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_ Charles Kingsley's Dying Words, "HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS." SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. MARCH 25. 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_.
Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing, _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.
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_.
Why expect _Saints' Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.
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.
"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.
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.
Man? I am a man, thou art a woman--not by reason of bones and muscles,
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 is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, purifier, inspirer of man. _MS._
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.
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.
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.
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.
Listen! and our God shall whisper, as we hang upon the cross, {97}
_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._
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_.
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_.
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_.
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_.
Now see the young spring leaves burst out a-maying, _Poems_. 1849.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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--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.
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.
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.
How was He, _Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.
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_.
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.
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.
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.
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.
. . . Dull boors _Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii.
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 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.
"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.
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.
"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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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. _ |
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