Chapter IV: Part 4

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.

A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep. Sheets of dappled cloud were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung over the southern chalk downs, which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south- eastern sun. In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down at every rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below. The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting leaves. All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even in decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very window-sill, summer still lingered. The beds of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow blossoms, through the crimson lace- work of the Virginia creeper; and the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. i.

Blessing of Daily Work. October 1.

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self- control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

_Town and Country Sermons_. 1861.

The Forming Form. October 2.

As the acorn, because God has given it "a forming form," and life after its kind, bears within it not only the builder oak but shade for many a herd, food for countless animals, and at last the gallant ship itself, and the materials of every use to which Nature or Art can put it, and its descendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good deed contain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities of other good, which may and will grow and multiply for ever, in the genial light of Him whose eternal mind conceived it, and whose eternal spirit will for ever quicken it, with that life of which He is the Giver and the Lord.

_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854.

Special Providences. October 3.

And as for special Providences. I believe that every step I take, every person I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is not sinful--comes and happens by the perpetual Providence of God watching for ever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing that He has made.

_MS. Letter_.

Virtue. October 4.

Nothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and virtue. Man will always try to find substitutes for it. He will try to find a substitute in superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and worship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be heard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let no man lay that flattering unction to his soul.

_Sermons on David_. 1866.

God-likeness. October 5.

"We can become like God--only in proportion as we are of use," said ---. "I did not see this once. I tried to be good, not knowing what good meant. I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in the world to come. But at last I saw that all life, all devotion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, and God-like and God-beloved, as they were means to that one end--to be of use."

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856.

The Refiner's Fire. October 6.

"Not quite that," said Amyas. "He was a meeker man latterly than he used to be. As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on board had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the fire. And gold seven times tried he was when God, having done His work in him, took him home at last."

_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii.

The Prayer of Faith. October 7.

With the prayer of faith we can do anything. Look at Mark xi. 24--a text that has saved more than one soul from madness in the hour of sorrow; and it is so _simple_ and _wide_--wide as eternity, simple as light, true as God Himself. If we are to do great things it must be in the spirit of that text. Verily, when the Son of God cometh shall He find faith in the earth?

_Letters and Memories_. 1843.

Mountain-Ranges. October 8.

We fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand half-way up on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other from isolated stations. The mists hide from us the foot of the range beneath us, the depths of primary analysis to which none can reach, or we should see that all the peaks were but offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in their inmost root but One! And the clouds which float between us and the heaven shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves--the perfect issues of synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness shines with undimmed lustre--and keep us from perceiving that the complete practical details of our applied knowledge is all holy and radiant with God's smile. And so, half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, we build up little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancy them Babel-towers whose top shall reach to heaven!

_MS. Note-book_. 1843.

The Temper for Success in Life. October 9.

The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the old proverb that "good times and bad times and all times pass over."

_MS._

Want of Simplicity. October 10.

Faith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to want faith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to explain away God's providence, then faith and prayer become intricate and uncertain. We cannot serve God and mammon. We must either utterly depend on God (and therefore on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer), or we must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world. Choose!

_MS. Letter_.

True Rest. October 11.

What is true rest? To rest from sin, from sorrow, from doubt, from care; this is true rest. Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all--knowing one's duty and not being able to do it. That is true rest; the rest of God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them. Perfect rest in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits till the final consummation of all things.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1867.

God's Image. October 12.

. . . "Honour all men." Every man should be honoured as God's image, in the sense in which Novalis says--that we touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body! . . . The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that, and acted up to it, more than any nation. The Patriarchs too seem to have had the same feeling. . . .

_Letters and Memories_. 1843.

Woman's Work. October 13.

Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Self-Enjoyment. October 14.

"How do ye expect," said Sandy, "ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at a', as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel--_yersel_? Mony was the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it was a'

"'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 worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I think--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 too notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.

_Sermons on David_.

The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go astray.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Egotism of Melancholy. October 16.

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

The world looks dark. Shall we therefore be dark too? Is it not our business to bring it back to light and joy?

_MS. Letter_. 1843.

Poetry of Doubt. October 17.

The "poetry of doubt" of these days, however pretty, would stand us in little stead if we were threatened by a second Armada.

_Miscellanies_. 1859.

Work of the Physician. October 18.

The question which is forcing itself more and more on the minds of scientific men is not how many diseases _are_, but how few are _not_, the consequences of men's ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence. The medical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in sickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of the social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the first object of his science to be prevention, and not cure.

_National Sermons_. 1851.

Love Many-sided. October 19.

There are many sides to love--admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, affection; they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of love--the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in a way but habitually.

_National Sermons_. 1851.

The only Path to Light. October 20.

The path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock of Ages, is the simple path of honest self-knowledge, self-renunciation, self-restraint, in which every upward step towards right exposes some fresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed down by the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child once more, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him. And then there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill into clumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on which he treads, or than the foot which treads it--the vision of an Everlasting Spiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and who, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance endure likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death, matter and space and time, should melt indeed--

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 he who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed." Say rather, "Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at least, and if it falls out true, twice also."

_Prose Idylls_. 1857.

True Sisters of Mercy. October 22.

Ah! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as "old maids," if you pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that is yearning to spend itself on children of your own. As long as such as you walk this lower world one needs no Butler's _Analogy_ to prove to us that there is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxv. 1856.

The Divine Fire. October 23.

Well spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life's turmoil, "Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see: God's love with keen flame purges, like the lightning flash, Gold which is purest, purer still must be."

_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 of Christ's Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor of the _soul_ and _reason_, as well as of the _heart_. For, however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it. Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is sure--that good must conquer, because God is good, that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.

_Westminster Sermons_. 1870.

The True Self-Sacrifice. October 25.

What can a man do more than _die_ for his countrymen?

_Live_ for them. It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and a nobler one.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856.

Now as Then. October 26.

Men can be as original now as ever, if they had but the courage, even the insight. Heroic souls in old times had no more opportunities than we have; but they used them. There were daring deeds to be done then--are there none now? Sacrifices to be made--are there none now? Wrongs to be redrest--are there none now? Let any one set his heart in these days to do what is right, and nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to make up the heroical expression--with noble indignation, noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps even with the print of the martyr's crown of thorns.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. vii. 1856.

One Anchor. October 27.

In such a world as this, with such ugly possibilities hanging over us all, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is utter trust in God; let us keep that, and we may yet get to our graves without _misery_ though not without _sorrow_.

_Letters and Memories_. 1871.

Self-Control. October 28.

Settle it in your minds, young people, that the first and the last of all virtues and graces which God can give is Self-Control, as necessary for the saint and the sage lest they become fanatics and pedants, as for the young in the hey-day of youth and health.

_Sermons on David_. 1866.

Nature's Permanence. October 29.

We abolish many things, good and evil, wisely and foolishly, in these fast-going times; but, happily for us, we cannot abolish the blue sky, and the green sea, and the white foam, and the everlasting hills, and the rivers which flow out of their bosoms. They will abolish themselves when their work is done, but not before. And we, who, with all our boasted scientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and carnal point of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic animals burrowing in the fair Earth's skin, had better, instead of boasting of our empire over Nature, take care lest we become too troublesome to Nature, by creating, in our haste and greed, too many great black countries, and too many great dirty warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled with savages and imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so far from allowing us to abolish her, will by her inexorable laws abolish us.

_MS. Presidential Address_. 1871.

The Only Refuge. October 30.

Prayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the witches and the fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortal brain.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856.

England's Forgotten Worthies. October 31.

Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and glory around them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about what they saw in an "artistic" or "critical" point of view as in a scientific one. . . . They gave God thanks and were not astonished. God was great: but that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics.

Noble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superstition enough about them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasm which is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism! We do not trust enough in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to be ready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, for anything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is discovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a feeling--true index, forsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind!!

Smile if you will: but those were days (and there never were less superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in our covert atheism, term "secular and carnal."

_Westward Ho_! chap. xxiii.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

OCTOBER 18. St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist.

It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in that. And the physician has set his mind to do one thing--to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against them to the end. In his exclusive care for the body the physician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for the Bible, for immortality. Is he not witnessing for God when he shows by his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; of health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and weakness? Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?

"_Water of Life_," _and other Sermons_.

OCTOBER 28. St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs.

He that loseth his life shall save it. The end and aim of our life is not happiness but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness may come after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even blessedness.

Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross. There hung your King! The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell,--He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is divine,--godlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads and despises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. . . . And now--Blessed are tears and shame, blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await the Resurrection-day.

_National Sermons_.

November.

"The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray. All Nature is like the grief of manhood in its soft and thoughtful sternness. Shall I lend myself to its influence, and as the heaven settles down into one misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why not? for am I not 'a part of all I see'? And even now, in fasting and mortification, am I not sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastisement? But shall I then despond and die?

"No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and thy God! We may weep, Mother Earth, but we have Faith--faith which tells us that above the cloudy sky the bright clear sun is shining, and will shine. And we have Hope, Mother Earth--hope, that as bright days have been, so bright days soon shall be once more! And we have Charity, Mother Earth, and by it we can love all tender things--ay, and all rugged rocks and dreary moors, for the sake of the glow which _has_ gilded them, and the fertility which will spring even from their sorrow. We will smile through our tears, Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken! We have still light and heat, and till we can bear the sunshine we will glory in the shade!"

_MS._ 1842.

Sympathy of the Dead. November 1.

Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if (as I surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is a further education for them, and a pledge, too, of help--I believe of final deliverance--for those on whom they look down in love.

_Letters and Memories_. 1852.

Nature's Parable. November 2.

There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's meaning too. As I read nature's parable to-night I find nothing in it but hope. What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there seem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing and feeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom there below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the power of light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is stirred.

_Prose Idylls_. 1849.

Passing Onward. November 3.

Liturgies are but temporary expressions of the Church's heart. The Bible is the immutable story of her husband's love. _She_ must go on from grace to grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancient melodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the same for ever.

_MS._ 1842.

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 a handful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it was ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life.

_Science Lectures_.

Christ Weeping over Jerusalem. November 5.

That which is true of nations is true of individuals, of each separate human brother of the Son of man. Is there one young life ruined by its own folly--one young heart broken by its own wilfulness--or one older life fast losing the finer instincts, the nobler aims of youth, in the restlessness of covetousness, of fashion, of ambition? Is there one such poor soul over whom Christ does not grieve? One to whom, at some supreme crisis of their lives, He does not whisper--"Ah, beautiful organism--thou too art a thought of God--thou too, if thou wert but in harmony with thyself and God, a microcosmic _City of God_! Ah! that thou hadst known--even thou--at least in this thy day--the things which belong to thy peace"?

_MS. Sermon_. 1874.

Love Expansive. November 6.

The mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because our whole love should be given to God. But as flame increases by being applied to many objects, so does love. He who loves God most loves God's creatures most, and them for God's sake, and God for their sake.

_MS. Note-book_. 1843.

Still the same. November 7.

Those who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really taste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a change of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest they may, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Not idleness, but peace of mind.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1862.

An absolutely Good God. November 8.

Fix in your minds--or rather ask God to fix in your minds--this one idea of an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which you respect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man, understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand and all-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who is mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the infinitely good God! But see, then, whether, in the light of that one idea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relation of God to man--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the Incarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God--do not seem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, and logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of an Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the universe?

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873.

Nature's Lesson. November 9.

Learn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do not let them mould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to make you melancholy, you worship the creature more than the Creator.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Morals and Mind. November 10.

Not upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human welfare founded. The true subjective history of man is not the history of his thought, but of his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of his inventions, but of his vices and his virtues. So far from morals depending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. In proportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice is done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely, triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfully obeyed, to the welfare of the whole common weal.

_Inaugural Lecture_, _Cambridge_. 1860.

Fastidiousness. November 11.

Do not let us provoke God (though that is _really_ impossible) by complaining of His gifts because they do not come just in the form _we_ should have wished. . . .

_MS. Letter_. 1844.

Unconscious Faith. November 12.

For the rest, Amyas never thought about thinking or felt about feeling; and had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother, getting by honest means the maximum of "red quarrenders" and mazard cherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. Neither was he what would be nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said his Creed and Lord's Prayer night and morning, and went to service at the church every forenoon, and read the day's Psalms with his mother every evening, and had learnt from her and his father that it was infinitely noble to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothing more of theology or of his own soul than is contained in the Church Catechism.

_Westward Ho_! chap. i. 1855.

Silence. November 13.

There are silences more pathetic than all words.

_MS._

The Nineteenth Century. November 14.