Heaven; the eldest voice of God. And it is only they who are faithful in
a few things who will be faithful over many things; only they who do
their duty in everyday and trivial matters who will fulfil them on great
occasions.
_Sermons for the Times_. 1855.
The Great Unknown. March 21.
"Brother," said the abbot, "make ready for me the divine elements, that I
may consecrate them." And he asking the reason therefor, the saint
replied, "That I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I depart
hence. For know assuredly that within the seventh day I shall migrate to
the celestial mansions. For this night stood by me in a dream those two
women whom I love, and for whom I pray, the one clothed in a white, the
other in a ruby-coloured garment, and holding each other by the hand, who
said to me, '_That life after death is not such a one as you fancy_:
come, therefore, and behold what it is like.'"
_Hypatia_, chap. xxx. 1852.
Loss nor Gain, March 22.
Nothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more anxious than
carelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven
fresh duties at its back.
_Sermons for the Times_. 1855.
Ancient Greek Education, March 23.
We talk of education now. Are we more educated than were the ancient
Greeks? Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual,
aesthetic (religious education in our sense of the word of course they
had none), of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments? Are
there not some branches of education which they perfected once and for
ever, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow their
example? To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion
and grace, in every faculty of mind and body--that was their notion of
education.
Ah! the waste of health and strength in the young! The waste, too, of
anxiety and misery in those who love and tend them! How much of it might
be saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which are
the will of God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we
are as much bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obey
the spiritual laws whereon depend the welfare of our souls.
_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.
Body and Soul. March 24.
Exalt me with Thee, O Lord, to know the mystery of life, that I may use
the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly, and, by
using to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit to be exalted to the use
of the spiritual body. Amen.
_MS._ 1842.
Moderation. March 25.
Let us pray for that great--I had almost said that crowning grace and
virtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind. Let
us pray for moderate appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours,
moderate gains, moderate joys; and if sorrows be needed to chasten us,
moderate sorrows. Let us not long violently after, or wish too eagerly
to rise in life.
_Water of Life Sermons_. 1869.
Poetry in the Slums. March 26.
"True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at home. . . . Hech!
is there no the heaven above them there, and the hell beneath them? and
God frowning, and the devil grinning? No poetry there! Is no the verra
idea of the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance?
canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man
conquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that too--in many a garret
where no eye but the good God's enters to see the patience, and the
fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the love stronger than death,
that's shining in those dark places of the earth."
"Ah, poetry's grand--but fact is grander; God and Satan are grander. All
around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satan
at death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise
Regained."
_Alton Locke_, chap. viii. 1849.
Time and Eternity. March 27.
. . . Our life's floor
Is laid upon Eternity; no crack in it
But shows the underlying heaven.
_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii.
Work. March 28.
Yes. Life is meant for work, and not for ease; to labour in danger and
in dread, to do a little good ere the night comes when no man can work,
instead of trying to realise for oneself a paradise; not even Bunyan's
shepherd-paradise, much less Fourier's casino-paradise, and perhaps,
least of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our own
art-paradise, the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it.
_Prose Idylls_. 1849.
Teaching of Pictures. March 29.
Pictures raise blessed thoughts in me. Why not in you, my toiling
brother? Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude two
hundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever. How still the meadows
are! How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky! No wonder that thy
worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, "Oh, that I had wings as a
dove, then would I flee away and be at rest." Ah! but gayer meadows and
bluer skies await thee _in the world to come_--that fairyland made
real--"the new heavens and the new earth" which God hath prepared for the
pure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in this
sore fight of life.
_True Words for Brave Men_. 1849.
Voluntary Heroism. March 30.
Any man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who _will_,
_can_ live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences.
It is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it
should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards society
and man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but
which is above though not against duty.
_Lecture on Heroism_. 1872.
The Ideal Holy One. March 31.
Have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience,
"Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere--or else, how could
have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal
holiness? But where? oh, where? Not in the world around strewn with
unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and within. Is there a
Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is
He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty,
even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, 'the lightning of His
glance were death.'" . . .
And then, oh, then--has there not come that for which our spirit was
athirst--the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the
very strain of pure music--for it is the very music of the spheres--in
those words, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and
is to come"?
Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One--spotless and
undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust,
there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied
with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and
bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity. And who is He?
Who, save the Cause and Maker and Ruler of all things past, present, and
to come?
_Sermon on All Saints' Day_. 1874.
Charles Kingsley's Dying Words,
"HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS."
SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.
MARCH 25.
The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,
COMMONLY CALLED
Lady Day.
It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways by
which the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with the
grandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest,
the most tender, the most human. What more grand, or deep, or divine
words can we say than, "I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son our
Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,"--and yet what more simple,
human, and tender words can we say than, "Who was born of the Virgin
Mary"? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with
her babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to
those who can say, "I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary."
For since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood into God,
birth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a mother's joys and a mother's
cares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in
her arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will
towards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and
blessed above all women. Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is the
time for our remembering the Blessed Virgin. For our hearts and reasons
tell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must have
been holier, nobler, fairer in body and soul, than all women upon earth.
_MS. Sermon_.
April.
Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying,
Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day.
Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing,
Rest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying,
Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.
_The Dead Church_.
The Song of Birds. April 1.
St. Francis called the birds his brothers. Perfectly sure that he
himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the
birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in
mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in
claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who
(as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even
as angels did in heaven.
_Prose Idylls_. 1867.
True Reformers. April 2.
It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to
that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago.
_MS. Lecture at Cambridge_. 1866.
High Ideals. April 3.
What if a man's idea of "The Church" be somewhat too narrow for the year
of grace 18--, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all?
that there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a
"divine and wonderful order," linking earth to heaven, and to the very
throne of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens what
the world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God
Himself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the grave
to do his Father's work? Is it no honour to him that he has seen that
such a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he
thinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in
the most ancient and august traditions of his native land? True, he may
have much still to learn. . . .
_Two Years Ago_, chap. iv. 1856.
Divine Knowledge. April 4.
That glorious word _know_--it is God's attribute, and includes in itself
all others. Love, truth--all are parts of that awful power of _knowing_
at a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in its
essence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe through
all Time. I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and I
never, if I can remember, use it myself of myself.
_Letters and Memories_. 1842.
Woman's Love. April 5.
The story of Ruth is the consecration of woman's love. I do not mean of
the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is. I mean that
depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God
has put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend so
strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and
from whom they can receive no earthly reward--the affection which made
women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which brought
Mary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb--the
affection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow are
left in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and
conquer therein.
_Water of Life Sermons_.
Feeling and Emotion. April 6.
Live a life of _feeling_, not of _excitement_. Let your religion, your
duties, every thought and word, be ruled by the _affections_, not by the
_emotions_, which are the expressions of them. Do not consider whether
you are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be
yourself--what God makes you.
_MS. Letter_. 1842.
The Beasts that perish. April 7.
St. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass darkly. But this he
seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought a
blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live. He
says the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to
bring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again--how
and when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lord
shall destroy death the whole creation shall be renewed.
_National Sermons_. 1851.
Reverence for Age. April 8.
Reverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely,
insolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in
nations, is a sign rather of weakness than of strength.
_Lecture on Westminster Abbey_.
1874.
Prayers for the Dead. April 9.
We do not in the Church of England now pray for the dead. We are not
absolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so. But we believe they are
where they ought to be--that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in
which is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this
world; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deeds
done in the body; and that they are in the hands of a perfectly just God,
who rewardeth every man according to his work. It seems therefore
unnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray for
them who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state which
they have deserved.
_MS. Sermon_.
Diversities of Gifts. April 10.
Why expect
Wisdom with love in all? Each has his gift--
Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop
And various pitch: each with its proper notes
Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God.
Though poor alone, yet joined, they're harmony.
_Saints' Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.
1847.
The Atonement. April 11.
_How_ Christ's death takes away thy sins thou wilt never know on
earth--perhaps not in heaven. It is a mystery which thou must believe
and adore. But _why_ He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou
hast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at--Christ
upon His Cross. He died because He was _Love_--love itself, love
boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable--love which inhabits eternity, and
therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man,
but must love men still--must go out to seek and save them, must dare,
suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake--just because it
is absolute and perfect Love which inhabits eternity.
_Good News of God Sermons_.
A Day's Work. April 12.
Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible,
to lie down at night without being able to say, I have made one human
being at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this
day. You will find it easier than you think, and pleasanter.
_Sermons for the Times_. 1855.
Self-control. April 13.
A well-educated moral sense, a well-educated character, saves from
idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, those
tenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations of
humanity, which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the man,
and which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in proportion as they
are left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed into
graceful, harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves,
and a blessing to all who come under their influence.
_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.
Women and Novels. April 14.
Novels will be read; but that is all the more reason why women should be
trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, to
distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, the
noble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides its
shallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and a melodramatic
situation. They should learn--and that they can only learn by
cultivation--to discern with joy and drink in with reverence, the good,
the beautiful, and the true, and to turn with the fine scorn of a pure
and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false.
_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.
Expect Much. April 15.
Expect great things from God, and also expect the least things, for the
great test of faith is shown about the least matters. People will
believe their soul is sure to be saved who have not the heart to expect
that God will take away some small burden.
_MS. Letter_. 1842.
What is Theology? April 16.
Theology signifies the knowledge of God as He is. And it is dying out
among us in these days. Much of what is called theology now is nothing
but experimental religion, which is most important and useful when it is
founded on the right knowledge of God, but which is not itself theology.
For theology begins with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong,
begins with a man's own soul.
_Discipline and other Sermons_.
Sweetness and Light. April 17.
Ah, that we could believe that God is love, and that he that dwelleth in
love dwelleth in God, and God in him! Then we should have no need to be
told to cultivate sweetness and light, for they would seem to us the only
temper which could make life tolerable in any corner of the universe.
_Essay on the Critical Spirit_. 1871.
The Contemplative Life. April 18.
"Woman is no more capable than man of living on mere contemplation. We
must have an object to whom we may devote the fruits of thought, and
unless we have a real one in active life we shall be sure to coin one for
ourselves, and spend our spirits on a dream."
"True, true," chimed in the counsellor, "spirit is little use without
body, and a body it will find; and therefore, unless you let people's
brains grow healthy plants, they will grow mushrooms."
_MS. unfinished Story_. 1843.
Sudden Death. April 19.
"What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has
done his work?"
"But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?"
"And why not a sudden death, Sir John? Even fools long for a short life
and a merry one, and shall not the Lord's people pray for a short death
and a merry one? Let it come as it will to old Yeo!"
_Westward Ho_! chap. xxxii. 1855.
Prayer and Praise. April 20.
Pray night and day, very quietly, like a little weary child, to the good
and loving God, for everything you want, in body as well as soul--the
least thing as well as the greatest. Nothing is too much to ask God
for--nothing too great for Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord! And
try to thank Him for everything . . . I sometimes feel that eternity
will be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us live at
all! And then not making us idiots or cripples, or even only ugly and
stupid! What blessings we have! Let us work in return for them--not
under the enslaving sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with the
delight of gratitude, glorying that we are God's debtors.
_Letters_. 1843.
The Divine Spark. April 21.
Man? I am a man, thou art a woman--not by reason of bones and muscles,
nerves and brain, which I have in common with apes, and dogs, and
horses--I am a man, thou art a man or woman, not because we have a flesh,
God forbid! but because there is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray
which nature did not give, and which nature cannot take away. And
therefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the
flesh, that I may be indeed a man.
_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_.
1873.
The Worst Calamity. April 22.
The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any human being
would be this--to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; to have
everything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never to be
forced to say, "I should like that, but I cannot afford it. I should
like this, but I must not do it." Never to deny himself, never to exert
himself, never to work, and never to want--that man's soul would be in as
great danger as if he were committing great crimes.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_.
Men and Women. April 23.
"The Lord be with you, dearest lady," said Adrian Gilbert. "Strange how
you women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to
break our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking! Ah! hech!
were it not for Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather than
Eve, had been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree."
_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii. 1855.
Faith in the Unseen. April 24.
He was not one of those "ungodly" men of whom David speaks in his Psalms,
who rob the widow and the fatherless. His morality was as high as that
of the average, his honour higher. But of "godliness" in its true
sense--of belief that any Being above cared for him, and was helping him
in the daily business of life: that it was worth while asking that
Being's advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for--of any
practical notion of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator--he was as
ignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, and read
good books, and believe firmly that the Pope is Antichrist.
_Two Years Ago_, chap. i. 1856.
Death--Resurrection. April 25.
As we rose to go, my eye caught a highly-finished drawing of the
Resurrection painted above the place where the desk and faldstool and
lectern, holding an open missal book, stood. I should have rather
expected, I thought to myself, a picture of the Crucifixion. She seemed
to guess my thought, and said, "There is enough in an abode of heavy
hearts, and in daily labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in our
minds the Prince of Sufferers. We need rather to be reminded that pain
is not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it has been
conquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose eternity of bliss a few
years of sadness were but as a mote within the sunbeam's blaze."
_MS. unfinished Story_. l843.
Woman's Work. April 26.
Woman is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, purifier,
inspirer of man.
_MS._
Passion--Easter--Ascension. April 27.
Good Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension, are set as great lights in the
firmament of the spiritual year;--to remind us that we are not animals
born to do what we like, and fulfil the simple lusts of the flesh--but
that we are rational moral beings, members of Christ, children of God,
and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, like
Christ, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer. They
remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow
out of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles;
righteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears;
true strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace
of mind out of sound contrition.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871.
How to keep Passion-Week. April 28.
Can we go wrong if we keep our Passion-week as Christ kept His? And how
did He keep it? Not by shutting Himself up apart, not by the mere
thinking over the glory of self-sacrifice. He taught daily in the
temple; instead of giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than ever
as the terrible end drew near. Why should not we keep Passion-week, not
by merely hiding in our closets to meditate even about Him, but by going
about our work each in his place, dutifully, bravely, as Christ went?
_Town and Country Sermons_. 1859.
Self-Sacrifice. April 29.
Without self-sacrifice there can be no blessedness either in earth or in
heaven. He that loveth his life will lose it. He that hateth his life
in this paltry, selfish, luxurious world shall keep it to life eternal.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870.
Help from our Blessed Dead. April 30.