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_ SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. SEPTEMBER 21. 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. 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'
_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-- _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."
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. 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. 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_.
"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. _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. _ |
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