Which they do glare withal
_Glaucus_. 1855.
The Cross--its meaning. August 22.
To take up the cross means, in the minds of most persons, to suffer
patiently under affliction. It is a true and sound meaning, but it means
more. Why did Christ take up the cross? Not for affliction's sake, or
for the cross's sake, as if suffering were a good thing in itself. No.
But that He might thereby _do good_. That the world through Him might be
saved. That He might do good at whatever cost or pain to Himself.
_Sermons_.
The Crucifix. August 23.
If I had an image in my room it should be one of Christ _glorified_,
sitting at the right hand of God. The crucifix has been THE image,
because the idea of torture and misery has been THE idea in the
melancholy and the ferocious (for the two ultimately go together),. . .
and thus ascetics became inquisitors. . . .
_MS._ 1843.
Love to God proved. August 24.
Our love to God does not depend upon the emotions of the moment. If you
fancy you do not love Him enough, above all when Satan tempts you to look
inward, go immediately and minister to others; visit the sick, perform
some act of self-sacrifice or thanksgiving. Never mind how _dull_ you
may feel while doing it; the fact of your feeling excited proves nothing;
the fact of your _doing_ it proves that your will, your spiritual part,
is on God's side, however tired or careless the poor flesh may be. The
"flesh" must be brought into harmony with the spirit, not only by
physical but by intellectual mortification.
_MS. Letter_. 1843.
Training of Beauty. August 25.
There is many a road into our hearts besides our ears and brains; many a
sight and sound and scent even, of which we have never _thought_ at all,
sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus
children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most
likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection
and nobleness of mind, even by the expression of the countenance.
_True Words to Brave Men_. 1848.
Ignorance of the Cynic. August 26.
Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men as the cynical,
misanthropic man, who walks in darkness because he hates his brother. Be
sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts
himself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with
their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes
allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in
heaven is merciful.
_Westminster Sermons_. 1872.
Penitential Prayer. August 27.
Faith in God it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of all
true penitence for evermore. Penitential prayers in all ages have too
often wanted faith in God, and therefore have been too often prayers to
avert punishment. This, this--the model of all true penitent prayers--is
that of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his
punishment, knowing that he deserves it, and far more besides.
_Sermons on David_. 1866.
A Real Presence. August 28.
Believe the Holy Communion is the sign of Christ's perpetual presence;
that when you kneel to receive the bread and wine, Christ is as near
you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly as near you
as those who are kneeling by your side.
And if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are Christ's,
with those whom we love. . . . Surely, like Christ, they may come and go
even now, though unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our restless
hearts and say, "Peace be unto you," and not in vain. For what they did
for us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they are
in heaven.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1862.
A Living God. August 29.
Man would never have even dreamed of a Living God had not that Living God
been a reality, who did not leave the creature to find his Creator, but
stooped from heaven, at the very beginning of our race, to find His
creature.
_Sermons on David_. 1866.
Thine, not mine. August 30.
Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead of
priding yourself upon it as if the good in it came from you, offer it up
to your Heavenly Father, from whom all good things come, and say, "Oh,
Lord! the good in this is Thine and not mine; the bad in it is mine and
not Thine. I thank Thee for having made me do right, for without Thy
help I should have done nothing but wrong. For mine is the laziness, and
the weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and Thine is the
kingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, for Thou doest all
things; and the glory, for Thou doest all things well, for ever and ever.
Amen."
_Sermons_.
The Unquenchable Fire. August 31.
A fire which cannot be quenched, a worm which cannot die, I see existing,
and consider them among the most blessed revelations of the gospel. I
fancy I see them burning and devouring everywhere in the spiritual world,
as their analogues do in the physical. I know that they have done so on
me, and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most
healthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know too
well that I often do the same ineffectually. But, in the comfort that
the worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmly
forward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of that
world whereof it is written, "He shall reign until He hath put all
enemies under His feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of
fire."
* * * * *
The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give
new light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and
the shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe,
the chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living
Foundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written
that _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the
fate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universe
be--what it must be some day--_very good_.
* * * * *
Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I
believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy
all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all
enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they
confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And
God shall be All in All. Those last are wide words.
_Letters and Sermons_. 1856.
SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.
AUGUST 24.
St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr.
Blessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is
no less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that
supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art,
all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes,
dim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_.
September.
That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote--
"Nor ever had the breeze of passion
Stirred her heart's clear depths."
The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that
when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats are
always brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in
them. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray with
some foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality or
the gray of morbid melancholy. But when they are free again! when they
hurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are
clear! Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours
into them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life
and health and food; and through their swift yet yielding
eddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate and
undefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, the
Spirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium of
another human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul is
stirred by circumstance into passion and motion and action strong and
swift. Only the streams which have undergone long and _severe struggles_
from their very fountain-head have clear pools.
_MS._ 1843.
Goodness. September 1.
Always say to yourself this one thing, "Good I will become, whatever it
cost me; and in God's goodness I trust to make me good, for I am sure He
wishes to see me good more than I do myself." And you will find that,
because you have confessed in that best and most honest of ways that God
is good, and have so given Him real glory, and real honour, and real
praise, He will save you from the sins which torment you, and you shall
never come, either in this world or the world to come, to that worst
misery, the being ashamed of yourself.
_Sermons for the Times_. 1855.
Be good to do Good. September 2.
What we wish to do for our fellow-creatures we must do first for
ourselves. We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.
We must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can
make them wise.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867.
The Undying I. September 3.
The youngest child, by faith in God his Father, may look upon all heaven
and earth and say, "Great and wonderful and awful as this earth and those
skies may be, I am more precious in the sight of God than sun and moon
and stars; for they are things, but I am a person, a spirit, an immortal
soul, made in the likeness of God, redeemed into the likeness of God.
This great earth was here thousands and thousands of years before I was
born, and it will be here perhaps millions of years after I am dead. But
it cannot harm _Me_, it cannot kill _Me_. When earth, and sun, and stars
have passed away I shall live for ever, for I am the immortal child of an
immortal Father, the child of the everlasting God."
_Sermons for the Times_. 1855.
Love and Time. September 4.
Love proves its spiritual origin by rising above time and space and
circumstance, wealth and age, and even temporary beauty, at the same time
that it alone can perfectly _use_ all those material adjuncts. Being
spiritual, it is Lord of matter, and can give and receive from it glory
and beauty when it will, and yet live without it.
_MS._ 1843.
Common Duties. September 5.
The only way to regenerate the world is to do the duty which lies nearest
us, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones for ourselves. If each
drop of rain _chose_ where it should fall, God's showers would not fall
as they do now, on the evil and the good alike. I know from the
experience of my own heart how galling this doctrine is--how, like
Naaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid us do
some great thing, but only to go wash in the nearest brook and be clean.
_Letters and Memories_. 1854.
Despair--Hope. September 6.
Does the age seem to you dark? Do you feel, as I do at times, the awful
sadness of that text, "The time shall come when you shall desire to see
one of the days of the Lord, and shall not see it"? Then remember that
The night is never so long
But at last it ringeth for matin song.
. . . Even now the dawn is gilding the highest souls, and _we_ are in the
night only because we crawl below.
_Prose Idylls_. 1850.
The Critical Spirit. September 7.
"Judge nothing before the time." This is a hard saying. Who can hear
it? There never was a time in which the critical spirit was more
thoroughly in the ascendant. Every man now is an independent critic. To
accept fully, or as it is now called, to follow blindly; to admire
heartily, or as it is now called, fanatically--these are considered signs
of weakness or credulity. To believe intensely; to act unhesitatingly;
to admire passionately; all this, as the latest slang phrases it, is "bad
form"; a proof that a man is not likely to win in the race of this world
the prize whereof is, the greatest possible enjoyment with the least
possible work.
_The Critical Spirit_. 1871.
Toil and Rest. September 8.
Remember always, toil is the condition of our being. Our sentence is to
labour from the cradle to the grave. But there are Sabbaths allowed for
the mind as well as the body, when the intellect is stilled, and the
emotions alone perform their gentle and involuntary functions.
_Letters and Memories_. 1842.
Storm and Calm. September 9.
Then Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, the
storms came on heavier than ever, with terrible seas breaking short and
pyramid-wise, till, on the 9th of September, the tiny _Squirrel_ nearly
foundered, and yet recovered, and the General (Sir Humphrey Gilbert),
sitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the _Hind_, "We
are as near heaven by sea as by land," reiterating the same speech well
be-seeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was.
_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii.
On the Heights. September 10.
It is good for a man to have holy and quiet thoughts, and at moments to
see into the very deepest meaning of God's word and God's earth, and to
have, as it were, heaven opened before his eyes; and it is good for a man
sometimes actually to _feel_ his heart overpowered with the glorious
majesty of God--to _feel_ it gushing out with love to his blessed
Saviour; but it is not good for him to stop there any more than for the
Apostles in the Mount of Transfiguration.
_Village Sermons_. 1849.
In the Valley. September 11.
The disciples had to come down from the Mount and do Christ's work, and
so have we. Believe me, one word of warning spoken to keep a little
child out of sin,--one crust of bread given to a beggar-man because he is
your brother, for whom Christ died,--one angry word checked on your lips
for the sake of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; any the smallest
endeavour to lessen the amount of evil which is in yourselves and those
around you,--is worth all the speculations, and raptures, and visions,
and frames, and feelings in the world; for these are the good fruits of
faith, whereby alone the tree shall be known whether it be good or evil.
_Village Sermons_. 1849.
Self-Conceit. September 12.
Self-conceit is the very daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying
out about _I_, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for all
devils, and the broad road which leads to death.
_Westward Ho_! chap. i.
Facing Fact. September 13.
It is good for a man to be brought once, at least, in his life, face to
face with _fact_, ultimate fact, however horrible it may be, and to have
to confess to himself shuddering, what things are possible on God's
earth, when man has forgotten that his only welfare is in living after
the likeness of God.
_Miscellanies_. 1858.
The Heroical Rest. September 14.
Right, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is to have
more to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things must find his
account in being made ruler over many things. That is the true and
heroical rest which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God. As for
those who either in this world or in the world to come look for idleness,
and hope that God will feed them with pleasant things, as it were with a
spoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though they call
themselves saints and elect.
_Westward Ho_! chap. vii. 1855.
Body and Soul. September 15.
Remember that St. Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascension
of our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of our
souls in this life, for without that, the resurrection of our bodies
would be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery
and ruin.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870.
Love in Absence. September 16.
Absence quickens love into consciousness.
_MS._
The baby sings not on its mother's breast;
Nor nightingales who nestle side by side;
Nor I by thine: but let us only part,
Then lips which should but kiss, and so be still,
As having uttered all, must speak again.
_Sonnet_. 1851.
Special Providence. September 17.
If I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of
men by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great, I could
believe nothing.
_Letters and Memories_.
Love of Work. September 18.
"Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God's likeness clings to a man
longest and closest and best? No? Then I will tell you. It is the love
of employment. God in heaven must create Himself a universe to work on
and love. And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, cannot rest without
our _mundus peculiaris_ of some sort--our world subjective, as Doctor
Musophilus has it. But we can create too, and make our little sphere
look as large as a universe."
_MS. Novel_. 1844.
Fret not. September 19.
Fret not, neither be anxious. What God intends to do He will do. And
what we ask believing we shall receive. Never let us get into the common
trick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because we
have not faith to believe, putting in a "Thy will be done" at the end.
Let us make God's will our will, and _so_ say Thy will be done.
_MS._ 1843.
Peace! Why these fears?
Life is too short for mean anxieties:
Soul! thou must work, though blindfold.
_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene x.
Battle before Victory. September 20.
Whenever you think of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, remember
always that the background of His triumph is a tomb. Remember that it is
the triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints
of the nails in His sacred hands and feet, and the wound of the spear in
His side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him, triumphant at last,
and yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of life.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870.
Night and Growth. September 21.
As in the world of Nature, so it is in the world of men. The night is
peopled not merely with phantoms and superstitions and spirits of evil,
but under its shadow all sciences, methods, social energies, are taking
rest, and growing, and feeding, unknown to themselves.
_Prose Idylls_. 1850.
Passion. September 22.
Self-sacrifice! What is love worth that does not show itself in action?
and more, which does not show itself in _passion_ in the true sense of
that word: namely, in suffering? in daring, in struggling, in grieving,
in agonising, and, if need be, in dying for the object of its love? Every
mother will give but one answer to that question.
_Westminster Sermons_. 1870.
Worth of Beauty. September 23.
It is a righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty,
whether in man or woman, as something of real worth--divine, heavenly,
ay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense Eternal; which makes our
reason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of
moralists about "the fleeting hues of this our painted clay;" and tell
men, as the old Hebrew Scriptures told them, that physical beauty is the
deepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without
discretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of
gold it is still, the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be,
perhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth.
_Hypatia_, chap. xxvi. 1852.
Empty Profession. September 24.
What is the sin which most destroys all men and nations? High religious
profession, with an ungodly, selfish life. It is the worst and most
dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heart
and life without giving pain, so that the sick man never suspects that
anything is the matter with him till he finds himself, to his
astonishment, at the point of death.
_National Sermons_. 1851.
True Poetry. September 25.
Let us make life one poem--not of dreams or sentiments--but of actions,
not done Byronically as proofs of genius, but for our own self-education,
alone, in secret, awaiting the crisis which shall call us forth to the
battle to do just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterly
different self-education. That is the life of great spirits, after,
perhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the lower
paths of God's vineyard, till their hearts have settled into a still,
deep, yet swift current, and those who have been faithful over a few
things are made rulers over many things.
_MS. Letter_. 1842.
Office of the Clergy. September 26.
There is a Christian as well as political liberty quite consistent with
High Church principles, which makes the clergy our teachers--not the
keepers of our _consciences_ but of our _creeds_.
_Letters and Memories_. 1842.
Opinions are not Knowledge. September 27.
. . . As to self-improvement, the true Catholic mode of learning is to
"prove all things," as far as we can, without sin or the danger of it, to
"hold fast that which is good." Let us never be afraid of trying
anything new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own. And
let us never be afraid of changing our opinions. The unwillingness to go
back from once declared opinion is a form of pride which haunts some
powerful minds: but it is not found in great childlike geniuses. Fools
may hold fast to their scanty stock through life, and we must be very
cautious in drawing them from it--for where can they supply its place?
_Letters and Memories_. 1843.
The Worst Punishment. September 28.
God reserves many a sinner for that most awful of all punishments
(here)--impunity.
_Sermons_.
The Divine Order. September 29.
Ah, that God's will were but done on earth as it is in the material
heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in
their courses, without rest, yet without haste--as all created things,
even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm,
fulfil God's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given
them a law which shall not be broken. But above them; above the divine
and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are
God's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all,
the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and
wonderful order of _rational_ beings, of races loftier and purer than
man--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and
powers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not, alas! fulfilled on
earth.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867.
True Resignation. September 30.
. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the
divine affections. I am happy, for the less hope, the more faith. . . .
God knows what is best for us; we do not. Continual resignation, at last
I begin to find, is the secret of continual strength. "Daily _dying_,"
as Boehmen interprets it, is the path of daily _living_. . . .
_Letters and Memories_. 1843.
SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.
SEPTEMBER 21.
St. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr.
There is something higher than happiness. There is blessedness; the
blessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right.
That blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in
anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were
blest, in agony and death.
_Water of Life Sermons_.
SEPTEMBER 29.
Feast of St. Michael and All Angels.
The eternal moral law which held good for the sinless Christ, who, though
He were a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered,
must hold good of you and me, and all moral and rational beings--yea, for
the very angels in heaven. They have not sinned. That we know; and we
do not know that they have ever suffered. But this at least we know,
that they have submitted. They have obeyed, and have given up their own
wills to be ministers of God's will. In them is neither self-will nor
selfishness; and, therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty,
they stand. And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of
selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of
blessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have lost their
eternal life by trying to save their selfish life and be something in
themselves and of themselves without respect to God.
_All Saints' Day Sermons_.
October.