{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_20711/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_20711","id":"gutenberg_20711","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/20711","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Devotional exercises"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1885 Macmillan and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nDAILY THOUGHTS\n\n\nSelected from the Writings\nOF\nCHARLES KINGSLEY\n\nBY HIS WIFE\n\nSECOND EDITION\n\nLondon\nMACMILLAN AND CO.\n1885\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.\n\n_This little Volume_, _selected from the MS. Note-books_, _Sermons and\nPrivate Letters_, _as well as from the published Works of my Husband_,\n_is dedicated to our children_, _and to all who feel the blessing of his\ninfluence on their daily life and thought_.\n\n_F. E. K._\n\n_July_ 10, 1884.\n\n\n\n\nJanuary.\n\n\nWelcome, wild North-easter!\n   Shame it is to see\nOdes to every zephyr:\n   Ne'er a verse to thee.\n. . . . .\nTired we are of summer,\n   Tired of gaudy glare,\nShowers soft and steaming,\n   Hot and breathless air.\nTired of listless dreaming\n   Through the lazy day:\nJovial wind of winter\n   Turn us out to play!\nSweep the golden reed-beds;\n   Crisp the lazy dyke;\nHunger into madness\n   Every plunging pike.\nFill the lake with wild-fowl;\n   Fill the marsh with snipe;\nWhile on dreary moorlands\n   Lonely curlew pipe.\nThrough the black fir forest\n   Thunder harsh and dry,\nShattering down the snow-flakes\n   Off the curdled sky.\n. . . . .\nCome; and strong within us\n   Stir the Viking's blood;\nBracing brain and sinew:\n   Blow, thou wind of God!\n\n_Ode to North-east Wind_.\n\n\n\nNew Year's Day.  January 1. {3}\n\n\nGather you, gather you, angels of God--\n   Freedom and Mercy and Truth;\nCome! for the earth is grown coward and old;\n   Come down and renew us her youth.\nWisdom, Self-sacrifice, Daring, and Love,\n   Haste to the battlefield, stoop from above,\n      To the day of the Lord at hand!\n\n_The Day of the Lord_.  1847.\n\n\n\nThe Nineteenth Century.  January 2.\n\n\nNow, and at no other time: in this same nineteenth century lies our work.\nLet us thank God that we are here now, and joyfully try to understand\n_where_ we are, and what our work is _here_.  As for all superstitions\nabout \"the good old times,\" and fancies that _they_ belonged to God,\nwhile this age belongs only to man, blind chance, and the evil one, let\nus cast them from us as the suggestions of an evil lying spirit, as the\nnatural parents of laziness, pedantry, fanaticism, and unbelief.  And\ntherefore let us not fear to ask the meaning of this present day, and of\nall its different voices--the pressing, noisy, complex present, where our\nworkfield lies, the most intricate of all states of society, and of all\nschools of literature yet known.\n\n_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_.\n1848.\n\n\n\nForward.  January 3.\n\n\nLet us forward.  God leads us.  Though blind, shall we be afraid to\nfollow?  I do not see my way: I do not care to: but I know that He sees\nHis way, and that I see Him.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1848.\n\n\n\nThe Noble Life.  January 4.\n\n\nBe good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever;\nDo noble things, not dream them all day long;\nAnd so make life, and death, and that For Ever\nOne grand sweet song.\n\n_A Farewell_.  1856.\n\nLive in the present that you may be ready for the future.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nDuty and Sentiment.  January 5.\n\n\nGod demands not _sentiment_ but _justice_.  The Bible knows nothing of\n\"the religious sentiments and emotions\" whereof we hear so much talk\nnowadays.  It speaks of _Duty_.  \"Beloved, if God so loved us, we _ought_\nto love one another.\"\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nThe Everlasting Harmony.  January 6.\n\n\nIf thou art living a righteous and useful life, doing thy duty orderly\nand cheerfully where God has put thee, then thou in thy humble place art\nhumbly copying the everlasting harmony and melody which is in heaven; the\neverlasting harmony and melody by which God made the world and all that\ntherein is--and behold it was very good--in the day when the morning\nstars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy over the new-\ncreated earth, which God had made to be a pattern of His own perfection.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nThe Keys of Death and Hell.  January 7.\n\n\nFear not.  Christ has the keys of death and hell.  He has been through\nthem and is alive for evermore.  Christ is the _first_, and was loving\nand just and glorious and almighty before there was any death or hell.\nAnd Christ is the _last_, and will be loving and just and glorious and\nalmighty as ever, in that great day when all enemies shall be under His\nfeet, and death shall be destroyed, and death and hell shall be cast into\nthe lake of fire.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.  1857.\n\n\n\nA Living God.  January 8.\n\n\nHere and there, among rich and poor, there are those whose heart and\nflesh, whose conscience and whose intellect, cry out for the _Living_\nGod, and will know no peace till they have found Him.  For till then they\ncan find no explanation of the three great human questions--Where am I?\nWhither am I going?  What must I do?\n\n_Sermons on the Pentateuch_.  1862.\n\n\n\nThe Fairy Gardens.  January 9.\n\n\nOf all the blessings which the study of Nature brings to the patient\nobserver, let none, perhaps, be classed higher than this, that the\nfarther he enters into those fairy gardens of life and birth, which\nSpenser saw and described in his great poem, the more he learns the awful\nand yet comfortable truth, that they do not belong to him, but to One\ngreater, wiser, lovelier than he; and as he stands, silent with awe, amid\nthe pomp of Nature's ever-busy rest, hears as of old, The Word of the\n\"Lord God walking among the trees of the garden in the cool of the day.\"\n\n_Glaucus_.  1855.\n\n\n\nLove.  January 10.\n\n\nOh!  Love!  Love!  Love! the same in peasant and in peer!  The more\nhonour to you, then, old Love, to _be_ the same thing in this world which\n_is_ common to peasant and to peer.  They say that you are blind, a\ndreamer, an exaggerator--a liar, in short!  They just know nothing about\nyou, then.  You will not see people as they seem--as they have become, no\ndoubt; but why?  Because you see them as they ought to be, and are in\nsome deep way eternally, in the sight of Him who conceived and created\nthem!\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xiv.  1856.\n\n\n\nLife--Love.  January 11.\n\n\nWe must live nobly to love nobly.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nThe Seed of Good.  January 12.\n\n\nNever was the young Abbot heard to speak harshly of any human being.\n\"When thou hast tried in vain for seven years,\" he used to say, \"to\nconvert a sinner, then only wilt thou have a right to suspect him of\nbeing a worse man than thyself.\"  That there is a seed of good in all\nmen, a divine word and spirit striving with all men, a gospel and good\nnews which would turn the hearts of all men, if abbots and priests could\nbut preach it aright, was his favourite doctrine, and one which he used\nto defend, when at rare intervals he allowed himself to discuss any\nsubject, from the writings of his favourite theologian, Clement of\nAlexandria.\n\nAbove all, Abbot Philamon stopped by stern rebuke any attempt to revile\neither heretics or heathens.  \"On the Catholic Church alone,\" he used to\nsay, \"lies the blame of all heresy and unbelief; for if she were but for\none day that which she ought to be, the world would be converted before\nnightfall.\"\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxx.  1852.\n\n\n\nDanger of Thinking vaguely.  January 13.\n\n\nWatch against any fallacies in your ideas which may arise, not from\ndisingenuousness, but from allowing yourself in moments of feeling to\nthink vaguely, and not to attach precise meaning to your words.  Without\nany cold caution of expression, it is a duty we owe to God's truth, and\nto our own happiness and the happiness of those around us, to think and\nspeak as correctly as we can.  Almost all heresy, schism, and\nmisunderstandings, between either churches or individuals who ought to be\none, have arisen from this fault of an involved and vague style of\nthought.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Possession of Faith.  January 14.\n\n\nI don't want to possess a faith, I want a faith which will possess me.\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xvii.  1852.\n\n\n\nThe Eternal Life.  January 15.\n\n\nEternally, and for ever, in heaven, says St. John, Christ says and is and\ndoes what prophets prophesied of Him that He would say and be and do.  \"I\nam the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright Morning Star.  And let\nhim that is athirst, come: and whosoever will, let him take of the Water\nof Life freely.\"  For ever Christ calls to every anxious soul, every\nafflicted soul, to every man who is ashamed of himself, and angry with\nhimself, and longs to live a gentler, nobler, purer, truer, and more\nuseful life, \"Come, and live for ever the eternal life of righteousness,\nholiness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, which is the one true\nand only salvation bought for us by the precious blood of Christ our\nLord.\"  Amen.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1865\n\n\n\nThe Golden Cup of Youth.  January 16.\n\n\nAh, glorious twenty-one, with your inexhaustible powers of doing and\nenjoying, eating and hungering, sleeping and sitting up, reading and\nplaying!  Happy are those who still possess you, and can take their fill\nof your golden cup, steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance that\nfor all things a good and loving God will bring them to judgment!\n\nHappier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the health\nand buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and, seeming to\ngrow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care and\nwork at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years\nago, and say with Wordsworth--\n\n   \"So was it when I was a boy,\n   So let it be when I am old,\n   Or let me die.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix.  1856.\n\n\n\nWork and Duty.  January 17.\n\n\nIf a man is busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he require for\ntime or for eternity?\n\n_Chalk Stream Studies_.  1856.\n\n\n\nMembers of Christ.  January 18.\n\n\n. . . Would you be humble, daughter?\nYou must look up, not down, and see yourself\nA paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein\nOf Christ's vast vine; the pettiest joint and member\nOf His great body. . . .\n\n. . . Let thyself die--\nAnd dying, rise again to fuller life.\nTo be a whole is to be small and weak--\nTo be a part is to be great and mighty\nIn the one spirit of the mighty whole--\nThe spirit of the martyrs and the saints.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene vi.\n1847.\n\n\n\nBeauty a Sacrament.  January 19.\n\n\nNever lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful.  Beauty is God's\nhandwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every\nfair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of\nall loveliness, and drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes;\nit is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.\n\n_True Words to Brave Men_.  1844.\n\n\n\nThe Ideal of Rank.  January 20.\n\n\nWith Christianity came in the thought that domination meant\nresponsibility, that responsibility demanded virtue.  The words which\ndenoted Rank came to denote, likewise, high moral excellencies.  The\n_nobilis_, or man who was known, and therefore subject to public opinion,\nwas bound to behave nobly.  The gentle-man--gentile-man--who respected\nhis own gens, or family, or pedigree, was bound to be gentle.  The\ncourtier who had picked up at court some touch of Roman civilisation from\nRoman ecclesiastics was bound to be courteous.  He who held an \"honour,\"\nor \"edel\" of land, was bound to be honourable; and he who held a\n\"weorthig,\" or \"worthy,\" thereof, was bound himself to be worthy.\n\n_Lectures on Ancien Regime_.  1866.\n\n\n\nAn Indulgent God.  January 21.\n\n\nA merely indulgent God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God likewise.\nIf God be just, as He is, then He has boundless pity for those who are\nweak, but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak.  Boundless\npity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; but\nboundless wrath for those who mislead them and put them out of the right\nway.\n\n_Discipline Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nThe Fifty-First Psalm.  January 22.\n\n\nIt is such utterances as these which have given for now many hundred\nyears their priceless value to the little Book of Psalms ascribed to the\nshepherd outlaw of the Judean hills, which have sent the sound of his\nname into all lands throughout all the world.  Every form of human\nsorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin--the nun agonising in the cloister;\nthe settler struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper\nshivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the\nman of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of\ncommerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting\nthe words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy\ntrudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his\nShepherd, therefore he will not want--all shapes of humanity have found,\nand will find to the end of time, a word said here to their inmost\nhearts. . . .\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nWaiting for Death.  January 23.\n\n\nDeath, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and tell me what I\nwant to know?  I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only\nto give rest to the weary.  That was a coward's wish--and so you would\nnot come. . . .  I was not worthy of you.  And now I will not hunt you\nany more, old Death.  Do you bide your time, and I mine. . . .  Only when\nyou come, give me not rest but work.  Give work to the idle, freedom to\nthe chained, sight to the blind!\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xv.  1856.\n\n\n\nThe One Refuge.  January 24.\n\n\nSafe!  There is no safety but from God, and that comes by prayer and\nfaith.\n\n_Hypatia_.  1852.\n\n\n\nFuture Identity.  January 25.\n\n\nI believe that the union of those who have loved here will in the next\nworld amount to perfect identity, that they will look back on the\nexpressions of affection here as mere meagre strugglings after and\napproximation to the union which then will be perfect.  Perfect!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nFriendship.  January 26.\n\n\nA friend once won need never be lost, if we will be only trusty and true\nourselves.  Friends may part, not merely in body, but in spirit, for a\nwhile.  In the bustle of business and the accidents of life, they may\nlose sight of each other for years; and more, they may begin to differ in\ntheir success in life, in their opinions, in their habits, and there may\nbe, for a time, coldness and estrangement between them, but not for ever\nif each will be trusty and true.  For then they will be like two ships\nwho set sail at morning from the same port, and ere night-fall lose sight\nof each other, and go each on its own course and at its own pace for many\ndays, through many storms and seas, and yet meet again, and find\nthemselves lying side by side in the same haven when their long voyage is\npast.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\n\n\nNight and Morning.  January 27.\n\n\nIt is morning somewhere or other now, and it will be morning here again\nto-morrow.  \"Good times and bad times and all times pass over.\"  I learnt\nthat lesson out of old Bewick's Vignettes, and it has stood me in good\nstead this many a year.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. i.  1856.\n\n\n\nCommunion with the Blessed Dead.  January 28.\n\n\nShall we not recollect the blessed dead above all in Holy Communion, and\ngive thanks for them there--at that holy table at which the Church\ntriumphant and the Church militant meet in the communion of saints?  Where\nChrist is they are; and, therefore, if Christ be there, may not they be\nthere likewise?  May not they be near us though unseen? like us claiming\ntheir share in the eternal sacrifice, like us partaking of that spiritual\nbody and blood which is as much the life of saints in heaven as it is of\npenitent sinners on earth?  May it not be so?  It is a mystery into which\nwe will not look too far.  But this at least is true, that they are with\nHim where He is.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\n\nThe Great Law.  January 29.\n\n\nTrue rest can only be attained as Christ attained it, through labour.\nTrue glory can only be attained in earth or heaven through\nself-sacrifice.  Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; whosoever\nwill lose his life shall save it.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nThe Coming Kingdom.  January 30.\n\n\nThere is a God-appointed theocracy promised to us, and which we must wait\nfor, when all the diseased and false systems of this world shall be swept\naway, and Christ's feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, and the\ntwelve apostles shall sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of\nIsrael!  All this shall come, and blessed is that servant whom his Lord\nwhen He cometh shall find ready!  All this we shall not see before we\ndie, but we shall see it when we rise in the perfect material and\nspiritual ideal, in the kingdom of God!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n\n\nChrist's Coming.  January 31.\n\n\nChrist may come to us when our thoughts are cleaving to the ground, and\nready to grow earthy of the earth--through noble poetry, noble music,\nnoble art--through aught which awakens once more in us the instinct of\nthe true, the beautiful, and the good.  He may come to us when our souls\nare restless and weary, through the repose of Nature--the repose of the\nlonely snow-peak and of the sleeping forest, of the clouds of sunset and\nof the summer sea, and whisper Peace.  Or He may come, as He comes on\nwinter nights to many a gallant soul--not in the repose of Nature, but in\nher rage--in howling storm and blinding foam and ruthless rocks and\nwhelming surge--and whisper to them even so--as the sea swallows all of\nthem which _it_ can take--of calm beyond, which this world cannot give\nand cannot take away.\n\nAnd therefore let us say in utter faith, Come as Thou seest best--but in\nwhatsoever way Thou comest, Even so come, Lord Jesus.  Amen.\n\n_Last Sermon_.  _MS._  1874.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nSince we gave up at the Reformation the superstitious practice of praying\nto the saints, Saints' Days have sunk--and, indeed, sunk too much--into\nneglect.  We forget too often still, that though praying to any saint or\nangel, or other created being, is contrary both to reason and Scripture,\nyet it is according to reason and to Scripture to commemorate them.  That\nis, to remember them, to study their characters, and to thank God for\nthem,--both for the virtues He bestowed on them, and the example which He\nhas given us in them.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\nJANUARY 6.\nThe Epiphany,\nManifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.\n\n\nOn this day the Lord Jesus was first shown to the Gentiles.  The word\nEpiphany means \"showing.\"  The Wise Men were worshippers of the true God,\nthough in a dim confused way; and they had learnt enough of what true\nfaith, true greatness was, not to be staggered and fall into unbelief\nwhen they saw the King of the Jews laid, not in a palace, but in a\nmanger, tended by a poor village maiden.  And therefore God bestowed on\nthem the great honour that they first of all--Gentiles--should see the\nglory and the love of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  God grant that\nthey may not rise up against us in the Day of Judgment and condemn us!\nThey had but a small spark, a dim ray, of the Light which lighteth every\nman who cometh into the world; but they were more faithful to that little\nthan many of us, who live in the full sunshine of the Gospel, with\nChrist's Spirit, Christ's Sacraments, Christ's Churches,--means of grace\nand hopes of glory of which they never dreamed.\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.\n\n\nJANUARY 25.\nConversion of St. Paul, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nHow did St. Paul look on his past life?  There is no sentimental\nmelancholy in him.  He is saved, and he knows it.  He is an Apostle, and\nhe stands boldly on his dignity.  He is cheerful, hopeful, joyful.  And\nyet, when he speaks of the past, it is with noble shame and sorrow that\nhe calls himself the chief of sinners, not worthy to be called an\nApostle, because he persecuted the Church of Christ.  What he is, he will\nnot deny; what he was, he will not forget; lest he should forget that in\nhim, that is, in his flesh--his natural character--dwelleth no good\nthing; lest he should forget that the good which he does, _he_ does not,\nbut Christ which dwelleth in him; lest he should grow careless, puffed\nup, self-indulgent; lest he should neglect to subdue his evil passions;\nand so, after preaching to others, himself become a castaway.\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nFebruary.\n\n\n   . . . Every winter,\n   When the great sun has turned his face away,\n   The earth goes down into the vale of grief,\n   And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,\n   Leaving her wedding garments to decay;\n   Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.\n\n   _Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene i.\n\n   Out of the morning land,\n   Over the snow-drifts,\n   Beautiful Freya came,\n   Tripping to Scoring.\n   White were the moorlands,\n   And frozen before her;\n   Green were the moorlands,\n   And blooming behind her.\n   Out of her gold locks\n   Shaking the spring flowers,\n   Out of her garments\n   Shaking the south wind,\n   Around in the birches\n   Awaking the throstles,\n   Love and love-giving,\n   Came she to Scoring.\n   . . . . .\n\n_The Longbeard's Saga_.  1852.\n\n\n\nVirtue.  February 1.\n\n\nThe first and last business of every human being, whatever his station,\nparty, creed, capacities, tastes, duties, is morality; virtue, virtue,\nalways virtue.  Nothing that man will ever invent will absolve him from\nthe universal necessity of being good as God is good, righteous as God is\nrighteous, holy as God is holy.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nHappiness.  February 2.\n\n\nGod has not only made things beautiful; He has made things happy;\nwhatever misery there is in the world there is no denying that.  Misery\nis the exception; happiness is the rule.  No rational man ever heard a\nbird sing without feeling that the bird was happy, and that if God made\nthat bird He made it to be happy, and He takes pleasure in its happiness,\nthough no human ear should ever hear its song, no human heart should ever\nshare in its joy.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nA Dream of the Future.  February 3.\n\n\nGod grant that the day may come when in front of the dwellings of the\npoor we may see real fountains--not like the drinking-fountains, useful\nas they are, which you see here and there about the streets, with a tiny\ndribble of water to a great deal of expensive stone, but real fountains,\nwhich shall leap, and sparkle, and plash, and gurgle, and fill the place\nwith life and light and coolness; and sing in the people's ears the\nsweetest of all earthly songs--save the song of a mother over her\nchild--the song of \"The Laughing Water.\"\n\n_The Air Mothers_.  1872.\n\n\n\nBondage of Custom.  February 4.\n\n\nStrive all your life to free men from the bondage of _custom_ and _self_,\nthe two great elements of the world that lieth in wickedness.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  l842.\n\nHenceforth let no man peering down\nThrough the dim glittering mine of future years\nSay to himself, \"Too much! this cannot be!\"\nTo-day and custom wall up our horizon:\nBefore the hourly miracle of life\nBlindfold we stand, and sigh, as though God were not.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act i. Scene ii.\n1847.\n\n\n\nThe Childlike Mind.  February 5.\n\n\nThere comes a time when we must _narrow_ our sphere of thought much, that\nwe may _truly enlarge_ it! we must, _artificialised_ as we _have_ been,\nreturn to the rudiments of life, to children's pleasures, that we may\nfind easily, through their transparent simplicity, spiritual laws which\nwe may apply to the more intricate spheres of art and science.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nUnselfish Prayer.  February 6.\n\n\nThe Lord's Prayer teaches that we are members of a family, when He tells\nus to pray not \"_My_ Father\" but \"Our Father;\" not \"_my_ soul be saved,\"\nbut \"Thy kingdom come;\" not \"give _me_\" but \"give _us_ our daily bread;\"\nnot \"forgive me,\" but \"forgive _us_ our trespasses,\" and that only as we\nforgive others; not \"lead _me_ not,\" but \"lead _us_ not into temptation;\"\nnot \"deliver _me_,\" but \"deliver _us_ from evil.\"  After _that_ manner\nour Lord tells us to pray, and in proportion as we pray in that manner,\njust so far, and no farther, will God hear our prayers.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1850.\n\n\n\nGod is Light.  February 7.\n\n\nAll the deep things of God are bright, for God is Light.  God's arbitrary\nwill and almighty power may seem dark by themselves though deep, but that\nis because they do not involve His moral character.  Join them with the\nfact that He is a God of mercy as well as justice; remember that His\nessence is love, and the thunder-cloud will blaze with dewy gold, full of\nsoft rain and pure light.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1844.\n\n\n\nThe Veil Lifted.  February 8.\n\n\nScience is, I verily believe, like virtue, its own exceeding great\nreward.  I can conceive few human states more enviable than that of the\nman to whom--panting in the foul laboratory, or watching for his life in\nthe tropic forest--Isis shall for a moment lift her sacred veil and show\nhim, once and for ever, the thing he dreamed not of, some law, or even\nmere hint of a law, explaining one fact: but explaining with it a\nthousand more, connecting them all with each other and with the mighty\nwhole, till order and meaning shoots through some old chaos of scattered\nobservations.  Is not that a joy, a prize, which wealth cannot give nor\npoverty take away?  What it may lead to he knows not.  Of what use it may\nbe he knows not.  But this he knows, that somewhere it must lead, of some\nuse it will be.  For it is a truth.\n\n_Lectures on Science and Superstition_.\n1866.\n\n\n\nAll Science One.  February 9.\n\n\nPhysical and spiritual science seem to the world to be distinct.  One\nsight of God as we shall some day see Him will show us that they are\nindissolubly and eternally the same.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nPassion and Reason.  February 10.\n\n\nPassion and reason in a healthy mind ought to be inseparable.  We need\nnot be passionless because we reason correctly.  Strange to say, one's\nfeelings will often sharpen one's knowledge of the truth, as they do\none's powers of action.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nEnthusiasm and Tact.  February 11.\n\n\n. . . People smile at the \"enthusiasm of youth\"--that enthusiasm which\nthey themselves secretly look back at with a sigh, perhaps unconscious\nthat it is partly their own fault that they ever lost it. . . .  Do not\nfear being considered an enthusiast.  What matter?  But pray for _tact_,\nthe true tact which love alone can give, to prevent scandalising a weak\nbrother.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\nBe earnest, earnest, earnest; mad, if thou wilt:\nDo what thou dost as if the stake were heaven, And that thy last deed ere\nthe judgment-day.\nWhen all's done, nothing's done.  There's rest above--\nBelow let work be death, if work be love!\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene viii.  1847.\n\n\n\nThe Eternal Good.  February 12.\n\n\n\"God hath showed thee what is good,\" . . . what is good in itself, and of\nitself--the one very eternal and absolute good, which was with God and in\nGod and from God, before all worlds, and will be for ever, without\nchanging, or growing less or greater, eternally the same good--the good\nwhich would be just as good and just and right and lovely and glorious if\nthere were no world, no men, no angels, no heaven, no hell, and God were\nalone in His own abyss.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nAwfulness of Words.  February 13.\n\n\nA difference in words is a very awful and important difference; a\ndifference in words is a difference in things.  Words are very awful and\nwonderful things, for they come from the most awful and wonderful of all\nbeings, Jesus Christ, THE WORD.  He puts words into men's minds.  He made\nall things, and He made words to express those things.  And woe to those\nwho use the wrong words about anything.\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1848.\n\n\n\nA Wise Woman.  February 14.\n\n\nWhat wisdom she had she did not pick off the hedge, like blackberries.\nGod is too kind to give away wisdom after that useless fashion.  So she\nhad to earn her wisdom, and to work hard, and suffer much ere she\nattained it.  And in attaining she endured strange adventures and great\nsorrows; and yet they would not have given her the wisdom had she not had\nsomething in herself which gave her wit to understand her lessons, and\nskill and courage to do what they taught her.  There had been many names\nfor that something before she was born, there have been many names for it\nsince, but her father and mother called it the Grace of God.\n\n_Unfinished Novel_.  1869.\n\n\n\nCharity the one Influence.  February 15.\n\n\nThe older we grow, the more we understand our own lives and histories,\nthe more we shall see that the spirit of wisdom is the spirit of love;\nthat the true way to gain influence over our fellow-men is to have\ncharity towards them.  That is a hard lesson to learn; and all those who\nlearn it generally learn it late; almost--God forgive us--too late.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Ascetic Painters.  February 16.\n\n\nWe owe much (notwithstanding their partial and Manichean idea of beauty)\nto the early ascetic painters.  Their works are a possession for ever.  No\nfuture school of religious art will be able to rise to eminence without\nlearning from them their secret.  They taught artists, and priests, and\nlaymen, too, that beauty is only worthy of admiration when it is the\noutward sacrament of the beauty of the soul within; they helped to\ndeliver men from that idolatry to merely animal strength and loveliness\ninto which they were in danger of falling in ferocious ages, and among\nthe relics of Roman luxury.\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1849.\n\n\n\nReveries.  February 17.\n\n\nBeware of giving way to reveries.  Have always some employment in your\nhands.  Look forward to the future with hope.  Build castles if you will,\nbut only bright ones, and _not too many_.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nWoman's Mission.  February 18.\n\n\nIt is the glory of woman that she was sent into the world to live for\nothers rather than for herself; and therefore, I should say, let her\nsmallest rights be respected, her smallest wrongs redressed; but let her\nnever be persuaded to forget that she is sent into the world to teach\nman--what I believe she has been teaching him all along, even in the\nsavage state, namely, that there is something more necessary than the\nclaiming of rights, and that is, the performing of duties; to teach him\nspecially, in these so-called intellectual days, that there is something\nmore than intellect, and that is--purity and virtue.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nThe Heroic Life.  February 19.\n\n\nProvided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine life, which is\nthe life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what wild and weary\nways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have arrived\nthither.  If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us submit\nloyally and humbly to His law--\"whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and\nscourgeth every son whom He receiveth.\"\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Wages of Sin.  February 20.\n\n\nIt is sometimes said, \"The greater the sinner the greater the saint.\"  I\ndo not believe it.  I do not see it.  It stands to reason--if a man loses\nhis way and finds it again, he is so much the less forward on his way,\nsurely, by all the time he has spent in getting back into the way.\n\nAnd if any of you fancy you can sin without being punished, remember that\nthe prodigal son is punished most severely.  He does not get off freely\nthe moment he chooses to repent, as false preachers will tell you.  Even\nafter he does repent and resolves to go back to his father's house he has\na long journey home in poverty and misery, footsore, hungry, and all but\ndespairing.  But when he does get home; when he shows he has learnt the\nbitter lesson; when all he dares to ask is, \"Make me as one of thy hired\nservants,\"--he is received as freely as the rest.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1864.\n\n\n\nSilent Depths.  February 21.\n\n\nOur mightiest feelings are always those which remain most unspoken.  The\nmost intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think,\nwritten very little personal love-poetry, while they have shown in\nfictitious characters a knowledge of the passion too painfully intimate\nto be spoken of in the first person.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nTrue Justification.  February 22.\n\n\nGod grant us to be among those who wish to be really justified by faith,\nby being made just persons by faith,--who cannot satisfy either their\nconscience or their reason by fancying that God looks on them as right\nwhen they know themselves to be wrong; and who cannot help trusting that\nunion with Christ must be something real and substantial, and not merely\na metaphor and a flower of rhetoric.\n\n_MS._  1854.\n\n\n\nA Present Hell.  February 23.\n\n\n\"Ay,\" he muttered, \"sing awa', . . . wi' pretty fancies and gran' words,\nand gang to hell for it.\"\n\n\"To hell, Mr. Mackaye?\"\n\n\"Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie--a warse ane than any\nfiend's kitchen or subterranean Smithfield that ye'll hear o' in the\npulpits--the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a humbug, and a\nuseless peacock, wasting God's gifts on your ain lusts and pleasures--and\nkenning it--and not being able to get oot o' it for the chains of vanity\nand self-indulgence.\"\n\n_Alton Locke_, chap. viii.  1849.\n\n\n\nTime and Eternity.  February 24.\n\n\nEternity does not mean merely some future endless duration, but that ever-\npresent _moral_ world, governed by ever-living and absolutely necessary\nlaws, in which we and all spirits are now; and in which we should be\nequally, whether time and space, extension and duration, and the whole\nmaterial universe to which they belong, became nothing this moment, or\nlasted endlessly.\n\n_Theologica Germanica_.  1854.\n\n\n\nChrist's Life.  February 25.\n\n\nWhat was Christ's life?  Not one of deep speculations, quiet thoughts,\nand bright visions, but a life of fighting against evil; earnest, awful\nprayers and struggles within, continued labour of body and mind without;\ninsult, and danger, and confusion, and violent exertion, and bitter\nsorrow.  This was Christ's life.  This was St. Peter's, and St. James's,\nand St. John's life afterwards.\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1849.\n\n\n\nThe Higher Education.  February 26.\n\n\nIn teaching women we must try to make our deepest lessons bear on the\ngreat purpose of unfolding Woman's own calling in all ages--her especial\ncalling in this one.  We must incite them to realise the chivalrous\nbelief of our old forefathers among their Saxon forests, that something\nDivine dwelt in the counsels of woman: but, on the other hand, we must\ncontinually remind them that they will attain that divine instinct, not\nby renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by becoming true women,\nand not bad imitations of men; by educating their heads for the sake of\ntheir hearts, not their hearts for the sake of their heads; by claiming\nwoman's divine vocation as the priestess of purity, of beauty, and of\nlove.\n\n_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_.\n1848.\n\n\n\nGod's Kingdom.  February 27.\n\n\nPhilamon had gone forth to see the world, and he had seen it; and he had\nlearnt that God's kingdom was not a kingdom of fanatics yelling for a\ndoctrine, but of willing, loving, obedient hearts.\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxiii.  1852.\n\n\n\nSowing and Reaping.  February 28.\n\n\nSo it is, that by every crime, folly, even neglect of theirs, men drive a\nthorn into their own flesh, which will trouble them for years to come, it\nmay be to their dying day--\n\n   Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small;\n   Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all--\n\nas those who neglect their fellow-creatures will discover, by the most\npatent, undeniable proofs, in that last great day, when the rich and poor\nshall meet together, and then, at last, discover too that the Lord is the\nMaker of them all.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nThe Church Catechism.  February 29.\n\n\nDid it ever strike you that the simple, noble, old Church Catechism,\nwithout one word about rewards and punishments, heaven or hell, begins to\ntalk to the child, like a true English Catechism as it is, about that\nglorious old English key-word Duty?  It calls on the child to confess its\nown duty, and teaches it that its duty is something most human, simple,\neveryday--commonplace, if you will call it so.  And I rejoice in the\nthought that the Church Catechism teaches that the child's duty is\ncommonplace.  I rejoice that in what it says about our duty to God and\nour neighbour, it says not one word about counsels of perfection, or\nthose frames and feelings which depend, believe me, principally on the\nstate of people's bodily health, on the constitution of their nerves, and\nthe temper of their brain; but that it requires nothing except what a\nlittle child can do as well as a grown person, a labouring man as well as\na divine, a plain farmer as well as the most refined, devout, imaginative\nlady.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nFEBRUARY 2.\nThe Presentation of Christ in the Temple,\nCOMMONLY CALLED\nThe Purification of the Virgin Mary.\n\n\nLittle children may think of Christ as a child now and always.  For to\nthem He is always the Babe of Bethlehem.  Let them not say to themselves,\n\"Christ is grown up long ago.\"  He is, and yet He is not.  His life is\neternal in the heavens, above all change of time and space. . . .  Such\nis the sacred heart of Jesus--all things to all.  To the strong He can be\nstrongest, to the weak weakest of all.  With the aged and dying He goes\ndown for ever to the grave; and yet with you children Christ lies for\never on His mother's bosom, and looks up for ever into His mother's face,\nfull of young life and happiness and innocence, the Everlasting Christ-\nchild, in whom you must believe, whom you must love, to whom you must\noffer up your childish prayers.\n\n_The Christ-child_,\n_Sermons_, (_Good News of God_).\n\n\nFEBRUARY 24.\nSt. Matthias, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nBlessed are the dead who die in the Lord.  They rest from their\nlabours--all their struggles, failures, past and over for ever.  But\ntheir works follow them.  The good which they did on earth--_that_ is not\npast and over.  It cannot die.  It lives and grows for ever, following on\nin their path long after they are dead, and bearing fruit unto\neverlasting life, not only in them, but in men whom they never saw, and\nin generations yet unborn.\n\n_Sermons_ (_Good News of God_).\n\n\nAsh Wednesday.\n\n\nThere is a repentance too deep for words--too deep for all confessionals,\npenances, and emotions or acts of contrition; the repentance, not of the\nexcitable, theatric Southern, unstable as water even in his most violent\nremorse, but of the still, deep-hearted Northern, whose pride breaks\nslowly and silently, but breaks once for all; who tells to God what he\nwill never tell to man, and having told it, is a new creature from that\nday forth for ever.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xviii.\n\n\nThe True Fast.\n\n\nThe _rationale_ of Fasting is to give up habitual indulgences for a time,\nlest they become our masters--artificial _necessities_.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\n\nMarch.\n\n\n   Early in the Springtime, on raw and windy mornings,\n   Beneath the freezing house-eaves, I heard the starlings sing--\n   Ah! dreary March month, is this then a time for building wearily?\n   Sad, sad, to think that the year is but begun!\n\n   Late in the Autumn, on still and cloudless evenings,\n   Among the golden reed-beds I heard the starlings sing--\n   Ah! that sweet March month, when we and our mates were courting\n   merrily;\n   Sad, sad, to think that the year is all but done.\n\n_The Starlings_.\n\n\n\nKnowledge and Love.  March 1.\n\n\nKnowledge and Love are reciprocal.  He who loves knows.  He who knows\nloves.  Saint John is the example of the first; Saint Paul of the second.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nA Charm of Birds.  March 2.\n\n\nLittle do most people know how much there is to learn--what variety of\ncharacter, as well as variety of motion, may be distinguished by the\npractised ear in a \"charm of birds\"--from the wild cry of the\nmissel-thrush, ringing from afar in the first bright days of March a\npassage of one or two bars repeated three or four times, and then another\nand another, clear and sweet and yet defiant--for the great \"storm-cock\"\nloves to sing when rain and wind is coming on, and faces the elements as\nboldly as he faces hawk and crow--down to the delicate warble of the\nwren, who slips out of his hole in the brown bank where he has huddled\nthrough the frost with wife and children, all folded in each other's arms\nlike human beings.  Yet even he, sitting at his house-door in the low\nsunlight, says grace for all mercies in a song so rapid, so shrill, so\nloud, and yet so delicately modulated, that you wonder at the amount of\nsoul within that tiny body; and then stops suddenly, like a child that\nhas said its lesson or got to the end of a sermon, gives a self-satisfied\nflirt of his tail, and goes in again to sleep.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1866.\n\n\n\nTact of the Heart.  March 3.\n\n\nRandom shots are dangerous and cruel, likely to hit the wrong person and\nhurt his feelings unnecessarily.  It is very easy to say a hard thing,\nbut not so easy to say it to the right person at the right time.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nSpecial Providences.  March 4.\n\n\nI believe not only in \"special providences,\" but in the whole universe as\none infinite complexity of special providences.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\nThe grain of dust is a thought of God; God's power made it; God's wisdom\ngave it whatsoever properties or qualities it may possess.  God's\nprovidence has put it in the place where it is now, and has ordained that\nit should be in that place at that moment, by a train of causes and\neffects which reaches back to the very creation of the universe.  The\ngrain of dust can no more go from God's presence or flee from God's\nSpirit than you or I can.\n\n_Town Geology_.  1871.\n\n\n\nBe Calm.  March 5.\n\n\nStrive daily and hourly to be calm; to stop yourself forcibly and recall\nyour mind to a sense of what you are, where you are going, and whither\nyou ought to be tending.  This is most painful discipline, but most\nwholesome.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nSelf-sacrifice and Personality.  March 6.\n\n\nWhat a strange mystery is that of mutual self-sacrifice! to exist for one\nmoment for another! the perfection of human bliss!  And does not love\nteach us two things?  First, that self-sacrifice, the living for others,\nis the law of our perfect being, and next, that by and in self-sacrifice\nalone can we attain to the perfect apprehension of ourselves, our own\npersonality, our own duty, our own bliss.  So that the mystics are\nutterly wrong when they fancy that self-sacrifice can be attained by self-\nannihilation.  Self-sacrifice, instead of destroying the sense of\npersonality, perfects it.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nFollow your Star.  March 7.\n\n\nI believe with Dante, \"_se tu segui la tua Stella_,\" that He who ordained\nmy star will not lead me _into_ temptation but _through_ it.  Without Him\nall places and methods of life are equally dangerous, with Him all\nequally safe.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1848.\n\n\n\nReverence for Books.  March 8.\n\n\nThis is the age of _books_.  And we should reverence books.  Consider!\nexcept a living man there is nothing more wonderful than a book--a\nmessage to us from the dead, from human souls whom we never saw, who\nlived perhaps thousands of miles away, and yet in those little sheets of\npaper speak to us, amuse us, terrify us, teach us, comfort us, open their\nhearts to us as brothers!\n\nWe ought to reverence books, to look at them as awful and mighty things.\nIf they are good and true, whether they are about religion or politics,\ntrade or medicine, they are the message of Christ, the Maker of all\nthings, the Teacher of all truth, which He has put into the heart of some\nmen to speak.  And at the last day, be sure of it, we shall have to\nrender an account--a strict account--of the books which we have read, and\nof the way in which we have obeyed what we read, just as if we had had so\nmany prophets or angels sent to us.\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1849.\n\n\n\nThe Unknown Future.  March 9.\n\n\nAs for the things which God has prepared for those who love Him, the\nBible tells me that no man can conceive them, and therefore I believe\nthat I cannot conceive them.  God has conceived them; God has prepared\nthem; God is our Father.  That is enough.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nSecular and Sacred.  March 10.\n\n\nI grudge the epithet of \"_secular_\" to any matter whatsoever.  But more;\nI deny it to anything which God has made, even to the tiniest of insects,\nthe most insignificant grain of dust.  To those who believe in God, and\ntry to see all things in God, the most minute natural phenomenon cannot\nbe secular.  It must be divine, I say deliberately, divine, and I can use\nno less lofty word.\n\n_Town Geology_.  1871.\n\n\n\nContent or Happy?  March 11.\n\n\nMy friends, whether you will be the happier for any knowledge of physical\nscience, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot tell.  That lies\nin the decision of a higher Power than I; and, indeed, to speak honestly,\nI do not think that any branch of physical science is likely, at first at\nleast, to make you happy.  Neither is the study of your fellow-men.\nNeither is religion itself.  We were not sent into the world to be happy,\nbut to be right--at least, poor creatures that we are--as right as we can\nbe, and we must be content with being right, and not happy. . . .  And we\nshall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only\nwith what we can understand, but content with what we do not\nunderstand--the habit of mind which theologians call (and rightly) faith\nin God, true and solid faith, which comes often out of sadness and out of\ndoubt.\n\n_Lecture on Bio-geology_.  1869.\n\n\n\nDuty of Man to Man.  March 12.\n\n\nEach man can learn something from his neighbour; at least he can learn\nthis--to have patience with his neighbour, to live and let live.\n\nPeace! peace!  Anything which is not _wrong_ for the sake of heaven-born\nPeace!\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.  1861.\n\n\n\nBlessing of a True Friend.  March 13.\n\n\nA blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human\nsoul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and\nwho loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth\nto us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind\nour back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the days of prosperity\nand self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the\nday of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our\nbattle as we can.\n\nIt is only the great-hearted who can be true friends: the mean and\ncowardly can never know what true friendship means.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nTrue Heroines.  March 14.\n\n\nWhat is the commonest, and yet the least remembered form of heroism?  The\nheroism of an average mother.  Ah! when I think of that broad fact I\ngather hope again for poor humanity, and this dark world looks bright,\nthis diseased world looks wholesome to me once more, because, whatever\nelse it is or is not full of, it is at least full of mothers.\n\n_Lecture on Heroism_.  1873.\n\n\n\nSecret Atheism.  March 15.\n\n\nThere is little hope that we shall learn the lessons God is for ever\nteaching us in the events of life till we get rid of our secret Atheism,\ntill we give up the notion that God only visits now and then to disorder\nand destroy His own handiwork, and take back the old scriptural notion\nthat God is visiting all day long for ever, to give order and life to His\nown work, to set it right where it goes wrong, and re-create it whenever\nit decays.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1866.\n\n\n\nTolerance.  March 16.\n\n\nIf we really love God and long to do good and work for God, if we really\nlove our neighbours and wish to help them, we shall have no heart to\nquarrel about _how_ the good is to be done, provided _it is_ done.\n\"Master,\" said St. John, \"we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and\nhe followeth not us; wilt Thou that we forbid him?  And Jesus said,\nForbid him not.\"\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Hopes of Old Age.  March 17.\n\n\nChristianity alone deprives old age of its bitterness, making it the gate\nof heaven.  Our bodies will fade and grow weak and shapeless, just when\nwe shall not want them, being ready and in close expectation of that\nresurrection of the flesh which is the great promise of Christianity (no\nmiserable fancies about \"pure souls\" escaped from matter, but)--of\nbodies, _our_ bodies, beloved, beautiful, ministers to us in all our\njoys, sufferers with us in all our sorrows--yea, our very own selves\nraised up again to live and love in a manner inconceivable from its\nperfection.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n. . . No!  I can wait:\nAnother body!--Ah, new limbs are ready,\nFree, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve,\nKept for us in the treasuries of God!\n\n_Santa Maura_.  1852.\n\n\n\nThe Highest Study for Man, March 18.\n\n\nMan is _not_, as the poet said, \"the noblest study of mankind.\"  God is\nthe noblest study of man, and Him we can study in three ways.  1st. From\nHis image as developed in Christ the Ideal, and in all good men--great\ngood men.  2dly. From His works.  3dly. From His dealings in history;\nthis is the real philosophy of history.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nEclecticism.  March 19.\n\n\nAn eclectic, if it mean anything, means this--one who in any branch of\nart or science refuses to acknowledge Bacon's great law, that \"Nature is\nonly conquered by obeying her;\" who will not take a full and reverent\nview of the whole mass of facts with which he has to deal, and from them\ndeducing the fundamental laws of his subject, obey them whithersoever\nthey may lead; but who picks and chooses out of them just so many as may\nbe pleasant to his private taste, and then constructs a partial system\nwhich differs from the essential ideas of Nature in proportion to the\nnumber of facts which he has determined to discard.\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1849.\n\n\n\nDuty.  March 20.\n\n\nDuty, be it in a small matter or a great, is duty still; the command of\nHeaven; the eldest voice of God.  And it is only they who are faithful in\na few things who will be faithful over many things; only they who do\ntheir duty in everyday and trivial matters who will fulfil them on great\noccasions.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nThe Great Unknown.  March 21.\n\n\n\"Brother,\" said the abbot, \"make ready for me the divine elements, that I\nmay consecrate them.\"  And he asking the reason therefor, the saint\nreplied, \"That I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I depart\nhence.  For know assuredly that within the seventh day I shall migrate to\nthe celestial mansions.  For this night stood by me in a dream those two\nwomen whom I love, and for whom I pray, the one clothed in a white, the\nother in a ruby-coloured garment, and holding each other by the hand, who\nsaid to me, '_That life after death is not such a one as you fancy_:\ncome, therefore, and behold what it is like.'\"\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxx.  1852.\n\n\n\nLoss nor Gain, March 22.\n\n\nNothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more anxious than\ncarelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven\nfresh duties at its back.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nAncient Greek Education, March 23.\n\n\nWe talk of education now.  Are we more educated than were the ancient\nGreeks?  Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual,\naesthetic (religious education in our sense of the word of course they\nhad none), of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments?  Are\nthere not some branches of education which they perfected once and for\never, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow their\nexample?  To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion\nand grace, in every faculty of mind and body--that was their notion of\neducation.\n\nAh! the waste of health and strength in the young!  The waste, too, of\nanxiety and misery in those who love and tend them!  How much of it might\nbe saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which are\nthe will of God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we\nare as much bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obey\nthe spiritual laws whereon depend the welfare of our souls.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nBody and Soul.  March 24.\n\n\nExalt me with Thee, O Lord, to know the mystery of life, that I may use\nthe earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly, and, by\nusing to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit to be exalted to the use\nof the spiritual body.  Amen.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nModeration.  March 25.\n\n\nLet us pray for that great--I had almost said that crowning grace and\nvirtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind.  Let\nus pray for moderate appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours,\nmoderate gains, moderate joys; and if sorrows be needed to chasten us,\nmoderate sorrows.  Let us not long violently after, or wish too eagerly\nto rise in life.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1869.\n\n\n\nPoetry in the Slums.  March 26.\n\n\n\"True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at home. . . .  Hech!\nis there no the heaven above them there, and the hell beneath them? and\nGod frowning, and the devil grinning?  No poetry there!  Is no the verra\nidea of the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance?\ncanna ye see it there?  And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man\nconquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that too--in many a garret\nwhere no eye but the good God's enters to see the patience, and the\nfortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the love stronger than death,\nthat's shining in those dark places of the earth.\"\n\n\"Ah, poetry's grand--but fact is grander; God and Satan are grander.  All\naround ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger's cellar, are God and Satan\nat death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise\nRegained.\"\n\n_Alton Locke_, chap. viii.  1849.\n\n\n\nTime and Eternity.  March 27.\n\n\n. . . Our life's floor\nIs laid upon Eternity; no crack in it\nBut shows the underlying heaven.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii.\n\n\n\nWork.  March 28.\n\n\nYes.  Life is meant for work, and not for ease; to labour in danger and\nin dread, to do a little good ere the night comes when no man can work,\ninstead of trying to realise for oneself a paradise; not even Bunyan's\nshepherd-paradise, much less Fourier's casino-paradise, and perhaps,\nleast of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our own\nart-paradise, the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1849.\n\n\n\nTeaching of Pictures.  March 29.\n\n\nPictures raise blessed thoughts in me.  Why not in you, my toiling\nbrother?  Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude two\nhundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever.  How still the meadows\nare!  How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky!  No wonder that thy\nworn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, \"Oh, that I had wings as a\ndove, then would I flee away and be at rest.\"  Ah! but gayer meadows and\nbluer skies await thee _in the world to come_--that fairyland made\nreal--\"the new heavens and the new earth\" which God hath prepared for the\npure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in this\nsore fight of life.\n\n_True Words for Brave Men_.  1849.\n\n\n\nVoluntary Heroism.  March 30.\n\n\nAny man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who _will_,\n_can_ live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences.\n\nIt is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it\nshould be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards society\nand man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but\nwhich is above though not against duty.\n\n_Lecture on Heroism_.  1872.\n\n\n\nThe Ideal Holy One.  March 31.\n\n\nHave you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience,\n\"Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere--or else, how could\nhave arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal\nholiness?  But where? oh, where?  Not in the world around strewn with\nunholiness.  Not in myself, unholy too, without and within.  Is there a\nHoly One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is\nHe?  Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty,\neven though, as in the fable of Semele of old, 'the lightning of His\nglance were death.'\" . . .\n\nAnd then, oh, then--has there not come that for which our spirit was\nathirst--the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the\nvery strain of pure music--for it is the very music of the spheres--in\nthose words, \"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and\nis to come\"?\n\nYes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One--spotless and\nundefiled, serene and self-contained.  Whatever else I cannot trust,\nthere is One whom I can trust utterly.  Whatever else I am dissatisfied\nwith, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and\nbathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity.  And who is He?\nWho, save the Cause and Maker and Ruler of all things past, present, and\nto come?\n\n_Sermon on All Saints' Day_.  1874.\n\nCharles Kingsley's Dying Words,\n\"HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS.\"\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nMARCH 25.\nThe Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,\nCOMMONLY CALLED\nLady Day.\n\n\nIt is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways by\nwhich the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with the\ngrandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest,\nthe most tender, the most human.  What more grand, or deep, or divine\nwords can we say than, \"I believe in Jesus Christ, God's only Son our\nLord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,\"--and yet what more simple,\nhuman, and tender words can we say than, \"Who was born of the Virgin\nMary\"?  For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with\nher babe upon her knee?  Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to\nthose who can say, \"I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary.\"\n\nFor since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood into God,\nbirth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a mother's joys and a mother's\ncares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in\nher arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will\ntowards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and\nblessed above all women.  Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is the\ntime for our remembering the Blessed Virgin.  For our hearts and reasons\ntell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must have\nbeen holier, nobler, fairer in body and soul, than all women upon earth.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\n\n\nApril.\n\n\nWild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?\nDark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?\nCold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying,\nThy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day.\n\nPeace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing,\nRest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain.\nWeep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying,\nThy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.\n\n_The Dead Church_.\n\n\n\nThe Song of Birds.  April 1.\n\n\nSt. Francis called the birds his brothers.  Perfectly sure that he\nhimself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the\nbirds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in\nmortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in\nclaiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who\n(as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even\nas angels did in heaven.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1867.\n\n\n\nTrue Reformers.  April 2.\n\n\nIt is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to\nthat Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago.\n\n_MS. Lecture at Cambridge_.  1866.\n\n\n\nHigh Ideals.  April 3.\n\n\nWhat if a man's idea of \"The Church\" be somewhat too narrow for the year\nof grace 18--, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all?\nthat there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a\n\"divine and wonderful order,\" linking earth to heaven, and to the very\nthrone of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens what\nthe world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God\nHimself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the grave\nto do his Father's work?  Is it no honour to him that he has seen that\nsuch a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he\nthinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in\nthe most ancient and august traditions of his native land?  True, he may\nhave much still to learn. . . .\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. iv.  1856.\n\n\n\nDivine Knowledge.  April 4.\n\n\nThat glorious word _know_--it is God's attribute, and includes in itself\nall others.  Love, truth--all are parts of that awful power of _knowing_\nat a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in its\nessence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe through\nall Time.  I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and I\nnever, if I can remember, use it myself of myself.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nWoman's Love.  April 5.\n\n\nThe story of Ruth is the consecration of woman's love.  I do not mean of\nthe love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is.  I mean that\ndepth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God\nhas put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend so\nstrangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and\nfrom whom they can receive no earthly reward--the affection which made\nwomen minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which brought\nMary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb--the\naffection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow are\nleft in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and\nconquer therein.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\n\n\nFeeling and Emotion.  April 6.\n\n\nLive a life of _feeling_, not of _excitement_.  Let your religion, your\nduties, every thought and word, be ruled by the _affections_, not by the\n_emotions_, which are the expressions of them.  Do not consider whether\nyou are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be\nyourself--what God makes you.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Beasts that perish.  April 7.\n\n\nSt. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass darkly.  But this he\nseems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought a\nblessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.  He\nsays the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to\nbring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again--how\nand when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lord\nshall destroy death the whole creation shall be renewed.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nReverence for Age.  April 8.\n\n\nReverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely,\ninsolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in\nnations, is a sign rather of weakness than of strength.\n\n_Lecture on Westminster Abbey_.\n1874.\n\n\n\nPrayers for the Dead.  April 9.\n\n\nWe do not in the Church of England now pray for the dead.  We are not\nabsolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so.  But we believe they are\nwhere they ought to be--that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in\nwhich is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this\nworld; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deeds\ndone in the body; and that they are in the hands of a perfectly just God,\nwho rewardeth every man according to his work.  It seems therefore\nunnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray for\nthem who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state which\nthey have deserved.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\n\nDiversities of Gifts.  April 10.\n\n\n   Why expect\nWisdom with love in all?  Each has his gift--\nOur souls are organ pipes of diverse stop\nAnd various pitch: each with its proper notes\nThrilling beneath the self-same breath of God.\nThough poor alone, yet joined, they're harmony.\n\n_Saints' Tragedy_, Act ii.  Scene v.\n1847.\n\n\n\nThe Atonement.  April 11.\n\n\n_How_ Christ's death takes away thy sins thou wilt never know on\nearth--perhaps not in heaven.  It is a mystery which thou must believe\nand adore.  But _why_ He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou\nhast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at--Christ\nupon His Cross.  He died because He was _Love_--love itself, love\nboundless, unconquerable, unchangeable--love which inhabits eternity, and\ntherefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man,\nbut must love men still--must go out to seek and save them, must dare,\nsuffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake--just because it\nis absolute and perfect Love which inhabits eternity.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.\n\n\n\nA Day's Work.  April 12.\n\n\nMake a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible,\nto lie down at night without being able to say, I have made one human\nbeing at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this\nday.  You will find it easier than you think, and pleasanter.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nSelf-control.  April 13.\n\n\nA well-educated moral sense, a well-educated character, saves from\nidleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, those\ntenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations of\nhumanity, which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the man,\nand which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in proportion as they\nare left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed into\ngraceful, harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves,\nand a blessing to all who come under their influence.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nWomen and Novels.  April 14.\n\n\nNovels will be read; but that is all the more reason why women should be\ntrained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, to\ndistinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, the\nnoble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides its\nshallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and a melodramatic\nsituation.  They should learn--and that they can only learn by\ncultivation--to discern with joy and drink in with reverence, the good,\nthe beautiful, and the true, and to turn with the fine scorn of a pure\nand strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nExpect Much.  April 15.\n\n\nExpect great things from God, and also expect the least things, for the\ngreat test of faith is shown about the least matters.  People will\nbelieve their soul is sure to be saved who have not the heart to expect\nthat God will take away some small burden.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nWhat is Theology?  April 16.\n\n\nTheology signifies the knowledge of God as He is.  And it is dying out\namong us in these days.  Much of what is called theology now is nothing\nbut experimental religion, which is most important and useful when it is\nfounded on the right knowledge of God, but which is not itself theology.\nFor theology begins with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong,\nbegins with a man's own soul.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\n\n\nSweetness and Light.  April 17.\n\n\nAh, that we could believe that God is love, and that he that dwelleth in\nlove dwelleth in God, and God in him!  Then we should have no need to be\ntold to cultivate sweetness and light, for they would seem to us the only\ntemper which could make life tolerable in any corner of the universe.\n\n_Essay on the Critical Spirit_.  1871.\n\n\n\nThe Contemplative Life.  April 18.\n\n\n\"Woman is no more capable than man of living on mere contemplation.  We\nmust have an object to whom we may devote the fruits of thought, and\nunless we have a real one in active life we shall be sure to coin one for\nourselves, and spend our spirits on a dream.\"\n\n\"True, true,\" chimed in the counsellor, \"spirit is little use without\nbody, and a body it will find; and therefore, unless you let people's\nbrains grow healthy plants, they will grow mushrooms.\"\n\n_MS. unfinished Story_.  1843.\n\n\n\nSudden Death.  April 19.\n\n\n\"What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has\ndone his work?\"\n\n\"But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?\"\n\n\"And why not a sudden death, Sir John?  Even fools long for a short life\nand a merry one, and shall not the Lord's people pray for a short death\nand a merry one?  Let it come as it will to old Yeo!\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xxxii.  1855.\n\n\n\nPrayer and Praise.  April 20.\n\n\nPray night and day, very quietly, like a little weary child, to the good\nand loving God, for everything you want, in body as well as soul--the\nleast thing as well as the greatest.  Nothing is too much to ask God\nfor--nothing too great for Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord!  And\ntry to thank Him for everything . . .  I sometimes feel that eternity\nwill be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us live at\nall!  And then not making us idiots or cripples, or even only ugly and\nstupid!  What blessings we have!  Let us work in return for them--not\nunder the enslaving sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with the\ndelight of gratitude, glorying that we are God's debtors.\n\n_Letters_.  1843.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Spark.  April 21.\n\n\nMan?  I am a man, thou art a woman--not by reason of bones and muscles,\nnerves and brain, which I have in common with apes, and dogs, and\nhorses--I am a man, thou art a man or woman, not because we have a flesh,\nGod forbid! but because there is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray\nwhich nature did not give, and which nature cannot take away.  And\ntherefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the\nflesh, that I may be indeed a man.\n\n_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_.\n1873.\n\n\n\nThe Worst Calamity.  April 22.\n\n\nThe very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any human being\nwould be this--to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; to have\neverything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never to be\nforced to say, \"I should like that, but I cannot afford it.  I should\nlike this, but I must not do it.\"  Never to deny himself, never to exert\nhimself, never to work, and never to want--that man's soul would be in as\ngreat danger as if he were committing great crimes.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\nMen and Women.  April 23.\n\n\n\"The Lord be with you, dearest lady,\" said Adrian Gilbert.  \"Strange how\nyou women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to\nbreak our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking!  Ah! hech!\nwere it not for Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather than\nEve, had been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii.  1855.\n\n\n\nFaith in the Unseen.  April 24.\n\n\nHe was not one of those \"ungodly\" men of whom David speaks in his Psalms,\nwho rob the widow and the fatherless.  His morality was as high as that\nof the average, his honour higher.  But of \"godliness\" in its true\nsense--of belief that any Being above cared for him, and was helping him\nin the daily business of life: that it was worth while asking that\nBeing's advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for--of any\npractical notion of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator--he was as\nignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, and read\ngood books, and believe firmly that the Pope is Antichrist.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. i.  1856.\n\n\n\nDeath--Resurrection.  April 25.\n\n\nAs we rose to go, my eye caught a highly-finished drawing of the\nResurrection painted above the place where the desk and faldstool and\nlectern, holding an open missal book, stood.  I should have rather\nexpected, I thought to myself, a picture of the Crucifixion.  She seemed\nto guess my thought, and said, \"There is enough in an abode of heavy\nhearts, and in daily labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in our\nminds the Prince of Sufferers.  We need rather to be reminded that pain\nis not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it has been\nconquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose eternity of bliss a few\nyears of sadness were but as a mote within the sunbeam's blaze.\"\n\n_MS. unfinished Story_. l843.\n\n\n\nWoman's Work.  April 26.\n\n\nWoman is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, purifier,\ninspirer of man.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nPassion--Easter--Ascension.  April 27.\n\n\nGood Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension, are set as great lights in the\nfirmament of the spiritual year;--to remind us that we are not animals\nborn to do what we like, and fulfil the simple lusts of the flesh--but\nthat we are rational moral beings, members of Christ, children of God,\nand inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, like\nChrist, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer.  They\nremind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow\nout of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles;\nrighteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears;\ntrue strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace\nof mind out of sound contrition.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nHow to keep Passion-Week.  April 28.\n\n\nCan we go wrong if we keep our Passion-week as Christ kept His?  And how\ndid He keep it?  Not by shutting Himself up apart, not by the mere\nthinking over the glory of self-sacrifice.  He taught daily in the\ntemple; instead of giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than ever\nas the terrible end drew near.  Why should not we keep Passion-week, not\nby merely hiding in our closets to meditate even about Him, but by going\nabout our work each in his place, dutifully, bravely, as Christ went?\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nSelf-Sacrifice.  April 29.\n\n\nWithout self-sacrifice there can be no blessedness either in earth or in\nheaven.  He that loveth his life will lose it.  He that hateth his life\nin this paltry, selfish, luxurious world shall keep it to life eternal.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nHelp from our Blessed Dead.  April 30.\n\n\nAnd so with those who are Christ's whom we love.  Partakers of His death,\nthey are partakers of His resurrection.  Let us believe the blessed news\nin all its fulness, and be at peace.  A little while and we see them, and\nagain a little while and we do not see them.  But why?  Because they are\ngone to the Father, to the Source and Fount of all life and power, all\nlight and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His\npower, light from His light, love from His love; and surely not for\nnought.  Surely not for nought.  For if they were like Christ on earth,\nand did not use their powers for themselves alone; if they are to be like\nChrist when they see Him as He is, then, more surely, will they not use\ntheir powers for themselves, but as Christ uses His, for those they love.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.  1866.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\nPassion-tide.\n\n\nFrom the earliest times the Cross has been the special sign of\nChristians.  St. Paul tells us his great hope, his great business, what\nGod had sent him into the world to do, was this--to make people know the\nlove of Christ; to look at Christ's Cross, and take in its breadth and\nlength and depth and height.\n\nAnd what is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross?  My friends, it is as broad\nas the whole world, for He died for the whole world; as it is written,\n\"He is a propitiation not for our sins only, but for the sins of the\nwhole world.\"  And that is the _breadth_ of Christ's Cross.\n\nAnd what is the _length_ of Christ's Cross?  Long enough to last through\nall time.  As long as there is a sinner to be saved; as long as there is\nignorance, sorrow, pain, death, or anything else which is contrary to God\nand hurtful to man in the universe of God, so long will Christ's Cross\nlast.  And that is the _length_ of the Cross of Christ.\n\nAnd how _high_ is Christ's Cross?  As high as the highest heaven, and the\nthrone of God and the bosom of the Father--that bosom out of which for\never proceed all created things.  Ay, as high as the highest heaven; for,\nif you will receive it, when Christ hung upon the Cross heaven came down\non earth, and earth ascended into heaven.  And that is the _height_ of\nthe Cross of Christ.\n\nAnd how _deep_ is the Cross of Christ?  This is a great mystery which\npeople are afraid to look into, and darken it of their own will.  But if\nthe Cross of Christ be as high as heaven, then it must be as deep as\nhell, deep enough to reach the deepest sinner in the deepest pit to which\nhe may fall, for Christ descended into hell, and preached to the spirits\nin prison.  Let us hope, then, that is the _depth_ of the Cross of\nChrist.\n\n\"_The Measure of the Cross_,\"\n_Sermons_ (_Good News of God_).\n\n\nGood Friday.\n\n\nListen! and our God shall whisper, as we hang upon the cross, {97}\n\"Children! love! and loving, faint not! great your glory, light your\nloss!\n_Ye_ are bound--ye may be loosed--_I_ was nailed upon the tree,\nOf the pangs I suffered for you--bear awhile a few for me!\nFear not, though the waters whelm you; fear not, though ye see no land!\nKnow ye not your God is with you, guiding with a Father's hand?\nCords may wring, and winds may freeze you, shivering on the sullen sea,\nYet the life that burns within you liveth ever hid with Me!\"\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\nChrist must suffer before He entered into His glory.  He must die before\nHe could rise.  He must descend into hell before He could ascend into\nheaven.  For this is the law of God's kingdom.  Without a Good Friday\nthere can be no Easter Day.  Without self-sacrifice there can be no\nblessedness.\n\nMy Saviour!  My King!  Infinite, Eternal Love--alone of all beings devoid\nof self-love!  Glory be to Thee for Thy humiliation, for Thy Cross and\nPassion!\n\n_MS._\n\n\nEaster Even.\n\n\nChrist went down into hell and preached to the spirits in prison.  It is\nwritten that \"as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made\nalive;\" and again, \"When the wicked man turns from his wickedness he\nshall save his soul alive.\"  And we know that in the same chapter God\ntells us that His ways are not unequal.  It is possible, therefore, that\nHe has not one law for this life and another for the life to come.  Let\nus hope, then, that David's words may be true after all, when, speaking\nby the Spirit of God, he says not only \"if I ascend up to heaven, thou\nart there,\" but \"if I go down to hell, thou art there also.\"\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\nEaster Day.\n\n\nThe Creed says, \"I believe in the Resurrection of the flesh.\"  I believe\nthat we, each of us, as human beings, men and women, shall have a share\nin that glorious day; not merely as ghosts and disembodied spirits, but\nas real live human beings, with new bodies of our own, on a new earth,\nunder a new heaven.  \"Therefore,\" David says, \"my flesh shall rest in\nhope;\" not merely my soul, my ghost, but my flesh.  For the Lord, who not\nonly died but rose again with His body, shall raise our bodies according\nto His mighty working, and then the whole manhood of us--body, soul, and\nspirit--shall have our perfect consummation and bliss in His eternal and\neverlasting glory.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\n\nAPRIL 25.\nSt. Mark, Evangelist and Martyr.\n\n\nGod's apostles, saints, and martyrs are our spiritual ancestors.  They\nspread the Gospel into all lands, and they spread it, remember always,\nnot only by preaching what they knew, but by being what they were.  Their\ncharacters, their personal histories, are as important to us as their\nwritings.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nMay.\n\n\nIs it merely a fancy that we are losing that love for Spring which among\nour old forefathers rose almost to worship?  That the perpetual miracle\nof the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us\nthe astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old\nworld, when the sun was a god who was sick to death each winter, and\nreturned in spring to life, and health, and glory; when Freya, the\ngoddess of youth and love, went forth over the earth while the flowers\nbroke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomed\nher with song?  To those simpler children of a simpler age winter and\nspring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one of\ndeath, the other of life; and the battle between the two--the battle of\nthe sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, of\nbereavement with love--lay at the root of all their myths and all their\ncreeds.  Surely a change has come over our fancies!  The seasons are\nlittle to us now!\n\n_Prose Idylls_.\n\n\n\nPast and Present.  May 1.\n\n\nNow see the young spring leaves burst out a-maying,\nFill with their ripening hues orchard and glen;\nSo though old forms pass by, ne'er shall their spirit die,\nLook!  England's bare boughs show green leaf again.\n\n_Poems_.  1849.\n\n\n\nThe Earth is the Lord's.  May 2.\n\n\nThe earth is holy!  Can there be a more glorious truth to carry out--one\nwhich will lead us more into all love and beauty and purity in heaven and\nearth?  One which must have God's light of love shining on it at every\nstep.  God gives us souls and bodies exquisitely attuned for this very\npurpose--the aesthetic faculty, our sensibilities to the beautiful.  All\nevents of life, all the workings of our hearts, should point to this one\nidea.  As I walk the fields, the trees and flowers and birds, and the\nmotes of rack floating in the sky, seem to cry to me: \"Thou knowest us!\nThou knowest we have a meaning, and sing a heaven's harmony by night and\nday!  Do us justice!  Spell our enigma, and go forth and tell thy fellows\nthat we are their brethren, that their spirit is our spirit, their\nSaviour our Saviour, their God our God!\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Great Question.  May 3.\n\n\nIs there a living God in the universe, or is there not?  That is the\ngreatest of all questions.  Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or has\nHe not?\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1866.\n\n\n\nOur Father.  May 4.\n\n\nLook at those thousand birds, and without our Father not one of them\nshall fall to the ground; and art thou not of more value than many\nsparrows--thou for whom God sent His Son to die? . . .  Ah! my friend, we\nmust look out and around to see what God is like.  It is when we persist\nin turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own\nimperfections, that we learn to make a god after our own image, and fancy\nthat our own hardness and darkness are the patterns of His light and\nlove.\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xi.\n\n\n\nWant of Sympathy.  May 5.\n\n\nIf we do not understand our fellow-creatures we shall never love them.\nAnd it is equally true, that if we do not love them we shall never\nunderstand them.  Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good feeling\nand fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed but endless mistakes\nand ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circumstances?\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1873.\n\n\n\nA Religion.  May 6.\n\n\nIf all that a man wants is \"a _religion_,\" he ought to be able to make a\nvery pretty one for himself, and a fresh one as often as he is tired of\nthe old.  But the heart and soul of man wants more than that; as it is\nwritten, \"My soul is athirst for GOD, even for the living God.\"  I want a\nliving God, who cares for men, forgives men, saves men from their sins:\nand Him I have found in the Bible, and nowhere else, save in the facts of\nlife which the Bible alone interprets.\n\n_Sermons on the Pentateuch_.  1863.\n\n\n\nTrue Civilisation.  May 7.\n\n\nDo the duty which lies nearest to you; your duty to the man who lives\nnext door, and to the man who lives in the next street.  Do your duty to\nyour parish, that you may do your duty by your country and to all\nmankind, and prove yourselves thereby civilised men.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1866.\n\n\n\nNature and Grace.  May 8.\n\n\nWhy speak of the God of Nature and the God of grace as two antithetical\nterms?  The Bible never in a single instance makes the distinction, and\nsurely if God be the eternal and unchangeable One, and if all the\nuniverse bears the impress of His signet, we have no right, in the\npresent infantile state of science, to put arbitrary limits of our own to\nthe revelation which He may have thought good to make of Himself in\nNature.  Nay, rather, let us believe that if our eyes were opened we\nshould fulfil the requirement of genius and see the universal in the\nparticular by seeing God's whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected as\nin a mirror in the meanest flower, and that nothing but the dulness of\nour simple souls prevents them from seeing day and night in all things\nthe Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling His own saying, \"My Father worketh\nhitherto, and I work.\"\n\n_Glaucus_.  1855.\n\n\n\nWisdom the Child of Goodness.  May 9.\n\n\nGoodness rather than talent had given her a wisdom, and goodness rather\nthan courage a power of using that wisdom, which to those simple folk\nseemed almost an inspiration.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. ii.  1857.\n\n\n\nRule of Life.  May 10.\n\n\nTwo great rules for the attainment of heavenly wisdom are simple\nenough--\"Never forget what and where you are,\" and \"Grieve not the Holy\nSpirit.\"\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1841.\n\n\n\nMusic the Speech of God.  May 11.\n\n\nMusic--there is something very wonderful in music.  Words are wonderful\nenough, but music is more wonderful.  It speaks not to our thoughts as\nwords do, it speaks straight to our hearts and spirits, to the very core\nand root of our souls.  Music soothes us, stirs us up; it puts noble\nfeelings into us; it melts us to tears, we know not how; it is a language\nby itself, just as perfect, in its way, as speech, as words; just as\ndivine, just as blessed.  Music has been called the speech of angels; I\nwill go farther, and call it the speech of God Himself.\n\nThe old Greeks, the wisest of all the heathen, made a point of teaching\ntheir children music, because, they said, it taught them not to be self-\nwilled and fanciful, but to see the beauty of order, the usefulness of\nrule, the divineness of law.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nFacing Realities.  May 12.\n\n\nThe only comfort I can see in the tragedies of war is that they bring us\nall face to face with the realities of human life, as it has been in all\nages, giving us sterner and yet more loving, more human, and more divine\nthoughts about ourselves, and our business here, and the fate of those\nwho are gone, and awakening us out of the luxurious, frivolous, and\nunreal dream (full nevertheless of hard judgments) in which we have been\nliving so long, to trust in a living Father who is really and practically\ngoverning this world and all worlds, and who willeth that none should\nperish.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1855.\n\n\n\nStreet Arabs.  May 13.\n\n\nOne has only to go into the streets of any great city in England to see\nhow we, with all our boast of civilisation, are yet but one step removed\nfrom barbarism.  Is that a hard word?  Only there _are_ the barbarians\nround us at every street corner--grown barbarians, it may be, now all but\npast saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet\nsave, for God wishes us to save them. . . .  Do not deceive yourselves\nabout the little dirty, offensive children in the street.  If they be\noffensive to you, they are not to Him who made them.  \"Take heed that ye\ndespise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels do\nalways behold the face of your Father which is in heaven.\"\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nFellowship of Sorrow.  May 14.\n\n\nHow was He,\nThe blessed One, made perfect?  Why, by grief--\nThe fellowship of voluntary grief--\nHe read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls,\nAs we must learn to read it.  Lady! lady!\nWear but one robe the less--forego one meal--\nAnd thou shalt taste the core of many tales,\nWhich now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs,\nThe sweeter for their sadness.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.\n1847.\n\n\n\nHeaven and Hell.  May 15.\n\n\nHeaven and hell--the spiritual world--are they merely invisible places in\nspace which may become visible hereafter? or are they not rather the\nmoral world of right and wrong?  Love and righteousness--is not that the\nheaven itself wherein God dwells?  Hatred and sin--is not that hell\nitself, wherein dwells all that is opposed to God?\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Awfulness of Life.  May 16.\n\n\nOur hearts are dull, and hard, and light, God forgive us! and we forget\ncontinually what an earnest, awful world we live in--a whole eternity\nwaiting for us to be born, and a whole eternity waiting to see what we\nshall do now we are born.  Yes, our hearts are dull, and hard, and light.\nAnd therefore Christ sends suffering on us, to teach us what we always\ngladly forget in comfort and prosperity--what an awful capacity of\nsuffering we have; and more, what an awful capacity of suffering our\nfellow-creatures have likewise. . . .\n\nWe sit at ease too often in a fool's paradise, till God awakens us and\ntortures us into pity for the torture of others.  And so, if we will not\nacknowledge our brotherhood by any other teaching, He knits us together\nby the brotherhood of suffering.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nHope and Fear.  May 17.\n\n\nEvery gift of God is good, and given for our happiness, and we sin if we\nabuse it.  To use your fancy to your own misery is to abuse it and to\nsin.  The realm of the possible was given to man to _hope_ and not to\n_fear_ in.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nCry of the Heart and Reason.  May 18.\n\n\nA living God, a true God, a real God, a God worthy of the name, a God who\nis working for ever, everywhere, and in all; who hates nothing that He\nhas made, forgets nothing, neglects nothing; a God who satisfies not only\nthe head but the heart, not only the logical intellect but the highest\nreason--that pure reason which is one with the conscience and moral\nsense!  For Him we cry out, Him we seek, and if we cannot find Him we\nknow no rest.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nSpeaking the Truth in Love.  May 19.\n\n\nWhenever we are tempted to say more than is needful, let us remember St.\nJohn's words (in the only sermon we have on record of his), \"Little\nchildren, love one another,\" and ask God for His Holy Spirit, the spirit\nof love, which, instead of weakening a man's words, makes them all the\nstronger in the cause of truth, because they are spoken in love.\n\nHow difficult it is to distinguish between the loving _tact_, which\navoids giving offence to a weaker brother, and the fear of man, which\nbringeth a snare!\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nPeasant Souls.  May 20.\n\n\n. . . Dull boors\nSee deeper than we think, and hide within\nThose leathern hulls unfathomable truths,\nWhich we amid thought's glittering mazes lose.\nThey grind among the iron facts of life,\nAnd have no time for self-deception.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene ii.\n1847.\n\n\n\nDeath and Everlasting Life.  May 21.\n\n\nDo not rashly count on some sudden radical change happening to you as\nsoon as you die to make you fit for heaven.  There is not one word in the\nBible which gives us reason to suppose that we shall not be in the next\nworld the same persons that we have made ourselves in this world. . . .\nWhat we sow here we shall reap there.  And it is good for us to know and\nface this.  Anything is good for us, however unpleasant it may be, which\ndrives us from the only real misery, which is sin and selfishness, to the\nonly true happiness, which is the everlasting life of Christ, a pure,\nloving, just, generous, useful life of goodness.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.\n\n\n\nScience and Virtue.  May 22.\n\n\nScience is great; but she is not the greatest.  She is an instrument and\nnot a power--beneficent or deadly, according as she is wielded by the\nhand of virtue or vice.  But her lawful mistress, the only one which can\nuse her aright, the only one under whom she can truly grow and prosper\nand prove her divine descent, is Virtue, the likeness of Almighty God.\n\n_Roman and Teuton_.  1860.\n\n\n\nA Child's Heart.  May 23.\n\n\n\"I saw at last!  I found out that I had been trying for years which was\nstronger, God or I; I found out I had been trying whether I could not do\nwell enough without Him; and there I found that I could not--could not!  I\nfelt like a child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find its\nway, and is lost at once.  I did not know that I had a Father in heaven\nwho had been looking after me, when I fancied I was looking after myself.\nI don't half believe it now.\" . . .  And so the old heart passed away\nfrom Thomas Thurnall, and instead of it grew up the heart of a little\nchild.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii.  1857.\n\n\n\nSelf-Security.  May 24.\n\n\nStrange it is how mortal man, \"who cometh up and is cut down like the\nflower,\" can harden himself into a stoical security, and count on the\nmorrow which may never come.  Yet so it is, and perhaps if it were not so\nno work would get done on earth--at least by the many who know not that\nGod is guiding them, while they fancy they are guiding themselves.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. i.\n\nThere is a Providence which rules this earth, whose name is neither\nPolitical Economy nor Expediency, but the Living God, who makes every\nright action reward, and every wrong action punish, _itself_.\n\n_History Lecture_, _Cambridge_.  1866.\n\n\n\nLoss and Gain.  May 25.\n\n\n\"He has yet to learn what losing his life to save it means, Amyas.  Bad\nmen have taught him (and I fear these Anabaptists and Puritans at home\nteach little else) that it is the one great business of every man to save\nhis own soul after he dies; every one for himself; and that that, and not\ndivine self-sacrifice, is the one thing needful, and the better part\nwhich Mary chose.\"\n\n\"I think,\" said Amyas, \"men are enough inclined to be selfish without\nbeing taught that.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. vii.  1854.\n\n\n\nThe Law of Righteousness.  May 26.\n\n\nWhat if I had discovered that one law of the spiritual world, in which\nall others were contained, was Righteousness? and that disharmony with\nthat law, which we call unspirituality, was not being vulgar, or clumsy,\nor ill-taught, or unimaginative, or dull; but simply being unrighteous?\nthat righteousness, and it alone, was the beautiful, righteousness the\nsublime, the heavenly, the God-like--ay, God Himself?\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxvii.  1852.\n\n\n\nHuman and Divine Love.  May 27.\n\n\nBelieve me that he who has been led by love to a human being to\nunderstand the mystery of that divine love which fills all heaven and\nearth, and concentrates itself into an articulate manifestation in the\nperson of Christ, will soon begin to find that he cannot enter into the\nperfect bliss of that truth without going further, and seeing that the\nhuman heart requires some standing-ground for its affection, even for the\nlove of wife and child, deeper and surer than that love, namely, in utter\nloyalty, resignation, adoring affection to Him in whom all loveliness is\nconcentrated.  It is a great mystery.  It is a hard lesson.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1847.\n\n\n\nA High Finish.  May 28.\n\n\nA high artistic finish is important for more reasons than for the mere\npleasure it gives.  There is something sacramental in perfect metre and\nrhythm.  They are outward and visible signs (most seriously we speak as\nwe say it) of an inward and spiritual grace, namely, of the\nself-possessed and victorious temper of one who has so far subdued nature\nas to be able to hear that universal sphere-music of hers, speaking of\nwhich Mr. Carlyle says, that \"all deepest thoughts instinctively vent\nthemselves in song.\"\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1849.\n\n\n\nOur Prayers.  May 29.\n\n\nThere can be no objection to praying for certain special things.  God\nforbid!  I cannot help doing it, any more than a child in the dark can\nhelp calling for its mother.  Only it seems to me that when we pray,\n\"Grant this day that we run into no kind of danger,\" we ought to lay our\nstress on the \"run\" rather than on the \"danger,\" to ask God not to take\naway the danger by altering the course of nature, but to give us light\nand guidance whereby to avoid it.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1860.\n\n\n\nClearing Showers.  May 30.\n\n\nWhen a stream is swelled by a flood, a shower of rain _clears_ it.  So in\ntrouble, when the heart is turbid from the world's admixtures, and the\nstirring up of the foul particles which will lie at the bottom, nothing\nbut the pure dew of heaven can restore its purity, when God's spirit\ncomes down upon it like a gentle rain!\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nVineyards in Spring.  May 31.\n\n\nLook at the rows of vines, or what will be vines when the summer comes,\nbut are now black, knotted and gnarled clubs, without a sign of life in\nthe seemingly dead stick.  One who sees that sight may find a new beauty\nand meaning in the mystic words, \"I am the Vine, ye are the branches.\"  It\nis not merely the connection between branch and stem common to all trees;\nnot merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the\ngrape, which made the very heathen look upon it as the sacred and\nmiraculous fruit, the special gift of God; not merely the pruning out of\nthe unfruitful branches, to be burned as firewood--not merely these, but\nthe seeming death of the Vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness,\nof every branch and twig which it had borne the year before, and left\nunsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then bursting\nforth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, spreading\nand trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the sky.\nThis thought surely--the emblem of the living Church, springing from the\ncorpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise to be alive for\nevermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning\nof that prophecy of all prophecies.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1864.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nMAY 1.\nSt. Philip and St. James, Apostles and Martyrs.\n\n\nChrist's cross says still, and will say to all Eternity, \"Wouldst thou be\ngood?  Wouldst thou be like God?  Then work and dare, and if need be,\nsuffer for thy fellow-men.\"  On the Cross Christ consecrated, and as it\nwere offered to the Father in His own body, all loving actions, unselfish\nactions, merciful actions, heroic actions, which man has done or ever\nwill do.  From Him, from His spirit, their strength came; and therefore\nHe is not ashamed to call them brethren.  He is the King of the noble\narmy of martyrs; of all who suffer for love and truth and justice' sake;\nand to all such He says, thou hast put on My likeness; thou hast suffered\nfor My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, and enabled thee to\nsuffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son of God, in whom the Father\nis well pleased.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\nFeast of the Ascension.\n\n\n\"Lo, I am with you always,\" said the Blessed One before He ascended to\nthe Father.  And this is the Lord who we fancy is gone away far above the\nstars till the end of time!  Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before\nHim at this moment!  For here He is among us now, listening to every\nthought of our poor simple hearts.  He is where God is, in whom we live,\nand move, and have our being, and that is everywhere.  Do you wish Him to\nbe any nearer?\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\n. . . Oh, my Saviour!\nMy God! where art Thou?  That's but a tale about Thee,\nThat crucifix above--it does but show Thee\nAs Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now. . . .\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iv. Scene i.\n\n\n\n\nJune.\n\n\nThree o'clock, upon a still, pure, Midsummer morning. . . .  The white\nglare of dawn, which last night hung high in the north-west, has\ntravelled now to the north-east, and above the wooded wall of the hills\nthe sky is flushing with rose and amber.  A long line of gulls goes\nwailing inland; the rooks come cawing and sporting round the corner at\nLandcross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along\nto find their breakfast on the shallows.  The pheasants and partridges\nare clucking merrily in the long wet grass; every copse and hedgerow\nrings with the voice of birds; but the lark, who has been singing since\nmidnight in the \"blank height of the dark,\" suddenly hushes his carol and\ndrops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some\nwooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the\nheavenward songster.  The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown\nhay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed, and fresh\nwet sand.  Glorious day, glorious place, \"bridal of earth and sky,\"\ndecked well with bridal garments, bridal perfumes, bridal songs.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xii.\n\n\n\nOpen Thou mine Eyes.  June 1.\n\n\nI have wandered in the mountains mist-bewildered,\nAnd now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted;\nAnd priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding,\nGleam ready for my grasp.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act i. Scene ii.\n1847.\n\n\n\nThe Spirit of Romance.  June 2.\n\n\nSome say that the spirit of romance is dead.  The spirit of romance will\nnever die as long as there is a man left to see that the world might and\ncan be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all things than it is now.  The\nspirit of romance will never die as long as a man has faith in God to\nbelieve that the world will actually be better and fairer than it is now,\nas long as men have faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all\nromances, in the wonder of all wonders, in that of which all poets'\ndreams have been but childish hints and dim forefeelings--even\n\n   \"That one divine far-off event\n   Towards which the whole creation moves,\n\nthat wonder which our Lord Himself has bade us pray for as for our daily\nbread, and say, \"Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as\nit is done in heaven.\"\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1865.\n\n\n\nThe Everlasting Music.  June 3.\n\n\nAll melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of birds, the\nwhisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of those\ncunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is made in\nthe image of Christ, the Word of God, who creates all things; all music\nupon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type of\nthe everlasting music which is in heaven, which was before all worlds and\nshall be after them.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nGifts are Duties.  June 4.\n\n\nExceeding gifts from God are not blessings, they are duties, and very\nsolemn and heavy duties.  They do not always increase a man's happiness;\nthey always increase his responsibility, the awful account which he must\nrender at last of the talents committed to his charge.  They increase,\ntoo, his danger.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\n\n\nSummer Days.  June 5.\n\n\nNow let the young be glad,\nFair girl and gallant lad,\nAnd sun themselves to-day\nBy lawn and garden gay;\n'Tis play befits the noon\nOf rosy-girdled June;\n. . . . .\nThe world before them, and above\nThe light of Universal Love.\n\n_Installation Ode_, _Cambridge_.  1862.\n\n\n\n\"Sufficient for the Day.\"  June 6.\n\n\nLet us not meddle with the future, and matters which are too high for us,\nbut refrain our souls, and keep them low like little children, content\nwith the day's food, and the day's schooling, and the day's play-hours,\nsure that the Divine Master knows that all is right, and how to train us,\nand whither to lead us; though we know not and need not know, save this,\nthat the path by which He is leading each of us, if we will but obey and\nfollow step by step, leads up to everlasting life.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nSecret of Thrift.  June 7.\n\n\nThe secret of thrift is knowledge.  The more you know the more you can\nsave yourself and that which belongs to you, and can do more work with\nless effort.  Knowledge of domestic economy saves income; knowledge of\nsanitary laws saves health and life: knowledge of the laws of the\nintellect saves wear and tear of brain, and knowledge of the laws of the\nspirit--what does it not save?\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nOut-door Worship.  June 8.\n\n\nIn the forest, every branch and leaf, with the thousand living things\nwhich cluster on them, all worship, worship, worship with us!  Let us go\nup in the evenings and pray there, with nothing but God's cloud temple\nbetween us and His heaven!  And His choir of small birds and night\ncrickets and booming beetles, and all happy things who praise Him all\nnight long!  And in the still summer noon, too, with the lazy-paced\nclouds above, and the distant sheep-bell, and the bee humming in the beds\nof thyme, and one bird making the hollies ring a moment, and then all\nstill--hushed--awe-bound, as the great thunder-clouds slide up from the\nfar south!  Then, then, to praise God!  Ay, even when the heaven is black\nwith wind, the thunder crackling over our heads, then to join in the paean\nof the storm-spirits to Him whose pageant of power passes over the earth\nand harms us not in its mercy!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1844.\n\n\n\nGod's Countenance.  June 9.\n\n\nStudy nature as the countenance of God!  Try to extract every line of\nbeauty, every association, every moral reflection, every inexpressible\nfeeling from it.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nCertain and Uncertain.  June 10.\n\n\n\"Life is uncertain,\" folks say.  Life is certain, say I, because God is\neducating us thereby.  But this process of education is so far above our\nsight that it looks often uncertain and utterly lawless; wherefore fools\nconceive (as does M. Comte) that there is no Living God, because they\ncannot condense His formulas into their small smelling-bottles.\n\nO glorious thought! that we are under a Father's education, and that _He_\nhas promised to develop us, and to make us go on from strength to\nstrength.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1868.\n\n\n\nSensuality.  June 11.\n\n\nWhat is sensuality?  Not the enjoyment of holy glorious matter, but\nblindness to its meaning.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Journey's End.  June 12.\n\n\nLet us live hard, work hard, go a good pace, get to our journey's end as\nsoon as possible--then let the post-horse get his shoulder out of the\ncollar. . . . I have lived long enough to feel, like the old post-horse,\nvery thankful as the end draws near. . . .  Long life is the last thing\nthat I desire.  It may be that, as one grows older, one acquires more and\nmore the painful consciousness of the difference between what _ought_ to\nbe done and what _can_ be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets\nthe wrong side of fifty, to let others start up to do for us things we\ncannot do for ourselves.  But it is the highest pleasure that a man can\nhave who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last,\nto believe that younger spirits will rise up after him, and catch the\nlamp of Truth, as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece, out of his hand\nbefore it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even\nfeet.\n\n_Speech at Lotus Club_, _New York_.  1874.\n\n\n\nPunishment Inevitable.  June 13.\n\n\nIt is a fact that God does punish here, in this life.  He does not, as\nfalse preachers say, give over this life to impunity and this world to\nthe devil, and only resume the reigns of moral government and the right\nof retribution when men die and go into the next world.  Here in this\nlife He punishes sin.  Slowly but surely God punishes.  If any of you\ndoubt my words you have only to commit sin and then see whether your sin\nwill find you out.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nThe Problem Solved.  June l4.\n\n\nAfter all, the problem of life is not a difficult one, for it solves\nitself so very soon at best--by death.  Do what is right the best way you\ncan, and wait to the end to _know_.\n\n_MS. Letter_.\n\nBut remember that though death may alter our place, it cannot alter our\ncharacter--though it may alter our circumstances, it cannot alter\nourselves.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Father's Education.  June 15.\n\n\nSin, [Greek text], is the missing of a mark, the falling short of an\nideal; . . . and that each miss brings a penalty, or rather is itself the\npenalty, is to me the best of news and gives me hope for myself and every\nhuman being past, present, and future, for it makes me look on them all\nas children under a paternal education, who are being taught to become\naware of, and use their own powers in God's house, the universe, and for\nGod's work in it; and, in proportion as they do that, they attain\nsalvation,\n_Letters and Memories_.  1852.\n\n\n\nParent and Child.  June 16.\n\n\nSuperstition is the child of fear, and fear is the child of ignorance.\n\n_Lectures on Science and Superstition_.\n1866.\n\n\n\nA Charm of Birds.  June 17.\n\n\nListen to the charm of birds in any sequestered woodland on a bright\nforenoon in early summer.  As you try to disentangle the medley of\nsounds, the first, perhaps, which will strike your ear will be the loud,\nharsh, monotonous, flippant song of the chaffinch, and the metallic\nclinking of two or three sorts of titmice.  But above the tree-tops,\nrising, hovering, sinking, the woodlark is fluting tender and low.  Above\nthe pastures outside the skylark sings--as he alone can sing; and close\nby from the hollies rings out the blackbird's tenor--rollicking,\naudacious, humorous, all but articulate.  From the tree above him rises\nthe treble of the thrush, pure as the song of angels; more pure, perhaps,\nin tone, though neither so varied nor so rich as the song of the\nnightingale.  And there, in the next holly, is the nightingale himself;\nnow croaking like a frog, now talking aside to his wife, and now bursting\nout into that song, or cycle of songs, in which if any man find sorrow,\nhe himself surely finds none. . . . In Nature there is nothing\nmelancholy.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1866.\n\n\n\nNotes of Character.  June 18.\n\n\nWithout softness, without repose, and therefore without dignity.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nOur Blessed Dead.  June 19.\n\n\nWhy should not those who are gone be actually nearer us, not farther from\nus, in the heavenly world, praying for us, and it may be influencing and\nguiding us in a hundred ways of which we, in our prison-house of\nmortality, cannot dream?  Yes!  Do not be afraid to believe that he whom\nyou have lost is near you, and you near him, and both of you near God,\nwho died on the cross for you.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1871.\n\n\n\nSilent Influence.  June 20.\n\n\nViolence is not strength, noisiness is not earnestness.  Noise is a sign\nof want of faith, and violence is a sign of weakness.\n\nBy quiet, modest, silent, private influence we shall win.  \"Neither\nstrive nor cry nor let your voice be heard in the streets,\" was good\nadvice of old, and is still.  I have seen many a movement succeed by it.\nI have seen many a movement tried by the other method of striving and\ncrying and making a noise in the streets, but I have never seen one\nsucceed thereby, and never shall.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1870.\n\n\n\nChivalry.  June 21.\n\n\nSome say that the age of chivalry is past.  The age of chivalry is never\npast as long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, and a man or\nwoman left to say, \"I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the\nattempt.\"  The age of chivalry is never past as long as men have faith\nenough in God to say, \"God will help me to redress that wrong; or if not\nme, surely He will help those that come after me.  For His eternal will\nis to overcome evil with good.\"\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1865.\n\n\n\nNature and Art.  June 22.\n\n\nWhen once you have learnt the beauty of little mossy banks, and tiny\nleaves, and flecks of cloud, with what a fulness the glories of Claude,\nor Ruysdael, or Berghem, will unfold themselves to you!  You must know\nNature or you cannot know Art.  And when you do know Nature you will only\nprize Art for being like Nature.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nSimple and Sincere.  June 23.\n\n\nThere are those, and, thanks to Almighty God, they are to be numbered by\ntens of thousands, who will not perplex themselves with questionings;\nsimple, genial hearts, who try to do what good they can in the world, and\nmeddle not with matters too high for them; people whose religion is not\nabstruse but deep, not noisy but intense, not aggressive but laboriously\nuseful; people who have the same habit of mind as the early Christians\nseem to have worn, ere yet Catholic truth had been defined in formulae,\nwhen the Apostles' Creed was symbol enough for the Church, and men were\northodox in heart rather than exact in head.\n\nFor such it is enough if a fellow-creature loves Him whom they love, and\nserves Him whom they serve.  Personal affection and loyalty to the same\nunseen Being is to them a communion of saints both real and actual, in\nthe genial warmth of which all minor differences of opinion vanish. . . .\n\n_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_.  1854.\n\n\n\nGod's Words.  June 24.\n\n\nDo I mean, then, that this or any text has nothing to do with us?  God\nforbid!  I believe that every word of our Lord's has to do with us, and\nwith every human being, for their meaning is infinite, eternal, and\ninexhaustible.\n\n_MS. Letter_.\n\n\n\nTaught by Failure.  June 25.\n\n\nSo I am content to have failed.  I have learned in the experiment\npriceless truths concerning myself, my fellow-men, and the city of God,\nwhich is eternal in the heavens, for ever coming down among men, and\nactualising itself more and more in every succeeding age.  I only know\nthat I know nothing, but with a hope that Christ, who is the Son of Man,\nwill tell me piecemeal, if I be patient and watchful, what I am and what\nman is.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1857.\n\n\n\nPresentiments.  June 26.\n\n\n\"I cannot deny,\" said Claude, \"that such things as presentiments may be\npossible.  However miraculous they may seem, are they so very much more\nso than the daily fact of memory?  I can as little guess why we remember\nthe past, as why we may not at times be able to foresee the future.\" . .\n.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii.\n\nA thing need not be unreasonable--that is, contrary to reason--because it\nis above and beyond reason, or, at least, our human reason, which at best\n(as St. Paul says) sees as in a glass darkly.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1856.\n\n\n\nCommon Duties.  June 27.\n\n\nBut after all, what is speculation to practice?  What does God require of\nus, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with Him?  The\nlonger I live this seems to me more important, and all other questions\nless so--if we can but live the simple right life--\n\nDo the work that's nearest,\nThough it's dull at whiles;\nHelping, when we meet them,\nLame dogs over stiles.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1857.\n\n\n\nLost and Found.  June 28.\n\n\n\"My welfare?  It is gone!\"\n\n\"So much the better.  I never found mine till I lost it.\"\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxvii.  1852.\n\n\n\nHow to bear Sorrow.  June 29.\n\n\nI believe that the wisest plan is sometimes not to try to bear sorrow--as\nlong as one is not crippled for one's everyday duties--but to give way to\nit utterly and freely.  Perhaps sorrow is sent that we _may_ give way to\nit, and in drinking the cup to the dregs, find some medicine in it\nitself, which we should not find if we began doctoring ourselves, or\nletting others doctor us.  If we say simply, \"I am wretched--I ought to\nbe wretched;\" then we shall perhaps hear a voice, \"Who made thee wretched\nbut God?  Then what can He mean but thy good?\"  And if the heart answers\nimpatiently, \"My good?  I don't want it, I want my love;\" perhaps the\nvoice may answer, \"Then thou shalt have both in time.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1871.\n\n\n\nA certain Hope.  June 30.\n\n\nLet us look forward with quiet certainty of hope, day and night;\nbelieving, though we can see but little day, that all this tangled web\nwill resolve itself into golden threads of twined, harmonious life,\nguiding both us, and those we love, together, through this life to that\nresurrection of the flesh, when we shall at last know the reality and the\nfulness of life and love.  Even so come, Lord Jesus!\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1844.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nWhit Sunday.\n\n\nThink of the Holy Spirit as a Person having a will of His own, who\nbreatheth whither He listeth, and cannot be confined to any feelings or\nrules of yours or of any man's, but may meet you in the Sacraments or out\nof the Sacraments, even as He will, and has methods of comforting and\neducating you of which you will never dream; One whose will is the same\nas the will of the Father and of the Son, even a good will.\n\n_Discipline Sermons_.\n\n\nTrinity Sunday.\n\n\nSome things I see clearly and hold with desperate clutch.  A Father in\nheaven for all, a Son of God incarnate for all, and a Spirit of the\nFather _and_ the Son--who works to will and to do of His own good\npleasure in every human being in whom there is one spark of active good,\nthe least desire to do right or to be of use--the Fountain of all good on\nearth.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n\nJUNE 11.\nSt. Barnabas, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\n. . . Which is Love?\nTo do God's will, or merely suffer it?\n. . . . .\nNo!  I must headlong into seas of toil,\nLeap far from self, and spend my soul on others.\nFor contemplation falls upon the spirit,\nLike the chill silence of an autumn sun:\nWhile action, like the roaring south-west wind,\nSweeps laden with elixirs, with rich draughts\nQuickening the wombed earth.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_.\n\n\nJUNE 21.\nSt. John the Baptist.\n\n\nHow shall we picture John the Baptist to ourselves?  Great painters have\nexercised their fancy upon his face, his figure, his actions.  The best\nwhich I can recollect is Guido's--of the magnificent lad sitting on the\nrock, half clad in his camel's-hair robe, his stalwart hand lifted up to\ndenounce he hardly knows what, save that things are going all wrong,\nutterly wrong to him--his beautiful mouth open to preach he hardly knows\nwhat, save that he has a message from God, of which he is half conscious\nas yet--that he is a forerunner, a prophet, a foreteller of something and\nsome one who is to come, and which is very near at hand.  The wild rocks\nare round him, the clear sky over him, and nothing more, . . . and he,\nthe noble and the priest, has thrown off--not in discontent and\ndesperation (for he was neither democrat nor vulgar demagogue), but in\nhope and awe--all his family privileges, all that seems to make life\nworth having; and there aloft and in the mountains, alone with God and\nNature, feeding on locusts and wild honey and clothed in skins, he, like\nElijah of old, preaches to a generation sunk in covetousness, party\nspirit, and superstition--preaches what?--The most common--Morality.  Ah,\nwise politician! ah, clear and rational spirit, who knows and tells\nothers to do the duty which lies nearest to them! . . . who in the hour\nof his country's deepest degradation had divine courage to say, our\ndeliverance lies, not in rebellion but in _doing right_.\n\n_St. John the Baptist_,\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\nJUNE 29.\nSt. Peter, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nGod is revealed in the Crucified;\nThe Crucified must be revealed in me:--\nI must put on His righteousness; show forth\nHis sorrow's glory; hunger, weep with Him;\nTaste His keen stripes, and let this aching flesh\nSink through His fiery baptism into death.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_.\n\nSt. Peter, as he is drawn in the Gospels and the Acts, is a grand and\ncolossal human figure, every line and feature of which is full of meaning\nand full of beauty to us.\n\n_Sermons_, _Discipline_.\n\n\n\n\nJuly.\n\n\nIt was a day of God.  The earth lay like one great emerald, ringed and\nroofed with sapphire: blue sea, blue mountain, blue sky overhead.  There\nshe lay, not sleeping, but basking in her quiet Sabbath joy, as though\nher two great sisters of the sea and air had washed her weary limbs with\nholy tears, and purged away the stains of last week's sin and toil, and\ncooled her hot worn forehead with their pure incense-breath, and folded\nher within their azure robes, and brooded over her with smiles of pitying\nlove, till she smiled back in answer, and took heart and hope for next\nweek's weary work.\n\nHeart and hope for next week's work.--That was the sermon which it\npreached to Tom Thurnall, as he stood there alone, a stranger and a\nwanderer like Ulysses of old: but, like him, self-helpful, cheerful, fate\ndefiant.  He was more of a heathen than Ulysses--for he knew not what\nUlysses knew, that a heavenly guide was with him in his wanderings; still\nless that what he called the malicious sport of fortune was, in truth,\nthe earnest education of a Father. . . .  \"Brave old world she is after\nall,\" he said; \"and right well made; and looks right well to-day in her\ngo-to-meeting clothes, and plenty of room and chance for a brave man to\nearn his bread, if he will but go right on about his business, as the\nbirds and the flowers do, instead of peaking and pining over what people\nthink of him.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xiv.\n\n\n\nNature and Grace.  July 1.\n\n\nGod is the God of Nature as well as the God of Grace.  For ever He looks\ndown on all things which He has made; and behold they are very good.  And\ntherefore we dare to offer to Him in our churches the most perfect works\nof naturalistic art, and shape them into copies of whatever beauty He has\nshown us in man or woman, in cave or mountain-peak, in tree or flower,\neven in bird or butterfly.  But Himself?  Who can see Him except the\nhumble and the contrite heart, to whom He reveals Himself as a Spirit to\nbe worshipped in spirit and in truth, and not in bread nor wood, nor\nstone nor gold, nor quintessential diamond?\n\n_Lecture on Grots and Groves_.  1871.\n\n\n\nLove and Book-Learning.  July 2.\n\n\nI see more and more that the knowledge of one human being, such as love\nalone can give, and the apprehension of our own private duties and\nrelations, is worth more than all the book-learning in the world.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nThe Ancient Creeds.  July 3.\n\n\nBlessed and delightful it is when we find that even in these new ages the\nCreeds, which so many fancy to be at their last gasp, are still the\nfinest and highest succour, not merely of the peasant and the outcast,\nbut of the subtle artist and the daring speculator.  Blessed it is to\nfind the most cunning poet of our day able to combine the rhythm and\nmelody of modern times with the old truths which gave heart to the\nmartyrs at the stake, to see in the science and the history of the\nnineteenth century new and living fulfilments of the words which we\nlearnt at our mother's knee!\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1850.\n\n\n\nA Master-Truth.  July 4.\n\n\nEvery creature of God is good, if it be sanctified with prayer and\nthanksgiving!  This to me is the master-truth of Christianity, the\nforgetfulness of which is at the root of almost all error.  It seems to\nme that it was to redeem man and the earth that Christ was made man and\nused the earth!--that Christianity has never yet been pure, because it\nnever yet, since St. Paul's time, has stood on _this_ as the fundamental\ntruth, and that it has been pure or impure, just in proportion as it has\n_practically_ and _really_ acknowledged this truth.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nEnglish Women.  July 5.\n\n\nLet those who will sneer at the women of England.  We who have to do the\nwork and fight the battle of life know the inspiration which we derive\nfrom their virtue, their counsel, their tenderness--and, but too often,\nfrom their compassion and their forgiveness.  There is, I doubt not,\nstill left in England many a man with chivalry and patriotism enough to\nchallenge the world to show so perfect a specimen of humanity as a\ncultivated British woman.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nLife retouched again.  July 6.\n\n\nEven in the saddest woman's soul there linger snatches of old music,\nodours of flowers long dead and turned to dust,--pleasant ghosts, which\nstill keep her mind attuned to that which may be in others, though in her\nnever more; till she can hear her own wedding-hymn re-echoed in the tones\nof every girl who loves, and see her own wedding-torch re-lighted in the\neyes of every bride.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xxix.\n\n\n\nMystery of Life.  July 7.\n\n\n\"All things begin in some wonder, and in some wonder end,\" said St.\nAugustine, wisest in his day of mortal men.  It is a strange thing, and a\nmystery, how we ever got into this world; a stranger thing still to me\nhow we shall ever get out of this world again.  Yet they are common\nthings enough--birth and death.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.\n\n\n\nBeauty of Life.  July 8.\n\n\nThe Greeks were, as far as we know, the most beautiful race which the\nworld ever saw.  Every educated man knows that they were the cleverest of\nall nations, and, next to his Bible, thanks God for Greek literature.  Now\nthe Greeks had made physical, as well as intellectual education a science\nas well as a study.  Their women practised graceful, and in some cases\neven athletic exercises.  They developed, by a free and healthy life,\nthose figures which remain everlasting and unapproachable models of human\nbeauty.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\nStudy the human figure, both as intrinsically beautiful and as expressing\nmind.  It only expresses the broad natural childish emotions, which are\njust what we want to return to from our over subtlety.  Study \"natural\nlanguage\"--I mean the language of attitude.  It is an inexhaustible\nsource of knowledge and delight, and enables one human being to\nunderstand another so perfectly.  Therefore learn to draw and paint\nfigures.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nTrue Civilisation.  July 9.\n\n\nCivilisation with me shall mean--not more wealth, more finery, more self-\nindulgence, even more aesthetic and artistic luxury--but more virtue,\nmore knowledge, more self-control, even though I earn scanty bread by\nheavy toil.\n\n_Lecture on Ancient Civilisation_.  1874.\n\n\n\nThe Church.  July 10.\n\n\n\"The Church is a very good thing, and I keep to mine,\" said Captain\nWillis, \"having served under her Majesty and her Majesty's forefathers,\nand learned to obey orders, I hope; but don't you think, sir, you're\ntaking it as the Pharisees took the Sabbath Day?\"\n\n\"How then?\"\n\n\"Why, as if man was made for the Church, and not the Church for man.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. ii.  1856.\n\n\n\nWhat does God ask?  July 11.\n\n\nWhat is this strange thing, without which even the true knowledge of\ndoctrine is of no use? without which either a man or a nation is poor,\nand blind, and wretched, and naked in soul, notwithstanding all his\nreligion?  Isaiah will tell, \"Wash you, make you clean, saith the Lord.\nDo justice to the fatherless, relieve the widow.\"  Church-building and\nchurch-going are well, but they are not repentance.  Churches are not\nsouls.  I ask for your hearts, and you give me fine stones and fine\nwords.  I want souls, I want _your_ souls.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nWork or Want.  July 12.\n\n\nRemember that we are in a world where it is not safe to sit under the\ntree and let the ripe fruit drop into your mouth; where the \"competition\nof species\" works with ruthless energy among all ranks of being, from\nkings upon their thrones to the weed upon the waste; where \"he that is\nnot hammer is sure to be anvil;\" and \"he who will not work neither shall\nhe eat.\"\n\n_Ancien Regime_.  1867.\n\n\n\nTrue Insight.  July 13.\n\n\nIt is easy to see the spiritual beauty of Raffaelle's Madonnas, but it\nrequires a deeper and more practised, all-embracing, loving, simple\nspirituality, to see the same beauty in the face of a worn-out, painful,\npeasant woman haggling about the price of cottons.\n\nForm and colour are but the vehicle for the spirit-meaning.  In the\n\"spiritual body\" I fancy they will both be united _with_ the meaning--all\nand every part and property of man and woman instinct with spirit!\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nRetribution inevitable.  July 14.\n\n\nKnow this--that as surely as God sometimes punishes wholesale, so surely\nis He always punishing in detail.  By that infinite concatenation of\nmoral causes and effects, which makes the whole world one mass of special\nProvidences, every sin of ours will punish itself, and probably punish\nitself in kind.  Are we selfish?  We shall call out selfishness in\nothers.  Do we neglect our duty?  Then others will neglect their duty to\nus.  Do we indulge our passions?  Then others who depend on us will\nindulge theirs, to our detriment and misery.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\nAntinomies.  July 15.\n\n\nSpiritual truths present themselves to us in \"antinomies,\" apparently\ncontradictory pairs, pairs of poles, which, however, do not really\ncontradict, or even limit, each other, but are only correlatives, the\nexistence of the one making the existence of the other necessary,\nexplaining each other, and giving each other a real standing ground and\nequilibrium.  Such an antinomic pair are, \"He that loveth not knoweth not\nGod,\" and \"If a man hateth not his father and mother he cannot be My\ndisciple.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1848.\n\n\n\nFalse Refinement.  July 16.\n\n\nGod's Word, while it _alone_ sanctifies rank and birth, says to all\n_equally_, \"Ye are brethren, _work_ for each other.\"  Let us then be\nabove rank, and look at men as men, and women as women, and all as God's\nchildren.  There is a \"refinement\" which is the invention of that sensual\nmind, which looks only at the outward and visible sign.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nMusic's Meaning.  July 17.\n\n\nSome quick music is inexpressibly mournful.  It seems just like one's own\nfeelings--exultation and action, with the remembrance of past sorrow\nwailing up, yet without bitterness, tender in its shrillness, through the\nmingled tide of present joy; and the notes seem thoughts--thoughts pure\nof words; and a spirit seems to call to me in them and cry, \"Hast thou\nnot felt all this?\"  And I start when I find myself answering\nunconsciously, \"Yes, yes, I know it all!  Surely we are a part of all we\nsee and hear!\"  And then, the harmony thickens, and all distinct sound is\npressed together and absorbed in a confused paroxysm of delight, where\nstill the female treble and the male bass are distinct for a moment, and\nthen one again--absorbed into each other's being--sweetened and\nstrengthened by each other's melody. . . .\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nVagueness of Mind.  July 18.\n\n\nBy allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost persuaded by every\none you love, when you are capable by one decided act of _leading_ them,\nyou may be treading blindfold a terrible path to your own misery.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nA Faith for Daily Life.  July 19.\n\n\nThat is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this\nis faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God's\ngreatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from those\nstrange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as\nfrom those common ones in which He fulfils His laws.\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.\n\n\n\nCharms of Monotony.  July 20.\n\n\nI delight in that same monotony.  It saves curiosity, anxiety,\nexcitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions.  It gives a man\nthe blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has roots\ndeep and wide struck down into all he sees, and that only the Being who\ncan do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up.  It is pleasant to look\ndown on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that is\nbeneath, and all beneath know me.  It is pleasant to see the same trees\nyear after year, the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs,\nthe same banks covered by the same flowers.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1857.\n\n\n\nHow to attain.  July 21.\n\n\nIf our plans are not for time but for eternity, our knowledge, and\ntherefore our love to God, to each other, to everything, will progress\nfor ever.  And the attainment of this heavenly wisdom requires neither\necstacy nor revelation, but prayer and watchfulness, and observation, and\ndeep and solemn thought.\n\nTwo great rules for its attainment are simple enough--Never forget what\nand where you are, and grieve not the Holy Spirit, for \"If a man will do\nGod's will he shall know of the doctrine.\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Discontent.  July 22.\n\n\nI should like to make every one I meet discontented with themselves; I\nshould like to awaken in them, about their physical, their intellectual,\ntheir moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent first\nof upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil\nthat aspiration even in part.  For to be discontented with the divine\ndiscontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and\nfirst upgrowth of all virtue.\n\n_Lecture on Science of Health_.  1872.\n\n\n\nDra et labora.  July 23.\n\n\n\"Working is praying,\" said one of the holiest of men.  And he spoke\ntruth; if a man will but do his work from a sense of duty, which is for\nthe sake of God.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nDistrust and Anarchy.  July 24.\n\n\nOver the greater part of the so-called civilised world is spreading a\ndeep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man towards his neighbour, and\na practical unbelief in every man whom you do see, atones for itself by a\ntheoretic belief in an ideal human nature which you do not see.  Such a\ntemper of mind, unless it be checked by that which alone can check it,\nnamely, the grace of God, must tend towards sheer anarchy.  There is a\ndeeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political anarchy,--which the\nabuse of the critical spirit leads to,--the anarchy of society and of the\nfamily, the anarchy of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor human\nbeings as orphans in the wilderness to cry in vain, \"What can I know?\nWhom can I love?\"\n\n_The Critical Spirit_.  1871.\n\n\n\nA Future Life of Action.  July 25.\n\n\nWhy need we suppose that heaven is to be one vast lazy retrospect?  Why\nis not eternity to have action and change, yet both like God, compatible\nwith rest and immutability?  This earth is but one minor planet of a\nminor system.  Are there no more worlds?  Will there not be incident and\naction springing from these when the fate of this world is decided?  Has\nthe evil one touched this alone?  Is it not self-conceit which makes us\nthink the redemption of this earth the one event of eternity?\n\n_Letters_.  1842.\n\n\n\nAn Ideal Aristocracy.  July 26.\n\n\nWe may conceive an Utopia governed by an aristocracy that should be\nreally democratic, which should use, under developed forms, that method\nwhich made the mediaeval priesthood the one great democratic institution\nof old Christendom; bringing to the surface and utilising the talents and\nvirtues of all classes, even the lowest.\n\n_Lectures on Ancien Regime_.  1867.\n\n\n\nOur Weapons.  July 27.\n\n\nGod, who has been very good to us, will be more good, if _we allow Him_!\nWorldly-minded people think they can manage so much better than God.  We\nmust _trust_.  Our weapons must be prayer and faith, and our only\nstandard the Bible.  As soon as we leave these weapons and take to\n\"knowledge of the world,\" and other people's clumsy prejudices as our\nguides, we must inevitably be beaten by the World, which knows how to use\nits own arms better than we do.  What else is meant by becoming as a\nlittle child?\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nUneducated Women.  July 28.\n\n\nTake warning by what you see abroad.  In every country where the women\nare uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels\nor translations of them--in every one of those countries the women, even\nto the highest, are the slaves of superstition, and the puppets of\npriests.  In proportion as women are highly educated, family life and\nfamily secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to\nno confessor or director, but to her own husband or her own family.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1860.\n\n\n\nPardon and Cure.  July 29.\n\n\nAfter the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin.  And that cure,\nlike most cures, is a long and a painful process.\n\nBut there is our comfort, there is our hope--Christ the great Healer, the\ngreat Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains of\nour old sins, the consequences of our own follies.  Not, indeed, at once,\nor by miracle, but by slow education in new and nobler motives, in purer\nand more unselfish habits.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1861.\n\n\n\nEternal Law.  July 30.\n\n\nThe eternal laws of God's providence are still at work, though we may\nchoose to forget them, and the Judge who administers them is the same\nyesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, the\nEverlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded.\nWhosoever shall fall on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shall\nindeed be broken, but of him it is written, \"A broken and a contrite\nheart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.\"\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.  1866.\n\n\n\nGod's Mercy or Man's?  July 31.\n\n\n\"He fought till he could fight no more, and then died like a hero, with\nall his wounds in front; and may God have mercy on his soul.\"\n\n\"That last was a Popish prayer, Master Frank,\" said old Mr. Carey.\n\n\"Most worshipful sir, you surely would not wish God _not_ to have mercy\non his soul?\"\n\n\"No--Eh?  Of course not, for that's all settled by now, for he is dead,\npoor fellow!\"\n\n\"And you can't help being a little fond of him still?\"\n\n\"Eh?  Why, I should be a brute if I were not.  Fond of him? why, I would\nsooner have given my forefinger than that he should have gone to the\ndogs.\"\n\n\"Then, my dear sir, if _you_ feel for him still, in spite of all his\nfaults, how do you know that God may not feel for him in spite of all his\nfaults?  For my part,\" said Frank, in his fanciful way, \"without\nbelieving in that Popish purgatory, I cannot help holding with Plato that\nsuch heroical souls, who have wanted but little of true greatness here,\nare hereafter, by strait discipline, brought to a better mind.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. v.  1854.\n\n\n\nThe Chrysalis State.\n\n\nYou ask, \"What is the Good?\"  I suppose God Himself is the Good; and it\nis this, in addition to a thousand things, which makes me feel the\nabsolute certainty of a resurrection, and a hope that this, our present\nlife, instead of being an ultimate one, which is to decide our fate for\never, is merely some sort of chrysalis state in which man's faculties are\nso narrow and cramped, his chances (I speak of the millions, not of\nunits) of knowing the Good so few, that he may have chances hereafter,\nperhaps continually fresh ones, to all eternity.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1852.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nJULY 25.\nSt. James, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nAnd they will know his worth\nYears hence . . .\nAnd crown him martyr; and his name will ring\nThrough all the shores of earth, and all the stars\nWhose eyes are sparkling through their tears to see\nHis triumph, Preacher and Martyr. . .\n. . . . .\n. . . It is over; and the woe that's dead,\nRises next hour a glorious angel.\n\n_Santa Maura_.\n\n\n\n\nAugust.\n\n\n\"I cannot tell what you say, green leaves,\n   I cannot tell what you say;\nBut I know that there is a spirit in you,\n   And a word in you this day.\n\n\"I cannot tell what ye say, rosy rocks,\n   I cannot tell what ye say;\nBut I know that there is a spirit in you,\n   And a word in you this day.\n\n\"I cannot tell what ye say, brown streams,\n   I cannot tell what ye say;\nBut I know, in you too, a spirit doth live,\n   And a word in you this day.\"\n\n\"Oh! rose is the colour of love and youth,\nAnd green is the colour of faith and truth,\n   And brown of the fruitful clay.\nThe earth is fruitful and faithful and young,\nAnd her bridal morn shall rise erelong,\nAnd you shall know what the rocks and streams\n   And the laughing green woods say.\"\n\n_Dartside_, _August_ 1849.\n\n\n\nSight and Insight.  August 1.\n\n\nDo the work that's nearest,\nThough it's dull at whiles,\nHelping, when you meet them,\nLame dogs over stiles;\nSee in every hedgerow\nMarks of angels' feet,\nEpics in each pebble\nUnderneath our feet.\n\n_The Invitation_.  1857.\n\n\n\nGenius and Character.  August 2.\n\n\nI have no respect for genius (I do not even acknowledge its existence)\nwhere there is no strength and steadiness of character.  If any one\npretends to be more than a man he must begin by proving himself a man at\nall.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xv.\n\n\n\nNature's Student.  August 3.\n\n\nThe perfect naturalist must be of a reverent turn of mind--giving Nature\ncredit for an inexhaustible fertility and variety, which will keep him\nhis life long, always reverent, yet never superstitious; wondering at the\ncommonest, but not surprised by the most strange; free from the idols of\nsense and sensuous loveliness; able to see grandeur in the minutest\nobjects, beauty in the most ungainly: estimating each thing not carnally,\nas the vulgar do, by its size, . . . but spiritually, by the amount of\nDivine thought revealed to him therein. . . .\n\n_Glaucus_.  1855.\n\n\n\nThe Masses.  August 4.\n\n\nThough permitted evils should not avenge themselves by any political\nretribution, yet avenge themselves, if unredressed, they surely will.\nThey affect masses too large, interests too serious, not to make\nthemselves bitterly felt some day. . . .  We may choose to look on the\nmasses in the gross as objects for statistics--and of course, where\npossible, for profits.  There is One above who knows every thirst, and\nache, and sorrow, and temptation of each slattern, and gin-drinker, and\nstreet-boy.  The day will come when He will require an account of these\nneglects of ours--not in the gross.\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1851.\n\nWe sit in a cloud, and sing like pictured angels,\nAnd say the world runs smooth--while right below\nWelters the black, fermenting heap of life\nOn which our State is built.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.\n\n\n\nLove and Knowledge.  August 5.\n\n\nHe who has never loved, what does he know?\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nSiccum Lumen.  August 6.\n\n\nHow shall I get true knowledge?  Knowledge which will be really useful,\nreally worth knowing.  Knowledge which I shall know accurately and\npractically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and\nothers?  Knowledge too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or\ncoloured by my own fancies, passions, prejudices, but pure and calm and\nsound; Siccum Lumen, \"Dry Light,\" as the greatest of philosophers called\nit of old.\n\nTo all such who long for light, that by the light they may live, God\nanswers through His only begotten Son: \"Ask and ye shall receive, seek\nand ye shall find.\"\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1873.\n\n\n\nThis World.  August 7.\n\n\nWhat should the external world be to those who truly love, but the garden\nin which they are placed, not so much for sustenance or enjoyment of\nthemselves and each other, as to dress it and to keep it--_it_ to be\ntheir subject-matter, not they its tools!  In this spirit let us pray\n\"Thy kingdom come.\"\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Life of the Spirit.  August 8.\n\n\nThe old fairy superstition, the old legends and ballads, the old\nchronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities and\nmysteries--these fed Shakespeare's youth.  Why should they not feed our\nchildren's?  That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellous\nand fantastic--has that a merely evil root?  No, surely! it is a most\npure part of their spiritual nature; a part of \"the heaven which lies\nabout us in our infancy;\" angel-wings with which the free child leaps the\nprison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life.  It\nis a God-appointed means for keeping alive what noble Wordsworth calls\nthose\n\n         \". . . . obstinate questionings,\n   . . . . . .\n      Blank misgivings of a creature\n   Moving about in worlds not realised.\"\n\n_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_.\n1848.\n\n\n\nA Quiet Depth.  August 9.\n\n\nThe deepest affections are those of which we are least conscious--that\nis, which produce least _startling_ emotion, and most easy and\ninvoluntary practice.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nAcceptable Sacrifices.  August 10.\n\n\nEvery time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, ay, even to\na dumb animal; every time we conquer our worldliness, love of pleasure,\nease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our conscience\ntells us to be our duty,--we are indeed worshipping God the Father in\nspirit and in truth, and offering Him a sacrifice which He will surely\naccept for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose Spirit all good deeds\nand thoughts are inspired.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1871.\n\n\n\nChivalry.  August 11.\n\n\nChivalry; an idea which, perfect or imperfect, God forbid that mankind\nshould ever forget till it has become the possession--as it is the God-\ngiven right--of the poorest slave that ever trudged on foot; and every\ncollier lad shall have become\n\n   \"A very gentle, perfect knight.\"\n\n_Lectures on Ancien Regime_.  1867.\n\n\n\nGod waits for Man.  August 12.\n\n\nPatiently, nobly, magnanimously, God waits; waits for the man who is a\nfool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart that has tried to\nfind pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything else\ndisappoints, and to come back to Him, the fountain of all wholesome\npleasure, the well-spring of all life, fit for a man to live.\n\nGod condescends to wait for His creature; because what He wants is not\nHis creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, but\nhis heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave to\nhis master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has\nstill left him, when all beside has played him false.  Let him come back\nthus.\n\n_Discipline and other Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThrift.  August 13.\n\n\nThe secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as\npossible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and\nobstruction, the least wear and tear.  And the secret of thrift is\nknowledge.  In proportion as you know the laws and nature of a subject,\nyou will be able to work at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully,\ninstead of wasting your money or your energies in mistaken schemes,\nirregular efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nRevelations.  August 14.\n\n\nOnly second-rate hearts and minds are melancholy.  When we become like\nlittle children, our very playfulness tells that we are _seeing deep_,\nwhen we see that God is love in His _works_ as well as in Himself, and we\nlook at Nature as a baby does, as a beautiful mystery which we scarcely\nwish to solve.  And therefore deep things, which the intellect in vain\nstruggles after, will reveal themselves to us.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nChrist comes in many ways.  August 15.\n\n\nOften Christ comes to us in ways in which the world would never recognise\nHim--in which perhaps neither you nor I shall recognise _Him_; but it\nwill be enough, I hope, if we but hear His message, and obey His gracious\ninspiration, let Him speak through whatever means He will.  He may come\nto us by some crisis in our life, either for sorrow or for bliss.  He may\ncome to us by a great failure; by a great disappointment--to teach the\nwilful and ambitious soul that not in _that_ direction lies the path of\npeace; or He may come in some unexpected happiness to teach that same\nsoul that He is able and willing to give abundantly beyond all that we\ncan ask or think.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.  1874.\n\n\n\nLesson of the Cross.  August 16.\n\n\nOn the Cross God has sanctified suffering, pain, and sorrow, and made\nthem holy; as holy as health and strength and happiness are.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nThe Ideal Unity.  August 17.\n\n\n\"Oh, make us one.\"  All the world-generations have but one voice!  \"How\ncan we become One? at harmony with God and God's universe!  Tell us this,\nand the dreary, dark mystery of life, the bright, sparkling mystery of\nlife, the cloud-chequered, sun-and-shower mystery of life, is solved! for\nwe shall have found one home and one brotherhood, and happy faces will\ngreet us wherever we move, and we shall see God! see Him everywhere, and\nbe ready to wait for the Renewal, for the Kingdom of Christ perfected!  We\ncame from Eden, all of us: show us how we may return, hand in hand,\nhusband and wife, parent and child, gathered together from the past and\nthe future, from one creed and another, and take our journey into a far\ncountry, which is yet this earth--a world-migration to the heavenly\nCanaan, through the Red Sea of Death, back again to the land which was\ngiven to our forefathers, and is ours even now, could we but find it!\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nBody and Soul.  August 18.\n\n\nThe mystics considered the soul, _i.e._ the intellect, as the \"_moi_\" and\nthe body as the \"_non moi_;\" and this idea that the body is not _self_,\nis the fundamental principle of mysticism and asceticism, and\ndiametrically opposed to the whole doctrines and practice of Scripture.\nElse why is there a resurrection of the body? and why does the Eucharist\n\"preserve our body and soul to everlasting life?\"\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nChildlikeness.  August 19.\n\n\nIf you wish to be \"a little child,\" study what a little child could\nunderstand--Nature; and do what a little child could do--love.  Feed on\nNature.  It will digest itself.  It did so when you were a little child\nthe first time.\n\nKeep a common-place book, and put into it not only facts and thoughts,\nbut observations on form, and colour, and nature, and little sketches,\neven to the form of beautiful _leaves_.  They will all have their charm .\n. . all do their work in consolidating your ideas.  Put everything into\nit. . . .\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nInspiration.  August 20.\n\n\nEvery good deed comes from God.  His is the idea, His the inspiration,\nand His its fulfilment in time; and therefore no good deed but lives and\ngrows with the everlasting life of God Himself.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nLifting of the Veil.  August 21.\n\n\nI seldom pass those hapless loungers who haunt every watering-place\nwithout thinking sadly how much more earnest, happier, and better men and\nwomen they might be if the veil were but lifted from their eyes, and they\ncould learn to behold that glory of God which is all around them like an\natmosphere, while they, unconscious of what and where they are, wrapt up\neach in his little selfish world of vanity and interest, gaze lazily\naround them at earth, sea, and sky--\n\n   And have no speculation in those eyes\n   Which they do glare withal\n\n_Glaucus_.  1855.\n\n\n\nThe Cross--its meaning.  August 22.\n\n\nTo take up the cross means, in the minds of most persons, to suffer\npatiently under affliction.  It is a true and sound meaning, but it means\nmore.  Why did Christ take up the cross?  Not for affliction's sake, or\nfor the cross's sake, as if suffering were a good thing in itself.  No.\nBut that He might thereby _do good_.  That the world through Him might be\nsaved.  That He might do good at whatever cost or pain to Himself.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Crucifix.  August 23.\n\n\nIf I had an image in my room it should be one of Christ _glorified_,\nsitting at the right hand of God.  The crucifix has been THE image,\nbecause the idea of torture and misery has been THE idea in the\nmelancholy and the ferocious (for the two ultimately go together),. . .\nand thus ascetics became inquisitors. . . .\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nLove to God proved.  August 24.\n\n\nOur love to God does not depend upon the emotions of the moment.  If you\nfancy you do not love Him enough, above all when Satan tempts you to look\ninward, go immediately and minister to others; visit the sick, perform\nsome act of self-sacrifice or thanksgiving.  Never mind how _dull_ you\nmay feel while doing it; the fact of your feeling excited proves nothing;\nthe fact of your _doing_ it proves that your will, your spiritual part,\nis on God's side, however tired or careless the poor flesh may be.  The\n\"flesh\" must be brought into harmony with the spirit, not only by\nphysical but by intellectual mortification.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nTraining of Beauty.  August 25.\n\n\nThere is many a road into our hearts besides our ears and brains; many a\nsight and sound and scent even, of which we have never _thought_ at all,\nsinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus\nchildren brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most\nlikely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection\nand nobleness of mind, even by the expression of the countenance.\n\n_True Words to Brave Men_.  1848.\n\n\n\nIgnorance of the Cynic.  August 26.\n\n\nBe sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men as the cynical,\nmisanthropic man, who walks in darkness because he hates his brother.  Be\nsure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts\nhimself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with\ntheir eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes\nallowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in\nheaven is merciful.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1872.\n\n\n\nPenitential Prayer.  August 27.\n\n\nFaith in God it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of all\ntrue penitence for evermore.  Penitential prayers in all ages have too\noften wanted faith in God, and therefore have been too often prayers to\navert punishment.  This, this--the model of all true penitent prayers--is\nthat of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his\npunishment, knowing that he deserves it, and far more besides.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nA Real Presence.  August 28.\n\n\nBelieve the Holy Communion is the sign of Christ's perpetual presence;\nthat when you kneel to receive the bread and wine, Christ is as near\nyou--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly as near you\nas those who are kneeling by your side.\n\nAnd if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are Christ's,\nwith those whom we love. . . .  Surely, like Christ, they may come and go\neven now, though unseen.  Like Christ they may breathe upon our restless\nhearts and say, \"Peace be unto you,\" and not in vain.  For what they did\nfor us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they are\nin heaven.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1862.\n\n\n\nA Living God.  August 29.\n\n\nMan would never have even dreamed of a Living God had not that Living God\nbeen a reality, who did not leave the creature to find his Creator, but\nstooped from heaven, at the very beginning of our race, to find His\ncreature.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nThine, not mine.  August 30.\n\n\nWhensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead of\npriding yourself upon it as if the good in it came from you, offer it up\nto your Heavenly Father, from whom all good things come, and say, \"Oh,\nLord! the good in this is Thine and not mine; the bad in it is mine and\nnot Thine.  I thank Thee for having made me do right, for without Thy\nhelp I should have done nothing but wrong.  For mine is the laziness, and\nthe weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and Thine is the\nkingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, for Thou doest all\nthings; and the glory, for Thou doest all things well, for ever and ever.\nAmen.\"\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Unquenchable Fire.  August 31.\n\n\nA fire which cannot be quenched, a worm which cannot die, I see existing,\nand consider them among the most blessed revelations of the gospel.  I\nfancy I see them burning and devouring everywhere in the spiritual world,\nas their analogues do in the physical.  I know that they have done so on\nme, and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most\nhealthful.  I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know too\nwell that I often do the same ineffectually.  But, in the comfort that\nthe worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmly\nforward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of that\nworld whereof it is written, \"He shall reign until He hath put all\nenemies under His feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of\nfire.\"\n\n* * * * *\n\nThe Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give\nnew light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and\nthe shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe,\nthe chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living\nFoundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written\nthat _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the\nfate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universe\nbe--what it must be some day--_very good_.\n\n* * * * *\n\nBecause I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I\nbelieve in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy\nall which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all\nenemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they\nconfess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth.  And\nGod shall be All in All.  Those last are wide words.\n\n_Letters and Sermons_.  1856.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nAUGUST 24.\nSt. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nBlessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for\ntheirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Great indeed is their reward, for it is\nno less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that\nsupreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art,\nall poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes,\ndim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nSeptember.\n\n\nThat poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote--\n\n   \"Nor ever had the breeze of passion\n   Stirred her heart's clear depths.\"\n\nThe lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that\nwhen the stream stops it is turbid.  The deep pools and still flats are\nalways brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in\nthem.  When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray with\nsome foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality or\nthe gray of morbid melancholy.  But when they are free again! when they\nhurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are\nclear!  Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours\ninto them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life\nand health and food; and through their swift yet yielding\neddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate and\nundefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, the\nSpirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium of\nanother human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul is\nstirred by circumstance into passion and motion and action strong and\nswift.  Only the streams which have undergone long and _severe struggles_\nfrom their very fountain-head have clear pools.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nGoodness.  September 1.\n\n\nAlways say to yourself this one thing, \"Good I will become, whatever it\ncost me; and in God's goodness I trust to make me good, for I am sure He\nwishes to see me good more than I do myself.\"  And you will find that,\nbecause you have confessed in that best and most honest of ways that God\nis good, and have so given Him real glory, and real honour, and real\npraise, He will save you from the sins which torment you, and you shall\nnever come, either in this world or the world to come, to that worst\nmisery, the being ashamed of yourself.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nBe good to do Good.  September 2.\n\n\nWhat we wish to do for our fellow-creatures we must do first for\nourselves.  We can give them nothing save what God has already given us.\nWe must become good before we can make them good, and wise before we can\nmake them wise.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nThe Undying I.  September 3.\n\n\nThe youngest child, by faith in God his Father, may look upon all heaven\nand earth and say, \"Great and wonderful and awful as this earth and those\nskies may be, I am more precious in the sight of God than sun and moon\nand stars; for they are things, but I am a person, a spirit, an immortal\nsoul, made in the likeness of God, redeemed into the likeness of God.\nThis great earth was here thousands and thousands of years before I was\nborn, and it will be here perhaps millions of years after I am dead.  But\nit cannot harm _Me_, it cannot kill _Me_.  When earth, and sun, and stars\nhave passed away I shall live for ever, for I am the immortal child of an\nimmortal Father, the child of the everlasting God.\"\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nLove and Time.  September 4.\n\n\nLove proves its spiritual origin by rising above time and space and\ncircumstance, wealth and age, and even temporary beauty, at the same time\nthat it alone can perfectly _use_ all those material adjuncts.  Being\nspiritual, it is Lord of matter, and can give and receive from it glory\nand beauty when it will, and yet live without it.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\n\n\nCommon Duties.  September 5.\n\n\nThe only way to regenerate the world is to do the duty which lies nearest\nus, and not to hunt after grand, far-fetched ones for ourselves.  If each\ndrop of rain _chose_ where it should fall, God's showers would not fall\nas they do now, on the evil and the good alike.  I know from the\nexperience of my own heart how galling this doctrine is--how, like\nNaaman, one goes away in a rage, because the prophet has not bid us do\nsome great thing, but only to go wash in the nearest brook and be clean.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1854.\n\n\n\nDespair--Hope.  September 6.\n\n\nDoes the age seem to you dark?  Do you feel, as I do at times, the awful\nsadness of that text, \"The time shall come when you shall desire to see\none of the days of the Lord, and shall not see it\"?  Then remember that\n\n   The night is never so long\n   But at last it ringeth for matin song.\n\n. . . Even now the dawn is gilding the highest souls, and _we_ are in the\nnight only because we crawl below.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1850.\n\n\n\nThe Critical Spirit.  September 7.\n\n\n\"Judge nothing before the time.\"  This is a hard saying.  Who can hear\nit?  There never was a time in which the critical spirit was more\nthoroughly in the ascendant.  Every man now is an independent critic.  To\naccept fully, or as it is now called, to follow blindly; to admire\nheartily, or as it is now called, fanatically--these are considered signs\nof weakness or credulity.  To believe intensely; to act unhesitatingly;\nto admire passionately; all this, as the latest slang phrases it, is \"bad\nform\"; a proof that a man is not likely to win in the race of this world\nthe prize whereof is, the greatest possible enjoyment with the least\npossible work.\n\n_The Critical Spirit_.  1871.\n\n\n\nToil and Rest.  September 8.\n\n\nRemember always, toil is the condition of our being.  Our sentence is to\nlabour from the cradle to the grave.  But there are Sabbaths allowed for\nthe mind as well as the body, when the intellect is stilled, and the\nemotions alone perform their gentle and involuntary functions.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nStorm and Calm.  September 9.\n\n\nThen Amyas told the last scene; how, when they were off the Azores, the\nstorms came on heavier than ever, with terrible seas breaking short and\npyramid-wise, till, on the 9th of September, the tiny _Squirrel_ nearly\nfoundered, and yet recovered, and the General (Sir Humphrey Gilbert),\nsitting abaft with a book in his hand, cried out to us in the _Hind_, \"We\nare as near heaven by sea as by land,\" reiterating the same speech well\nbe-seeming a soldier resolute in Jesus Christ, as I can testify he was.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii.\n\n\n\nOn the Heights.  September 10.\n\n\nIt is good for a man to have holy and quiet thoughts, and at moments to\nsee into the very deepest meaning of God's word and God's earth, and to\nhave, as it were, heaven opened before his eyes; and it is good for a man\nsometimes actually to _feel_ his heart overpowered with the glorious\nmajesty of God--to _feel_ it gushing out with love to his blessed\nSaviour; but it is not good for him to stop there any more than for the\nApostles in the Mount of Transfiguration.\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1849.\n\n\n\nIn the Valley.  September 11.\n\n\nThe disciples had to come down from the Mount and do Christ's work, and\nso have we.  Believe me, one word of warning spoken to keep a little\nchild out of sin,--one crust of bread given to a beggar-man because he is\nyour brother, for whom Christ died,--one angry word checked on your lips\nfor the sake of Him who was meek and lowly of heart; any the smallest\nendeavour to lessen the amount of evil which is in yourselves and those\naround you,--is worth all the speculations, and raptures, and visions,\nand frames, and feelings in the world; for these are the good fruits of\nfaith, whereby alone the tree shall be known whether it be good or evil.\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1849.\n\n\n\nSelf-Conceit.  September 12.\n\n\nSelf-conceit is the very daughter of self-will, and of that loud crying\nout about _I_, and me, and mine, which is the very bird-call for all\ndevils, and the broad road which leads to death.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. i.\n\n\n\nFacing Fact.  September 13.\n\n\nIt is good for a man to be brought once, at least, in his life, face to\nface with _fact_, ultimate fact, however horrible it may be, and to have\nto confess to himself shuddering, what things are possible on God's\nearth, when man has forgotten that his only welfare is in living after\nthe likeness of God.\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1858.\n\n\n\nThe Heroical Rest.  September 14.\n\n\nRight, lad; the best reward for having wrought well already is to have\nmore to do; and he that has been faithful over a few things must find his\naccount in being made ruler over many things.  That is the true and\nheroical rest which only is worthy of gentlemen and sons of God.  As for\nthose who either in this world or in the world to come look for idleness,\nand hope that God will feed them with pleasant things, as it were with a\nspoon, Amyas, I count them cowards and base, even though they call\nthemselves saints and elect.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. vii.  1855.\n\n\n\nBody and Soul.  September 15.\n\n\nRemember that St. Paul always couples with the resurrection and ascension\nof our bodies in the next life the resurrection and ascension of our\nsouls in this life, for without that, the resurrection of our bodies\nwould be but a resurrection to fresh sin, and therefore to fresh misery\nand ruin.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nLove in Absence.  September 16.\n\n\nAbsence quickens love into consciousness.\n\n_MS._\n\nThe baby sings not on its mother's breast;\nNor nightingales who nestle side by side;\nNor I by thine: but let us only part,\nThen lips which should but kiss, and so be still,\nAs having uttered all, must speak again.\n\n_Sonnet_.  1851.\n\n\n\nSpecial Providence.  September 17.\n\n\nIf I did not believe in a special Providence, in a perpetual education of\nmen by evil as well as good, by small things as well as great, I could\nbelieve nothing.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n\n\nLove of Work.  September 18.\n\n\n\"Can you tell me, my pastor, what part of God's likeness clings to a man\nlongest and closest and best?  No?  Then I will tell you.  It is the love\nof employment.  God in heaven must create Himself a universe to work on\nand love.  And now we sons of Adam, the sons of God, cannot rest without\nour _mundus peculiaris_ of some sort--our world subjective, as Doctor\nMusophilus has it.  But we can create too, and make our little sphere\nlook as large as a universe.\"\n\n_MS. Novel_.  1844.\n\n\n\nFret not.  September 19.\n\n\nFret not, neither be anxious.  What God intends to do He will do.  And\nwhat we ask believing we shall receive.  Never let us get into the common\ntrick of calling unbelief resignation, of asking and then, because we\nhave not faith to believe, putting in a \"Thy will be done\" at the end.\nLet us make God's will our will, and _so_ say Thy will be done.\n\n_MS._  1843.\n\nPeace!  Why these fears?\nLife is too short for mean anxieties:\nSoul! thou must work, though blindfold.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene x.\n\n\n\nBattle before Victory.  September 20.\n\n\nWhenever you think of our Lord's resurrection and ascension, remember\nalways that the background of His triumph is a tomb.  Remember that it is\nthe triumph over suffering; a triumph of One who still bears the prints\nof the nails in His sacred hands and feet, and the wound of the spear in\nHis side; like many a poor soul who has followed Him, triumphant at last,\nand yet scarred, and only not maimed in the hard battle of life.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nNight and Growth.  September 21.\n\n\nAs in the world of Nature, so it is in the world of men.  The night is\npeopled not merely with phantoms and superstitions and spirits of evil,\nbut under its shadow all sciences, methods, social energies, are taking\nrest, and growing, and feeding, unknown to themselves.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1850.\n\n\n\nPassion.  September 22.\n\n\nSelf-sacrifice!  What is love worth that does not show itself in action?\nand more, which does not show itself in _passion_ in the true sense of\nthat word: namely, in suffering? in daring, in struggling, in grieving,\nin agonising, and, if need be, in dying for the object of its love?  Every\nmother will give but one answer to that question.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nWorth of Beauty.  September 23.\n\n\nIt is a righteous instinct which bids us welcome and honour beauty,\nwhether in man or woman, as something of real worth--divine, heavenly,\nay, though we know not how, in a most deep sense Eternal; which makes our\nreason give the lie to all merely logical and sentimental maunderings of\nmoralists about \"the fleeting hues of this our painted clay;\" and tell\nmen, as the old Hebrew Scriptures told them, that physical beauty is the\ndeepest of all spiritual symbols; and that though beauty without\ndiscretion be the jewel of gold in the swine's snout, yet the jewel of\ngold it is still, the sacrament of an inward beauty, which ought to be,\nperhaps hereafter may be, fulfilled in spirit and in truth.\n\n_Hypatia_, chap. xxvi.  1852.\n\n\n\nEmpty Profession.  September 24.\n\n\nWhat is the sin which most destroys all men and nations?  High religious\nprofession, with an ungodly, selfish life.  It is the worst and most\ndangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heart\nand life without giving pain, so that the sick man never suspects that\nanything is the matter with him till he finds himself, to his\nastonishment, at the point of death.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nTrue Poetry.  September 25.\n\n\nLet us make life one poem--not of dreams or sentiments--but of actions,\nnot done Byronically as proofs of genius, but for our own self-education,\nalone, in secret, awaiting the crisis which shall call us forth to the\nbattle to do just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterly\ndifferent self-education.  That is the life of great spirits, after,\nperhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the lower\npaths of God's vineyard, till their hearts have settled into a still,\ndeep, yet swift current, and those who have been faithful over a few\nthings are made rulers over many things.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nOffice of the Clergy.  September 26.\n\n\nThere is a Christian as well as political liberty quite consistent with\nHigh Church principles, which makes the clergy our teachers--not the\nkeepers of our _consciences_ but of our _creeds_.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nOpinions are not Knowledge.  September 27.\n\n\n. . . As to self-improvement, the true Catholic mode of learning is to\n\"prove all things,\" as far as we can, without sin or the danger of it, to\n\"hold fast that which is good.\"  Let us never be afraid of trying\nanything new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own.  And\nlet us never be afraid of changing our opinions.  The unwillingness to go\nback from once declared opinion is a form of pride which haunts some\npowerful minds: but it is not found in great childlike geniuses.  Fools\nmay hold fast to their scanty stock through life, and we must be very\ncautious in drawing them from it--for where can they supply its place?\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nThe Worst Punishment.  September 28.\n\n\nGod reserves many a sinner for that most awful of all punishments\n(here)--impunity.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Order.  September 29.\n\n\nAh, that God's will were but done on earth as it is in the material\nheaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in\ntheir courses, without rest, yet without haste--as all created things,\neven the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm,\nfulfil God's word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given\nthem a law which shall not be broken.  But above them; above the divine\nand wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are\nGod's angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all,\nthe prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and\nwonderful order of _rational_ beings, of races loftier and purer than\nman--angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and\npowers, fulfilling God's will in heaven as it is not, alas! fulfilled on\nearth.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nTrue Resignation.  September 30.\n\n\n. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the\ndivine affections.  I am happy, for the less hope, the more faith. . . .\nGod knows what is best for us; we do not.  Continual resignation, at last\nI begin to find, is the secret of continual strength.  \"Daily _dying_,\"\nas Boehmen interprets it, is the path of daily _living_. . . .\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nSEPTEMBER 21.\nSt. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr.\n\n\nThere is something higher than happiness.  There is blessedness; the\nblessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right.\nThat blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in\nanxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were\nblest, in agony and death.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\n\nSEPTEMBER 29.\nFeast of St. Michael and All Angels.\n\n\nThe eternal moral law which held good for the sinless Christ, who, though\nHe were a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered,\nmust hold good of you and me, and all moral and rational beings--yea, for\nthe very angels in heaven.  They have not sinned.  That we know; and we\ndo not know that they have ever suffered.  But this at least we know,\nthat they have submitted.  They have obeyed, and have given up their own\nwills to be ministers of God's will.  In them is neither self-will nor\nselfishness; and, therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty,\nthey stand.  And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of\nselfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of\nblessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have lost their\neternal life by trying to save their selfish life and be something in\nthemselves and of themselves without respect to God.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nOctober.\n\n\nA beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature,\nhealthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with a\nquiet satisfied smile, for her winter's sleep.  Sheets of dappled cloud\nwere sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung over the\nsouthern chalk downs, which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south-\neastern sun.  In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hung\nover the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge elms and\npoplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down at every rustle\nof the western breeze, spotting the grass below.  The river swirled\nalong, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting\nleaves.  All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even\nin decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very\nwindow-sill, summer still lingered.  The beds of red verbena and geranium\nwere still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia and\nplane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicate\ngreen leaves, and more delicate yellow blossoms, through the crimson lace-\nwork of the Virginia creeper; and the great yellow noisette swung its\nlong canes across the window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. i.\n\n\n\nBlessing of Daily Work.  October 1.\n\n\nThank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do\nthat day which must be done whether you like it or not.  Being forced to\nwork, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-\ncontrol, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a\nhundred virtues which the idle will never know.\n\n_Town and Country Sermons_.  1861.\n\n\n\nThe Forming Form.  October 2.\n\n\nAs the acorn, because God has given it \"a forming form,\" and life after\nits kind, bears within it not only the builder oak but shade for many a\nherd, food for countless animals, and at last the gallant ship itself,\nand the materials of every use to which Nature or Art can put it, and its\ndescendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good deed\ncontain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities of other good,\nwhich may and will grow and multiply for ever, in the genial light of Him\nwhose eternal mind conceived it, and whose eternal spirit will for ever\nquicken it, with that life of which He is the Giver and the Lord.\n\n_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_.  1854.\n\n\n\nSpecial Providences.  October 3.\n\n\nAnd as for special Providences.  I believe that every step I take, every\nperson I meet, every thought which comes into my mind--which is not\nsinful--comes and happens by the perpetual Providence of God watching for\never with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing that He has\nmade.\n\n_MS. Letter_.\n\n\n\nVirtue.  October 4.\n\n\nNothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and virtue.  Man will\nalways try to find substitutes for it.  He will try to find a substitute\nin superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and\nworship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be\nheard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in\nintellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let\nno man lay that flattering unction to his soul.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nGod-likeness.  October 5.\n\n\n\"We can become like God--only in proportion as we are of use,\" said ---.\n\"I did not see this once.  I tried to be good, not knowing what good\nmeant.  I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in the\nworld to come.  But at last I saw that all life, all devotion, all piety,\nwere only worth anything, only Divine, and God-like and God-beloved, as\nthey were means to that one end--to be of use.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix.  1856.\n\n\n\nThe Refiner's Fire.  October 6.\n\n\n\"Not quite that,\" said Amyas.  \"He was a meeker man latterly than he used\nto be.  As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on\nboard had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the\nfire.  And gold seven times tried he was when God, having done His work\nin him, took him home at last.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xiii.\n\n\n\nThe Prayer of Faith.  October 7.\n\n\nWith the prayer of faith we can do anything.  Look at Mark xi. 24--a text\nthat has saved more than one soul from madness in the hour of sorrow; and\nit is so _simple_ and _wide_--wide as eternity, simple as light, true as\nGod Himself.  If we are to do great things it must be in the spirit of\nthat text.  Verily, when the Son of God cometh shall He find faith in the\nearth?\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nMountain-Ranges.  October 8.\n\n\nWe fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand half-way\nup on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other from isolated\nstations.  The mists hide from us the foot of the range beneath us, the\ndepths of primary analysis to which none can reach, or we should see that\nall the peaks were but offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in their\ninmost root but One!  And the clouds which float between us and the\nheaven shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves--the perfect issues\nof synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness shines with\nundimmed lustre--and keep us from perceiving that the complete practical\ndetails of our applied knowledge is all holy and radiant with God's\nsmile.  And so, half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, we\nbuild up little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancy\nthem Babel-towers whose top shall reach to heaven!\n\n_MS. Note-book_.  1843.\n\n\n\nThe Temper for Success in Life.  October 9.\n\n\nThe men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful\nand hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their\nfaces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men,\nfacing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the\nold proverb that \"good times and bad times and all times pass over.\"\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nWant of Simplicity.  October 10.\n\n\nFaith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to want\nfaith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to explain away\nGod's providence, then faith and prayer become intricate and uncertain.\nWe cannot serve God and mammon.  We must either utterly depend on God\n(and therefore on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer),\nor we must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world.  Choose!\n\n_MS. Letter_.\n\n\n\nTrue Rest.  October 11.\n\n\nWhat is true rest?  To rest from sin, from sorrow, from doubt, from care;\nthis is true rest.  Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of\nall--knowing one's duty and not being able to do it.  That is true rest;\nthe rest of God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the\nstars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are\nat perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the\nlaw which God has given them.  Perfect rest in perfect work; that surely\nis the rest of blessed spirits till the final consummation of all things.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nGod's Image.  October 12.\n\n\n. . . \"Honour all men.\"  Every man should be honoured as God's image, in\nthe sense in which Novalis says--that we touch Heaven when we lay our\nhand on a human body! . . .  The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that,\nand acted up to it, more than any nation.  The Patriarchs too seem to\nhave had the same feeling. . . .\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nWoman's Work.  October 13.\n\n\nLet woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower\nand more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of\nself-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in\nand for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nSelf-Enjoyment.  October 14.\n\n\n\"How do ye expect,\" said Sandy, \"ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at\na', as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel--_yersel_?  Mony was\nthe year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it\nwas a'\n\n   \"'Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye,\n   There he sits singing the lang simmer day;\n      Lassies gae to him,\n      And kiss him, and woo him--\n      Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.'\n\nAn' muckle good cam' o't.  Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour,\ndisappointed auld carle.  But I tell ye nay.  I've got that's worth\nliving for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and\nthere's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I\nthink--I'm a great liar often mysel, especially when I'm praying.\"\n\n_Alton Locke_, chap. vii.\n\n\n\nTemptations of Temperament.  October 15.\n\n\nA man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too\nnotorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.\n\n_Sermons on David_.\n\nThe more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and\nearnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go\nastray.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nEgotism of Melancholy.  October 16.\n\n\nMorbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind.  The\nself-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, must\nbe dissatisfied with what it sees within.  Then it begins unconsciously\nto flatter itself with the idea that it is not the \"_moi_\" but the \"_non\nmoi_,\" the world around, which is evil.  Hence comes Manichaeism,\nAsceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to look\nfor sorrow that it finds it even in joy--because it will not confess to\nitself that sorrow belongs to _sin_, and that sin belongs to _self_; and\ntherefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God's earth, and not on itself\nin repentance and humiliation.\n\nThe world looks dark.  Shall we therefore be dark too?  Is it not our\nbusiness to bring it back to light and joy?\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nPoetry of Doubt.  October 17.\n\n\nThe \"poetry of doubt\" of these days, however pretty, would stand us in\nlittle stead if we were threatened by a second Armada.\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1859.\n\n\n\nWork of the Physician.  October 18.\n\n\nThe question which is forcing itself more and more on the minds of\nscientific men is not how many diseases _are_, but how few are _not_, the\nconsequences of men's ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence.  The\nmedical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in\nsickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of\nthe social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the\nfirst object of his science to be prevention, and not cure.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nLove Many-sided.  October 19.\n\n\nThere are many sides to love--admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity,\naffection; they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of\nlove--the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in a\nway but habitually.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nThe only Path to Light.  October 20.\n\n\nThe path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock of Ages,\nis the simple path of honest self-knowledge, self-renunciation,\nself-restraint, in which every upward step towards right exposes some\nfresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed down\nby the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child once\nmore, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him.  And\nthen there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill into\nclumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on which\nhe treads, or than the foot which treads it--the vision of an Everlasting\nSpiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and\nwho, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance\nendure likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death,\nmatter and space and time, should melt indeed--\n\n   And like the baseless fabric of a vision,\n   Leave not a rack behind.\n\n_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_.  1854.\n\n\n\nProverbs False and True.  October 21.\n\n\nThere is no falser proverb than that devil's beatitude, \"Blessed is he\nwho expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.\"  Say rather,\n\"Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at\nleast, and if it falls out true, twice also.\"\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1857.\n\n\n\nTrue Sisters of Mercy.  October 22.\n\n\nAh! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as \"old maids,\" if\nyou pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that is\nyearning to spend itself on children of your own.  As long as such as you\nwalk this lower world one needs no Butler's _Analogy_ to prove to us that\nthere is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a fairer\n(I dare not say a juster) portion.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxv.  1856.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Fire.  October 23.\n\n\nWell spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life's turmoil,\n\"Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see:\nGod's love with keen flame purges, like the lightning flash,\nGold which is purest, purer still must be.\"\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene i.\n1847.\n\n\n\nThe Cross a Token.  October 24.\n\n\nHave patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of\nChrist's Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor of the _soul_ and\n_reason_, as well as of the _heart_.  For, however ill the world may go,\nor seem to go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the\nworld that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for\nit.  Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is sure--that good must\nconquer, because God is good, that evil must perish, because God hates\nevil, even to the death.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nThe True Self-Sacrifice.  October 25.\n\n\nWhat can a man do more than _die_ for his countrymen?\n\n_Live_ for them.  It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and\na nobler one.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix.  1856.\n\n\n\nNow as Then.  October 26.\n\n\nMen can be as original now as ever, if they had but the courage, even the\ninsight.  Heroic souls in old times had no more opportunities than we\nhave; but they used them.  There were daring deeds to be done then--are\nthere none now?  Sacrifices to be made--are there none now?  Wrongs to be\nredrest--are there none now?  Let any one set his heart in these days to\ndo what is right, and nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow\nis stamped with all that goes to make up the heroical expression--with\nnoble indignation, noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows;\nperhaps even with the print of the martyr's crown of thorns.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. vii.  1856.\n\n\n\nOne Anchor.  October 27.\n\n\nIn such a world as this, with such ugly possibilities hanging over us\nall, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is utter trust in\nGod; let us keep that, and we may yet get to our graves without _misery_\nthough not without _sorrow_.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1871.\n\n\n\nSelf-Control.  October 28.\n\n\nSettle it in your minds, young people, that the first and the last of all\nvirtues and graces which God can give is Self-Control, as necessary for\nthe saint and the sage lest they become fanatics and pedants, as for the\nyoung in the hey-day of youth and health.\n\n_Sermons on David_.  1866.\n\n\n\nNature's Permanence.  October 29.\n\n\nWe abolish many things, good and evil, wisely and foolishly, in these\nfast-going times; but, happily for us, we cannot abolish the blue sky,\nand the green sea, and the white foam, and the everlasting hills, and the\nrivers which flow out of their bosoms.  They will abolish themselves when\ntheir work is done, but not before.  And we, who, with all our boasted\nscientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and carnal\npoint of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic animals burrowing\nin the fair Earth's skin, had better, instead of boasting of our empire\nover Nature, take care lest we become too troublesome to Nature, by\ncreating, in our haste and greed, too many great black countries, and too\nmany great dirty warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled with\nsavages and imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so far\nfrom allowing us to abolish her, will by her inexorable laws abolish us.\n\n_MS. Presidential Address_.  1871.\n\n\n\nThe Only Refuge.  October 30.\n\n\nPrayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the witches and\nthe fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortal\nbrain.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix.  1856.\n\n\n\nEngland's Forgotten Worthies.  October 31.\n\n\nAmong the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and glory\naround them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty,\nheroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about what\nthey saw in an \"artistic\" or \"critical\" point of view as in a scientific\none. . . .  They gave God thanks and were not astonished.  God was great:\nbut that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics.\n\nNoble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superstition enough\nabout them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasm\nwhich is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism!  We do not\ntrust enough in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to be\nready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, for\nanything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is\ndiscovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to\nourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a feeling--true index,\nforsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind!!\n\nSmile if you will: but those were days (and there never were less\nsuperstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, and\nwere not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and\nprovidence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in\nour covert atheism, term \"secular and carnal.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xxiii.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nOCTOBER 18.\nSt. Luke, Physician and Evangelist.\n\n\nIt is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in\nthat.  And the physician has set his mind to do one thing--to hate\ncalmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight\nagainst them to the end.  In his exclusive care for the body the\nphysician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for\nthe Bible, for immortality.  Is he not witnessing for God when he shows\nby his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; of\nhealth, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength,\nnot of misery and weakness?  Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like\nChrist, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and\nattacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of\nman?\n\n\"_Water of Life_,\" _and other Sermons_.\n\n\nOCTOBER 28.\nSt. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs.\n\n\nHe that loseth his life shall save it.  The end and aim of our life is\nnot happiness but goodness.  If goodness comes first, then happiness may\ncome after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even\nblessedness.\n\nOh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross.  There hung your King!\nThe King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows.  Ay, pain and\ngrief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell,--He has faced them one and\nall, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them\nright royally.  And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is\ndivine,--godlike, as joy itself.  All that man's fallen nature dreads and\ndespises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and\nconsecrated for ever. . . .  And now--Blessed are tears and shame,\nblessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown\nrealms where souls await the Resurrection-day.\n\n_National Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nNovember.\n\n\n\"The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray.  All\nNature is like the grief of manhood in its soft and thoughtful sternness.\nShall I lend myself to its influence, and as the heaven settles down into\none misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in\na cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep?  Why not? for am I not\n'a part of all I see'?  And even now, in fasting and mortification, am I\nnot sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastisement?  But shall I\nthen despond and die?\n\n\"No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and thy God!  We may\nweep, Mother Earth, but we have Faith--faith which tells us that above\nthe cloudy sky the bright clear sun is shining, and will shine.  And we\nhave Hope, Mother Earth--hope, that as bright days have been, so bright\ndays soon shall be once more!  And we have Charity, Mother Earth, and by\nit we can love all tender things--ay, and all rugged rocks and dreary\nmoors, for the sake of the glow which _has_ gilded them, and the\nfertility which will spring even from their sorrow.  We will smile\nthrough our tears, Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken!  We have still\nlight and heat, and till we can bear the sunshine we will glory in the\nshade!\"\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\n\n\nSympathy of the Dead.  November 1.\n\n\nBelieve that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if (as\nI surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those\nwhom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain.  Their sympathy is a\nfurther education for them, and a pledge, too, of help--I believe of\nfinal deliverance--for those on whom they look down in love.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1852.\n\n\n\nNature's Parable.  November 2.\n\n\nThere is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a God's meaning\ntoo.  As I read nature's parable to-night I find nothing in it but hope.\nWhat if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there\nseem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing and\nfeeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom\nthere below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the power\nof light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is stirred.\n\n_Prose Idylls_.  1849.\n\n\n\nPassing Onward.  November 3.\n\n\nLiturgies are but temporary expressions of the Church's heart.  The Bible\nis the immutable story of her husband's love.  _She_ must go on from\ngrace to grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancient\nmelodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the same for\never.\n\n_MS._  1842.\n\nSee how the autumn leaves float by decaying,\n   Down the wild swirls of the dark-brimming stream;\nSo fleet the works of men back to their earth again--\n   Ancient and holy things pass like a dream.\n\n_A Parable_.  1848.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Intention.  November 4.\n\n\nI am superstitious enough, thank God, to believe that not a stone or a\nhandful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of God; that it\nwas ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold\nshould be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man\nmight find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life.\n\n_Science Lectures_.\n\n\n\nChrist Weeping over Jerusalem.  November 5.\n\n\nThat which is true of nations is true of individuals, of each separate\nhuman brother of the Son of man.  Is there one young life ruined by its\nown folly--one young heart broken by its own wilfulness--or one older\nlife fast losing the finer instincts, the nobler aims of youth, in the\nrestlessness of covetousness, of fashion, of ambition?  Is there one such\npoor soul over whom Christ does not grieve?  One to whom, at some supreme\ncrisis of their lives, He does not whisper--\"Ah, beautiful organism--thou\ntoo art a thought of God--thou too, if thou wert but in harmony with\nthyself and God, a microcosmic _City of God_!  Ah! that thou hadst\nknown--even thou--at least in this thy day--the things which belong to\nthy peace\"?\n\n_MS. Sermon_.  1874.\n\n\n\nLove Expansive.  November 6.\n\n\nThe mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because our whole\nlove should be given to God.  But as flame increases by being applied to\nmany objects, so does love.  He who loves God most loves God's creatures\nmost, and them for God's sake, and God for their sake.\n\n_MS. Note-book_.  1843.\n\n\n\nStill the same.  November 7.\n\n\nThose who die in the fear of God and in the faith of Christ do not really\ntaste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a\nchange of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their\npowers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking,\nactive beings which they were here on earth.  I say active.  Rest they\nmay, rest they will, if they need rest.  But what is true rest?  Not\nidleness, but peace of mind.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.  1862.\n\n\n\nAn absolutely Good God.  November 8.\n\n\nFix in your minds--or rather ask God to fix in your minds--this one idea\nof an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which you\nrespect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man,\nunderstand the plain word good.  Slowly you will acquire that grand and\nall-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who is\nmortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the\ninfinitely good God!  But see, then, whether, in the light of that one\nidea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relation of God to\nman--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the\nIncarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God--do not\nseem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, and\nlogical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of an\nAbsolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the universe?\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1873.\n\n\n\nNature's Lesson.  November 9.\n\n\nLearn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do not let them\nmould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to make\nyou melancholy, you worship the creature more than the Creator.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nMorals and Mind.  November 10.\n\n\nNot upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human welfare founded.\nThe true subjective history of man is not the history of his thought, but\nof his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of his\ninventions, but of his vices and his virtues.  So far from morals\ndepending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals.  In\nproportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice is\ndone between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely,\ntriumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfully\nobeyed, to the welfare of the whole common weal.\n\n_Inaugural Lecture_, _Cambridge_.  1860.\n\n\n\nFastidiousness.  November 11.\n\n\nDo not let us provoke God (though that is _really_ impossible) by\ncomplaining of His gifts because they do not come just in the form _we_\nshould have wished. . . .\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1844.\n\n\n\nUnconscious Faith.  November 12.\n\n\nFor the rest, Amyas never thought about thinking or felt about feeling;\nand had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother,\ngetting by honest means the maximum of \"red quarrenders\" and mazard\ncherries, and going to sea when he was big enough.  Neither was he what\nwould be nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said his\nCreed and Lord's Prayer night and morning, and went to service at the\nchurch every forenoon, and read the day's Psalms with his mother every\nevening, and had learnt from her and his father that it was infinitely\nnoble to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothing\nmore of theology or of his own soul than is contained in the Church\nCatechism.\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. i.  1855.\n\n\n\nSilence.  November 13.\n\n\nThere are silences more pathetic than all words.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nThe Nineteenth Century.  November 14.\n\n\n. . . What so maddening as the new motion of our age--the rush of the\nexpress train, when the live iron pants and leaps and roars through the\nlong chalk cutting, and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky\nand vanish; and rocks and grass and bushes fleet by in dim blended lines;\nand the long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far\nbelow meadows and streams and homesteads, with all their lazy old-world\nlife, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awestruck, silent,\nchoked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are swept on\nby that great pulse of England's life-blood rushing down her iron veins;\nand dimly out of the future looms the fulfilment of our primeval mission\nto conquer and subdue the earth, and space too, and time, and all\nthings--even hardest of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers; ever\nlearning some fresh lesson, except the hardest one of all, that it is the\nSpirit of God which giveth you understanding?\n\nYes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange you,\nwith all your sins, for any other time?  For swiftly as rushes matter,\nmore swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the heavenly dawn up\nthe eastern sky.  \"The night is far spent, the day is at hand.\"  \"Blessed\nis the servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching.\"\n\n_Prose Idylls_.\n\n\n\nUnreality.  November 15.\n\n\nThose who have had no real sorrows can afford to play with imaginary\nones.\n\n_MS._\n\n\n\nThe indwelling Light.  November 16.\n\n\nThe doctrine of Christ in every man, as the indwelling Word of God, the\nLight who lights every one who comes into the world, is no peculiar tenet\nof the Quakers, but one which runs through the whole of the Old and New\nTestaments, and without which they would both be unintelligible, just as\nthe same doctrine runs through the whole history of the Early Church for\nthe first two centuries, and is the only explanation of them.\n\n_Theologica Germanica_.  1854.\n\n\n\nWoman's Calling.  November 17.\n\n\nWhat surely is a woman's calling but to teach man? and to teach him what?\nTo temper his fiercer, coarser, more self-assertive nature by the contact\nof her gentleness, purity, self-sacrifice.  To make him see that not by\nblare of trumpets, not by noise, wrath, greed, ambition, intrigue,\npuffery, is good and lasting work to be done on earth; but by wise self-\ndistrust, by silent labour, by lofty self-control, by that charity which\nhopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things; by such an\nexample, in short, as women now in tens of thousands set to those around\nthem; such as they will show more and more, the more their whole\nwomanhood is educated to employ its powers without waste and without\nhaste in harmonious unity.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nWaste.  November 18.\n\n\nThrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions--how are they wasted in these\ndays in reading sensation novels! while British literature--all that the\nbest hearts and intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--is\nneglected for light fiction, the reading of which is the worst form of\nintemperance--dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual and moral.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.\n\n\n\nTrue Penance.  November 19.\n\n\n\"Senor,\" said Brimblecombe, \"the best way to punish oneself for doing ill\nseems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether God\nmeans you well is to find out whether He will help you to do well.\"\n\n_Westward Ho_! chap. xxv.\n\n\n\nPolitical Economy of the Future.  November 20.\n\n\nI can conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, every foul\nvapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting the\nair, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised, converted into\nsome profitable substance, till the black country shall be black no\nlonger, the streams once more crystal clear, the trees once more\nluxuriant, and the desert, which man has created in his haste and greed,\nshall in literal fact once more blossom as the rose.  And just so can I\nconceive a time when by a higher civilisation, formed on a political\neconomy more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will\nof God, our human refuse shall be utilised like our material refuse; when\nman as man, down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be found (as he\nreally is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve his\nhealth, to develop his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect,\nand character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after\nall, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and that no cost\nspent on the development of human beings can possibly be thrown away.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1870.\n\n\n\nGod's Pleasure.  November 21.\n\n\nThe world was not made for man: but man, like all the world, was made for\nGod.  Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God's\npleasure all things are, and for God's pleasure they were, created.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1869.\n\n\n\nThe Hospital Nurse.  November 22.\n\n\nFearless, uncomplaining, she \"trusted in God and made no haste.\"  She did\nher work and read her Bible; and read, too, again and again at stolen\nmoments of rest, a book which was to her as the finding of an unknown\nsister--Longfellow's \"Evangeline.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii.\n\nLet us learn to look on hospitals not as acts of charity, supererogatory\nbenevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe nothing, but as\nconfessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence; as poor and late and\npartial compensation for misery which _we_ might have prevented.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1851.\n\n\n\nNo Work Lost.  November 23.\n\n\nIf you lose heart about your work, remember that none of it is\n_lost_--that the good of every good deed remains and breeds and works on\nfor ever, and that all that fails and is lost is the outside shell of the\nthing, which, perhaps, might have been better done; but better or worse\nhas nothing to do with the real spiritual good which you have done to\nmen's hearts.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1862.\n\n\n\nTrue Temperance.  November 24.\n\n\nWhat we all want is inward rest; rest of heart and brain; the calm,\nstrong, self-contained, self-denying character, which needs no\nstimulants, for it has no fits of depression; which needs no narcotics,\nfor it has no fits of excitement; which needs no ascetic restraints, for\nit is strong enough to use God's gifts without abusing them; the\ncharacter, in a word, which is truly temperate, not in drink and food\nmerely, but in all desires, thoughts, and actions.\n\n_Essays_.  1873.\n\n\n\nA Present Veil.  November 25.\n\n\nWhat is there in this world worth having without religion?  Do you not\nfeel that true religion, even in its most imperfect stage, is not merely\nan escape from hell after death but the only _real state_ for a man--the\nonly position to live in in this world--the only frame of mind which will\ngive anything like happiness here.  I cannot help feeling at moments--if\nthere were _no Christ_, everything, even the very flowers and insects,\nand every beautiful object, would be hell _now_--dark, blank, hopeless.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1843.\n\n\n\nCowardice.  November 26.\n\n\nThere is but one thing which you have to fear in earth or heaven--being\nuntrue to your better selves, and therefore untrue to God.  If you will\nnot do the thing you know to be right, and say the thing you know to be\ntrue, then indeed you are weak.  You are a coward; you desert God.\n\n_True Words for Brave Men_.\n\n\n\nBlind Faith.  November 27.\n\n\nIn Him--\"The Father\"--I can trust, in spite of the horrible things I see\nhappen, in spite of the fact that my own prayers are not answered.  I\nbelieve that He makes all things work together for the good of the human\nrace, and of me among the rest, as long as I obey His will.  I believe He\nwill answer my prayer, not according to the letter, but according to the\nspirit of it; that if I desire good, I shall find good, though not _the_\ngood I longed for.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1862.\n\n\n\nSmall and Great.  November 28.\n\n\nBegin with small things--you cannot enter into the presence of another\nhuman being without finding there more to do than you or I or any soul\nwill ever learn to do perfectly before we die.  Let us be content to do\nlittle if God sets us little tasks.  It is but pride and self-will which\nsays, \"Give me something huge to fight and I shall enjoy that--but why\nmake me sweep the dust?\"\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1854.\n\n\n\nTrue and False.  November 29.\n\n\nWe must remember that dissatisfaction at existing evil (the feeling of\nall young and ardent minds), the struggle to escape from the\n\"circumstance\" of the evil world, has a carnal counterfeit--the love of\nnovelty, and self-will, and self-conceit, which may thrust us down into\nthe abysses of misrule and uncertainty; as it has done such men as\nShelley and Byron; trying vainly every loophole, beating against the\nprison bars of an imperfect system; neither degraded enough to make\nthemselves a fool's paradise within it, nor wise enough to escape from it\nthrough Christ, \"the door into the sheepfold,\" to return when they will,\nand bring others with them into the serene empyrean of spiritual\ntruth--truth which explains, and arranges, and hallows, and subdues\neverything.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1842.\n\n\n\nThe Mind of Christ.  November 30.\n\n\nHow can we attain to the blessed and noble state of mind--the mind of\nChrist, who must needs be about His Father's business, which is doing\ngood?  Only by prayer and practice.  There is no more use in praying\nwithout practising than there is in practising without praying.  You\ncannot learn to walk without walking; no more can you learn to do good\nwithout trying to do good.\n\n_Sermons for the Times_.  1855.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nNOVEMBER 1.\nAll Saints' Day.\nCommemoration of the Blessed Dead.\n\n\n\"If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour,\" said the Blessed One.\nAnd if God honours His servants, shall not we honour them likewise?  We\nmay not, as our forefathers did blindly, though lovingly, worship them as\nmediators and lesser gods, and pray to them instead of to their Father in\nheaven to whose throne of grace we may all come boldly through Christ\nJesus, or believe that their relics will work miracles in our behalf,\nthus honouring the creature instead of the Creator.  This we may not do,\nbut we may honour the Creator in His creature, and honour God in those\nwho have lived godly and God-like lives; and when they have passed away\nfrom among us--souls endued by God with manifold virtues and precious\ngifts of grace--we may give thanks and say, These, O God, are the fruits\nof Thy Spirit.  Thou honourest them in heaven with Thy approving smile.\nWe will honour them on earth, not merely with our lips, but in our lives.\nWhat they were we too might be, if we were as true as they to the\ninspiration of Thy Spirit.  Help us to honour their memories, as Thou and\nthey would have us do, by following their example; by setting them before\nus, and not only them, but every holy and noble personage of whom we have\never heard, as dim likenesses of Christ--even as Christ is the likeness\nof Thee.  Amen.\n\n_MS. Sermon_.\n\n\nNOVEMBER 30.\nSt. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nForm your own notions about angels and saints in heaven--as you will, . .\n. but bear this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the\neverlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, and\nof good works.  The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life,\nspent only in individual happiness.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.\n\n\n\n\nDecember.\n\n\nIt chanced upon the merry, merry Christmas eve,\n   I went sighing past the Church across the moorland dreary:\n\"Oh! never sin and want and woe this earth will leave,\n   And the bells but mock the wailing sound, they sing so cheery.\nHow long, O Lord! how long before Thou come again?\n   Still in cellar and in garret, and on moorland dreary,\nThe orphans moan, and widows weep, and poor men toil in vain:\n   Till earth is sick of hope deferred, though Christmas bells be\ncheery.\"\n\nThen arose a joyous clamour from the wild-fowl on the mere,\n   Beneath the stars across the snow, like clear bells ringing,\nAnd a voice within cried, \"Listen!  Christmas carols even here!\n   Though thou be dumb, yet o'er their work the stars and snows are\nsinging.\nBlind!  I live, I love, I reign, and all the nations through\n   With the thunder of my judgments even now are ringing;\nDo thou fulfil thy work but as yon wild-fowl do,\n   Thou wilt heed no less the wailing, yet hear through it the angels'\nsinging.\"\n\n_A Christmas Carol_.\n\n\n\nThe Final Victory.  December 1.\n\n\nI believe that the ancient creed, the eternal gospel, will stand and\nconquer, and prove its might in this age, as it has in every other for\neighteen hundred years, by claiming and subduing and organising those\nyoung anarchic forces which now, unconscious of their parentage, rebel\nagainst Him to whom they owe their being.\n\n_Yeast_, Preface.  1851.\n\n\n\nDrifting away.  December 2.\n\n\n   They drift away--Ah, God! they drift for ever.\n   . . . . . .\n   I watch them drift--the old familiar faces,\n   Till ghosts, not men, fill old beloved places.\n   . . . . . .\n   Shores, landmarks, beacons drift alike.\n   Yet overhead the boundless arch of heaven\n   Still fades to night, still blazes into day.\nAh, God!  My God!  _Thou_ wilt not drift away!\n\n_A Fragment_.  1867.\n\n\n\nOur Father.  December 3.\n\n\nTake your sorrows not to man, but to your Father in heaven.  If that\nname, Father, mean anything, it must mean that He will not turn away from\nHis wandering child in a way in which you would be ashamed to turn away\nfrom yours.  If there be pity, lasting affection, patience in _man_, they\nmust have come from Him.  They, above all things, must be His likeness.\nBelieve that God possesses them a million times more fully than any human\nbeing.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.\n\n\n\nCircumstance.  December 4.\n\n\nOur wanton accidents take root, and grow\nTo vaunt themselves God's laws, until our clothes,\nOur gems, and gaudy books, and cushioned litters\nBecome ourselves, and we would fain forget\nThere live who need them not.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.\n1847.\n\n\n\nDuty.  December 5.\n\n\nWhen a man has once said _honestly_ to himself, \"It is my duty;\" when\nthat glorious heavenly thought has risen upon his soul, like the sun upon\nthe earth, warming his heart and enlightening it, and making it bring\nforth all good and noble fruits, then that man will feel a strength come\nto him and a courage come from God which will conquer all his fears, his\nselfish love of ease and pleasure, and enable him to bear pain and\npoverty and death itself, provided he can do what is right, and be found\nby God working His will where He has put him.\n\n_Sermons_.\n\n\n\nHumanity and the Bible.  December 6.\n\n\nHe who has an intense perception of humanity must know that Christianity\nis divine, because it is the only religion which has a perfect perception\nof human relations, wants, and feelings.  None but He who made the heart\ncould have written the Bible.\n\n_MS. Note-book_.  1843.\n\n\n\nMusic.  December 7.\n\n\nThere is music in heaven, because in music there is no self-will.  Music\ngoes on certain laws and rules.  Man did not make those laws of music, he\nhas only found them out, and if he be self-willed and break them, there\nis an end of his music instantly; all he brings out is discord and ugly\nsounds.\n\nMusic is fit for heaven.  Music is a pattern and type of heaven, and of\nthe everlasting life of God which perfect spirits live in heaven; a life\nof melody and order in themselves; a life of harmony with each other and\nwith God.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nWaiting.  December 8.\n\n\nAy--stay awhile in peace.  The storms are still.\nBeneath her eider robe the patient earth\nWatches in silence for the sun: we'll sit\nAnd gaze up with her at the changeless heaven,\nUntil this tyranny be overpast.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iii. Scene iii.\n1847.\n\n\n\nTrue or False Toleration?  December 9.\n\n\n\"One thing at least I have learnt,\" he said, \"in all my experiments on\npoor humanity--never to see a man do a wrong thing without feeling I\ncould do the same in his place.  I used to pride myself on that once,\nfool that I was, and call it comprehensiveness.  I used to make it an\nexcuse for sitting by and seeing the devil have it all his own way, and\ncall that toleration.  I will see now whether I cannot turn the said\nknowledge to a better account, as common sense, patience, and charity,\nand yet do work of which neither I nor my country need be ashamed.\"\n\n_Two Years Ago_, chap. xxiii.  1856.\n\n\n\nSuccess and Defeat.  December 10.\n\n\nIn many things success at first is dangerous, and _defeat_ an excellent\nmedicine for testing people's honesty--for setting them honestly to work\nto see what they want, and what are the best modes of attaining it.  Our\nsound thrashing, as a nation, in the first French war was the making of\nour armies; and it is good for an idea, as well as for a man, to bear the\nyoke in his youth.\n\n_Lectures on Ancien Regime_.  1867.\n\n\n\nPassing Emotions.  December 11.\n\n\nBeware of depending on your own _emotions_, which are often but the\nfallings and risings of the frail flesh, and mistaking them for spiritual\nfeelings and affections!\n\n* * * * *\n\nThink less of what you _feel_--even of trying _to be_ anything.  Look out\nof yourself at God.  Pray and praise, and God will give you His Spirit\noften when you feel most dull.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nChrist's Church.  December 12.\n\n\n. . . What a thought it is that there is a God! a Father, a King! a\nHusband not of individuals, that is a Popish fancy, which the Puritans\nhave adopted--but of the Church--of collective humanity.  Let us be\ncontent to be members; let us be, if we may, the feet, lowest, hardest\nworked, trodden on, bleeding, brought into harshest contact with the evil\nworld!  Still we are members of Christ's Church! . . .\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1843.\n\n\n\nConfound me not.  December 13.\n\n\nHave charity, have patience, have mercy.  Never bring a human being,\nhowever silly, ignorant, or weak, above all, any little child, to shame\nand confusion of face.  Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule,\neven by selfish and silly haste, never, above all, by indulging in the\ndevilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is\ncoarsest in the heart of any fellow-creature.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1872.\n\n\n\nThe Divine Hunger and Thirst.  December 14.\n\n\nGod grant us to be among \"those who really hunger and thirst after\nrighteousness,\" and who therefore long to know what righteousness is,\nthat they may copy it--those who long to be freed not merely from the\npunishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they live on\nearth, and who therefore wish to know what sin is that they may avoid it.\n\n_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_.  1854.\n\n\n\nReligion or Godliness?  December 15.\n\n\nThis is the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean, as it\nused, the service of God--the being like God and showing forth God's\nglory.  No, religion means nowadays the art of getting to heaven when we\ndie, and saving our own miserable souls, and getting God's wages without\ndoing God's work--as if that was godliness, as if that was anything but\nselfishness, as if selfishness was any the better for being everlasting\nselfishness!\n\n_Village Sermons_.  1849.\n\n\n\nChrist's Coming.  December 16.\n\n\nChrist may come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that still\nsmall voice--so sweet and yet so keen, \"Understand those who\nmisunderstand thee.  Be fair to those who are unfair to thee.  Be just\nand merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate.  Forgive and thou\nshalt be forgiven.\"  He comes to us surely, when we are selfish and\nluxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, \"If you do\ngood to one of these, my brethren, you do it unto Me.\"\n\n_Last Sermon_.  _MS._  1874.\n\n\n\nGod's Nature.  December 17.\n\n\nWhen will men open their eyes to the plain axiom that nothing is\nimpossible with God, save that He should transgress His own nature by\nbeing unjust and unloving?\n\n_Preface to Tauler_.  1854.\n\n\n\nEducators of Men.  December 18.\n\n\nThere are those who consider--and I agree with them--that the education\nof boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted, as much as\npossible, to women.  Let me ask--of what period of youth and manhood does\nit not hold true?  I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who\nfancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women.  I\nshould have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in the\nhighest sense, the educator of man, from infancy to old age; that that\nwas the work towards which all the God-given capacities of women pointed.\n\n_Lecture on Thrift_.  1869.\n\n\n\nThe Earthly Body.  December 19.\n\n\nLet us remember that if the body does feel a burden now (as it must at\nmoments), what a happiness it is to have a body at all: how lonely, cold,\nbarren, would it be to be a \"disembodied spirit.\"  As St. Paul says, \"Not\nthat we desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon\"--to have a\nspiritual, deathless, griefless life instilled into the body.\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1842.\n\n\n\nHome at Last.  December 20.\n\n\nWhen all the world is old, lad,\n   And all the trees are brown,\nAnd all the sport is stale, lad,\n   And all the wheels run down;\nCreep home and take your place there,\n   The spent and maimed among:\nGod grant you find one face there\n   You loved when all was young.\n\n_The Water Babies_.  1862.\n\n\n\nThe Bible.  December 21.\n\n\nThe hearts and minds of the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the truly\nhuman, all demand a living God who has revealed Himself in living acts; a\nGod who has taught mankind by facts, not left them to discover Him by\ntheories and sentiments; a Judge, a Father, a Saviour, an Inspirer; in a\nword, their hearts demand the historic truth of the Bible--of the Old\nTestament no less than the New.\n\n_Sermons on Pentateuch_.  1863.\n\n\n\nShaking of Heaven and Earth.  December 22.\n\n\n\"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but heaven\" (Hebrews xii. 26-\n29).  This is one of the royal texts of Scripture.  It declares one of\nthose great laws of the kingdom of God which may fulfil itself once and\nagain at many eras and by many methods; which fulfilled itself most\ngloriously in the first century after Christ; again in the fifth century;\nagain at the time of the Crusades; and again at the great Reformation in\nthe sixteenth century,--and is fulfilling itself again at this very day.\n\n_Westminster Sermons_.  1872.\n\n\n\nSelf-Respect the Voice of God.  December 23.\n\n\nNever hurt any one's self-respect.  Never trample on any soul, though it\nmay be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is\nas its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better\nlife; the voice of God which still whispers to it, \"You are not what you\nought to be, and you are not what you can be.  You are still God's child,\nstill an immortal soul.  You may rise yet, and fight a good fight yet,\nand conquer yet, and be a man yet, after the likeness of God who made\nyou, and Christ who died for you.\"  Oh! why crush that voice in any\nheart?  If you do the poor creature is lost, and lies where he or she\nfalls, and never tries to rise again.\n\n_Good News of God Sermons_.  1859.\n\n\n\nChristmas Eve.  December 24.\n\n\nWe will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed Christmas-tide.\nHe lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well; for we are His and He is\nours.\n\n_Two Years Ago_, Introduction.  1856.\n\n\n\nThe Miracle of Christmas Night.  December 25.\n\n\nAfter the crowning miracle of this most blessed night all miracles are\npossible.  The miracle of Christmas night was possible because God's love\nwas absolute, infinite, unconquerable, able to condescend to anything\nthat good might be done. . . .  This Christmas night is the one of all\nthe year which sets a physicist on facing the fact of miracle, and which\ndelivers him from the bonds of sense and custom by reminding him of God\nmade Man.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1858.\n\n\n\nRedemption.  December 26.\n\n\nAll things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin, are\nredeemed by the life and death of the Son of God.  Blessed are wisdom and\ncourage, joy and health and beauty, love and marriage, childhood and\nmanhood, corn and wine, fruit and flowers, for Christ redeemed them by\nHis life. . . .  Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where\nsouls await the Resurrection Day, for Christ redeemed them by His death.\nBlessed are all days, dark as well as bright, for all are His, and He is\nours; and all are ours, and we are His for ever.\n\n_National Sermons_.  1848.\n\n\n\nFellow-workers with Christ.  December 27.\n\n\nTo abolish the superstition, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this\nworld.  That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all\nenemies under His feet.  That is what Christ has been doing, step by\nstep, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on\nearth in great humility.  Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our\nplace and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him\nin the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the\nbattle against evil.\n\n_All Saints' Day Sermons_.  1867.\n\n\n\nThe bright Pathway.  December 28.\n\n\nThere is a healthy ferment of mind in which one struggles through chaos\nand darkness, by means of a few clues and threads of light--and--of one\ngreat bright pathway, which I find more and more to be _the_ only escape\nfrom infinite confusion and aberration, _the_ only explanation of a\nthousand human mysteries--I mean the Incarnation of our Lord--the fact\nthat there really is--a God-Man!\n\n_MS. Letter_.  1844.\n\n\n\nNew Worship.  December 29.\n\n\nBlessed, thrice blessed, is it to find that hero-worship is not yet\npassed away! that the heart of man still beats young and fresh; that the\nold tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Socrates and\nAlcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of love \"passing the\nlove of woman,\" ennobled by its own humility, deeper than death and\nmightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one heart\nhere and there, to show man still how, sooner or later, \"he that loveth\nknoweth God, for God is love.\"\n\n_Miscellanies_.  1850.\n\n\n\nLinks in the Chain.  December 30.\n\n\nThe heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future!  Oh, dreary\npresent!  But let us not repine.  What is dreary need not be barren.\nNothing need be barren to those who view all things in their real light,\nas links in the great chain of progression both for themselves and for\nthe Universe.  To us all Time should seem so full of life: every moment\nthe grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs in heaven and\nearth, and the mind of our God Himself--all things moving smoothly and\nsurely in spite of apparent checks and disappointments towards the\nappointed end.\n\n_Letters and Memories_.  1844.\n\n\n\nPast, Present, Future.  December 31.\n\n\nSurely as the years pass on they ought to have made us better, more\nuseful, more worthy.  We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of\nwhat ought to be done, but we may have gained more clear and practical\nnotions of what can be done.  We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet\ngained in earnestness.  We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in\ncharity, activity, and power.  We may be able to do far less, and yet\nwhat we do may be far better done.  And our very griefs and\ndisappointments--have they been useless to us?  Surely not.  We shall\nhave gained instead of lost by them if the Spirit of God has been working\nin us.  Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience\nexperience, and that experience hope--hope that He who has led us thus\nfar will lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former days\nprecious lessons--not only by sore temptations but most sacred joys--will\nteach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations, which we shall\nbe more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old\ntimes, are no less sacred, but sent as lessons to our souls by Him from\nwhom all good gifts come.\n\n_Water of Life Sermons_.\n\nOut of God's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through\nselfish, stormy youth, and contrite tears--just not too late; through\nmanhood, not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we\nreturn whence we came, to the bosom of God once more--to go forth again,\nit may be, with fresh knowledge and fresh powers, to nobler work.  Amen.\n\n_The Air Mothers_.  1869.\n\n\n\nSAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.\n\n\nDECEMBER 21.\nSt. Thomas, Apostle and Martyr.\n\n\nThe spirits of just men made perfect, freed from the fetters of the gross\nanimal body, and now somewhere in that boundless universe in which this\nearth is but a tiny speck, doing God's will as they longed to do it on\nearth, with clearer light, fuller faith, deeper love, mightier powers of\nusefulness!  Ah, that we were like unto them!\n\n_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_.\n\n\nDECEMBER 25.\nChristmas Day.\n\n\nThank God, that One was born, at this same time,\nWho did our work for us: we'll talk of Him:\nWe shall go mad with thinking of ourselves--\nWe'll talk of Him, and of that new-made star,\nWhich, as He stooped into the Virgin's side,\nFrom off His finger, like a signet-gem,\nHe dropped in the empyrean for a sign.\nBut the first tear He shed at this His birth-hour,\nWhen He crept weeping forth to see our woe,\nFled up to Heaven in mist, and hid for ever\nOur sins, our works, and that same new-made star.\n\n_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iv. Scene iv.\n\n\nDECEMBER 26.\nSt. Stephen, the Martyr.\n\n\nThese are the holy ones--the heroes of mankind, the elect, the\naristocracy of grace.  They are those who carry the palm branch of\ntriumph, who have come out of great tribulation, who have dared and\nfought and suffered for God and truth and right; who have resisted unto\nblood, striving against sin.  What should easy-going folk like you and me\ndo but place ourselves with all humility, if but for an hour, where we\ncan look afar off upon our betters, and see what they are like and what\nthey do.\n\n_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_.\n\n\nDECEMBER 27.\nSt. John, Apostle and Evangelist.\n\n\nAnd what do they do, these blessed beings?  They longed for, toiled for,\nit may be died for, the true, the beautiful, and the good; they entered\nwhile on earth into the mystery and glory of self-sacrifice, and now they\nfind their bliss in gazing on the one perfect and eternal sacrifice, and\nrejoicing in the thought that it is the cause and ground of the whole\nuniverse, even the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world.\n\n_All Saints' Day and other Sermons_.\n\n\nDECEMBER 28\nHoly Innocents' Day.\n\n\nChrist comes to us in many ways.  But most surely does Christ come to us,\nand often most happily, and most clearly does He speak to us--in the face\nof a little child, fresh out of heaven.  Ah, let us take heed that we\ndespise not one of these little ones, lest we despise our Lord Himself.\nFor as often as we enter into communion with little children, so often\ndoes Christ come to us.  So often, as in Judaea of old, does He take a\nlittle child and set him in the midst of us, that from its simplicity,\ndocility, and trust--the restless, the mutinous, and the ambitious may\nlearn the things which belong to their peace--so often does He say to us,\n\"Except ye be changed and become as this little child, ye shall in no\nwise enter into the kingdom of heaven.  Take my yoke upon you and learn\nof me.  For I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto\nyour souls.\"\n\n_MS. Last Sermon_,\n_Westminster Abbey_, _Nov._ 30, 1874.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\nABSENCE, 209\n\nAcorn, 223\n\nAction, 146, 167\n\nAffections, 79, 179, 217, 279\n\nAge, old, 63, 285\n\n--reverence for, 81\n\nAnarchy, 165\n\nAngels, 175, 217, 218, 219, 269\n\nAnger, God's loving, 195\n\nAnimals, dumb, 81, 181\n\nAntinomies, 159\n\nAnxiety, 211\n\nAristocracy, ideal, 167\n\nArt, 31, 71, 119, 141, 151\n\nAscension, 93, 123, 211\n\nAsceticism, 185, 189, 233, 263\n\nAscetic painters, 39\n\nAtonement, the, 83\n\nAttitude, language of, 155\n\nAugustine, St., 155\n\nAutumn, 51, 221\n\nBARBARISM, 109\n\nBeatific Vision, 73, 196, 295\n\nBeauty, 15, 39, 73, 101, 175, 196, 213\n\n--moral, 196, 213\n\n--spiritual, 159\n\nBible, the, 103, 141, 167, 249, 259, 275, 285\n\nBirds, 53, 77, 99, 101, 103, 125, 127, 137, 271\n\nBlessedness, 218, 245\n\nBody, sacredness of, 63, 67, 185, 229, 244, 285\n\n--the spiritual, 159\n\nBooks, 57, 85, 169, 259\n\nBook-learning, 151\n\nButler's Analogy, 237\n\nCALMNESS, 55, 263\n\nCharacter, 98, 175, 191\n\nCharity, 37, 281\n\nCheerfulness, 149, 223, 227\n\nChildhood and wonder, 179\n\nChildlikeness, 31, 183, 187, 235\n\nChildren, 48, 109, 295\n\nChivalry, 139, 153, 179, 181\n\nChrist-child, the, 48\n\nChrist's life, 45, 97, 267\n\n--Church, 121\n\n--compassion, 251\n\n--descent into hell, 98\n\n--resurrection, 95, 98, 211\n\n--the Word, 37, 127\n\nChristianity, Divine, 273\n\nChristmas, 271, 287, 289, 294\n\nChrysalis state, 171\n\nChurch, the, 75, 77, 121, 157\n\n--Catechism, 47, 255\n\nCivilisation, 105, 155, 261\n\nClergy, the, 215\n\nComing of Christ, 21, 23, 183, 283, 295\n\nCommunion of saints, 141, 193\n\n--Holy, 193\n\nContemplation, 87, 146\n\nContent, 59\n\nCourage, 275\n\nCowardice, 207, 265\n\nCreeds, the, 141, 151, 215, 273\n\nCritical spirit, 165, 203\n\nCross, the, 83, 96, 97, 122, 185, 189, 237, 245\n\nCrucifix, the, 123, 189\n\nCustom, 31\n\nCynicism, 191\n\nDARK days, 19, 201, 211, 233, 249, 289\n\nDay of the Lord, 3, 195\n\nDead, the blessed, 21, 49, 95, 139, 193, 249, 253, 289\n\n--prayers for, 24, 81\n\n--work of, 95, 139, 249\n\nDeath, 17, 113, 135, 253\n\n--sudden, 89\n\n--and hell, 7, 195\n\nDefeat, 279\n\nDignity, 137\n\nDiscontent, Divine, 165\n\nDisease, 233, 244\n\nDistrust, 165\n\nDoctrines, 157\n\nDoubt, poetry of, 233\n\nDrifting away, 273\n\nDuty, 5, 13, 65, 105, 129, 147, 165, 181, 201, 275\n\nDying, to live, 13, 55, 93, 97, 117, 217, 295\n\nEARNESTNESS, 35, 139, 293\n\nEarth, God's, 101, 149, 153, 247\n\nEarthly and heavenly, 179\n\nEaster, 93, 98\n\nEclecticism, 65\n\nEducation, 67\n\n--of character, 85\n\n--Divine, 91, 133, 135, 149, 209\n\n--self, 215\n\n--of boys, 283\n\n--after death, 171, 249\n\nEmotions, 5, 49, 79, 85, 179, 189, 203, 259, 279\n\nEnthusiasm, 35\n\nEpiphany, 24\n\nEternal life, 11, 43\n\nEternity, 43, 69, 167\n\nEucharist, the, 21, 65, 185\n\nExcitement, 79, 163\n\nFACTS of life, 103, 113, 207, 285\n\nFailure, 143\n\nFaith, 11, 59, 85, 127, 163, 191, 199, 227, 229\n\nFasting, 49\n\nFatherhood of God, 103, 107, 115, 133, 135, 149, 181, 223, 265, 273\n\nFear, 137, 265, 275\n\nFellowship of sorrow, 109, 111, 279\n\nFire of God, 195\n\n--cleansing, 195, 225, 237\n\nFlesh and spirit, 189\n\nFlowers, 15, 99, 101, 105, 127, 151, 221\n\nFool's paradise, 111, 267\n\nForgiveness, 169\n\nForward, 3\n\nFrancis, St., 103\n\nFriendship, 19, 61, 291\n\nFuture, the, 129, 195\n\n--identity, 19, 253\n\n--life, 57, 65, 71, 81, 113, 171, 237, 253, 293\n\nGENIUS, 105, 175, 215\n\nGifts, 83, 111, 129\n\nGilbert, Sir Humphrey, 203\n\nGod, the Living, 7, 101, 103, 111, 133, 193, 243, 285\n\n--the Ideal, 73\n\n--an indulgent, 15\n\n--of Nature, 103, 131, 151, 183\n\nGod's character, 33, 87, 111, 181, 195, 253, 273, 283\n\n--countenance, 131\n\nGodliness, 91, 281\n\nGood, the eternal, 35, 171, 253\n\nGood in all, 9, 287\n\nGood deeds, 187, 263\n\nGood Friday, 93, 97\n\nGoodness, 5, 105, 113, 199, 245\n\nGratitude, 89\n\nGreeks, the old, 67, 107, 133, 155, 229\n\nHAPPINESS, 29, 59, 245, 265\n\nHarmony, 5, 67, 83, 127, 161, 277\n\nHearts and streams, 119, 197\n\nHeaven, 109, 167\n\nHell, 96, 98, 109, 195, 265\n\n--keys of, 7\n\n--a present, 43\n\nHero worship, 291\n\nHeroism, 41, 61, 71, 207, 239, 294\n\nHistory, philosophy of, 63\n\nHope, 39, 111, 145, 149, 237, 247\n\nHospitals, 263\n\nHumanity, 275\n\nHumility, 13, 41, 169, 193\n\nI AM I, 55, 89, 185, 199\n\nIdeal, the, 63, 73, 117\n\nIdeals, high, 77\n\nIdleness, 91, 157, 207\n\nImpunity, 217\n\nIncarnation, the, 146, 253, 291\n\nInfluence, silent, 139, 259\n\nIntermediate state, 98, 245, 289\n\nJOHN the Baptist, 147\n\nJohn, St., 45, 53, 63, 113\n\nJustification, 43\n\nKINDNESS, 181, 205\n\nKingdom, coming, 21, 179; of God, 45, 185\n\nKnowledge, 53, 79, 131, 135, 163, 177, 183\n\nLAMP race, 133\n\nLaws of God, 98, 117, 163, 169, 229, 277, 287\n\nLesson of life, 61, 293\n\nLiberty, 215\n\nLife everlasting, 11, 113, 219, 277\n\n--long, 133\n\n--value of, 61\n\nLight, 33, 177, 249, 291\n\nLiturgies, 249\n\nLove, 9, 37, 41, 53, 55, 79, 117, 201, 209, 235, 251, 289, 219\n\n--Divine, 117\n\n--and beauty, 201\n\nMAN in God's image, 89, 127, 199, 229\n\nMarch, 51, 53\n\nMartyrs, 17, 98, 172, 218, 294, 295\n\nMasses, the, 177\n\nMay, 99\n\nMelancholy, 137, 183, 233, 253\n\nMelody, 5, 127, 277\n\nMen and women, 39, 91, 93, 153, 259, 283\n\nMetre, 119\n\nMidsummer, 125\n\nMiracles, 31, 99, 289\n\nModeration, 69\n\nMonotony, 163\n\nMorality, 29, 147, 255\n\nMorbid mind, 233\n\nMorning, 19, 125, 201, 249\n\nMother earth, 247\n\nMothers, 61, 74, 213\n\nMusic, 23, 107, 127, 161, 277\n\nMystery of life, 117, 155, 185, 291\n\nMystics, 55, 185, 251\n\nNATURALIST, 175\n\nNature, 141, 183, 187, 221, 241, 247, 253\n\n--study of, 7, 105, 131, 141, 175, 183, 187\n\nNature's worship, 131\n\nNight, 201, 211\n\nNineteenth century, 3, 151, 257\n\nNoble life, 5, 9\n\nNoble studies, 63\n\nNorth-east wind, 1\n\nNovel reading, 85, 169, 259\n\nOCTOBER, 221\n\nOld truths, 151\n\nOpinions, 215\n\nOriginality, 239\n\nOrthodox, 141\n\nPAINTERS, 39, 71, 141, 159\n\nParables, Nature's, 5, 99, 101, 127, 173, 175, 196, 197, 249\n\nPassion, 35, 197, 213\n\n--Week, 95\n\nPatience, 59, 143, 237, 277, 281\n\nPaul, St., 25, 53, 207\n\nPeace, 23, 59, 193\n\nPenitence, 191\n\nPenuriousness, 67\n\nPeter, St., 45, 148\n\nPhilamon, 9, 45\n\nPhysician, 233, 244\n\nPictures, 39, 71, 141\n\nPlato, 171\n\nPoetry, 23, 41, 69, 215\n\nPolitical economy, 115, 261\n\nPractice, 143, 267\n\nPrayer, 89, 119, 163, 167, 227, 229, 241, 267\n\n--the Lord's, 31\n\n--unselfish, 31\n\nPrayers for dead, 81\n\nPresent time, 3, 5\n\nPresentiments, 143\n\nPride and humility, 193, 215, 235, 267\n\nProblem of life, 135, 291\n\nProfession, empty, 157, 213\n\nProgress, 101, 163, 257, 291\n\nProverbs, 235\n\nProvidence, 115, 169, 243\n\n--special, 55, 159, 209, 251\n\nPsalms, 17, 191\n\nPublic opinion, 77\n\nPunishment, 41, 135, 159, 191, 261, 281\n\nPurgatory, 171\n\nRAILROADS, 257\n\nRank, 15, 161\n\nReason, 35, 111, 143, 237\n\nRedemption of earth and man, 153\n\nRefinement, false, 161\n\nReformers, 77\n\nReligion, 103, 265, 281\n\nRenewal, the, 71, 81, 127, 185\n\nRepentance, 41, 49, 157\n\nResignation, 117, 211, 217\n\nRest, 21, 49, 229, 253, 263\n\nResurrection, 63, 81, 93, 95, 98, 141, 145, 171, 185, 207\n\nRetribution, 47, 81, 113, 135, 177\n\nReverence, 81, 175, 243\n\nReveries, 39\n\nRighteousness, 117, 255, 281\n\nRights and duties, 39\n\nRock of Ages, 169, 235\n\nRomance, 127\n\nRules of life, 83, 107, 163\n\nRuth, 79\n\nSACRAMENTALISM, 15, 39, 101, 119, 213\n\nSacraments, 21, 146\n\nSafety, 17, 57\n\nSaints' Days, 24\n\nSaints, the, 24, 98, 122, 141, 193, 268, 269, 294, 295\n\nSalvation, 135\n\nSanitary science, 29, 261\n\nScience, 33, 59, 115, 151, 227, 233, 261\n\nSecular, 59\n\nSelf, 31, 233\n\nSelfishness, 159, 219, 231, 281\n\nSelf-conceit, 205\n\nSelf-control, 165, 223, 241, 259, 263\n\nSelf-improvement, 215\n\nSelf-indulgence, 91, 275\n\nSelf-respect, 287\n\nSelf-sacrifice, 13, 21, 55, 71, 79, 95, 117, 146, 148, 189, 213, 231, 295\n\nSecurity, false, 115\n\nSensuality, 133\n\nSentiment, 5\n\nShakespeare, 179\n\nShame, 199\n\nShelley, 267\n\nSilence, 41, 139, 257, 259\n\nSin, 41, 135, 159, 169, 213, 233, 281\n\nSisters of Mercy, 237\n\nSneering, 281\n\nSorrow, 145, 183, 185, 227, 273\n\nSpirit, the Holy, 146\n\nSpiritual world, 179\n\nSpring, 27, 51, 99, 101\n\nStarlings, 51\n\nStream and shower, 119, 197\n\nStrength, 263\n\nSubstitutes, 225\n\nSuccess, 139, 227, 279\n\nSummer days, 125, 129, 131, 137, 149\n\nSuperstition, 3, 137, 169, 175\n\nSuspicion, 281\n\nSymbols, 99, 101, 105, 127, 131, 151, 173, 196\n\nSympathy, 103, 151, 153\n\nTACT, 35, 53, 113\n\nTemperament, 231\n\nTemperance, true, 223, 263\n\nTemptation, 57\n\nTheology, 87\n\nThrift, 131, 183, 259\n\nToleration, 63, 141, 277\n\nTraining, God's, 115, 129, 215\n\nTransfiguration, the, 205\n\nTrinity, the, 146\n\nTrust, 239, 265\n\nUNITY, 185\n\nUsefulness, 225\n\nUtopia, 167\n\nVAGUENESS, 11, 161\n\nVineyards, 121\n\nViolence, 139\n\nVirgin, Blessed, 74\n\nVirtue, 29, 41, 225\n\nVisitation of God, 61\n\nVoyagers, early, 243\n\nWAITING, 135, 277\n\n--of God, 181\n\nWar tragedies, 107\n\nWater, 29, 119, 197\n\nWelfare, 145, 255\n\nWinter, 1, 27, 99\n\nWisdom, 37, 83, 105, 107, 163\n\nWoman, 45, 153, 87\n\nWoman's work, 39, 45, 79, 93, 231, 259\n\nWomen, educated, 85, 169\n\nWord Christ, the, 7, 37\n\n--the indwelling, 259\n\nWords, 37, 113\n\n--hard, 53\n\n--of God, 141\n\nWork, 71, 83, 133, 143, 157, 165, 175, 203, 209, 223, 263\n\nWorld, the, 167\n\nWorm, the undying, 195\n\nWorship, 131\n\nYOUTH, 13, 129\n\n\n\n\nFootnotes:\n\n\n{3}  The paper edition of this book has blank pages where the owner can\nwrite diary notes, etc.  This is why the page numbers in the eText often\nmiss out numbers.--DP.\n\n{97}  Lines written under a pen and ink drawing of a stormy shoreless\nsea, with two human beings lashed to a cross floating on the crest of the\nwaves.","title":"Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":42875}