DAILY THOUGHTS

Selected from the WritingsOFCHARLES KINGSLEY

BY HIS WIFE

SECOND EDITION

LondonMACMILLAN AND CO. 1885

_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_. 

_This little Volume_, _selected from the MS. Note-books_, _Sermons andPrivate Letters_, _as well as from the published Works of my Husband_, _is dedicated to our children_, _and to all who feel the blessing of hisinfluence on their daily life and thought_. 

_F. E. K. _

_July_ 10, 1884. 

January. 

Welcome, wild North-easter! Shame it is to seeOdes 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 superstitionsabout "the good old times, " and fancies that _they_ belonged to God, while this age belongs only to man, blind chance, and the evil one, letus cast them from us as the suggestions of an evil lying spirit, as thenatural parents of laziness, pedantry, fanaticism, and unbelief. Andtherefore let us not fear to ask the meaning of this present day, and ofall its different voices--the pressing, noisy, complex present, where ourworkfield lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and of allschools 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 tofollow? I do not see my way: I do not care to: but I know that He seesHis 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 EverOne 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 talknowadays. 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 orderlyand cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou in thy humble place arthumbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody which is in heaven; theeverlasting harmony and melody by which God made the world and all thattherein is--and behold it was very good--in the day when the morningstars 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 throughthem and is alive for evermore. Christ is the _first_, and was lovingand 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 andalmighty as ever, in that great day when all enemies shall be under Hisfeet, and death shall be destroyed, and death and hell shall be cast intothe lake of fire. 

_MS. Sermon_. 1857. 

A Living God. January 8. 

Here and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart andflesh, whose conscience and whose intellect, cry out for the _Living_God, and will know no peace till they have found Him. For till then theycan 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 patientobserver, let none, perhaps, be classed higher than this, that thefarther he enters into those fairy gardens of life and birth, whichSpenser saw and described in his great poem, the more he learns the awfuland yet comfortable truth, that they do not belong to him, but to Onegreater, wiser, lovelier than he; and as he stands, silent with awe, amidthe 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 morehonour 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, adreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short! They just know nothing aboutyou, then. You will not see people as they seem--as they have become, nodoubt; but why? Because you see them as they ought to be, and are insome deep way eternally, in the sight of Him who conceived and createdthem!

_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, "toconvert a sinner, then only wilt thou have a right to suspect him ofbeing a worse man than thyself. " That there is a seed of good in allmen, a divine word and spirit striving with all men, a gospel and goodnews which would turn the hearts of all men, if abbots and priests couldbut preach it aright, was his favourite doctrine, and one which he usedto defend, when at rare intervals he allowed himself to discuss anysubject, from the writings of his favourite theologian, Clement ofAlexandria. 

Above all, Abbot Philamon stopped by stern rebuke any attempt to revileeither heretics or heathens. "On the Catholic Church alone, " he used tosay, "lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief; for if she were but forone day that which she ought to be, the world would be converted beforenightfall. "

_Hypatia_, chap. Xxx. 1852. 

Danger of Thinking vaguely. January 13. 

Watch against any fallacies in your ideas which may arise, not fromdisingenuousness, but from allowing yourself in moments of feeling tothink vaguely, and not to attach precise meaning to your words. Withoutany cold caution of expression, it is a duty we owe to God's truth, andto our own happiness and the happiness of those around us, to think andspeak as correctly as we can. Almost all heresy, schism, andmisunderstandings, between either churches or individuals who ought to beone, have arisen from this fault of an involved and vague style ofthought. 

_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 anddoes what prophets prophesied of Him that He would say and be and do. "Iam the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star. And lethim that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take of the Waterof Life freely. " For ever Christ calls to every anxious soul, everyafflicted soul, to every man who is ashamed of himself, and angry withhimself, and longs to live a gentler, nobler, purer, truer, and moreuseful life, "Come, and live for ever the eternal life of righteousness, holiness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the one trueand only salvation bought for us by the precious blood of Christ ourLord. " Amen. 

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865

The Golden Cup of Youth. January 16. 

Ah, glorious twenty-one, with your inexhaustible powers of doing andenjoying, eating and hungering, sleeping and sitting up, reading andplaying! Happy are those who still possess you, and can take their fillof your golden cup, steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance thatfor 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 healthand buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and, seeming togrow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care andwork at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty yearsago, 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 fortime 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 yourselfA paltry atom, sap-transmitting veinOf Christ's vast vine; the pettiest joint and memberOf 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 mightyIn 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'shandwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, everyfair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain ofall 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 meantresponsibility, that responsibility demanded virtue. The words whichdenoted 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 respectedhis own gens, or family, or pedigree, was bound to be gentle. Thecourtier who had picked up at court some touch of Roman civilisation fromRoman 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 areweak, but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak. Boundlesspity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; butboundless wrath for those who mislead them and put them out of the rightway. 

_Discipline Sermons_. 1867. 

The Fifty-First Psalm. January 22. 

It is such utterances as these which have given for now many hundredyears their priceless value to the little Book of Psalms ascribed to theshepherd outlaw of the Judean hills, which have sent the sound of hisname into all lands throughout all the world. Every form of humansorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin--the nun agonising in the cloister;the settler struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the paupershivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; theman of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations ofcommerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollectingthe words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boytrudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is hisShepherd, 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 inmosthearts. . . . 

_Sermons on David_. 1866. 

Waiting for Death. January 23. 

Death, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and tell me what Iwant to know? I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, onlyto give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish--and so you wouldnot come. . . . I was not worthy of you. And now I will not hunt youany more, old Death. Do you bide your time, and I mine. . . . Only whenyou come, give me not rest but work. Give work to the idle, freedom tothe 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 andfaith. 

_Hypatia_. 1852. 

Future Identity. January 25. 

I believe that the union of those who have loved here will in the nextworld amount to perfect identity, that they will look back on theexpressions of affection here as mere meagre strugglings after andapproximation 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 trueourselves. Friends may part, not merely in body, but in spirit, for awhile. In the bustle of business and the accidents of life, they maylose sight of each other for years; and more, they may begin to differ intheir success in life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there maybe, for a time, coldness and estrangement between them, but not for everif each will be trusty and true. For then they will be like two shipswho set sail at morning from the same port, and ere night-fall lose sightof each other, and go each on its own course and at its own pace for manydays, through many storms and seas, and yet meet again, and findthemselves lying side by side in the same haven when their long voyage ispast. 

_Water of Life Sermons_. 

Night and Morning. January 27. 

It is morning somewhere or other now, and it will be morning here againto-morrow. "Good times and bad times and all times pass over. " I learntthat lesson out of old Bewick's Vignettes, and it has stood me in goodstead 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, andgive thanks for them there--at that holy table at which the Churchtriumphant and the Church militant meet in the communion of saints? WhereChrist is they are; and, therefore, if Christ be there, may not they bethere likewise? May not they be near us though unseen? like us claimingtheir share in the eternal sacrifice, like us partaking of that spiritualbody and blood which is as much the life of saints in heaven as it is ofpenitent sinners on earth? May it not be so? It is a mystery into whichwe will not look too far. But this at least is true, that they are withHim 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 throughself-sacrifice. Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; whosoeverwill 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 waitfor, when all the diseased and false systems of this world shall be sweptaway, and Christ's feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, and thetwelve apostles shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes ofIsrael! All this shall come, and blessed is that servant whom his Lordwhen He cometh shall find ready! All this we shall not see before wedie, but we shall see it when we rise in the perfect material andspiritual 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, andready to grow earthy of the earth--through noble poetry, noble music, noble art--through aught which awakens once more in us the instinct ofthe true, the beautiful, and the good. He may come to us when our soulsare restless and weary, through the repose of Nature--the repose of thelonely snow-peak and of the sleeping forest, of the clouds of sunset andof the summer sea, and whisper Peace. Or He may come, as He comes onwinter nights to many a gallant soul--not in the repose of Nature, but inher rage--in howling storm and blinding foam and ruthless rocks andwhelming surge--and whisper to them even so--as the sea swallows all ofthem which _it_ can take--of calm beyond, which this world cannot giveand cannot take away. 

And therefore let us say in utter faith, Come as Thou seest best--but inwhatsoever 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 prayingto the saints, Saints' Days have sunk--and, indeed, sunk too much--intoneglect. We forget too often still, that though praying to any saint orangel, or other created being, is contrary both to reason and Scripture, yet it is according to reason and to Scripture to commemorate them. Thatis, to remember them, to study their characters, and to thank God forthem, --both for the virtues He bestowed on them, and the example which Hehas 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 wordEpiphany means "showing. " The Wise Men were worshippers of the true God, though in a dim confused way; and they had learnt enough of what truefaith, true greatness was, not to be staggered and fall into unbeliefwhen they saw the King of the Jews laid, not in a palace, but in amanger, tended by a poor village maiden. And therefore God bestowed onthem the great honour that they first of all--Gentiles--should see theglory and the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ. God grant thatthey 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 everyman who cometh into the world; but they were more faithful to that littlethan many of us, who live in the full sunshine of the Gospel, withChrist's Spirit, Christ's Sacraments, Christ's Churches, --means of graceand 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 sentimentalmelancholy in him. He is saved, and he knows it. He is an Apostle, andhe stands boldly on his dignity. He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful. Andyet, when he speaks of the past, it is with noble shame and sorrow thathe calls himself the chief of sinners, not worthy to be called anApostle, because he persecuted the Church of Christ. What he is, he willnot deny; what he was, he will not forget; lest he should forget that inhim, that is, in his flesh--his natural character--dwelleth no goodthing; lest he should forget that the good which he does, _he_ does not, but Christ which dwelleth in him; lest he should grow careless, puffedup, 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 fromthe universal necessity of being good as God is good, righteous as God isrighteous, 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. Miseryis the exception; happiness is the rule. No rational man ever heard abird sing without feeling that the bird was happy, and that if God madethat 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 evershare 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 thepoor we may see real fountains--not like the drinking-fountains, usefulas they are, which you see here and there about the streets, with a tinydribble of water to a great deal of expensive stone, but real fountains, which shall leap, and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle, and fill the placewith life and light and coolness; and sing in the people's ears thesweetest of all earthly songs--save the song of a mother over herchild--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 downThrough the dim glittering mine of future yearsSay to himself, "Too much! this cannot be!"To-day and custom wall up our horizon:Before the hourly miracle of lifeBlindfold 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, thatwe may _truly enlarge_ it! we must, _artificialised_ as we _have_ been, return to the rudiments of life, to children's pleasures, that we mayfind easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws whichwe 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 tellsus 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 weforgive others; not "lead _me_ not, " but "lead _us_ not into temptation;"not "deliver _me_, " but "deliver _us_ from evil. " After _that_ mannerour 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 arbitrarywill and almighty power may seem dark by themselves though deep, but thatis because they do not involve His moral character. Join them with thefact that He is a God of mercy as well as justice; remember that Hisessence is love, and the thunder-cloud will blaze with dewy gold, full ofsoft rain and pure light. 

_MS. Letter_. 1844. 

The Veil Lifted. February 8. 

Science is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding greatreward. I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of theman to whom--panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life inthe tropic forest--Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil and showhim, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of, some law, or evenmere hint of a law, explaining one fact: but explaining with it athousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mightywhole, till order and meaning shoots through some old chaos of scatteredobservations. Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give norpoverty take away? What it may lead to he knows not. Of what use it maybe he knows not. But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead, of someuse 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. Onesight of God as we shall some day see Him will show us that they areindissolubly and eternally the same. 

_MS. _

Passion and Reason. February 10. 

Passion and reason in a healthy mind ought to be inseparable. We neednot be passionless because we reason correctly. Strange to say, one'sfeelings will often sharpen one's knowledge of the truth, as they doone's powers of action. 

_MS. _ 1843. 

Enthusiasm and Tact. February 11. 

. . . People smile at the "enthusiasm of youth"--that enthusiasm whichthey themselves secretly look back at with a sigh, perhaps unconsciousthat it is partly their own fault that they ever lost it. . . . Do notfear being considered an enthusiast. What matter? But pray for _tact_, the true tact which love alone can give, to prevent scandalising a weakbrother. 

_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 erethe 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 ofitself--the one very eternal and absolute good, which was with God and inGod and from God, before all worlds, and will be for ever, withoutchanging, or growing less or greater, eternally the same good--the goodwhich would be just as good and just and right and lovely and glorious ifthere were no world, no men, no angels, no heaven, no hell, and God werealone 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; adifference in words is a difference in things. Words are very awful andwonderful things, for they come from the most awful and wonderful of allbeings, Jesus Christ, THE WORD. He puts words into men's minds. He madeall things, and He made words to express those things. And woe to thosewho 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 shehad to earn her wisdom, and to work hard, and suffer much ere sheattained it. And in attaining she endured strange adventures and greatsorrows; and yet they would not have given her the wisdom had she not hadsomething in herself which gave her wit to understand her lessons, andskill and courage to do what they taught her. There had been many namesfor that something before she was born, there have been many names for itsince, 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 havecharity towards them. That is a hard lesson to learn; and all those wholearn 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. Nofuture school of religious art will be able to rise to eminence withoutlearning from them their secret. They taught artists, and priests, andlaymen, too, that beauty is only worthy of admiration when it is theoutward sacrament of the beauty of the soul within; they helped todeliver men from that idolatry to merely animal strength and lovelinessinto which they were in danger of falling in ferocious ages, and amongthe relics of Roman luxury. 

_Miscellanies_. 1849. 

Reveries. February 17. 

Beware of giving way to reveries. Have always some employment in yourhands. 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 forothers rather than for herself; and therefore, I should say, let hersmallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs redressed; but let hernever be persuaded to forget that she is sent into the world to teachman--what I believe she has been teaching him all along, even in thesavage state, namely, that there is something more necessary than theclaiming of rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach himspecially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is somethingmore 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 isthe life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what wild and wearyways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have arrivedthither. If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us submitloyally and humbly to His law--"whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, andscourgeth 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. " Ido not believe it. I do not see it. It stands to reason--if a man loseshis 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 thatthe prodigal son is punished most severely. He does not get off freelythe moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you. Evenafter he does repent and resolves to go back to his father's house he hasa long journey home in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry, and all butdespairing. But when he does get home; when he shows he has learnt thebitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is, "Make me as one of thy hiredservants, "--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. Themost intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think, written very little personal love-poetry, while they have shown infictitious characters a knowledge of the passion too painfully intimateto 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 theirconscience or their reason by fancying that God looks on them as rightwhen they know themselves to be wrong; and who cannot help trusting thatunion with Christ must be something real and substantial, and not merelya 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 anyfiend's kitchen or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in thepulpits--the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and auseless peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures--andkenning it--and not being able to get oot o' it for the chains of vanityand 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 necessarylaws, in which we and all spirits are now; and in which we should beequally, whether time and space, extension and duration, and the wholematerial universe to which they belong, became nothing this moment, orlasted 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, awfulprayers and struggles within, continued labour of body and mind without;insult, and danger, and confusion, and violent exertion, and bittersorrow. 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 thegreat purpose of unfolding Woman's own calling in all ages--her especialcalling in this one. We must incite them to realise the chivalrousbelief of our old forefathers among their Saxon forests, that somethingDivine dwelt in the counsels of woman: but, on the other hand, we mustcontinually remind them that they will attain that divine instinct, notby renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by becoming true women, and not bad imitations of men; by educating their heads for the sake oftheir hearts, not their hearts for the sake of their heads; by claimingwoman's divine vocation as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and oflove. 

_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 hadlearnt that God's kingdom was not a kingdom of fanatics yelling for adoctrine, 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 athorn into their own flesh, which will trouble them for years to come, itmay 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 mostpatent, undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when the rich and poorshall meet together, and then, at last, discover too that the Lord is theMaker 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 totalk to the child, like a true English Catechism as it is, about thatglorious old English key-word Duty? It calls on the child to confess itsown duty, and teaches it that its duty is something most human, simple, everyday--commonplace, if you will call it so. And I rejoice in thethought that the Church Catechism teaches that the child's duty iscommonplace. I rejoice that in what it says about our duty to God andour neighbour, it says not one word about counsels of perfection, orthose frames and feelings which depend, believe me, principally on thestate of people's bodily health, on the constitution of their nerves, andthe temper of their brain; but that it requires nothing except what alittle child can do as well as a grown person, a labouring man as well asa divine, a plain farmer as well as the most refined, devout, imaginativelady. 

_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. 

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS. 

FEBRUARY 2. The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, COMMONLY CALLEDThe Purification of the Virgin Mary. 

Little children may think of Christ as a child now and always. For tothem 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 iseternal in the heavens, above all change of time and space. . . . Suchis the sacred heart of Jesus--all things to all. To the strong He can bestrongest, to the weak weakest of all. With the aged and dying He goesdown for ever to the grave; and yet with you children Christ lies forever 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 mustoffer 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 theirlabours--all their struggles, failures, past and over for ever. Buttheir works follow them. The good which they did on earth--_that_ is notpast and over. It cannot die. It lives and grows for ever, following onin their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit untoeverlasting life, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, andin 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 theexcitable, theatric Southern, unstable as water even in his most violentremorse, but of the still, deep-hearted Northern, whose pride breaksslowly and silently, but breaks once for all; who tells to God what hewill never tell to man, and having told it, is a new creature from thatday 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 knowsloves. 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 ofcharacter, as well as variety of motion, may be distinguished by thepractised ear in a "charm of birds"--from the wild cry of themissel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first bright days of March apassage of one or two bars repeated three or four times, and then anotherand 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 asboldly as he faces hawk and crow--down to the delicate warble of thewren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank where he has huddledthrough the frost with wife and children, all folded in each other's armslike human beings. Yet even he, sitting at his house-door in the lowsunlight, says grace for all mercies in a song so rapid, so shrill, soloud, and yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount ofsoul within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, like a child thathas said its lesson or got to the end of a sermon, gives a self-satisfiedflirt 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 andhurt 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 asone infinite complexity of special providences. 

_Letters and Memories_. 

The grain of dust is a thought of God; God's power made it; God's wisdomgave it whatsoever properties or qualities it may possess. God'sprovidence has put it in the place where it is now, and has ordained thatit should be in that place at that moment, by a train of causes andeffects which reaches back to the very creation of the universe. Thegrain of dust can no more go from God's presence or flee from God'sSpirit than you or I can. 

_Town Geology_. 1871. 

Be Calm. March 5. 

Strive daily and hourly to be calm; to stop yourself forcibly and recallyour mind to a sense of what you are, where you are going, and whitheryou ought to be tending. This is most painful discipline, but mostwholesome. 

_MS. Letter_. 1842. 

Self-sacrifice and Personality. March 6. 

What a strange mystery is that of mutual self-sacrifice! to exist for onemoment for another! the perfection of human bliss! And does not loveteach 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-sacrificealone can we attain to the perfect apprehension of ourselves, our ownpersonality, our own duty, our own bliss. So that the mystics areutterly wrong when they fancy that self-sacrifice can be attained by self-annihilation. Self-sacrifice, instead of destroying the sense ofpersonality, perfects it. 

_MS. Letter_. 1843. 

Follow your Star. March 7. 

I believe with Dante, "_se tu segui la tua Stella_, " that He who ordainedmy star will not lead me _into_ temptation but _through_ it. Without Himall places and methods of life are equally dangerous, with Him allequally 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--amessage to us from the dead, from human souls whom we never saw, wholived perhaps thousands of miles away, and yet in those little sheets ofpaper speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open theirhearts 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 allthings, the Teacher of all truth, which He has put into the heart of somemen to speak. And at the last day, be sure of it, we shall have torender an account--a strict account--of the books which we have read, andof the way in which we have obeyed what we read, just as if we had had somany 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, theBible tells me that no man can conceive them, and therefore I believethat I cannot conceive them. God has conceived them; God has preparedthem; 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, andtry to see all things in God, the most minute natural phenomenon cannotbe secular. It must be divine, I say deliberately, divine, and I can useno less lofty word. 

_Town Geology_. 1871. 

Content or Happy? March 11. 

My friends, whether you will be the happier for any knowledge of physicalscience, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot tell. That liesin 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 atleast, 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 canbe, and we must be content with being right, and not happy. . . . And weshall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not onlywith what we can understand, but content with what we do notunderstand--the habit of mind which theologians call (and rightly) faithin God, true and solid faith, which comes often out of sadness and out ofdoubt. 

_Lecture on Bio-geology_. 1869. 

Duty of Man to Man. March 12. 

Each man can learn something from his neighbour; at least he can learnthis--to have patience with his neighbour, to live and let live. 

Peace! peace! Anything which is not _wrong_ for the sake of heaven-bornPeace!

_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 humansoul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, andwho loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truthto us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behindour back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the days of prosperityand self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in theday of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight ourbattle as we can. 

It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends: the mean andcowardly 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? Theheroism of an average mother. Ah! when I think of that broad fact Igather hope again for poor humanity, and this dark world looks bright, this diseased world looks wholesome to me once more, because, whateverelse 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 everteaching 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 disorderand destroy His own handiwork, and take back the old scriptural notionthat God is visiting all day long for ever, to give order and life to Hisown work, to set it right where it goes wrong, and re-create it wheneverit 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 reallylove our neighbours and wish to help them, we shall have no heart toquarrel 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, andhe 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 gateof heaven. Our bodies will fade and grow weak and shapeless, just whenwe shall not want them, being ready and in close expectation of thatresurrection of the flesh which is the great promise of Christianity (nomiserable fancies about "pure souls" escaped from matter, but)--ofbodies, _our_ bodies, beloved, beautiful, ministers to us in all ourjoys, sufferers with us in all our sorrows--yea, our very own selvesraised up again to live and love in a manner inconceivable from itsperfection. 

_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 isthe noblest study of man, and Him we can study in three ways. 1st. FromHis image as developed in Christ the Ideal, and in all good men--greatgood 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 ofart or science refuses to acknowledge Bacon's great law, that "Nature isonly conquered by obeying her;" who will not take a full and reverentview of the whole mass of facts with which he has to deal, and from themdeducing the fundamental laws of his subject, obey them whithersoeverthey may lead; but who picks and chooses out of them just so many as maybe pleasant to his private taste, and then constructs a partial systemwhich differs from the essential ideas of Nature in proportion to thenumber 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 ofHeaven; the eldest voice of God. And it is only they who are faithful ina few things who will be faithful over many things; only they who dotheir duty in everyday and trivial matters who will fulfil them on greatoccasions. 

_Sermons for the Times_. 1855. 

The Great Unknown. March 21. 

"Brother, " said the abbot, "make ready for me the divine elements, that Imay consecrate them. " And he asking the reason therefor, the saintreplied, "That I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I departhence. For know assuredly that within the seventh day I shall migrate tothe celestial mansions. For this night stood by me in a dream those twowomen whom I love, and for whom I pray, the one clothed in a white, theother in a ruby-coloured garment, and holding each other by the hand, whosaid 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 thancarelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait returns with sevenfresh 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 ancientGreeks? Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual, aesthetic (religious education in our sense of the word of course theyhad none), of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments? Arethere not some branches of education which they perfected once and forever, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow theirexample? To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportionand grace, in every faculty of mind and body--that was their notion ofeducation. 

Ah! the waste of health and strength in the young! The waste, too, ofanxiety and misery in those who love and tend them! How much of it mightbe saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which arethe will of God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, weare as much bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obeythe 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 usethe earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly, and, byusing to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit to be exalted to the useof the spiritual body. Amen. 

_MS. _ 1842. 

Moderation. March 25. 

Let us pray for that great--I had almost said that crowning grace andvirtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind. Letus 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 eagerlyto 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? andGod frowning, and the devil grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verraidea of the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance?canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, manconquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that too--in many a garretwhere no eye but the good God's enters to see the patience, and thefortitude, 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. Allaround ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satanat death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or ParadiseRegained. "

_Alton Locke_, chap. Viii. 1849. 

Time and Eternity. March 27. 

. . . Our life's floorIs laid upon Eternity; no crack in itBut 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 andin 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'sshepherd-paradise, much less Fourier's casino-paradise, and perhaps, least of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our ownart-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 toilingbrother? Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude twohundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever. How still the meadowsare! How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky! No wonder that thyworn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, "Oh, that I had wings as adove, then would I flee away and be at rest. " Ah! but gayer meadows andbluer skies await thee _in the world to come_--that fairyland madereal--"the new heavens and the new earth" which God hath prepared for thepure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in thissore 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 itshould be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards societyand man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, butwhich 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 couldhave arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an idealholiness? But where? oh, where? Not in the world around strewn withunholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and within. Is there aHoly One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where isHe? 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 Hisglance were death. '" . . . 

And then, oh, then--has there not come that for which our spirit wasathirst--the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, thevery strain of pure music--for it is the very music of the spheres--inthose words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, andis to come"?

Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One--spotless andundefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfiedwith, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, andbathe 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, andto 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 CALLEDLady Day. 

It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways bywhich the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with thegrandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest, the most tender, the most human. What more grand, or deep, or divinewords can we say than, "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son ourLord, 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 VirginMary"? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother withher babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful tothose 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'scares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe inher arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-willtowards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured andblessed above all women. Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is thetime for our remembering the Blessed Virgin. For our hearts and reasonstell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must havebeen 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 hehimself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that thebirds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself inmortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature inclaiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who(as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest evenas 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 tothat 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 yearof 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 verythrone of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens whatthe world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of GodHimself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the graveto do his Father's work? Is it no honour to him that he has seen thatsuch a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that hethinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, inthe most ancient and august traditions of his native land? True, he mayhave 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 itselfall 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 itsessence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe throughall Time. I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and Inever, 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 ofthe love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is. I mean thatdepth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which Godhas put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend sostrangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, andfrom whom they can receive no earthly reward--the affection which madewomen minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which broughtMary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb--theaffection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow areleft in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live andconquer therein. 

_Water of Life Sermons_. 

Feeling and Emotion. April 6. 

Live a life of _feeling_, not of _excitement_. Let your religion, yourduties, every thought and word, be ruled by the _affections_, not by the_emotions_, which are the expressions of them. Do not consider whetheryou are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but beyourself--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 heseems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought ablessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live. Hesays the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about tobring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again--howand when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lordshall 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 innations, 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 notabsolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so. But we believe they arewhere they ought to be--that they are gone to a perfectly just world, inwhich is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of thisworld; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deedsdone 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 thereforeunnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray forthem who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state whichthey have deserved. 

_MS. Sermon_. 

Diversities of Gifts. April 10. 

 Why expectWisdom with love in all? Each has his gift--Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stopAnd various pitch: each with its proper notesThrilling 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 onearth--perhaps not in heaven. It is a mystery which thou must believeand adore. But _why_ He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thouhast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at--Christupon His Cross. He died because He was _Love_--love itself, loveboundless, unconquerable, unchangeable--love which inhabits eternity, andtherefore 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 itis 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 humanbeing at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better thisday. 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 fromidleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, thosetenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations ofhumanity, 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 theyare left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed intograceful, 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 betrained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, todistinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, thenoble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides itsshallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and a melodramaticsituation. They should learn--and that they can only learn bycultivation--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 pureand 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 thegreat test of faith is shown about the least matters. People willbelieve their soul is sure to be saved who have not the heart to expectthat 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 outamong us in these days. Much of what is called theology now is nothingbut experimental religion, which is most important and useful when it isfounded 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 inlove dwelleth in God, and God in him! Then we should have no need to betold to cultivate sweetness and light, for they would seem to us the onlytemper 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. Wemust have an object to whom we may devote the fruits of thought, andunless we have a real one in active life we shall be sure to coin one forourselves, and spend our spirits on a dream. "

"True, true, " chimed in the counsellor, "spirit is little use withoutbody, and a body it will find; and therefore, unless you let people'sbrains 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 hasdone his work?"

"But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?"

"And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools long for a short lifeand a merry one, and shall not the Lord's people pray for a short deathand 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 goodand loving God, for everything you want, in body as well as soul--theleast thing as well as the greatest. Nothing is too much to ask Godfor--nothing too great for Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord! Andtry to thank Him for everything . . . I sometimes feel that eternitywill be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us live atall! And then not making us idiots or cripples, or even only ugly andstupid! What blessings we have! Let us work in return for them--notunder the enslaving sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with thedelight 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, andhorses--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 raywhich nature did not give, and which nature cannot take away. Andtherefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to theflesh, 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 beingwould be this--to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; to haveeverything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never to beforced to say, "I should like that, but I cannot afford it. I shouldlike this, but I must not do it. " Never to deny himself, never to exerthimself, never to work, and never to want--that man's soul would be in asgreat 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 howyou women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth tobreak our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking! Ah! hech!were it not for Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather thanEve, 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 thatof the average, his honour higher. But of "godliness" in its truesense--of belief that any Being above cared for him, and was helping himin the daily business of life: that it was worth while asking thatBeing's advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for--of anypractical notion of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator--he was asignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, and readgood 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 theResurrection painted above the place where the desk and faldstool andlectern, holding an open missal book, stood. I should have ratherexpected, I thought to myself, a picture of the Crucifixion. She seemedto guess my thought, and said, "There is enough in an abode of heavyhearts, and in daily labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in ourminds the Prince of Sufferers. We need rather to be reminded that painis not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it has beenconquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose eternity of bliss a fewyears 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 thefirmament of the spiritual year;--to remind us that we are not animalsborn to do what we like, and fulfil the simple lusts of the flesh--butthat we are rational moral beings, members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, likeChrist, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. Theyremind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must growout 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 peaceof 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 howdid He keep it? Not by shutting Himself up apart, not by the merethinking over the glory of self-sacrifice. He taught daily in thetemple; instead of giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than everas the terrible end drew near. Why should not we keep Passion-week, notby merely hiding in our closets to meditate even about Him, but by goingabout 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 inheaven. He that loveth his life will lose it. He that hateth his lifein 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 newsin all its fulness, and be at peace. A little while and we see them, andagain a little while and we do not see them. But why? Because they aregone to the Father, to the Source and Fount of all life and power, alllight and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from Hispower, light from His light, love from His love; and surely not fornought. 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 likeChrist when they see Him as He is, then, more surely, will they not usetheir 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 ofChristians. St. Paul tells us his great hope, his great business, whatGod had sent him into the world to do, was this--to make people know thelove of Christ; to look at Christ's Cross, and take in its breadth andlength and depth and height. 

And what is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross? My friends, it is as broadas 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 thewhole world. " And that is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross. 

And what is the _length_ of Christ's Cross? Long enough to last throughall time. As long as there is a sinner to be saved; as long as there isignorance, sorrow, pain, death, or anything else which is contrary to Godand hurtful to man in the universe of God, so long will Christ's Crosslast. And that is the _length_ of the Cross of Christ. 

And how _high_ is Christ's Cross? As high as the highest heaven, and thethrone of God and the bosom of the Father--that bosom out of which forever 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 downon earth, and earth ascended into heaven. And that is the _height_ ofthe Cross of Christ. 

And how _deep_ is the Cross of Christ? This is a great mystery whichpeople are afraid to look into, and darken it of their own will. But ifthe Cross of Christ be as high as heaven, then it must be as deep ashell, deep enough to reach the deepest sinner in the deepest pit to whichhe may fall, for Christ descended into hell, and preached to the spiritsin prison. Let us hope, then, that is the _depth_ of the Cross ofChrist. 

"_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 yourloss!_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 beforeHe could rise. He must descend into hell before He could ascend intoheaven. For this is the law of God's kingdom. Without a Good Fridaythere can be no Easter Day. Without self-sacrifice there can be noblessedness. 

My Saviour! My King! Infinite, Eternal Love--alone of all beings devoidof self-love! Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy Cross andPassion!

_MS. _

Easter Even. 

Christ went down into hell and preached to the spirits in prison. It iswritten that "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be madealive;" and again, "When the wicked man turns from his wickedness heshall save his soul alive. " And we know that in the same chapter Godtells us that His ways are not unequal. It is possible, therefore, thatHe has not one law for this life and another for the life to come. Letus hope, then, that David's words may be true after all, when, speakingby the Spirit of God, he says not only "if I ascend up to heaven, thouart 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 believethat we, each of us, as human beings, men and women, shall have a sharein that glorious day; not merely as ghosts and disembodied spirits, butas 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 inhope;" not merely my soul, my ghost, but my flesh. For the Lord, who notonly died but rose again with His body, shall raise our bodies accordingto His mighty working, and then the whole manhood of us--body, soul, andspirit--shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal andeverlasting glory. 

_National Sermons_. 

APRIL 25. St. Mark, Evangelist and Martyr. 

God's apostles, saints, and martyrs are our spiritual ancestors. Theyspread the Gospel into all lands, and they spread it, remember always, not only by preaching what they knew, but by being what they were. Theircharacters, their personal histories, are as important to us as theirwritings. 

_Sermons_. 

May. 

Is it merely a fancy that we are losing that love for Spring which amongour old forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracleof the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in usthe astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the oldworld, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, andreturned in spring to life, and health, and glory; when Freya, thegoddess of youth and love, went forth over the earth while the flowersbroke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomedher with song? To those simpler children of a simpler age winter andspring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one ofdeath, the other of life; and the battle between the two--the battle ofthe sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, ofbereavement with love--lay at the root of all their myths and all theircreeds. Surely a change has come over our fancies! The seasons arelittle 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--onewhich will lead us more into all love and beauty and purity in heaven andearth? One which must have God's light of love shining on it at everystep. God gives us souls and bodies exquisitely attuned for this verypurpose--the aesthetic faculty, our sensibilities to the beautiful. Allevents of life, all the workings of our hearts, should point to this oneidea. As I walk the fields, the trees and flowers and birds, and themotes 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 andday! Do us justice! Spell our enigma, and go forth and tell thy fellowsthat we are their brethren, that their spirit is our spirit, theirSaviour 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 thegreatest of all questions. Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or hasHe not?

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866. 

Our Father. May 4. 

Look at those thousand birds, and without our Father not one of themshall fall to the ground; and art thou not of more value than manysparrows--thou for whom God sent His Son to die? . . . Ah! my friend, wemust look out and around to see what God is like. It is when we persistin turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our ownimperfections, that we learn to make a god after our own image, and fancythat our own hardness and darkness are the patterns of His light andlove. 

_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 neverunderstand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good feelingand fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed but endless mistakesand 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 avery pretty one for himself, and a fresh one as often as he is tired ofthe old. But the heart and soul of man wants more than that; as it iswritten, "My soul is athirst for GOD, even for the living God. " I want aliving 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 oflife 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 livesnext door, and to the man who lives in the next street. Do your duty toyour parish, that you may do your duty by your country and to allmankind, 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 antitheticalterms? The Bible never in a single instance makes the distinction, andsurely if God be the eternal and unchangeable One, and if all theuniverse bears the impress of His signet, we have no right, in thepresent infantile state of science, to put arbitrary limits of our own tothe revelation which He may have thought good to make of Himself inNature. Nay, rather, let us believe that if our eyes were opened weshould fulfil the requirement of genius and see the universal in theparticular by seeing God's whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected asin a mirror in the meanest flower, and that nothing but the dulness ofour simple souls prevents them from seeing day and night in all thingsthe Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling His own saying, "My Father workethhitherto, and I work. "

_Glaucus_. 1855. 

Wisdom the Child of Goodness. May 9. 

Goodness rather than talent had given her a wisdom, and goodness ratherthan courage a power of using that wisdom, which to those simple folkseemed almost an inspiration. 

_Two Years Ago_, chap. Ii. 1857. 

Rule of Life. May 10. 

Two great rules for the attainment of heavenly wisdom are simpleenough--"Never forget what and where you are, " and "Grieve not the HolySpirit. "

_MS. Letter_. 1841. 

Music the Speech of God. May 11. 

Music--there is something very wonderful in music. Words are wonderfulenough, but music is more wonderful. It speaks not to our thoughts aswords do, it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very coreand root of our souls. Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noblefeelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a languageby itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just asdivine, just as blessed. Music has been called the speech of angels; Iwill go farther, and call it the speech of God Himself. 

The old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen, made a point of teachingtheir children music, because, they said, it taught them not to be self-willed and fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness ofrule, 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 usall face to face with the realities of human life, as it has been in allages, giving us sterner and yet more loving, more human, and more divinethoughts about ourselves, and our business here, and the fate of thosewho are gone, and awakening us out of the luxurious, frivolous, andunreal dream (full nevertheless of hard judgments) in which we have beenliving so long, to trust in a living Father who is really and practicallygoverning this world and all worlds, and who willeth that none shouldperish. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1855. 

Street Arabs. May 13. 

One has only to go into the streets of any great city in England to seehow we, with all our boast of civilisation, are yet but one step removedfrom barbarism. Is that a hard word? Only there _are_ the barbariansround us at every street corner--grown barbarians, it may be, now all butpast saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yetsave, for God wishes us to save them. . . . Do not deceive yourselvesabout the little dirty, offensive children in the street. If they beoffensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. "Take heed that yedespise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels doalways 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 inspace which may become visible hereafter? or are they not rather themoral world of right and wrong? Love and righteousness--is not that theheaven itself wherein God dwells? Hatred and sin--is not that hellitself, 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 forgetcontinually what an earnest, awful world we live in--a whole eternitywaiting for us to be born, and a whole eternity waiting to see what weshall 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 alwaysgladly forget in comfort and prosperity--what an awful capacity ofsuffering we have; and more, what an awful capacity of suffering ourfellow-creatures have likewise. . . . 

We sit at ease too often in a fool's paradise, till God awakens us andtortures us into pity for the torture of others. And so, if we will notacknowledge our brotherhood by any other teaching, He knits us togetherby 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 weabuse it. To use your fancy to your own misery is to abuse it and tosin. 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 whois working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing that Hehas made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who satisfies not onlythe head but the heart, not only the logical intellect but the highestreason--that pure reason which is one with the conscience and moralsense! For Him we cry out, Him we seek, and if we cannot find Him weknow 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), "Littlechildren, love one another, " and ask God for His Holy Spirit, the spiritof love, which, instead of weakening a man's words, makes them all thestronger in the cause of truth, because they are spoken in love. 

How difficult it is to distinguish between the loving _tact_, whichavoids giving offence to a weaker brother, and the fear of man, whichbringeth a snare!

_MS. Letter_. 1842. 

Peasant Souls. May 20. 

. . . Dull boorsSee deeper than we think, and hide withinThose 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 assoon as you die to make you fit for heaven. There is not one word in theBible which gives us reason to suppose that we shall not be in the nextworld 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 andface this. Anything is good for us, however unpleasant it may be, whichdrives us from the only real misery, which is sin and selfishness, to theonly 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 andnot a power--beneficent or deadly, according as she is wielded by thehand of virtue or vice. But her lawful mistress, the only one which canuse her aright, the only one under whom she can truly grow and prosperand 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 wasstronger, God or I; I found out I had been trying whether I could not dowell enough without Him; and there I found that I could not--could not! Ifelt like a child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find itsway, and is lost at once. I did not know that I had a Father in heavenwho 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 awayfrom Thomas Thurnall, and instead of it grew up the heart of a littlechild. 

_Two Years Ago_, chap. Xxviii. 1857. 

Self-Security. May 24. 

Strange it is how mortal man, "who cometh up and is cut down like theflower, " can harden himself into a stoical security, and count on themorrow which may never come. Yet so it is, and perhaps if it were not sono work would get done on earth--at least by the many who know not thatGod 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 neitherPolitical Economy nor Expediency, but the Living God, who makes everyright 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. Badmen have taught him (and I fear these Anabaptists and Puritans at hometeach little else) that it is the one great business of every man to savehis own soul after he dies; every one for himself; and that that, and notdivine self-sacrifice, is the one thing needful, and the better partwhich Mary chose. "

"I think, " said Amyas, "men are enough inclined to be selfish withoutbeing 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 whichall others were contained, was Righteousness? and that disharmony withthat 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 thesublime, 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 tounderstand the mystery of that divine love which fills all heaven andearth, and concentrates itself into an articulate manifestation in theperson of Christ, will soon begin to find that he cannot enter into theperfect bliss of that truth without going further, and seeing that thehuman heart requires some standing-ground for its affection, even for thelove of wife and child, deeper and surer than that love, namely, in utterloyalty, resignation, adoring affection to Him in whom all loveliness isconcentrated. 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 merepleasure it gives. There is something sacramental in perfect metre andrhythm. They are outward and visible signs (most seriously we speak aswe say it) of an inward and spiritual grace, namely, of theself-possessed and victorious temper of one who has so far subdued natureas to be able to hear that universal sphere-music of hers, speaking ofwhich Mr. Carlyle says, that "all deepest thoughts instinctively ventthemselves in song. "

_Miscellanies_. 1849. 

Our Prayers. May 29. 

There can be no objection to praying for certain special things. Godforbid! I cannot help doing it, any more than a child in the dark canhelp 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 ourstress on the "run" rather than on the "danger, " to ask God not to takeaway the danger by altering the course of nature, but to give us lightand 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 introuble, when the heart is turbid from the world's admixtures, and thestirring up of the foul particles which will lie at the bottom, nothingbut the pure dew of heaven can restore its purity, when God's spiritcomes 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 inthe seemingly dead stick. One who sees that sight may find a new beautyand meaning in the mystic words, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches. " Itis not merely the connection between branch and stem common to all trees;not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of thegrape, which made the very heathen look upon it as the sacred andmiraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out ofthe unfruitful branches, to be burned as firewood--not merely these, butthe 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 leftunsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then burstingforth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, spreadingand trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the sky. This thought surely--the emblem of the living Church, springing from thecorpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise to be alive forevermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaningof 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 begood? 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 itwere offered to the Father in His own body, all loving actions, unselfishactions, merciful actions, heroic actions, which man has done or everwill do. From Him, from His spirit, their strength came; and thereforeHe is not ashamed to call them brethren. He is the King of the noblearmy 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 sufferedfor My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, and enabled thee tosuffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son of God, in whom the Fatheris well pleased. 

_Sermons_. 

Feast of the Ascension. 

"Lo, I am with you always, " said the Blessed One before He ascended tothe Father. And this is the Lord who we fancy is gone away far above thestars till the end of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads beforeHim at this moment! For here He is among us now, listening to everythought 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 tobe 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 TheeAs 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 whiteglare of dawn, which last night hung high in the north-west, hastravelled now to the north-east, and above the wooded wall of the hillsthe sky is flushing with rose and amber. A long line of gulls goeswailing inland; the rooks come cawing and sporting round the corner atLandcross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly alongto find their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and partridgesare clucking merrily in the long wet grass; every copse and hedgerowrings with the voice of birds; but the lark, who has been singing sincemidnight in the "blank height of the dark, " suddenly hushes his carol anddrops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from somewooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above theheavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mownhay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed, and freshwet 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 willnever die as long as there is a man left to see that the world might andcan be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all things than it is now. Thespirit of romance will never die as long as a man has faith in God tobelieve 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 allromances, 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 dailybread, and say, "Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth asit 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, thewhisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of thosecunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is made inthe image of Christ, the Word of God, who creates all things; all musicupon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type ofthe everlasting music which is in heaven, which was before all worlds andshall 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 verysolemn and heavy duties. They do not always increase a man's happiness;they always increase his responsibility, the awful account which he mustrender 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-dayBy lawn and garden gay;'Tis play befits the noonOf rosy-girdled June;. . . . . The world before them, and aboveThe 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, contentwith 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 andfollow 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 cansave yourself and that which belongs to you, and can do more work withless effort. Knowledge of domestic economy saves income; knowledge ofsanitary laws saves health and life: knowledge of the laws of theintellect saves wear and tear of brain, and knowledge of the laws of thespirit--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 thingswhich cluster on them, all worship, worship, worship with us! Let us goup in the evenings and pray there, with nothing but God's cloud templebetween us and His heaven! And His choir of small birds and nightcrickets and booming beetles, and all happy things who praise Him allnight long! And in the still summer noon, too, with the lazy-pacedclouds above, and the distant sheep-bell, and the bee humming in the bedsof thyme, and one bird making the hollies ring a moment, and then allstill--hushed--awe-bound, as the great thunder-clouds slide up from thefar south! Then, then, to praise God! Ay, even when the heaven is blackwith wind, the thunder crackling over our heads, then to join in the paeanof the storm-spirits to Him whose pageant of power passes over the earthand 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 ofbeauty, every association, every moral reflection, every inexpressiblefeeling from it. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1842. 

Certain and Uncertain. June 10. 

"Life is uncertain, " folks say. Life is certain, say I, because God iseducating us thereby. But this process of education is so far above oursight that it looks often uncertain and utterly lawless; wherefore foolsconceive (as does M. Comte) that there is no Living God, because theycannot 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 tostrength. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1868. 

Sensuality. June 11. 

What is sensuality? Not the enjoyment of holy glorious matter, butblindness 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 assoon as possible--then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of thecollar. . . . I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse, very thankful as the end draws near. . . . Long life is the last thingthat I desire. It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more andmore the painful consciousness of the difference between what _ought_ tobe done and what _can_ be done, and sits down more quietly when one getsthe wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things wecannot do for ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man canhave 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 thelamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his handbefore it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more evenfeet. 

_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, asfalse preachers say, give over this life to impunity and this world tothe devil, and only resume the reigns of moral government and the rightof retribution when men die and go into the next world. Here in thislife He punishes sin. Slowly but surely God punishes. If any of youdoubt my words you have only to commit sin and then see whether your sinwill 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 solvesitself so very soon at best--by death. Do what is right the best way youcan, and wait to the end to _know_. 

_MS. Letter_. 

But remember that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter ourcharacter--though it may alter our circumstances, it cannot alterourselves. 

_Discipline and other Sermons_. 

The Father's Education. June 15. 

Sin, [Greek text], is the missing of a mark, the falling short of anideal; . . . And that each miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself thepenalty, is to me the best of news and gives me hope for myself and everyhuman being past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them allas children under a paternal education, who are being taught to becomeaware of, and use their own powers in God's house, the universe, and forGod's work in it; and, in proportion as they do that, they attainsalvation, _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 brightforenoon in early summer. As you try to disentangle the medley ofsounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud, harsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch, and the metallicclinking of two or three sorts of titmice. But above the tree-tops, rising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low. Abovethe pastures outside the skylark sings--as he alone can sing; and closeby from the hollies rings out the blackbird's tenor--rollicking, audacious, humorous, all but articulate. From the tree above him risesthe 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 thenightingale. And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself;now croaking like a frog, now talking aside to his wife, and now burstingout into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man find sorrow, he himself surely finds none. . . . In Nature there is nothingmelancholy. 

_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 fromus, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be influencing andguiding us in a hundred ways of which we, in our prison-house ofmortality, cannot dream? Yes! Do not be afraid to believe that he whomyou 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 signof want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness. 

By quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall win. "Neitherstrive nor cry nor let your voice be heard in the streets, " was goodadvice 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 andcrying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never seen onesucceed 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 neverpast as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man orwoman left to say, "I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in theattempt. " The age of chivalry is never past as long as men have faithenough in God to say, "God will help me to redress that wrong; or if notme, surely He will help those that come after me. For His eternal willis 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 tinyleaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the glories of Claude, or Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold themselves to you! You must knowNature or you cannot know Art. And when you do know Nature you will onlyprize 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 bytens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves with questionings;simple, genial hearts, who try to do what good they can in the world, andmeddle not with matters too high for them; people whose religion is notabstruse but deep, not noisy but intense, not aggressive but laboriouslyuseful; people who have the same habit of mind as the early Christiansseem to have worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulae, when the Apostles' Creed was symbol enough for the Church, and men wereorthodox in heart rather than exact in head. 

For such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they love, andserves Him whom they serve. Personal affection and loyalty to the sameunseen Being is to them a communion of saints both real and actual, inthe 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? Godforbid! I believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, andwith every human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, andinexhaustible. 

_MS. Letter_. 

Taught by Failure. June 25. 

So I am content to have failed. I have learned in the experimentpriceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the city of God, which is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, andactualising itself more and more in every succeeding age. I only knowthat 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 whatman is. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1857. 

Presentiments. June 26. 

"I cannot deny, " said Claude, "that such things as presentiments may bepossible. However miraculous they may seem, are they so very much moreso than the daily fact of memory? I can as little guess why we rememberthe 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 itis 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 ofus, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him? Thelonger I live this seems to me more important, and all other questionsless 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--aslong as one is not crippled for one's everyday duties--but to give way toit utterly and freely. Perhaps sorrow is sent that we _may_ give way toit, and in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some medicine in ititself, which we should not find if we began doctoring ourselves, orletting others doctor us. If we say simply, "I am wretched--I ought tobe wretched;" then we shall perhaps hear a voice, "Who made thee wretchedbut God? Then what can He mean but thy good?" And if the heart answersimpatiently, "My good? I don't want it, I want my love;" perhaps thevoice 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 webwill resolve itself into golden threads of twined, harmonious life, guiding both us, and those we love, together, through this life to thatresurrection of the flesh, when we shall at last know the reality and thefulness 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, whobreatheth whither He listeth, and cannot be confined to any feelings orrules of yours or of any man's, but may meet you in the Sacraments or outof the Sacraments, even as He will, and has methods of comforting andeducating you of which you will never dream; One whose will is the sameas 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 inheaven for all, a Son of God incarnate for all, and a Spirit of theFather _and_ the Son--who works to will and to do of His own goodpleasure 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 onearth. 

_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 draughtsQuickening the wombed earth. 

_Saint's Tragedy_. 

JUNE 21. St. John the Baptist. 

How shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves? Great painters haveexercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions. The bestwhich I can recollect is Guido's--of the magnificent lad sitting on therock, half clad in his camel's-hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up todenounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong, utterly wrong to him--his beautiful mouth open to preach he hardly knowswhat, save that he has a message from God, of which he is half consciousas yet--that he is a forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller of something andsome one who is to come, and which is very near at hand. The wild rocksare round him, the clear sky over him, and nothing more, . . . And he, the noble and the priest, has thrown off--not in discontent anddesperation (for he was neither democrat nor vulgar demagogue), but inhope and awe--all his family privileges, all that seems to make lifeworth having; and there aloft and in the mountains, alone with God andNature, feeding on locusts and wild honey and clothed in skins, he, likeElijah of old, preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness, partyspirit, and superstition--preaches what?--The most common--Morality. Ah, wise politician! ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tellsothers to do the duty which lies nearest to them! . . . Who in the hourof his country's deepest degradation had divine courage to say, ourdeliverance 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 forthHis sorrow's glory; hunger, weep with Him;Taste His keen stripes, and let this aching fleshSink through His fiery baptism into death. 

_Saint's Tragedy_. 

St. Peter, as he is drawn in the Gospels and the Acts, is a grand andcolossal human figure, every line and feature of which is full of meaningand full of beauty to us. 

_Sermons_, _Discipline_. 

July. 

It was a day of God. The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed androofed with sapphire: blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead. Thereshe lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as thoughher two great sisters of the sea and air had washed her weary limbs withholy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's sin and toil, andcooled her hot worn forehead with their pure incense-breath, and foldedher within their azure robes, and brooded over her with smiles of pityinglove, till she smiled back in answer, and took heart and hope for nextweek's weary work. 

Heart and hope for next week's work. --That was the sermon which itpreached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and awanderer like Ulysses of old: but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, fatedefiant. He was more of a heathen than Ulysses--for he knew not whatUlysses knew, that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; stillless that what he called the malicious sport of fortune was, in truth, the earnest education of a Father. . . . "Brave old world she is afterall, " he said; "and right well made; and looks right well to-day in hergo-to-meeting clothes, and plenty of room and chance for a brave man toearn his bread, if he will but go right on about his business, as thebirds and the flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what peoplethink 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 looksdown on all things which He has made; and behold they are very good. Andtherefore we dare to offer to Him in our churches the most perfect worksof naturalistic art, and shape them into copies of whatever beauty He hasshown 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 thehumble and the contrite heart, to whom He reveals Himself as a Spirit tobe worshipped in spirit and in truth, and not in bread nor wood, norstone 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 lovealone can give, and the apprehension of our own private duties andrelations, 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 theCreeds, which so many fancy to be at their last gasp, are still thefinest and highest succour, not merely of the peasant and the outcast, but of the subtle artist and the daring speculator. Blessed it is tofind the most cunning poet of our day able to combine the rhythm andmelody of modern times with the old truths which gave heart to themartyrs at the stake, to see in the science and the history of thenineteenth century new and living fulfilments of the words which welearnt at our mother's knee!

_Miscellanies_. 1850. 

A Master-Truth. July 4. 

Every creature of God is good, if it be sanctified with prayer andthanksgiving! This to me is the master-truth of Christianity, theforgetfulness of which is at the root of almost all error. It seems tome that it was to redeem man and the earth that Christ was made man andused the earth!--that Christianity has never yet been pure, because itnever yet, since St. Paul's time, has stood on _this_ as the fundamentaltruth, 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 thework and fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derivefrom 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 tochallenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as acultivated 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, whichstill keep her mind attuned to that which may be in others, though in hernever more; till she can hear her own wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tonesof every girl who loves, and see her own wedding-torch re-lighted in theeyes 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 amystery, how we ever got into this world; a stranger thing still to mehow we shall ever get out of this world again. Yet they are commonthings 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 theworld ever saw. Every educated man knows that they were the cleverest ofall nations, and, next to his Bible, thanks God for Greek literature. Nowthe Greeks had made physical, as well as intellectual education a scienceas well as a study. Their women practised graceful, and in some caseseven athletic exercises. They developed, by a free and healthy life, those figures which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of humanbeauty. 

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. 

Study the human figure, both as intrinsically beautiful and as expressingmind. It only expresses the broad natural childish emotions, which arejust what we want to return to from our over subtlety. Study "naturallanguage"--I mean the language of attitude. It is an inexhaustiblesource of knowledge and delight, and enables one human being tounderstand another so perfectly. Therefore learn to draw and paintfigures. 

_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 byheavy toil. 

_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_. 1874. 

The Church. July 10. 

"The Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine, " said CaptainWillis, "having served under her Majesty and her Majesty's forefathers, and learned to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you'retaking 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 ofdoctrine is of no use? without which either a man or a nation is poor, and blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, notwithstanding all hisreligion? Isaiah will tell, "Wash you, make you clean, saith the Lord. Do justice to the fatherless, relieve the widow. " Church-building andchurch-going are well, but they are not repentance. Churches are notsouls. I ask for your hearts, and you give me fine stones and finewords. 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 thetree and let the ripe fruit drop into your mouth; where the "competitionof species" works with ruthless energy among all ranks of being, fromkings upon their thrones to the weed upon the waste; where "he that isnot hammer is sure to be anvil;" and "he who will not work neither shallhe eat. "

_Ancien Regime_. 1867. 

True Insight. July 13. 

It is easy to see the spiritual beauty of Raffaelle's Madonnas, but itrequires a deeper and more practised, all-embracing, loving, simplespirituality, 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--alland 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 surelyis He always punishing in detail. By that infinite concatenation ofmoral causes and effects, which makes the whole world one mass of specialProvidences, every sin of ours will punish itself, and probably punishitself in kind. Are we selfish? We shall call out selfishness inothers. Do we neglect our duty? Then others will neglect their duty tous. Do we indulge our passions? Then others who depend on us willindulge theirs, to our detriment and misery. 

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 

Antinomies. July 15. 

Spiritual truths present themselves to us in "antinomies, " apparentlycontradictory pairs, pairs of poles, which, however, do not reallycontradict, or even limit, each other, but are only correlatives, theexistence of the one making the existence of the other necessary, explaining each other, and giving each other a real standing ground andequilibrium. Such an antinomic pair are, "He that loveth not knoweth notGod, " and "If a man hateth not his father and mother he cannot be Mydisciple. "

_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 beabove rank, and look at men as men, and women as women, and all as God'schildren. There is a "refinement" which is the invention of that sensualmind, 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 ownfeelings--exultation and action, with the remembrance of past sorrowwailing up, yet without bitterness, tender in its shrillness, through themingled tide of present joy; and the notes seem thoughts--thoughts pureof words; and a spirit seems to call to me in them and cry, "Hast thounot felt all this?" And I start when I find myself answeringunconsciously, "Yes, yes, I know it all! Surely we are a part of all wesee and hear!" And then, the harmony thickens, and all distinct sound ispressed together and absorbed in a confused paroxysm of delight, wherestill the female treble and the male bass are distinct for a moment, andthen one again--absorbed into each other's being--sweetened andstrengthened by each other's melody. . . . 

_Letters and Memories_. 1842. 

Vagueness of Mind. July 18. 

By allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost persuaded by everyone 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 thisis faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God'sgreatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from thosestrange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, asfrom 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 manthe blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has rootsdeep and wide struck down into all he sees, and that only the Being whocan do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up. It is pleasant to lookdown on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that isbeneath, and all beneath know me. It is pleasant to see the same treesyear 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, andtherefore our love to God, to each other, to everything, will progressfor ever. And the attainment of this heavenly wisdom requires neitherecstacy nor revelation, but prayer and watchfulness, and observation, anddeep and solemn thought. 

Two great rules for its attainment are simple enough--Never forget whatand where you are, and grieve not the Holy Spirit, for "If a man will doGod'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; Ishould like to awaken in them, about their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent firstof upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfilthat aspiration even in part. For to be discontented with the divinediscontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ andfirst 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 spoketruth; if a man will but do his work from a sense of duty, which is forthe sake of God. 

_Sermons_. 

Distrust and Anarchy. July 24. 

Over the greater part of the so-called civilised world is spreading adeep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man towards his neighbour, anda practical unbelief in every man whom you do see, atones for itself by atheoretic belief in an ideal human nature which you do not see. Such atemper 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 adeeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political anarchy, --which theabuse of the critical spirit leads to, --the anarchy of society and of thefamily, the anarchy of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor humanbeings 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? Whyis not eternity to have action and change, yet both like God, compatiblewith rest and immutability? This earth is but one minor planet of aminor system. Are there no more worlds? Will there not be incident andaction springing from these when the fate of this world is decided? Hasthe evil one touched this alone? Is it not self-conceit which makes usthink 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 bereally democratic, which should use, under developed forms, that methodwhich made the mediaeval priesthood the one great democratic institutionof old Christendom; bringing to the surface and utilising the talents andvirtues 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. Wemust _trust_. Our weapons must be prayer and faith, and our onlystandard the Bible. As soon as we leave these weapons and take to"knowledge of the world, " and other people's clumsy prejudices as ourguides, we must inevitably be beaten by the World, which knows how to useits own arms better than we do. What else is meant by becoming as alittle child?

_MS. Letter_. 1843. 

Uneducated Women. July 28. 

Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the womenare uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novelsor translations of them--in every one of those countries the women, evento the highest, are the slaves of superstition, and the puppets ofpriests. In proportion as women are highly educated, family life andfamily secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion tono 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, thegreat Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains ofour 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 purerand 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 maychoose to forget them, and the Judge who administers them is the sameyesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, theEverlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded. Whosoever shall fall on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shallindeed be broken, but of him it is written, "A broken and a contriteheart, 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, withall 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 mercyon 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 wouldsooner have given my forefinger than that he should have gone to thedogs. "

"Then, my dear sir, if _you_ feel for him still, in spite of all hisfaults, how do you know that God may not feel for him in spite of all hisfaults? For my part, " said Frank, in his fanciful way, "withoutbelieving in that Popish purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato thatsuch 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 itis this, in addition to a thousand things, which makes me feel theabsolute certainty of a resurrection, and a hope that this, our presentlife, instead of being an ultimate one, which is to decide our fate forever, is merely some sort of chrysalis state in which man's faculties areso narrow and cramped, his chances (I speak of the millions, not ofunits) 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 worthYears hence . . . And crown him martyr; and his name will ringThrough all the shores of earth, and all the starsWhose eyes are sparkling through their tears to seeHis 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 hedgerowMarks of angels' feet, Epics in each pebbleUnderneath 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 onepretends to be more than a man he must begin by proving himself a man atall. 

_Two Years Ago_, chap. Xv. 

Nature's Student. August 3. 

The perfect naturalist must be of a reverent turn of mind--giving Naturecredit for an inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will keep himhis life long, always reverent, yet never superstitious; wondering at thecommonest, but not surprised by the most strange; free from the idols ofsense and sensuous loveliness; able to see grandeur in the minutestobjects, beauty in the most ungainly: estimating each thing not carnally, as the vulgar do, by its size, . . . But spiritually, by the amount ofDivine thought revealed to him therein. . . . 

_Glaucus_. 1855. 

The Masses. August 4. 

Though permitted evils should not avenge themselves by any politicalretribution, yet avenge themselves, if unredressed, they surely will. They affect masses too large, interests too serious, not to makethemselves bitterly felt some day. . . . We may choose to look on themasses in the gross as objects for statistics--and of course, wherepossible, for profits. There is One above who knows every thirst, andache, and sorrow, and temptation of each slattern, and gin-drinker, andstreet-boy. The day will come when He will require an account of theseneglects 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 belowWelters the black, fermenting heap of lifeOn 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 andpractically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself andothers? Knowledge too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped orcoloured by my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure and calm andsound; Siccum Lumen, "Dry Light, " as the greatest of philosophers calledit of old. 

To all such who long for light, that by the light they may live, Godanswers through His only begotten Son: "Ask and ye shall receive, seekand ye shall find. "

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873. 

This World. August 7. 

What should the external world be to those who truly love, but the gardenin which they are placed, not so much for sustenance or enjoyment ofthemselves and each other, as to dress it and to keep it--_it_ to betheir 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 oldchronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities andmysteries--these fed Shakespeare's youth. Why should they not feed ourchildren's? That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellousand fantastic--has that a merely evil root? No, surely! it is a mostpure part of their spiritual nature; a part of "the heaven which liesabout us in our infancy;" angel-wings with which the free child leaps theprison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life. Itis a God-appointed means for keeping alive what noble Wordsworth callsthose

 ". . . . 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--thatis, which produce least _startling_ emotion, and most easy andinvoluntary practice. 

_MS. _ 1843. 

Acceptable Sacrifices. August 10. 

Every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, ay, even toa dumb animal; every time we conquer our worldliness, love of pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our consciencetells us to be our duty, --we are indeed worshipping God the Father inspirit and in truth, and offering Him a sacrifice which He will surelyaccept for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose Spirit all good deedsand thoughts are inspired. 

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871. 

Chivalry. August 11. 

Chivalry; an idea which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that mankindshould 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 everycollier 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 afool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart that has tried tofind pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything elsedisappoints, and to come back to Him, the fountain of all wholesomepleasure, the well-spring of all life, fit for a man to live. 

God condescends to wait for His creature; because what He wants is notHis creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, buthis heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave tohis master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he hasstill left him, when all beside has played him false. Let him come backthus. 

_Discipline and other Sermons_. 

Thrift. August 13. 

The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work aspossible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar andobstruction, the least wear and tear. And the secret of thrift isknowledge. 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 likelittle 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 welook at Nature as a baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcelywish to solve. And therefore deep things, which the intellect in vainstruggles 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 recogniseHim--in which perhaps neither you nor I shall recognise _Him_; but itwill be enough, I hope, if we but hear His message, and obey His graciousinspiration, let Him speak through whatever means He will. He may cometo us by some crisis in our life, either for sorrow or for bliss. He maycome to us by a great failure; by a great disappointment--to teach thewilful and ambitious soul that not in _that_ direction lies the path ofpeace; or He may come in some unexpected happiness to teach that samesoul that He is able and willing to give abundantly beyond all that wecan ask or think. 

_MS. Sermon_. 1874. 

Lesson of the Cross. August 16. 

On the Cross God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow, and madethem 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! "Howcan 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 oflife, the cloud-chequered, sun-and-shower mystery of life, is solved! forwe shall have found one home and one brotherhood, and happy faces willgreet us wherever we move, and we shall see God! see Him everywhere, andbe ready to wait for the Renewal, for the Kingdom of Christ perfected! Wecame 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 andthe future, from one creed and another, and take our journey into a farcountry, which is yet this earth--a world-migration to the heavenlyCanaan, through the Red Sea of Death, back again to the land which wasgiven 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_" andthe body as the "_non moi_;" and this idea that the body is not _self_, is the fundamental principle of mysticism and asceticism, anddiametrically 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 couldunderstand--Nature; and do what a little child could do--love. Feed onNature. It will digest itself. It did so when you were a little childthe 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 intoit. . . . 

_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 andgrows with the everlasting life of God Himself. 

_MS. _

Lifting of the Veil. August 21. 

I seldom pass those hapless loungers who haunt every watering-placewithout thinking sadly how much more earnest, happier, and better men andwomen they might be if the veil were but lifted from their eyes, and theycould learn to behold that glory of God which is all around them like anatmosphere, while they, unconscious of what and where they are, wrapt upeach in his little selfish world of vanity and interest, gaze lazilyaround 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 sufferpatiently under affliction. It is a true and sound meaning, but it meansmore. Why did Christ take up the cross? Not for affliction's sake, orfor 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 besaved. 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 themelancholy 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 youfancy you do not love Him enough, above all when Satan tempts you to lookinward, go immediately and minister to others; visit the sick, performsome act of self-sacrifice or thanksgiving. Never mind how _dull_ youmay 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 byphysical 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 asight and sound and scent even, of which we have never _thought_ at all, sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thuschildren brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will mostlikely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affectionand 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. Besure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy putshimself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees withtheir eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makesallowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father inheaven is merciful. 

_Westminster Sermons_. 1872. 

Penitential Prayer. August 27. 

Faith in God it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of alltrue penitence for evermore. Penitential prayers in all ages have toooften wanted faith in God, and therefore have been too often prayers toavert punishment. This, this--the model of all true penitent prayers--isthat of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take hispunishment, 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 nearyou--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly as near youas 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 goeven now, though unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our restlesshearts and say, "Peace be unto you, " and not in vain. For what they didfor us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they arein 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 Godbeen a reality, who did not leave the creature to find his Creator, butstooped from heaven, at the very beginning of our race, to find Hiscreature. 

_Sermons on David_. 1866. 

Thine, not mine. August 30. 

Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead ofpriding yourself upon it as if the good in it came from you, offer it upto 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 andnot Thine. I thank Thee for having made me do right, for without Thyhelp I should have done nothing but wrong. For mine is the laziness, andthe weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and Thine is thekingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, for Thou doest allthings; 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. Ifancy 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 onme, and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is mosthealthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know toowell that I often do the same ineffectually. But, in the comfort thatthe worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmlyforward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of thatworld whereof it is written, "He shall reign until He hath put allenemies under His feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake offire. "

* * * * *

The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to givenew light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness andthe 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 LivingFoundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is writtenthat _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share thefate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universebe--what it must be some day--_very good_. 

* * * * *

Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore Ibelieve in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroyall which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till allenemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if theyconfess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. AndGod 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, fortheirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it isno less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore thatsupreme 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 thatwhen the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats arealways brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ inthem. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray withsome foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality orthe gray of morbid melancholy. But when they are free again! when theyhurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they areclear! Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth poursinto them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for lifeand health and food; and through their swift yet yieldingeddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate andundefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, theSpirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium ofanother human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul isstirred by circumstance into passion and motion and action strong andswift. 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 itcost me; and in God's goodness I trust to make me good, for I am sure Hewishes 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 Godis good, and have so given Him real glory, and real honour, and realpraise, He will save you from the sins which torment you, and you shallnever come, either in this world or the world to come, to that worstmisery, 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 forourselves. 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 canmake 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 heavenand earth and say, "Great and wonderful and awful as this earth and thoseskies may be, I am more precious in the sight of God than sun and moonand stars; for they are things, but I am a person, a spirit, an immortalsoul, made in the likeness of God, redeemed into the likeness of God. This great earth was here thousands and thousands of years before I wasborn, and it will be here perhaps millions of years after I am dead. Butit cannot harm _Me_, it cannot kill _Me_. When earth, and sun, and starshave passed away I shall live for ever, for I am the immortal child of animmortal 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 andcircumstance, wealth and age, and even temporary beauty, at the same timethat it alone can perfectly _use_ all those material adjuncts. Beingspiritual, it is Lord of matter, and can give and receive from it gloryand 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 nearestus, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones for ourselves. If eachdrop of rain _chose_ where it should fall, God's showers would not fallas they do now, on the evil and the good alike. I know from theexperience of my own heart how galling this doctrine is--how, likeNaaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid us dosome 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 awfulsadness of that text, "The time shall come when you shall desire to seeone 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 thenight 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 hearit? There never was a time in which the critical spirit was morethoroughly in the ascendant. Every man now is an independent critic. Toaccept fully, or as it is now called, to follow blindly; to admireheartily, or as it is now called, fanatically--these are considered signsof weakness or credulity. To believe intensely; to act unhesitatingly;to admire passionately; all this, as the latest slang phrases it, is "badform"; a proof that a man is not likely to win in the race of this worldthe prize whereof is, the greatest possible enjoyment with the leastpossible work. 

_The Critical Spirit_. 1871. 

Toil and Rest. September 8. 

Remember always, toil is the condition of our being. Our sentence is tolabour from the cradle to the grave. But there are Sabbaths allowed forthe mind as well as the body, when the intellect is stilled, and theemotions 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, thestorms came on heavier than ever, with terrible seas breaking short andpyramid-wise, till, on the 9th of September, the tiny _Squirrel_ nearlyfoundered, and yet recovered, and the General (Sir Humphrey Gilbert), sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the _Hind_, "Weare as near heaven by sea as by land, " reiterating the same speech wellbe-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 tosee into the very deepest meaning of God's word and God's earth, and tohave, as it were, heaven opened before his eyes; and it is good for a mansometimes actually to _feel_ his heart overpowered with the gloriousmajesty of God--to _feel_ it gushing out with love to his blessedSaviour; but it is not good for him to stop there any more than for theApostles 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, andso have we. Believe me, one word of warning spoken to keep a littlechild out of sin, --one crust of bread given to a beggar-man because he isyour brother, for whom Christ died, --one angry word checked on your lipsfor the sake of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; any the smallestendeavour to lessen the amount of evil which is in yourselves and thosearound you, --is worth all the speculations, and raptures, and visions, and frames, and feelings in the world; for these are the good fruits offaith, 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 cryingout about _I_, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for alldevils, 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 toface with _fact_, ultimate fact, however horrible it may be, and to haveto confess to himself shuddering, what things are possible on God'searth, when man has forgotten that his only welfare is in living afterthe likeness of God. 

_Miscellanies_. 1858. 

The Heroical Rest. September 14. 

Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is to havemore to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things must find hisaccount in being made ruler over many things. That is the true andheroical rest which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As forthose 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 aspoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though they callthemselves saints and elect. 

_Westward Ho_! chap. Vii. 1855. 

Body and Soul. September 15. 

Remember that St. Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascensionof our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of oursouls in this life, for without that, the resurrection of our bodieswould be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh miseryand 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 ofmen by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great, I couldbelieve nothing. 

_Letters and Memories_. 

Love of Work. September 18. 

"Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God's likeness clings to a manlongest and closest and best? No? Then I will tell you. It is the loveof employment. God in heaven must create Himself a universe to work onand love. And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, cannot rest withoutour _mundus peculiaris_ of some sort--our world subjective, as DoctorMusophilus has it. But we can create too, and make our little spherelook 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. Andwhat we ask believing we shall receive. Never let us get into the commontrick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because wehave 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, rememberalways that the background of His triumph is a tomb. Remember that it isthe triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the printsof the nails in His sacred hands and feet, and the wound of the spear inHis 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 ispeopled not merely with phantoms and superstitions and spirits of evil, but under its shadow all sciences, methods, social energies, are takingrest, 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 ofthat word: namely, in suffering? in daring, in struggling, in grieving, in agonising, and, if need be, in dying for the object of its love? Everymother 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 ourreason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings ofmoralists about "the fleeting hues of this our painted clay;" and tellmen, as the old Hebrew Scriptures told them, that physical beauty is thedeepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty withoutdiscretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel ofgold 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 religiousprofession, with an ungodly, selfish life. It is the worst and mostdangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heartand life without giving pain, so that the sick man never suspects thatanything is the matter with him till he finds himself, to hisastonishment, 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 thebattle to do just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterlydifferent self-education. That is the life of great spirits, after, perhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the lowerpaths of God's vineyard, till their hearts have settled into a still, deep, yet swift current, and those who have been faithful over a fewthings 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 withHigh Church principles, which makes the clergy our teachers--not thekeepers 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 tryinganything new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own. Andlet us never be afraid of changing our opinions. The unwillingness to goback from once declared opinion is a form of pride which haunts somepowerful minds: but it is not found in great childlike geniuses. Foolsmay hold fast to their scanty stock through life, and we must be verycautious 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 materialheaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll intheir 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 giventhem a law which shall not be broken. But above them; above the divineand wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which areGod's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine andwonderful order of _rational_ beings, of races loftier and purer thanman--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities andpowers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not, alas! fulfilled onearth. 

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867. 

True Resignation. September 30. 

. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as thedivine affections. I am happy, for the less hope, the more faith. . . . God knows what is best for us; we do not. Continual resignation, at lastI 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; theblessedness 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 inanxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old wereblest, 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, thoughHe 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, forthe very angels in heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and wedo 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 ownwills to be ministers of God's will. In them is neither self-will norselfishness; and, therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty, they stand. And so, by consenting to lose their individual life ofselfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life ofblessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have lost theireternal life by trying to save their selfish life and be something inthemselves 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 aquiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled cloudwere sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung over thesouthern chalk downs, which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south-eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hungover the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge elms andpoplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down at every rustleof the western breeze, spotting the grass below. The river swirledalong, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rottingleaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful evenin decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the verywindow-sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena and geraniumwere still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia andplane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicategreen leaves, and more delicate yellow blossoms, through the crimson lace-work of the Virginia creeper; and the great yellow noisette swung itslong 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 dothat day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced towork, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and ahundred 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 afterits kind, bears within it not only the builder oak but shade for many aherd, 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 itsdescendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good deedcontain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities of other good, which may and will grow and multiply for ever, in the genial light of Himwhose eternal mind conceived it, and whose eternal spirit will for everquicken 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, everyperson I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is notsinful--comes and happens by the perpetual Providence of God watching forever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing that He hasmade. 

_MS. Letter_. 

Virtue. October 4. 

Nothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and virtue. Man willalways try to find substitutes for it. He will try to find a substitutein superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility andworship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will beheard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute inintellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . But letno 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 goodmeant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in theworld 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, asthey 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 usedto be. As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had onboard had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in thefire. And gold seven times tried he was when God, having done His workin 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 textthat has saved more than one soul from madness in the hour of sorrow; andit is so _simple_ and _wide_--wide as eternity, simple as light, true asGod Himself. If we are to do great things it must be in the spirit ofthat text. Verily, when the Son of God cometh shall He find faith in theearth?

_Letters and Memories_. 1843. 

Mountain-Ranges. October 8. 

We fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand half-wayup on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other from isolatedstations. The mists hide from us the foot of the range beneath us, thedepths of primary analysis to which none can reach, or we should see thatall the peaks were but offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in theirinmost root but One! And the clouds which float between us and theheaven shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves--the perfect issuesof synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness shines withundimmed lustre--and keep us from perceiving that the complete practicaldetails of our applied knowledge is all holy and radiant with God'ssmile. And so, half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, webuild up little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancythem 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 cheerfuland hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on theirfaces, 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 theold 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 wantfaith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to explain awayGod'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 ofall--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 thestars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet areat perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling thelaw which God has given them. Perfect rest in perfect work; that surelyis 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, inthe sense in which Novalis says--that we touch Heaven when we lay ourhand 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 tohave 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 lowerand more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one ofself-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives inand 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 ata', as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel--_yersel_? Mony wasthe year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when itwas 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 worthliving for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, andthere's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, Ithink--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 toonotorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues. 

_Sermons on David_. 

The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble andearnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to goastray. 

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. 

Egotism of Melancholy. October 16. 

Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind. Theself-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, mustbe dissatisfied with what it sees within. Then it begins unconsciouslyto flatter itself with the idea that it is not the "_moi_" but the "_nonmoi_, " the world around, which is evil. Hence comes Manichaeism, Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to lookfor sorrow that it finds it even in joy--because it will not confess toitself that sorrow belongs to _sin_, and that sin belongs to _self_; andtherefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God's earth, and not on itselfin repentance and humiliation. 

The world looks dark. Shall we therefore be dark too? Is it not ourbusiness 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 inlittle 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 ofscientific men is not how many diseases _are_, but how few are _not_, theconsequences of men's ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence. Themedical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is insickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but ofthe social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and thefirst 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 oflove--the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in away 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 somefresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed downby the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child oncemore, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him. Andthen there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill intoclumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on whichhe treads, or than the foot which treads it--the vision of an EverlastingSpiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; andwho, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substanceendure 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 hewho expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed. " Say rather, "Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once atleast, 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, " ifyou pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that isyearning to spend itself on children of your own. As long as such as youwalk this lower world one needs no Butler's _Analogy_ to prove to us thatthere 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 ofChrist'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 theworld that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him forit. Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is sure--that good mustconquer, because God is good, that evil must perish, because God hatesevil, 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 anda 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 theinsight. Heroic souls in old times had no more opportunities than wehave; but they used them. There were daring deeds to be done then--arethere none now? Sacrifices to be made--are there none now? Wrongs to beredrest--are there none now? Let any one set his heart in these days todo what is right, and nothing else; and it will not be long ere his browis stamped with all that goes to make up the heroical expression--withnoble 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 usall, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is utter trust inGod; 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 allvirtues and graces which God can give is Self-Control, as necessary forthe saint and the sage lest they become fanatics and pedants, as for theyoung 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 thesefast-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 therivers which flow out of their bosoms. They will abolish themselves whentheir work is done, but not before. And we, who, with all our boastedscientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and carnalpoint of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic animals burrowingin the fair Earth's skin, had better, instead of boasting of our empireover Nature, take care lest we become too troublesome to Nature, bycreating, in our haste and greed, too many great black countries, and toomany great dirty warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled withsavages and imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so farfrom 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 andthe fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortalbrain. 

_Two Years Ago_, chap. Xix. 1856. 

England's Forgotten Worthies. October 31. 

Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and gloryaround them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about whatthey saw in an "artistic" or "critical" point of view as in a scientificone. . . . 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 enoughabout them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasmwhich is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism! We do nottrust enough in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to beready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, foranything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder isdiscovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take toourselves 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 lesssuperstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, andwere not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, andprovidence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, inour 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 inthat. And the physician has set his mind to do one thing--to hatecalmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fightagainst them to the end. In his exclusive care for the body thephysician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, forthe Bible, for immortality. Is he not witnessing for God when he showsby his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; ofhealth, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and weakness? Is he not witnessing for Christ when, likeChrist, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, andattacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator ofman?

"_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 isnot happiness but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness maycome after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, evenblessedness. 

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 andgrief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell, --He has faced them one andall, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered themright royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow isdivine, --godlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads anddespises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest andconsecrated for ever. . . . And now--Blessed are tears and shame, blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknownrealms where souls await the Resurrection-day. 

_National Sermons_. 

November. 

"The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray. AllNature 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 intoone misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears, ' as if veiling her shame ina 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 Inot sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastisement? But shall Ithen despond and die?

"No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and thy God! We mayweep, Mother Earth, but we have Faith--faith which tells us that abovethe cloudy sky the bright clear sun is shining, and will shine. And wehave Hope, Mother Earth--hope, that as bright days have been, so brightdays soon shall be once more! And we have Charity, Mother Earth, and byit we can love all tender things--ay, and all rugged rocks and drearymoors, for the sake of the glow which _has_ gilded them, and thefertility which will spring even from their sorrow. We will smilethrough our tears, Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken! We have stilllight and heat, and till we can bear the sunshine we will glory in theshade!"

_MS. _ 1842. 

Sympathy of the Dead. November 1. 

Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if (asI surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of thosewhom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is afurther education for them, and a pledge, too, of help--I believe offinal 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 meaningtoo. 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 thereseem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing andfeeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atomthere below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the powerof 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 Bibleis the immutable story of her husband's love. _She_ must go on fromgrace to grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancientmelodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the same forever. 

_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 ahandful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that itwas ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of goldshould be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain manmight 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 separatehuman brother of the Son of man. Is there one young life ruined by itsown folly--one young heart broken by its own wilfulness--or one olderlife fast losing the finer instincts, the nobler aims of youth, in therestlessness of covetousness, of fashion, of ambition? Is there one suchpoor soul over whom Christ does not grieve? One to whom, at some supremecrisis of their lives, He does not whisper--"Ah, beautiful organism--thoutoo art a thought of God--thou too, if thou wert but in harmony withthyself and God, a microcosmic _City of God_! Ah! that thou hadstknown--even thou--at least in this thy day--the things which belong tothy peace"?

_MS. Sermon_. 1874. 

Love Expansive. November 6. 

The mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because our wholelove should be given to God. But as flame increases by being applied tomany objects, so does love. He who loves God most loves God's creaturesmost, 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 reallytaste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, achange of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all theirpowers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest theymay, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Notidleness, 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 ideaof an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which yourespect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man, understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand andall-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who ismortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of theinfinitely good God! But see, then, whether, in the light of that oneidea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relation of God toman--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, theIncarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God--do notseem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, andlogical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of anAbsolute 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 themmould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to makeyou 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, butof his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of hisinventions, but of his vices and his virtues. So far from moralsdepending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. Inproportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice isdone between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely, triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfullyobeyed, 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) bycomplaining 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 mazardcherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. Neither was he whatwould be nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said hisCreed and Lord's Prayer night and morning, and went to service at thechurch every forenoon, and read the day's Psalms with his mother everyevening, and had learnt from her and his father that it was infinitelynoble to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothingmore of theology or of his own soul than is contained in the ChurchCatechism. 

_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 theexpress train, when the live iron pants and leaps and roars through thelong chalk cutting, and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the skyand 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 farbelow meadows and streams and homesteads, with all their lazy old-worldlife, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awestruck, silent, choked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are swept onby 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 missionto conquer and subdue the earth, and space too, and time, and allthings--even hardest of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers; everlearning some fresh lesson, except the hardest one of all, that it is theSpirit 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 upthe eastern sky. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. " "Blessedis 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 imaginaryones. 

_MS. _

The indwelling Light. November 16. 

The doctrine of Christ in every man, as the indwelling Word of God, theLight who lights every one who comes into the world, is no peculiar tenetof the Quakers, but one which runs through the whole of the Old and NewTestaments, and without which they would both be unintelligible, just asthe same doctrine runs through the whole history of the Early Church forthe 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 contactof her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice. To make him see that not byblare 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 whichhopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things; by such anexample, in short, as women now in tens of thousands set to those aroundthem; such as they will show more and more, the more their wholewomanhood is educated to employ its powers without waste and withouthaste in harmonious unity. 

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869. 

Waste. November 18. 

Thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions--how are they wasted in thesedays in reading sensation novels! while British literature--all that thebest hearts and intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--isneglected for light fiction, the reading of which is the worst form ofintemperance--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 illseems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether Godmeans 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 foulvapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting theair, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised, converted intosome profitable substance, till the black country shall be black nolonger, the streams once more crystal clear, the trees once moreluxuriant, 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 Iconceive a time when by a higher civilisation, formed on a politicaleconomy more truly scientific, because more truly according to the willof God, our human refuse shall be utilised like our material refuse; whenman as man, down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be found (as hereally is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve hishealth, to develop his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, and character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, afterall, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and that no costspent 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 forGod. Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God'spleasure 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 didher work and read her Bible; and read, too, again and again at stolenmoments of rest, a book which was to her as the finding of an unknownsister--Longfellow's "Evangeline. "

_Two Years Ago_, chap. Xxviii. 

Let us learn to look on hospitals not as acts of charity, supererogatorybenevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe nothing, but asconfessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence; as poor and late andpartial 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 onfor ever, and that all that fails and is lost is the outside shell of thething, which, perhaps, might have been better done; but better or worsehas nothing to do with the real spiritual good which you have done tomen'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 nostimulants, for it has no fits of depression; which needs no narcotics, for it has no fits of excitement; which needs no ascetic restraints, forit is strong enough to use God's gifts without abusing them; thecharacter, in a word, which is truly temperate, not in drink and foodmerely, 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 notfeel that true religion, even in its most imperfect stage, is not merelyan escape from hell after death but the only _real state_ for a man--theonly position to live in in this world--the only frame of mind which willgive anything like happiness here. I cannot help feeling at moments--ifthere 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--beinguntrue to your better selves, and therefore untrue to God. If you willnot do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you know to betrue, 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 seehappen, in spite of the fact that my own prayers are not answered. Ibelieve that He makes all things work together for the good of the humanrace, and of me among the rest, as long as I obey His will. I believe Hewill answer my prayer, not according to the letter, but according to thespirit 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 anotherhuman being without finding there more to do than you or I or any soulwill ever learn to do perfectly before we die. Let us be content to dolittle if God sets us little tasks. It is but pride and self-will whichsays, "Give me something huge to fight and I shall enjoy that--but whymake me sweep the dust?"

_Letters and Memories_. 1854. 

True and False. November 29. 

We must remember that dissatisfaction at existing evil (the feeling ofall young and ardent minds), the struggle to escape from the"circumstance" of the evil world, has a carnal counterfeit--the love ofnovelty, and self-will, and self-conceit, which may thrust us down intothe abysses of misrule and uncertainty; as it has done such men asShelley and Byron; trying vainly every loophole, beating against theprison bars of an imperfect system; neither degraded enough to makethemselves a fool's paradise within it, nor wise enough to escape from itthrough Christ, "the door into the sheepfold, " to return when they will, and bring others with them into the serene empyrean of spiritualtruth--truth which explains, and arranges, and hallows, and subdueseverything. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1842. 

The Mind of Christ. November 30. 

How can we attain to the blessed and noble state of mind--the mind ofChrist, who must needs be about His Father's business, which is doinggood? Only by prayer and practice. There is no more use in prayingwithout practising than there is in practising without praying. Youcannot learn to walk without walking; no more can you learn to do goodwithout 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? Wemay not, as our forefathers did blindly, though lovingly, worship them asmediators and lesser gods, and pray to them instead of to their Father inheaven to whose throne of grace we may all come boldly through ChristJesus, 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 thosewho have lived godly and God-like lives; and when they have passed awayfrom among us--souls endued by God with manifold virtues and preciousgifts of grace--we may give thanks and say, These, O God, are the fruitsof 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 theinspiration of Thy Spirit. Help us to honour their memories, as Thou andthey would have us do, by following their example; by setting them beforeus, and not only them, but every holy and noble personage of whom we haveever heard, as dim likenesses of Christ--even as Christ is the likenessof 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 theeverlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, andof 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 becheery. "

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 aresinging. 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 andconquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other foreighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing and organising thoseyoung anarchic forces which now, unconscious of their parentage, rebelagainst 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 thatname, Father, mean anything, it must mean that He will not turn away fromHis wandering child in a way in which you would be ashamed to turn awayfrom yours. If there be pity, lasting affection, patience in _man_, theymust have come from Him. They, above all things, must be His likeness. Believe that God possesses them a million times more fully than any humanbeing. 

_Letters and Memories_. 

Circumstance. December 4. 

Our wanton accidents take root, and growTo vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes, Our gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned littersBecome ourselves, and we would fain forgetThere 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;" whenthat glorious heavenly thought has risen upon his soul, like the sun uponthe earth, warming his heart and enlightening it, and making it bringforth all good and noble fruits, then that man will feel a strength cometo him and a courage come from God which will conquer all his fears, hisselfish love of ease and pleasure, and enable him to bear pain andpoverty and death itself, provided he can do what is right, and be foundby 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 Christianityis divine, because it is the only religion which has a perfect perceptionof human relations, wants, and feelings. None but He who made the heartcould have written the Bible. 

_MS. Note-book_. 1843. 

Music. December 7. 

There is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will. Musicgoes on certain laws and rules. Man did not make those laws of music, hehas only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, thereis an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is discord and uglysounds. 

Music is fit for heaven. Music is a pattern and type of heaven, and ofthe everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven; a lifeof melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other andwith 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 earthWatches in silence for the sun: we'll sitAnd 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 onpoor humanity--never to see a man do a wrong thing without feeling Icould 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 anexcuse for sitting by and seeing the devil have it all his own way, andcall that toleration. I will see now whether I cannot turn the saidknowledge 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 excellentmedicine for testing people's honesty--for setting them honestly to workto see what they want, and what are the best modes of attaining it. Oursound thrashing, as a nation, in the first French war was the making ofour armies; and it is good for an idea, as well as for a man, to bear theyoke in his youth. 

_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867. 

Passing Emotions. December 11. 

Beware of depending on your own _emotions_, which are often but thefallings and risings of the frail flesh, and mistaking them for spiritualfeelings and affections!

* * * * *

Think less of what you _feel_--even of trying _to be_ anything. Look outof yourself at God. Pray and praise, and God will give you His Spiritoften 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! aHusband not of individuals, that is a Popish fancy, which the Puritanshave adopted--but of the Church--of collective humanity. Let us becontent to be members; let us be, if we may, the feet, lowest, hardestworked, trodden on, bleeding, brought into harshest contact with the evilworld! 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 shameand confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste, never, above all, by indulging in thedevilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what iscoarsest 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 afterrighteousness, " and who therefore long to know what righteousness is, that they may copy it--those who long to be freed not merely from thepunishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they live onearth, 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 itused, the service of God--the being like God and showing forth God'sglory. No, religion means nowadays the art of getting to heaven when wedie, and saving our own miserable souls, and getting God's wages withoutdoing God's work--as if that was godliness, as if that was anything butselfishness, as if selfishness was any the better for being everlastingselfishness!

_Village Sermons_. 1849. 

Christ's Coming. December 16. 

Christ may come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that stillsmall voice--so sweet and yet so keen, "Understand those whomisunderstand thee. Be fair to those who are unfair to thee. Be justand merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thoushalt be forgiven. " He comes to us surely, when we are selfish andluxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, "If you dogood 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 isimpossible with God, save that He should transgress His own nature bybeing unjust and unloving?

_Preface to Tauler_. 1854. 

Educators of Men. December 18. 

There are those who consider--and I agree with them--that the educationof boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted, as much aspossible, to women. Let me ask--of what period of youth and manhood doesit not hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man whofancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. Ishould have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in thehighest sense, the educator of man, from infancy to old age; that thatwas 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 atmoments), 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, "Notthat we desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon"--to have aspiritual, 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 trulyhuman, all demand a living God who has revealed Himself in living acts; aGod who has taught mankind by facts, not left them to discover Him bytheories and sentiments; a Judge, a Father, a Saviour, an Inspirer; in aword, their hearts demand the historic truth of the Bible--of the OldTestament 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 ofthose great laws of the kingdom of God which may fulfil itself once andagain at many eras and by many methods; which fulfilled itself mostgloriously in the first century after Christ; again in the fifth century;again at the time of the Crusades; and again at the great Reformation inthe 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 itmay be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect isas its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and betterlife; the voice of God which still whispers to it, "You are not what youought 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 madeyou, and Christ who died for you. " Oh! why crush that voice in anyheart? If you do the poor creature is lost, and lies where he or shefalls, 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 isours. 

_Two Years Ago_, Introduction. 1856. 

The Miracle of Christmas Night. December 25. 

After the crowning miracle of this most blessed night all miracles arepossible. The miracle of Christmas night was possible because God's lovewas absolute, infinite, unconquerable, able to condescend to anythingthat good might be done. . . . This Christmas night is the one of allthe year which sets a physicist on facing the fact of miracle, and whichdelivers him from the bonds of sense and custom by reminding him of Godmade Man. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1858. 

Redemption. December 26. 

All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin, areredeemed by the life and death of the Son of God. Blessed are wisdom andcourage, joy and health and beauty, love and marriage, childhood andmanhood, corn and wine, fruit and flowers, for Christ redeemed them byHis life. . . . Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms wheresouls 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 isours; 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 thisworld. That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put allenemies under His feet. That is what Christ has been doing, step bystep, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will onearth in great humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in ourplace and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Himin the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in thebattle against evil. 

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867. 

The bright Pathway. December 28. 

There is a healthy ferment of mind in which one struggles through chaosand darkness, by means of a few clues and threads of light--and--of onegreat bright pathway, which I find more and more to be _the_ only escapefrom infinite confusion and aberration, _the_ only explanation of athousand human mysteries--I mean the Incarnation of our Lord--the factthat 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 yetpassed away! that the heart of man still beats young and fresh; that theold tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Socrates andAlcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of love "passing thelove of woman, " ennobled by its own humility, deeper than death andmightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one hearthere and there, to show man still how, sooner or later, "he that lovethknoweth God, for God is love. "

_Miscellanies_. 1850. 

Links in the Chain. December 30. 

The heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future! Oh, drearypresent! 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 forthe Universe. To us all Time should seem so full of life: every momentthe grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs in heaven andearth, and the mind of our God Himself--all things moving smoothly andsurely in spite of apparent checks and disappointments towards theappointed end. 

_Letters and Memories_. 1844. 

Past, Present, Future. December 31. 

Surely as the years pass on they ought to have made us better, moreuseful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas ofwhat ought to be done, but we may have gained more clear and practicalnotions of what can be done. We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yetgained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained incharity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yetwhat we do may be far better done. And our very griefs anddisappointments--have they been useless to us? Surely not. We shallhave gained instead of lost by them if the Spirit of God has been workingin us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patienceexperience, and that experience hope--hope that He who has led us thusfar will lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former daysprecious lessons--not only by sore temptations but most sacred joys--willteach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations, which we shallbe more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of oldtimes, are no less sacred, but sent as lessons to our souls by Him fromwhom all good gifts come. 

_Water of Life Sermons_. 

Out of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; throughselfish, stormy youth, and contrite tears--just not too late; throughmanhood, not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, wereturn 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 grossanimal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which thisearth is but a tiny speck, doing God's will as they longed to do it onearth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers ofusefulness! 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 everOur 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, thearistocracy of grace. They are those who carry the palm branch oftriumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have dared andfought and suffered for God and truth and right; who have resisted untoblood, striving against sin. What should easy-going folk like you and medo but place ourselves with all humility, if but for an hour, where wecan look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are like and whatthey 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 enteredwhile on earth into the mystery and glory of self-sacrifice, and now theyfind their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, andrejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the wholeuniverse, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. 

_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_. 

DECEMBER 28Holy 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 faceof a little child, fresh out of heaven. Ah, let us take heed that wedespise not one of these little ones, lest we despise our Lord Himself. For as often as we enter into communion with little children, so oftendoes Christ come to us. So often, as in Judaea of old, does He take alittle child and set him in the midst of us, that from its simplicity, docility, and trust--the restless, the mutinous, and the ambitious maylearn 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 nowise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Take my yoke upon you and learnof me. For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest untoyour 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 canwrite diary notes, etc. This is why the page numbers in the eText oftenmiss out numbers. --DP. 

{97} Lines written under a pen and ink drawing of a stormy shorelesssea, with two human beings lashed to a cross floating on the crest of thewaves.