> + Through the lazy day:<br /> +Jovial wind of winter<br /> + Turn us out to play!<br /> +Sweep the golden reed-beds;<br /> + Crisp the lazy dyke;<br /> +Hunger into madness<br /> + Every plunging pike.<br /> +Fill the lake with wild-fowl;<br /> + Fill the marsh with snipe;<br /> +While on dreary moorlands<br /> + Lonely curlew pipe.<br /> +Through the black fir forest<br /> + Thunder harsh and dry,<br /> +Shattering down the snow-flakes<br /> + Off the curdled sky.<br /> +. . . . .<br /> +Come; and strong within us<br /> + Stir the Viking’s blood;<br /> +Bracing brain and sinew:<br /> + Blow, thou wind of God!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Ode to North-east Wind</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 3--><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>New Year’s Day. January 1. <a +name="citation3"></a><a href="#footnote3" +class="citation">[3]</a></h3> +<p>Gather you, gather you, angels of God—<br /> + Freedom and Mercy and Truth;<br /> +Come! for the earth is grown coward and old;<br /> + Come down and renew us her youth.<br /> +Wisdom, Self-sacrifice, Daring, and Love,<br /> + Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above,<br /> + To the day of the Lord at +hand!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Day of the Lord</i>. +1847.</p> +<h3>The Nineteenth Century. January 2.</h3> +<p>Now, and at no other time: in this same nineteenth century +lies our work. Let us thank God that we are here now, and +joyfully try to understand <i>where</i> we are, and what our work +is <i>here</i>. As for all superstitions about “the +good old times,” and fancies that <i>they</i> belonged to +God, while this age belongs only to man, blind chance, and the +evil one, let us cast them from us as the suggestions of an evil +lying spirit, as the natural parents of laziness, pedantry, +fanaticism, and unbelief. And therefore let us not fear to +ask the meaning of this present day, and of all its different +voices—the pressing, noisy, complex present, where our +workfield lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and +of all schools of literature yet known.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Introductory Lecture</i>, +<i>Queen’s College</i>.<br /> +1848.</p> +<h3>Forward. January 3.</h3> +<p>Let us forward. God leads us. Though blind, shall +we be afraid to follow? I do not see my way: I do not care +to: but I know that He sees His way, and that I see Him.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1848.</p> +<h3><!-- page 5--><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>The Noble Life. January 4.</h3> +<p>Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;<br /> +Do noble things, not dream them all day long;<br /> +And so make life, and death, and that For Ever<br /> +One grand sweet song.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>A Farewell</i>. 1856.</p> +<p>Live in the present that you may be ready for the future.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>Duty and Sentiment. January 5.</h3> +<p>God demands not <i>sentiment</i> but <i>justice</i>. The +Bible knows nothing of “the religious sentiments and +emotions” whereof we hear so much talk nowadays. It +speaks of <i>Duty</i>. “Beloved, if God so loved us, +we <i>ought</i> to love one another.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>The Everlasting Harmony. January 6.</h3> +<p>If thou art living a righteous and useful life, doing thy duty +orderly and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou in thy +humble place art humbly copying the everlasting harmony and +melody which is in heaven; the everlasting harmony and melody by +which God made the world and all that therein is—and behold +it was very good—in the day when the morning stars sang +together and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the +new-created earth, which God had made to be a pattern of His own +perfection.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3><!-- page 7--><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>The Keys of Death and Hell. January 7.</h3> +<p>Fear not. Christ has the keys of death and hell. +He has been through them and is alive for evermore. Christ +is the <i>first</i>, and was loving and just and glorious and +almighty before there was any death or hell. And Christ is +the <i>last</i>, and will be loving and just and glorious and +almighty as ever, in that great day when all enemies shall be +under His feet, and death shall be destroyed, and death and hell +shall be cast into the lake of fire.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>. 1857.</p> +<h3>A Living God. January 8.</h3> +<p>Here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose +heart and flesh, whose conscience and whose intellect, cry out +for the <i>Living</i> God, and will know no peace till they have +found Him. For till then they can find no explanation of +the three great human questions—Where am I? Whither +am I going? What must I do?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on the +Pentateuch</i>. 1862.</p> +<h3>The Fairy Gardens. January 9.</h3> +<p>Of all the blessings which the study of Nature brings to the +patient observer, let none, perhaps, be classed higher than this, +that the farther he enters into those fairy gardens of life and +birth, which Spenser saw and described in his great poem, the +more he learns the awful and yet comfortable truth, that they do +not belong to him, but to One greater, wiser, lovelier than he; +and as he stands, silent with awe, amid the pomp of +Nature’s ever-busy rest, hears as of old, The Word of the +“Lord God walking among the trees of the garden in the cool +of the day.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Glaucus</i>. 1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 9--><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span>Love. January 10.</h3> +<p>Oh! Love! Love! Love! the same in peasant +and in peer! The more honour to you, then, old Love, to +<i>be</i> the same thing in this world which <i>is</i> common to +peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind, a +dreamer, an exaggerator—a liar, in short! They just +know nothing about you, then. You will not see people as +they seem—as they have become, no doubt; but why? +Because you see them as they ought to be, and are in some deep +way eternally, in the sight of Him who conceived and created +them!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xiv. 1856.</p> +<h3>Life—Love. January 11.</h3> +<p>We must live nobly to love nobly.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>The Seed of Good. January 12.</h3> +<p>Never was the young Abbot heard to speak harshly of any human +being. “When thou hast tried in vain for seven +years,” he used to say, “to convert a sinner, then +only wilt thou have a right to suspect him of being a worse man +than thyself.” That there is a seed of good in all +men, a divine word and spirit striving with all men, a gospel and +good news which would turn the hearts of all men, if abbots and +priests could but preach it aright, was his favourite doctrine, +and one which he used to defend, when at rare intervals he +allowed himself to discuss any subject, from the writings of his +favourite theologian, Clement of Alexandria.</p> +<p>Above all, Abbot Philamon stopped by stern rebuke any attempt +to revile either heretics or heathens. “On the +Catholic Church alone,” he used to say, “lies the +blame of all heresy and unbelief; for if she were but for one day +that which she ought to be, the world would be converted before +nightfall.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxx. +1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 11--><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span>Danger of Thinking vaguely. January 13.</h3> +<p>Watch against any fallacies in your ideas which may arise, not +from disingenuousness, but from allowing yourself in moments of +feeling to think vaguely, and not to attach precise meaning to +your words. Without any cold caution of expression, it is a +duty we owe to God’s truth, and to our own happiness and +the happiness of those around us, to think and speak as correctly +as we can. Almost all heresy, schism, and +misunderstandings, between either churches or individuals who +ought to be one, have arisen from this fault of an involved and +vague style of thought.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3>The Possession of Faith. January 14.</h3> +<p>I don’t want to possess a faith, I want a faith which +will possess me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xvii. +1852.</p> +<h3>The Eternal Life. January 15.</h3> +<p>Eternally, and for ever, in heaven, says St. John, Christ says +and is and does what prophets prophesied of Him that He would say +and be and do. “I am the Root and the Offspring of +David, the bright Morning Star. And let him that is +athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take of the Water of +Life freely.” For ever Christ calls to every anxious +soul, every afflicted soul, to every man who is ashamed of +himself, and angry with himself, and longs to live a gentler, +nobler, purer, truer, and more useful life, “Come, and live +for ever the eternal life of righteousness, holiness, and peace, +and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the one true and only +salvation bought for us by the precious blood of Christ our +Lord.” Amen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1865</p> +<h3><!-- page 13--><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>The Golden Cup of Youth. January 16.</h3> +<p>Ah, glorious twenty-one, with your inexhaustible powers of +doing and enjoying, eating and hungering, sleeping and sitting +up, reading and playing! Happy are those who still possess +you, and can take their fill of your golden cup, steadied, but +not saddened, by the remembrance that for all things a good and +loving God will bring them to judgment!</p> +<p>Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul +the health and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of +forty, and, seeming to grow younger-hearted as they grow +older-headed, can cast off care and work at a moment’s +warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years ago, and +say with Wordsworth—</p> +<blockquote><p>“So was it when I was a boy,<br /> +So let it be when I am old,<br /> +Or let me die.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xix. 1856.</p> +<h3>Work and Duty. January 17.</h3> +<p>If a man is busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he +require for time or for eternity?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Chalk Stream Studies</i>. +1856.</p> +<h3>Members of Christ. January 18.</h3> +<p>. . . Would you be humble, daughter?<br /> +You must look up, not down, and see yourself<br /> +A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein<br /> +Of Christ’s vast vine; the pettiest joint and member<br /> +Of His great body. . . .</p> +<p>. . . Let thyself die—<br /> +And dying, rise again to fuller life.<br /> +To be a whole is to be small and weak—<br /> +To be a part is to be great and mighty<br /> +In the one spirit of the mighty whole—<br /> +The spirit of the martyrs and the saints.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene vi.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3><!-- page 15--><a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>Beauty a Sacrament. January 19.</h3> +<p>Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. +Beauty is God’s handwriting—a way-side sacrament; +welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, +and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of all loveliness, and +drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes; it is a +charmed draught, a cup of blessing.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>True Words to Brave +Men</i>. 1844.</p> +<h3>The Ideal of Rank. January 20.</h3> +<p>With Christianity came in the thought that domination meant +responsibility, that responsibility demanded virtue. The +words which denoted Rank came to denote, likewise, high moral +excellencies. The <i>nobilis</i>, or man who was known, and +therefore subject to public opinion, was bound to behave +nobly. The gentle-man—gentile-man—who respected +his own gens, or family, or pedigree, was bound to be +gentle. The courtier who had picked up at court some touch +of Roman civilisation from Roman ecclesiastics was bound to be +courteous. He who held an “honour,” or +“edel” of land, was bound to be honourable; and he +who held a “weorthig,” or “worthy,” +thereof, was bound himself to be worthy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Ancien +Régime</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3>An Indulgent God. January 21.</h3> +<p>A merely indulgent God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God +likewise. If God be just, as He is, then He has boundless +pity for those who are weak, but boundless wrath for the strong +who misuse the weak. Boundless pity for those who are +ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; but boundless wrath +for those who mislead them and put them out of the right way.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline Sermons</i>. +1867.</p> +<h3><!-- page 17--><a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>The Fifty-First Psalm. January 22.</h3> +<p>It is such utterances as these which have given for now many +hundred years their priceless value to the little Book of Psalms +ascribed to the shepherd outlaw of the Judean hills, which have +sent the sound of his name into all lands throughout all the +world. Every form of human sorrow, doubt, struggle, error, +sin—the nun agonising in the cloister; the settler +struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper +shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind +death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid +the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far +country and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at +his mother’s knee; the peasant boy trudging afield in the +chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, +therefore he will not want—all shapes of humanity have +found, and will find to the end of time, a word said here to +their inmost hearts. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>Waiting for Death. January 23.</h3> +<p>Death, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and +tell me what I want to know? I courted you once and many a +time, brave old Death, only to give rest to the weary. That +was a coward’s wish—and so you would not come. . . +. I was not worthy of you. And now I will not hunt +you any more, old Death. Do you bide your time, and I mine. +. . . Only when you come, give me not rest but work. +Give work to the idle, freedom to the chained, sight to the +blind!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xv. 1856.</p> +<h3>The One Refuge. January 24.</h3> +<p>Safe! There is no safety but from God, and that comes by +prayer and faith.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>. 1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 19--><a name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +19</span>Future Identity. January 25.</h3> +<p>I believe that the union of those who have loved here will in +the next world amount to perfect identity, that they will look +back on the expressions of affection here as mere meagre +strugglings after and approximation to the union which then will +be perfect. Perfect!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Friendship. January 26.</h3> +<p>A friend once won need never be lost, if we will be only +trusty and true ourselves. Friends may part, not merely in +body, but in spirit, for a while. In the bustle of business +and the accidents of life, they may lose sight of each other for +years; and more, they may begin to differ in their success in +life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there may be, for a +time, coldness and estrangement between them, but not for ever if +each will be trusty and true. For then they will be like +two ships who set sail at morning from the same port, and ere +night-fall lose sight of each other, and go each on its own +course and at its own pace for many days, through many storms and +seas, and yet meet again, and find themselves lying side by side +in the same haven when their long voyage is past.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Night and Morning. January 27.</h3> +<p>It is morning somewhere or other now, and it will be morning +here again to-morrow. “Good times and bad times and +all times pass over.” I learnt that lesson out of old +Bewick’s Vignettes, and it has stood me in good stead this +many a year.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. i. +1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 21--><a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +21</span>Communion with the Blessed Dead. January 28.</h3> +<p>Shall we not recollect the blessed dead above all in Holy +Communion, and give thanks for them there—at that holy +table at which the Church triumphant and the Church militant meet +in the communion of saints? Where Christ is they are; and, +therefore, if Christ be there, may not they be there +likewise? May not they be near us though unseen? like us +claiming their share in the eternal sacrifice, like us partaking +of that spiritual body and blood which is as much the life of +saints in heaven as it is of penitent sinners on earth? May +it not be so? It is a mystery into which we will not look +too far. But this at least is true, that they are with Him +where He is.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h3>The Great Law. January 29.</h3> +<p>True rest can only be attained as Christ attained it, through +labour. True glory can only be attained in earth or heaven +through self-sacrifice. Whosoever will save his life shall +lose it; whosoever will lose his life shall save it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1870.</p> +<h3>The Coming Kingdom. January 30.</h3> +<p>There is a God-appointed theocracy promised to us, and which +we must wait for, when all the diseased and false systems of this +world shall be swept away, and Christ’s feet shall stand on +the Mount of Olives, and the twelve apostles shall sit on twelve +thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel! All this shall +come, and blessed is that servant whom his Lord when He cometh +shall find ready! All this we shall not see before we die, +but we shall see it when we rise in the perfect material and +spiritual ideal, in the kingdom of God!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 23--><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>Christ’s Coming. January 31.</h3> +<p>Christ may come to us when our thoughts are cleaving to the +ground, and ready to grow earthy of the earth—through noble +poetry, noble music, noble art—through aught which awakens +once more in us the instinct of the true, the beautiful, and the +good. He may come to us when our souls are restless and +weary, through the repose of Nature—the repose of the +lonely snow-peak and of the sleeping forest, of the clouds of +sunset and of the summer sea, and whisper Peace. Or He may +come, as He comes on winter nights to many a gallant +soul—not in the repose of Nature, but in her rage—in +howling storm and blinding foam and ruthless rocks and whelming +surge—and whisper to them even so—as the sea swallows +all of them which <i>it</i> can take—of calm beyond, which +this world cannot give and cannot take away.</p> +<p>And therefore let us say in utter faith, Come as Thou seest +best—but in whatsoever way Thou comest, Even so come, Lord +Jesus. Amen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Last Sermon</i>. +<i>MS.</i> 1874.</p> +<h3><!-- page 24--><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.</h3> +<p>Since we gave up at the Reformation the superstitious practice +of praying to the saints, Saints’ Days have sunk—and, +indeed, sunk too much—into neglect. We forget too +often still, that though praying to any saint or angel, or other +created being, is contrary both to reason and Scripture, yet it +is according to reason and to Scripture to commemorate +them. That is, to remember them, to study their characters, +and to thank God for them,—both for the virtues He bestowed +on them, and the example which He has given us in them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h4>JANUARY 6.<br /> +The Epiphany,<br /> +Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.</h4> +<p>On this day the Lord Jesus was first shown to the +Gentiles. The word Epiphany means +“showing.” The Wise Men were worshippers of the +true God, though in a dim confused way; and they had learnt +enough of what true faith, true greatness was, not to be +staggered and fall into unbelief when they saw the King of the +Jews laid, not in a palace, but in a manger, tended by a poor +village maiden. And therefore God bestowed on them the +great honour that they first of all—Gentiles—should +see the glory and the love of God in the face of Jesus +Christ. God grant that they may not rise up against us in +the Day of Judgment and condemn us! They had but a small +spark, a dim ray, of the Light which lighteth every man who +cometh into the world; but they were more faithful to that little +than many of us, who live in the full sunshine of the Gospel, +with Christ’s Spirit, Christ’s Sacraments, +Christ’s Churches,—means of grace and hopes of glory +of which they never dreamed.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 25--><a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>JANUARY 25.<br /> +Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>How did St. Paul look on his past life? There is no +sentimental melancholy in him. He is saved, and he knows +it. He is an Apostle, and he stands boldly on his +dignity. He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful. And yet, +when he speaks of the past, it is with noble shame and sorrow +that he calls himself the chief of sinners, not worthy to be +called an Apostle, because he persecuted the Church of +Christ. What he is, he will not deny; what he was, he will +not forget; lest he should forget that in him, that is, in his +flesh—his natural character—dwelleth no good thing; +lest he should forget that the good which he does, <i>he</i> does +not, but Christ which dwelleth in him; lest he should grow +careless, puffed up, self-indulgent; lest he should neglect to +subdue his evil passions; and so, after preaching to others, +himself become a castaway.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 27--><a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>February.</h2> +<blockquote><p>. . . Every winter,<br /> +When the great sun has turned his face away,<br /> +The earth goes down into the vale of grief,<br /> +And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,<br /> +Leaving her wedding garments to decay;<br /> +Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iii. Scene i.</p> +<p>Out of the morning land,<br /> +Over the snow-drifts,<br /> +Beautiful Freya came,<br /> +Tripping to Scoring.<br /> +White were the moorlands,<br /> +And frozen before her;<br /> +Green were the moorlands,<br /> +And blooming behind her.<br /> +Out of her gold locks<br /> +Shaking the spring flowers,<br /> +Out of her garments<br /> +Shaking the south wind,<br /> +Around in the birches<br /> +Awaking the throstles,<br /> +Love and love-giving,<br /> +Came she to Scoring.<br /> +. . . . .</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Longbeard’s +Saga</i>. 1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 29--><a name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +29</span>Virtue. February 1.</h3> +<p>The first and last business of every human being, whatever his +station, party, creed, capacities, tastes, duties, is morality; +virtue, virtue, always virtue. Nothing that man will ever +invent will absolve him from the universal necessity of being +good as God is good, righteous as God is righteous, holy as God +is holy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>Happiness. February 2.</h3> +<p>God has not only made things beautiful; He has made things +happy; whatever misery there is in the world there is no denying +that. Misery is the exception; happiness is the rule. +No rational man ever heard a bird sing without feeling that the +bird was happy, and that if God made that bird He made it to be +happy, and He takes pleasure in its happiness, though no human +ear should ever hear its song, no human heart should ever share +in its joy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>A Dream of the Future. February 3.</h3> +<p>God grant that the day may come when in front of the dwellings +of the poor we may see real fountains—not like the +drinking-fountains, useful as they are, which you see here and +there about the streets, with a tiny dribble of water to a great +deal of expensive stone, but real fountains, which shall leap, +and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle, and fill the place with life +and light and coolness; and sing in the people’s ears the +sweetest of all earthly songs—save the song of a mother +over her child—the song of “The Laughing +Water.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Air Mothers</i>. +1872.</p> +<h3><!-- page 31--><a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>Bondage of Custom. February 4.</h3> +<p>Strive all your life to free men from the bondage of +<i>custom</i> and <i>self</i>, the two great elements of the +world that lieth in wickedness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. l842.</p> +<p>Henceforth let no man peering down<br /> +Through the dim glittering mine of future years<br /> +Say to himself, “Too much! this cannot be!”<br /> +To-day and custom wall up our horizon:<br /> +Before the hourly miracle of life<br /> +Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act i. +Scene ii.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>The Childlike Mind. February 5.</h3> +<p>There comes a time when we must <i>narrow</i> our sphere of +thought much, that we may <i>truly enlarge</i> it! we must, +<i>artificialised</i> as we <i>have</i> been, return to the +rudiments of life, to children’s pleasures, that we may +find easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws +which we may apply to the more intricate spheres of art and +science.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Unselfish Prayer. February 6.</h3> +<p>The Lord’s Prayer teaches that we are members of a +family, when He tells us to pray not “<i>My</i> +Father” but “Our Father;” not “<i>my</i> +soul be saved,” but “Thy kingdom come;” not +“give <i>me</i>” but “give <i>us</i> our daily +bread;” not “forgive me,” but “forgive +<i>us</i> our trespasses,” and that only as we forgive +others; not “lead <i>me</i> not,” but “lead +<i>us</i> not into temptation;” not “deliver +<i>me</i>,” but “deliver <i>us</i> from +evil.” After <i>that</i> manner our Lord tells us to +pray, and in proportion as we pray in that manner, just so far, +and no farther, will God hear our prayers.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1850.</p> +<h3><!-- page 33--><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>God is Light. February 7.</h3> +<p>All the deep things of God are bright, for God is Light. +God’s arbitrary will and almighty power may seem dark by +themselves though deep, but that is because they do not involve +His moral character. Join them with the fact that He is a +God of mercy as well as justice; remember that His essence is +love, and the thunder-cloud will blaze with dewy gold, full of +soft rain and pure light.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1844.</p> +<h3>The Veil Lifted. February 8.</h3> +<p>Science is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding +great reward. I can conceive few human states more enviable +than that of the man to whom—panting in the foul +laboratory, or watching for his life in the tropic +forest—Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil and +show him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of, some +law, or even mere hint of a law, explaining one fact: but +explaining with it a thousand more, connecting them all with each +other and with the mighty whole, till order and meaning shoots +through some old chaos of scattered observations. Is not +that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give nor poverty take +away? What it may lead to he knows not. Of what use +it may be he knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere +it must lead, of some use it will be. For it is a +truth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Science and +Superstition</i>.<br /> +1866.</p> +<h3>All Science One. February 9.</h3> +<p>Physical and spiritual science seem to the world to be +distinct. One sight of God as we shall some day see Him +will show us that they are indissolubly and eternally the +same.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3><!-- page 35--><a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>Passion and Reason. February 10.</h3> +<p>Passion and reason in a healthy mind ought to be +inseparable. We need not be passionless because we reason +correctly. Strange to say, one’s feelings will often +sharpen one’s knowledge of the truth, as they do +one’s powers of action.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3>Enthusiasm and Tact. February 11.</h3> +<p>. . . People smile at the “enthusiasm of +youth”—that enthusiasm which they themselves secretly +look back at with a sigh, perhaps unconscious that it is partly +their own fault that they ever lost it. . . . Do not fear +being considered an enthusiast. What matter? But pray +for <i>tact</i>, the true tact which love alone can give, to +prevent scandalising a weak brother.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<p>Be earnest, earnest, earnest; mad, if thou wilt:<br /> +Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, And that thy last +deed ere the judgment-day.<br /> +When all’s done, nothing’s done. There’s +rest above—<br /> +Below let work be death, if work be love!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene viii. 1847.</p> +<h3>The Eternal Good. February 12.</h3> +<p>“God hath showed thee what is good,” . . . what is +good in itself, and of itself—the one very eternal and +absolute good, which was with God and in God and from God, before +all worlds, and will be for ever, without changing, or growing +less or greater, eternally the same good—the good which +would be just as good and just and right and lovely and glorious +if there were no world, no men, no angels, no heaven, no hell, +and God were alone in His own abyss.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 37--><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>Awfulness of Words. February 13.</h3> +<p>A difference in words is a very awful and important +difference; a difference in words is a difference in +things. Words are very awful and wonderful things, for they +come from the most awful and wonderful of all beings, Jesus +Christ, <span class="smcap">The Word</span>. He puts words +into men’s minds. He made all things, and He made +words to express those things. And woe to those who use the +wrong words about anything.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1848.</p> +<h3>A Wise Woman. February 14.</h3> +<p>What wisdom she had she did not pick off the hedge, like +blackberries. God is too kind to give away wisdom after +that useless fashion. So she had to earn her wisdom, and to +work hard, and suffer much ere she attained it. And in +attaining she endured strange adventures and great sorrows; and +yet they would not have given her the wisdom had she not had +something in herself which gave her wit to understand her +lessons, and skill and courage to do what they taught her. +There had been many names for that something before she was born, +there have been many names for it since, but her father and +mother called it the Grace of God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Unfinished Novel</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Charity the one Influence. February 15.</h3> +<p>The older we grow, the more we understand our own lives and +histories, the more we shall see that the spirit of wisdom is the +spirit of love; that the true way to gain influence over our +fellow-men is to have charity towards them. That is a hard +lesson to learn; and all those who learn it generally learn it +late; almost—God forgive us—too late.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 39--><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>The Ascetic Painters. February 16.</h3> +<p>We owe much (notwithstanding their partial and Manichean idea +of beauty) to the early ascetic painters. Their works are a +possession for ever. No future school of religious art will +be able to rise to eminence without learning from them their +secret. They taught artists, and priests, and laymen, too, +that beauty is only worthy of admiration when it is the outward +sacrament of the beauty of the soul within; they helped to +deliver men from that idolatry to merely animal strength and +loveliness into which they were in danger of falling in ferocious +ages, and among the relics of Roman luxury.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Reveries. February 17.</h3> +<p>Beware of giving way to reveries. Have always some +employment in your hands. Look forward to the future with +hope. Build castles if you will, but only bright ones, and +<i>not too many</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Woman’s Mission. February 18.</h3> +<p>It is the glory of woman that she was sent into the world to +live for others rather than for herself; and therefore, I should +say, let her smallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs +redressed; but let her never be persuaded to forget that she is +sent into the world to teach man—what I believe she has +been teaching him all along, even in the savage state, namely, +that there is something more necessary than the claiming of +rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach him +specially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is +something more than intellect, and that is—purity and +virtue.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3><!-- page 41--><a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>The Heroic Life. February 19.</h3> +<p>Provided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine +life, which is the life of virtue, it will matter little to us by +what wild and weary ways, or through what painful and humiliating +processes, we have arrived thither. If God has loved us, if +God will receive us, then let us submit loyally and humbly to His +law—“whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and +scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>The Wages of Sin. February 20.</h3> +<p>It is sometimes said, “The greater the sinner the +greater the saint.” I do not believe it. I do +not see it. It stands to reason—if a man loses his +way and finds it again, he is so much the less forward on his +way, surely, by all the time he has spent in getting back into +the way.</p> +<p>And if any of you fancy you can sin without being punished, +remember that the prodigal son is punished most severely. +He does not get off freely the moment he chooses to repent, as +false preachers will tell you. Even after he does repent +and resolves to go back to his father’s house he has a long +journey home in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry, and all but +despairing. But when he does get home; when he shows he has +learnt the bitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is, +“Make me as one of thy hired servants,”—he is +received as freely as the rest.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1864.</p> +<h3>Silent Depths. February 21.</h3> +<p>Our mightiest feelings are always those which remain most +unspoken. The most intense lovers and the greatest poets +have generally, I think, written very little personal +love-poetry, while they have shown in fictitious characters a +knowledge of the passion too painfully intimate to be spoken of +in the first person.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 43--><a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span>True Justification. February 22.</h3> +<p>God grant us to be among those who wish to be really justified +by faith, by being made just persons by faith,—who cannot +satisfy either their conscience or their reason by fancying that +God looks on them as right when they know themselves to be wrong; +and who cannot help trusting that union with Christ must be +something real and substantial, and not merely a metaphor and a +flower of rhetoric.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1854.</p> +<h3>A Present Hell. February 23.</h3> +<p>“Ay,” he muttered, “sing awa’, . . . +wi’ pretty fancies and gran’ words, and gang to hell +for it.”</p> +<p>“To hell, Mr. Mackaye?”</p> +<p>“Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie—a +warse ane than any fiend’s kitchen or subterranean +Smithfield that ye’ll hear o’ in the +pulpits—the hell on earth o’ being a flunkey, and a +humbug, and a useless peacock, wasting God’s gifts on your +ain lusts and pleasures—and kenning it—and not being +able to get oot o’ it for the chains of vanity and +self-indulgence.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Alton Locke</i>, chap. +viii. 1849.</p> +<h3>Time and Eternity. February 24.</h3> +<p>Eternity does not mean merely some future endless duration, +but that ever-present <i>moral</i> world, governed by ever-living +and absolutely necessary laws, in which we and all spirits are +now; and in which we should be equally, whether time and space, +extension and duration, and the whole material universe to which +they belong, became nothing this moment, or lasted endlessly.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Theologica Germanica</i>. +1854.</p> +<h3><!-- page 45--><a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +45</span>Christ’s Life. February 25.</h3> +<p>What was Christ’s life? Not one of deep +speculations, quiet thoughts, and bright visions, but a life of +fighting against evil; earnest, awful prayers and struggles +within, continued labour of body and mind without; insult, and +danger, and confusion, and violent exertion, and bitter +sorrow. This was Christ’s life. This was St. +Peter’s, and St. James’s, and St. John’s life +afterwards.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1849.</p> +<h3>The Higher Education. February 26.</h3> +<p>In teaching women we must try to make our deepest lessons bear +on the great purpose of unfolding Woman’s own calling in +all ages—her especial calling in this one. We must +incite them to realise the chivalrous belief of our old +forefathers among their Saxon forests, that something Divine +dwelt in the counsels of woman: but, on the other hand, we must +continually remind them that they will attain that divine +instinct, not by renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by +becoming true women, and not bad imitations of men; by educating +their heads for the sake of their hearts, not their hearts for +the sake of their heads; by claiming woman’s divine +vocation as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and of love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Introductory Lecture</i>, +<i>Queen’s College</i>.<br /> +1848.</p> +<h3>God’s Kingdom. February 27.</h3> +<p>Philamon had gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it; +and he had learnt that God’s kingdom was not a kingdom of +fanatics yelling for a doctrine, but of willing, loving, obedient +hearts.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxiii. +1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 47--><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>Sowing and Reaping. February 28.</h3> +<p>So it is, that by every crime, folly, even neglect of theirs, +men drive a thorn into their own flesh, which will trouble them +for years to come, it may be to their dying day—</p> +<blockquote><p>Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they +grind exceeding small;<br /> +Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He +all—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as those who neglect their fellow-creatures will discover, by +the most patent, undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when +the rich and poor shall meet together, and then, at last, +discover too that the Lord is the Maker of them all.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>The Church Catechism. February 29.</h3> +<p>Did it ever strike you that the simple, noble, old Church +Catechism, without one word about rewards and punishments, heaven +or hell, begins to talk to the child, like a true English +Catechism as it is, about that glorious old English key-word +Duty? It calls on the child to confess its own duty, and +teaches it that its duty is something most human, simple, +everyday—commonplace, if you will call it so. And I +rejoice in the thought that the Church Catechism teaches that the +child’s duty is commonplace. I rejoice that in what +it says about our duty to God and our neighbour, it says not one +word about counsels of perfection, or those frames and feelings +which depend, believe me, principally on the state of +people’s bodily health, on the constitution of their +nerves, and the temper of their brain; but that it requires +nothing except what a little child can do as well as a grown +person, a labouring man as well as a divine, a plain farmer as +well as the most refined, devout, imaginative lady.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 48--><a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>FEBRUARY 2.<br /> +The Presentation of Christ in the Temple,<br /> +<span class="smcap">commonly called</span><br /> +The Purification of the Virgin Mary.</h4> +<p>Little children may think of Christ as a child now and +always. For to them He is always the Babe of +Bethlehem. Let them not say to themselves, “Christ is +grown up long ago.” He is, and yet He is not. +His life is eternal in the heavens, above all change of time and +space. . . . Such is the sacred heart of Jesus—all +things to all. To the strong He can be strongest, to the +weak weakest of all. With the aged and dying He goes down +for ever to the grave; and yet with you children Christ lies for +ever on His mother’s bosom, and looks up for ever into His +mother’s face, full of young life and happiness and +innocence, the Everlasting Christ-child, in whom you must +believe, whom you must love, to whom you must offer up your +childish prayers.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Christ-child</i>,<br /> +<i>Sermons</i>, (<i>Good News of God</i>).</p> +<h4><!-- page 49--><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +49</span>FEBRUARY 24.St. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They rest from +their labours—all their struggles, failures, past and over +for ever. But their works follow them. The good which +they did on earth—<i>that</i> is not past and over. +It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on in +their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto +everlasting life, not only in them, but in men whom they never +saw, and in generations yet unborn.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i> (<i>Good News of +God</i>).</p> +<h4>Ash Wednesday.</h4> +<p>There is a repentance too deep for words—too deep for +all confessionals, penances, and emotions or acts of contrition; +the repentance, not of the excitable, theatric Southern, unstable +as water even in his most violent remorse, but of the still, +deep-hearted Northern, whose pride breaks slowly and silently, +but breaks once for all; who tells to God what he will never tell +to man, and having told it, is a new creature from that day forth +for ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xviii.</p> +<h4>The True Fast.</h4> +<p>The <i>rationale</i> of Fasting is to give up habitual +indulgences for a time, lest they become our +masters—artificial <i>necessities</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h2><!-- page 51--><a name="page51"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +51</span>March.</h2> +<blockquote><p>Early in the Springtime, on raw and windy +mornings,<br /> +Beneath the freezing house-eaves, I heard the starlings +sing—<br /> +Ah! dreary March month, is this then a time for building +wearily?<br /> +Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun!</p> +<p>Late in the Autumn, on still and cloudless evenings,<br /> +Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing—<br +/> +Ah! that sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting +merrily;<br /> +Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Starlings</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 53--><a name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +53</span>Knowledge and Love. March 1.</h3> +<p>Knowledge and Love are reciprocal. He who loves +knows. He who knows loves. Saint John is the example +of the first; Saint Paul of the second.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>A Charm of Birds. March 2.</h3> +<p>Little do most people know how much there is to +learn—what variety of character, as well as variety of +motion, may be distinguished by the practised ear in a +“charm of birds”—from the wild cry of the +missel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first bright days of +March a passage of one or two bars repeated three or four times, +and then another and another, clear and sweet and yet +defiant—for the great “storm-cock” loves to +sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as +boldly as he faces hawk and crow—down to the delicate +warble of the wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank +where he has huddled through the frost with wife and children, +all folded in each other’s arms like human beings. +Yet even he, sitting at his house-door in the low sunlight, says +grace for all mercies in a song so rapid, so shrill, so loud, and +yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount of +soul within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, like a child +that has said its lesson or got to the end of a sermon, gives a +self-satisfied flirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3>Tact of the Heart. March 3.</h3> +<p>Random shots are dangerous and cruel, likely to hit the wrong +person and hurt his feelings unnecessarily. It is very easy +to say a hard thing, but not so easy to say it to the right +person at the right time.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3><!-- page 55--><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +55</span>Special Providences. March 4.</h3> +<p>I believe not only in “special providences,” but +in the whole universe as one infinite complexity of special +providences.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>.</p> +<p>The grain of dust is a thought of God; God’s power made +it; God’s wisdom gave it whatsoever properties or qualities +it may possess. God’s providence has put it in the +place where it is now, and has ordained that it should be in that +place at that moment, by a train of causes and effects which +reaches back to the very creation of the universe. The +grain of dust can no more go from God’s presence or flee +from God’s Spirit than you or I can.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town Geology</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Be Calm. March 5.</h3> +<p>Strive daily and hourly to be calm; to stop yourself forcibly +and recall your mind to a sense of what you are, where you are +going, and whither you ought to be tending. This is most +painful discipline, but most wholesome.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Self-sacrifice and Personality. March 6.</h3> +<p>What a strange mystery is that of mutual self-sacrifice! to +exist for one moment for another! the perfection of human +bliss! And does not love teach us two things? First, +that self-sacrifice, the living for others, is the law of our +perfect being, and next, that by and in self-sacrifice alone can +we attain to the perfect apprehension of ourselves, our own +personality, our own duty, our own bliss. So that the +mystics are utterly wrong when they fancy that self-sacrifice can +be attained by self-annihilation. Self-sacrifice, instead +of destroying the sense of personality, perfects it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 57--><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>Follow your Star. March 7.</h3> +<p>I believe with Dante, “<i>se tu segui la tua +Stella</i>,” that He who ordained my star will not lead me +<i>into</i> temptation but <i>through</i> it. Without Him +all places and methods of life are equally dangerous, with Him +all equally safe.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1848.</p> +<h3>Reverence for Books. March 8.</h3> +<p>This is the age of <i>books</i>. And we should reverence +books. Consider! except a living man there is nothing more +wonderful than a book—a message to us from the dead, from +human souls whom we never saw, who lived perhaps thousands of +miles away, and yet in those little sheets of paper speak to us, +amuse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their hearts to +us as brothers!</p> +<p>We ought to reverence books, to look at them as awful and +mighty things. If they are good and true, whether they are +about religion or politics, trade or medicine, they are the +message of Christ, the Maker of all things, the Teacher of all +truth, which He has put into the heart of some men to +speak. And at the last day, be sure of it, we shall have to +render an account—a strict account—of the books which +we have read, and of the way in which we have obeyed what we +read, just as if we had had so many prophets or angels sent to +us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1849.</p> +<h3>The Unknown Future. March 9.</h3> +<p>As for the things which God has prepared for those who love +Him, the Bible tells me that no man can conceive them, and +therefore I believe that I cannot conceive them. God has +conceived them; God has prepared them; God is our Father. +That is enough.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 59--><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>Secular and Sacred. March 10.</h3> +<p>I grudge the epithet of “<i>secular</i>” to any +matter whatsoever. But more; I deny it to anything which +God has made, even to the tiniest of insects, the most +insignificant grain of dust. To those who believe in God, +and try to see all things in God, the most minute natural +phenomenon cannot be secular. It must be divine, I say +deliberately, divine, and I can use no less lofty word.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town Geology</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Content or Happy? March 11.</h3> +<p>My friends, whether you will be the happier for any knowledge +of physical science, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I +cannot tell. That lies in the decision of a higher Power +than I; and, indeed, to speak honestly, I do not think that any +branch of physical science is likely, at first at least, to make +you happy. Neither is the study of your fellow-men. +Neither is religion itself. We were not sent into the world +to be happy, but to be right—at least, poor creatures that +we are—as right as we can be, and we must be content with +being right, and not happy. . . . And we shall be made +truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with +what we can understand, but content with what we do not +understand—the habit of mind which theologians call (and +rightly) faith in God, true and solid faith, which comes often +out of sadness and out of doubt.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Bio-geology</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Duty of Man to Man. March 12.</h3> +<p>Each man can learn something from his neighbour; at least he +can learn this—to have patience with his neighbour, to live +and let live.</p> +<p>Peace! peace! Anything which is not <i>wrong</i> for the +sake of heaven-born Peace!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country +Sermons</i>. 1861.</p> +<h3><!-- page 61--><a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +61</span>Blessing of a True Friend. March 13.</h3> +<p>A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, +one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and +worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who +will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to +our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us +counsel and reproof in the days of prosperity and self-conceit; +but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the day of +difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight +our battle as we can.</p> +<p>It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends: the mean +and cowardly can never know what true friendship means.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>True Heroines. March 14.</h3> +<p>What is the commonest, and yet the least remembered form of +heroism? The heroism of an average mother. Ah! when I +think of that broad fact I gather hope again for poor humanity, +and this dark world looks bright, this diseased world looks +wholesome to me once more, because, whatever else it is or is not +full of, it is at least full of mothers.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Heroism</i>. +1873.</p> +<h3>Secret Atheism. March 15.</h3> +<p>There is little hope that we shall learn the lessons God is +for ever teaching us in the events of life till we get rid of our +secret Atheism, till we give up the notion that God only visits +now and then to disorder and destroy His own handiwork, and take +back the old scriptural notion that God is visiting all day long +for ever, to give order and life to His own work, to set it right +where it goes wrong, and re-create it whenever it decays.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 63--><a name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +63</span>Tolerance. March 16.</h3> +<p>If we really love God and long to do good and work for God, if +we really love our neighbours and wish to help them, we shall +have no heart to quarrel about <i>how</i> the good is to be done, +provided <i>it is</i> done. “Master,” said St. +John, “we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he +followeth not us; wilt Thou that we forbid him? And Jesus +said, Forbid him not.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>The Hopes of Old Age. March 17.</h3> +<p>Christianity alone deprives old age of its bitterness, making +it the gate of heaven. Our bodies will fade and grow weak +and shapeless, just when we shall not want them, being ready and +in close expectation of that resurrection of the flesh which is +the great promise of Christianity (no miserable fancies about +“pure souls” escaped from matter, but)—of +bodies, <i>our</i> bodies, beloved, beautiful, ministers to us in +all our joys, sufferers with us in all our sorrows—yea, our +very own selves raised up again to live and love in a manner +inconceivable from its perfection.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<p>. . . No! I can wait:<br /> +Another body!—Ah, new limbs are ready,<br /> +Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve,<br /> +Kept for us in the treasuries of God!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Santa Maura</i>. 1852.</p> +<h3>The Highest Study for Man, March 18.</h3> +<p>Man is <i>not</i>, as the poet said, “the noblest study +of mankind.” God is the noblest study of man, and Him +we can study in three ways. 1st. From His image as +developed in Christ the Ideal, and in all good men—great +good men. 2dly. From His works. 3dly. From His +dealings in history; this is the real philosophy of history.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 65--><a name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +65</span>Eclecticism. March 19.</h3> +<p>An eclectic, if it mean anything, means this—one who in +any branch of art or science refuses to acknowledge Bacon’s +great law, that “Nature is only conquered by obeying +her;” who will not take a full and reverent view of the +whole mass of facts with which he has to deal, and from them +deducing the fundamental laws of his subject, obey them +whithersoever they may lead; but who picks and chooses out of +them just so many as may be pleasant to his private taste, and +then constructs a partial system which differs from the essential +ideas of Nature in proportion to the number of facts which he has +determined to discard.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Duty. March 20.</h3> +<p>Duty, be it in a small matter or a great, is duty still; the +command of Heaven; the eldest voice of God. And it is only +they who are faithful in a few things who will be faithful over +many things; only they who do their duty in everyday and trivial +matters who will fulfil them on great occasions.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3>The Great Unknown. March 21.</h3> +<p>“Brother,” said the abbot, “make ready for +me the divine elements, that I may consecrate them.” +And he asking the reason therefor, the saint replied, “That +I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I depart +hence. For know assuredly that within the seventh day I +shall migrate to the celestial mansions. For this night +stood by me in a dream those two women whom I love, and for whom +I pray, the one clothed in a white, the other in a ruby-coloured +garment, and holding each other by the hand, who said to me, +‘<i>That life after death is not such a one as you +fancy</i>: come, therefore, and behold what it is +like.’”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxx. +1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 67--><a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>Loss nor Gain, March 22.</h3> +<p>Nothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more +anxious than carelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait +returns with seven fresh duties at its back.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3>Ancient Greek Education, March 23.</h3> +<p>We talk of education now. Are we more educated than were +the ancient Greeks? Do we know anything about education, +physical, intellectual, æsthetic (religious education in +our sense of the word of course they had none), of which they +have not taught us at least the rudiments? Are there not +some branches of education which they perfected once and for +ever, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow +their example? To produce health, that is, harmony and +sympathy, proportion and grace, in every faculty of mind and +body—that was their notion of education.</p> +<p>Ah! the waste of health and strength in the young! The +waste, too, of anxiety and misery in those who love and tend +them! How much of it might be saved by a little rational +education in those laws of nature which are the will of God about +the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we are as much +bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obey the +spiritual laws whereon depend the welfare of our souls.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Body and Soul. March 24.</h3> +<p>Exalt me with Thee, O Lord, to know the mystery of life, that +I may use the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the +heavenly, and, by using to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit +to be exalted to the use of the spiritual body. Amen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 69--><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>Moderation. March 25.</h3> +<p>Let us pray for that great—I had almost said that +crowning grace and virtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls +sobriety and a sound mind. Let us pray for moderate +appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours, moderate gains, +moderate joys; and if sorrows be needed to chasten us, moderate +sorrows. Let us not long violently after, or wish too +eagerly to rise in life.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Poetry in the Slums. March 26.</h3> +<p>“True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at +home. . . . Hech! is there no the heaven above them there, +and the hell beneath them? and God frowning, and the devil +grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verra idea of +the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance? +canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern +tragedy, man conquering circumstance? and I’ll show ye that +too—in many a garret where no eye but the good God’s +enters to see the patience, and the fortitude, and the +self-sacrifice, and the love stronger than death, that’s +shining in those dark places of the earth.”</p> +<p>“Ah, poetry’s grand—but fact is grander; God +and Satan are grander. All around ye, in every gin-shop and +costermonger’s cellar, are God and Satan at death-grips; +every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise +Regained.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Alton Locke</i>, chap. +viii. 1849.</p> +<h3>Time and Eternity. March 27.</h3> +<p>. . . Our life’s floor<br /> +Is laid upon Eternity; no crack in it<br /> +But shows the underlying heaven.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iii. Scene ii.</p> +<h3><!-- page 71--><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>Work. March 28.</h3> +<p>Yes. Life is meant for work, and not for ease; to labour +in danger and in dread, to do a little good ere the night comes +when no man can work, instead of trying to realise for oneself a +paradise; not even Bunyan’s shepherd-paradise, much less +Fourier’s casino-paradise, and perhaps, least of all, +because most selfish and isolated of all, our own art-paradise, +the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Teaching of Pictures. March 29.</h3> +<p>Pictures raise blessed thoughts in me. Why not in you, +my toiling brother? Those landscapes painted by loving, +wise, old Claude two hundred years ago, are still as fresh as +ever. How still the meadows are! How pure and free +that vault of deep blue sky! No wonder that thy worn heart, +as thou lookest, sighs aloud, “Oh, that I had wings as a +dove, then would I flee away and be at rest.” Ah! but +gayer meadows and bluer skies await thee <i>in the world to +come</i>—that fairyland made real—“the new +heavens and the new earth” which God hath prepared for the +pure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered +in this sore fight of life.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>True Words for Brave +Men</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Voluntary Heroism. March 30.</h3> +<p>Any man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who +<i>will</i>, <i>can</i> live the heroic life and exercise heroic +influences.</p> +<p>It is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of +heroism, that it should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, +at least, towards society and man; an act to which the hero or +heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not +against duty.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Heroism</i>. +1872.</p> +<h3><!-- page 73--><a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>The Ideal Holy One. March 31.</h3> +<p>Have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with +impatience, “Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One +somewhere—or else, how could have arisen in my mind the +conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness? But where? +oh, where? Not in the world around strewn with +unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and +within. Is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with +utter delight? and if so, where is He? Oh, that I might +behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as +in the fable of Semele of old, ‘the lightning of His glance +were death.’” . . .</p> +<p>And then, oh, then—has there not come that for which our +spirit was athirst—the very breath of pure air, the very +gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music—for it +is the very music of the spheres—in those words, +“Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, +and is to come”?</p> +<p>Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy +One—spotless and undefiled, serene and +self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One +whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied +with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter +satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of +purity. And who is He? Who, save the Cause and Maker +and Ruler of all things past, present, and to come?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermon on All Saints’ +Day</i>. 1874.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Charles Kingsley’s Dying +Words,<br /> +“HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS.”</p> +<h3><!-- page 74--><a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>MARCH 25.<br /> +The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,<br /> +<span class="smcap">commonly called</span><br /> +Lady Day.</h4> +<p>It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the +ways by which the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, +mixed up with the grandest and most mysterious and most divine +matters, are the simplest, the most tender, the most human. +What more grand, or deep, or divine words can we say than, +“I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Lord, +who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,”—and yet what +more simple, human, and tender words can we say than, “Who +was born of the Virgin Mary”? For what more beautiful +sight on earth than a young mother with her babe upon her +knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to those +who can say, “I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin +Mary.”</p> +<p>For since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood +into God, birth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a +mother’s joys and a mother’s cares are holy to the +Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in her arms is a +token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will towards men, +a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and blessed +above all women. Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is +the time for our remembering the Blessed Virgin. For our +hearts and reasons tell us (and have told all Christians in all +ages), that she must have been holier, nobler, fairer in body and +soul, than all women upon earth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 75--><a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>April.</h2> +<p>Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?<br /> +Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?<br /> +Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying,<br /> +Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day.</p> +<p>Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing,<br +/> +Rest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain.<br /> +Weep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying,<br /> +Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health +again.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Dead Church</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 77--><a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>The Song of Birds. April 1.</h3> +<p>St. Francis called the birds his brothers. Perfectly +sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at +least possible that the birds might be spiritual beings likewise, +incarnate like himself in mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to +the dignity of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with +creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his +old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even as angels did +in heaven.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>True Reformers. April 2.</h3> +<p>It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise +superior to that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many +years ago.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Lecture at +Cambridge</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3>High Ideals. April 3.</h3> +<p>What if a man’s idea of “The Church” be +somewhat too narrow for the year of grace 18--, is it no honour +to him that he has such an idea at all? that there has risen up +before him the vision of a perfect polity, a “divine and +wonderful order,” linking earth to heaven, and to the very +throne of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its +citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, that he +is the child of God Himself; and guiding and strengthening him +from the cradle to the grave to do his Father’s work? +Is it no honour to him that he has seen that such a polity must +exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he thinks he +finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in the +most ancient and august traditions of his native land? +True, he may have much still to learn. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +iv. 1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 79--><a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>Divine Knowledge. April 4.</h3> +<p>That glorious word <i>know</i>—it is God’s +attribute, and includes in itself all others. Love, +truth—all are parts of that awful power of <i>knowing</i> +at a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in +its essence, its properties, and its relations to the whole +universe through all Time. I feel awestruck whenever I see +that word used rightly, and I never, if I can remember, use it +myself of myself.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Woman’s Love. April 5.</h3> +<p>The story of Ruth is the consecration of woman’s +love. I do not mean of the love of wife to husband, divine +and blessed as that is. I mean that depth and strength of +devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God has put into +the heart of all true women; and which they spend so strangely, +and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and +from whom they can receive no earthly reward—the affection +which made women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus +Christ, which brought Mary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and +to the door of the tomb—the affection which made a wise man +say that as long as women and sorrow are left in the world, so +long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and conquer +therein.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Feeling and Emotion. April 6.</h3> +<p>Live a life of <i>feeling</i>, not of <i>excitement</i>. +Let your religion, your duties, every thought and word, be ruled +by the <i>affections</i>, not by the <i>emotions</i>, which are +the expressions of them. Do not consider whether you are +glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be +yourself—what God makes you.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 81--><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>The Beasts that perish. April 7.</h3> +<p>St. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass +darkly. But this he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when +He rose from the dead, brought a blessing even for the dumb +beasts and the earth on which we live. He says the whole +creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to bring +forth something, and that the whole creation will rise +again—how and when and into what new state we cannot tell; +but that when the Lord shall destroy death the whole creation +shall be renewed.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>Reverence for Age. April 8.</h3> +<p>Reverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, +conversely, insolence towards the old and the past, whether in +individuals or in nations, is a sign rather of weakness than of +strength.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Westminster +Abbey</i>.<br /> +1874.</p> +<h3>Prayers for the Dead. April 9.</h3> +<p>We do not in the Church of England now pray for the +dead. We are not absolutely forbidden by Scripture to do +so. But we believe they are where they ought to +be—that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in which +is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this +world; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of +their deeds done in the body; and that they are in the hands of a +perfectly just God, who rewardeth every man according to his +work. It seems therefore unnecessary, and, so to speak, an +impertinence towards God, to pray for them who are in the unseen +world of spirits exactly in the state which they have +deserved.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 83--><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>Diversities of Gifts. April 10.</h3> +<p> Why expect<br /> +Wisdom with love in all? Each has his gift—<br /> +Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop<br /> +And various pitch: each with its proper notes<br /> +Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God.<br /> +Though poor alone, yet joined, they’re harmony.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saints’ Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene v.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>The Atonement. April 11.</h3> +<p><i>How</i> Christ’s death takes away thy sins thou wilt +never know on earth—perhaps not in heaven. It is a +mystery which thou must believe and adore. But <i>why</i> +He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou hast a human +heart and will look at what God means thee to look +at—Christ upon His Cross. He died because He was +<i>Love</i>—love itself, love boundless, unconquerable, +unchangeable—love which inhabits eternity, and therefore +could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man, +but must love men still—must go out to seek and save them, +must dare, suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their +sake—just because it is absolute and perfect Love which +inhabits eternity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>A Day’s Work. April 12.</h3> +<p>Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if +possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, I have +made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier, +or a little better this day. You will find it easier than +you think, and pleasanter.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 85--><a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>Self-control. April 13.</h3> +<p>A well-educated moral sense, a well-educated character, saves +from idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and +excitement, those tenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those +nobler aspirations of humanity, which are the heritage of the +woman far more than of the man, and which are potent in her, for +evil or for good, in proportion as they are left to run wild and +undisciplined, or are trained and developed into graceful, +harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves, +and a blessing to all who come under their influence.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Women and Novels. April 14.</h3> +<p>Novels will be read; but that is all the more reason why women +should be trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper +literature, to distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral +from the immoral, the noble from the base, the true work of art +from the sham which hides its shallowness and vulgarity under a +tangled plot and a melodramatic situation. They should +learn—and that they can only learn by cultivation—to +discern with joy and drink in with reverence, the good, the +beautiful, and the true, and to turn with the fine scorn of a +pure and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the +false.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Expect Much. April 15.</h3> +<p>Expect great things from God, and also expect the least +things, for the great test of faith is shown about the least +matters. People will believe their soul is sure to be saved +who have not the heart to expect that God will take away some +small burden.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 87--><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>What is Theology? April 16.</h3> +<p>Theology signifies the knowledge of God as He is. And it +is dying out among us in these days. Much of what is called +theology now is nothing but experimental religion, which is most +important and useful when it is founded on the right knowledge of +God, but which is not itself theology. For theology begins +with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong, begins with +a man’s own soul.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Sweetness and Light. April 17.</h3> +<p>Ah, that we could believe that God is love, and that he that +dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him! Then we +should have no need to be told to cultivate sweetness and light, +for they would seem to us the only temper which could make life +tolerable in any corner of the universe.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Essay on the Critical +Spirit</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>The Contemplative Life. April 18.</h3> +<p>“Woman is no more capable than man of living on mere +contemplation. We must have an object to whom we may devote +the fruits of thought, and unless we have a real one in active +life we shall be sure to coin one for ourselves, and spend our +spirits on a dream.”</p> +<p>“True, true,” chimed in the counsellor, +“spirit is little use without body, and a body it will +find; and therefore, unless you let people’s brains grow +healthy plants, they will grow mushrooms.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. unfinished Story</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 89--><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +89</span>Sudden Death. April 19.</h3> +<p>“What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him +home when he has done his work?”</p> +<p>“But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?”</p> +<p>“And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools +long for a short life and a merry one, and shall not the +Lord’s people pray for a short death and a merry one? +Let it come as it will to old Yeo!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. +xxxii. 1855.</p> +<h3>Prayer and Praise. April 20.</h3> +<p>Pray night and day, very quietly, like a little weary child, +to the good and loving God, for everything you want, in body as +well as soul—the least thing as well as the greatest. +Nothing is too much to ask God for—nothing too great for +Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord! And try to thank +Him for everything . . . I sometimes feel that eternity +will be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us +live at all! And then not making us idiots or cripples, or +even only ugly and stupid! What blessings we have! +Let us work in return for them—not under the enslaving +sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with the delight of +gratitude, glorying that we are God’s debtors.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3>The Divine Spark. April 21.</h3> +<p>Man? I am a man, thou art a woman—not by reason of +bones and muscles, nerves and brain, which I have in common with +apes, and dogs, and horses—I am a man, thou art a man or +woman, not because we have a flesh, God forbid! but because there +is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray which nature did not +give, and which nature cannot take away. And therefore, +while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the +flesh, that I may be indeed a man.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Ancient +Civilisation</i>.<br /> +1873.</p> +<h3><!-- page 91--><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>The Worst Calamity. April 22.</h3> +<p>The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any +human being would be this—to have his own way from his +cradle to his grave; to have everything he liked for the asking, +or even for the buying; never to be forced to say, “I +should like that, but I cannot afford it. I should like +this, but I must not do it.” Never to deny himself, +never to exert himself, never to work, and never to +want—that man’s soul would be in as great danger as +if he were committing great crimes.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Men and Women. April 23.</h3> +<p>“The Lord be with you, dearest lady,” said Adrian +Gilbert. “Strange how you women sit at home to love +and suffer, while we men rush forth to break our hearts and yours +against rocks of our own seeking! Ah! hech! were it not for +Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather than Eve, had +been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden +tree.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. +xiii. 1855.</p> +<h3>Faith in the Unseen. April 24.</h3> +<p>He was not one of those “ungodly” men of whom +David speaks in his Psalms, who rob the widow and the +fatherless. His morality was as high as that of the +average, his honour higher. But of “godliness” +in its true sense—of belief that any Being above cared for +him, and was helping him in the daily business of life: that it +was worth while asking that Being’s advice, or that any +advice would be given if asked for—of any practical notion +of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator—he was as +ignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, +and read good books, and believe firmly that the Pope is +Antichrist.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. i. +1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 93--><a name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>Death—Resurrection. April 25.</h3> +<p>As we rose to go, my eye caught a highly-finished drawing of +the Resurrection painted above the place where the desk and +faldstool and lectern, holding an open missal book, stood. +I should have rather expected, I thought to myself, a picture of +the Crucifixion. She seemed to guess my thought, and said, +“There is enough in an abode of heavy hearts, and in daily +labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in our minds the +Prince of Sufferers. We need rather to be reminded that +pain is not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it +has been conquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose +eternity of bliss a few years of sadness were but as a mote +within the sunbeam’s blaze.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. unfinished Story</i>. +l843.</p> +<h3>Woman’s Work. April 26.</h3> +<p>Woman is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, +purifier, inspirer of man.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>Passion—Easter—Ascension. April 27.</h3> +<p>Good Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension, are set as great +lights in the firmament of the spiritual year;—to remind us +that we are not animals born to do what we like, and fulfil the +simple lusts of the flesh—but that we are rational moral +beings, members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the +kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, like Christ, we must die +in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They remind us +that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out +of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy +struggles; righteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter +out of pure tears; true strength out of the true knowledge of our +own weakness; sound peace of mind out of sound contrition.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3><!-- page 95--><a name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +95</span>How to keep Passion-Week. April 28.</h3> +<p>Can we go wrong if we keep our Passion-week as Christ kept +His? And how did He keep it? Not by shutting Himself +up apart, not by the mere thinking over the glory of +self-sacrifice. He taught daily in the temple; instead of +giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than ever as the +terrible end drew near. Why should not we keep +Passion-week, not by merely hiding in our closets to meditate +even about Him, but by going about our work each in his place, +dutifully, bravely, as Christ went?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3>Self-Sacrifice. April 29.</h3> +<p>Without self-sacrifice there can be no blessedness either in +earth or in heaven. He that loveth his life will lose +it. He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish, +luxurious world shall keep it to life eternal.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1870.</p> +<h3>Help from our Blessed Dead. April 30.</h3> +<p>And so with those who are Christ’s whom we love. +Partakers of His death, they are partakers of His +resurrection. Let us believe the blessed news in all its +fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them, +and again a little while and we do not see them. But +why? Because they are gone to the Father, to the Source and +Fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they may +gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His +light, love from His love; and surely not for nought. +Surely not for nought. For if they were like Christ on +earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone; if they +are to be like Christ when they see Him as He is, then, more +surely, will they not use their powers for themselves, but as +Christ uses His, for those they love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 96--><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.Passion-tide.</h3> +<p>From the earliest times the Cross has been the special sign of +Christians. St. Paul tells us his great hope, his great +business, what God had sent him into the world to do, was +this—to make people know the love of Christ; to look at +Christ’s Cross, and take in its breadth and length and +depth and height.</p> +<p>And what is the <i>breadth</i> of Christ’s Cross? +My friends, it is as broad as the whole world, for He died for +the whole world; as it is written, “He is a propitiation +not for our sins only, but for the sins of the whole +world.” And that is the <i>breadth</i> of +Christ’s Cross.</p> +<p>And what is the <i>length</i> of Christ’s Cross? +Long enough to last through all time. As long as there is a +sinner to be saved; as long as there is ignorance, sorrow, pain, +death, or anything else which is contrary to God and hurtful to +man in the universe of God, so long will Christ’s Cross +last. And that is the <i>length</i> of the Cross of +Christ.</p> +<p>And how <i>high</i> is Christ’s Cross? As high as +the highest heaven, and the throne of God and the bosom of the +Father—that bosom out of which for ever proceed all created +things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven; for, if you will +receive it, when Christ hung upon the Cross heaven came down on +earth, and earth ascended into heaven. And that is the +<i>height</i> of the Cross of Christ.</p> +<p>And how <i>deep</i> is the Cross of Christ? This is a +great mystery which people are afraid to look into, and darken it +of their own will. But if the Cross of Christ be as high as +heaven, then it must be as deep as hell, deep enough to reach the +deepest sinner in the deepest pit to which he may fall, for +Christ descended into hell, and preached to the spirits in +prison. Let us hope, then, that is the <i>depth</i> of the +Cross of Christ.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<i>The Measure of the +Cross</i>,”<br /> +<i>Sermons</i> (<i>Good News of God</i>).</p> +<h4><!-- page 97--><a name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +97</span>Good Friday.</h4> +<p>Listen! and our God shall whisper, as we hang upon the cross, +<a name="citation97"></a><a href="#footnote97" +class="citation">[97]</a><br /> +“Children! love! and loving, faint not! great your glory, +light your loss!<br /> +<i>Ye</i> are bound—ye may be loosed—<i>I</i> was +nailed upon the tree,<br /> +Of the pangs I suffered for you—bear awhile a few for +me!<br /> +Fear not, though the waters whelm you; fear not, though ye see no +land!<br /> +Know ye not your God is with you, guiding with a Father’s +hand?<br /> +Cords may wring, and winds may freeze you, shivering on the +sullen sea,<br /> +Yet the life that burns within you liveth ever hid with +Me!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<p>Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He +must die before He could rise. He must descend into hell +before He could ascend into heaven. For this is the law of +God’s kingdom. Without a Good Friday there can be no +Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice there can be no +blessedness.</p> +<p>My Saviour! My King! Infinite, Eternal +Love—alone of all beings devoid of self-love! Glory +be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy Cross and Passion!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h4><!-- page 98--><a name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>Easter Even.</h4> +<p>Christ went down into hell and preached to the spirits in +prison. It is written that “as in Adam all die, even +so in Christ shall all be made alive;” and again, +“When the wicked man turns from his wickedness he shall +save his soul alive.” And we know that in the same +chapter God tells us that His ways are not unequal. It is +possible, therefore, that He has not one law for this life and +another for the life to come. Let us hope, then, that +David’s words may be true after all, when, speaking by the +Spirit of God, he says not only “if I ascend up to heaven, +thou art there,” but “if I go down to hell, thou art +there also.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h4>Easter Day.</h4> +<p>The Creed says, “I believe in the Resurrection of the +flesh.” I believe that we, each of us, as human +beings, men and women, shall have a share in that glorious day; +not merely as ghosts and disembodied spirits, but as real live +human beings, with new bodies of our own, on a new earth, under a +new heaven. “Therefore,” David says, “my +flesh shall rest in hope;” not merely my soul, my ghost, +but my flesh. For the Lord, who not only died but rose +again with His body, shall raise our bodies according to His +mighty working, and then the whole manhood of us—body, +soul, and spirit—shall have our perfect consummation and +bliss in His eternal and everlasting glory.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4>APRIL 25.<br /> +St. Mark, Evangelist and Martyr.</h4> +<p>God’s apostles, saints, and martyrs are our spiritual +ancestors. They spread the Gospel into all lands, and they +spread it, remember always, not only by preaching what they knew, +but by being what they were. Their characters, their +personal histories, are as important to us as their writings.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 99--><a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>May.</h2> +<p>Is it merely a fancy that we are losing that love for Spring +which among our old forefathers rose almost to worship? +That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves and the +returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment +which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old world, when +the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and returned +in spring to life, and health, and glory; when Freya, the goddess +of youth and love, went forth over the earth while the flowers +broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds +welcomed her with song? To those simpler children of a +simpler age winter and spring were the two great facts of +existence; the symbols, the one of death, the other of life; and +the battle between the two—the battle of the sun with +darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, of +bereavement with love—lay at the root of all their myths +and all their creeds. Surely a change has come over our +fancies! The seasons are little to us now!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 101--><a name="page101"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 101</span>Past and Present. May 1.</h3> +<p>Now see the young spring leaves burst out a-maying,<br /> +Fill with their ripening hues orchard and glen;<br /> +So though old forms pass by, ne’er shall their spirit +die,<br /> +Look! England’s bare boughs show green leaf +again.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Poems</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>The Earth is the Lord’s. May 2.</h3> +<p>The earth is holy! Can there be a more glorious truth to +carry out—one which will lead us more into all love and +beauty and purity in heaven and earth? One which must have +God’s light of love shining on it at every step. God +gives us souls and bodies exquisitely attuned for this very +purpose—the æsthetic faculty, our sensibilities to +the beautiful. All events of life, all the workings of our +hearts, should point to this one idea. As I walk the +fields, the trees and flowers and birds, and the motes of rack +floating in the sky, seem to cry to me: “Thou knowest +us! Thou knowest we have a meaning, and sing a +heaven’s harmony by night and day! Do us +justice! Spell our enigma, and go forth and tell thy +fellows that we are their brethren, that their spirit is our +spirit, their Saviour our Saviour, their God our God!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>The Great Question. May 3.</h3> +<p>Is there a living God in the universe, or is there not? +That is the greatest of all questions. Has our Lord Jesus +Christ answered it, or has He not?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 103--><a name="page103"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 103</span>Our Father. May 4.</h3> +<p>Look at those thousand birds, and without our Father not one +of them shall fall to the ground; and art thou not of more value +than many sparrows—thou for whom God sent His Son to die? . +. . Ah! my friend, we must look out and around to see what +God is like. It is when we persist in turning our eyes +inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we +learn to make a god after our own image, and fancy that our own +hardness and darkness are the patterns of His light and love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xi.</p> +<h3>Want of Sympathy. May 5.</h3> +<p>If we do not understand our fellow-creatures we shall never +love them. And it is equally true, that if we do not love +them we shall never understand them. Want of charity, want +of sympathy, want of good feeling and fellow-feeling—what +does it, what can it breed but endless mistakes and ignorances, +both of men’s characters and men’s circumstances?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1873.</p> +<h3>A Religion. May 6.</h3> +<p>If all that a man wants is “a <i>religion</i>,” he +ought to be able to make a very pretty one for himself, and a +fresh one as often as he is tired of the old. But the heart +and soul of man wants more than that; as it is written, “My +soul is athirst for <span class="smcap">God</span>, even for the +living God.” I want a living God, who cares for men, +forgives men, saves men from their sins: and Him I have found in +the Bible, and nowhere else, save in the facts of life which the +Bible alone interprets.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on the +Pentateuch</i>. 1863.</p> +<h3><!-- page 105--><a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>True Civilisation. May 7.</h3> +<p>Do the duty which lies nearest to you; your duty to the man +who lives next door, and to the man who lives in the next +street. Do your duty to your parish, that you may do your +duty by your country and to all mankind, and prove yourselves +thereby civilised men.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>Nature and Grace. May 8.</h3> +<p>Why speak of the God of Nature and the God of grace as two +antithetical terms? The Bible never in a single instance +makes the distinction, and surely if God be the eternal and +unchangeable One, and if all the universe bears the impress of +His signet, we have no right, in the present infantile state of +science, to put arbitrary limits of our own to the revelation +which He may have thought good to make of Himself in +Nature. Nay, rather, let us believe that if our eyes were +opened we should fulfil the requirement of genius and see the +universal in the particular by seeing God’s whole likeness, +His whole glory, reflected as in a mirror in the meanest flower, +and that nothing but the dulness of our simple souls prevents +them from seeing day and night in all things the Lord Jesus +Christ fulfilling His own saying, “My Father worketh +hitherto, and I work.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Glaucus</i>. 1855.</p> +<h3>Wisdom the Child of Goodness. May 9.</h3> +<p>Goodness rather than talent had given her a wisdom, and +goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom, which +to those simple folk seemed almost an inspiration.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +ii. 1857.</p> +<h3><!-- page 107--><a name="page107"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 107</span>Rule of Life. May 10.</h3> +<p>Two great rules for the attainment of heavenly wisdom are +simple enough—“Never forget what and where you +are,” and “Grieve not the Holy Spirit.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1841.</p> +<h3>Music the Speech of God. May 11.</h3> +<p>Music—there is something very wonderful in music. +Words are wonderful enough, but music is more wonderful. It +speaks not to our thoughts as words do, it speaks straight to our +hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls. +Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble feelings into us; it +melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a language by itself, +just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as divine, +just as blessed. Music has been called the speech of +angels; I will go farther, and call it the speech of God +Himself.</p> +<p>The old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen, made a point of +teaching their children music, because, they said, it taught them +not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty of +order, the usefulness of rule, the divineness of law.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3>Facing Realities. May 12.</h3> +<p>The only comfort I can see in the tragedies of war is that +they bring us all face to face with the realities of human life, +as it has been in all ages, giving us sterner and yet more +loving, more human, and more divine thoughts about ourselves, and +our business here, and the fate of those who are gone, and +awakening us out of the luxurious, frivolous, and unreal dream +(full nevertheless of hard judgments) in which we have been +living so long, to trust in a living Father who is really and +practically governing this world and all worlds, and who willeth +that none should perish.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 109--><a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>Street Arabs. May 13.</h3> +<p>One has only to go into the streets of any great city in +England to see how we, with all our boast of civilisation, are +yet but one step removed from barbarism. Is that a hard +word? Only there <i>are</i> the barbarians round us at +every street corner—grown barbarians, it may be, now all +but past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians +whom we may yet save, for God wishes us to save them. . . . +Do not deceive yourselves about the little dirty, offensive +children in the street. If they be offensive to you, they +are not to Him who made them. “Take heed that ye +despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their +angels do always behold the face of your Father which is in +heaven.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Fellowship of Sorrow. May 14.</h3> +<p>How was He,<br /> +The blessed One, made perfect? Why, by grief—<br /> +The fellowship of voluntary grief—<br /> +He read the tear-stained book of poor men’s souls,<br /> +As we must learn to read it. Lady! lady!<br /> +Wear but one robe the less—forego one meal—<br /> +And thou shalt taste the core of many tales,<br /> +Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel’s songs,<br /> +The sweeter for their sadness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene v.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>Heaven and Hell. May 15.</h3> +<p>Heaven and hell—the spiritual world—are they +merely invisible places in space which may become visible +hereafter? or are they not rather the moral world of right and +wrong? Love and righteousness—is not that the heaven +itself wherein God dwells? Hatred and sin—is not that +hell itself, wherein dwells all that is opposed to God?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 111--><a name="page111"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 111</span>The Awfulness of Life. May +16.</h3> +<p>Our hearts are dull, and hard, and light, God forgive us! and +we forget continually what an earnest, awful world we live +in—a whole eternity waiting for us to be born, and a whole +eternity waiting to see what we shall do now we are born. +Yes, our hearts are dull, and hard, and light. And +therefore Christ sends suffering on us, to teach us what we +always gladly forget in comfort and prosperity—what an +awful capacity of suffering we have; and more, what an awful +capacity of suffering our fellow-creatures have likewise. . . +.</p> +<p>We sit at ease too often in a fool’s paradise, till God +awakens us and tortures us into pity for the torture of +others. And so, if we will not acknowledge our brotherhood +by any other teaching, He knits us together by the brotherhood of +suffering.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Hope and Fear. May 17.</h3> +<p>Every gift of God is good, and given for our happiness, and we +sin if we abuse it. To use your fancy to your own misery is +to abuse it and to sin. The realm of the possible was given +to man to <i>hope</i> and not to <i>fear</i> in.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Cry of the Heart and Reason. May 18.</h3> +<p>A living God, a true God, a real God, a God worthy of the +name, a God who is working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who +hates nothing that He has made, forgets nothing, neglects +nothing; a God who satisfies not only the head but the heart, not +only the logical intellect but the highest reason—that pure +reason which is one with the conscience and moral sense! +For Him we cry out, Him we seek, and if we cannot find Him we +know no rest.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1867.</p> +<h3><!-- page 113--><a name="page113"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 113</span>Speaking the Truth in Love. +May 19.</h3> +<p>Whenever we are tempted to say more than is needful, let us +remember St. John’s words (in the only sermon we have on +record of his), “Little children, love one another,” +and ask God for His Holy Spirit, the spirit of love, which, +instead of weakening a man’s words, makes them all the +stronger in the cause of truth, because they are spoken in +love.</p> +<p>How difficult it is to distinguish between the loving +<i>tact</i>, which avoids giving offence to a weaker brother, and +the fear of man, which bringeth a snare!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Peasant Souls. May 20.</h3> +<p>. . . Dull boors<br /> +See deeper than we think, and hide within<br /> +Those leathern hulls unfathomable truths,<br /> +Which we amid thought’s glittering mazes lose.<br /> +They grind among the iron facts of life,<br /> +And have no time for self-deception.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iii. Scene ii.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>Death and Everlasting Life. May 21.</h3> +<p>Do not rashly count on some sudden radical change happening to +you as soon as you die to make you fit for heaven. There is +not one word in the Bible which gives us reason to suppose that +we shall not be in the next world the same persons that we have +made ourselves in this world. . . . What we sow here we +shall reap there. And it is good for us to know and face +this. Anything is good for us, however unpleasant it may +be, which drives us from the only real misery, which is sin and +selfishness, to the only true happiness, which is the everlasting +life of Christ, a pure, loving, just, generous, useful life of +goodness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 115--><a name="page115"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 115</span>Science and Virtue. May +22.</h3> +<p>Science is great; but she is not the greatest. She is an +instrument and not a power—beneficent or deadly, according +as she is wielded by the hand of virtue or vice. But her +lawful mistress, the only one which can use her aright, the only +one under whom she can truly grow and prosper and prove her +divine descent, is Virtue, the likeness of Almighty God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Roman and Teuton</i>. +1860.</p> +<h3>A Child’s Heart. May 23.</h3> +<p>“I saw at last! I found out that I had been trying +for years which was stronger, God or I; I found out I had been +trying whether I could not do well enough without Him; and there +I found that I could not—could not! I felt like a +child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find its +way, and is lost at once. I did not know that I had a +Father in heaven who had been looking after me, when I fancied I +was looking after myself. I don’t half believe it +now.” . . . And so the old heart passed away from +Thomas Thurnall, and instead of it grew up the heart of a little +child.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xxviii. 1857.</p> +<h3>Self-Security. May 24.</h3> +<p>Strange it is how mortal man, “who cometh up and is cut +down like the flower,” can harden himself into a stoical +security, and count on the morrow which may never come. Yet +so it is, and perhaps if it were not so no work would get done on +earth—at least by the many who know not that God is guiding +them, while they fancy they are guiding themselves.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. i.</p> +<p>There is a Providence which rules this earth, whose name is +neither Political Economy nor Expediency, but the Living God, who +makes every right action reward, and every wrong action punish, +<i>itself</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>History Lecture</i>, +<i>Cambridge</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 117--><a name="page117"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 117</span>Loss and Gain. May 25.</h3> +<p>“He has yet to learn what losing his life to save it +means, Amyas. Bad men have taught him (and I fear these +Anabaptists and Puritans at home teach little else) that it is +the one great business of every man to save his own soul after he +dies; every one for himself; and that that, and not divine +self-sacrifice, is the one thing needful, and the better part +which Mary chose.”</p> +<p>“I think,” said Amyas, “men are enough +inclined to be selfish without being taught that.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. vii. +1854.</p> +<h3>The Law of Righteousness. May 26.</h3> +<p>What if I had discovered that one law of the spiritual world, +in which all others were contained, was Righteousness? and that +disharmony with that law, which we call unspirituality, was not +being vulgar, or clumsy, or ill-taught, or unimaginative, or +dull; but simply being unrighteous? that righteousness, and it +alone, was the beautiful, righteousness the sublime, the +heavenly, the God-like—ay, God Himself?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxvii. +1852.</p> +<h3>Human and Divine Love. May 27.</h3> +<p>Believe me that he who has been led by love to a human being +to understand the mystery of that divine love which fills all +heaven and earth, and concentrates itself into an articulate +manifestation in the person of Christ, will soon begin to find +that he cannot enter into the perfect bliss of that truth without +going further, and seeing that the human heart requires some +standing-ground for its affection, even for the love of wife and +child, deeper and surer than that love, namely, in utter loyalty, +resignation, adoring affection to Him in whom all loveliness is +concentrated. It is a great mystery. It is a hard +lesson.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1847.</p> +<h3><!-- page 119--><a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>A High Finish. May 28.</h3> +<p>A high artistic finish is important for more reasons than for +the mere pleasure it gives. There is something sacramental +in perfect metre and rhythm. They are outward and visible +signs (most seriously we speak as we say it) of an inward and +spiritual grace, namely, of the self-possessed and victorious +temper of one who has so far subdued nature as to be able to hear +that universal sphere-music of hers, speaking of which Mr. +Carlyle says, that “all deepest thoughts instinctively vent +themselves in song.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Our Prayers. May 29.</h3> +<p>There can be no objection to praying for certain special +things. God forbid! I cannot help doing it, any more +than a child in the dark can help calling for its mother. +Only it seems to me that when we pray, “Grant this day that +we run into no kind of danger,” we ought to lay our stress +on the “run” rather than on the “danger,” +to ask God not to take away the danger by altering the course of +nature, but to give us light and guidance whereby to avoid +it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1860.</p> +<h3>Clearing Showers. May 30.</h3> +<p>When a stream is swelled by a flood, a shower of rain +<i>clears</i> it. So in trouble, when the heart is turbid +from the world’s admixtures, and the stirring up of the +foul particles which will lie at the bottom, nothing but the pure +dew of heaven can restore its purity, when God’s spirit +comes down upon it like a gentle rain!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 121--><a name="page121"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 121</span>Vineyards in Spring. May +31.</h3> +<p>Look at the rows of vines, or what will be vines when the +summer comes, but are now black, knotted and gnarled clubs, +without a sign of life in the seemingly dead stick. One who +sees that sight may find a new beauty and meaning in the mystic +words, “I am the Vine, ye are the branches.” It +is not merely the connection between branch and stem common to +all trees; not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring +properties of the grape, which made the very heathen look upon it +as the sacred and miraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not +merely the pruning out of the unfruitful branches, to be burned +as firewood—not merely these, but the seeming death of the +Vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness, of every branch +and twig which it had borne the year before, and left unsightly +and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then bursting +forth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, +spreading and trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden +tendrils to the sky. This thought surely—the emblem +of the living Church, springing from the corpse of the dead +Christ, who yet should rise to be alive for evermore—enters +into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning of that +prophecy of all prophecies.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1864.</p> +<h3><!-- page 122--><a name="page122"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 122</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>MAY 1.<br /> +St. Philip and St. James, Apostles and Martyrs.</h4> +<p>Christ’s cross says still, and will say to all Eternity, +“Wouldst thou be good? Wouldst thou be like +God? Then work and dare, and if need be, suffer for thy +fellow-men.” On the Cross Christ consecrated, and as +it were offered to the Father in His own body, all loving +actions, unselfish actions, merciful actions, heroic actions, +which man has done or ever will do. From Him, from His +spirit, their strength came; and therefore He is not ashamed to +call them brethren. He is the King of the noble army of +martyrs; of all who suffer for love and truth and justice’ +sake; and to all such He says, thou hast put on My likeness; thou +hast suffered for My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, +and enabled thee to suffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son +of God, in whom the Father is well pleased.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 123--><a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>Feast of the Ascension.</h4> +<p>“Lo, I am with you always,” said the Blessed One +before He ascended to the Father. And this is the Lord who +we fancy is gone away far above the stars till the end of +time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before Him at +this moment! For here He is among us now, listening to +every thought of our poor simple hearts. He is where God +is, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, and that is +everywhere. Do you wish Him to be any nearer?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>.</p> +<p>. . . Oh, my Saviour!<br /> +My God! where art Thou? That’s but a tale about +Thee,<br /> +That crucifix above—it does but show Thee<br /> +As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iv. Scene i.</p> +<h2><!-- page 125--><a name="page125"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 125</span>June.</h2> +<p>Three o’clock, upon a still, pure, Midsummer morning. . +. . The white glare of dawn, which last night hung high in +the north-west, has travelled now to the north-east, and above +the wooded wall of the hills the sky is flushing with rose and +amber. A long line of gulls goes wailing inland; the rooks +come cawing and sporting round the corner at Landcross, while +high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along to find +their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and +partridges are clucking merrily in the long wet grass; every +copse and hedgerow rings with the voice of birds; but the lark, +who has been singing since midnight in the “blank height of +the dark,” suddenly hushes his carol and drops headlong +among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some wooded +peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above +the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet +clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty +scent of sea-weed, and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, +glorious place, “bridal of earth and sky,” decked +well with bridal garments, bridal perfumes, bridal songs.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xii.</p> +<h3><!-- page 127--><a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>Open Thou mine Eyes. June +1.</h3> +<p>I have wandered in the mountains mist-bewildered,<br /> +And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted;<br /> +And priceless flowers, o’er which I trod unheeding,<br /> +Gleam ready for my grasp.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act i. +Scene ii.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>The Spirit of Romance. June 2.</h3> +<p>Some say that the spirit of romance is dead. The spirit +of romance will never die as long as there is a man left to see +that the world might and can be better, happier, wiser, fairer in +all things than it is now. The spirit of romance will never +die as long as a man has faith in God to believe that the world +will actually be better and fairer than it is now, as long as men +have faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all +romances, in the wonder of all wonders, in that of which all +poets’ dreams have been but childish hints and dim +forefeelings—even</p> +<blockquote><p>“That one divine far-off event<br /> +Towards which the whole creation moves,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>that wonder which our Lord Himself has bade us pray for as for +our daily bread, and say, “Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy +will be done on earth as it is done in heaven.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1865.</p> +<h3>The Everlasting Music. June 3.</h3> +<p>All melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of +birds, the whisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the +sounds of those cunning instruments which man has learnt to +create, because he is made in the image of Christ, the Word of +God, who creates all things; all music upon earth, I say, is +beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type of the +everlasting music which is in heaven, which was before all worlds +and shall be after them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3><!-- page 129--><a name="page129"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 129</span>Gifts are Duties. June 4.</h3> +<p>Exceeding gifts from God are not blessings, they are duties, +and very solemn and heavy duties. They do not always +increase a man’s happiness; they always increase his +responsibility, the awful account which he must render at last of +the talents committed to his charge. They increase, too, +his danger.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Summer Days. June 5.</h3> +<p>Now let the young be glad,<br /> +Fair girl and gallant lad,<br /> +And sun themselves to-day<br /> +By lawn and garden gay;<br /> +’Tis play befits the noon<br /> +Of rosy-girdled June;<br /> +. . . . . <br /> +The world before them, and above<br /> +The light of Universal Love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Installation Ode</i>, +<i>Cambridge</i>. 1862.</p> +<h3>“Sufficient for the Day.” June 6.</h3> +<p>Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are too +high for us, but refrain our souls, and keep them low like little +children, content with the day’s food, and the day’s +schooling, and the day’s play-hours, sure that the Divine +Master knows that all is right, and how to train us, and whither +to lead us; though we know not and need not know, save this, that +the path by which He is leading each of us, if we will but obey +and follow step by step, leads up to everlasting life.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3><!-- page 131--><a name="page131"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 131</span>Secret of Thrift. June 7.</h3> +<p>The secret of thrift is knowledge. The more you know the +more you can save yourself and that which belongs to you, and can +do more work with less effort. Knowledge of domestic +economy saves income; knowledge of sanitary laws saves health and +life: knowledge of the laws of the intellect saves wear and tear +of brain, and knowledge of the laws of the spirit—what does +it not save?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Out-door Worship. June 8.</h3> +<p>In the forest, every branch and leaf, with the thousand living +things which cluster on them, all worship, worship, worship with +us! Let us go up in the evenings and pray there, with +nothing but God’s cloud temple between us and His +heaven! And His choir of small birds and night crickets and +booming beetles, and all happy things who praise Him all night +long! And in the still summer noon, too, with the +lazy-paced clouds above, and the distant sheep-bell, and the bee +humming in the beds of thyme, and one bird making the hollies +ring a moment, and then all still—hushed—awe-bound, +as the great thunder-clouds slide up from the far south! +Then, then, to praise God! Ay, even when the heaven is +black with wind, the thunder crackling over our heads, then to +join in the pæan of the storm-spirits to Him whose pageant +of power passes over the earth and harms us not in its mercy!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1844.</p> +<h3>God’s Countenance. June 9.</h3> +<p>Study nature as the countenance of God! Try to extract +every line of beauty, every association, every moral reflection, +every inexpressible feeling from it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 133--><a name="page133"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 133</span>Certain and Uncertain. June +10.</h3> +<p>“Life is uncertain,” folks say. Life is +certain, say I, because God is educating us thereby. But +this process of education is so far above our sight that it looks +often uncertain and utterly lawless; wherefore fools conceive (as +does M. Comte) that there is no Living God, because they cannot +condense His formulas into their small smelling-bottles.</p> +<p>O glorious thought! that we are under a Father’s +education, and that <i>He</i> has promised to develop us, and to +make us go on from strength to strength.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1868.</p> +<h3>Sensuality. June 11.</h3> +<p>What is sensuality? Not the enjoyment of holy glorious +matter, but blindness to its meaning.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3>The Journey’s End. June 12.</h3> +<p>Let us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our +journey’s end as soon as possible—then let the +post-horse get his shoulder out of the collar. . . . I have lived +long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, very thankful as +the end draws near. . . . Long life is the last thing that +I desire. It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires +more and more the painful consciousness of the difference between +what <i>ought</i> to be done and what <i>can</i> be done, and +sits down more quietly when one gets the wrong side of fifty, to +let others start up to do for us things we cannot do for +ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man can +have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill +at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, +and catch the lamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of +Greece, out of his hand before it expires, and carry it on to the +goal with swifter and more even feet.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Speech at Lotus Club</i>, <i>New +York</i>. 1874.</p> +<h3><!-- page 135--><a name="page135"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 135</span>Punishment Inevitable. June +13.</h3> +<p>It is a fact that God does punish here, in this life. He +does not, as false preachers say, give over this life to impunity +and this world to the devil, and only resume the reigns of moral +government and the right of retribution when men die and go into +the next world. Here in this life He punishes sin. +Slowly but surely God punishes. If any of you doubt my +words you have only to commit sin and then see whether your sin +will find you out.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>The Problem Solved. June l4.</h3> +<p>After all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it +solves itself so very soon at best—by death. Do what +is right the best way you can, and wait to the end to +<i>know</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>.</p> +<p>But remember that though death may alter our place, it cannot +alter our character—though it may alter our circumstances, +it cannot alter ourselves.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>The Father’s Education. June 15.</h3> +<p>Sin, αμαρτια, is the missing +of a mark, the falling short of an ideal; . . . and that each +miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself the penalty, is to me +the best of news and gives me hope for myself and every human +being past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them all +as children under a paternal education, who are being taught to +become aware of, and use their own powers in God’s house, +the universe, and for God’s work in it; and, in proportion +as they do that, they attain salvation, +σωτηρια, literally health and +wholeness of spirit, “soul,” which is, like health of +body, its own reward.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 137--><a name="page137"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 137</span>Parent and Child. June +16.</h3> +<p>Superstition is the child of fear, and fear is the child of +ignorance.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Science and +Superstition</i>.<br /> +1866.</p> +<h3>A Charm of Birds. June 17.</h3> +<p>Listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland on a +bright forenoon in early summer. As you try to disentangle +the medley of sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your +ear will be the loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the +chaffinch, and the metallic clinking of two or three sorts of +titmice. But above the tree-tops, rising, hovering, +sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low. Above the +pastures outside the skylark sings—as he alone can sing; +and close by from the hollies rings out the blackbird’s +tenor—rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but +articulate. From the tree above him rises the treble of the +thrush, pure as the song of angels; more pure, perhaps, in tone, +though neither so varied nor so rich as the song of the +nightingale. And there, in the next holly, is the +nightingale himself; now croaking like a frog, now talking aside +to his wife, and now bursting out into that song, or cycle of +songs, in which if any man find sorrow, he himself surely finds +none. . . . In Nature there is nothing melancholy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3>Notes of Character. June 18.</h3> +<p>Without softness, without repose, and therefore without +dignity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3><!-- page 139--><a name="page139"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 139</span>Our Blessed Dead. June +19.</h3> +<p>Why should not those who are gone be actually nearer us, not +farther from us, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it +may be influencing and guiding us in a hundred ways of which we, +in our prison-house of mortality, cannot dream? Yes! +Do not be afraid to believe that he whom you have lost is near +you, and you near him, and both of you near God, who died on the +cross for you.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1871.</p> +<h3>Silent Influence. June 20.</h3> +<p>Violence is not strength, noisiness is not earnestness. +Noise is a sign of want of faith, and violence is a sign of +weakness.</p> +<p>By quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall +win. “Neither strive nor cry nor let your voice be +heard in the streets,” was good advice of old, and is +still. I have seen many a movement succeed by it. I +have seen many a movement tried by the other method of striving +and crying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never +seen one succeed thereby, and never shall.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1870.</p> +<h3>Chivalry. June 21.</h3> +<p>Some say that the age of chivalry is past. The age of +chivalry is never past as long as there is a wrong left +unredressed on earth, and a man or woman left to say, “I +will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the +attempt.” The age of chivalry is never past as long +as men have faith enough in God to say, “God will help me +to redress that wrong; or if not me, surely He will help those +that come after me. For His eternal will is to overcome +evil with good.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1865.</p> +<h3><!-- page 141--><a name="page141"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 141</span>Nature and Art. June 22.</h3> +<p>When once you have learnt the beauty of little mossy banks, +and tiny leaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the +glories of Claude, or Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold +themselves to you! You must know Nature or you cannot know +Art. And when you do know Nature you will only prize Art +for being like Nature.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Simple and Sincere. June 23.</h3> +<p>There are those, and, thanks to Almighty God, they are to be +numbered by tens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves +with questionings; simple, genial hearts, who try to do what good +they can in the world, and meddle not with matters too high for +them; people whose religion is not abstruse but deep, not noisy +but intense, not aggressive but laboriously useful; people who +have the same habit of mind as the early Christians seem to have +worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulæ, +when the Apostles’ Creed was symbol enough for the Church, +and men were orthodox in heart rather than exact in head.</p> +<p>For such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they +love, and serves Him whom they serve. Personal affection +and loyalty to the same unseen Being is to them a communion of +saints both real and actual, in the genial warmth of which all +minor differences of opinion vanish. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Preface to Tauler’s +Sermons</i>. 1854.</p> +<h3>God’s Words. June 24.</h3> +<p>Do I mean, then, that this or any text has nothing to do with +us? God forbid! I believe that every word of our +Lord’s has to do with us, and with every human being, for +their meaning is infinite, eternal, and inexhaustible.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 143--><a name="page143"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 143</span>Taught by Failure. June +25.</h3> +<p>So I am content to have failed. I have learned in the +experiment priceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and +the city of God, which is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming +down among men, and actualising itself more and more in every +succeeding age. I only know that I know nothing, but with a +hope that Christ, who is the Son of Man, will tell me piecemeal, +if I be patient and watchful, what I am and what man is.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1857.</p> +<h3>Presentiments. June 26.</h3> +<p>“I cannot deny,” said Claude, “that such +things as presentiments may be possible. However miraculous +they may seem, are they so very much more so than the daily fact +of memory? I can as little guess why we remember the past, +as why we may not at times be able to foresee the future.” +. . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xxviii.</p> +<p>A thing need not be unreasonable—that is, contrary to +reason—because it is above and beyond reason, or, at least, +our human reason, which at best (as St. Paul says) sees as in a +glass darkly.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1856.</p> +<h3>Common Duties. June 27.</h3> +<p>But after all, what is speculation to practice? What +does God require of us, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to +walk humbly with Him? The longer I live this seems to me +more important, and all other questions less so—if we can +but live the simple right life—</p> +<p>Do the work that’s nearest,<br /> +Though it’s dull at whiles;<br /> +Helping, when we meet them,<br /> +Lame dogs over stiles.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1857.</p> +<h3><!-- page 145--><a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span>Lost and Found. June 28.</h3> +<p>“My welfare? It is gone!”</p> +<p>“So much the better. I never found mine till I +lost it.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxvii. +1852.</p> +<h3>How to bear Sorrow. June 29.</h3> +<p>I believe that the wisest plan is sometimes not to try to bear +sorrow—as long as one is not crippled for one’s +everyday duties—but to give way to it utterly and +freely. Perhaps sorrow is sent that we <i>may</i> give way +to it, and in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some medicine +in it itself, which we should not find if we began doctoring +ourselves, or letting others doctor us. If we say simply, +“I am wretched—I ought to be wretched;” then we +shall perhaps hear a voice, “Who made thee wretched but +God? Then what can He mean but thy good?” And +if the heart answers impatiently, “My good? I +don’t want it, I want my love;” perhaps the voice may +answer, “Then thou shalt have both in time.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1871.</p> +<h3>A certain Hope. June 30.</h3> +<p>Let us look forward with quiet certainty of hope, day and +night; believing, though we can see but little day, that all this +tangled web will resolve itself into golden threads of twined, +harmonious life, guiding both us, and those we love, together, +through this life to that resurrection of the flesh, when we +shall at last know the reality and the fulness of life and +love. Even so come, Lord Jesus!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1844.</p> +<h3><!-- page 146--><a name="page146"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 146</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>Whit Sunday.</h4> +<p>Think of the Holy Spirit as a Person having a will of His own, +who breatheth whither He listeth, and cannot be confined to any +feelings or rules of yours or of any man’s, but may meet +you in the Sacraments or out of the Sacraments, even as He will, +and has methods of comforting and educating you of which you will +never dream; One whose will is the same as the will of the Father +and of the Son, even a good will.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4>Trinity Sunday.</h4> +<p>Some things I see clearly and hold with desperate +clutch. A Father in heaven for all, a Son of God incarnate +for all, and a Spirit of the Father <i>and</i> the Son—who +works to will and to do of His own good pleasure in every human +being in whom there is one spark of active good, the least desire +to do right or to be of use—the Fountain of all good on +earth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>.</p> +<h4>JUNE 11.<br /> +St. Barnabas, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>. . . Which is Love?<br /> +To do God’s will, or merely suffer it?<br /> +. . . . .<br /> +No! I must headlong into seas of toil,<br /> +Leap far from self, and spend my soul on others.<br /> +For contemplation falls upon the spirit,<br /> +Like the chill silence of an autumn sun:<br /> +While action, like the roaring south-west wind,<br /> +Sweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts<br /> +Quickening the wombed earth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 147--><a name="page147"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 147</span>JUNE 21.<br /> +St. John the Baptist.</h4> +<p>How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? +Great painters have exercised their fancy upon his face, his +figure, his actions. The best which I can recollect is +Guido’s—of the magnificent lad sitting on the rock, +half clad in his camel’s-hair robe, his stalwart hand +lifted up to denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are +going all wrong, utterly wrong to him—his beautiful mouth +open to preach he hardly knows what, save that he has a message +from God, of which he is half conscious as yet—that he is a +forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller of something and some one who +is to come, and which is very near at hand. The wild rocks +are round him, the clear sky over him, and nothing more, . . . +and he, the noble and the priest, has thrown off—not in +discontent and desperation (for he was neither democrat nor +vulgar demagogue), but in hope and awe—all his family +privileges, all that seems to make life worth having; and there +aloft and in the mountains, alone with God and Nature, feeding on +locusts and wild honey and clothed in skins, he, like Elijah of +old, preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness, party spirit, +and superstition—preaches what?—The most +common—Morality. Ah, wise politician! ah, clear and +rational spirit, who knows and tells others to do the duty which +lies nearest to them! . . . who in the hour of his +country’s deepest degradation had divine courage to say, +our deliverance lies, not in rebellion but in <i>doing +right</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>St. John the Baptist</i>,<br /> +<i>All Saints’ Day Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 148--><a name="page148"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 148</span>JUNE 29.<br /> +St. Peter, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>God is revealed in the Crucified;<br /> +The Crucified must be revealed in me:—<br /> +I must put on His righteousness; show forth<br /> +His sorrow’s glory; hunger, weep with Him;<br /> +Taste His keen stripes, and let this aching flesh<br /> +Sink through His fiery baptism into death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>.</p> +<p>St. Peter, as he is drawn in the Gospels and the Acts, is a +grand and colossal human figure, every line and feature of which +is full of meaning and full of beauty to us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>, +<i>Discipline</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 149--><a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>July.</h2> +<p>It was a day of God. The earth lay like one great +emerald, ringed and roofed with sapphire: blue sea, blue +mountain, blue sky overhead. There she lay, not sleeping, +but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as though her two great +sisters of the sea and air had washed her weary limbs with holy +tears, and purged away the stains of last week’s sin and +toil, and cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure +incense-breath, and folded her within their azure robes, and +brooded over her with smiles of pitying love, till she smiled +back in answer, and took heart and hope for next week’s +weary work.</p> +<p>Heart and hope for next week’s work.—That was the +sermon which it preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there +alone, a stranger and a wanderer like Ulysses of old: but, like +him, self-helpful, cheerful, fate defiant. He was more of a +heathen than Ulysses—for he knew not what Ulysses knew, +that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still less +that what he called the malicious sport of fortune was, in truth, +the earnest education of a Father. . . . “Brave old +world she is after all,” he said; “and right well +made; and looks right well to-day in her go-to-meeting clothes, +and plenty of room and chance for a brave man to earn his bread, +if he will but go right on about his business, as the birds and +the flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what people +think of him.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. xiv.</p> +<h3><!-- page 151--><a name="page151"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 151</span>Nature and Grace. July 1.</h3> +<p>God is the God of Nature as well as the God of Grace. +For ever He looks down on all things which He has made; and +behold they are very good. And therefore we dare to offer +to Him in our churches the most perfect works of naturalistic +art, and shape them into copies of whatever beauty He has shown +us in man or woman, in cave or mountain-peak, in tree or flower, +even in bird or butterfly. But Himself? Who can see +Him except the humble and the contrite heart, to whom He reveals +Himself as a Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and +not in bread nor wood, nor stone nor gold, nor quintessential +diamond?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Grots and +Groves</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Love and Book-Learning. July 2.</h3> +<p>I see more and more that the knowledge of one human being, +such as love alone can give, and the apprehension of our own +private duties and relations, is worth more than all the +book-learning in the world.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>The Ancient Creeds. July 3.</h3> +<p>Blessed and delightful it is when we find that even in these +new ages the Creeds, which so many fancy to be at their last +gasp, are still the finest and highest succour, not merely of the +peasant and the outcast, but of the subtle artist and the daring +speculator. Blessed it is to find the most cunning poet of +our day able to combine the rhythm and melody of modern times +with the old truths which gave heart to the martyrs at the stake, +to see in the science and the history of the nineteenth century +new and living fulfilments of the words which we learnt at our +mother’s knee!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1850.</p> +<h3><!-- page 153--><a name="page153"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 153</span>A Master-Truth. July 4.</h3> +<p>Every creature of God is good, if it be sanctified with prayer +and thanksgiving! This to me is the master-truth of +Christianity, the forgetfulness of which is at the root of almost +all error. It seems to me that it was to redeem man and the +earth that Christ was made man and used the earth!—that +Christianity has never yet been pure, because it never yet, since +St. Paul’s time, has stood on <i>this</i> as the +fundamental truth, and that it has been pure or impure, just in +proportion as it has <i>practically</i> and <i>really</i> +acknowledged this truth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>English Women. July 5.</h3> +<p>Let those who will sneer at the women of England. We who +have to do the work and fight the battle of life know the +inspiration which we derive from their virtue, their counsel, +their tenderness—and, but too often, from their compassion +and their forgiveness. There is, I doubt not, still left in +England many a man with chivalry and patriotism enough to +challenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as +a cultivated British woman.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Life retouched again. July 6.</h3> +<p>Even in the saddest woman’s soul there linger snatches +of old music, odours of flowers long dead and turned to +dust,—pleasant ghosts, which still keep her mind attuned to +that which may be in others, though in her never more; till she +can hear her own wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tones of every +girl who loves, and see her own wedding-torch re-lighted in the +eyes of every bride.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xxix.</p> +<h3><!-- page 155--><a name="page155"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 155</span>Mystery of Life. July 7.</h3> +<p>“All things begin in some wonder, and in some wonder +end,” said St. Augustine, wisest in his day of mortal +men. It is a strange thing, and a mystery, how we ever got +into this world; a stranger thing still to me how we shall ever +get out of this world again. Yet they are common things +enough—birth and death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Beauty of Life. July 8.</h3> +<p>The Greeks were, as far as we know, the most beautiful race +which the world ever saw. Every educated man knows that +they were the cleverest of all nations, and, next to his Bible, +thanks God for Greek literature. Now the Greeks had made +physical, as well as intellectual education a science as well as +a study. Their women practised graceful, and in some cases +even athletic exercises. They developed, by a free and +healthy life, those figures which remain everlasting and +unapproachable models of human beauty.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<p>Study the human figure, both as intrinsically beautiful and as +expressing mind. It only expresses the broad natural +childish emotions, which are just what we want to return to from +our over subtlety. Study “natural +language”—I mean the language of attitude. It +is an inexhaustible source of knowledge and delight, and enables +one human being to understand another so perfectly. +Therefore learn to draw and paint figures.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>True Civilisation. July 9.</h3> +<p>Civilisation with me shall mean—not more wealth, more +finery, more self-indulgence, even more æsthetic and +artistic luxury—but more virtue, more knowledge, more +self-control, even though I earn scanty bread by heavy toil.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Ancient +Civilisation</i>. 1874.</p> +<h3><!-- page 157--><a name="page157"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 157</span>The Church. July 10.</h3> +<p>“The Church is a very good thing, and I keep to +mine,” said Captain Willis, “having served under her +Majesty and her Majesty’s forefathers, and learned to obey +orders, I hope; but don’t you think, sir, you’re +taking it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath Day?”</p> +<p>“How then?”</p> +<p>“Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the +Church for man.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +ii. 1856.</p> +<h3>What does God ask? July 11.</h3> +<p>What is this strange thing, without which even the true +knowledge of doctrine is of no use? without which either a man or +a nation is poor, and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, +notwithstanding all his religion? Isaiah will tell, +“Wash you, make you clean, saith the Lord. Do justice +to the fatherless, relieve the widow.” +Church-building and church-going are well, but they are not +repentance. Churches are not souls. I ask for your +hearts, and you give me fine stones and fine words. I want +souls, I want <i>your</i> souls.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>Work or Want. July 12.</h3> +<p>Remember that we are in a world where it is not safe to sit +under the tree and let the ripe fruit drop into your mouth; where +the “competition of species” works with ruthless +energy among all ranks of being, from kings upon their thrones to +the weed upon the waste; where “he that is not hammer is +sure to be anvil;” and “he who will not work neither +shall he eat.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Ancien Régime</i>. +1867.</p> +<h3><!-- page 159--><a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span>True Insight. July 13.</h3> +<p>It is easy to see the spiritual beauty of Raffaelle’s +Madonnas, but it requires a deeper and more practised, +all-embracing, loving, simple spirituality, to see the same +beauty in the face of a worn-out, painful, peasant woman haggling +about the price of cottons.</p> +<p>Form and colour are but the vehicle for the +spirit-meaning. In the “spiritual body” I fancy +they will both be united <i>with</i> the meaning—all and +every part and property of man and woman instinct with +spirit!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3>Retribution inevitable. July 14.</h3> +<p>Know this—that as surely as God sometimes punishes +wholesale, so surely is He always punishing in detail. By +that infinite concatenation of moral causes and effects, which +makes the whole world one mass of special Providences, every sin +of ours will punish itself, and probably punish itself in +kind. Are we selfish? We shall call out selfishness +in others. Do we neglect our duty? Then others will +neglect their duty to us. Do we indulge our passions? +Then others who depend on us will indulge theirs, to our +detriment and misery.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Antinomies. July 15.</h3> +<p>Spiritual truths present themselves to us in +“antinomies,” apparently contradictory pairs, pairs +of poles, which, however, do not really contradict, or even +limit, each other, but are only correlatives, the existence of +the one making the existence of the other necessary, explaining +each other, and giving each other a real standing ground and +equilibrium. Such an antinomic pair are, “He that +loveth not knoweth not God,” and “If a man hateth not +his father and mother he cannot be My disciple.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1848.</p> +<h3><!-- page 161--><a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>False Refinement. July +16.</h3> +<p>God’s Word, while it <i>alone</i> sanctifies rank and +birth, says to all <i>equally</i>, “Ye are brethren, +<i>work</i> for each other.” Let us then be above +rank, and look at men as men, and women as women, and all as +God’s children. There is a “refinement” +which is the invention of that sensual mind, which looks only at +the outward and visible sign.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3>Music’s Meaning. July 17.</h3> +<p>Some quick music is inexpressibly mournful. It seems +just like one’s own feelings—exultation and action, +with the remembrance of past sorrow wailing up, yet without +bitterness, tender in its shrillness, through the mingled tide of +present joy; and the notes seem thoughts—thoughts pure of +words; and a spirit seems to call to me in them and cry, +“Hast thou not felt all this?” And I start when +I find myself answering unconsciously, “Yes, yes, I know it +all! Surely we are a part of all we see and +hear!” And then, the harmony thickens, and all +distinct sound is pressed together and absorbed in a confused +paroxysm of delight, where still the female treble and the male +bass are distinct for a moment, and then one again—absorbed +into each other’s being—sweetened and strengthened by +each other’s melody. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Vagueness of Mind. July 18.</h3> +<p>By allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost +persuaded by every one you love, when you are capable by one +decided act of <i>leading</i> them, you may be treading blindfold +a terrible path to your own misery.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 163--><a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>A Faith for Daily Life. July +19.</h3> +<p>That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and +rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and +simple, to know God’s greatness not so much from disorder +as from order, not so much from those strange sights in which God +seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common +ones in which He fulfils His laws.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Charms of Monotony. July 20.</h3> +<p>I delight in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, +anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad +passions. It gives a man the blessed, invigorating feeling +that he is at home; that he has roots deep and wide struck down +into all he sees, and that only the Being who can do nothing +cruel or useless can tear them up. It is pleasant to look +down on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that is +beneath, and all beneath know me. It is pleasant to see the +same trees year after year, the same birds coming back in spring +to the same shrubs, the same banks covered by the same +flowers.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1857.</p> +<h3>How to attain. July 21.</h3> +<p>If our plans are not for time but for eternity, our knowledge, +and therefore our love to God, to each other, to everything, will +progress for ever. And the attainment of this heavenly +wisdom requires neither ecstacy nor revelation, but prayer and +watchfulness, and observation, and deep and solemn thought.</p> +<p>Two great rules for its attainment are simple +enough—Never forget what and where you are, and grieve not +the Holy Spirit, for “If a man will do God’s will he +shall know of the doctrine.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 165--><a name="page165"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 165</span>The Divine Discontent. July +22.</h3> +<p>I should like to make every one I meet discontented with +themselves; I should like to awaken in them, about their +physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that divine +discontent which is the parent first of upward aspiration and +then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration +even in part. For to be discontented with the divine +discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very +germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Science of +Health</i>. 1872.</p> +<h3>Dra et labora. July 23.</h3> +<p>“Working is praying,” said one of the holiest of +men. And he spoke truth; if a man will but do his work from +a sense of duty, which is for the sake of God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Distrust and Anarchy. July 24.</h3> +<p>Over the greater part of the so-called civilised world is +spreading a deep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man +towards his neighbour, and a practical unbelief in every man whom +you do see, atones for itself by a theoretic belief in an ideal +human nature which you do not see. Such a temper of mind, +unless it be checked by that which alone can check it, namely, +the grace of God, must tend towards sheer anarchy. There is +a deeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political +anarchy,—which the abuse of the critical spirit leads +to,—the anarchy of society and of the family, the anarchy +of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor human beings as +orphans in the wilderness to cry in vain, “What can I +know? Whom can I love?”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Critical Spirit</i>. +1871.</p> +<h3><!-- page 167--><a name="page167"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 167</span>A Future Life of Action. July +25.</h3> +<p>Why need we suppose that heaven is to be one vast lazy +retrospect? Why is not eternity to have action and change, +yet both like God, compatible with rest and immutability? +This earth is but one minor planet of a minor system. Are +there no more worlds? Will there not be incident and action +springing from these when the fate of this world is +decided? Has the evil one touched this alone? Is it +not self-conceit which makes us think the redemption of this +earth the one event of eternity?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>An Ideal Aristocracy. July 26.</h3> +<p>We may conceive an Utopia governed by an aristocracy that +should be really democratic, which should use, under developed +forms, that method which made the mediæval priesthood the +one great democratic institution of old Christendom; bringing to +the surface and utilising the talents and virtues of all classes, +even the lowest.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Ancien +Régime</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>Our Weapons. July 27.</h3> +<p>God, who has been very good to us, will be more good, if <i>we +allow Him</i>! Worldly-minded people think they can manage +so much better than God. We must <i>trust</i>. Our +weapons must be prayer and faith, and our only standard the +Bible. As soon as we leave these weapons and take to +“knowledge of the world,” and other people’s +clumsy prejudices as our guides, we must inevitably be beaten by +the World, which knows how to use its own arms better than we +do. What else is meant by becoming as a little child?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 169--><a name="page169"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 169</span>Uneducated Women. July +28.</h3> +<p>Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country +where the women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only +literature is French novels or translations of them—in +every one of those countries the women, even to the highest, are +the slaves of superstition, and the puppets of priests. In +proportion as women are highly educated, family life and family +secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to +no confessor or director, but to her own husband or her own +family.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1860.</p> +<h3>Pardon and Cure. July 29.</h3> +<p>After the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin. +And that cure, like most cures, is a long and a painful +process.</p> +<p>But there is our comfort, there is our hope—Christ the +great Healer, the great Physician, can deliver us, and will +deliver us, from the remains of our old sins, the consequences of +our own follies. Not, indeed, at once, or by miracle, but +by slow education in new and nobler motives, in purer and more +unselfish habits.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1861.</p> +<h3>Eternal Law. July 30.</h3> +<p>The eternal laws of God’s providence are still at work, +though we may choose to forget them, and the Judge who +administers them is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, +even Jesus Christ the Lord, the Everlasting Rock, on which all +morality and all society is founded. Whosoever shall fall +on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shall indeed be broken, +but of him it is written, “A broken and a contrite heart, O +God, Thou wilt not despise.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline and other +Sermons</i>. 1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 171--><a name="page171"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 171</span>God’s Mercy or +Man’s? July 31.</h3> +<p>“He fought till he could fight no more, and then died +like a hero, with all his wounds in front; and may God have mercy +on his soul.”</p> +<p>“That last was a Popish prayer, Master Frank,” +said old Mr. Carey.</p> +<p>“Most worshipful sir, you surely would not wish God +<i>not</i> to have mercy on his soul?”</p> +<p>“No—Eh? Of course not, for that’s all +settled by now, for he is dead, poor fellow!”</p> +<p>“And you can’t help being a little fond of him +still?”</p> +<p>“Eh? Why, I should be a brute if I were not. +Fond of him? why, I would sooner have given my forefinger than +that he should have gone to the dogs.”</p> +<p>“Then, my dear sir, if <i>you</i> feel for him still, in +spite of all his faults, how do you know that God may not feel +for him in spite of all his faults? For my part,” +said Frank, in his fanciful way, “without believing in that +Popish purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato that such +heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness +here, are hereafter, by strait discipline, brought to a better +mind.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. v. +1854.</p> +<h3>The Chrysalis State.</h3> +<p>You ask, “What is the Good?” I suppose God +Himself is the Good; and it is this, in addition to a thousand +things, which makes me feel the absolute certainty of a +resurrection, and a hope that this, our present life, instead of +being an ultimate one, which is to decide our fate for ever, is +merely some sort of chrysalis state in which man’s +faculties are so narrow and cramped, his chances (I speak of the +millions, not of units) of knowing the Good so few, that he may +have chances hereafter, perhaps continually fresh ones, to all +eternity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1852.</p> +<h3><!-- page 172--><a name="page172"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 172</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>JULY 25.<br /> +St. James, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>And they will know his worth<br /> +Years hence . . .<br /> +And crown him martyr; and his name will ring<br /> +Through all the shores of earth, and all the stars<br /> +Whose eyes are sparkling through their tears to see<br /> +His triumph, Preacher and Martyr. . .<br /> +. . . . .<br /> +. . . It is over; and the woe that’s dead,<br /> +Rises next hour a glorious angel.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Santa Maura</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 173--><a name="page173"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 173</span>August.</h2> +<p>“I cannot tell what you say, green leaves,<br /> + I cannot tell what you say;<br /> +But I know that there is a spirit in you,<br /> + And a word in you this day.</p> +<p>“I cannot tell what ye say, rosy rocks,<br /> + I cannot tell what ye say;<br /> +But I know that there is a spirit in you,<br /> + And a word in you this day.</p> +<p>“I cannot tell what ye say, brown streams,<br /> + I cannot tell what ye say;<br /> +But I know, in you too, a spirit doth live,<br /> + And a word in you this day.”</p> +<p>“Oh! rose is the colour of love and youth,<br /> +And green is the colour of faith and truth,<br /> + And brown of the fruitful clay.<br /> +The earth is fruitful and faithful and young,<br /> +And her bridal morn shall rise erelong,<br /> +And you shall know what the rocks and streams<br /> + And the laughing green woods say.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Dartside</i>, <i>August</i> +1849.</p> +<h3><!-- page 175--><a name="page175"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 175</span>Sight and Insight. August +1.</h3> +<p>Do the work that’s nearest,<br /> +Though it’s dull at whiles,<br /> +Helping, when you meet them,<br /> +Lame dogs over stiles;<br /> +See in every hedgerow<br /> +Marks of angels’ feet,<br /> +Epics in each pebble<br /> +Underneath our feet.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Invitation</i>. +1857.</p> +<h3>Genius and Character. August 2.</h3> +<p>I have no respect for genius (I do not even acknowledge its +existence) where there is no strength and steadiness of +character. If any one pretends to be more than a man he +must begin by proving himself a man at all.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. xv.</p> +<h3>Nature’s Student. August 3.</h3> +<p>The perfect naturalist must be of a reverent turn of +mind—giving Nature credit for an inexhaustible fertility +and variety, which will keep him his life long, always reverent, +yet never superstitious; wondering at the commonest, but not +surprised by the most strange; free from the idols of sense and +sensuous loveliness; able to see grandeur in the minutest +objects, beauty in the most ungainly: estimating each thing not +carnally, as the vulgar do, by its size, . . . but spiritually, +by the amount of Divine thought revealed to him therein. . . +.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Glaucus</i>. 1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 177--><a name="page177"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 177</span>The Masses. August 4.</h3> +<p>Though permitted evils should not avenge themselves by any +political retribution, yet avenge themselves, if unredressed, +they surely will. They affect masses too large, interests +too serious, not to make themselves bitterly felt some day. . . +. We may choose to look on the masses in the gross as +objects for statistics—and of course, where possible, for +profits. There is One above who knows every thirst, and +ache, and sorrow, and temptation of each slattern, and +gin-drinker, and street-boy. The day will come when He will +require an account of these neglects of ours—not in the +gross.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1851.</p> +<p>We sit in a cloud, and sing like pictured angels,<br /> +And say the world runs smooth—while right below<br /> +Welters the black, fermenting heap of life<br /> +On which our State is built.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene v.</p> +<h3>Love and Knowledge. August 5.</h3> +<p>He who has never loved, what does he know?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>Siccum Lumen. August 6.</h3> +<p>How shall I get true knowledge? Knowledge which will be +really useful, really worth knowing. Knowledge which I +shall know accurately and practically too, so that I can use it +in daily life, for myself and others? Knowledge too, which +shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by my own +fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure and calm and sound; +Siccum Lumen, “Dry Light,” as the greatest of +philosophers called it of old.</p> +<p>To all such who long for light, that by the light they may +live, God answers through His only begotten Son: “Ask and +ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1873.</p> +<h3><!-- page 179--><a name="page179"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 179</span>This World. August 7.</h3> +<p>What should the external world be to those who truly love, but +the garden in which they are placed, not so much for sustenance +or enjoyment of themselves and each other, as to dress it and to +keep it—<i>it</i> to be their subject-matter, not they its +tools! In this spirit let us pray “Thy kingdom +come.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3>The Life of the Spirit. August 8.</h3> +<p>The old fairy superstition, the old legends and ballads, the +old chronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities +and mysteries—these fed Shakespeare’s youth. +Why should they not feed our children’s? That inborn +delight of the young in all that is marvellous and +fantastic—has that a merely evil root? No, surely! it +is a most pure part of their spiritual nature; a part of +“the heaven which lies about us in our infancy;” +angel-wings with which the free child leaps the prison-walls of +sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life. It is a +God-appointed means for keeping alive what noble Wordsworth calls +those</p> +<blockquote><p> “. . . . +obstinate questionings,<br /> +. . . . . .<br /> + Blank misgivings of a creature<br /> +Moving about in worlds not realised.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Introductory Lecture</i>, +<i>Queen’s College</i>.<br /> +1848.</p> +<h3>A Quiet Depth. August 9.</h3> +<p>The deepest affections are those of which we are least +conscious—that is, which produce least <i>startling</i> +emotion, and most easy and involuntary practice.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 181--><a name="page181"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 181</span>Acceptable Sacrifices. August +10.</h3> +<p>Every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, +ay, even to a dumb animal; every time we conquer our worldliness, +love of pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of +doing what our conscience tells us to be our duty,—we are +indeed worshipping God the Father in spirit and in truth, and +offering Him a sacrifice which He will surely accept for the sake +of His beloved Son, by whose Spirit all good deeds and thoughts +are inspired.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>Chivalry. August 11.</h3> +<p>Chivalry; an idea which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that +mankind should ever forget till it has become the +possession—as it is the God-given right—of the +poorest slave that ever trudged on foot; and every collier lad +shall have become</p> +<blockquote><p>“A very gentle, perfect knight.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Ancien +Régime</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>God waits for Man. August 12.</h3> +<p>Patiently, nobly, magnanimously, God waits; waits for the man +who is a fool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart +that has tried to find pleasure in everything else, to find out +that everything else disappoints, and to come back to Him, the +fountain of all wholesome pleasure, the well-spring of all life, +fit for a man to live.</p> +<p>God condescends to wait for His creature; because what He +wants is not His creature’s fear, but His creature’s +love; not only his obedience, but his heart; because He wants him +not to come back as a trembling slave to his master, but as a son +who has found out at last what a father he has still left him, +when all beside has played him false. Let him come back +thus.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Discipline and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 183--><a name="page183"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 183</span>Thrift. August 13.</h3> +<p>The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as +much work as possible done with the least expenditure of power, +the least jar and obstruction, the least wear and tear. And +the secret of thrift is knowledge. In proportion as you +know the laws and nature of a subject, you will be able to work +at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, instead of wasting +your money or your energies in mistaken schemes, irregular +efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Revelations. August 14.</h3> +<p>Only second-rate hearts and minds are melancholy. When +we become like little children, our very playfulness tells that +we are <i>seeing deep</i>, when we see that God is love in His +<i>works</i> as well as in Himself, and we look at Nature as a +baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcely wish to +solve. And therefore deep things, which the intellect in +vain struggles after, will reveal themselves to us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3>Christ comes in many ways. August 15.</h3> +<p>Often Christ comes to us in ways in which the world would +never recognise Him—in which perhaps neither you nor I +shall recognise <i>Him</i>; but it will be enough, I hope, if we +but hear His message, and obey His gracious inspiration, let Him +speak through whatever means He will. He may come to us by +some crisis in our life, either for sorrow or for bliss. He +may come to us by a great failure; by a great +disappointment—to teach the wilful and ambitious soul that +not in <i>that</i> direction lies the path of peace; or He may +come in some unexpected happiness to teach that same soul that He +is able and willing to give abundantly beyond all that we can ask +or think.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>. 1874.</p> +<h3><!-- page 185--><a name="page185"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 185</span>Lesson of the Cross. August +16.</h3> +<p>On the Cross God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow, +and made them holy; as holy as health and strength and happiness +are.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>The Ideal Unity. August 17.</h3> +<p>“Oh, make us one.” All the world-generations +have but one voice! “How can we become One? at +harmony with God and God’s universe! Tell us this, +and the dreary, dark mystery of life, the bright, sparkling +mystery of life, the cloud-chequered, sun-and-shower mystery of +life, is solved! for we shall have found one home and one +brotherhood, and happy faces will greet us wherever we move, and +we shall see God! see Him everywhere, and be ready to wait for +the Renewal, for the Kingdom of Christ perfected! We came +from Eden, all of us: show us how we may return, hand in hand, +husband and wife, parent and child, gathered together from the +past and the future, from one creed and another, and take our +journey into a far country, which is yet this earth—a +world-migration to the heavenly Canaan, through the Red Sea of +Death, back again to the land which was given to our forefathers, +and is ours even now, could we but find it!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3>Body and Soul. August 18.</h3> +<p>The mystics considered the soul, <i>i.e.</i> the intellect, as +the “<i>moi</i>” and the body as the “<i>non +moi</i>;” and this idea that the body is not <i>self</i>, +is the fundamental principle of mysticism and asceticism, and +diametrically opposed to the whole doctrines and practice of +Scripture. Else why is there a resurrection of the body? +and why does the Eucharist “preserve our body and soul to +everlasting life?”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 187--><a name="page187"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 187</span>Childlikeness. August 19.</h3> +<p>If you wish to be “a little child,” study what a +little child could understand—Nature; and do what a little +child could do—love. Feed on Nature. It will +digest itself. It did so when you were a little child the +first time.</p> +<p>Keep a common-place book, and put into it not only facts and +thoughts, but observations on form, and colour, and nature, and +little sketches, even to the form of beautiful +<i>leaves</i>. They will all have their charm . . . all do +their work in consolidating your ideas. Put everything into +it. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Inspiration. August 20.</h3> +<p>Every good deed comes from God. His is the idea, His the +inspiration, and His its fulfilment in time; and therefore no +good deed but lives and grows with the everlasting life of God +Himself.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>Lifting of the Veil. August 21.</h3> +<p>I seldom pass those hapless loungers who haunt every +watering-place without thinking sadly how much more earnest, +happier, and better men and women they might be if the veil were +but lifted from their eyes, and they could learn to behold that +glory of God which is all around them like an atmosphere, while +they, unconscious of what and where they are, wrapt up each in +his little selfish world of vanity and interest, gaze lazily +around them at earth, sea, and sky—</p> +<blockquote><p>And have no speculation in those eyes<br /> +Which they do glare withal</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Glaucus</i>. 1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 189--><a name="page189"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 189</span>The Cross—its meaning. +August 22.</h3> +<p>To take up the cross means, in the minds of most persons, to +suffer patiently under affliction. It is a true and sound +meaning, but it means more. Why did Christ take up the +cross? Not for affliction’s sake, or for the +cross’s sake, as if suffering were a good thing in +itself. No. But that He might thereby <i>do +good</i>. That the world through Him might be saved. +That He might do good at whatever cost or pain to Himself.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>The Crucifix. August 23.</h3> +<p>If I had an image in my room it should be one of Christ +<i>glorified</i>, sitting at the right hand of God. The +crucifix has been <span class="smcap">the</span> image, because +the idea of torture and misery has been <span +class="smcap">the</span> idea in the melancholy and the ferocious +(for the two ultimately go together),. . . and thus ascetics +became inquisitors. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3>Love to God proved. August 24.</h3> +<p>Our love to God does not depend upon the emotions of the +moment. If you fancy you do not love Him enough, above all +when Satan tempts you to look inward, go immediately and minister +to others; visit the sick, perform some act of self-sacrifice or +thanksgiving. Never mind how <i>dull</i> you may feel while +doing it; the fact of your feeling excited proves nothing; the +fact of your <i>doing</i> it proves that your will, your +spiritual part, is on God’s side, however tired or careless +the poor flesh may be. The “flesh” must be +brought into harmony with the spirit, not only by physical but by +intellectual mortification.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 191--><a name="page191"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 191</span>Training of Beauty. August +25.</h3> +<p>There is many a road into our hearts besides our ears and +brains; many a sight and sound and scent even, of which we have +never <i>thought</i> at all, sinks into our memory and helps to +shape our characters; and thus children brought up among +beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most likely show the +fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection and +nobleness of mind, even by the expression of the countenance.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>True Words to Brave +Men</i>. 1848.</p> +<h3>Ignorance of the Cynic. August 26.</h3> +<p>Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men as the +cynical, misanthropic man, who walks in darkness because he hates +his brother. Be sure that the truly wise and understanding +man is he who by sympathy puts himself in his neighbours’ +place; feels with them and for them; sees with their eyes, hears +with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes allowances +for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in heaven +is merciful.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1872.</p> +<h3>Penitential Prayer. August 27.</h3> +<p>Faith in God it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the +model of all true penitence for evermore. Penitential +prayers in all ages have too often wanted faith in God, and +therefore have been too often prayers to avert punishment. +This, this—the model of all true penitent prayers—is +that of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his +punishment, knowing that he deserves it, and far more +besides.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3><!-- page 193--><a name="page193"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 193</span>A Real Presence. August +28.</h3> +<p>Believe the Holy Communion is the sign of Christ’s +perpetual presence; that when you kneel to receive the bread and +wine, Christ is as near you—spiritually, indeed, and +invisibly, but really and truly as near you as those who are +kneeling by your side.</p> +<p>And if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are +Christ’s, with those whom we love. . . . Surely, like +Christ, they may come and go even now, though unseen. Like +Christ they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, +“Peace be unto you,” and not in vain. For what +they did for us when they were on earth they can more fully do +now that they are in heaven.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1862.</p> +<h3>A Living God. August 29.</h3> +<p>Man would never have even dreamed of a Living God had not that +Living God been a reality, who did not leave the creature to find +his Creator, but stooped from heaven, at the very beginning of +our race, to find His creature.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>Thine, not mine. August 30.</h3> +<p>Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, +instead of priding yourself upon it as if the good in it came +from you, offer it up to your Heavenly Father, from whom all good +things come, and say, “Oh, Lord! the good in this is Thine +and not mine; the bad in it is mine and not Thine. I thank +Thee for having made me do right, for without Thy help I should +have done nothing but wrong. For mine is the laziness, and +the weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and +Thine is the kingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, +for Thou doest all things; and the glory, for Thou doest all +things well, for ever and ever. Amen.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 195--><a name="page195"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 195</span>The Unquenchable Fire. August +31.</h3> +<p>A fire which cannot be quenched, a worm which cannot die, I +see existing, and consider them among the most blessed +revelations of the gospel. I fancy I see them burning and +devouring everywhere in the spiritual world, as their analogues +do in the physical. I know that they have done so on me, +and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most +healthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; +I know too well that I often do the same ineffectually. +But, in the comfort that the worm cannot die and the fire cannot +be quenched, I look calmly forward through endless ages to my own +future, and the future of that world whereof it is written, +“He shall reign until He hath put all enemies under His +feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of +fire.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not +merely to give new light and a day-spring from on high to those +who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, but to burn up out +of sight, and off the universe, the chaff, hay, and stubble which +men have built on the One Living Foundation, Christ, in that +unquenchable fire, of which it is written that <i>Death</i> and +<i>Hell</i> shall one day be cast into it also, to share the fate +of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God’s +universe be—what it must be some day—<i>very +good</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, +therefore I believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must +devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in +His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, to be +pardoned surely, if they confess themselves in the wrong and open +their eyes to the truth. And God shall be All in All. +Those last are wide words.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Sermons</i>. +1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 196--><a name="page196"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 196</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>AUGUST 24.<br /> +St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>Blessed are they who once were persecuted for +righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of +heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is no less +than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that +supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, +all art, all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, +hints and hopes, dim reflected rays of the clear light of +everlasting day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 197--><a name="page197"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 197</span>September.</h2> +<p>That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who +wrote—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Nor ever had the breeze of passion<br /> +Stirred her heart’s clear depths.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, +knows that when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep +pools and still flats are always brown—always +dark—the mud lies in them, the trout <i>sleep</i> in +them. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or +gray with some foreign matter held in solution—the brown of +selfish sensuality or the gray of morbid melancholy. But +when they are free again! when they hurry over rock and weed and +sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are clear! Then all the +foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours into them, falls +to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life and +health and food; and through their swift yet yielding +eddies—<i>moulding themselves to every accident</i>, <i>yet +separate and undefiled</i>—shine up the delicate beauties +of the subaqueous world, the Spirit-glories which we can only see +in this life through the medium of another human soul, but which +we can never see unless that soul is stirred by circumstance into +passion and motion and action strong and swift. Only the +streams which have undergone long and <i>severe struggles</i> +from their very fountain-head have clear pools.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 199--><a name="page199"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 199</span>Goodness. September 1.</h3> +<p>Always say to yourself this one thing, “Good I will +become, whatever it cost me; and in God’s goodness I trust +to make me good, for I am sure He wishes to see me good more than +I do myself.” And you will find that, because you +have confessed in that best and most honest of ways that God is +good, and have so given Him real glory, and real honour, and real +praise, He will save you from the sins which torment you, and you +shall never come, either in this world or the world to come, to +that worst misery, the being ashamed of yourself.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3>Be good to do Good. September 2.</h3> +<p>What we wish to do for our fellow-creatures we must do first +for ourselves. We can give them nothing save what God has +already given us. We must become good before we can make +them good, and wise before we can make them wise.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>The Undying I. September 3.</h3> +<p>The youngest child, by faith in God his Father, may look upon +all heaven and earth and say, “Great and wonderful and +awful as this earth and those skies may be, I am more precious in +the sight of God than sun and moon and stars; for they are +things, but I am a person, a spirit, an immortal soul, made in +the likeness of God, redeemed into the likeness of God. +This great earth was here thousands and thousands of years before +I was born, and it will be here perhaps millions of years after I +am dead. But it cannot harm <i>Me</i>, it cannot kill +<i>Me</i>. When earth, and sun, and stars have passed away +I shall live for ever, for I am the immortal child of an immortal +Father, the child of the everlasting God.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 201--><a name="page201"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 201</span>Love and Time. September +4.</h3> +<p>Love proves its spiritual origin by rising above time and +space and circumstance, wealth and age, and even temporary +beauty, at the same time that it alone can perfectly <i>use</i> +all those material adjuncts. Being spiritual, it is Lord of +matter, and can give and receive from it glory and beauty when it +will, and yet live without it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<h3>Common Duties. September 5.</h3> +<p>The only way to regenerate the world is to do the duty which +lies nearest us, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones +for ourselves. If each drop of rain <i>chose</i> where it +should fall, God’s showers would not fall as they do now, +on the evil and the good alike. I know from the experience +of my own heart how galling this doctrine is—how, like +Naaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid +us do some great thing, but only to go wash in the nearest brook +and be clean.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1854.</p> +<h3>Despair—Hope. September 6.</h3> +<p>Does the age seem to you dark? Do you feel, as I do at +times, the awful sadness of that text, “The time shall come +when you shall desire to see one of the days of the Lord, and +shall not see it”? Then remember that</p> +<blockquote><p>The night is never so long<br /> +But at last it ringeth for matin song.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>. . . Even now the dawn is gilding the highest souls, and +<i>we</i> are in the night only because we crawl below.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1850.</p> +<h3><!-- page 203--><a name="page203"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 203</span>The Critical Spirit. September +7.</h3> +<p>“Judge nothing before the time.” This is a +hard saying. Who can hear it? There never was a time +in which the critical spirit was more thoroughly in the +ascendant. Every man now is an independent critic. To +accept fully, or as it is now called, to follow blindly; to +admire heartily, or as it is now called, fanatically—these +are considered signs of weakness or credulity. To believe +intensely; to act unhesitatingly; to admire passionately; all +this, as the latest slang phrases it, is “bad form”; +a proof that a man is not likely to win in the race of this world +the prize whereof is, the greatest possible enjoyment with the +least possible work.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Critical Spirit</i>. +1871.</p> +<h3>Toil and Rest. September 8.</h3> +<p>Remember always, toil is the condition of our being. Our +sentence is to labour from the cradle to the grave. But +there are Sabbaths allowed for the mind as well as the body, when +the intellect is stilled, and the emotions alone perform their +gentle and involuntary functions.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Storm and Calm. September 9.</h3> +<p>Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the +Azores, the storms came on heavier than ever, with terrible seas +breaking short and pyramid-wise, till, on the 9th of September, +the tiny <i>Squirrel</i> nearly foundered, and yet recovered, and +the General (Sir Humphrey Gilbert), sitting abaft with a book in +his hand, cried out to us in the <i>Hind</i>, “We are as +near heaven by sea as by land,” reiterating the same speech +well be-seeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can +testify he was.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xiii.</p> +<h3><!-- page 205--><a name="page205"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 205</span>On the Heights. September +10.</h3> +<p>It is good for a man to have holy and quiet thoughts, and at +moments to see into the very deepest meaning of God’s word +and God’s earth, and to have, as it were, heaven opened +before his eyes; and it is good for a man sometimes actually to +<i>feel</i> his heart overpowered with the glorious majesty of +God—to <i>feel</i> it gushing out with love to his blessed +Saviour; but it is not good for him to stop there any more than +for the Apostles in the Mount of Transfiguration.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1849.</p> +<h3>In the Valley. September 11.</h3> +<p>The disciples had to come down from the Mount and do +Christ’s work, and so have we. Believe me, one word +of warning spoken to keep a little child out of sin,—one +crust of bread given to a beggar-man because he is your brother, +for whom Christ died,—one angry word checked on your lips +for the sake of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; any the +smallest endeavour to lessen the amount of evil which is in +yourselves and those around you,—is worth all the +speculations, and raptures, and visions, and frames, and feelings +in the world; for these are the good fruits of faith, whereby +alone the tree shall be known whether it be good or evil.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1849.</p> +<h3>Self-Conceit. September 12.</h3> +<p>Self-conceit is the very daughter of self-will, and of that +loud crying out about <i>I</i>, and me, and mine, which is the +very bird-call for all devils, and the broad road which leads to +death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. i.</p> +<h3><!-- page 207--><a name="page207"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 207</span>Facing Fact. September +13.</h3> +<p>It is good for a man to be brought once, at least, in his +life, face to face with <i>fact</i>, ultimate fact, however +horrible it may be, and to have to confess to himself shuddering, +what things are possible on God’s earth, when man has +forgotten that his only welfare is in living after the likeness +of God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1858.</p> +<h3>The Heroical Rest. September 14.</h3> +<p>Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is +to have more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few +things must find his account in being made ruler over many +things. That is the true and heroical rest which only is +worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As for those who +either in this world or in the world to come look for idleness, +and hope that God will feed them with pleasant things, as it were +with a spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though +they call themselves saints and elect.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. vii. +1855.</p> +<h3>Body and Soul. September 15.</h3> +<p>Remember that St. Paul always couples with the resurrection +and ascension of our bodies in the next life the resurrection and +ascension of our souls in this life, for without that, the +resurrection of our bodies would be but a resurrection to fresh +sin, and therefore to fresh misery and ruin.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1870.</p> +<h3><!-- page 209--><a name="page209"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 209</span>Love in Absence. September +16.</h3> +<p>Absence quickens love into consciousness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<p>The baby sings not on its mother’s breast;<br /> +Nor nightingales who nestle side by side;<br /> +Nor I by thine: but let us only part,<br /> +Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,<br /> +As having uttered all, must speak again.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sonnet</i>. 1851.</p> +<h3>Special Providence. September 17.</h3> +<p>If I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual +education of men by evil as well as good, by small things as well +as great, I could believe nothing.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>.</p> +<h3>Love of Work. September 18.</h3> +<p>“Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God’s +likeness clings to a man longest and closest and best? +No? Then I will tell you. It is the love of +employment. God in heaven must create Himself a universe to +work on and love. And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, +cannot rest without our <i>mundus peculiaris</i> of some +sort—our world subjective, as Doctor Musophilus has +it. But we can create too, and make our little sphere look +as large as a universe.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Novel</i>. 1844.</p> +<h3><!-- page 211--><a name="page211"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 211</span>Fret not. September 19.</h3> +<p>Fret not, neither be anxious. What God intends to do He +will do. And what we ask believing we shall receive. +Never let us get into the common trick of calling unbelief +resignation, of asking and then, because we have not faith to +believe, putting in a “Thy will be done” at the +end. Let us make God’s will our will, and <i>so</i> +say Thy will be done.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1843.</p> +<p>Peace! Why these fears?<br /> +Life is too short for mean anxieties:<br /> +Soul! thou must work, though blindfold.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene x.</p> +<h3>Battle before Victory. September 20.</h3> +<p>Whenever you think of our Lord’s resurrection and +ascension, remember always that the background of His triumph is +a tomb. Remember that it is the triumph over suffering; a +triumph of One who still bears the prints of the nails in His +sacred hands and feet, and the wound of the spear in His side; +like many a poor soul who has followed Him, triumphant at last, +and yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of +life.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1870.</p> +<h3>Night and Growth. September 21.</h3> +<p>As in the world of Nature, so it is in the world of men. +The night is peopled not merely with phantoms and superstitions +and spirits of evil, but under its shadow all sciences, methods, +social energies, are taking rest, and growing, and feeding, +unknown to themselves.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1850.</p> +<h3><!-- page 213--><a name="page213"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 213</span>Passion. September 22.</h3> +<p>Self-sacrifice! What is love worth that does not show +itself in action? and more, which does not show itself in +<i>passion</i> in the true sense of that word: namely, in +suffering? in daring, in struggling, in grieving, in agonising, +and, if need be, in dying for the object of its love? Every +mother will give but one answer to that question.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1870.</p> +<h3>Worth of Beauty. September 23.</h3> +<p>It is a righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour +beauty, whether in man or woman, as something of real +worth—divine, heavenly, ay, though we know not how, in a +most deep sense Eternal; which makes our reason give the lie to +all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of moralists about +“the fleeting hues of this our painted clay;” and +tell men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures told them, that physical +beauty is the deepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though +beauty without discretion be the jewel of gold in the +swine’s snout, yet the jewel of gold it is still, the +sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be, perhaps +hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Hypatia</i>, chap. xxvi. +1852.</p> +<h3>Empty Profession. September 24.</h3> +<p>What is the sin which most destroys all men and nations? +High religious profession, with an ungodly, selfish life. +It is the worst and most dangerous of all sins; for it is like a +disease which eats out the heart and life without giving pain, so +that the sick man never suspects that anything is the matter with +him till he finds himself, to his astonishment, at the point of +death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3><!-- page 215--><a name="page215"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 215</span>True Poetry. September +25.</h3> +<p>Let us make life one poem—not of dreams or +sentiments—but of actions, not done Byronically as proofs +of genius, but for our own self-education, alone, in secret, +awaiting the crisis which shall call us forth to the battle to do +just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterly different +self-education. That is the life of great spirits, after, +perhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the +lower paths of God’s vineyard, till their hearts have +settled into a still, deep, yet swift current, and those who have +been faithful over a few things are made rulers over many +things.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Office of the Clergy. September 26.</h3> +<p>There is a Christian as well as political liberty quite +consistent with High Church principles, which makes the clergy +our teachers—not the keepers of our <i>consciences</i> but +of our <i>creeds</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>Opinions are not Knowledge. September 27.</h3> +<p>. . . As to self-improvement, the true Catholic mode of +learning is to “prove all things,” as far as we can, +without sin or the danger of it, to “hold fast that which +is good.” Let us never be afraid of trying anything +new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own. +And let us never be afraid of changing our opinions. The +unwillingness to go back from once declared opinion is a form of +pride which haunts some powerful minds: but it is not found in +great childlike geniuses. Fools may hold fast to their +scanty stock through life, and we must be very cautious in +drawing them from it—for where can they supply its +place?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 217--><a name="page217"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 217</span>The Worst Punishment. +September 28.</h3> +<p>God reserves many a sinner for that most awful of all +punishments (here)—impunity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>The Divine Order. September 29.</h3> +<p>Ah, that God’s will were but done on earth as it is in +the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as +the stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without +haste—as all created things, even the most awful, fire and +hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil God’s word, +who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given them a law +which shall not be broken. But above them; above the divine +and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which +are God’s angels, and the flames of fire which are His +messengers; above all, the prophets and apostles have caught +sight of another divine and wonderful order of <i>rational</i> +beings, of races loftier and purer than man—angels and +archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, +fulfilling God’s will in heaven as it is not, alas! +fulfilled on earth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>True Resignation. September 30.</h3> +<p>. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as +well as the divine affections. I am happy, for the less +hope, the more faith. . . . God knows what is best for us; +we do not. Continual resignation, at last I begin to find, +is the secret of continual strength. “Daily +<i>dying</i>,” as Bœhmen interprets it, is the path +of daily <i>living</i>. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 218--><a name="page218"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 218</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>SEPTEMBER 21.<br /> +St. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr.</h4> +<p>There is something higher than happiness. There is +blessedness; the blessedness of being good and doing good, of +being right and doing right. That blessedness we may have +at all times; we may be blest even in anxiety and in sadness; we +may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were blest, in agony and +death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 219--><a name="page219"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 219</span>SEPTEMBER 29.<br /> +Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.</h4> +<p>The eternal moral law which held good for the sinless Christ, +who, though He were a Son, yet learned obedience by the things +which He suffered, must hold good of you and me, and all moral +and rational beings—yea, for the very angels in +heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and we do +not know that they have ever suffered. But this at least we +know, that they have submitted. They have obeyed, and have +given up their own wills to be ministers of God’s +will. In them is neither self-will nor selfishness; and, +therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty, they +stand. And so, by consenting to lose their individual life +of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the +life of blessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have +lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life and +be something in themselves and of themselves without respect to +God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 221--><a name="page221"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 221</span>October.</h2> +<p>A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame +Nature, healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing +herself, with a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter’s +sleep. Sheets of dappled cloud were sliding slowly from the +west; long bars of hazy blue hung over the southern chalk downs, +which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south-eastern +sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still +hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the +huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering +down at every rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass +below. The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy +gray with autumn rains and rotting leaves. All beyond the +garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even in decay; but up +the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very +window-sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena +and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with fallen +leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched by +frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow +blossoms, through the crimson lace-work of the Virginia creeper; +and the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the +window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. i.</p> +<h3><!-- page 223--><a name="page223"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 223</span>Blessing of Daily Work. +October 1.</h3> +<p>Thank God every morning when you get up that you have +something to do that day which must be done whether you like it +or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, +will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and +strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues +which the idle will never know.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Town and Country +Sermons</i>. 1861.</p> +<h3>The Forming Form. October 2.</h3> +<p>As the acorn, because God has given it “a forming +form,” and life after its kind, bears within it not only +the builder oak but shade for many a herd, food for countless +animals, and at last the gallant ship itself, and the materials +of every use to which Nature or Art can put it, and its +descendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good +deed contain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities +of other good, which may and will grow and multiply for ever, in +the genial light of Him whose eternal mind conceived it, and +whose eternal spirit will for ever quicken it, with that life of +which He is the Giver and the Lord.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Preface to Tauler’s +Sermons</i>. 1854.</p> +<h3>Special Providences. October 3.</h3> +<p>And as for special Providences. I believe that every +step I take, every person I meet, every thought which comes into +my mind—which is not sinful—comes and happens by the +perpetual Providence of God watching for ever with Fatherly care +over me, and each separate thing that He has made.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 225--><a name="page225"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 225</span>Virtue. October 4.</h3> +<p>Nothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and +virtue. Man will always try to find substitutes for +it. He will try to find a substitute in superstition, in +forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and worship of +angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be heard +for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in +intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . +but let no man lay that flattering unction to his soul.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>God-likeness. October 5.</h3> +<p>“We can become like God—only in proportion as we +are of use,” said ---. “I did not see this +once. I tried to be good, not knowing what good +meant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay +me in the world to come. But at last I saw that all life, +all devotion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, +and God-like and God-beloved, as they were means to that one +end—to be of use.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xix. 1856.</p> +<h3>The Refiner’s Fire. October 6.</h3> +<p>“Not quite that,” said Amyas. “He was +a meeker man latterly than he used to be. As he said +himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on board had +followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the +fire. And gold seven times tried he was when God, having +done His work in him, took him home at last.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xiii.</p> +<h3><!-- page 227--><a name="page227"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 227</span>The Prayer of Faith. October +7.</h3> +<p>With the prayer of faith we can do anything. Look at +Mark xi. 24—a text that has saved more than one soul from +madness in the hour of sorrow; and it is so <i>simple</i> and +<i>wide</i>—wide as eternity, simple as light, true as God +Himself. If we are to do great things it must be in the +spirit of that text. Verily, when the Son of God cometh +shall He find faith in the earth?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3>Mountain-Ranges. October 8.</h3> +<p>We fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand +half-way up on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other +from isolated stations. The mists hide from us the foot of +the range beneath us, the depths of primary analysis to which +none can reach, or we should see that all the peaks were but +offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in their inmost root but +One! And the clouds which float between us and the heaven +shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves—the perfect +issues of synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness +shines with undimmed lustre—and keep us from perceiving +that the complete practical details of our applied knowledge is +all holy and radiant with God’s smile. And so, +half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, we build up +little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancy +them Babel-towers whose top shall reach to heaven!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Note-book</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3>The Temper for Success in Life. October 9.</h3> +<p>The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been +cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a +smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this +mortal life like men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, +and so found the truth of the old proverb that “good times +and bad times and all times pass over.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3><!-- page 229--><a name="page229"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 229</span>Want of Simplicity. October +10.</h3> +<p>Faith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to +want faith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to +explain away God’s providence, then faith and prayer become +intricate and uncertain. We cannot serve God and +mammon. We must either utterly depend on God (and therefore +on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer), or we +must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world. +Choose!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>.</p> +<h3>True Rest. October 11.</h3> +<p>What is true rest? To rest from sin, from sorrow, from +doubt, from care; this is true rest. Above all, to rest +from the worst weariness of all—knowing one’s duty +and not being able to do it. That is true rest; the rest of +God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the stars +over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet +are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, +fulfilling the law which God has given them. Perfect rest +in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits till +the final consummation of all things.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1867.</p> +<h3>God’s Image. October 12.</h3> +<p>. . . “Honour all men.” Every man should be +honoured as God’s image, in the sense in which Novalis +says—that we touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human +body! . . . The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that, and +acted up to it, more than any nation. The Patriarchs too +seem to have had the same feeling. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 231--><a name="page231"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 231</span>Woman’s Work. October +13.</h3> +<p>Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not +the lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher +and diviner one of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that +higher life which lives in and for others, like her Redeemer and +her Lord.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Self-Enjoyment. October 14.</h3> +<p>“How do ye expect,” said Sandy, “ever to be +happy, or strong, or a man at a’, as long as ye go on only +looking to enjoy yersel—<i>yersel</i>? Mony was the +year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, +when it was a’</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy +Mackaye,<br /> +There he sits singing the lang simmer day;<br /> + Lassies gae to him,<br /> + And kiss him, and woo him—<br /> + Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An’ muckle good cam’ o’t. Ye may fancy +I’m talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle. But +I tell ye nay. I’ve got that’s worth living +for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a’s wrong, +and there’s na hope for us on earth, we be a’ sic +liars—a’ liars, I think—I’m a great liar +often mysel, especially when I’m praying.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Alton Locke</i>, chap. vii.</p> +<h3>Temptations of Temperament. October 15.</h3> +<p>A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is +but too notorious, of great crimes as well as of great +virtues.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>.</p> +<p>The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more +noble and earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if +neglected, to go astray.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3><!-- page 233--><a name="page233"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 233</span>Egotism of Melancholy. October +16.</h3> +<p>Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind. The +self-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling +one, must be dissatisfied with what it sees within. Then it +begins unconsciously to flatter itself with the idea that it is +not the “<i>moi</i>” but the “<i>non +moi</i>,” the world around, which is evil. Hence +comes Manichæism, Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind +which is so accustomed to look for sorrow that it finds it even +in joy—because it will not confess to itself that sorrow +belongs to <i>sin</i>, and that sin belongs to <i>self</i>; and +therefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God’s earth, and +not on itself in repentance and humiliation.</p> +<p>The world looks dark. Shall we therefore be dark +too? Is it not our business to bring it back to light and +joy?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3>Poetry of Doubt. October 17.</h3> +<p>The “poetry of doubt” of these days, however +pretty, would stand us in little stead if we were threatened by a +second Armada.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3>Work of the Physician. October 18.</h3> +<p>The question which is forcing itself more and more on the +minds of scientific men is not how many diseases <i>are</i>, but +how few are <i>not</i>, the consequences of men’s +ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence. The medical +man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in +sickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, +but of the social reformer, the political economist, and the +statesman; and the first object of his science to be prevention, +and not cure.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3><!-- page 235--><a name="page235"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 235</span>Love Many-sided. October +19.</h3> +<p>There are many sides to love—admiration, reverence, +gratitude, pity, affection; they are all different shapes of that +one great spirit of love—the only feeling which will bind a +man to do good, not once in a way but habitually.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>The only Path to Light. October 20.</h3> +<p>The path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock +of Ages, is the simple path of honest self-knowledge, +self-renunciation, self-restraint, in which every upward step +towards right exposes some fresh depth of inward sinfulness, till +the once proud man, crushed down by the sense of his own infinite +meanness, becomes a little child once more, and casts himself +simply on the generosity of Him who made him. And then +there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill +into clumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the +ground on which he treads, or than the foot which treads +it—the vision of an Everlasting Spiritual Substance, most +Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and who, standing +beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance endure +likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death, +matter and space and time, should melt indeed—</p> +<blockquote><p>And like the baseless fabric of a vision,<br /> +Leave not a rack behind.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Preface to Tauler’s +Sermons</i>. 1854.</p> +<h3>Proverbs False and True. October 21.</h3> +<p>There is no falser proverb than that devil’s beatitude, +“Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be +disappointed.” Say rather, “Blessed is he who +expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at least, and +if it falls out true, twice also.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1857.</p> +<h3><!-- page 237--><a name="page237"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 237</span>True Sisters of Mercy. October +22.</h3> +<p>Ah! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as +“old maids,” if you pour out on cats and dogs and +parrots a little of the love that is yearning to spend itself on +children of your own. As long as such as you walk this +lower world one needs no Butler’s <i>Analogy</i> to prove +to us that there is another world, where such as you will have a +fuller and a fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xxv. 1856.</p> +<h3>The Divine Fire. October 23.</h3> +<p>Well spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life’s +turmoil,<br /> +“Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see:<br /> +God’s love with keen flame purges, like the lightning +flash,<br /> +Gold which is purest, purer still must be.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iii. Scene i.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>The Cross a Token. October 24.</h3> +<p>Have patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the +foot of Christ’s Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor +of the <i>soul</i> and <i>reason</i>, as well as of the +<i>heart</i>. For, however ill the world may go, or seem to +go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the +world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave +Him for it. Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is +sure—that good must conquer, because God is good, that evil +must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1870.</p> +<h3><!-- page 239--><a name="page239"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 239</span>The True Self-Sacrifice. +October 25.</h3> +<p>What can a man do more than <i>die</i> for his countrymen?</p> +<p><i>Live</i> for them. It is a longer work, and therefore +a more difficult and a nobler one.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xix. 1856.</p> +<h3>Now as Then. October 26.</h3> +<p>Men can be as original now as ever, if they had but the +courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in old times had no +more opportunities than we have; but they used them. There +were daring deeds to be done then—are there none now? +Sacrifices to be made—are there none now? Wrongs to +be redrest—are there none now? Let any one set his +heart in these days to do what is right, and nothing else; and it +will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to +make up the heroical expression—with noble indignation, +noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps even +with the print of the martyr’s crown of thorns.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +vii. 1856.</p> +<h3>One Anchor. October 27.</h3> +<p>In such a world as this, with such ugly possibilities hanging +over us all, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is +utter trust in God; let us keep that, and we may yet get to our +graves without <i>misery</i> though not without +<i>sorrow</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1871.</p> +<h3><!-- page 241--><a name="page241"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 241</span>Self-Control. October 28.</h3> +<p>Settle it in your minds, young people, that the first and the +last of all virtues and graces which God can give is +Self-Control, as necessary for the saint and the sage lest they +become fanatics and pedants, as for the young in the hey-day of +youth and health.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on David</i>. +1866.</p> +<h3>Nature’s Permanence. October 29.</h3> +<p>We abolish many things, good and evil, wisely and foolishly, +in these fast-going times; but, happily for us, we cannot abolish +the blue sky, and the green sea, and the white foam, and the +everlasting hills, and the rivers which flow out of their +bosoms. They will abolish themselves when their work is +done, but not before. And we, who, with all our boasted +scientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and +carnal point of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic +animals burrowing in the fair Earth’s skin, had better, +instead of boasting of our empire over Nature, take care lest we +become too troublesome to Nature, by creating, in our haste and +greed, too many great black countries, and too many great dirty +warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled with savages and +imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so far from +allowing us to abolish her, will by her inexorable laws abolish +us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Presidential +Address</i>. 1871.</p> +<h3>The Only Refuge. October 30.</h3> +<p>Prayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the +witches and the fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden +through a mortal brain.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xix. 1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 243--><a name="page243"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 243</span>England’s Forgotten +Worthies. October 31.</h3> +<p>Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur +and glory around them had attuned their spirits to itself and +kept them in a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; while +they knew as little about what they saw in an +“artistic” or “critical” point of view as +in a scientific one. . . . They gave God thanks and were +not astonished. God was great: but that they had discovered +long before they came into the tropics.</p> +<p>Noble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and +superstition enough about them to keep from that prurient +hysterical wonder and enthusiasm which is simply, one often +fears, a product of our scepticism! We do not trust enough +in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to be ready, +as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, for +anything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is +discovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to +ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a +feeling—true index, forsooth, of a refined and cultivated +mind!!</p> +<p>Smile if you will: but those were days (and there never were +less superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the +living God, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of +course, His help, and providence, and calling, in the matters of +daily life, which we now, in our covert atheism, term +“secular and carnal.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xxiii.</p> +<h3><!-- page 244--><a name="page244"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 244</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>OCTOBER 18.<br /> +St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist.</h4> +<p>It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him +utterly in that. And the physician has set his mind to do +one thing—to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, +disease and death, and to fight against them to the end. In +his exclusive care for the body the physician witnesses +unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for the Bible, +for immortality. Is he not witnessing for God when he shows +by his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of +death; of health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of +joy and strength, not of misery and weakness? Is he not +witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of +sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil +as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<i>Water of Life</i>,” +<i>and other Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 245--><a name="page245"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 245</span>OCTOBER 28.<br /> +St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs.</h4> +<p>He that loseth his life shall save it. The end and aim +of our life is not happiness but goodness. If goodness +comes first, then happiness may come after; but if not, something +better than happiness may come, even blessedness.</p> +<p>Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross. There +hung your King! The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the +King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, +death and hell,—He has faced them one and all, and tried +their strength and taught them His, and conquered them right +royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow +is divine,—godlike, as joy itself. All that +man’s fallen nature dreads and despises God honoured on the +Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. +. . . And now—Blessed are tears and shame, blessed +are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown +realms where souls await the Resurrection-day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 247--><a name="page247"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 247</span>November.</h2> +<p>“The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is +dreary gray. All Nature is like the grief of manhood in its +soft and thoughtful sternness. Shall I lend myself to its +influence, and as the heaven settles down into one misty shroud +of ‘shrill yet silent tears,’ as if veiling her shame +in a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why +not? for am I not ‘a part of all I see’? And +even now, in fasting and mortification, am I not sorrowing for my +sin and for its dreary chastisement? But shall I then +despond and die?</p> +<p>“No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and +thy God! We may weep, Mother Earth, but we have +Faith—faith which tells us that above the cloudy sky the +bright clear sun is shining, and will shine. And we have +Hope, Mother Earth—hope, that as bright days have been, so +bright days soon shall be once more! And we have Charity, +Mother Earth, and by it we can love all tender things—ay, +and all rugged rocks and dreary moors, for the sake of the glow +which <i>has</i> gilded them, and the fertility which will spring +even from their sorrow. We will smile through our tears, +Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken! We have still light +and heat, and till we can bear the sunshine we will glory in the +shade!”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 249--><a name="page249"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 249</span>Sympathy of the Dead. November +1.</h3> +<p>Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and +that if (as I surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and +misdeeds of those whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in +vain. Their sympathy is a further education for them, and a +pledge, too, of help—I believe of final +deliverance—for those on whom they look down in love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1852.</p> +<h3>Nature’s Parable. November 2.</h3> +<p>There is a devil’s meaning to everything in nature, and +a God’s meaning too. As I read nature’s parable +to-night I find nothing in it but hope. What if there be +darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there seem chaos, +the great organic world is still living and growing and feeding, +unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom +there below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still +the power of light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is +stirred.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>. 1849.</p> +<h3>Passing Onward. November 3.</h3> +<p>Liturgies are but temporary expressions of the Church’s +heart. The Bible is the immutable story of her +husband’s love. <i>She</i> must go on from grace to +grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancient +melodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the +same for ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i> 1842.</p> +<p>See how the autumn leaves float by decaying,<br /> + Down the wild swirls of the dark-brimming stream;<br +/> +So fleet the works of men back to their earth again—<br /> + Ancient and holy things pass like a dream.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>A Parable</i>. 1848.</p> +<h3><!-- page 251--><a name="page251"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 251</span>The Divine Intention. November +4.</h3> +<p>I am superstitious enough, thank God, to believe that not a +stone or a handful of mud gravitates into its place without the +will of God; that it was ordained, ages since, into what +particular spot each grain of gold should be washed down from an +Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it at a +certain moment and crisis of his life.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Science Lectures</i>.</p> +<h3>Christ Weeping over Jerusalem. November 5.</h3> +<p>That which is true of nations is true of individuals, of each +separate human brother of the Son of man. Is there one +young life ruined by its own folly—one young heart broken +by its own wilfulness—or one older life fast losing the +finer instincts, the nobler aims of youth, in the restlessness of +covetousness, of fashion, of ambition? Is there one such +poor soul over whom Christ does not grieve? One to whom, at +some supreme crisis of their lives, He does not +whisper—“Ah, beautiful organism—thou too art a +thought of God—thou too, if thou wert but in harmony with +thyself and God, a microcosmic <i>City of God</i>! Ah! that +thou hadst known—even thou—at least in this thy +day—the things which belong to thy peace”?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>. 1874.</p> +<h3>Love Expansive. November 6.</h3> +<p>The mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because +our whole love should be given to God. But as flame +increases by being applied to many objects, so does love. +He who loves God most loves God’s creatures most, and them +for God’s sake, and God for their sake.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Note-book</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 253--><a name="page253"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 253</span>Still the same. November +7.</h3> +<p>Those who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do +not really taste death; to them there is no death, but only a +change of place, a change of state; they pass at once into some +new life, with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; +still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were +here on earth. I say active. Rest they may, rest they +will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Not +idleness, but peace of mind.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>. +1862.</p> +<h3>An absolutely Good God. November 8.</h3> +<p>Fix in your minds—or rather ask God to fix in your +minds—this one idea of an absolutely good God; good with +all forms of goodness which you respect and love in man; good, as +you, and I, and every honest man, understand the plain word +good. Slowly you will acquire that grand and +all-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for +who is mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the +goodness of the infinitely good God! But see, then, +whether, in the light of that one idea, all the old-fashioned +Christian ideas about the relation of God to man—whether +Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the Incarnation, the +Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God—do not +seem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but +rational, and logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the +one idea of an Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent +of the universe?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1873.</p> +<h3>Nature’s Lesson. November 9.</h3> +<p>Learn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do +not let them mould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a +melancholy day to make you melancholy, you worship the creature +more than the Creator.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3><!-- page 255--><a name="page255"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 255</span>Morals and Mind. November +10.</h3> +<p>Not upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human +welfare founded. The true subjective history of man is not +the history of his thought, but of his conscience: the true +objective history of man is not that of his inventions, but of +his vices and his virtues. So far from morals depending +upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. In +proportion as a nation is righteous—in proportion as common +justice is done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, +securely, triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully +accepted and faithfully obeyed, to the welfare of the whole +common weal.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Inaugural Lecture</i>, +<i>Cambridge</i>. 1860.</p> +<h3>Fastidiousness. November 11.</h3> +<p>Do not let us provoke God (though that is <i>really</i> +impossible) by complaining of His gifts because they do not come +just in the form <i>we</i> should have wished. . . .</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1844.</p> +<h3>Unconscious Faith. November 12.</h3> +<p>For the rest, Amyas never thought about thinking or felt about +feeling; and had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his +father and mother, getting by honest means the maximum of +“red quarrenders” and mazard cherries, and going to +sea when he was big enough. Neither was he what would be +nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said his +Creed and Lord’s Prayer night and morning, and went to +service at the church every forenoon, and read the day’s +Psalms with his mother every evening, and had learnt from her and +his father that it was infinitely noble to do right and +infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothing more of theology +or of his own soul than is contained in the Church Catechism.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. i. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 257--><a name="page257"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 257</span>Silence. November 13.</h3> +<p>There are silences more pathetic than all words.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3>The Nineteenth Century. November 14.</h3> +<p>. . . What so maddening as the new motion of our age—the +rush of the express train, when the live iron pants and leaps and +roars through the long chalk cutting, and white mounds gleam cold +a moment against the sky and vanish; and rocks and grass and +bushes fleet by in dim blended lines; and the long hedges revolve +like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far below meadows and +streams and homesteads, with all their lazy old-world life, open +for an instant, and then flee away; while awestruck, silent, +choked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are +swept on by that great pulse of England’s life-blood +rushing down her iron veins; and dimly out of the future looms +the fulfilment of our primeval mission to conquer and subdue the +earth, and space too, and time, and all things—even hardest +of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers; ever learning some +fresh lesson, except the hardest one of all, that it is the +Spirit of God which giveth you understanding?</p> +<p>Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would +exchange you, with all your sins, for any other time? For +swiftly as rushes matter, more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly +still rushes the heavenly dawn up the eastern sky. +“The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” +“Blessed is the servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, +shall find watching.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Prose Idylls</i>.</p> +<h3>Unreality. November 15.</h3> +<p>Those who have had no real sorrows can afford to play with +imaginary ones.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS.</i></p> +<h3><!-- page 259--><a name="page259"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 259</span>The indwelling Light. November +16.</h3> +<p>The doctrine of Christ in every man, as the indwelling Word of +God, the Light who lights every one who comes into the world, is +no peculiar tenet of the Quakers, but one which runs through the +whole of the Old and New Testaments, and without which they would +both be unintelligible, just as the same doctrine runs through +the whole history of the Early Church for the first two +centuries, and is the only explanation of them.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Theologica Germanica</i>. +1854.</p> +<h3>Woman’s Calling. November 17.</h3> +<p>What surely is a woman’s calling but to teach man? and +to teach him what? To temper his fiercer, coarser, more +self-assertive nature by the contact of her gentleness, purity, +self-sacrifice. To make him see that not by blare of +trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue, +puffery, is good and lasting work to be done on earth; but by +wise self-distrust, by silent labour, by lofty self-control, by +that charity which hopeth all things, believeth all things, +endureth all things; by such an example, in short, as women now +in tens of thousands set to those around them; such as they will +show more and more, the more their whole womanhood is educated to +employ its powers without waste and without haste in harmonious +unity.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3>Waste. November 18.</h3> +<p>Thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions—how are they +wasted in these days in reading sensation novels! while British +literature—all that the best hearts and intellects among +our forefathers have bequeathed to us—is neglected for +light fiction, the reading of which is the worst form of +intemperance—dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual +and moral.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 261--><a name="page261"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 261</span>True Penance. November +19.</h3> +<p>“Senor,” said Brimblecombe, “the best way to +punish oneself for doing ill seems to me to go and do good; and +the best way to find out whether God means you well is to find +out whether He will help you to do well.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westward Ho</i>! chap. xxv.</p> +<h3>Political Economy of the Future. November 20.</h3> +<p>I can conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, +every foul vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a +manufactory, polluting the air, destroying the vegetation, shall +be seized, utilised, converted into some profitable substance, +till the black country shall be black no longer, the streams once +more crystal clear, the trees once more luxuriant, and the +desert, which man has created in his haste and greed, shall in +literal fact once more blossom as the rose. And just so can +I conceive a time when by a higher civilisation, formed on a +political economy more truly scientific, because more truly +according to the will of God, our human refuse shall be utilised +like our material refuse; when man as man, down to the weakest +and most ignorant, shall be found (as he really is) so valuable +that it will be worth while to preserve his health, to develop +his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, and +character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after +all, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and that no +cost spent on the development of human beings can possibly be +thrown away.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1870.</p> +<h3>God’s Pleasure. November 21.</h3> +<p>The world was not made for man: but man, like all the world, +was made for God. Not for man’s pleasure merely, not +for man’s use, but for God’s pleasure all things are, +and for God’s pleasure they were, created.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1869.</p> +<h3><!-- page 263--><a name="page263"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 263</span>The Hospital Nurse. November +22.</h3> +<p>Fearless, uncomplaining, she “trusted in God and made no +haste.” She did her work and read her Bible; and +read, too, again and again at stolen moments of rest, a book +which was to her as the finding of an unknown +sister—Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xxviii.</p> +<p>Let us learn to look on hospitals not as acts of charity, +supererogatory benevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe +nothing, but as confessions of sin, and worthy fruits of +penitence; as poor and late and partial compensation for misery +which <i>we</i> might have prevented.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1851.</p> +<h3>No Work Lost. November 23.</h3> +<p>If you lose heart about your work, remember that none of it is +<i>lost</i>—that the good of every good deed remains and +breeds and works on for ever, and that all that fails and is lost +is the outside shell of the thing, which, perhaps, might have +been better done; but better or worse has nothing to do with the +real spiritual good which you have done to men’s +hearts.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1862.</p> +<h3>True Temperance. November 24.</h3> +<p>What we all want is inward rest; rest of heart and brain; the +calm, strong, self-contained, self-denying character, which needs +no stimulants, for it has no fits of depression; which needs no +narcotics, for it has no fits of excitement; which needs no +ascetic restraints, for it is strong enough to use God’s +gifts without abusing them; the character, in a word, which is +truly temperate, not in drink and food merely, but in all +desires, thoughts, and actions.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Essays</i>. 1873.</p> +<h3><!-- page 265--><a name="page265"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 265</span>A Present Veil. November +25.</h3> +<p>What is there in this world worth having without +religion? Do you not feel that true religion, even in its +most imperfect stage, is not merely an escape from hell after +death but the only <i>real state</i> for a man—the only +position to live in in this world—the only frame of mind +which will give anything like happiness here. I cannot help +feeling at moments—if there were <i>no Christ</i>, +everything, even the very flowers and insects, and every +beautiful object, would be hell <i>now</i>—dark, blank, +hopeless.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1843.</p> +<h3>Cowardice. November 26.</h3> +<p>There is but one thing which you have to fear in earth or +heaven—being untrue to your better selves, and therefore +untrue to God. If you will not do the thing you know to be +right, and say the thing you know to be true, then indeed you are +weak. You are a coward; you desert God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>True Words for Brave Men</i>.</p> +<h3>Blind Faith. November 27.</h3> +<p>In Him—“The Father”—I can trust, in +spite of the horrible things I see happen, in spite of the fact +that my own prayers are not answered. I believe that He +makes all things work together for the good of the human race, +and of me among the rest, as long as I obey His will. I +believe He will answer my prayer, not according to the letter, +but according to the spirit of it; that if I desire good, I shall +find good, though not <i>the</i> good I longed for.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1862.</p> +<h3><!-- page 267--><a name="page267"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 267</span>Small and Great. November +28.</h3> +<p>Begin with small things—you cannot enter into the +presence of another human being without finding there more to do +than you or I or any soul will ever learn to do perfectly before +we die. Let us be content to do little if God sets us +little tasks. It is but pride and self-will which says, +“Give me something huge to fight and I shall enjoy +that—but why make me sweep the dust?”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1854.</p> +<h3>True and False. November 29.</h3> +<p>We must remember that dissatisfaction at existing evil (the +feeling of all young and ardent minds), the struggle to escape +from the “circumstance” of the evil world, has a +carnal counterfeit—the love of novelty, and self-will, and +self-conceit, which may thrust us down into the abysses of +misrule and uncertainty; as it has done such men as Shelley and +Byron; trying vainly every loophole, beating against the prison +bars of an imperfect system; neither degraded enough to make +themselves a fool’s paradise within it, nor wise enough to +escape from it through Christ, “the door into the +sheepfold,” to return when they will, and bring others with +them into the serene empyrean of spiritual truth—truth +which explains, and arranges, and hallows, and subdues +everything.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1842.</p> +<h3>The Mind of Christ. November 30.</h3> +<p>How can we attain to the blessed and noble state of +mind—the mind of Christ, who must needs be about His +Father’s business, which is doing good? Only by +prayer and practice. There is no more use in praying +without practising than there is in practising without +praying. You cannot learn to walk without walking; no more +can you learn to do good without trying to do good.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons for the Times</i>. +1855.</p> +<h3><!-- page 268--><a name="page268"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 268</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>NOVEMBER 1.<br /> +All Saints’ Day.<br /> +Commemoration of the Blessed Dead.</h4> +<p>“If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour,” +said the Blessed One. And if God honours His servants, +shall not we honour them likewise? We may not, as our +forefathers did blindly, though lovingly, worship them as +mediators and lesser gods, and pray to them instead of to their +Father in heaven to whose throne of grace we may all come boldly +through Christ Jesus, or believe that their relics will work +miracles in our behalf, thus honouring the creature instead of +the Creator. This we may not do, but we may honour the +Creator in His creature, and honour God in those who have lived +godly and God-like lives; and when they have passed away from +among us—souls endued by God with manifold virtues and +precious gifts of grace—we may give thanks and say, These, +O God, are the fruits of Thy Spirit. Thou honourest them in +heaven with Thy approving smile. We will honour them on +earth, not merely with our lips, but in our lives. What +they were we too might be, if we were as true as they to the +inspiration of Thy Spirit. Help us to honour their +memories, as Thou and they would have us do, by following their +example; by setting them before us, and not only them, but every +holy and noble personage of whom we have ever heard, as dim +likenesses of Christ—even as Christ is the likeness of +Thee. Amen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Sermon</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 269--><a name="page269"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 269</span>NOVEMBER 30.<br /> +St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>Form your own notions about angels and saints in +heaven—as you will, . . . but bear this in mind: that if +the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must be +living a life of usefulness, of love, and of good works. +The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, spent only +in individual happiness.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God Sermons</i>.</p> +<h2><!-- page 271--><a name="page271"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 271</span>December.</h2> +<p>It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve,<br /> + I went sighing past the Church across the moorland +dreary:<br /> +“Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,<br +/> + And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing +so cheery.<br /> +How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?<br /> + Still in cellar and in garret, and on moorland +dreary,<br /> +The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain:<br +/> + Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though +Christmas bells be cheery.”</p> +<p>Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,<br +/> + Beneath the stars across the snow, like clear bells +ringing,<br /> +And a voice within cried, “Listen! Christmas carols +even here!<br /> + Though thou be dumb, yet o’er their work the +stars and snows are singing.<br /> +Blind! I live, I love, I reign, and all the nations +through<br /> + With the thunder of my judgments even now are +ringing;<br /> +Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,<br /> + Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through +it the angels’ singing.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>A Christmas Carol</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 273--><a name="page273"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 273</span>The Final Victory. December +1.</h3> +<p>I believe that the ancient creed, the eternal gospel, will +stand and conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in +every other for eighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing +and organising those young anarchic forces which now, unconscious +of their parentage, rebel against Him to whom they owe their +being.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Yeast</i>, Preface. +1851.</p> +<h3>Drifting away. December 2.</h3> +<p> They drift away—Ah, God! they drift +for ever.<br /> + . . . . . .<br /> + I watch them drift—the old familiar faces,<br +/> + Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places.<br /> + . . . . . .<br /> + Shores, landmarks, beacons drift alike.<br /> + Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven<br /> + Still fades to night, still blazes into day.<br /> +Ah, God! My God! <i>Thou</i> wilt not drift away!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>A Fragment</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>Our Father. December 3.</h3> +<p>Take your sorrows not to man, but to your Father in +heaven. If that name, Father, mean anything, it must mean +that He will not turn away from His wandering child in a way in +which you would be ashamed to turn away from yours. If +there be pity, lasting affection, patience in <i>man</i>, they +must have come from Him. They, above all things, must be +His likeness. Believe that God possesses them a million +times more fully than any human being.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>.</p> +<h3><!-- page 275--><a name="page275"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 275</span>Circumstance. December 4.</h3> +<p>Our wanton accidents take root, and grow<br /> +To vaunt themselves God’s laws, until our clothes,<br /> +Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters<br /> +Become ourselves, and we would fain forget<br /> +There live who need them not.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +ii. Scene v.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>Duty. December 5.</h3> +<p>When a man has once said <i>honestly</i> to himself, “It +is my duty;” when that glorious heavenly thought has risen +upon his soul, like the sun upon the earth, warming his heart and +enlightening it, and making it bring forth all good and noble +fruits, then that man will feel a strength come to him and a +courage come from God which will conquer all his fears, his +selfish love of ease and pleasure, and enable him to bear pain +and poverty and death itself, provided he can do what is right, +and be found by God working His will where He has put him.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons</i>.</p> +<h3>Humanity and the Bible. December 6.</h3> +<p>He who has an intense perception of humanity must know that +Christianity is divine, because it is the only religion which has +a perfect perception of human relations, wants, and +feelings. None but He who made the heart could have written +the Bible.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Note-book</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 277--><a name="page277"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 277</span>Music. December 7.</h3> +<p>There is music in heaven, because in music there is no +self-will. Music goes on certain laws and rules. Man +did not make those laws of music, he has only found them out, and +if he be self-willed and break them, there is an end of his music +instantly; all he brings out is discord and ugly sounds.</p> +<p>Music is fit for heaven. Music is a pattern and type of +heaven, and of the everlasting life of God which perfect spirits +live in heaven; a life of melody and order in themselves; a life +of harmony with each other and with God.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3>Waiting. December 8.</h3> +<p>Ay—stay awhile in peace. The storms are still.<br +/> +Beneath her eider robe the patient earth<br /> +Watches in silence for the sun: we’ll sit<br /> +And gaze up with her at the changeless heaven,<br /> +Until this tyranny be overpast.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iii. Scene iii.<br /> +1847.</p> +<h3>True or False Toleration? December 9.</h3> +<p>“One thing at least I have learnt,” he said, +“in all my experiments on poor humanity—never to see +a man do a wrong thing without feeling I could do the same in his +place. I used to pride myself on that once, fool that I +was, and call it comprehensiveness. I used to make it an +excuse for sitting by and seeing the devil have it all his own +way, and call that toleration. I will see now whether I +cannot turn the said knowledge to a better account, as common +sense, patience, and charity, and yet do work of which neither I +nor my country need be ashamed.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, chap. +xxiii. 1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 279--><a name="page279"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 279</span>Success and Defeat. December +10.</h3> +<p>In many things success at first is dangerous, and +<i>defeat</i> an excellent medicine for testing people’s +honesty—for setting them honestly to work to see what they +want, and what are the best modes of attaining it. Our +sound thrashing, as a nation, in the first French war was the +making of our armies; and it is good for an idea, as well as for +a man, to bear the yoke in his youth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lectures on Ancien +Régime</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3>Passing Emotions. December 11.</h3> +<p>Beware of depending on your own <i>emotions</i>, which are +often but the fallings and risings of the frail flesh, and +mistaking them for spiritual feelings and affections!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p> +<p>Think less of what you <i>feel</i>—even of trying <i>to +be</i> anything. Look out of yourself at God. Pray +and praise, and God will give you His Spirit often when you feel +most dull.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Christ’s Church. December 12.</h3> +<p>. . . What a thought it is that there is a God! a Father, a +King! a Husband not of individuals, that is a Popish fancy, which +the Puritans have adopted—but of the Church—of +collective humanity. Let us be content to be members; let +us be, if we may, the feet, lowest, hardest worked, trodden on, +bleeding, brought into harshest contact with the evil +world! Still we are members of Christ’s Church! . . +.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1843.</p> +<h3><!-- page 281--><a name="page281"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 281</span>Confound me not. December +13.</h3> +<p>Have charity, have patience, have mercy. Never bring a +human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all, any +little child, to shame and confusion of face. Never by +petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly +haste, never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of +a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coarsest in +the heart of any fellow-creature.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1872.</p> +<h3>The Divine Hunger and Thirst. December 14.</h3> +<p>God grant us to be among “those who really hunger and +thirst after righteousness,” and who therefore long to know +what righteousness is, that they may copy it—those who long +to be freed not merely from the punishment of sin after they die, +but from sin itself while they live on earth, and who therefore +wish to know what sin is that they may avoid it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Preface to Tauler’s +Sermons</i>. 1854.</p> +<h3>Religion or Godliness? December 15.</h3> +<p>This is the especial curse of our day, that religion does not +mean, as it used, the service of God—the being like God and +showing forth God’s glory. No, religion means +nowadays the art of getting to heaven when we die, and saving our +own miserable souls, and getting God’s wages without doing +God’s work—as if that was godliness, as if that was +anything but selfishness, as if selfishness was any the better +for being everlasting selfishness!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Village Sermons</i>. +1849.</p> +<h3><!-- page 283--><a name="page283"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 283</span>Christ’s Coming. +December 16.</h3> +<p>Christ may come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with +that still small voice—so sweet and yet so keen, +“Understand those who misunderstand thee. Be fair to +those who are unfair to thee. Be just and merciful to those +whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thou shalt be +forgiven.” He comes to us surely, when we are selfish +and luxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, +“If you do good to one of these, my brethren, you do it +unto Me.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Last Sermon</i>. +<i>MS.</i> 1874.</p> +<h3>God’s Nature. December 17.</h3> +<p>When will men open their eyes to the plain axiom that nothing +is impossible with God, save that He should transgress His own +nature by being unjust and unloving?</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Preface to Tauler</i>. +1854.</p> +<h3>Educators of Men. December 18.</h3> +<p>There are those who consider—and I agree with +them—that the education of boys under the age of twelve +years ought to be entrusted, as much as possible, to women. +Let me ask—of what period of youth and manhood does it not +hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who +fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated +women. I should have thought that the very mission of woman +was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man, from +infancy to old age; that that was the work towards which all the +God-given capacities of women pointed.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Lecture on Thrift</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3><!-- page 285--><a name="page285"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 285</span>The Earthly Body. December +19.</h3> +<p>Let us remember that if the body does feel a burden now (as it +must at moments), what a happiness it is to have a body at all: +how lonely, cold, barren, would it be to be a “disembodied +spirit.” As St. Paul says, “Not that we desire +to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon”—to have a +spiritual, deathless, griefless life instilled into the body.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1842.</p> +<h3>Home at Last. December 20.</h3> +<p>When all the world is old, lad,<br /> + And all the trees are brown,<br /> +And all the sport is stale, lad,<br /> + And all the wheels run down;<br /> +Creep home and take your place there,<br /> + The spent and maimed among:<br /> +God grant you find one face there<br /> + You loved when all was young.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Water Babies</i>. +1862.</p> +<h3>The Bible. December 21.</h3> +<p>The hearts and minds of the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the +truly human, all demand a living God who has revealed Himself in +living acts; a God who has taught mankind by facts, not left them +to discover Him by theories and sentiments; a Judge, a Father, a +Saviour, an Inspirer; in a word, their hearts demand the historic +truth of the Bible—of the Old Testament no less than the +New.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Sermons on Pentateuch</i>. +1863.</p> +<h3><!-- page 287--><a name="page287"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 287</span>Shaking of Heaven and Earth. +December 22.</h3> +<p>“Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but +heaven” (Hebrews xii. 26-29). This is one of the +royal texts of Scripture. It declares one of those great +laws of the kingdom of God which may fulfil itself once and again +at many eras and by many methods; which fulfilled itself most +gloriously in the first century after Christ; again in the fifth +century; again at the time of the Crusades; and again at the +great Reformation in the sixteenth century,—and is +fulfilling itself again at this very day.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Westminster Sermons</i>. +1872.</p> +<h3>Self-Respect the Voice of God. December 23.</h3> +<p>Never hurt any one’s self-respect. Never trample +on any soul, though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that +last spark of self-respect is as its only hope, its only chance; +the last seed of a new and better life; the voice of God which +still whispers to it, “You are not what you ought to be, +and you are not what you can be. You are still God’s +child, still an immortal soul. You may rise yet, and fight +a good fight yet, and conquer yet, and be a man yet, after the +likeness of God who made you, and Christ who died for +you.” Oh! why crush that voice in any heart? If +you do the poor creature is lost, and lies where he or she falls, +and never tries to rise again.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Good News of God +Sermons</i>. 1859.</p> +<h3>Christmas Eve. December 24.</h3> +<p>We will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed +Christmas-tide. He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is +well; for we are His and He is ours.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Two Years Ago</i>, +Introduction. 1856.</p> +<h3><!-- page 289--><a name="page289"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 289</span>The Miracle of Christmas +Night. December 25.</h3> +<p>After the crowning miracle of this most blessed night all +miracles are possible. The miracle of Christmas night was +possible because God’s love was absolute, infinite, +unconquerable, able to condescend to anything that good might be +done. . . . This Christmas night is the one of all the year +which sets a physicist on facing the fact of miracle, and which +delivers him from the bonds of sense and custom by reminding him +of God made Man.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1858.</p> +<h3>Redemption. December 26.</h3> +<p>All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting +sin, are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God. +Blessed are wisdom and courage, joy and health and beauty, love +and marriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruit and +flowers, for Christ redeemed them by His life. . . . +Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await +the Resurrection Day, for Christ redeemed them by His +death. Blessed are all days, dark as well as bright, for +all are His, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His for +ever.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>National Sermons</i>. +1848.</p> +<h3>Fellow-workers with Christ. December 27.</h3> +<p>To abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery +of this world. That is what Christ will do in the day when +He has put all enemies under His feet. That is what Christ +has been doing, step by step, ever since that day when first He +came to do His Father’s will on earth in great +humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our +place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers +with Him in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers +with Him in the battle against evil.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day +Sermons</i>. 1867.</p> +<h3><!-- page 291--><a name="page291"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 291</span>The bright Pathway. December +28.</h3> +<p>There is a healthy ferment of mind in which one struggles +through chaos and darkness, by means of a few clues and threads +of light—and—of one great bright pathway, which I +find more and more to be <i>the</i> only escape from infinite +confusion and aberration, <i>the</i> only explanation of a +thousand human mysteries—I mean the Incarnation of our +Lord—the fact that there really is—a God-Man!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Letter</i>. 1844.</p> +<h3>New Worship. December 29.</h3> +<p>Blessed, thrice blessed, is it to find that hero-worship is +not yet passed away! that the heart of man still beats young and +fresh; that the old tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and +Pythias, Socrates and Alcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless +friend, of love “passing the love of woman,” ennobled +by its own humility, deeper than death and mightier than the +grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one heart here and +there, to show man still how, sooner or later, “he that +loveth knoweth God, for God is love.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Miscellanies</i>. 1850.</p> +<h3>Links in the Chain. December 30.</h3> +<p>The heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future! +Oh, dreary present! But let us not repine. What is +dreary need not be barren. Nothing need be barren to those +who view all things in their real light, as links in the great +chain of progression both for themselves and for the +Universe. To us all Time should seem so full of life: every +moment the grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs +in heaven and earth, and the mind of our God Himself—all +things moving smoothly and surely in spite of apparent checks and +disappointments towards the appointed end.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Letters and Memories</i>. +1844.</p> +<h3><!-- page 293--><a name="page293"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 293</span>Past, Present, Future. +December 31.</h3> +<p>Surely as the years pass on they ought to have made us better, +more useful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in +our lofty ideas of what ought to be done, but we may have gained +more clear and practical notions of what can be done. We +may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness. +We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, +and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet what we +do may be far better done. And our very griefs and +disappointments—have they been useless to us? Surely +not. We shall have gained instead of lost by them if the +Spirit of God has been working in us. Our sorrows will have +wrought in us patience, our patience experience, and that +experience hope—hope that He who has led us thus far will +lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former days +precious lessons—not only by sore temptations but most +sacred joys—will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons +by temptations, which we shall be more able to endure; and by +joys which, though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, +but sent as lessons to our souls by Him from whom all good gifts +come.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Water of Life Sermons</i>.</p> +<p>Out of God’s boundless bosom, the fount of life, we +came; through selfish, stormy youth, and contrite +tears—just not too late; through manhood, not altogether +useless; through slow and chill old age, we return whence we +came, to the bosom of God once more—to go forth again, it +may be, with fresh knowledge and fresh powers, to nobler +work. Amen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>The Air Mothers</i>. +1869.</p> +<h3><!-- page 294--><a name="page294"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 294</span>SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & +FESTIVALS.</h3> +<h4>DECEMBER 21.<br /> +St. Thomas, Apostle and Martyr.</h4> +<p>The spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters +of the gross animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless +universe in which this earth is but a tiny speck, doing +God’s will as they longed to do it on earth, with clearer +light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of +usefulness! Ah, that we were like unto them!</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4>DECEMBER 25.<br /> +Christmas Day.</h4> +<p>Thank God, that One was born, at this same time,<br /> +Who did our work for us: we’ll talk of Him:<br /> +We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves—<br /> +We’ll talk of Him, and of that new-made star,<br /> +Which, as He stooped into the Virgin’s side,<br /> +From off His finger, like a signet-gem,<br /> +He dropped in the empyrean for a sign.<br /> +But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour,<br /> +When He crept weeping forth to see our woe,<br /> +Fled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever<br /> +Our sins, our works, and that same new-made star.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>Saint’s Tragedy</i>, Act +iv. Scene iv.</p> +<h4>DECEMBER 26.<br /> +St. Stephen, the Martyr.</h4> +<p>These are the holy ones—the heroes of mankind, the +elect, the aristocracy of grace. They are those who carry +the palm branch of triumph, who have come out of great +tribulation, who have dared and fought and suffered for God and +truth and right; who have resisted unto blood, striving against +sin. What should easy-going folk like you and me do but +place ourselves with all humility, if but for an hour, where we +can look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are like +and what they do.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4><!-- page 295--><a name="page295"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 295</span>DECEMBER 27.<br /> +St. John, Apostle and Evangelist.</h4> +<p>And what do they do, these blessed beings? They longed +for, toiled for, it may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and +the good; they entered while on earth into the mystery and glory +of self-sacrifice, and now they find their bliss in gazing on the +one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and rejoicing in the thought +that it is the cause and ground of the whole universe, even the +Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>All Saints’ Day and other +Sermons</i>.</p> +<h4>DECEMBER 28<br /> +Holy Innocents’ Day.</h4> +<p>Christ comes to us in many ways. But most surely does +Christ come to us, and often most happily, and most clearly does +He speak to us—in the face of a little child, fresh out of +heaven. Ah, let us take heed that we despise not one of +these little ones, lest we despise our Lord Himself. For as +often as we enter into communion with little children, so often +does Christ come to us. So often, as in Judæa of old, +does He take a little child and set him in the midst of us, that +from its simplicity, docility, and trust—the restless, the +mutinous, and the ambitious may learn the things which belong to +their peace—so often does He say to us, “Except ye be +changed and become as this little child, ye shall in no wise +enter into the kingdom of heaven. Take my yoke upon you and +learn of me. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall +find rest unto your souls.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>MS. Last Sermon</i>,<br /> +<i>Westminster Abbey</i>, <i>Nov.</i> 30, 1874.</p> +<h2>INDEX.</h2> +<p><!-- page 297--><a name="page297"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +297</span><span class="smcap">Absence</span>, 209</p> +<p>Acorn, 223</p> +<p>Action, 146, 167</p> +<p>Affections, 79, 179, 217, 279</p> +<p>Age, old, 63, 285</p> +<p>—reverence for, 81</p> +<p>Anarchy, 165</p> +<p>Angels, 175, 217, 218, 219, 269</p> +<p>Anger, God’s loving, 195</p> +<p>Animals, dumb, 81, 181</p> +<p>Antinomies, 159</p> +<p>Anxiety, 211</p> +<p>Aristocracy, ideal, 167</p> +<p>Art, 31, 71, 119, 141, 151</p> +<p>Ascension, 93, 123, 211</p> +<p>Asceticism, 185, 189, 233, 263</p> +<p>Ascetic painters, 39</p> +<p>Atonement, the, 83</p> +<p>Attitude, language of, 155</p> +<p>Augustine, St., 155</p> +<p>Autumn, 51, 221</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Barbarism</span>, 109</p> +<p>Beatific Vision, 73, 196, 295</p> +<p>Beauty, 15, 39, 73, 101, 175, 196, 213</p> +<p>—moral, 196, 213</p> +<p>—spiritual, 159</p> +<p>Bible, the, 103, 141, 167, 249, 259, 275, 285</p> +<p>Birds, 53, 77, 99, 101, 103, 125, 127, 137, 271</p> +<p>Blessedness, 218, 245</p> +<p>Body, sacredness of, 63, 67, 185, 229, 244, 285</p> +<p>—the spiritual, 159</p> +<p>Books, 57, 85, 169, 259</p> +<p>Book-learning, 151</p> +<p>Butler’s Analogy, 237</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Calmness</span>, 55, 263</p> +<p>Character, 98, 175, 191</p> +<p>Charity, 37, 281</p> +<p>Cheerfulness, 149, 223, 227</p> +<p>Childhood and wonder, 179</p> +<p>Childlikeness, 31, 183, 187, 235</p> +<p>Children, 48, 109, 295</p> +<p>Chivalry, 139, 153, 179, 181</p> +<p>Christ-child, the, 48</p> +<p>Christ’s life, 45, 97, 267</p> +<p>—Church, 121</p> +<p>—compassion, 251</p> +<p>—descent into hell, 98</p> +<p>—resurrection, 95, 98, 211</p> +<p>—the Word, 37, 127</p> +<p>Christianity, Divine, 273</p> +<p>Christmas, 271, 287, 289, 294</p> +<p>Chrysalis state, 171</p> +<p>Church, the, 75, 77, 121, 157</p> +<p>—Catechism, 47, 255</p> +<p>Civilisation, 105, 155, 261</p> +<p>Clergy, the, 215</p> +<p>Coming of Christ, 21, 23, 183, 283, 295</p> +<p><!-- page 298--><a name="page298"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +298</span>Communion of saints, 141, 193</p> +<p>—Holy, 193</p> +<p>Contemplation, 87, 146</p> +<p>Content, 59</p> +<p>Courage, 275</p> +<p>Cowardice, 207, 265</p> +<p>Creeds, the, 141, 151, 215, 273</p> +<p>Critical spirit, 165, 203</p> +<p>Cross, the, 83, 96, 97, 122, 185, 189, 237, 245</p> +<p>Crucifix, the, 123, 189</p> +<p>Custom, 31</p> +<p>Cynicism, 191</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Dark</span> days, 19, 201, 211, 233, 249, +289</p> +<p>Day of the Lord, 3, 195</p> +<p>Dead, the blessed, 21, 49, 95, 139, 193, 249, 253, 289</p> +<p>—prayers for, 24, 81</p> +<p>—work of, 95, 139, 249</p> +<p>Death, 17, 113, 135, 253</p> +<p>—sudden, 89</p> +<p>—and hell, 7, 195</p> +<p>Defeat, 279</p> +<p>Dignity, 137</p> +<p>Discontent, Divine, 165</p> +<p>Disease, 233, 244</p> +<p>Distrust, 165</p> +<p>Doctrines, 157</p> +<p>Doubt, poetry of, 233</p> +<p>Drifting away, 273</p> +<p>Duty, 5, 13, 65, 105, 129, 147, 165, 181, 201, 275</p> +<p>Dying, to live, 13, 55, 93, 97, 117, 217, 295</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Earnestness</span>, 35, 139, 293</p> +<p>Earth, God’s, 101, 149, 153, 247</p> +<p>Earthly and heavenly, 179</p> +<p>Easter, 93, 98</p> +<p>Eclecticism, 65</p> +<p>Education, 67</p> +<p>—of character, 85</p> +<p>—Divine, 91, 133, 135, 149, 209</p> +<p>—self, 215</p> +<p>—of boys, 283</p> +<p>—after death, 171, 249</p> +<p>Emotions, 5, 49, 79, 85, 179, 189, 203, 259, 279</p> +<p>Enthusiasm, 35</p> +<p>Epiphany, 24</p> +<p>Eternal life, 11, 43</p> +<p>Eternity, 43, 69, 167</p> +<p>Eucharist, the, 21, 65, 185</p> +<p>Excitement, 79, 163</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Facts</span> of life, 103, 113, 207, +285</p> +<p>Failure, 143</p> +<p>Faith, 11, 59, 85, 127, 163, 191, 199, 227, 229</p> +<p>Fasting, 49</p> +<p>Fatherhood of God, 103, 107, 115, 133, 135, 149, 181, 223, +265, 273</p> +<p>Fear, 137, 265, 275</p> +<p>Fellowship of sorrow, 109, 111, 279</p> +<p>Fire of God, 195</p> +<p>—cleansing, 195, 225, 237</p> +<p>Flesh and spirit, 189</p> +<p>Flowers, 15, 99, 101, 105, 127, 151, 221</p> +<p>Fool’s paradise, 111, 267</p> +<p>Forgiveness, 169</p> +<p>Forward, 3</p> +<p>Francis, St., 103</p> +<p>Friendship, 19, 61, 291</p> +<p>Future, the, 129, 195</p> +<p>—identity, 19, 253</p> +<p>—life, 57, 65, 71, 81, 113, 171, 237, 253, 293</p> +<p><!-- page 299--><a name="page299"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +299</span><span class="smcap">Genius</span>, 105, 175, 215</p> +<p>Gifts, 83, 111, 129</p> +<p>Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 203</p> +<p>God, the Living, 7, 101, 103, 111, 133, 193, 243, 285</p> +<p>—the Ideal, 73</p> +<p>—an indulgent, 15</p> +<p>—of Nature, 103, 131, 151, 183</p> +<p>God’s character, 33, 87, 111, 181, 195, 253, 273, +283</p> +<p>—countenance, 131</p> +<p>Godliness, 91, 281</p> +<p>Good, the eternal, 35, 171, 253</p> +<p>Good in all, 9, 287</p> +<p>Good deeds, 187, 263</p> +<p>Good Friday, 93, 97</p> +<p>Goodness, 5, 105, 113, 199, 245</p> +<p>Gratitude, 89</p> +<p>Greeks, the old, 67, 107, 133, 155, 229</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Happiness</span>, 29, 59, 245, 265</p> +<p>Harmony, 5, 67, 83, 127, 161, 277</p> +<p>Hearts and streams, 119, 197</p> +<p>Heaven, 109, 167</p> +<p>Hell, 96, 98, 109, 195, 265</p> +<p>—keys of, 7</p> +<p>—a present, 43</p> +<p>Hero worship, 291</p> +<p>Heroism, 41, 61, 71, 207, 239, 294</p> +<p>History, philosophy of, 63</p> +<p>Hope, 39, 111, 145, 149, 237, 247</p> +<p>Hospitals, 263</p> +<p>Humanity, 275</p> +<p>Humility, 13, 41, 169, 193</p> +<p>I <span class="smcap">am</span> I, 55, 89, 185, 199</p> +<p>Ideal, the, 63, 73, 117</p> +<p>Ideals, high, 77</p> +<p>Idleness, 91, 157, 207</p> +<p>Impunity, 217</p> +<p>Incarnation, the, 146, 253, 291</p> +<p>Influence, silent, 139, 259</p> +<p>Intermediate state, 98, 245, 289</p> +<p><span class="smcap">John</span> the Baptist, 147</p> +<p>John, St., 45, 53, 63, 113</p> +<p>Justification, 43</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Kindness</span>, 181, 205</p> +<p>Kingdom, coming, 21, 179; of God, 45, 185</p> +<p>Knowledge, 53, 79, 131, 135, 163, 177, 183</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lamp</span> race, 133</p> +<p>Laws of God, 98, 117, 163, 169, 229, 277, 287</p> +<p>Lesson of life, 61, 293</p> +<p>Liberty, 215</p> +<p>Life everlasting, 11, 113, 219, 277</p> +<p>—long, 133</p> +<p>—value of, 61</p> +<p>Light, 33, 177, 249, 291</p> +<p>Liturgies, 249</p> +<p>Love, 9, 37, 41, 53, 55, 79, 117, 201, 209, 235, 251, 289, +219</p> +<p>—Divine, 117</p> +<p>—and beauty, 201</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Man</span> in God’s image, 89, 127, +199, 229</p> +<p>March, 51, 53</p> +<p>Martyrs, 17, 98, 172, 218, 294, 295</p> +<p>Masses, the, 177</p> +<p>May, 99</p> +<p><!-- page 300--><a name="page300"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +300</span>Melancholy, 137, 183, 233, 253</p> +<p>Melody, 5, 127, 277</p> +<p>Men and women, 39, 91, 93, 153, 259, 283</p> +<p>Metre, 119</p> +<p>Midsummer, 125</p> +<p>Miracles, 31, 99, 289</p> +<p>Moderation, 69</p> +<p>Monotony, 163</p> +<p>Morality, 29, 147, 255</p> +<p>Morbid mind, 233</p> +<p>Morning, 19, 125, 201, 249</p> +<p>Mother earth, 247</p> +<p>Mothers, 61, 74, 213</p> +<p>Music, 23, 107, 127, 161, 277</p> +<p>Mystery of life, 117, 155, 185, 291</p> +<p>Mystics, 55, 185, 251</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Naturalist</span>, 175</p> +<p>Nature, 141, 183, 187, 221, 241, 247, 253</p> +<p>—study of, 7, 105, 131, 141, 175, 183, 187</p> +<p>Nature’s worship, 131</p> +<p>Night, 201, 211</p> +<p>Nineteenth century, 3, 151, 257</p> +<p>Noble life, 5, 9</p> +<p>Noble studies, 63</p> +<p>North-east wind, 1</p> +<p>Novel reading, 85, 169, 259</p> +<p><span class="smcap">October</span>, 221</p> +<p>Old truths, 151</p> +<p>Opinions, 215</p> +<p>Originality, 239</p> +<p>Orthodox, 141</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Painters</span>, 39, 71, 141, 159</p> +<p>Parables, Nature’s, 5, 99, 101, 127, 173, 175, 196, 197, +249</p> +<p>Passion, 35, 197, 213</p> +<p>—Week, 95</p> +<p>Patience, 59, 143, 237, 277, 281</p> +<p>Paul, St., 25, 53, 207</p> +<p>Peace, 23, 59, 193</p> +<p>Penitence, 191</p> +<p>Penuriousness, 67</p> +<p>Peter, St., 45, 148</p> +<p>Philamon, 9, 45</p> +<p>Physician, 233, 244</p> +<p>Pictures, 39, 71, 141</p> +<p>Plato, 171</p> +<p>Poetry, 23, 41, 69, 215</p> +<p>Political economy, 115, 261</p> +<p>Practice, 143, 267</p> +<p>Prayer, 89, 119, 163, 167, 227, 229, 241, 267</p> +<p>—the Lord’s, 31</p> +<p>—unselfish, 31</p> +<p>Prayers for dead, 81</p> +<p>Present time, 3, 5</p> +<p>Presentiments, 143</p> +<p>Pride and humility, 193, 215, 235, 267</p> +<p>Problem of life, 135, 291</p> +<p>Profession, empty, 157, 213</p> +<p>Progress, 101, 163, 257, 291</p> +<p>Proverbs, 235</p> +<p>Providence, 115, 169, 243</p> +<p>—special, 55, 159, 209, 251</p> +<p>Psalms, 17, 191</p> +<p>Public opinion, 77</p> +<p>Punishment, 41, 135, 159, 191, 261, 281</p> +<p>Purgatory, 171</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Railroads</span>, 257</p> +<p>Rank, 15, 161</p> +<p>Reason, 35, 111, 143, 237</p> +<p>Redemption of earth and man, 153</p> +<p><!-- page 301--><a name="page301"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +301</span>Refinement, false, 161</p> +<p>Reformers, 77</p> +<p>Religion, 103, 265, 281</p> +<p>Renewal, the, 71, 81, 127, 185</p> +<p>Repentance, 41, 49, 157</p> +<p>Resignation, 117, 211, 217</p> +<p>Rest, 21, 49, 229, 253, 263</p> +<p>Resurrection, 63, 81, 93, 95, 98, 141, 145, 171, 185, 207</p> +<p>Retribution, 47, 81, 113, 135, 177</p> +<p>Reverence, 81, 175, 243</p> +<p>Reveries, 39</p> +<p>Righteousness, 117, 255, 281</p> +<p>Rights and duties, 39</p> +<p>Rock of Ages, 169, 235</p> +<p>Romance, 127</p> +<p>Rules of life, 83, 107, 163</p> +<p>Ruth, 79</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sacramentalism</span>, 15, 39, 101, 119, +213</p> +<p>Sacraments, 21, 146</p> +<p>Safety, 17, 57</p> +<p>Saints’ Days, 24</p> +<p>Saints, the, 24, 98, 122, 141, 193, 268, 269, 294, 295</p> +<p>Salvation, 135</p> +<p>Sanitary science, 29, 261</p> +<p>Science, 33, 59, 115, 151, 227, 233, 261</p> +<p>Secular, 59</p> +<p>Self, 31, 233</p> +<p>Selfishness, 159, 219, 231, 281</p> +<p>Self-conceit, 205</p> +<p>Self-control, 165, 223, 241, 259, 263</p> +<p>Self-improvement, 215</p> +<p>Self-indulgence, 91, 275</p> +<p>Self-respect, 287</p> +<p>Self-sacrifice, 13, 21, 55, 71, 79, 95, 117, 146, 148, 189, +213, 231, 295</p> +<p>Security, false, 115</p> +<p>Sensuality, 133</p> +<p>Sentiment, 5</p> +<p>Shakespeare, 179</p> +<p>Shame, 199</p> +<p>Shelley, 267</p> +<p>Silence, 41, 139, 257, 259</p> +<p>Sin, 41, 135, 159, 169, 213, 233, 281</p> +<p>Sisters of Mercy, 237</p> +<p>Sneering, 281</p> +<p>Sorrow, 145, 183, 185, 227, 273</p> +<p>Spirit, the Holy, 146</p> +<p>Spiritual world, 179</p> +<p>Spring, 27, 51, 99, 101</p> +<p>Starlings, 51</p> +<p>Stream and shower, 119, 197</p> +<p>Strength, 263</p> +<p>Substitutes, 225</p> +<p>Success, 139, 227, 279</p> +<p>Summer days, 125, 129, 131, 137, 149</p> +<p>Superstition, 3, 137, 169, 175</p> +<p>Suspicion, 281</p> +<p>Symbols, 99, 101, 105, 127, 131, 151, 173, 196</p> +<p>Sympathy, 103, 151, 153</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tact</span>, 35, 53, 113</p> +<p>Temperament, 231</p> +<p>Temperance, true, 223, 263</p> +<p>Temptation, 57</p> +<p>Theology, 87</p> +<p>Thrift, 131, 183, 259</p> +<p>Toleration, 63, 141, 277</p> +<p>Training, God’s, 115, 129, 215</p> +<p>Transfiguration, the, 205</p> +<p>Trinity, the, 146</p> +<p>Trust, 239, 265</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Unity</span>, 185</p> +<p>Usefulness, 225</p> +<p>Utopia, 167</p> +<p><!-- page 302--><a name="page302"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +302</span><span class="smcap">Vagueness</span>, 11, 161</p> +<p>Vineyards, 121</p> +<p>Violence, 139</p> +<p>Virgin, Blessed, 74</p> +<p>Virtue, 29, 41, 225</p> +<p>Visitation of God, 61</p> +<p>Voyagers, early, 243</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Waiting</span>, 135, 277</p> +<p>—of God, 181</p> +<p>War tragedies, 107</p> +<p>Water, 29, 119, 197</p> +<p>Welfare, 145, 255</p> +<p>Winter, 1, 27, 99</p> +<p>Wisdom, 37, 83, 105, 107, 163</p> +<p>Woman, 45, 153, 87</p> +<p>Woman’s work, 39, 45, 79, 93, 231, 259</p> +<p>Women, educated, 85, 169</p> +<p>Word Christ, the, 7, 37</p> +<p>—the indwelling, 259</p> +<p>Words, 37, 113</p> +<p>—hard, 53</p> +<p>—of God, 141</p> +<p>Work, 71, 83, 133, 143, 157, 165, 175, 203, 209, 223, 263</p> +<p>World, the, 167</p> +<p>Worm, the undying, 195</p> +<p>Worship, 131</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Youth</span>, 13, 129</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote3"></a><a href="#citation3" +class="footnote">[3]</a> The paper edition of this book has +blank pages where the owner can write diary notes, etc. +This is why the page numbers in the eText often miss out +numbers.—DP.</p> +<p><a name="footnote97"></a><a href="#citation97" +class="footnote">[97]</a> Lines written under a pen and ink +drawing of a stormy shoreless sea, with two human beings lashed +to a cross floating on the crest of the waves.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAILY THOUGHTS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 20711-h.htm or 20711-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/7/1/20711 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Daily Thoughts + selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife + + +Author: Charles Kingsley + +Editor: Fanny Kingsley + +Release Date: February 28, 2007 [eBook #20711] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAILY THOUGHTS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1885 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +DAILY THOUGHTS + + +Selected from the Writings +OF +CHARLES KINGSLEY + +BY HIS WIFE + +SECOND EDITION + +London +MACMILLAN AND CO. +1885 + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. + +_This little Volume_, _selected from the MS. Note-books_, _Sermons and +Private Letters_, _as well as from the published Works of my Husband_, +_is dedicated to our children_, _and to all who feel the blessing of his +influence on their daily life and thought_. + +_F. E. K._ + +_July_ 10, 1884. + + + + +January. + + +Welcome, wild North-easter! + Shame it is to see +Odes to every zephyr: + Ne'er a verse to thee. +. . . . . +Tired we are of summer, + Tired of gaudy glare, +Showers soft and steaming, + Hot and breathless air. +Tired of listless dreaming + Through the lazy day: +Jovial wind of winter + Turn us out to play! +Sweep the golden reed-beds; + Crisp the lazy dyke; +Hunger into madness + Every plunging pike. +Fill the lake with wild-fowl; + Fill the marsh with snipe; +While on dreary moorlands + Lonely curlew pipe. +Through the black fir forest + Thunder harsh and dry, +Shattering down the snow-flakes + Off the curdled sky. +. . . . . +Come; and strong within us + Stir the Viking's blood; +Bracing brain and sinew: + Blow, thou wind of God! + +_Ode to North-east Wind_. + + + +New Year's Day. January 1. {3} + + +Gather you, gather you, angels of God-- + Freedom and Mercy and Truth; +Come! for the earth is grown coward and old; + Come down and renew us her youth. +Wisdom, Self-sacrifice, Daring, and Love, + Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above, + To the day of the Lord at hand! + +_The Day of the Lord_. 1847. + + + +The Nineteenth Century. January 2. + + +Now, and at no other time: in this same nineteenth century lies our work. +Let us thank God that we are here now, and joyfully try to understand +_where_ we are, and what our work is _here_. As for all superstitions +about "the good old times," and fancies that _they_ belonged to God, +while this age belongs only to man, blind chance, and the evil one, let +us cast them from us as the suggestions of an evil lying spirit, as the +natural parents of laziness, pedantry, fanaticism, and unbelief. And +therefore let us not fear to ask the meaning of this present day, and of +all its different voices--the pressing, noisy, complex present, where our +workfield lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and of all +schools of literature yet known. + +_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_. +1848. + + + +Forward. January 3. + + +Let us forward. God leads us. Though blind, shall we be afraid to +follow? I do not see my way: I do not care to: but I know that He sees +His way, and that I see Him. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1848. + + + +The Noble Life. January 4. + + +Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever; +Do noble things, not dream them all day long; +And so make life, and death, and that For Ever +One grand sweet song. + +_A Farewell_. 1856. + +Live in the present that you may be ready for the future. + +_MS._ + + + +Duty and Sentiment. January 5. + + +God demands not _sentiment_ but _justice_. The Bible knows nothing of +"the religious sentiments and emotions" whereof we hear so much talk +nowadays. It speaks of _Duty_. "Beloved, if God so loved us, we _ought_ +to love one another." + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +The Everlasting Harmony. January 6. + + +If thou art living a righteous and useful life, doing thy duty orderly +and cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou in thy humble place art +humbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody which is in heaven; the +everlasting harmony and melody by which God made the world and all that +therein is--and behold it was very good--in the day when the morning +stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new- +created earth, which God had made to be a pattern of His own perfection. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. + + + +The Keys of Death and Hell. January 7. + + +Fear not. Christ has the keys of death and hell. He has been through +them and is alive for evermore. Christ is the _first_, and was loving +and just and glorious and almighty before there was any death or hell. +And Christ is the _last_, and will be loving and just and glorious and +almighty as ever, in that great day when all enemies shall be under His +feet, and death shall be destroyed, and death and hell shall be cast into +the lake of fire. + +_MS. Sermon_. 1857. + + + +A Living God. January 8. + + +Here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart and +flesh, whose conscience and whose intellect, cry out for the _Living_ +God, and will know no peace till they have found Him. For till then they +can find no explanation of the three great human questions--Where am I? +Whither am I going? What must I do? + +_Sermons on the Pentateuch_. 1862. + + + +The Fairy Gardens. January 9. + + +Of all the blessings which the study of Nature brings to the patient +observer, let none, perhaps, be classed higher than this, that the +farther he enters into those fairy gardens of life and birth, which +Spenser saw and described in his great poem, the more he learns the awful +and yet comfortable truth, that they do not belong to him, but to One +greater, wiser, lovelier than he; and as he stands, silent with awe, amid +the pomp of Nature's ever-busy rest, hears as of old, The Word of the +"Lord God walking among the trees of the garden in the cool of the day." + +_Glaucus_. 1855. + + + +Love. January 10. + + +Oh! Love! Love! Love! the same in peasant and in peer! The more +honour to you, then, old Love, to _be_ the same thing in this world which +_is_ common to peasant and to peer. They say that you are blind, a +dreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short! They just know nothing about +you, then. You will not see people as they seem--as they have become, no +doubt; but why? Because you see them as they ought to be, and are in +some deep way eternally, in the sight of Him who conceived and created +them! + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xiv. 1856. + + + +Life--Love. January 11. + + +We must live nobly to love nobly. + +_MS._ + + + +The Seed of Good. January 12. + + +Never was the young Abbot heard to speak harshly of any human being. +"When thou hast tried in vain for seven years," he used to say, "to +convert a sinner, then only wilt thou have a right to suspect him of +being a worse man than thyself." That there is a seed of good in all +men, a divine word and spirit striving with all men, a gospel and good +news which would turn the hearts of all men, if abbots and priests could +but preach it aright, was his favourite doctrine, and one which he used +to defend, when at rare intervals he allowed himself to discuss any +subject, from the writings of his favourite theologian, Clement of +Alexandria. + +Above all, Abbot Philamon stopped by stern rebuke any attempt to revile +either heretics or heathens. "On the Catholic Church alone," he used to +say, "lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief; for if she were but for +one day that which she ought to be, the world would be converted before +nightfall." + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxx. 1852. + + + +Danger of Thinking vaguely. January 13. + + +Watch against any fallacies in your ideas which may arise, not from +disingenuousness, but from allowing yourself in moments of feeling to +think vaguely, and not to attach precise meaning to your words. Without +any cold caution of expression, it is a duty we owe to God's truth, and +to our own happiness and the happiness of those around us, to think and +speak as correctly as we can. Almost all heresy, schism, and +misunderstandings, between either churches or individuals who ought to be +one, have arisen from this fault of an involved and vague style of +thought. + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +The Possession of Faith. January 14. + + +I don't want to possess a faith, I want a faith which will possess me. + +_Hypatia_, chap. xvii. 1852. + + + +The Eternal Life. January 15. + + +Eternally, and for ever, in heaven, says St. John, Christ says and is and +does what prophets prophesied of Him that He would say and be and do. "I +am the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star. And let +him that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take of the Water +of Life freely." For ever Christ calls to every anxious soul, every +afflicted soul, to every man who is ashamed of himself, and angry with +himself, and longs to live a gentler, nobler, purer, truer, and more +useful life, "Come, and live for ever the eternal life of righteousness, +holiness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the one true +and only salvation bought for us by the precious blood of Christ our +Lord." Amen. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865 + + + +The Golden Cup of Youth. January 16. + + +Ah, glorious twenty-one, with your inexhaustible powers of doing and +enjoying, eating and hungering, sleeping and sitting up, reading and +playing! Happy are those who still possess you, and can take their fill +of your golden cup, steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance that +for all things a good and loving God will bring them to judgment! + +Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the health +and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and, seeming to +grow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care and +work at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years +ago, and say with Wordsworth-- + + "So was it when I was a boy, + So let it be when I am old, + Or let me die." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856. + + + +Work and Duty. January 17. + + +If a man is busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he require for +time or for eternity? + +_Chalk Stream Studies_. 1856. + + + +Members of Christ. January 18. + + +. . . Would you be humble, daughter? +You must look up, not down, and see yourself +A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein +Of Christ's vast vine; the pettiest joint and member +Of His great body. . . . + +. . . Let thyself die-- +And dying, rise again to fuller life. +To be a whole is to be small and weak-- +To be a part is to be great and mighty +In the one spirit of the mighty whole-- +The spirit of the martyrs and the saints. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene vi. +1847. + + + +Beauty a Sacrament. January 19. + + +Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's +handwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every +fair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of +all loveliness, and drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes; +it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing. + +_True Words to Brave Men_. 1844. + + + +The Ideal of Rank. January 20. + + +With Christianity came in the thought that domination meant +responsibility, that responsibility demanded virtue. The words which +denoted Rank came to denote, likewise, high moral excellencies. The +_nobilis_, or man who was known, and therefore subject to public opinion, +was bound to behave nobly. The gentle-man--gentile-man--who respected +his own gens, or family, or pedigree, was bound to be gentle. The +courtier who had picked up at court some touch of Roman civilisation from +Roman ecclesiastics was bound to be courteous. He who held an "honour," +or "edel" of land, was bound to be honourable; and he who held a +"weorthig," or "worthy," thereof, was bound himself to be worthy. + +_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1866. + + + +An Indulgent God. January 21. + + +A merely indulgent God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God likewise. +If God be just, as He is, then He has boundless pity for those who are +weak, but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak. Boundless +pity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; but +boundless wrath for those who mislead them and put them out of the right +way. + +_Discipline Sermons_. 1867. + + + +The Fifty-First Psalm. January 22. + + +It is such utterances as these which have given for now many hundred +years their priceless value to the little Book of Psalms ascribed to the +shepherd outlaw of the Judean hills, which have sent the sound of his +name into all lands throughout all the world. Every form of human +sorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin--the nun agonising in the cloister; +the settler struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper +shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the +man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of +commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting +the words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy +trudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his +Shepherd, therefore he will not want--all shapes of humanity have found, +and will find to the end of time, a word said here to their inmost +hearts. . . . + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +Waiting for Death. January 23. + + +Death, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and tell me what I +want to know? I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only +to give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish--and so you would +not come. . . . I was not worthy of you. And now I will not hunt you +any more, old Death. Do you bide your time, and I mine. . . . Only when +you come, give me not rest but work. Give work to the idle, freedom to +the chained, sight to the blind! + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xv. 1856. + + + +The One Refuge. January 24. + + +Safe! There is no safety but from God, and that comes by prayer and +faith. + +_Hypatia_. 1852. + + + +Future Identity. January 25. + + +I believe that the union of those who have loved here will in the next +world amount to perfect identity, that they will look back on the +expressions of affection here as mere meagre strugglings after and +approximation to the union which then will be perfect. Perfect! + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Friendship. January 26. + + +A friend once won need never be lost, if we will be only trusty and true +ourselves. Friends may part, not merely in body, but in spirit, for a +while. In the bustle of business and the accidents of life, they may +lose sight of each other for years; and more, they may begin to differ in +their success in life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there may +be, for a time, coldness and estrangement between them, but not for ever +if each will be trusty and true. For then they will be like two ships +who set sail at morning from the same port, and ere night-fall lose sight +of each other, and go each on its own course and at its own pace for many +days, through many storms and seas, and yet meet again, and find +themselves lying side by side in the same haven when their long voyage is +past. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + + + +Night and Morning. January 27. + + +It is morning somewhere or other now, and it will be morning here again +to-morrow. "Good times and bad times and all times pass over." I learnt +that lesson out of old Bewick's Vignettes, and it has stood me in good +stead this many a year. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. i. 1856. + + + +Communion with the Blessed Dead. January 28. + + +Shall we not recollect the blessed dead above all in Holy Communion, and +give thanks for them there--at that holy table at which the Church +triumphant and the Church militant meet in the communion of saints? Where +Christ is they are; and, therefore, if Christ be there, may not they be +there likewise? May not they be near us though unseen? like us claiming +their share in the eternal sacrifice, like us partaking of that spiritual +body and blood which is as much the life of saints in heaven as it is of +penitent sinners on earth? May it not be so? It is a mystery into which +we will not look too far. But this at least is true, that they are with +Him where He is. + +_MS. Sermon_. + + + +The Great Law. January 29. + + +True rest can only be attained as Christ attained it, through labour. +True glory can only be attained in earth or heaven through +self-sacrifice. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; whosoever +will lose his life shall save it. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. + + + +The Coming Kingdom. January 30. + + +There is a God-appointed theocracy promised to us, and which we must wait +for, when all the diseased and false systems of this world shall be swept +away, and Christ's feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, and the +twelve apostles shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of +Israel! All this shall come, and blessed is that servant whom his Lord +when He cometh shall find ready! All this we shall not see before we +die, but we shall see it when we rise in the perfect material and +spiritual ideal, in the kingdom of God! + +_Letters and Memories_. + + + +Christ's Coming. January 31. + + +Christ may come to us when our thoughts are cleaving to the ground, and +ready to grow earthy of the earth--through noble poetry, noble music, +noble art--through aught which awakens once more in us the instinct of +the true, the beautiful, and the good. He may come to us when our souls +are restless and weary, through the repose of Nature--the repose of the +lonely snow-peak and of the sleeping forest, of the clouds of sunset and +of the summer sea, and whisper Peace. Or He may come, as He comes on +winter nights to many a gallant soul--not in the repose of Nature, but in +her rage--in howling storm and blinding foam and ruthless rocks and +whelming surge--and whisper to them even so--as the sea swallows all of +them which _it_ can take--of calm beyond, which this world cannot give +and cannot take away. + +And therefore let us say in utter faith, Come as Thou seest best--but in +whatsoever way Thou comest, Even so come, Lord Jesus. Amen. + +_Last Sermon_. _MS._ 1874. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +Since we gave up at the Reformation the superstitious practice of praying +to the saints, Saints' Days have sunk--and, indeed, sunk too much--into +neglect. We forget too often still, that though praying to any saint or +angel, or other created being, is contrary both to reason and Scripture, +yet it is according to reason and to Scripture to commemorate them. That +is, to remember them, to study their characters, and to thank God for +them,--both for the virtues He bestowed on them, and the example which He +has given us in them. + +_MS. Sermon_. + + +JANUARY 6. +The Epiphany, +Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. + + +On this day the Lord Jesus was first shown to the Gentiles. The word +Epiphany means "showing." The Wise Men were worshippers of the true God, +though in a dim confused way; and they had learnt enough of what true +faith, true greatness was, not to be staggered and fall into unbelief +when they saw the King of the Jews laid, not in a palace, but in a +manger, tended by a poor village maiden. And therefore God bestowed on +them the great honour that they first of all--Gentiles--should see the +glory and the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God grant that +they may not rise up against us in the Day of Judgment and condemn us! +They had but a small spark, a dim ray, of the Light which lighteth every +man who cometh into the world; but they were more faithful to that little +than many of us, who live in the full sunshine of the Gospel, with +Christ's Spirit, Christ's Sacraments, Christ's Churches,--means of grace +and hopes of glory of which they never dreamed. + +_Town and Country Sermons_. + + +JANUARY 25. +Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr. + + +How did St. Paul look on his past life? There is no sentimental +melancholy in him. He is saved, and he knows it. He is an Apostle, and +he stands boldly on his dignity. He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful. And +yet, when he speaks of the past, it is with noble shame and sorrow that +he calls himself the chief of sinners, not worthy to be called an +Apostle, because he persecuted the Church of Christ. What he is, he will +not deny; what he was, he will not forget; lest he should forget that in +him, that is, in his flesh--his natural character--dwelleth no good +thing; lest he should forget that the good which he does, _he_ does not, +but Christ which dwelleth in him; lest he should grow careless, puffed +up, self-indulgent; lest he should neglect to subdue his evil passions; +and so, after preaching to others, himself become a castaway. + +_Town and Country Sermons_. + + + + +February. + + + . . . Every winter, + When the great sun has turned his face away, + The earth goes down into the vale of grief, + And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, + Leaving her wedding garments to decay; + Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses. + + _Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene i. + + Out of the morning land, + Over the snow-drifts, + Beautiful Freya came, + Tripping to Scoring. + White were the moorlands, + And frozen before her; + Green were the moorlands, + And blooming behind her. + Out of her gold locks + Shaking the spring flowers, + Out of her garments + Shaking the south wind, + Around in the birches + Awaking the throstles, + Love and love-giving, + Came she to Scoring. + . . . . . + +_The Longbeard's Saga_. 1852. + + + +Virtue. February 1. + + +The first and last business of every human being, whatever his station, +party, creed, capacities, tastes, duties, is morality; virtue, virtue, +always virtue. Nothing that man will ever invent will absolve him from +the universal necessity of being good as God is good, righteous as God is +righteous, holy as God is holy. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +Happiness. February 2. + + +God has not only made things beautiful; He has made things happy; +whatever misery there is in the world there is no denying that. Misery +is the exception; happiness is the rule. No rational man ever heard a +bird sing without feeling that the bird was happy, and that if God made +that bird He made it to be happy, and He takes pleasure in its happiness, +though no human ear should ever hear its song, no human heart should ever +share in its joy. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +A Dream of the Future. February 3. + + +God grant that the day may come when in front of the dwellings of the +poor we may see real fountains--not like the drinking-fountains, useful +as they are, which you see here and there about the streets, with a tiny +dribble of water to a great deal of expensive stone, but real fountains, +which shall leap, and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle, and fill the place +with life and light and coolness; and sing in the people's ears the +sweetest of all earthly songs--save the song of a mother over her +child--the song of "The Laughing Water." + +_The Air Mothers_. 1872. + + + +Bondage of Custom. February 4. + + +Strive all your life to free men from the bondage of _custom_ and _self_, +the two great elements of the world that lieth in wickedness. + +_MS. Letter_. l842. + +Henceforth let no man peering down +Through the dim glittering mine of future years +Say to himself, "Too much! this cannot be!" +To-day and custom wall up our horizon: +Before the hourly miracle of life +Blindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act i. Scene ii. +1847. + + + +The Childlike Mind. February 5. + + +There comes a time when we must _narrow_ our sphere of thought much, that +we may _truly enlarge_ it! we must, _artificialised_ as we _have_ been, +return to the rudiments of life, to children's pleasures, that we may +find easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws which +we may apply to the more intricate spheres of art and science. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Unselfish Prayer. February 6. + + +The Lord's Prayer teaches that we are members of a family, when He tells +us to pray not "_My_ Father" but "Our Father;" not "_my_ soul be saved," +but "Thy kingdom come;" not "give _me_" but "give _us_ our daily bread;" +not "forgive me," but "forgive _us_ our trespasses," and that only as we +forgive others; not "lead _me_ not," but "lead _us_ not into temptation;" +not "deliver _me_," but "deliver _us_ from evil." After _that_ manner +our Lord tells us to pray, and in proportion as we pray in that manner, +just so far, and no farther, will God hear our prayers. + +_National Sermons_. 1850. + + + +God is Light. February 7. + + +All the deep things of God are bright, for God is Light. God's arbitrary +will and almighty power may seem dark by themselves though deep, but that +is because they do not involve His moral character. Join them with the +fact that He is a God of mercy as well as justice; remember that His +essence is love, and the thunder-cloud will blaze with dewy gold, full of +soft rain and pure light. + +_MS. Letter_. 1844. + + + +The Veil Lifted. February 8. + + +Science is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great +reward. I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of the +man to whom--panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life in +the tropic forest--Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil and show +him, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of, some law, or even +mere hint of a law, explaining one fact: but explaining with it a +thousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mighty +whole, till order and meaning shoots through some old chaos of scattered +observations. Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give nor +poverty take away? What it may lead to he knows not. Of what use it may +be he knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead, of some +use it will be. For it is a truth. + +_Lectures on Science and Superstition_. +1866. + + + +All Science One. February 9. + + +Physical and spiritual science seem to the world to be distinct. One +sight of God as we shall some day see Him will show us that they are +indissolubly and eternally the same. + +_MS._ + + + +Passion and Reason. February 10. + + +Passion and reason in a healthy mind ought to be inseparable. We need +not be passionless because we reason correctly. Strange to say, one's +feelings will often sharpen one's knowledge of the truth, as they do +one's powers of action. + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Enthusiasm and Tact. February 11. + + +. . . People smile at the "enthusiasm of youth"--that enthusiasm which +they themselves secretly look back at with a sigh, perhaps unconscious +that it is partly their own fault that they ever lost it. . . . Do not +fear being considered an enthusiast. What matter? But pray for _tact_, +the true tact which love alone can give, to prevent scandalising a weak +brother. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + +Be earnest, earnest, earnest; mad, if thou wilt: +Do what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, And that thy last deed ere +the judgment-day. +When all's done, nothing's done. There's rest above-- +Below let work be death, if work be love! + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene viii. 1847. + + + +The Eternal Good. February 12. + + +"God hath showed thee what is good," . . . what is good in itself, and of +itself--the one very eternal and absolute good, which was with God and in +God and from God, before all worlds, and will be for ever, without +changing, or growing less or greater, eternally the same good--the good +which would be just as good and just and right and lovely and glorious if +there were no world, no men, no angels, no heaven, no hell, and God were +alone in His own abyss. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Awfulness of Words. February 13. + + +A difference in words is a very awful and important difference; a +difference in words is a difference in things. Words are very awful and +wonderful things, for they come from the most awful and wonderful of all +beings, Jesus Christ, THE WORD. He puts words into men's minds. He made +all things, and He made words to express those things. And woe to those +who use the wrong words about anything. + +_Village Sermons_. 1848. + + + +A Wise Woman. February 14. + + +What wisdom she had she did not pick off the hedge, like blackberries. +God is too kind to give away wisdom after that useless fashion. So she +had to earn her wisdom, and to work hard, and suffer much ere she +attained it. And in attaining she endured strange adventures and great +sorrows; and yet they would not have given her the wisdom had she not had +something in herself which gave her wit to understand her lessons, and +skill and courage to do what they taught her. There had been many names +for that something before she was born, there have been many names for it +since, but her father and mother called it the Grace of God. + +_Unfinished Novel_. 1869. + + + +Charity the one Influence. February 15. + + +The older we grow, the more we understand our own lives and histories, +the more we shall see that the spirit of wisdom is the spirit of love; +that the true way to gain influence over our fellow-men is to have +charity towards them. That is a hard lesson to learn; and all those who +learn it generally learn it late; almost--God forgive us--too late. + +_Westminster Sermons_. + + + +The Ascetic Painters. February 16. + + +We owe much (notwithstanding their partial and Manichean idea of beauty) +to the early ascetic painters. Their works are a possession for ever. No +future school of religious art will be able to rise to eminence without +learning from them their secret. They taught artists, and priests, and +laymen, too, that beauty is only worthy of admiration when it is the +outward sacrament of the beauty of the soul within; they helped to +deliver men from that idolatry to merely animal strength and loveliness +into which they were in danger of falling in ferocious ages, and among +the relics of Roman luxury. + +_Miscellanies_. 1849. + + + +Reveries. February 17. + + +Beware of giving way to reveries. Have always some employment in your +hands. Look forward to the future with hope. Build castles if you will, +but only bright ones, and _not too many_. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Woman's Mission. February 18. + + +It is the glory of woman that she was sent into the world to live for +others rather than for herself; and therefore, I should say, let her +smallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs redressed; but let her +never be persuaded to forget that she is sent into the world to teach +man--what I believe she has been teaching him all along, even in the +savage state, namely, that there is something more necessary than the +claiming of rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach him +specially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is something +more than intellect, and that is--purity and virtue. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +The Heroic Life. February 19. + + +Provided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine life, which is +the life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what wild and weary +ways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have arrived +thither. If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us submit +loyally and humbly to His law--"whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and +scourgeth every son whom He receiveth." + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + + +The Wages of Sin. February 20. + + +It is sometimes said, "The greater the sinner the greater the saint." I +do not believe it. I do not see it. It stands to reason--if a man loses +his way and finds it again, he is so much the less forward on his way, +surely, by all the time he has spent in getting back into the way. + +And if any of you fancy you can sin without being punished, remember that +the prodigal son is punished most severely. He does not get off freely +the moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you. Even +after he does repent and resolves to go back to his father's house he has +a long journey home in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry, and all but +despairing. But when he does get home; when he shows he has learnt the +bitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is, "Make me as one of thy hired +servants,"--he is received as freely as the rest. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1864. + + + +Silent Depths. February 21. + + +Our mightiest feelings are always those which remain most unspoken. The +most intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think, +written very little personal love-poetry, while they have shown in +fictitious characters a knowledge of the passion too painfully intimate +to be spoken of in the first person. + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +True Justification. February 22. + + +God grant us to be among those who wish to be really justified by faith, +by being made just persons by faith,--who cannot satisfy either their +conscience or their reason by fancying that God looks on them as right +when they know themselves to be wrong; and who cannot help trusting that +union with Christ must be something real and substantial, and not merely +a metaphor and a flower of rhetoric. + +_MS._ 1854. + + + +A Present Hell. February 23. + + +"Ay," he muttered, "sing awa', . . . wi' pretty fancies and gran' words, +and gang to hell for it." + +"To hell, Mr. Mackaye?" + +"Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie--a warse ane than any +fiend's kitchen or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in the +pulpits--the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and a +useless peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures--and +kenning it--and not being able to get oot o' it for the chains of vanity +and self-indulgence." + +_Alton Locke_, chap. viii. 1849. + + + +Time and Eternity. February 24. + + +Eternity does not mean merely some future endless duration, but that ever- +present _moral_ world, governed by ever-living and absolutely necessary +laws, in which we and all spirits are now; and in which we should be +equally, whether time and space, extension and duration, and the whole +material universe to which they belong, became nothing this moment, or +lasted endlessly. + +_Theologica Germanica_. 1854. + + + +Christ's Life. February 25. + + +What was Christ's life? Not one of deep speculations, quiet thoughts, +and bright visions, but a life of fighting against evil; earnest, awful +prayers and struggles within, continued labour of body and mind without; +insult, and danger, and confusion, and violent exertion, and bitter +sorrow. This was Christ's life. This was St. Peter's, and St. James's, +and St. John's life afterwards. + +_Village Sermons_. 1849. + + + +The Higher Education. February 26. + + +In teaching women we must try to make our deepest lessons bear on the +great purpose of unfolding Woman's own calling in all ages--her especial +calling in this one. We must incite them to realise the chivalrous +belief of our old forefathers among their Saxon forests, that something +Divine dwelt in the counsels of woman: but, on the other hand, we must +continually remind them that they will attain that divine instinct, not +by renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by becoming true women, +and not bad imitations of men; by educating their heads for the sake of +their hearts, not their hearts for the sake of their heads; by claiming +woman's divine vocation as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and of +love. + +_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_. +1848. + + + +God's Kingdom. February 27. + + +Philamon had gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it; and he had +learnt that God's kingdom was not a kingdom of fanatics yelling for a +doctrine, but of willing, loving, obedient hearts. + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxiii. 1852. + + + +Sowing and Reaping. February 28. + + +So it is, that by every crime, folly, even neglect of theirs, men drive a +thorn into their own flesh, which will trouble them for years to come, it +may be to their dying day-- + + Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small; + Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all-- + +as those who neglect their fellow-creatures will discover, by the most +patent, undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when the rich and poor +shall meet together, and then, at last, discover too that the Lord is the +Maker of them all. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +The Church Catechism. February 29. + + +Did it ever strike you that the simple, noble, old Church Catechism, +without one word about rewards and punishments, heaven or hell, begins to +talk to the child, like a true English Catechism as it is, about that +glorious old English key-word Duty? It calls on the child to confess its +own duty, and teaches it that its duty is something most human, simple, +everyday--commonplace, if you will call it so. And I rejoice in the +thought that the Church Catechism teaches that the child's duty is +commonplace. I rejoice that in what it says about our duty to God and +our neighbour, it says not one word about counsels of perfection, or +those frames and feelings which depend, believe me, principally on the +state of people's bodily health, on the constitution of their nerves, and +the temper of their brain; but that it requires nothing except what a +little child can do as well as a grown person, a labouring man as well as +a divine, a plain farmer as well as the most refined, devout, imaginative +lady. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +FEBRUARY 2. +The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, +COMMONLY CALLED +The Purification of the Virgin Mary. + + +Little children may think of Christ as a child now and always. For to +them He is always the Babe of Bethlehem. Let them not say to themselves, +"Christ is grown up long ago." He is, and yet He is not. His life is +eternal in the heavens, above all change of time and space. . . . Such +is the sacred heart of Jesus--all things to all. To the strong He can be +strongest, to the weak weakest of all. With the aged and dying He goes +down for ever to the grave; and yet with you children Christ lies for +ever on His mother's bosom, and looks up for ever into His mother's face, +full of young life and happiness and innocence, the Everlasting Christ- +child, in whom you must believe, whom you must love, to whom you must +offer up your childish prayers. + +_The Christ-child_, +_Sermons_, (_Good News of God_). + + +FEBRUARY 24. +St. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr. + + +Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They rest from their +labours--all their struggles, failures, past and over for ever. But +their works follow them. The good which they did on earth--_that_ is not +past and over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following on +in their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto +everlasting life, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and +in generations yet unborn. + +_Sermons_ (_Good News of God_). + + +Ash Wednesday. + + +There is a repentance too deep for words--too deep for all confessionals, +penances, and emotions or acts of contrition; the repentance, not of the +excitable, theatric Southern, unstable as water even in his most violent +remorse, but of the still, deep-hearted Northern, whose pride breaks +slowly and silently, but breaks once for all; who tells to God what he +will never tell to man, and having told it, is a new creature from that +day forth for ever. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xviii. + + +The True Fast. + + +The _rationale_ of Fasting is to give up habitual indulgences for a time, +lest they become our masters--artificial _necessities_. + +_MS._ + + + + +March. + + + Early in the Springtime, on raw and windy mornings, + Beneath the freezing house-eaves, I heard the starlings sing-- + Ah! dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily? + Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun! + + Late in the Autumn, on still and cloudless evenings, + Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing-- + Ah! that sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting + merrily; + Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done. + +_The Starlings_. + + + +Knowledge and Love. March 1. + + +Knowledge and Love are reciprocal. He who loves knows. He who knows +loves. Saint John is the example of the first; Saint Paul of the second. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +A Charm of Birds. March 2. + + +Little do most people know how much there is to learn--what variety of +character, as well as variety of motion, may be distinguished by the +practised ear in a "charm of birds"--from the wild cry of the +missel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first bright days of March a +passage of one or two bars repeated three or four times, and then another +and another, clear and sweet and yet defiant--for the great "storm-cock" +loves to sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as +boldly as he faces hawk and crow--down to the delicate warble of the +wren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank where he has huddled +through the frost with wife and children, all folded in each other's arms +like human beings. Yet even he, sitting at his house-door in the low +sunlight, says grace for all mercies in a song so rapid, so shrill, so +loud, and yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount of +soul within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, like a child that +has said its lesson or got to the end of a sermon, gives a self-satisfied +flirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1866. + + + +Tact of the Heart. March 3. + + +Random shots are dangerous and cruel, likely to hit the wrong person and +hurt his feelings unnecessarily. It is very easy to say a hard thing, +but not so easy to say it to the right person at the right time. + +_MS._ + + + +Special Providences. March 4. + + +I believe not only in "special providences," but in the whole universe as +one infinite complexity of special providences. + +_Letters and Memories_. + +The grain of dust is a thought of God; God's power made it; God's wisdom +gave it whatsoever properties or qualities it may possess. God's +providence has put it in the place where it is now, and has ordained that +it should be in that place at that moment, by a train of causes and +effects which reaches back to the very creation of the universe. The +grain of dust can no more go from God's presence or flee from God's +Spirit than you or I can. + +_Town Geology_. 1871. + + + +Be Calm. March 5. + + +Strive daily and hourly to be calm; to stop yourself forcibly and recall +your mind to a sense of what you are, where you are going, and whither +you ought to be tending. This is most painful discipline, but most +wholesome. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Self-sacrifice and Personality. March 6. + + +What a strange mystery is that of mutual self-sacrifice! to exist for one +moment for another! the perfection of human bliss! And does not love +teach us two things? First, that self-sacrifice, the living for others, +is the law of our perfect being, and next, that by and in self-sacrifice +alone can we attain to the perfect apprehension of ourselves, our own +personality, our own duty, our own bliss. So that the mystics are +utterly wrong when they fancy that self-sacrifice can be attained by self- +annihilation. Self-sacrifice, instead of destroying the sense of +personality, perfects it. + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Follow your Star. March 7. + + +I believe with Dante, "_se tu segui la tua Stella_," that He who ordained +my star will not lead me _into_ temptation but _through_ it. Without Him +all places and methods of life are equally dangerous, with Him all +equally safe. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1848. + + + +Reverence for Books. March 8. + + +This is the age of _books_. And we should reverence books. Consider! +except a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book--a +message to us from the dead, from human souls whom we never saw, who +lived perhaps thousands of miles away, and yet in those little sheets of +paper speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their +hearts to us as brothers! + +We ought to reverence books, to look at them as awful and mighty things. +If they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics, +trade or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the Maker of all +things, the Teacher of all truth, which He has put into the heart of some +men to speak. And at the last day, be sure of it, we shall have to +render an account--a strict account--of the books which we have read, and +of the way in which we have obeyed what we read, just as if we had had so +many prophets or angels sent to us. + +_Village Sermons_. 1849. + + + +The Unknown Future. March 9. + + +As for the things which God has prepared for those who love Him, the +Bible tells me that no man can conceive them, and therefore I believe +that I cannot conceive them. God has conceived them; God has prepared +them; God is our Father. That is enough. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Secular and Sacred. March 10. + + +I grudge the epithet of "_secular_" to any matter whatsoever. But more; +I deny it to anything which God has made, even to the tiniest of insects, +the most insignificant grain of dust. To those who believe in God, and +try to see all things in God, the most minute natural phenomenon cannot +be secular. It must be divine, I say deliberately, divine, and I can use +no less lofty word. + +_Town Geology_. 1871. + + + +Content or Happy? March 11. + + +My friends, whether you will be the happier for any knowledge of physical +science, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot tell. That lies +in the decision of a higher Power than I; and, indeed, to speak honestly, +I do not think that any branch of physical science is likely, at first at +least, to make you happy. Neither is the study of your fellow-men. +Neither is religion itself. We were not sent into the world to be happy, +but to be right--at least, poor creatures that we are--as right as we can +be, and we must be content with being right, and not happy. . . . And we +shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only +with what we can understand, but content with what we do not +understand--the habit of mind which theologians call (and rightly) faith +in God, true and solid faith, which comes often out of sadness and out of +doubt. + +_Lecture on Bio-geology_. 1869. + + + +Duty of Man to Man. March 12. + + +Each man can learn something from his neighbour; at least he can learn +this--to have patience with his neighbour, to live and let live. + +Peace! peace! Anything which is not _wrong_ for the sake of heaven-born +Peace! + +_Town and Country Sermons_. 1861. + + + +Blessing of a True Friend. March 13. + + +A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human +soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and +who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth +to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind +our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the days of prosperity +and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the +day of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our +battle as we can. + +It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends: the mean and +cowardly can never know what true friendship means. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +True Heroines. March 14. + + +What is the commonest, and yet the least remembered form of heroism? The +heroism of an average mother. Ah! when I think of that broad fact I +gather hope again for poor humanity, and this dark world looks bright, +this diseased world looks wholesome to me once more, because, whatever +else it is or is not full of, it is at least full of mothers. + +_Lecture on Heroism_. 1873. + + + +Secret Atheism. March 15. + + +There is little hope that we shall learn the lessons God is for ever +teaching us in the events of life till we get rid of our secret Atheism, +till we give up the notion that God only visits now and then to disorder +and destroy His own handiwork, and take back the old scriptural notion +that God is visiting all day long for ever, to give order and life to His +own work, to set it right where it goes wrong, and re-create it whenever +it decays. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866. + + + +Tolerance. March 16. + + +If we really love God and long to do good and work for God, if we really +love our neighbours and wish to help them, we shall have no heart to +quarrel about _how_ the good is to be done, provided _it is_ done. +"Master," said St. John, "we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and +he followeth not us; wilt Thou that we forbid him? And Jesus said, +Forbid him not." + +_Sermons_. + + + +The Hopes of Old Age. March 17. + + +Christianity alone deprives old age of its bitterness, making it the gate +of heaven. Our bodies will fade and grow weak and shapeless, just when +we shall not want them, being ready and in close expectation of that +resurrection of the flesh which is the great promise of Christianity (no +miserable fancies about "pure souls" escaped from matter, but)--of +bodies, _our_ bodies, beloved, beautiful, ministers to us in all our +joys, sufferers with us in all our sorrows--yea, our very own selves +raised up again to live and love in a manner inconceivable from its +perfection. + +_MS._ 1842. + +. . . No! I can wait: +Another body!--Ah, new limbs are ready, +Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve, +Kept for us in the treasuries of God! + +_Santa Maura_. 1852. + + + +The Highest Study for Man, March 18. + + +Man is _not_, as the poet said, "the noblest study of mankind." God is +the noblest study of man, and Him we can study in three ways. 1st. From +His image as developed in Christ the Ideal, and in all good men--great +good men. 2dly. From His works. 3dly. From His dealings in history; +this is the real philosophy of history. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Eclecticism. March 19. + + +An eclectic, if it mean anything, means this--one who in any branch of +art or science refuses to acknowledge Bacon's great law, that "Nature is +only conquered by obeying her;" who will not take a full and reverent +view of the whole mass of facts with which he has to deal, and from them +deducing the fundamental laws of his subject, obey them whithersoever +they may lead; but who picks and chooses out of them just so many as may +be pleasant to his private taste, and then constructs a partial system +which differs from the essential ideas of Nature in proportion to the +number of facts which he has determined to discard. + +_Miscellanies_. 1849. + + + +Duty. March 20. + + +Duty, be it in a small matter or a great, is duty still; the command of +Heaven; the eldest voice of God. And it is only they who are faithful in +a few things who will be faithful over many things; only they who do +their duty in everyday and trivial matters who will fulfil them on great +occasions. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +The Great Unknown. March 21. + + +"Brother," said the abbot, "make ready for me the divine elements, that I +may consecrate them." And he asking the reason therefor, the saint +replied, "That I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I depart +hence. For know assuredly that within the seventh day I shall migrate to +the celestial mansions. For this night stood by me in a dream those two +women whom I love, and for whom I pray, the one clothed in a white, the +other in a ruby-coloured garment, and holding each other by the hand, who +said to me, '_That life after death is not such a one as you fancy_: +come, therefore, and behold what it is like.'" + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxx. 1852. + + + +Loss nor Gain, March 22. + + +Nothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more anxious than +carelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven +fresh duties at its back. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Ancient Greek Education, March 23. + + +We talk of education now. Are we more educated than were the ancient +Greeks? Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual, +aesthetic (religious education in our sense of the word of course they +had none), of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments? Are +there not some branches of education which they perfected once and for +ever, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow their +example? To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion +and grace, in every faculty of mind and body--that was their notion of +education. + +Ah! the waste of health and strength in the young! The waste, too, of +anxiety and misery in those who love and tend them! How much of it might +be saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which are +the will of God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we +are as much bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obey +the spiritual laws whereon depend the welfare of our souls. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Body and Soul. March 24. + + +Exalt me with Thee, O Lord, to know the mystery of life, that I may use +the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly, and, by +using to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit to be exalted to the use +of the spiritual body. Amen. + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +Moderation. March 25. + + +Let us pray for that great--I had almost said that crowning grace and +virtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind. Let +us pray for moderate appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours, +moderate gains, moderate joys; and if sorrows be needed to chasten us, +moderate sorrows. Let us not long violently after, or wish too eagerly +to rise in life. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1869. + + + +Poetry in the Slums. March 26. + + +"True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at home. . . . Hech! +is there no the heaven above them there, and the hell beneath them? and +God frowning, and the devil grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verra +idea of the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance? +canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man +conquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that too--in many a garret +where no eye but the good God's enters to see the patience, and the +fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the love stronger than death, +that's shining in those dark places of the earth." + +"Ah, poetry's grand--but fact is grander; God and Satan are grander. All +around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satan +at death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise +Regained." + +_Alton Locke_, chap. viii. 1849. + + + +Time and Eternity. March 27. + + +. . . Our life's floor +Is laid upon Eternity; no crack in it +But shows the underlying heaven. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii. + + + +Work. March 28. + + +Yes. Life is meant for work, and not for ease; to labour in danger and +in dread, to do a little good ere the night comes when no man can work, +instead of trying to realise for oneself a paradise; not even Bunyan's +shepherd-paradise, much less Fourier's casino-paradise, and perhaps, +least of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our own +art-paradise, the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1849. + + + +Teaching of Pictures. March 29. + + +Pictures raise blessed thoughts in me. Why not in you, my toiling +brother? Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude two +hundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever. How still the meadows +are! How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky! No wonder that thy +worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, "Oh, that I had wings as a +dove, then would I flee away and be at rest." Ah! but gayer meadows and +bluer skies await thee _in the world to come_--that fairyland made +real--"the new heavens and the new earth" which God hath prepared for the +pure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in this +sore fight of life. + +_True Words for Brave Men_. 1849. + + + +Voluntary Heroism. March 30. + + +Any man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who _will_, +_can_ live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences. + +It is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it +should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards society +and man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but +which is above though not against duty. + +_Lecture on Heroism_. 1872. + + + +The Ideal Holy One. March 31. + + +Have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience, +"Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere--or else, how could +have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal +holiness? But where? oh, where? Not in the world around strewn with +unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and within. Is there a +Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is +He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, +even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, 'the lightning of His +glance were death.'" . . . + +And then, oh, then--has there not come that for which our spirit was +athirst--the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the +very strain of pure music--for it is the very music of the spheres--in +those words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and +is to come"? + +Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One--spotless and +undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, +there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied +with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and +bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity. And who is He? +Who, save the Cause and Maker and Ruler of all things past, present, and +to come? + +_Sermon on All Saints' Day_. 1874. + +Charles Kingsley's Dying Words, +"HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS." + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +MARCH 25. +The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, +COMMONLY CALLED +Lady Day. + + +It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways by +which the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with the +grandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest, +the most tender, the most human. What more grand, or deep, or divine +words can we say than, "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son our +Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,"--and yet what more simple, +human, and tender words can we say than, "Who was born of the Virgin +Mary"? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with +her babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to +those who can say, "I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary." + +For since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood into God, +birth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a mother's joys and a mother's +cares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in +her arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will +towards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and +blessed above all women. Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is the +time for our remembering the Blessed Virgin. For our hearts and reasons +tell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must have +been holier, nobler, fairer in body and soul, than all women upon earth. + +_MS. Sermon_. + + + + +April. + + +Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing? +Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away? +Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying, +Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day. + +Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing, +Rest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain. +Weep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying, +Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again. + +_The Dead Church_. + + + +The Song of Birds. April 1. + + +St. Francis called the birds his brothers. Perfectly sure that he +himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the +birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in +mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in +claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who +(as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even +as angels did in heaven. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1867. + + + +True Reformers. April 2. + + +It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to +that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago. + +_MS. Lecture at Cambridge_. 1866. + + + +High Ideals. April 3. + + +What if a man's idea of "The Church" be somewhat too narrow for the year +of grace 18--, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all? +that there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a +"divine and wonderful order," linking earth to heaven, and to the very +throne of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens what +the world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God +Himself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the grave +to do his Father's work? Is it no honour to him that he has seen that +such a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he +thinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in +the most ancient and august traditions of his native land? True, he may +have much still to learn. . . . + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. iv. 1856. + + + +Divine Knowledge. April 4. + + +That glorious word _know_--it is God's attribute, and includes in itself +all others. Love, truth--all are parts of that awful power of _knowing_ +at a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in its +essence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe through +all Time. I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and I +never, if I can remember, use it myself of myself. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Woman's Love. April 5. + + +The story of Ruth is the consecration of woman's love. I do not mean of +the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is. I mean that +depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God +has put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend so +strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and +from whom they can receive no earthly reward--the affection which made +women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which brought +Mary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb--the +affection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow are +left in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and +conquer therein. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + + + +Feeling and Emotion. April 6. + + +Live a life of _feeling_, not of _excitement_. Let your religion, your +duties, every thought and word, be ruled by the _affections_, not by the +_emotions_, which are the expressions of them. Do not consider whether +you are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be +yourself--what God makes you. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +The Beasts that perish. April 7. + + +St. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass darkly. But this he +seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought a +blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live. He +says the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to +bring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again--how +and when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lord +shall destroy death the whole creation shall be renewed. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +Reverence for Age. April 8. + + +Reverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely, +insolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in +nations, is a sign rather of weakness than of strength. + +_Lecture on Westminster Abbey_. +1874. + + + +Prayers for the Dead. April 9. + + +We do not in the Church of England now pray for the dead. We are not +absolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so. But we believe they are +where they ought to be--that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in +which is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this +world; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deeds +done in the body; and that they are in the hands of a perfectly just God, +who rewardeth every man according to his work. It seems therefore +unnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray for +them who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state which +they have deserved. + +_MS. Sermon_. + + + +Diversities of Gifts. April 10. + + + Why expect +Wisdom with love in all? Each has his gift-- +Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop +And various pitch: each with its proper notes +Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God. +Though poor alone, yet joined, they're harmony. + +_Saints' Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v. +1847. + + + +The Atonement. April 11. + + +_How_ Christ's death takes away thy sins thou wilt never know on +earth--perhaps not in heaven. It is a mystery which thou must believe +and adore. But _why_ He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou +hast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at--Christ +upon His Cross. He died because He was _Love_--love itself, love +boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable--love which inhabits eternity, and +therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man, +but must love men still--must go out to seek and save them, must dare, +suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake--just because it +is absolute and perfect Love which inhabits eternity. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. + + + +A Day's Work. April 12. + + +Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, +to lie down at night without being able to say, I have made one human +being at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this +day. You will find it easier than you think, and pleasanter. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Self-control. April 13. + + +A well-educated moral sense, a well-educated character, saves from +idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, those +tenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations of +humanity, which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the man, +and which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in proportion as they +are left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed into +graceful, harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves, +and a blessing to all who come under their influence. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Women and Novels. April 14. + + +Novels will be read; but that is all the more reason why women should be +trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, to +distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, the +noble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides its +shallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and a melodramatic +situation. They should learn--and that they can only learn by +cultivation--to discern with joy and drink in with reverence, the good, +the beautiful, and the true, and to turn with the fine scorn of a pure +and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Expect Much. April 15. + + +Expect great things from God, and also expect the least things, for the +great test of faith is shown about the least matters. People will +believe their soul is sure to be saved who have not the heart to expect +that God will take away some small burden. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +What is Theology? April 16. + + +Theology signifies the knowledge of God as He is. And it is dying out +among us in these days. Much of what is called theology now is nothing +but experimental religion, which is most important and useful when it is +founded on the right knowledge of God, but which is not itself theology. +For theology begins with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong, +begins with a man's own soul. + +_Discipline and other Sermons_. + + + +Sweetness and Light. April 17. + + +Ah, that we could believe that God is love, and that he that dwelleth in +love dwelleth in God, and God in him! Then we should have no need to be +told to cultivate sweetness and light, for they would seem to us the only +temper which could make life tolerable in any corner of the universe. + +_Essay on the Critical Spirit_. 1871. + + + +The Contemplative Life. April 18. + + +"Woman is no more capable than man of living on mere contemplation. We +must have an object to whom we may devote the fruits of thought, and +unless we have a real one in active life we shall be sure to coin one for +ourselves, and spend our spirits on a dream." + +"True, true," chimed in the counsellor, "spirit is little use without +body, and a body it will find; and therefore, unless you let people's +brains grow healthy plants, they will grow mushrooms." + +_MS. unfinished Story_. 1843. + + + +Sudden Death. April 19. + + +"What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has +done his work?" + +"But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?" + +"And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools long for a short life +and a merry one, and shall not the Lord's people pray for a short death +and a merry one? Let it come as it will to old Yeo!" + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xxxii. 1855. + + + +Prayer and Praise. April 20. + + +Pray night and day, very quietly, like a little weary child, to the good +and loving God, for everything you want, in body as well as soul--the +least thing as well as the greatest. Nothing is too much to ask God +for--nothing too great for Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord! And +try to thank Him for everything . . . I sometimes feel that eternity +will be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us live at +all! And then not making us idiots or cripples, or even only ugly and +stupid! What blessings we have! Let us work in return for them--not +under the enslaving sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with the +delight of gratitude, glorying that we are God's debtors. + +_Letters_. 1843. + + + +The Divine Spark. April 21. + + +Man? I am a man, thou art a woman--not by reason of bones and muscles, +nerves and brain, which I have in common with apes, and dogs, and +horses--I am a man, thou art a man or woman, not because we have a flesh, +God forbid! but because there is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray +which nature did not give, and which nature cannot take away. And +therefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the +flesh, that I may be indeed a man. + +_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_. +1873. + + + +The Worst Calamity. April 22. + + +The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any human being +would be this--to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; to have +everything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never to be +forced to say, "I should like that, but I cannot afford it. I should +like this, but I must not do it." Never to deny himself, never to exert +himself, never to work, and never to want--that man's soul would be in as +great danger as if he were committing great crimes. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + + +Men and Women. April 23. + + +"The Lord be with you, dearest lady," said Adrian Gilbert. "Strange how +you women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to +break our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking! Ah! hech! +were it not for Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather than +Eve, had been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii. 1855. + + + +Faith in the Unseen. April 24. + + +He was not one of those "ungodly" men of whom David speaks in his Psalms, +who rob the widow and the fatherless. His morality was as high as that +of the average, his honour higher. But of "godliness" in its true +sense--of belief that any Being above cared for him, and was helping him +in the daily business of life: that it was worth while asking that +Being's advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for--of any +practical notion of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator--he was as +ignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, and read +good books, and believe firmly that the Pope is Antichrist. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. i. 1856. + + + +Death--Resurrection. April 25. + + +As we rose to go, my eye caught a highly-finished drawing of the +Resurrection painted above the place where the desk and faldstool and +lectern, holding an open missal book, stood. I should have rather +expected, I thought to myself, a picture of the Crucifixion. She seemed +to guess my thought, and said, "There is enough in an abode of heavy +hearts, and in daily labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in our +minds the Prince of Sufferers. We need rather to be reminded that pain +is not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it has been +conquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose eternity of bliss a few +years of sadness were but as a mote within the sunbeam's blaze." + +_MS. unfinished Story_. l843. + + + +Woman's Work. April 26. + + +Woman is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, purifier, +inspirer of man. + +_MS._ + + + +Passion--Easter--Ascension. April 27. + + +Good Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension, are set as great lights in the +firmament of the spiritual year;--to remind us that we are not animals +born to do what we like, and fulfil the simple lusts of the flesh--but +that we are rational moral beings, members of Christ, children of God, +and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, like +Christ, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They +remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow +out of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles; +righteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears; +true strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace +of mind out of sound contrition. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +How to keep Passion-Week. April 28. + + +Can we go wrong if we keep our Passion-week as Christ kept His? And how +did He keep it? Not by shutting Himself up apart, not by the mere +thinking over the glory of self-sacrifice. He taught daily in the +temple; instead of giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than ever +as the terrible end drew near. Why should not we keep Passion-week, not +by merely hiding in our closets to meditate even about Him, but by going +about our work each in his place, dutifully, bravely, as Christ went? + +_Town and Country Sermons_. 1859. + + + +Self-Sacrifice. April 29. + + +Without self-sacrifice there can be no blessedness either in earth or in +heaven. He that loveth his life will lose it. He that hateth his life +in this paltry, selfish, luxurious world shall keep it to life eternal. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. + + + +Help from our Blessed Dead. April 30. + + +And so with those who are Christ's whom we love. Partakers of His death, +they are partakers of His resurrection. Let us believe the blessed news +in all its fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them, and +again a little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they are +gone to the Father, to the Source and Fount of all life and power, all +light and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His +power, light from His light, love from His love; and surely not for +nought. Surely not for nought. For if they were like Christ on earth, +and did not use their powers for themselves alone; if they are to be like +Christ when they see Him as He is, then, more surely, will they not use +their powers for themselves, but as Christ uses His, for those they love. + +_MS. Sermon_. 1866. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. +Passion-tide. + + +From the earliest times the Cross has been the special sign of +Christians. St. Paul tells us his great hope, his great business, what +God had sent him into the world to do, was this--to make people know the +love of Christ; to look at Christ's Cross, and take in its breadth and +length and depth and height. + +And what is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross? My friends, it is as broad +as the whole world, for He died for the whole world; as it is written, +"He is a propitiation not for our sins only, but for the sins of the +whole world." And that is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross. + +And what is the _length_ of Christ's Cross? Long enough to last through +all time. As long as there is a sinner to be saved; as long as there is +ignorance, sorrow, pain, death, or anything else which is contrary to God +and hurtful to man in the universe of God, so long will Christ's Cross +last. And that is the _length_ of the Cross of Christ. + +And how _high_ is Christ's Cross? As high as the highest heaven, and the +throne of God and the bosom of the Father--that bosom out of which for +ever proceed all created things. Ay, as high as the highest heaven; for, +if you will receive it, when Christ hung upon the Cross heaven came down +on earth, and earth ascended into heaven. And that is the _height_ of +the Cross of Christ. + +And how _deep_ is the Cross of Christ? This is a great mystery which +people are afraid to look into, and darken it of their own will. But if +the Cross of Christ be as high as heaven, then it must be as deep as +hell, deep enough to reach the deepest sinner in the deepest pit to which +he may fall, for Christ descended into hell, and preached to the spirits +in prison. Let us hope, then, that is the _depth_ of the Cross of +Christ. + +"_The Measure of the Cross_," +_Sermons_ (_Good News of God_). + + +Good Friday. + + +Listen! and our God shall whisper, as we hang upon the cross, {97} +"Children! love! and loving, faint not! great your glory, light your +loss! +_Ye_ are bound--ye may be loosed--_I_ was nailed upon the tree, +Of the pangs I suffered for you--bear awhile a few for me! +Fear not, though the waters whelm you; fear not, though ye see no land! +Know ye not your God is with you, guiding with a Father's hand? +Cords may wring, and winds may freeze you, shivering on the sullen sea, +Yet the life that burns within you liveth ever hid with Me!" + +_MS._ 1842. + +Christ must suffer before He entered into His glory. He must die before +He could rise. He must descend into hell before He could ascend into +heaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Friday +there can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice there can be no +blessedness. + +My Saviour! My King! Infinite, Eternal Love--alone of all beings devoid +of self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy Cross and +Passion! + +_MS._ + + +Easter Even. + + +Christ went down into hell and preached to the spirits in prison. It is +written that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made +alive;" and again, "When the wicked man turns from his wickedness he +shall save his soul alive." And we know that in the same chapter God +tells us that His ways are not unequal. It is possible, therefore, that +He has not one law for this life and another for the life to come. Let +us hope, then, that David's words may be true after all, when, speaking +by the Spirit of God, he says not only "if I ascend up to heaven, thou +art there," but "if I go down to hell, thou art there also." + +_MS. Sermon_. + + +Easter Day. + + +The Creed says, "I believe in the Resurrection of the flesh." I believe +that we, each of us, as human beings, men and women, shall have a share +in that glorious day; not merely as ghosts and disembodied spirits, but +as real live human beings, with new bodies of our own, on a new earth, +under a new heaven. "Therefore," David says, "my flesh shall rest in +hope;" not merely my soul, my ghost, but my flesh. For the Lord, who not +only died but rose again with His body, shall raise our bodies according +to His mighty working, and then the whole manhood of us--body, soul, and +spirit--shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal and +everlasting glory. + +_National Sermons_. + + +APRIL 25. +St. Mark, Evangelist and Martyr. + + +God's apostles, saints, and martyrs are our spiritual ancestors. They +spread the Gospel into all lands, and they spread it, remember always, +not only by preaching what they knew, but by being what they were. Their +characters, their personal histories, are as important to us as their +writings. + +_Sermons_. + + + + +May. + + +Is it merely a fancy that we are losing that love for Spring which among +our old forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle +of the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us +the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old +world, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and +returned in spring to life, and health, and glory; when Freya, the +goddess of youth and love, went forth over the earth while the flowers +broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomed +her with song? To those simpler children of a simpler age winter and +spring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one of +death, the other of life; and the battle between the two--the battle of +the sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, of +bereavement with love--lay at the root of all their myths and all their +creeds. Surely a change has come over our fancies! The seasons are +little to us now! + +_Prose Idylls_. + + + +Past and Present. May 1. + + +Now see the young spring leaves burst out a-maying, +Fill with their ripening hues orchard and glen; +So though old forms pass by, ne'er shall their spirit die, +Look! England's bare boughs show green leaf again. + +_Poems_. 1849. + + + +The Earth is the Lord's. May 2. + + +The earth is holy! Can there be a more glorious truth to carry out--one +which will lead us more into all love and beauty and purity in heaven and +earth? One which must have God's light of love shining on it at every +step. God gives us souls and bodies exquisitely attuned for this very +purpose--the aesthetic faculty, our sensibilities to the beautiful. All +events of life, all the workings of our hearts, should point to this one +idea. As I walk the fields, the trees and flowers and birds, and the +motes of rack floating in the sky, seem to cry to me: "Thou knowest us! +Thou knowest we have a meaning, and sing a heaven's harmony by night and +day! Do us justice! Spell our enigma, and go forth and tell thy fellows +that we are their brethren, that their spirit is our spirit, their +Saviour our Saviour, their God our God!" + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +The Great Question. May 3. + + +Is there a living God in the universe, or is there not? That is the +greatest of all questions. Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or has +He not? + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866. + + + +Our Father. May 4. + + +Look at those thousand birds, and without our Father not one of them +shall fall to the ground; and art thou not of more value than many +sparrows--thou for whom God sent His Son to die? . . . Ah! my friend, we +must look out and around to see what God is like. It is when we persist +in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own +imperfections, that we learn to make a god after our own image, and fancy +that our own hardness and darkness are the patterns of His light and +love. + +_Hypatia_, chap. xi. + + + +Want of Sympathy. May 5. + + +If we do not understand our fellow-creatures we shall never love them. +And it is equally true, that if we do not love them we shall never +understand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good feeling +and fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed but endless mistakes +and ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances? + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1873. + + + +A Religion. May 6. + + +If all that a man wants is "a _religion_," he ought to be able to make a +very pretty one for himself, and a fresh one as often as he is tired of +the old. But the heart and soul of man wants more than that; as it is +written, "My soul is athirst for GOD, even for the living God." I want a +living God, who cares for men, forgives men, saves men from their sins: +and Him I have found in the Bible, and nowhere else, save in the facts of +life which the Bible alone interprets. + +_Sermons on the Pentateuch_. 1863. + + + +True Civilisation. May 7. + + +Do the duty which lies nearest to you; your duty to the man who lives +next door, and to the man who lives in the next street. Do your duty to +your parish, that you may do your duty by your country and to all +mankind, and prove yourselves thereby civilised men. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866. + + + +Nature and Grace. May 8. + + +Why speak of the God of Nature and the God of grace as two antithetical +terms? The Bible never in a single instance makes the distinction, and +surely if God be the eternal and unchangeable One, and if all the +universe bears the impress of His signet, we have no right, in the +present infantile state of science, to put arbitrary limits of our own to +the revelation which He may have thought good to make of Himself in +Nature. Nay, rather, let us believe that if our eyes were opened we +should fulfil the requirement of genius and see the universal in the +particular by seeing God's whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected as +in a mirror in the meanest flower, and that nothing but the dulness of +our simple souls prevents them from seeing day and night in all things +the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling His own saying, "My Father worketh +hitherto, and I work." + +_Glaucus_. 1855. + + + +Wisdom the Child of Goodness. May 9. + + +Goodness rather than talent had given her a wisdom, and goodness rather +than courage a power of using that wisdom, which to those simple folk +seemed almost an inspiration. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. ii. 1857. + + + +Rule of Life. May 10. + + +Two great rules for the attainment of heavenly wisdom are simple +enough--"Never forget what and where you are," and "Grieve not the Holy +Spirit." + +_MS. Letter_. 1841. + + + +Music the Speech of God. May 11. + + +Music--there is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderful +enough, but music is more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts as +words do, it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core +and root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble +feelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a language +by itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as +divine, just as blessed. Music has been called the speech of angels; I +will go farther, and call it the speech of God Himself. + +The old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen, made a point of teaching +their children music, because, they said, it taught them not to be self- +willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness of +rule, the divineness of law. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. + + + +Facing Realities. May 12. + + +The only comfort I can see in the tragedies of war is that they bring us +all face to face with the realities of human life, as it has been in all +ages, giving us sterner and yet more loving, more human, and more divine +thoughts about ourselves, and our business here, and the fate of those +who are gone, and awakening us out of the luxurious, frivolous, and +unreal dream (full nevertheless of hard judgments) in which we have been +living so long, to trust in a living Father who is really and practically +governing this world and all worlds, and who willeth that none should +perish. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1855. + + + +Street Arabs. May 13. + + +One has only to go into the streets of any great city in England to see +how we, with all our boast of civilisation, are yet but one step removed +from barbarism. Is that a hard word? Only there _are_ the barbarians +round us at every street corner--grown barbarians, it may be, now all but +past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet +save, for God wishes us to save them. . . . Do not deceive yourselves +about the little dirty, offensive children in the street. If they be +offensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. "Take heed that ye +despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels do +always behold the face of your Father which is in heaven." + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +Fellowship of Sorrow. May 14. + + +How was He, +The blessed One, made perfect? Why, by grief-- +The fellowship of voluntary grief-- +He read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls, +As we must learn to read it. Lady! lady! +Wear but one robe the less--forego one meal-- +And thou shalt taste the core of many tales, +Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs, +The sweeter for their sadness. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v. +1847. + + + +Heaven and Hell. May 15. + + +Heaven and hell--the spiritual world--are they merely invisible places in +space which may become visible hereafter? or are they not rather the +moral world of right and wrong? Love and righteousness--is not that the +heaven itself wherein God dwells? Hatred and sin--is not that hell +itself, wherein dwells all that is opposed to God? + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + + + +The Awfulness of Life. May 16. + + +Our hearts are dull, and hard, and light, God forgive us! and we forget +continually what an earnest, awful world we live in--a whole eternity +waiting for us to be born, and a whole eternity waiting to see what we +shall do now we are born. Yes, our hearts are dull, and hard, and light. +And therefore Christ sends suffering on us, to teach us what we always +gladly forget in comfort and prosperity--what an awful capacity of +suffering we have; and more, what an awful capacity of suffering our +fellow-creatures have likewise. . . . + +We sit at ease too often in a fool's paradise, till God awakens us and +tortures us into pity for the torture of others. And so, if we will not +acknowledge our brotherhood by any other teaching, He knits us together +by the brotherhood of suffering. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +Hope and Fear. May 17. + + +Every gift of God is good, and given for our happiness, and we sin if we +abuse it. To use your fancy to your own misery is to abuse it and to +sin. The realm of the possible was given to man to _hope_ and not to +_fear_ in. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Cry of the Heart and Reason. May 18. + + +A living God, a true God, a real God, a God worthy of the name, a God who +is working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing that He +has made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who satisfies not only +the head but the heart, not only the logical intellect but the highest +reason--that pure reason which is one with the conscience and moral +sense! For Him we cry out, Him we seek, and if we cannot find Him we +know no rest. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1867. + + + +Speaking the Truth in Love. May 19. + + +Whenever we are tempted to say more than is needful, let us remember St. +John's words (in the only sermon we have on record of his), "Little +children, love one another," and ask God for His Holy Spirit, the spirit +of love, which, instead of weakening a man's words, makes them all the +stronger in the cause of truth, because they are spoken in love. + +How difficult it is to distinguish between the loving _tact_, which +avoids giving offence to a weaker brother, and the fear of man, which +bringeth a snare! + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Peasant Souls. May 20. + + +. . . Dull boors +See deeper than we think, and hide within +Those leathern hulls unfathomable truths, +Which we amid thought's glittering mazes lose. +They grind among the iron facts of life, +And have no time for self-deception. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii. +1847. + + + +Death and Everlasting Life. May 21. + + +Do not rashly count on some sudden radical change happening to you as +soon as you die to make you fit for heaven. There is not one word in the +Bible which gives us reason to suppose that we shall not be in the next +world the same persons that we have made ourselves in this world. . . . +What we sow here we shall reap there. And it is good for us to know and +face this. Anything is good for us, however unpleasant it may be, which +drives us from the only real misery, which is sin and selfishness, to the +only true happiness, which is the everlasting life of Christ, a pure, +loving, just, generous, useful life of goodness. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. + + + +Science and Virtue. May 22. + + +Science is great; but she is not the greatest. She is an instrument and +not a power--beneficent or deadly, according as she is wielded by the +hand of virtue or vice. But her lawful mistress, the only one which can +use her aright, the only one under whom she can truly grow and prosper +and prove her divine descent, is Virtue, the likeness of Almighty God. + +_Roman and Teuton_. 1860. + + + +A Child's Heart. May 23. + + +"I saw at last! I found out that I had been trying for years which was +stronger, God or I; I found out I had been trying whether I could not do +well enough without Him; and there I found that I could not--could not! I +felt like a child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find its +way, and is lost at once. I did not know that I had a Father in heaven +who had been looking after me, when I fancied I was looking after myself. +I don't half believe it now." . . . And so the old heart passed away +from Thomas Thurnall, and instead of it grew up the heart of a little +child. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii. 1857. + + + +Self-Security. May 24. + + +Strange it is how mortal man, "who cometh up and is cut down like the +flower," can harden himself into a stoical security, and count on the +morrow which may never come. Yet so it is, and perhaps if it were not so +no work would get done on earth--at least by the many who know not that +God is guiding them, while they fancy they are guiding themselves. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. i. + +There is a Providence which rules this earth, whose name is neither +Political Economy nor Expediency, but the Living God, who makes every +right action reward, and every wrong action punish, _itself_. + +_History Lecture_, _Cambridge_. 1866. + + + +Loss and Gain. May 25. + + +"He has yet to learn what losing his life to save it means, Amyas. Bad +men have taught him (and I fear these Anabaptists and Puritans at home +teach little else) that it is the one great business of every man to save +his own soul after he dies; every one for himself; and that that, and not +divine self-sacrifice, is the one thing needful, and the better part +which Mary chose." + +"I think," said Amyas, "men are enough inclined to be selfish without +being taught that." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. vii. 1854. + + + +The Law of Righteousness. May 26. + + +What if I had discovered that one law of the spiritual world, in which +all others were contained, was Righteousness? and that disharmony with +that law, which we call unspirituality, was not being vulgar, or clumsy, +or ill-taught, or unimaginative, or dull; but simply being unrighteous? +that righteousness, and it alone, was the beautiful, righteousness the +sublime, the heavenly, the God-like--ay, God Himself? + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxvii. 1852. + + + +Human and Divine Love. May 27. + + +Believe me that he who has been led by love to a human being to +understand the mystery of that divine love which fills all heaven and +earth, and concentrates itself into an articulate manifestation in the +person of Christ, will soon begin to find that he cannot enter into the +perfect bliss of that truth without going further, and seeing that the +human heart requires some standing-ground for its affection, even for the +love of wife and child, deeper and surer than that love, namely, in utter +loyalty, resignation, adoring affection to Him in whom all loveliness is +concentrated. It is a great mystery. It is a hard lesson. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1847. + + + +A High Finish. May 28. + + +A high artistic finish is important for more reasons than for the mere +pleasure it gives. There is something sacramental in perfect metre and +rhythm. They are outward and visible signs (most seriously we speak as +we say it) of an inward and spiritual grace, namely, of the +self-possessed and victorious temper of one who has so far subdued nature +as to be able to hear that universal sphere-music of hers, speaking of +which Mr. Carlyle says, that "all deepest thoughts instinctively vent +themselves in song." + +_Miscellanies_. 1849. + + + +Our Prayers. May 29. + + +There can be no objection to praying for certain special things. God +forbid! I cannot help doing it, any more than a child in the dark can +help calling for its mother. Only it seems to me that when we pray, +"Grant this day that we run into no kind of danger," we ought to lay our +stress on the "run" rather than on the "danger," to ask God not to take +away the danger by altering the course of nature, but to give us light +and guidance whereby to avoid it. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1860. + + + +Clearing Showers. May 30. + + +When a stream is swelled by a flood, a shower of rain _clears_ it. So in +trouble, when the heart is turbid from the world's admixtures, and the +stirring up of the foul particles which will lie at the bottom, nothing +but the pure dew of heaven can restore its purity, when God's spirit +comes down upon it like a gentle rain! + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Vineyards in Spring. May 31. + + +Look at the rows of vines, or what will be vines when the summer comes, +but are now black, knotted and gnarled clubs, without a sign of life in +the seemingly dead stick. One who sees that sight may find a new beauty +and meaning in the mystic words, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." It +is not merely the connection between branch and stem common to all trees; +not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the +grape, which made the very heathen look upon it as the sacred and +miraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out of +the unfruitful branches, to be burned as firewood--not merely these, but +the seeming death of the Vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness, +of every branch and twig which it had borne the year before, and left +unsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then bursting +forth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, spreading +and trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the sky. +This thought surely--the emblem of the living Church, springing from the +corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise to be alive for +evermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning +of that prophecy of all prophecies. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1864. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +MAY 1. +St. Philip and St. James, Apostles and Martyrs. + + +Christ's cross says still, and will say to all Eternity, "Wouldst thou be +good? Wouldst thou be like God? Then work and dare, and if need be, +suffer for thy fellow-men." On the Cross Christ consecrated, and as it +were offered to the Father in His own body, all loving actions, unselfish +actions, merciful actions, heroic actions, which man has done or ever +will do. From Him, from His spirit, their strength came; and therefore +He is not ashamed to call them brethren. He is the King of the noble +army of martyrs; of all who suffer for love and truth and justice' sake; +and to all such He says, thou hast put on My likeness; thou hast suffered +for My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, and enabled thee to +suffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son of God, in whom the Father +is well pleased. + +_Sermons_. + + +Feast of the Ascension. + + +"Lo, I am with you always," said the Blessed One before He ascended to +the Father. And this is the Lord who we fancy is gone away far above the +stars till the end of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before +Him at this moment! For here He is among us now, listening to every +thought of our poor simple hearts. He is where God is, in whom we live, +and move, and have our being, and that is everywhere. Do you wish Him to +be any nearer? + +_National Sermons_. + +. . . Oh, my Saviour! +My God! where art Thou? That's but a tale about Thee, +That crucifix above--it does but show Thee +As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now. . . . + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iv. Scene i. + + + + +June. + + +Three o'clock, upon a still, pure, Midsummer morning. . . . The white +glare of dawn, which last night hung high in the north-west, has +travelled now to the north-east, and above the wooded wall of the hills +the sky is flushing with rose and amber. A long line of gulls goes +wailing inland; the rooks come cawing and sporting round the corner at +Landcross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along +to find their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and partridges +are clucking merrily in the long wet grass; every copse and hedgerow +rings with the voice of birds; but the lark, who has been singing since +midnight in the "blank height of the dark," suddenly hushes his carol and +drops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some +wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the +heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown +hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed, and fresh +wet sand. Glorious day, glorious place, "bridal of earth and sky," +decked well with bridal garments, bridal perfumes, bridal songs. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xii. + + + +Open Thou mine Eyes. June 1. + + +I have wandered in the mountains mist-bewildered, +And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted; +And priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding, +Gleam ready for my grasp. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act i. Scene ii. +1847. + + + +The Spirit of Romance. June 2. + + +Some say that the spirit of romance is dead. The spirit of romance will +never die as long as there is a man left to see that the world might and +can be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all things than it is now. The +spirit of romance will never die as long as a man has faith in God to +believe that the world will actually be better and fairer than it is now, +as long as men have faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all +romances, in the wonder of all wonders, in that of which all poets' +dreams have been but childish hints and dim forefeelings--even + + "That one divine far-off event + Towards which the whole creation moves, + +that wonder which our Lord Himself has bade us pray for as for our daily +bread, and say, "Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as +it is done in heaven." + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865. + + + +The Everlasting Music. June 3. + + +All melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of birds, the +whisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of those +cunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is made in +the image of Christ, the Word of God, who creates all things; all music +upon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type of +the everlasting music which is in heaven, which was before all worlds and +shall be after them. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. + + + +Gifts are Duties. June 4. + + +Exceeding gifts from God are not blessings, they are duties, and very +solemn and heavy duties. They do not always increase a man's happiness; +they always increase his responsibility, the awful account which he must +render at last of the talents committed to his charge. They increase, +too, his danger. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + + + +Summer Days. June 5. + + +Now let the young be glad, +Fair girl and gallant lad, +And sun themselves to-day +By lawn and garden gay; +'Tis play befits the noon +Of rosy-girdled June; +. . . . . +The world before them, and above +The light of Universal Love. + +_Installation Ode_, _Cambridge_. 1862. + + + +"Sufficient for the Day." June 6. + + +Let us not meddle with the future, and matters which are too high for us, +but refrain our souls, and keep them low like little children, content +with the day's food, and the day's schooling, and the day's play-hours, +sure that the Divine Master knows that all is right, and how to train us, +and whither to lead us; though we know not and need not know, save this, +that the path by which He is leading each of us, if we will but obey and +follow step by step, leads up to everlasting life. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +Secret of Thrift. June 7. + + +The secret of thrift is knowledge. The more you know the more you can +save yourself and that which belongs to you, and can do more work with +less effort. Knowledge of domestic economy saves income; knowledge of +sanitary laws saves health and life: knowledge of the laws of the +intellect saves wear and tear of brain, and knowledge of the laws of the +spirit--what does it not save? + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Out-door Worship. June 8. + + +In the forest, every branch and leaf, with the thousand living things +which cluster on them, all worship, worship, worship with us! Let us go +up in the evenings and pray there, with nothing but God's cloud temple +between us and His heaven! And His choir of small birds and night +crickets and booming beetles, and all happy things who praise Him all +night long! And in the still summer noon, too, with the lazy-paced +clouds above, and the distant sheep-bell, and the bee humming in the beds +of thyme, and one bird making the hollies ring a moment, and then all +still--hushed--awe-bound, as the great thunder-clouds slide up from the +far south! Then, then, to praise God! Ay, even when the heaven is black +with wind, the thunder crackling over our heads, then to join in the paean +of the storm-spirits to Him whose pageant of power passes over the earth +and harms us not in its mercy! + +_Letters and Memories_. 1844. + + + +God's Countenance. June 9. + + +Study nature as the countenance of God! Try to extract every line of +beauty, every association, every moral reflection, every inexpressible +feeling from it. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Certain and Uncertain. June 10. + + +"Life is uncertain," folks say. Life is certain, say I, because God is +educating us thereby. But this process of education is so far above our +sight that it looks often uncertain and utterly lawless; wherefore fools +conceive (as does M. Comte) that there is no Living God, because they +cannot condense His formulas into their small smelling-bottles. + +O glorious thought! that we are under a Father's education, and that _He_ +has promised to develop us, and to make us go on from strength to +strength. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1868. + + + +Sensuality. June 11. + + +What is sensuality? Not the enjoyment of holy glorious matter, but +blindness to its meaning. + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +The Journey's End. June 12. + + +Let us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our journey's end as +soon as possible--then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of the +collar. . . . I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, +very thankful as the end draws near. . . . Long life is the last thing +that I desire. It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more and +more the painful consciousness of the difference between what _ought_ to +be done and what _can_ be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets +the wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things we +cannot do for ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man can +have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last, +to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, and catch the +lamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his hand +before it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even +feet. + +_Speech at Lotus Club_, _New York_. 1874. + + + +Punishment Inevitable. June 13. + + +It is a fact that God does punish here, in this life. He does not, as +false preachers say, give over this life to impunity and this world to +the devil, and only resume the reigns of moral government and the right +of retribution when men die and go into the next world. Here in this +life He punishes sin. Slowly but surely God punishes. If any of you +doubt my words you have only to commit sin and then see whether your sin +will find you out. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +The Problem Solved. June l4. + + +After all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it solves +itself so very soon at best--by death. Do what is right the best way you +can, and wait to the end to _know_. + +_MS. Letter_. + +But remember that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter our +character--though it may alter our circumstances, it cannot alter +ourselves. + +_Discipline and other Sermons_. + + + +The Father's Education. June 15. + + +Sin, [Greek text], is the missing of a mark, the falling short of an +ideal; . . . and that each miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself the +penalty, is to me the best of news and gives me hope for myself and every +human being past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them all +as children under a paternal education, who are being taught to become +aware of, and use their own powers in God's house, the universe, and for +God's work in it; and, in proportion as they do that, they attain +salvation, +_Letters and Memories_. 1852. + + + +Parent and Child. June 16. + + +Superstition is the child of fear, and fear is the child of ignorance. + +_Lectures on Science and Superstition_. +1866. + + + +A Charm of Birds. June 17. + + +Listen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland on a bright +forenoon in early summer. As you try to disentangle the medley of +sounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud, +harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch, and the metallic +clinking of two or three sorts of titmice. But above the tree-tops, +rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low. Above +the pastures outside the skylark sings--as he alone can sing; and close +by from the hollies rings out the blackbird's tenor--rollicking, +audacious, humorous, all but articulate. From the tree above him rises +the treble of the thrush, pure as the song of angels; more pure, perhaps, +in tone, though neither so varied nor so rich as the song of the +nightingale. And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself; +now croaking like a frog, now talking aside to his wife, and now bursting +out into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man find sorrow, +he himself surely finds none. . . . In Nature there is nothing +melancholy. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1866. + + + +Notes of Character. June 18. + + +Without softness, without repose, and therefore without dignity. + +_MS._ + + + +Our Blessed Dead. June 19. + + +Why should not those who are gone be actually nearer us, not farther from +us, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be influencing and +guiding us in a hundred ways of which we, in our prison-house of +mortality, cannot dream? Yes! Do not be afraid to believe that he whom +you have lost is near you, and you near him, and both of you near God, +who died on the cross for you. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1871. + + + +Silent Influence. June 20. + + +Violence is not strength, noisiness is not earnestness. Noise is a sign +of want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness. + +By quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall win. "Neither +strive nor cry nor let your voice be heard in the streets," was good +advice of old, and is still. I have seen many a movement succeed by it. +I have seen many a movement tried by the other method of striving and +crying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never seen one +succeed thereby, and never shall. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1870. + + + +Chivalry. June 21. + + +Some say that the age of chivalry is past. The age of chivalry is never +past as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or +woman left to say, "I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the +attempt." The age of chivalry is never past as long as men have faith +enough in God to say, "God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not +me, surely He will help those that come after me. For His eternal will +is to overcome evil with good." + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865. + + + +Nature and Art. June 22. + + +When once you have learnt the beauty of little mossy banks, and tiny +leaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the glories of Claude, +or Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold themselves to you! You must know +Nature or you cannot know Art. And when you do know Nature you will only +prize Art for being like Nature. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Simple and Sincere. June 23. + + +There are those, and, thanks to Almighty God, they are to be numbered by +tens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves with questionings; +simple, genial hearts, who try to do what good they can in the world, and +meddle not with matters too high for them; people whose religion is not +abstruse but deep, not noisy but intense, not aggressive but laboriously +useful; people who have the same habit of mind as the early Christians +seem to have worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulae, +when the Apostles' Creed was symbol enough for the Church, and men were +orthodox in heart rather than exact in head. + +For such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they love, and +serves Him whom they serve. Personal affection and loyalty to the same +unseen Being is to them a communion of saints both real and actual, in +the genial warmth of which all minor differences of opinion vanish. . . . + +_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854. + + + +God's Words. June 24. + + +Do I mean, then, that this or any text has nothing to do with us? God +forbid! I believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, and +with every human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and +inexhaustible. + +_MS. Letter_. + + + +Taught by Failure. June 25. + + +So I am content to have failed. I have learned in the experiment +priceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the city of God, +which is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, and +actualising itself more and more in every succeeding age. I only know +that I know nothing, but with a hope that Christ, who is the Son of Man, +will tell me piecemeal, if I be patient and watchful, what I am and what +man is. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1857. + + + +Presentiments. June 26. + + +"I cannot deny," said Claude, "that such things as presentiments may be +possible. However miraculous they may seem, are they so very much more +so than the daily fact of memory? I can as little guess why we remember +the past, as why we may not at times be able to foresee the future." . . +. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii. + +A thing need not be unreasonable--that is, contrary to reason--because it +is above and beyond reason, or, at least, our human reason, which at best +(as St. Paul says) sees as in a glass darkly. + +_MS. Letter_. 1856. + + + +Common Duties. June 27. + + +But after all, what is speculation to practice? What does God require of +us, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him? The +longer I live this seems to me more important, and all other questions +less so--if we can but live the simple right life-- + +Do the work that's nearest, +Though it's dull at whiles; +Helping, when we meet them, +Lame dogs over stiles. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1857. + + + +Lost and Found. June 28. + + +"My welfare? It is gone!" + +"So much the better. I never found mine till I lost it." + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxvii. 1852. + + + +How to bear Sorrow. June 29. + + +I believe that the wisest plan is sometimes not to try to bear sorrow--as +long as one is not crippled for one's everyday duties--but to give way to +it utterly and freely. Perhaps sorrow is sent that we _may_ give way to +it, and in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some medicine in it +itself, which we should not find if we began doctoring ourselves, or +letting others doctor us. If we say simply, "I am wretched--I ought to +be wretched;" then we shall perhaps hear a voice, "Who made thee wretched +but God? Then what can He mean but thy good?" And if the heart answers +impatiently, "My good? I don't want it, I want my love;" perhaps the +voice may answer, "Then thou shalt have both in time." + +_Letters and Memories_. 1871. + + + +A certain Hope. June 30. + + +Let us look forward with quiet certainty of hope, day and night; +believing, though we can see but little day, that all this tangled web +will resolve itself into golden threads of twined, harmonious life, +guiding both us, and those we love, together, through this life to that +resurrection of the flesh, when we shall at last know the reality and the +fulness of life and love. Even so come, Lord Jesus! + +_Letters and Memories_. 1844. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +Whit Sunday. + + +Think of the Holy Spirit as a Person having a will of His own, who +breatheth whither He listeth, and cannot be confined to any feelings or +rules of yours or of any man's, but may meet you in the Sacraments or out +of the Sacraments, even as He will, and has methods of comforting and +educating you of which you will never dream; One whose will is the same +as the will of the Father and of the Son, even a good will. + +_Discipline Sermons_. + + +Trinity Sunday. + + +Some things I see clearly and hold with desperate clutch. A Father in +heaven for all, a Son of God incarnate for all, and a Spirit of the +Father _and_ the Son--who works to will and to do of His own good +pleasure in every human being in whom there is one spark of active good, +the least desire to do right or to be of use--the Fountain of all good on +earth. + +_Letters and Memories_. + + +JUNE 11. +St. Barnabas, Apostle and Martyr. + + +. . . Which is Love? +To do God's will, or merely suffer it? +. . . . . +No! I must headlong into seas of toil, +Leap far from self, and spend my soul on others. +For contemplation falls upon the spirit, +Like the chill silence of an autumn sun: +While action, like the roaring south-west wind, +Sweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts +Quickening the wombed earth. + +_Saint's Tragedy_. + + +JUNE 21. +St. John the Baptist. + + +How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters have +exercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions. The best +which I can recollect is Guido's--of the magnificent lad sitting on the +rock, half clad in his camel's-hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up to +denounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong, +utterly wrong to him--his beautiful mouth open to preach he hardly knows +what, save that he has a message from God, of which he is half conscious +as yet--that he is a forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller of something and +some one who is to come, and which is very near at hand. The wild rocks +are round him, the clear sky over him, and nothing more, . . . and he, +the noble and the priest, has thrown off--not in discontent and +desperation (for he was neither democrat nor vulgar demagogue), but in +hope and awe--all his family privileges, all that seems to make life +worth having; and there aloft and in the mountains, alone with God and +Nature, feeding on locusts and wild honey and clothed in skins, he, like +Elijah of old, preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness, party +spirit, and superstition--preaches what?--The most common--Morality. Ah, +wise politician! ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tells +others to do the duty which lies nearest to them! . . . who in the hour +of his country's deepest degradation had divine courage to say, our +deliverance lies, not in rebellion but in _doing right_. + +_St. John the Baptist_, +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + +JUNE 29. +St. Peter, Apostle and Martyr. + + +God is revealed in the Crucified; +The Crucified must be revealed in me:-- +I must put on His righteousness; show forth +His sorrow's glory; hunger, weep with Him; +Taste His keen stripes, and let this aching flesh +Sink through His fiery baptism into death. + +_Saint's Tragedy_. + +St. Peter, as he is drawn in the Gospels and the Acts, is a grand and +colossal human figure, every line and feature of which is full of meaning +and full of beauty to us. + +_Sermons_, _Discipline_. + + + + +July. + + +It was a day of God. The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed and +roofed with sapphire: blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead. There +she lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as though +her two great sisters of the sea and air had washed her weary limbs with +holy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's sin and toil, and +cooled her hot worn forehead with their pure incense-breath, and folded +her within their azure robes, and brooded over her with smiles of pitying +love, till she smiled back in answer, and took heart and hope for next +week's weary work. + +Heart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it +preached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a +wanderer like Ulysses of old: but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, fate +defiant. He was more of a heathen than Ulysses--for he knew not what +Ulysses knew, that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still +less that what he called the malicious sport of fortune was, in truth, +the earnest education of a Father. . . . "Brave old world she is after +all," he said; "and right well made; and looks right well to-day in her +go-to-meeting clothes, and plenty of room and chance for a brave man to +earn his bread, if he will but go right on about his business, as the +birds and the flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what people +think of him." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xiv. + + + +Nature and Grace. July 1. + + +God is the God of Nature as well as the God of Grace. For ever He looks +down on all things which He has made; and behold they are very good. And +therefore we dare to offer to Him in our churches the most perfect works +of naturalistic art, and shape them into copies of whatever beauty He has +shown us in man or woman, in cave or mountain-peak, in tree or flower, +even in bird or butterfly. But Himself? Who can see Him except the +humble and the contrite heart, to whom He reveals Himself as a Spirit to +be worshipped in spirit and in truth, and not in bread nor wood, nor +stone nor gold, nor quintessential diamond? + +_Lecture on Grots and Groves_. 1871. + + + +Love and Book-Learning. July 2. + + +I see more and more that the knowledge of one human being, such as love +alone can give, and the apprehension of our own private duties and +relations, is worth more than all the book-learning in the world. + +_MS._ + + + +The Ancient Creeds. July 3. + + +Blessed and delightful it is when we find that even in these new ages the +Creeds, which so many fancy to be at their last gasp, are still the +finest and highest succour, not merely of the peasant and the outcast, +but of the subtle artist and the daring speculator. Blessed it is to +find the most cunning poet of our day able to combine the rhythm and +melody of modern times with the old truths which gave heart to the +martyrs at the stake, to see in the science and the history of the +nineteenth century new and living fulfilments of the words which we +learnt at our mother's knee! + +_Miscellanies_. 1850. + + + +A Master-Truth. July 4. + + +Every creature of God is good, if it be sanctified with prayer and +thanksgiving! This to me is the master-truth of Christianity, the +forgetfulness of which is at the root of almost all error. It seems to +me that it was to redeem man and the earth that Christ was made man and +used the earth!--that Christianity has never yet been pure, because it +never yet, since St. Paul's time, has stood on _this_ as the fundamental +truth, and that it has been pure or impure, just in proportion as it has +_practically_ and _really_ acknowledged this truth. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +English Women. July 5. + + +Let those who will sneer at the women of England. We who have to do the +work and fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derive +from their virtue, their counsel, their tenderness--and, but too often, +from their compassion and their forgiveness. There is, I doubt not, +still left in England many a man with chivalry and patriotism enough to +challenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as a +cultivated British woman. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Life retouched again. July 6. + + +Even in the saddest woman's soul there linger snatches of old music, +odours of flowers long dead and turned to dust,--pleasant ghosts, which +still keep her mind attuned to that which may be in others, though in her +never more; till she can hear her own wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tones +of every girl who loves, and see her own wedding-torch re-lighted in the +eyes of every bride. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xxix. + + + +Mystery of Life. July 7. + + +"All things begin in some wonder, and in some wonder end," said St. +Augustine, wisest in his day of mortal men. It is a strange thing, and a +mystery, how we ever got into this world; a stranger thing still to me +how we shall ever get out of this world again. Yet they are common +things enough--birth and death. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. + + + +Beauty of Life. July 8. + + +The Greeks were, as far as we know, the most beautiful race which the +world ever saw. Every educated man knows that they were the cleverest of +all nations, and, next to his Bible, thanks God for Greek literature. Now +the Greeks had made physical, as well as intellectual education a science +as well as a study. Their women practised graceful, and in some cases +even athletic exercises. They developed, by a free and healthy life, +those figures which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of human +beauty. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + +Study the human figure, both as intrinsically beautiful and as expressing +mind. It only expresses the broad natural childish emotions, which are +just what we want to return to from our over subtlety. Study "natural +language"--I mean the language of attitude. It is an inexhaustible +source of knowledge and delight, and enables one human being to +understand another so perfectly. Therefore learn to draw and paint +figures. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +True Civilisation. July 9. + + +Civilisation with me shall mean--not more wealth, more finery, more self- +indulgence, even more aesthetic and artistic luxury--but more virtue, +more knowledge, more self-control, even though I earn scanty bread by +heavy toil. + +_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_. 1874. + + + +The Church. July 10. + + +"The Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine," said Captain +Willis, "having served under her Majesty and her Majesty's forefathers, +and learned to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you're +taking it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath Day?" + +"How then?" + +"Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the Church for man." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. ii. 1856. + + + +What does God ask? July 11. + + +What is this strange thing, without which even the true knowledge of +doctrine is of no use? without which either a man or a nation is poor, +and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, notwithstanding all his +religion? Isaiah will tell, "Wash you, make you clean, saith the Lord. +Do justice to the fatherless, relieve the widow." Church-building and +church-going are well, but they are not repentance. Churches are not +souls. I ask for your hearts, and you give me fine stones and fine +words. I want souls, I want _your_ souls. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +Work or Want. July 12. + + +Remember that we are in a world where it is not safe to sit under the +tree and let the ripe fruit drop into your mouth; where the "competition +of species" works with ruthless energy among all ranks of being, from +kings upon their thrones to the weed upon the waste; where "he that is +not hammer is sure to be anvil;" and "he who will not work neither shall +he eat." + +_Ancien Regime_. 1867. + + + +True Insight. July 13. + + +It is easy to see the spiritual beauty of Raffaelle's Madonnas, but it +requires a deeper and more practised, all-embracing, loving, simple +spirituality, to see the same beauty in the face of a worn-out, painful, +peasant woman haggling about the price of cottons. + +Form and colour are but the vehicle for the spirit-meaning. In the +"spiritual body" I fancy they will both be united _with_ the meaning--all +and every part and property of man and woman instinct with spirit! + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Retribution inevitable. July 14. + + +Know this--that as surely as God sometimes punishes wholesale, so surely +is He always punishing in detail. By that infinite concatenation of +moral causes and effects, which makes the whole world one mass of special +Providences, every sin of ours will punish itself, and probably punish +itself in kind. Are we selfish? We shall call out selfishness in +others. Do we neglect our duty? Then others will neglect their duty to +us. Do we indulge our passions? Then others who depend on us will +indulge theirs, to our detriment and misery. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + + +Antinomies. July 15. + + +Spiritual truths present themselves to us in "antinomies," apparently +contradictory pairs, pairs of poles, which, however, do not really +contradict, or even limit, each other, but are only correlatives, the +existence of the one making the existence of the other necessary, +explaining each other, and giving each other a real standing ground and +equilibrium. Such an antinomic pair are, "He that loveth not knoweth not +God," and "If a man hateth not his father and mother he cannot be My +disciple." + +_Letters and Memories_. 1848. + + + +False Refinement. July 16. + + +God's Word, while it _alone_ sanctifies rank and birth, says to all +_equally_, "Ye are brethren, _work_ for each other." Let us then be +above rank, and look at men as men, and women as women, and all as God's +children. There is a "refinement" which is the invention of that sensual +mind, which looks only at the outward and visible sign. + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Music's Meaning. July 17. + + +Some quick music is inexpressibly mournful. It seems just like one's own +feelings--exultation and action, with the remembrance of past sorrow +wailing up, yet without bitterness, tender in its shrillness, through the +mingled tide of present joy; and the notes seem thoughts--thoughts pure +of words; and a spirit seems to call to me in them and cry, "Hast thou +not felt all this?" And I start when I find myself answering +unconsciously, "Yes, yes, I know it all! Surely we are a part of all we +see and hear!" And then, the harmony thickens, and all distinct sound is +pressed together and absorbed in a confused paroxysm of delight, where +still the female treble and the male bass are distinct for a moment, and +then one again--absorbed into each other's being--sweetened and +strengthened by each other's melody. . . . + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Vagueness of Mind. July 18. + + +By allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost persuaded by every +one you love, when you are capable by one decided act of _leading_ them, +you may be treading blindfold a terrible path to your own misery. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +A Faith for Daily Life. July 19. + + +That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this +is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God's +greatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from those +strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as +from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws. + +_Town and Country Sermons_. + + + +Charms of Monotony. July 20. + + +I delight in that same monotony. It saves curiosity, anxiety, +excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions. It gives a man +the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has roots +deep and wide struck down into all he sees, and that only the Being who +can do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up. It is pleasant to look +down on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that is +beneath, and all beneath know me. It is pleasant to see the same trees +year after year, the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs, +the same banks covered by the same flowers. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1857. + + + +How to attain. July 21. + + +If our plans are not for time but for eternity, our knowledge, and +therefore our love to God, to each other, to everything, will progress +for ever. And the attainment of this heavenly wisdom requires neither +ecstacy nor revelation, but prayer and watchfulness, and observation, and +deep and solemn thought. + +Two great rules for its attainment are simple enough--Never forget what +and where you are, and grieve not the Holy Spirit, for "If a man will do +God's will he shall know of the doctrine." + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +The Divine Discontent. July 22. + + +I should like to make every one I meet discontented with themselves; I +should like to awaken in them, about their physical, their intellectual, +their moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent first +of upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil +that aspiration even in part. For to be discontented with the divine +discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and +first upgrowth of all virtue. + +_Lecture on Science of Health_. 1872. + + + +Dra et labora. July 23. + + +"Working is praying," said one of the holiest of men. And he spoke +truth; if a man will but do his work from a sense of duty, which is for +the sake of God. + +_Sermons_. + + + +Distrust and Anarchy. July 24. + + +Over the greater part of the so-called civilised world is spreading a +deep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man towards his neighbour, and +a practical unbelief in every man whom you do see, atones for itself by a +theoretic belief in an ideal human nature which you do not see. Such a +temper of mind, unless it be checked by that which alone can check it, +namely, the grace of God, must tend towards sheer anarchy. There is a +deeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political anarchy,--which the +abuse of the critical spirit leads to,--the anarchy of society and of the +family, the anarchy of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor human +beings as orphans in the wilderness to cry in vain, "What can I know? +Whom can I love?" + +_The Critical Spirit_. 1871. + + + +A Future Life of Action. July 25. + + +Why need we suppose that heaven is to be one vast lazy retrospect? Why +is not eternity to have action and change, yet both like God, compatible +with rest and immutability? This earth is but one minor planet of a +minor system. Are there no more worlds? Will there not be incident and +action springing from these when the fate of this world is decided? Has +the evil one touched this alone? Is it not self-conceit which makes us +think the redemption of this earth the one event of eternity? + +_Letters_. 1842. + + + +An Ideal Aristocracy. July 26. + + +We may conceive an Utopia governed by an aristocracy that should be +really democratic, which should use, under developed forms, that method +which made the mediaeval priesthood the one great democratic institution +of old Christendom; bringing to the surface and utilising the talents and +virtues of all classes, even the lowest. + +_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867. + + + +Our Weapons. July 27. + + +God, who has been very good to us, will be more good, if _we allow Him_! +Worldly-minded people think they can manage so much better than God. We +must _trust_. Our weapons must be prayer and faith, and our only +standard the Bible. As soon as we leave these weapons and take to +"knowledge of the world," and other people's clumsy prejudices as our +guides, we must inevitably be beaten by the World, which knows how to use +its own arms better than we do. What else is meant by becoming as a +little child? + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Uneducated Women. July 28. + + +Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the women +are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels +or translations of them--in every one of those countries the women, even +to the highest, are the slaves of superstition, and the puppets of +priests. In proportion as women are highly educated, family life and +family secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to +no confessor or director, but to her own husband or her own family. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1860. + + + +Pardon and Cure. July 29. + + +After the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin. And that cure, +like most cures, is a long and a painful process. + +But there is our comfort, there is our hope--Christ the great Healer, the +great Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains of +our old sins, the consequences of our own follies. Not, indeed, at once, +or by miracle, but by slow education in new and nobler motives, in purer +and more unselfish habits. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1861. + + + +Eternal Law. July 30. + + +The eternal laws of God's providence are still at work, though we may +choose to forget them, and the Judge who administers them is the same +yesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, the +Everlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded. +Whosoever shall fall on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shall +indeed be broken, but of him it is written, "A broken and a contrite +heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." + +_Discipline and other Sermons_. 1866. + + + +God's Mercy or Man's? July 31. + + +"He fought till he could fight no more, and then died like a hero, with +all his wounds in front; and may God have mercy on his soul." + +"That last was a Popish prayer, Master Frank," said old Mr. Carey. + +"Most worshipful sir, you surely would not wish God _not_ to have mercy +on his soul?" + +"No--Eh? Of course not, for that's all settled by now, for he is dead, +poor fellow!" + +"And you can't help being a little fond of him still?" + +"Eh? Why, I should be a brute if I were not. Fond of him? why, I would +sooner have given my forefinger than that he should have gone to the +dogs." + +"Then, my dear sir, if _you_ feel for him still, in spite of all his +faults, how do you know that God may not feel for him in spite of all his +faults? For my part," said Frank, in his fanciful way, "without +believing in that Popish purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato that +such heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness here, +are hereafter, by strait discipline, brought to a better mind." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. v. 1854. + + + +The Chrysalis State. + + +You ask, "What is the Good?" I suppose God Himself is the Good; and it +is this, in addition to a thousand things, which makes me feel the +absolute certainty of a resurrection, and a hope that this, our present +life, instead of being an ultimate one, which is to decide our fate for +ever, is merely some sort of chrysalis state in which man's faculties are +so narrow and cramped, his chances (I speak of the millions, not of +units) of knowing the Good so few, that he may have chances hereafter, +perhaps continually fresh ones, to all eternity. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1852. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +JULY 25. +St. James, Apostle and Martyr. + + +And they will know his worth +Years hence . . . +And crown him martyr; and his name will ring +Through all the shores of earth, and all the stars +Whose eyes are sparkling through their tears to see +His triumph, Preacher and Martyr. . . +. . . . . +. . . It is over; and the woe that's dead, +Rises next hour a glorious angel. + +_Santa Maura_. + + + + +August. + + +"I cannot tell what you say, green leaves, + I cannot tell what you say; +But I know that there is a spirit in you, + And a word in you this day. + +"I cannot tell what ye say, rosy rocks, + I cannot tell what ye say; +But I know that there is a spirit in you, + And a word in you this day. + +"I cannot tell what ye say, brown streams, + I cannot tell what ye say; +But I know, in you too, a spirit doth live, + And a word in you this day." + +"Oh! rose is the colour of love and youth, +And green is the colour of faith and truth, + And brown of the fruitful clay. +The earth is fruitful and faithful and young, +And her bridal morn shall rise erelong, +And you shall know what the rocks and streams + And the laughing green woods say." + +_Dartside_, _August_ 1849. + + + +Sight and Insight. August 1. + + +Do the work that's nearest, +Though it's dull at whiles, +Helping, when you meet them, +Lame dogs over stiles; +See in every hedgerow +Marks of angels' feet, +Epics in each pebble +Underneath our feet. + +_The Invitation_. 1857. + + + +Genius and Character. August 2. + + +I have no respect for genius (I do not even acknowledge its existence) +where there is no strength and steadiness of character. If any one +pretends to be more than a man he must begin by proving himself a man at +all. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xv. + + + +Nature's Student. August 3. + + +The perfect naturalist must be of a reverent turn of mind--giving Nature +credit for an inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will keep him +his life long, always reverent, yet never superstitious; wondering at the +commonest, but not surprised by the most strange; free from the idols of +sense and sensuous loveliness; able to see grandeur in the minutest +objects, beauty in the most ungainly: estimating each thing not carnally, +as the vulgar do, by its size, . . . but spiritually, by the amount of +Divine thought revealed to him therein. . . . + +_Glaucus_. 1855. + + + +The Masses. August 4. + + +Though permitted evils should not avenge themselves by any political +retribution, yet avenge themselves, if unredressed, they surely will. +They affect masses too large, interests too serious, not to make +themselves bitterly felt some day. . . . We may choose to look on the +masses in the gross as objects for statistics--and of course, where +possible, for profits. There is One above who knows every thirst, and +ache, and sorrow, and temptation of each slattern, and gin-drinker, and +street-boy. The day will come when He will require an account of these +neglects of ours--not in the gross. + +_Miscellanies_. 1851. + +We sit in a cloud, and sing like pictured angels, +And say the world runs smooth--while right below +Welters the black, fermenting heap of life +On which our State is built. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v. + + + +Love and Knowledge. August 5. + + +He who has never loved, what does he know? + +_MS._ + + + +Siccum Lumen. August 6. + + +How shall I get true knowledge? Knowledge which will be really useful, +really worth knowing. Knowledge which I shall know accurately and +practically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and +others? Knowledge too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or +coloured by my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure and calm and +sound; Siccum Lumen, "Dry Light," as the greatest of philosophers called +it of old. + +To all such who long for light, that by the light they may live, God +answers through His only begotten Son: "Ask and ye shall receive, seek +and ye shall find." + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1873. + + + +This World. August 7. + + +What should the external world be to those who truly love, but the garden +in which they are placed, not so much for sustenance or enjoyment of +themselves and each other, as to dress it and to keep it--_it_ to be +their subject-matter, not they its tools! In this spirit let us pray +"Thy kingdom come." + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +The Life of the Spirit. August 8. + + +The old fairy superstition, the old legends and ballads, the old +chronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities and +mysteries--these fed Shakespeare's youth. Why should they not feed our +children's? That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellous +and fantastic--has that a merely evil root? No, surely! it is a most +pure part of their spiritual nature; a part of "the heaven which lies +about us in our infancy;" angel-wings with which the free child leaps the +prison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life. It +is a God-appointed means for keeping alive what noble Wordsworth calls +those + + ". . . . obstinate questionings, + . . . . . . + Blank misgivings of a creature + Moving about in worlds not realised." + +_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_. +1848. + + + +A Quiet Depth. August 9. + + +The deepest affections are those of which we are least conscious--that +is, which produce least _startling_ emotion, and most easy and +involuntary practice. + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Acceptable Sacrifices. August 10. + + +Every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, ay, even to +a dumb animal; every time we conquer our worldliness, love of pleasure, +ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our conscience +tells us to be our duty,--we are indeed worshipping God the Father in +spirit and in truth, and offering Him a sacrifice which He will surely +accept for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose Spirit all good deeds +and thoughts are inspired. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. + + + +Chivalry. August 11. + + +Chivalry; an idea which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that mankind +should ever forget till it has become the possession--as it is the God- +given right--of the poorest slave that ever trudged on foot; and every +collier lad shall have become + + "A very gentle, perfect knight." + +_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867. + + + +God waits for Man. August 12. + + +Patiently, nobly, magnanimously, God waits; waits for the man who is a +fool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart that has tried to +find pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything else +disappoints, and to come back to Him, the fountain of all wholesome +pleasure, the well-spring of all life, fit for a man to live. + +God condescends to wait for His creature; because what He wants is not +His creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, but +his heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave to +his master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has +still left him, when all beside has played him false. Let him come back +thus. + +_Discipline and other Sermons_. + + + +Thrift. August 13. + + +The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as +possible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and +obstruction, the least wear and tear. And the secret of thrift is +knowledge. In proportion as you know the laws and nature of a subject, +you will be able to work at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, +instead of wasting your money or your energies in mistaken schemes, +irregular efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Revelations. August 14. + + +Only second-rate hearts and minds are melancholy. When we become like +little children, our very playfulness tells that we are _seeing deep_, +when we see that God is love in His _works_ as well as in Himself, and we +look at Nature as a baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcely +wish to solve. And therefore deep things, which the intellect in vain +struggles after, will reveal themselves to us. + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +Christ comes in many ways. August 15. + + +Often Christ comes to us in ways in which the world would never recognise +Him--in which perhaps neither you nor I shall recognise _Him_; but it +will be enough, I hope, if we but hear His message, and obey His gracious +inspiration, let Him speak through whatever means He will. He may come +to us by some crisis in our life, either for sorrow or for bliss. He may +come to us by a great failure; by a great disappointment--to teach the +wilful and ambitious soul that not in _that_ direction lies the path of +peace; or He may come in some unexpected happiness to teach that same +soul that He is able and willing to give abundantly beyond all that we +can ask or think. + +_MS. Sermon_. 1874. + + + +Lesson of the Cross. August 16. + + +On the Cross God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow, and made +them holy; as holy as health and strength and happiness are. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +The Ideal Unity. August 17. + + +"Oh, make us one." All the world-generations have but one voice! "How +can we become One? at harmony with God and God's universe! Tell us this, +and the dreary, dark mystery of life, the bright, sparkling mystery of +life, the cloud-chequered, sun-and-shower mystery of life, is solved! for +we shall have found one home and one brotherhood, and happy faces will +greet us wherever we move, and we shall see God! see Him everywhere, and +be ready to wait for the Renewal, for the Kingdom of Christ perfected! We +came from Eden, all of us: show us how we may return, hand in hand, +husband and wife, parent and child, gathered together from the past and +the future, from one creed and another, and take our journey into a far +country, which is yet this earth--a world-migration to the heavenly +Canaan, through the Red Sea of Death, back again to the land which was +given to our forefathers, and is ours even now, could we but find it!" + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +Body and Soul. August 18. + + +The mystics considered the soul, _i.e._ the intellect, as the "_moi_" and +the body as the "_non moi_;" and this idea that the body is not _self_, +is the fundamental principle of mysticism and asceticism, and +diametrically opposed to the whole doctrines and practice of Scripture. +Else why is there a resurrection of the body? and why does the Eucharist +"preserve our body and soul to everlasting life?" + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Childlikeness. August 19. + + +If you wish to be "a little child," study what a little child could +understand--Nature; and do what a little child could do--love. Feed on +Nature. It will digest itself. It did so when you were a little child +the first time. + +Keep a common-place book, and put into it not only facts and thoughts, +but observations on form, and colour, and nature, and little sketches, +even to the form of beautiful _leaves_. They will all have their charm . +. . all do their work in consolidating your ideas. Put everything into +it. . . . + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Inspiration. August 20. + + +Every good deed comes from God. His is the idea, His the inspiration, +and His its fulfilment in time; and therefore no good deed but lives and +grows with the everlasting life of God Himself. + +_MS._ + + + +Lifting of the Veil. August 21. + + +I seldom pass those hapless loungers who haunt every watering-place +without thinking sadly how much more earnest, happier, and better men and +women they might be if the veil were but lifted from their eyes, and they +could learn to behold that glory of God which is all around them like an +atmosphere, while they, unconscious of what and where they are, wrapt up +each in his little selfish world of vanity and interest, gaze lazily +around them at earth, sea, and sky-- + + And have no speculation in those eyes + Which they do glare withal + +_Glaucus_. 1855. + + + +The Cross--its meaning. August 22. + + +To take up the cross means, in the minds of most persons, to suffer +patiently under affliction. It is a true and sound meaning, but it means +more. Why did Christ take up the cross? Not for affliction's sake, or +for the cross's sake, as if suffering were a good thing in itself. No. +But that He might thereby _do good_. That the world through Him might be +saved. That He might do good at whatever cost or pain to Himself. + +_Sermons_. + + + +The Crucifix. August 23. + + +If I had an image in my room it should be one of Christ _glorified_, +sitting at the right hand of God. The crucifix has been THE image, +because the idea of torture and misery has been THE idea in the +melancholy and the ferocious (for the two ultimately go together),. . . +and thus ascetics became inquisitors. . . . + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Love to God proved. August 24. + + +Our love to God does not depend upon the emotions of the moment. If you +fancy you do not love Him enough, above all when Satan tempts you to look +inward, go immediately and minister to others; visit the sick, perform +some act of self-sacrifice or thanksgiving. Never mind how _dull_ you +may feel while doing it; the fact of your feeling excited proves nothing; +the fact of your _doing_ it proves that your will, your spiritual part, +is on God's side, however tired or careless the poor flesh may be. The +"flesh" must be brought into harmony with the spirit, not only by +physical but by intellectual mortification. + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Training of Beauty. August 25. + + +There is many a road into our hearts besides our ears and brains; many a +sight and sound and scent even, of which we have never _thought_ at all, +sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus +children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most +likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection +and nobleness of mind, even by the expression of the countenance. + +_True Words to Brave Men_. 1848. + + + +Ignorance of the Cynic. August 26. + + +Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men as the cynical, +misanthropic man, who walks in darkness because he hates his brother. Be +sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts +himself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with +their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes +allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in +heaven is merciful. + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1872. + + + +Penitential Prayer. August 27. + + +Faith in God it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of all +true penitence for evermore. Penitential prayers in all ages have too +often wanted faith in God, and therefore have been too often prayers to +avert punishment. This, this--the model of all true penitent prayers--is +that of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his +punishment, knowing that he deserves it, and far more besides. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +A Real Presence. August 28. + + +Believe the Holy Communion is the sign of Christ's perpetual presence; +that when you kneel to receive the bread and wine, Christ is as near +you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly as near you +as those who are kneeling by your side. + +And if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are Christ's, +with those whom we love. . . . Surely, like Christ, they may come and go +even now, though unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our restless +hearts and say, "Peace be unto you," and not in vain. For what they did +for us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they are +in heaven. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1862. + + + +A Living God. August 29. + + +Man would never have even dreamed of a Living God had not that Living God +been a reality, who did not leave the creature to find his Creator, but +stooped from heaven, at the very beginning of our race, to find His +creature. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +Thine, not mine. August 30. + + +Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead of +priding yourself upon it as if the good in it came from you, offer it up +to your Heavenly Father, from whom all good things come, and say, "Oh, +Lord! the good in this is Thine and not mine; the bad in it is mine and +not Thine. I thank Thee for having made me do right, for without Thy +help I should have done nothing but wrong. For mine is the laziness, and +the weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and Thine is the +kingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, for Thou doest all +things; and the glory, for Thou doest all things well, for ever and ever. +Amen." + +_Sermons_. + + + +The Unquenchable Fire. August 31. + + +A fire which cannot be quenched, a worm which cannot die, I see existing, +and consider them among the most blessed revelations of the gospel. I +fancy I see them burning and devouring everywhere in the spiritual world, +as their analogues do in the physical. I know that they have done so on +me, and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most +healthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know too +well that I often do the same ineffectually. But, in the comfort that +the worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmly +forward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of that +world whereof it is written, "He shall reign until He hath put all +enemies under His feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of +fire." + +* * * * * + +The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give +new light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and +the shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe, +the chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living +Foundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written +that _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the +fate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universe +be--what it must be some day--_very good_. + +* * * * * + +Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I +believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy +all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all +enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they +confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And +God shall be All in All. Those last are wide words. + +_Letters and Sermons_. 1856. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +AUGUST 24. +St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr. + + +Blessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for +theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is +no less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that +supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art, +all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes, +dim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + + + +September. + + +That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote-- + + "Nor ever had the breeze of passion + Stirred her heart's clear depths." + +The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that +when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats are +always brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in +them. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray with +some foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality or +the gray of morbid melancholy. But when they are free again! when they +hurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are +clear! Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours +into them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life +and health and food; and through their swift yet yielding +eddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate and +undefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, the +Spirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium of +another human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul is +stirred by circumstance into passion and motion and action strong and +swift. Only the streams which have undergone long and _severe struggles_ +from their very fountain-head have clear pools. + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Goodness. September 1. + + +Always say to yourself this one thing, "Good I will become, whatever it +cost me; and in God's goodness I trust to make me good, for I am sure He +wishes to see me good more than I do myself." And you will find that, +because you have confessed in that best and most honest of ways that God +is good, and have so given Him real glory, and real honour, and real +praise, He will save you from the sins which torment you, and you shall +never come, either in this world or the world to come, to that worst +misery, the being ashamed of yourself. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Be good to do Good. September 2. + + +What we wish to do for our fellow-creatures we must do first for +ourselves. We can give them nothing save what God has already given us. +We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can +make them wise. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867. + + + +The Undying I. September 3. + + +The youngest child, by faith in God his Father, may look upon all heaven +and earth and say, "Great and wonderful and awful as this earth and those +skies may be, I am more precious in the sight of God than sun and moon +and stars; for they are things, but I am a person, a spirit, an immortal +soul, made in the likeness of God, redeemed into the likeness of God. +This great earth was here thousands and thousands of years before I was +born, and it will be here perhaps millions of years after I am dead. But +it cannot harm _Me_, it cannot kill _Me_. When earth, and sun, and stars +have passed away I shall live for ever, for I am the immortal child of an +immortal Father, the child of the everlasting God." + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +Love and Time. September 4. + + +Love proves its spiritual origin by rising above time and space and +circumstance, wealth and age, and even temporary beauty, at the same time +that it alone can perfectly _use_ all those material adjuncts. Being +spiritual, it is Lord of matter, and can give and receive from it glory +and beauty when it will, and yet live without it. + +_MS._ 1843. + + + +Common Duties. September 5. + + +The only way to regenerate the world is to do the duty which lies nearest +us, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones for ourselves. If each +drop of rain _chose_ where it should fall, God's showers would not fall +as they do now, on the evil and the good alike. I know from the +experience of my own heart how galling this doctrine is--how, like +Naaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid us do +some great thing, but only to go wash in the nearest brook and be clean. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1854. + + + +Despair--Hope. September 6. + + +Does the age seem to you dark? Do you feel, as I do at times, the awful +sadness of that text, "The time shall come when you shall desire to see +one of the days of the Lord, and shall not see it"? Then remember that + + The night is never so long + But at last it ringeth for matin song. + +. . . Even now the dawn is gilding the highest souls, and _we_ are in the +night only because we crawl below. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1850. + + + +The Critical Spirit. September 7. + + +"Judge nothing before the time." This is a hard saying. Who can hear +it? There never was a time in which the critical spirit was more +thoroughly in the ascendant. Every man now is an independent critic. To +accept fully, or as it is now called, to follow blindly; to admire +heartily, or as it is now called, fanatically--these are considered signs +of weakness or credulity. To believe intensely; to act unhesitatingly; +to admire passionately; all this, as the latest slang phrases it, is "bad +form"; a proof that a man is not likely to win in the race of this world +the prize whereof is, the greatest possible enjoyment with the least +possible work. + +_The Critical Spirit_. 1871. + + + +Toil and Rest. September 8. + + +Remember always, toil is the condition of our being. Our sentence is to +labour from the cradle to the grave. But there are Sabbaths allowed for +the mind as well as the body, when the intellect is stilled, and the +emotions alone perform their gentle and involuntary functions. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Storm and Calm. September 9. + + +Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, the +storms came on heavier than ever, with terrible seas breaking short and +pyramid-wise, till, on the 9th of September, the tiny _Squirrel_ nearly +foundered, and yet recovered, and the General (Sir Humphrey Gilbert), +sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the _Hind_, "We +are as near heaven by sea as by land," reiterating the same speech well +be-seeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii. + + + +On the Heights. September 10. + + +It is good for a man to have holy and quiet thoughts, and at moments to +see into the very deepest meaning of God's word and God's earth, and to +have, as it were, heaven opened before his eyes; and it is good for a man +sometimes actually to _feel_ his heart overpowered with the glorious +majesty of God--to _feel_ it gushing out with love to his blessed +Saviour; but it is not good for him to stop there any more than for the +Apostles in the Mount of Transfiguration. + +_Village Sermons_. 1849. + + + +In the Valley. September 11. + + +The disciples had to come down from the Mount and do Christ's work, and +so have we. Believe me, one word of warning spoken to keep a little +child out of sin,--one crust of bread given to a beggar-man because he is +your brother, for whom Christ died,--one angry word checked on your lips +for the sake of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; any the smallest +endeavour to lessen the amount of evil which is in yourselves and those +around you,--is worth all the speculations, and raptures, and visions, +and frames, and feelings in the world; for these are the good fruits of +faith, whereby alone the tree shall be known whether it be good or evil. + +_Village Sermons_. 1849. + + + +Self-Conceit. September 12. + + +Self-conceit is the very daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying +out about _I_, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for all +devils, and the broad road which leads to death. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. i. + + + +Facing Fact. September 13. + + +It is good for a man to be brought once, at least, in his life, face to +face with _fact_, ultimate fact, however horrible it may be, and to have +to confess to himself shuddering, what things are possible on God's +earth, when man has forgotten that his only welfare is in living after +the likeness of God. + +_Miscellanies_. 1858. + + + +The Heroical Rest. September 14. + + +Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is to have +more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things must find his +account in being made ruler over many things. That is the true and +heroical rest which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As for +those who either in this world or in the world to come look for idleness, +and hope that God will feed them with pleasant things, as it were with a +spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though they call +themselves saints and elect. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. vii. 1855. + + + +Body and Soul. September 15. + + +Remember that St. Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascension +of our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of our +souls in this life, for without that, the resurrection of our bodies +would be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery +and ruin. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. + + + +Love in Absence. September 16. + + +Absence quickens love into consciousness. + +_MS._ + +The baby sings not on its mother's breast; +Nor nightingales who nestle side by side; +Nor I by thine: but let us only part, +Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still, +As having uttered all, must speak again. + +_Sonnet_. 1851. + + + +Special Providence. September 17. + + +If I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of +men by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great, I could +believe nothing. + +_Letters and Memories_. + + + +Love of Work. September 18. + + +"Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God's likeness clings to a man +longest and closest and best? No? Then I will tell you. It is the love +of employment. God in heaven must create Himself a universe to work on +and love. And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, cannot rest without +our _mundus peculiaris_ of some sort--our world subjective, as Doctor +Musophilus has it. But we can create too, and make our little sphere +look as large as a universe." + +_MS. Novel_. 1844. + + + +Fret not. September 19. + + +Fret not, neither be anxious. What God intends to do He will do. And +what we ask believing we shall receive. Never let us get into the common +trick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because we +have not faith to believe, putting in a "Thy will be done" at the end. +Let us make God's will our will, and _so_ say Thy will be done. + +_MS._ 1843. + +Peace! Why these fears? +Life is too short for mean anxieties: +Soul! thou must work, though blindfold. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene x. + + + +Battle before Victory. September 20. + + +Whenever you think of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, remember +always that the background of His triumph is a tomb. Remember that it is +the triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints +of the nails in His sacred hands and feet, and the wound of the spear in +His side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him, triumphant at last, +and yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of life. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. + + + +Night and Growth. September 21. + + +As in the world of Nature, so it is in the world of men. The night is +peopled not merely with phantoms and superstitions and spirits of evil, +but under its shadow all sciences, methods, social energies, are taking +rest, and growing, and feeding, unknown to themselves. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1850. + + + +Passion. September 22. + + +Self-sacrifice! What is love worth that does not show itself in action? +and more, which does not show itself in _passion_ in the true sense of +that word: namely, in suffering? in daring, in struggling, in grieving, +in agonising, and, if need be, in dying for the object of its love? Every +mother will give but one answer to that question. + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1870. + + + +Worth of Beauty. September 23. + + +It is a righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty, +whether in man or woman, as something of real worth--divine, heavenly, +ay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense Eternal; which makes our +reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of +moralists about "the fleeting hues of this our painted clay;" and tell +men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures told them, that physical beauty is the +deepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without +discretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of +gold it is still, the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be, +perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth. + +_Hypatia_, chap. xxvi. 1852. + + + +Empty Profession. September 24. + + +What is the sin which most destroys all men and nations? High religious +profession, with an ungodly, selfish life. It is the worst and most +dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heart +and life without giving pain, so that the sick man never suspects that +anything is the matter with him till he finds himself, to his +astonishment, at the point of death. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +True Poetry. September 25. + + +Let us make life one poem--not of dreams or sentiments--but of actions, +not done Byronically as proofs of genius, but for our own self-education, +alone, in secret, awaiting the crisis which shall call us forth to the +battle to do just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterly +different self-education. That is the life of great spirits, after, +perhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the lower +paths of God's vineyard, till their hearts have settled into a still, +deep, yet swift current, and those who have been faithful over a few +things are made rulers over many things. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Office of the Clergy. September 26. + + +There is a Christian as well as political liberty quite consistent with +High Church principles, which makes the clergy our teachers--not the +keepers of our _consciences_ but of our _creeds_. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +Opinions are not Knowledge. September 27. + + +. . . As to self-improvement, the true Catholic mode of learning is to +"prove all things," as far as we can, without sin or the danger of it, to +"hold fast that which is good." Let us never be afraid of trying +anything new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own. And +let us never be afraid of changing our opinions. The unwillingness to go +back from once declared opinion is a form of pride which haunts some +powerful minds: but it is not found in great childlike geniuses. Fools +may hold fast to their scanty stock through life, and we must be very +cautious in drawing them from it--for where can they supply its place? + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +The Worst Punishment. September 28. + + +God reserves many a sinner for that most awful of all punishments +(here)--impunity. + +_Sermons_. + + + +The Divine Order. September 29. + + +Ah, that God's will were but done on earth as it is in the material +heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in +their courses, without rest, yet without haste--as all created things, +even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, +fulfil God's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given +them a law which shall not be broken. But above them; above the divine +and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are +God's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all, +the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and +wonderful order of _rational_ beings, of races loftier and purer than +man--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and +powers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not, alas! fulfilled on +earth. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867. + + + +True Resignation. September 30. + + +. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the +divine affections. I am happy, for the less hope, the more faith. . . . +God knows what is best for us; we do not. Continual resignation, at last +I begin to find, is the secret of continual strength. "Daily _dying_," +as Boehmen interprets it, is the path of daily _living_. . . . + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +SEPTEMBER 21. +St. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr. + + +There is something higher than happiness. There is blessedness; the +blessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right. +That blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in +anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were +blest, in agony and death. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + + +SEPTEMBER 29. +Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. + + +The eternal moral law which held good for the sinless Christ, who, though +He were a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered, +must hold good of you and me, and all moral and rational beings--yea, for +the very angels in heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and we +do not know that they have ever suffered. But this at least we know, +that they have submitted. They have obeyed, and have given up their own +wills to be ministers of God's will. In them is neither self-will nor +selfishness; and, therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty, +they stand. And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of +selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of +blessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have lost their +eternal life by trying to save their selfish life and be something in +themselves and of themselves without respect to God. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. + + + + +October. + + +A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, +healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with a +quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled cloud +were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung over the +southern chalk downs, which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south- +eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hung +over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge elms and +poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down at every rustle +of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. The river swirled +along, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting +leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even +in decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very +window-sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena and geranium +were still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia and +plane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicate +green leaves, and more delicate yellow blossoms, through the crimson lace- +work of the Virginia creeper; and the great yellow noisette swung its +long canes across the window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. i. + + + +Blessing of Daily Work. October 1. + + +Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do +that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to +work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self- +control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a +hundred virtues which the idle will never know. + +_Town and Country Sermons_. 1861. + + + +The Forming Form. October 2. + + +As the acorn, because God has given it "a forming form," and life after +its kind, bears within it not only the builder oak but shade for many a +herd, food for countless animals, and at last the gallant ship itself, +and the materials of every use to which Nature or Art can put it, and its +descendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good deed +contain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities of other good, +which may and will grow and multiply for ever, in the genial light of Him +whose eternal mind conceived it, and whose eternal spirit will for ever +quicken it, with that life of which He is the Giver and the Lord. + +_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854. + + + +Special Providences. October 3. + + +And as for special Providences. I believe that every step I take, every +person I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is not +sinful--comes and happens by the perpetual Providence of God watching for +ever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing that He has +made. + +_MS. Letter_. + + + +Virtue. October 4. + + +Nothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and virtue. Man will +always try to find substitutes for it. He will try to find a substitute +in superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and +worship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be +heard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in +intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let +no man lay that flattering unction to his soul. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +God-likeness. October 5. + + +"We can become like God--only in proportion as we are of use," said ---. +"I did not see this once. I tried to be good, not knowing what good +meant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in the +world to come. But at last I saw that all life, all devotion, all piety, +were only worth anything, only Divine, and God-like and God-beloved, as +they were means to that one end--to be of use." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856. + + + +The Refiner's Fire. October 6. + + +"Not quite that," said Amyas. "He was a meeker man latterly than he used +to be. As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on +board had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the +fire. And gold seven times tried he was when God, having done His work +in him, took him home at last." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii. + + + +The Prayer of Faith. October 7. + + +With the prayer of faith we can do anything. Look at Mark xi. 24--a text +that has saved more than one soul from madness in the hour of sorrow; and +it is so _simple_ and _wide_--wide as eternity, simple as light, true as +God Himself. If we are to do great things it must be in the spirit of +that text. Verily, when the Son of God cometh shall He find faith in the +earth? + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +Mountain-Ranges. October 8. + + +We fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand half-way +up on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other from isolated +stations. The mists hide from us the foot of the range beneath us, the +depths of primary analysis to which none can reach, or we should see that +all the peaks were but offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in their +inmost root but One! And the clouds which float between us and the +heaven shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves--the perfect issues +of synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness shines with +undimmed lustre--and keep us from perceiving that the complete practical +details of our applied knowledge is all holy and radiant with God's +smile. And so, half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, we +build up little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancy +them Babel-towers whose top shall reach to heaven! + +_MS. Note-book_. 1843. + + + +The Temper for Success in Life. October 9. + + +The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful +and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their +faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men, +facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the +old proverb that "good times and bad times and all times pass over." + +_MS._ + + + +Want of Simplicity. October 10. + + +Faith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to want +faith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to explain away +God's providence, then faith and prayer become intricate and uncertain. +We cannot serve God and mammon. We must either utterly depend on God +(and therefore on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer), +or we must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world. Choose! + +_MS. Letter_. + + + +True Rest. October 11. + + +What is true rest? To rest from sin, from sorrow, from doubt, from care; +this is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of +all--knowing one's duty and not being able to do it. That is true rest; +the rest of God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the +stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are +at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the +law which God has given them. Perfect rest in perfect work; that surely +is the rest of blessed spirits till the final consummation of all things. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1867. + + + +God's Image. October 12. + + +. . . "Honour all men." Every man should be honoured as God's image, in +the sense in which Novalis says--that we touch Heaven when we lay our +hand on a human body! . . . The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that, +and acted up to it, more than any nation. The Patriarchs too seem to +have had the same feeling. . . . + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +Woman's Work. October 13. + + +Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower +and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of +self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in +and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Self-Enjoyment. October 14. + + +"How do ye expect," said Sandy, "ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at +a', as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel--_yersel_? Mony was +the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it +was a' + + "'Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye, + There he sits singing the lang simmer day; + Lassies gae to him, + And kiss him, and woo him-- + Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.' + +An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour, +disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth +living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and +there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I +think--I'm a great liar often mysel, especially when I'm praying." + +_Alton Locke_, chap. vii. + + + +Temptations of Temperament. October 15. + + +A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too +notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues. + +_Sermons on David_. + +The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and +earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go +astray. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Egotism of Melancholy. October 16. + + +Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind. The +self-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, must +be dissatisfied with what it sees within. Then it begins unconsciously +to flatter itself with the idea that it is not the "_moi_" but the "_non +moi_," the world around, which is evil. Hence comes Manichaeism, +Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to look +for sorrow that it finds it even in joy--because it will not confess to +itself that sorrow belongs to _sin_, and that sin belongs to _self_; and +therefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God's earth, and not on itself +in repentance and humiliation. + +The world looks dark. Shall we therefore be dark too? Is it not our +business to bring it back to light and joy? + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Poetry of Doubt. October 17. + + +The "poetry of doubt" of these days, however pretty, would stand us in +little stead if we were threatened by a second Armada. + +_Miscellanies_. 1859. + + + +Work of the Physician. October 18. + + +The question which is forcing itself more and more on the minds of +scientific men is not how many diseases _are_, but how few are _not_, the +consequences of men's ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence. The +medical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in +sickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of +the social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the +first object of his science to be prevention, and not cure. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +Love Many-sided. October 19. + + +There are many sides to love--admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, +affection; they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of +love--the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in a +way but habitually. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +The only Path to Light. October 20. + + +The path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock of Ages, +is the simple path of honest self-knowledge, self-renunciation, +self-restraint, in which every upward step towards right exposes some +fresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed down +by the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child once +more, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him. And +then there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill into +clumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on which +he treads, or than the foot which treads it--the vision of an Everlasting +Spiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and +who, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance +endure likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death, +matter and space and time, should melt indeed-- + + And like the baseless fabric of a vision, + Leave not a rack behind. + +_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854. + + + +Proverbs False and True. October 21. + + +There is no falser proverb than that devil's beatitude, "Blessed is he +who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." Say rather, +"Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at +least, and if it falls out true, twice also." + +_Prose Idylls_. 1857. + + + +True Sisters of Mercy. October 22. + + +Ah! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as "old maids," if +you pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that is +yearning to spend itself on children of your own. As long as such as you +walk this lower world one needs no Butler's _Analogy_ to prove to us that +there is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a fairer +(I dare not say a juster) portion. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxv. 1856. + + + +The Divine Fire. October 23. + + +Well spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life's turmoil, +"Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see: +God's love with keen flame purges, like the lightning flash, +Gold which is purest, purer still must be." + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene i. +1847. + + + +The Cross a Token. October 24. + + +Have patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of +Christ's Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor of the _soul_ and +_reason_, as well as of the _heart_. For, however ill the world may go, +or seem to go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the +world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for +it. Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is sure--that good must +conquer, because God is good, that evil must perish, because God hates +evil, even to the death. + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1870. + + + +The True Self-Sacrifice. October 25. + + +What can a man do more than _die_ for his countrymen? + +_Live_ for them. It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and +a nobler one. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856. + + + +Now as Then. October 26. + + +Men can be as original now as ever, if they had but the courage, even the +insight. Heroic souls in old times had no more opportunities than we +have; but they used them. There were daring deeds to be done then--are +there none now? Sacrifices to be made--are there none now? Wrongs to be +redrest--are there none now? Let any one set his heart in these days to +do what is right, and nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow +is stamped with all that goes to make up the heroical expression--with +noble indignation, noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; +perhaps even with the print of the martyr's crown of thorns. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. vii. 1856. + + + +One Anchor. October 27. + + +In such a world as this, with such ugly possibilities hanging over us +all, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is utter trust in +God; let us keep that, and we may yet get to our graves without _misery_ +though not without _sorrow_. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1871. + + + +Self-Control. October 28. + + +Settle it in your minds, young people, that the first and the last of all +virtues and graces which God can give is Self-Control, as necessary for +the saint and the sage lest they become fanatics and pedants, as for the +young in the hey-day of youth and health. + +_Sermons on David_. 1866. + + + +Nature's Permanence. October 29. + + +We abolish many things, good and evil, wisely and foolishly, in these +fast-going times; but, happily for us, we cannot abolish the blue sky, +and the green sea, and the white foam, and the everlasting hills, and the +rivers which flow out of their bosoms. They will abolish themselves when +their work is done, but not before. And we, who, with all our boasted +scientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and carnal +point of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic animals burrowing +in the fair Earth's skin, had better, instead of boasting of our empire +over Nature, take care lest we become too troublesome to Nature, by +creating, in our haste and greed, too many great black countries, and too +many great dirty warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled with +savages and imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so far +from allowing us to abolish her, will by her inexorable laws abolish us. + +_MS. Presidential Address_. 1871. + + + +The Only Refuge. October 30. + + +Prayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the witches and +the fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortal +brain. + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856. + + + +England's Forgotten Worthies. October 31. + + +Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and glory +around them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty, +heroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about what +they saw in an "artistic" or "critical" point of view as in a scientific +one. . . . They gave God thanks and were not astonished. God was great: +but that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics. + +Noble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superstition enough +about them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasm +which is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism! We do not +trust enough in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to be +ready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, for +anything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is +discovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to +ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a feeling--true index, +forsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind!! + +Smile if you will: but those were days (and there never were less +superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, and +were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and +providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in +our covert atheism, term "secular and carnal." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xxiii. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +OCTOBER 18. +St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist. + + +It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in +that. And the physician has set his mind to do one thing--to hate +calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight +against them to the end. In his exclusive care for the body the +physician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for +the Bible, for immortality. Is he not witnessing for God when he shows +by his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; of +health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, +not of misery and weakness? Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like +Christ, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and +attacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of +man? + +"_Water of Life_," _and other Sermons_. + + +OCTOBER 28. +St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs. + + +He that loseth his life shall save it. The end and aim of our life is +not happiness but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness may +come after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even +blessedness. + +Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross. There hung your King! +The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and +grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell,--He has faced them one and +all, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them +right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is +divine,--godlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads and +despises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and +consecrated for ever. . . . And now--Blessed are tears and shame, +blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown +realms where souls await the Resurrection-day. + +_National Sermons_. + + + + +November. + + +"The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray. All +Nature is like the grief of manhood in its soft and thoughtful sternness. +Shall I lend myself to its influence, and as the heaven settles down into +one misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in +a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why not? for am I not +'a part of all I see'? And even now, in fasting and mortification, am I +not sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastisement? But shall I +then despond and die? + +"No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and thy God! We may +weep, Mother Earth, but we have Faith--faith which tells us that above +the cloudy sky the bright clear sun is shining, and will shine. And we +have Hope, Mother Earth--hope, that as bright days have been, so bright +days soon shall be once more! And we have Charity, Mother Earth, and by +it we can love all tender things--ay, and all rugged rocks and dreary +moors, for the sake of the glow which _has_ gilded them, and the +fertility which will spring even from their sorrow. We will smile +through our tears, Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken! We have still +light and heat, and till we can bear the sunshine we will glory in the +shade!" + +_MS._ 1842. + + + +Sympathy of the Dead. November 1. + + +Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if (as +I surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those +whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is a +further education for them, and a pledge, too, of help--I believe of +final deliverance--for those on whom they look down in love. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1852. + + + +Nature's Parable. November 2. + + +There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's meaning +too. As I read nature's parable to-night I find nothing in it but hope. +What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there +seem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing and +feeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom +there below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the power +of light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is stirred. + +_Prose Idylls_. 1849. + + + +Passing Onward. November 3. + + +Liturgies are but temporary expressions of the Church's heart. The Bible +is the immutable story of her husband's love. _She_ must go on from +grace to grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancient +melodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the same for +ever. + +_MS._ 1842. + +See how the autumn leaves float by decaying, + Down the wild swirls of the dark-brimming stream; +So fleet the works of men back to their earth again-- + Ancient and holy things pass like a dream. + +_A Parable_. 1848. + + + +The Divine Intention. November 4. + + +I am superstitious enough, thank God, to believe that not a stone or a +handful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it +was ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold +should be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man +might find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life. + +_Science Lectures_. + + + +Christ Weeping over Jerusalem. November 5. + + +That which is true of nations is true of individuals, of each separate +human brother of the Son of man. Is there one young life ruined by its +own folly--one young heart broken by its own wilfulness--or one older +life fast losing the finer instincts, the nobler aims of youth, in the +restlessness of covetousness, of fashion, of ambition? Is there one such +poor soul over whom Christ does not grieve? One to whom, at some supreme +crisis of their lives, He does not whisper--"Ah, beautiful organism--thou +too art a thought of God--thou too, if thou wert but in harmony with +thyself and God, a microcosmic _City of God_! Ah! that thou hadst +known--even thou--at least in this thy day--the things which belong to +thy peace"? + +_MS. Sermon_. 1874. + + + +Love Expansive. November 6. + + +The mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because our whole +love should be given to God. But as flame increases by being applied to +many objects, so does love. He who loves God most loves God's creatures +most, and them for God's sake, and God for their sake. + +_MS. Note-book_. 1843. + + + +Still the same. November 7. + + +Those who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really +taste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a +change of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their +powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, +active beings which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest they +may, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Not +idleness, but peace of mind. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. 1862. + + + +An absolutely Good God. November 8. + + +Fix in your minds--or rather ask God to fix in your minds--this one idea +of an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which you +respect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man, +understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand and +all-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who is +mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the +infinitely good God! But see, then, whether, in the light of that one +idea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relation of God to +man--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the +Incarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God--do not +seem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, and +logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of an +Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the universe? + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1873. + + + +Nature's Lesson. November 9. + + +Learn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do not let them +mould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to make +you melancholy, you worship the creature more than the Creator. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Morals and Mind. November 10. + + +Not upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human welfare founded. +The true subjective history of man is not the history of his thought, but +of his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of his +inventions, but of his vices and his virtues. So far from morals +depending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. In +proportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice is +done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely, +triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfully +obeyed, to the welfare of the whole common weal. + +_Inaugural Lecture_, _Cambridge_. 1860. + + + +Fastidiousness. November 11. + + +Do not let us provoke God (though that is _really_ impossible) by +complaining of His gifts because they do not come just in the form _we_ +should have wished. . . . + +_MS. Letter_. 1844. + + + +Unconscious Faith. November 12. + + +For the rest, Amyas never thought about thinking or felt about feeling; +and had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother, +getting by honest means the maximum of "red quarrenders" and mazard +cherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. Neither was he what +would be nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said his +Creed and Lord's Prayer night and morning, and went to service at the +church every forenoon, and read the day's Psalms with his mother every +evening, and had learnt from her and his father that it was infinitely +noble to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothing +more of theology or of his own soul than is contained in the Church +Catechism. + +_Westward Ho_! chap. i. 1855. + + + +Silence. November 13. + + +There are silences more pathetic than all words. + +_MS._ + + + +The Nineteenth Century. November 14. + + +. . . What so maddening as the new motion of our age--the rush of the +express train, when the live iron pants and leaps and roars through the +long chalk cutting, and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky +and vanish; and rocks and grass and bushes fleet by in dim blended lines; +and the long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far +below meadows and streams and homesteads, with all their lazy old-world +life, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awestruck, silent, +choked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are swept on +by that great pulse of England's life-blood rushing down her iron veins; +and dimly out of the future looms the fulfilment of our primeval mission +to conquer and subdue the earth, and space too, and time, and all +things--even hardest of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers; ever +learning some fresh lesson, except the hardest one of all, that it is the +Spirit of God which giveth you understanding? + +Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange you, +with all your sins, for any other time? For swiftly as rushes matter, +more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the heavenly dawn up +the eastern sky. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." "Blessed +is the servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching." + +_Prose Idylls_. + + + +Unreality. November 15. + + +Those who have had no real sorrows can afford to play with imaginary +ones. + +_MS._ + + + +The indwelling Light. November 16. + + +The doctrine of Christ in every man, as the indwelling Word of God, the +Light who lights every one who comes into the world, is no peculiar tenet +of the Quakers, but one which runs through the whole of the Old and New +Testaments, and without which they would both be unintelligible, just as +the same doctrine runs through the whole history of the Early Church for +the first two centuries, and is the only explanation of them. + +_Theologica Germanica_. 1854. + + + +Woman's Calling. November 17. + + +What surely is a woman's calling but to teach man? and to teach him what? +To temper his fiercer, coarser, more self-assertive nature by the contact +of her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not by +blare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue, +puffery, is good and lasting work to be done on earth; but by wise self- +distrust, by silent labour, by lofty self-control, by that charity which +hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things; by such an +example, in short, as women now in tens of thousands set to those around +them; such as they will show more and more, the more their whole +womanhood is educated to employ its powers without waste and without +haste in harmonious unity. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +Waste. November 18. + + +Thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions--how are they wasted in these +days in reading sensation novels! while British literature--all that the +best hearts and intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--is +neglected for light fiction, the reading of which is the worst form of +intemperance--dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual and moral. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. + + + +True Penance. November 19. + + +"Senor," said Brimblecombe, "the best way to punish oneself for doing ill +seems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether God +means you well is to find out whether He will help you to do well." + +_Westward Ho_! chap. xxv. + + + +Political Economy of the Future. November 20. + + +I can conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, every foul +vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting the +air, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised, converted into +some profitable substance, till the black country shall be black no +longer, the streams once more crystal clear, the trees once more +luxuriant, and the desert, which man has created in his haste and greed, +shall in literal fact once more blossom as the rose. And just so can I +conceive a time when by a higher civilisation, formed on a political +economy more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will +of God, our human refuse shall be utilised like our material refuse; when +man as man, down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be found (as he +really is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve his +health, to develop his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, +and character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after +all, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and that no cost +spent on the development of human beings can possibly be thrown away. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. + + + +God's Pleasure. November 21. + + +The world was not made for man: but man, like all the world, was made for +God. Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God's +pleasure all things are, and for God's pleasure they were, created. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1869. + + + +The Hospital Nurse. November 22. + + +Fearless, uncomplaining, she "trusted in God and made no haste." She did +her work and read her Bible; and read, too, again and again at stolen +moments of rest, a book which was to her as the finding of an unknown +sister--Longfellow's "Evangeline." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii. + +Let us learn to look on hospitals not as acts of charity, supererogatory +benevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe nothing, but as +confessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence; as poor and late and +partial compensation for misery which _we_ might have prevented. + +_National Sermons_. 1851. + + + +No Work Lost. November 23. + + +If you lose heart about your work, remember that none of it is +_lost_--that the good of every good deed remains and breeds and works on +for ever, and that all that fails and is lost is the outside shell of the +thing, which, perhaps, might have been better done; but better or worse +has nothing to do with the real spiritual good which you have done to +men's hearts. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1862. + + + +True Temperance. November 24. + + +What we all want is inward rest; rest of heart and brain; the calm, +strong, self-contained, self-denying character, which needs no +stimulants, for it has no fits of depression; which needs no narcotics, +for it has no fits of excitement; which needs no ascetic restraints, for +it is strong enough to use God's gifts without abusing them; the +character, in a word, which is truly temperate, not in drink and food +merely, but in all desires, thoughts, and actions. + +_Essays_. 1873. + + + +A Present Veil. November 25. + + +What is there in this world worth having without religion? Do you not +feel that true religion, even in its most imperfect stage, is not merely +an escape from hell after death but the only _real state_ for a man--the +only position to live in in this world--the only frame of mind which will +give anything like happiness here. I cannot help feeling at moments--if +there were _no Christ_, everything, even the very flowers and insects, +and every beautiful object, would be hell _now_--dark, blank, hopeless. + +_MS. Letter_. 1843. + + + +Cowardice. November 26. + + +There is but one thing which you have to fear in earth or heaven--being +untrue to your better selves, and therefore untrue to God. If you will +not do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you know to be +true, then indeed you are weak. You are a coward; you desert God. + +_True Words for Brave Men_. + + + +Blind Faith. November 27. + + +In Him--"The Father"--I can trust, in spite of the horrible things I see +happen, in spite of the fact that my own prayers are not answered. I +believe that He makes all things work together for the good of the human +race, and of me among the rest, as long as I obey His will. I believe He +will answer my prayer, not according to the letter, but according to the +spirit of it; that if I desire good, I shall find good, though not _the_ +good I longed for. + +_MS. Letter_. 1862. + + + +Small and Great. November 28. + + +Begin with small things--you cannot enter into the presence of another +human being without finding there more to do than you or I or any soul +will ever learn to do perfectly before we die. Let us be content to do +little if God sets us little tasks. It is but pride and self-will which +says, "Give me something huge to fight and I shall enjoy that--but why +make me sweep the dust?" + +_Letters and Memories_. 1854. + + + +True and False. November 29. + + +We must remember that dissatisfaction at existing evil (the feeling of +all young and ardent minds), the struggle to escape from the +"circumstance" of the evil world, has a carnal counterfeit--the love of +novelty, and self-will, and self-conceit, which may thrust us down into +the abysses of misrule and uncertainty; as it has done such men as +Shelley and Byron; trying vainly every loophole, beating against the +prison bars of an imperfect system; neither degraded enough to make +themselves a fool's paradise within it, nor wise enough to escape from it +through Christ, "the door into the sheepfold," to return when they will, +and bring others with them into the serene empyrean of spiritual +truth--truth which explains, and arranges, and hallows, and subdues +everything. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1842. + + + +The Mind of Christ. November 30. + + +How can we attain to the blessed and noble state of mind--the mind of +Christ, who must needs be about His Father's business, which is doing +good? Only by prayer and practice. There is no more use in praying +without practising than there is in practising without praying. You +cannot learn to walk without walking; no more can you learn to do good +without trying to do good. + +_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +NOVEMBER 1. +All Saints' Day. +Commemoration of the Blessed Dead. + + +"If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour," said the Blessed One. +And if God honours His servants, shall not we honour them likewise? We +may not, as our forefathers did blindly, though lovingly, worship them as +mediators and lesser gods, and pray to them instead of to their Father in +heaven to whose throne of grace we may all come boldly through Christ +Jesus, or believe that their relics will work miracles in our behalf, +thus honouring the creature instead of the Creator. This we may not do, +but we may honour the Creator in His creature, and honour God in those +who have lived godly and God-like lives; and when they have passed away +from among us--souls endued by God with manifold virtues and precious +gifts of grace--we may give thanks and say, These, O God, are the fruits +of Thy Spirit. Thou honourest them in heaven with Thy approving smile. +We will honour them on earth, not merely with our lips, but in our lives. +What they were we too might be, if we were as true as they to the +inspiration of Thy Spirit. Help us to honour their memories, as Thou and +they would have us do, by following their example; by setting them before +us, and not only them, but every holy and noble personage of whom we have +ever heard, as dim likenesses of Christ--even as Christ is the likeness +of Thee. Amen. + +_MS. Sermon_. + + +NOVEMBER 30. +St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr. + + +Form your own notions about angels and saints in heaven--as you will, . . +. but bear this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the +everlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, and +of good works. The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, +spent only in individual happiness. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. + + + + +December. + + +It chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve, + I went sighing past the Church across the moorland dreary: +"Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave, + And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing so cheery. +How long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again? + Still in cellar and in garret, and on moorland dreary, +The orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain: + Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be +cheery." + +Then arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere, + Beneath the stars across the snow, like clear bells ringing, +And a voice within cried, "Listen! Christmas carols even here! + Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are +singing. +Blind! I live, I love, I reign, and all the nations through + With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing; +Do thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do, + Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it the angels' +singing." + +_A Christmas Carol_. + + + +The Final Victory. December 1. + + +I believe that the ancient creed, the eternal gospel, will stand and +conquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other for +eighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing and organising those +young anarchic forces which now, unconscious of their parentage, rebel +against Him to whom they owe their being. + +_Yeast_, Preface. 1851. + + + +Drifting away. December 2. + + + They drift away--Ah, God! they drift for ever. + . . . . . . + I watch them drift--the old familiar faces, + Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places. + . . . . . . + Shores, landmarks, beacons drift alike. + Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven + Still fades to night, still blazes into day. +Ah, God! My God! _Thou_ wilt not drift away! + +_A Fragment_. 1867. + + + +Our Father. December 3. + + +Take your sorrows not to man, but to your Father in heaven. If that +name, Father, mean anything, it must mean that He will not turn away from +His wandering child in a way in which you would be ashamed to turn away +from yours. If there be pity, lasting affection, patience in _man_, they +must have come from Him. They, above all things, must be His likeness. +Believe that God possesses them a million times more fully than any human +being. + +_Letters and Memories_. + + + +Circumstance. December 4. + + +Our wanton accidents take root, and grow +To vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, +Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters +Become ourselves, and we would fain forget +There live who need them not. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v. +1847. + + + +Duty. December 5. + + +When a man has once said _honestly_ to himself, "It is my duty;" when +that glorious heavenly thought has risen upon his soul, like the sun upon +the earth, warming his heart and enlightening it, and making it bring +forth all good and noble fruits, then that man will feel a strength come +to him and a courage come from God which will conquer all his fears, his +selfish love of ease and pleasure, and enable him to bear pain and +poverty and death itself, provided he can do what is right, and be found +by God working His will where He has put him. + +_Sermons_. + + + +Humanity and the Bible. December 6. + + +He who has an intense perception of humanity must know that Christianity +is divine, because it is the only religion which has a perfect perception +of human relations, wants, and feelings. None but He who made the heart +could have written the Bible. + +_MS. Note-book_. 1843. + + + +Music. December 7. + + +There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Music +goes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music, he +has only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, there +is an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is discord and ugly +sounds. + +Music is fit for heaven. Music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of +the everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven; a life +of melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other and +with God. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. + + + +Waiting. December 8. + + +Ay--stay awhile in peace. The storms are still. +Beneath her eider robe the patient earth +Watches in silence for the sun: we'll sit +And gaze up with her at the changeless heaven, +Until this tyranny be overpast. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene iii. +1847. + + + +True or False Toleration? December 9. + + +"One thing at least I have learnt," he said, "in all my experiments on +poor humanity--never to see a man do a wrong thing without feeling I +could do the same in his place. I used to pride myself on that once, +fool that I was, and call it comprehensiveness. I used to make it an +excuse for sitting by and seeing the devil have it all his own way, and +call that toleration. I will see now whether I cannot turn the said +knowledge to a better account, as common sense, patience, and charity, +and yet do work of which neither I nor my country need be ashamed." + +_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxiii. 1856. + + + +Success and Defeat. December 10. + + +In many things success at first is dangerous, and _defeat_ an excellent +medicine for testing people's honesty--for setting them honestly to work +to see what they want, and what are the best modes of attaining it. Our +sound thrashing, as a nation, in the first French war was the making of +our armies; and it is good for an idea, as well as for a man, to bear the +yoke in his youth. + +_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867. + + + +Passing Emotions. December 11. + + +Beware of depending on your own _emotions_, which are often but the +fallings and risings of the frail flesh, and mistaking them for spiritual +feelings and affections! + +* * * * * + +Think less of what you _feel_--even of trying _to be_ anything. Look out +of yourself at God. Pray and praise, and God will give you His Spirit +often when you feel most dull. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Christ's Church. December 12. + + +. . . What a thought it is that there is a God! a Father, a King! a +Husband not of individuals, that is a Popish fancy, which the Puritans +have adopted--but of the Church--of collective humanity. Let us be +content to be members; let us be, if we may, the feet, lowest, hardest +worked, trodden on, bleeding, brought into harshest contact with the evil +world! Still we are members of Christ's Church! . . . + +_Letters and Memories_. 1843. + + + +Confound me not. December 13. + + +Have charity, have patience, have mercy. Never bring a human being, +however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all, any little child, to shame +and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, +even by selfish and silly haste, never, above all, by indulging in the +devilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is +coarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature. + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1872. + + + +The Divine Hunger and Thirst. December 14. + + +God grant us to be among "those who really hunger and thirst after +righteousness," and who therefore long to know what righteousness is, +that they may copy it--those who long to be freed not merely from the +punishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they live on +earth, and who therefore wish to know what sin is that they may avoid it. + +_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854. + + + +Religion or Godliness? December 15. + + +This is the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean, as it +used, the service of God--the being like God and showing forth God's +glory. No, religion means nowadays the art of getting to heaven when we +die, and saving our own miserable souls, and getting God's wages without +doing God's work--as if that was godliness, as if that was anything but +selfishness, as if selfishness was any the better for being everlasting +selfishness! + +_Village Sermons_. 1849. + + + +Christ's Coming. December 16. + + +Christ may come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that still +small voice--so sweet and yet so keen, "Understand those who +misunderstand thee. Be fair to those who are unfair to thee. Be just +and merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thou +shalt be forgiven." He comes to us surely, when we are selfish and +luxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, "If you do +good to one of these, my brethren, you do it unto Me." + +_Last Sermon_. _MS._ 1874. + + + +God's Nature. December 17. + + +When will men open their eyes to the plain axiom that nothing is +impossible with God, save that He should transgress His own nature by +being unjust and unloving? + +_Preface to Tauler_. 1854. + + + +Educators of Men. December 18. + + +There are those who consider--and I agree with them--that the education +of boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted, as much as +possible, to women. Let me ask--of what period of youth and manhood does +it not hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who +fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. I +should have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in the +highest sense, the educator of man, from infancy to old age; that that +was the work towards which all the God-given capacities of women pointed. + +_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. + + + +The Earthly Body. December 19. + + +Let us remember that if the body does feel a burden now (as it must at +moments), what a happiness it is to have a body at all: how lonely, cold, +barren, would it be to be a "disembodied spirit." As St. Paul says, "Not +that we desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon"--to have a +spiritual, deathless, griefless life instilled into the body. + +_MS. Letter_. 1842. + + + +Home at Last. December 20. + + +When all the world is old, lad, + And all the trees are brown, +And all the sport is stale, lad, + And all the wheels run down; +Creep home and take your place there, + The spent and maimed among: +God grant you find one face there + You loved when all was young. + +_The Water Babies_. 1862. + + + +The Bible. December 21. + + +The hearts and minds of the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the truly +human, all demand a living God who has revealed Himself in living acts; a +God who has taught mankind by facts, not left them to discover Him by +theories and sentiments; a Judge, a Father, a Saviour, an Inspirer; in a +word, their hearts demand the historic truth of the Bible--of the Old +Testament no less than the New. + +_Sermons on Pentateuch_. 1863. + + + +Shaking of Heaven and Earth. December 22. + + +"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but heaven" (Hebrews xii. 26- +29). This is one of the royal texts of Scripture. It declares one of +those great laws of the kingdom of God which may fulfil itself once and +again at many eras and by many methods; which fulfilled itself most +gloriously in the first century after Christ; again in the fifth century; +again at the time of the Crusades; and again at the great Reformation in +the sixteenth century,--and is fulfilling itself again at this very day. + +_Westminster Sermons_. 1872. + + + +Self-Respect the Voice of God. December 23. + + +Never hurt any one's self-respect. Never trample on any soul, though it +may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is +as its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better +life; the voice of God which still whispers to it, "You are not what you +ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are still God's child, +still an immortal soul. You may rise yet, and fight a good fight yet, +and conquer yet, and be a man yet, after the likeness of God who made +you, and Christ who died for you." Oh! why crush that voice in any +heart? If you do the poor creature is lost, and lies where he or she +falls, and never tries to rise again. + +_Good News of God Sermons_. 1859. + + + +Christmas Eve. December 24. + + +We will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed Christmas-tide. +He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well; for we are His and He is +ours. + +_Two Years Ago_, Introduction. 1856. + + + +The Miracle of Christmas Night. December 25. + + +After the crowning miracle of this most blessed night all miracles are +possible. The miracle of Christmas night was possible because God's love +was absolute, infinite, unconquerable, able to condescend to anything +that good might be done. . . . This Christmas night is the one of all +the year which sets a physicist on facing the fact of miracle, and which +delivers him from the bonds of sense and custom by reminding him of God +made Man. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1858. + + + +Redemption. December 26. + + +All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin, are +redeemed by the life and death of the Son of God. Blessed are wisdom and +courage, joy and health and beauty, love and marriage, childhood and +manhood, corn and wine, fruit and flowers, for Christ redeemed them by +His life. . . . Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where +souls await the Resurrection Day, for Christ redeemed them by His death. +Blessed are all days, dark as well as bright, for all are His, and He is +ours; and all are ours, and we are His for ever. + +_National Sermons_. 1848. + + + +Fellow-workers with Christ. December 27. + + +To abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this +world. That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all +enemies under His feet. That is what Christ has been doing, step by +step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on +earth in great humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our +place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him +in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the +battle against evil. + +_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867. + + + +The bright Pathway. December 28. + + +There is a healthy ferment of mind in which one struggles through chaos +and darkness, by means of a few clues and threads of light--and--of one +great bright pathway, which I find more and more to be _the_ only escape +from infinite confusion and aberration, _the_ only explanation of a +thousand human mysteries--I mean the Incarnation of our Lord--the fact +that there really is--a God-Man! + +_MS. Letter_. 1844. + + + +New Worship. December 29. + + +Blessed, thrice blessed, is it to find that hero-worship is not yet +passed away! that the heart of man still beats young and fresh; that the +old tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Socrates and +Alcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of love "passing the +love of woman," ennobled by its own humility, deeper than death and +mightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one heart +here and there, to show man still how, sooner or later, "he that loveth +knoweth God, for God is love." + +_Miscellanies_. 1850. + + + +Links in the Chain. December 30. + + +The heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future! Oh, dreary +present! But let us not repine. What is dreary need not be barren. +Nothing need be barren to those who view all things in their real light, +as links in the great chain of progression both for themselves and for +the Universe. To us all Time should seem so full of life: every moment +the grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs in heaven and +earth, and the mind of our God Himself--all things moving smoothly and +surely in spite of apparent checks and disappointments towards the +appointed end. + +_Letters and Memories_. 1844. + + + +Past, Present, Future. December 31. + + +Surely as the years pass on they ought to have made us better, more +useful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of +what ought to be done, but we may have gained more clear and practical +notions of what can be done. We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet +gained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in +charity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet +what we do may be far better done. And our very griefs and +disappointments--have they been useless to us? Surely not. We shall +have gained instead of lost by them if the Spirit of God has been working +in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience +experience, and that experience hope--hope that He who has led us thus +far will lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former days +precious lessons--not only by sore temptations but most sacred joys--will +teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations, which we shall +be more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old +times, are no less sacred, but sent as lessons to our souls by Him from +whom all good gifts come. + +_Water of Life Sermons_. + +Out of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through +selfish, stormy youth, and contrite tears--just not too late; through +manhood, not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we +return whence we came, to the bosom of God once more--to go forth again, +it may be, with fresh knowledge and fresh powers, to nobler work. Amen. + +_The Air Mothers_. 1869. + + + +SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. + + +DECEMBER 21. +St. Thomas, Apostle and Martyr. + + +The spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross +animal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this +earth is but a tiny speck, doing God's will as they longed to do it on +earth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of +usefulness! Ah, that we were like unto them! + +_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_. + + +DECEMBER 25. +Christmas Day. + + +Thank God, that One was born, at this same time, +Who did our work for us: we'll talk of Him: +We shall go mad with thinking of ourselves-- +We'll talk of Him, and of that new-made star, +Which, as He stooped into the Virgin's side, +From off His finger, like a signet-gem, +He dropped in the empyrean for a sign. +But the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour, +When He crept weeping forth to see our woe, +Fled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever +Our sins, our works, and that same new-made star. + +_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iv. Scene iv. + + +DECEMBER 26. +St. Stephen, the Martyr. + + +These are the holy ones--the heroes of mankind, the elect, the +aristocracy of grace. They are those who carry the palm branch of +triumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have dared and +fought and suffered for God and truth and right; who have resisted unto +blood, striving against sin. What should easy-going folk like you and me +do but place ourselves with all humility, if but for an hour, where we +can look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are like and what +they do. + +_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_. + + +DECEMBER 27. +St. John, Apostle and Evangelist. + + +And what do they do, these blessed beings? They longed for, toiled for, +it may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and the good; they entered +while on earth into the mystery and glory of self-sacrifice, and now they +find their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and +rejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole +universe, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. + +_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_. + + +DECEMBER 28 +Holy Innocents' Day. + + +Christ comes to us in many ways. But most surely does Christ come to us, +and often most happily, and most clearly does He speak to us--in the face +of a little child, fresh out of heaven. Ah, let us take heed that we +despise not one of these little ones, lest we despise our Lord Himself. +For as often as we enter into communion with little children, so often +does Christ come to us. So often, as in Judaea of old, does He take a +little child and set him in the midst of us, that from its simplicity, +docility, and trust--the restless, the mutinous, and the ambitious may +learn the things which belong to their peace--so often does He say to us, +"Except ye be changed and become as this little child, ye shall in no +wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Take my yoke upon you and learn +of me. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto +your souls." + +_MS. Last Sermon_, +_Westminster Abbey_, _Nov._ 30, 1874. + + + + +INDEX. + + +ABSENCE, 209 + +Acorn, 223 + +Action, 146, 167 + +Affections, 79, 179, 217, 279 + +Age, old, 63, 285 + +--reverence for, 81 + +Anarchy, 165 + +Angels, 175, 217, 218, 219, 269 + +Anger, God's loving, 195 + +Animals, dumb, 81, 181 + +Antinomies, 159 + +Anxiety, 211 + +Aristocracy, ideal, 167 + +Art, 31, 71, 119, 141, 151 + +Ascension, 93, 123, 211 + +Asceticism, 185, 189, 233, 263 + +Ascetic painters, 39 + +Atonement, the, 83 + +Attitude, language of, 155 + +Augustine, St., 155 + +Autumn, 51, 221 + +BARBARISM, 109 + +Beatific Vision, 73, 196, 295 + +Beauty, 15, 39, 73, 101, 175, 196, 213 + +--moral, 196, 213 + +--spiritual, 159 + +Bible, the, 103, 141, 167, 249, 259, 275, 285 + +Birds, 53, 77, 99, 101, 103, 125, 127, 137, 271 + +Blessedness, 218, 245 + +Body, sacredness of, 63, 67, 185, 229, 244, 285 + +--the spiritual, 159 + +Books, 57, 85, 169, 259 + +Book-learning, 151 + +Butler's Analogy, 237 + +CALMNESS, 55, 263 + +Character, 98, 175, 191 + +Charity, 37, 281 + +Cheerfulness, 149, 223, 227 + +Childhood and wonder, 179 + +Childlikeness, 31, 183, 187, 235 + +Children, 48, 109, 295 + +Chivalry, 139, 153, 179, 181 + +Christ-child, the, 48 + +Christ's life, 45, 97, 267 + +--Church, 121 + +--compassion, 251 + +--descent into hell, 98 + +--resurrection, 95, 98, 211 + +--the Word, 37, 127 + +Christianity, Divine, 273 + +Christmas, 271, 287, 289, 294 + +Chrysalis state, 171 + +Church, the, 75, 77, 121, 157 + +--Catechism, 47, 255 + +Civilisation, 105, 155, 261 + +Clergy, the, 215 + +Coming of Christ, 21, 23, 183, 283, 295 + +Communion of saints, 141, 193 + +--Holy, 193 + +Contemplation, 87, 146 + +Content, 59 + +Courage, 275 + +Cowardice, 207, 265 + +Creeds, the, 141, 151, 215, 273 + +Critical spirit, 165, 203 + +Cross, the, 83, 96, 97, 122, 185, 189, 237, 245 + +Crucifix, the, 123, 189 + +Custom, 31 + +Cynicism, 191 + +DARK days, 19, 201, 211, 233, 249, 289 + +Day of the Lord, 3, 195 + +Dead, the blessed, 21, 49, 95, 139, 193, 249, 253, 289 + +--prayers for, 24, 81 + +--work of, 95, 139, 249 + +Death, 17, 113, 135, 253 + +--sudden, 89 + +--and hell, 7, 195 + +Defeat, 279 + +Dignity, 137 + +Discontent, Divine, 165 + +Disease, 233, 244 + +Distrust, 165 + +Doctrines, 157 + +Doubt, poetry of, 233 + +Drifting away, 273 + +Duty, 5, 13, 65, 105, 129, 147, 165, 181, 201, 275 + +Dying, to live, 13, 55, 93, 97, 117, 217, 295 + +EARNESTNESS, 35, 139, 293 + +Earth, God's, 101, 149, 153, 247 + +Earthly and heavenly, 179 + +Easter, 93, 98 + +Eclecticism, 65 + +Education, 67 + +--of character, 85 + +--Divine, 91, 133, 135, 149, 209 + +--self, 215 + +--of boys, 283 + +--after death, 171, 249 + +Emotions, 5, 49, 79, 85, 179, 189, 203, 259, 279 + +Enthusiasm, 35 + +Epiphany, 24 + +Eternal life, 11, 43 + +Eternity, 43, 69, 167 + +Eucharist, the, 21, 65, 185 + +Excitement, 79, 163 + +FACTS of life, 103, 113, 207, 285 + +Failure, 143 + +Faith, 11, 59, 85, 127, 163, 191, 199, 227, 229 + +Fasting, 49 + +Fatherhood of God, 103, 107, 115, 133, 135, 149, 181, 223, 265, 273 + +Fear, 137, 265, 275 + +Fellowship of sorrow, 109, 111, 279 + +Fire of God, 195 + +--cleansing, 195, 225, 237 + +Flesh and spirit, 189 + +Flowers, 15, 99, 101, 105, 127, 151, 221 + +Fool's paradise, 111, 267 + +Forgiveness, 169 + +Forward, 3 + +Francis, St., 103 + +Friendship, 19, 61, 291 + +Future, the, 129, 195 + +--identity, 19, 253 + +--life, 57, 65, 71, 81, 113, 171, 237, 253, 293 + +GENIUS, 105, 175, 215 + +Gifts, 83, 111, 129 + +Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 203 + +God, the Living, 7, 101, 103, 111, 133, 193, 243, 285 + +--the Ideal, 73 + +--an indulgent, 15 + +--of Nature, 103, 131, 151, 183 + +God's character, 33, 87, 111, 181, 195, 253, 273, 283 + +--countenance, 131 + +Godliness, 91, 281 + +Good, the eternal, 35, 171, 253 + +Good in all, 9, 287 + +Good deeds, 187, 263 + +Good Friday, 93, 97 + +Goodness, 5, 105, 113, 199, 245 + +Gratitude, 89 + +Greeks, the old, 67, 107, 133, 155, 229 + +HAPPINESS, 29, 59, 245, 265 + +Harmony, 5, 67, 83, 127, 161, 277 + +Hearts and streams, 119, 197 + +Heaven, 109, 167 + +Hell, 96, 98, 109, 195, 265 + +--keys of, 7 + +--a present, 43 + +Hero worship, 291 + +Heroism, 41, 61, 71, 207, 239, 294 + +History, philosophy of, 63 + +Hope, 39, 111, 145, 149, 237, 247 + +Hospitals, 263 + +Humanity, 275 + +Humility, 13, 41, 169, 193 + +I AM I, 55, 89, 185, 199 + +Ideal, the, 63, 73, 117 + +Ideals, high, 77 + +Idleness, 91, 157, 207 + +Impunity, 217 + +Incarnation, the, 146, 253, 291 + +Influence, silent, 139, 259 + +Intermediate state, 98, 245, 289 + +JOHN the Baptist, 147 + +John, St., 45, 53, 63, 113 + +Justification, 43 + +KINDNESS, 181, 205 + +Kingdom, coming, 21, 179; of God, 45, 185 + +Knowledge, 53, 79, 131, 135, 163, 177, 183 + +LAMP race, 133 + +Laws of God, 98, 117, 163, 169, 229, 277, 287 + +Lesson of life, 61, 293 + +Liberty, 215 + +Life everlasting, 11, 113, 219, 277 + +--long, 133 + +--value of, 61 + +Light, 33, 177, 249, 291 + +Liturgies, 249 + +Love, 9, 37, 41, 53, 55, 79, 117, 201, 209, 235, 251, 289, 219 + +--Divine, 117 + +--and beauty, 201 + +MAN in God's image, 89, 127, 199, 229 + +March, 51, 53 + +Martyrs, 17, 98, 172, 218, 294, 295 + +Masses, the, 177 + +May, 99 + +Melancholy, 137, 183, 233, 253 + +Melody, 5, 127, 277 + +Men and women, 39, 91, 93, 153, 259, 283 + +Metre, 119 + +Midsummer, 125 + +Miracles, 31, 99, 289 + +Moderation, 69 + +Monotony, 163 + +Morality, 29, 147, 255 + +Morbid mind, 233 + +Morning, 19, 125, 201, 249 + +Mother earth, 247 + +Mothers, 61, 74, 213 + +Music, 23, 107, 127, 161, 277 + +Mystery of life, 117, 155, 185, 291 + +Mystics, 55, 185, 251 + +NATURALIST, 175 + +Nature, 141, 183, 187, 221, 241, 247, 253 + +--study of, 7, 105, 131, 141, 175, 183, 187 + +Nature's worship, 131 + +Night, 201, 211 + +Nineteenth century, 3, 151, 257 + +Noble life, 5, 9 + +Noble studies, 63 + +North-east wind, 1 + +Novel reading, 85, 169, 259 + +OCTOBER, 221 + +Old truths, 151 + +Opinions, 215 + +Originality, 239 + +Orthodox, 141 + +PAINTERS, 39, 71, 141, 159 + +Parables, Nature's, 5, 99, 101, 127, 173, 175, 196, 197, 249 + +Passion, 35, 197, 213 + +--Week, 95 + +Patience, 59, 143, 237, 277, 281 + +Paul, St., 25, 53, 207 + +Peace, 23, 59, 193 + +Penitence, 191 + +Penuriousness, 67 + +Peter, St., 45, 148 + +Philamon, 9, 45 + +Physician, 233, 244 + +Pictures, 39, 71, 141 + +Plato, 171 + +Poetry, 23, 41, 69, 215 + +Political economy, 115, 261 + +Practice, 143, 267 + +Prayer, 89, 119, 163, 167, 227, 229, 241, 267 + +--the Lord's, 31 + +--unselfish, 31 + +Prayers for dead, 81 + +Present time, 3, 5 + +Presentiments, 143 + +Pride and humility, 193, 215, 235, 267 + +Problem of life, 135, 291 + +Profession, empty, 157, 213 + +Progress, 101, 163, 257, 291 + +Proverbs, 235 + +Providence, 115, 169, 243 + +--special, 55, 159, 209, 251 + +Psalms, 17, 191 + +Public opinion, 77 + +Punishment, 41, 135, 159, 191, 261, 281 + +Purgatory, 171 + +RAILROADS, 257 + +Rank, 15, 161 + +Reason, 35, 111, 143, 237 + +Redemption of earth and man, 153 + +Refinement, false, 161 + +Reformers, 77 + +Religion, 103, 265, 281 + +Renewal, the, 71, 81, 127, 185 + +Repentance, 41, 49, 157 + +Resignation, 117, 211, 217 + +Rest, 21, 49, 229, 253, 263 + +Resurrection, 63, 81, 93, 95, 98, 141, 145, 171, 185, 207 + +Retribution, 47, 81, 113, 135, 177 + +Reverence, 81, 175, 243 + +Reveries, 39 + +Righteousness, 117, 255, 281 + +Rights and duties, 39 + +Rock of Ages, 169, 235 + +Romance, 127 + +Rules of life, 83, 107, 163 + +Ruth, 79 + +SACRAMENTALISM, 15, 39, 101, 119, 213 + +Sacraments, 21, 146 + +Safety, 17, 57 + +Saints' Days, 24 + +Saints, the, 24, 98, 122, 141, 193, 268, 269, 294, 295 + +Salvation, 135 + +Sanitary science, 29, 261 + +Science, 33, 59, 115, 151, 227, 233, 261 + +Secular, 59 + +Self, 31, 233 + +Selfishness, 159, 219, 231, 281 + +Self-conceit, 205 + +Self-control, 165, 223, 241, 259, 263 + +Self-improvement, 215 + +Self-indulgence, 91, 275 + +Self-respect, 287 + +Self-sacrifice, 13, 21, 55, 71, 79, 95, 117, 146, 148, 189, 213, 231, 295 + +Security, false, 115 + +Sensuality, 133 + +Sentiment, 5 + +Shakespeare, 179 + +Shame, 199 + +Shelley, 267 + +Silence, 41, 139, 257, 259 + +Sin, 41, 135, 159, 169, 213, 233, 281 + +Sisters of Mercy, 237 + +Sneering, 281 + +Sorrow, 145, 183, 185, 227, 273 + +Spirit, the Holy, 146 + +Spiritual world, 179 + +Spring, 27, 51, 99, 101 + +Starlings, 51 + +Stream and shower, 119, 197 + +Strength, 263 + +Substitutes, 225 + +Success, 139, 227, 279 + +Summer days, 125, 129, 131, 137, 149 + +Superstition, 3, 137, 169, 175 + +Suspicion, 281 + +Symbols, 99, 101, 105, 127, 131, 151, 173, 196 + +Sympathy, 103, 151, 153 + +TACT, 35, 53, 113 + +Temperament, 231 + +Temperance, true, 223, 263 + +Temptation, 57 + +Theology, 87 + +Thrift, 131, 183, 259 + +Toleration, 63, 141, 277 + +Training, God's, 115, 129, 215 + +Transfiguration, the, 205 + +Trinity, the, 146 + +Trust, 239, 265 + +UNITY, 185 + +Usefulness, 225 + +Utopia, 167 + +VAGUENESS, 11, 161 + +Vineyards, 121 + +Violence, 139 + +Virgin, Blessed, 74 + +Virtue, 29, 41, 225 + +Visitation of God, 61 + +Voyagers, early, 243 + +WAITING, 135, 277 + +--of God, 181 + +War tragedies, 107 + +Water, 29, 119, 197 + +Welfare, 145, 255 + +Winter, 1, 27, 99 + +Wisdom, 37, 83, 105, 107, 163 + +Woman, 45, 153, 87 + +Woman's work, 39, 45, 79, 93, 231, 259 + +Women, educated, 85, 169 + +Word Christ, the, 7, 37 + +--the indwelling, 259 + +Words, 37, 113 + +--hard, 53 + +--of God, 141 + +Work, 71, 83, 133, 143, 157, 165, 175, 203, 209, 223, 263 + +World, the, 167 + +Worm, the undying, 195 + +Worship, 131 + +YOUTH, 13, 129 + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{3} The paper edition of this book has blank pages where the owner can +write diary notes, etc. This is why the page numbers in the eText often +miss out numbers.--DP. + +{97} Lines written under a pen and ink drawing of a stormy shoreless +sea, with two human beings lashed to a cross floating on the crest of the +waves. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAILY THOUGHTS*** + + 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