Daily Thoughts Part 14

May.

Is it merely a fancy that we are losing that love for Spring which among our old forefathers rose almost to worship? That the perpetual miracle of the budding leaves and the returning song-birds awakes no longer in us the astonishment which it awoke yearly among the dwellers in the old world, when the sun was a G.o.d who was sick to death each winter, and returned in spring to life, and health, and glory; when Freya, the G.o.ddess of youth and love, went forth over the earth while the flowers broke forth under her tread over the brown moors, and the birds welcomed her with song? To those simpler children of a simpler age winter and spring were the two great facts of existence; the symbols, the one of death, the other of life; and the battle between the two--the battle of the sun with darkness, of winter with spring, of death with life, of bereavement with love--lay at the root of all their myths and all their creeds. Surely a change has come over our fancies! The seasons are little to us now!

_Prose Idylls_.

Past and Present. May 1.

Now see the young spring leaves burst out a-maying, Fill with their ripening hues orchard and glen; So though old forms pa.s.s by, ne'er shall their spirit die, Look! England's bare boughs show green leaf again.

_Poems_. 1849.

The Earth is the Lord's. May 2.

The earth is holy! Can there be a more glorious truth to carry out--one which will lead us more into all love and beauty and purity in heaven and earth? One which must have G.o.d's light of love shining on it at every step. G.o.d gives us souls and bodies exquisitely attuned for this very purpose--the aesthetic faculty, our sensibilities to the beautiful. All events of life, all the workings of our hearts, should point to this one idea. As I walk the fields, the trees and flowers and birds, and the motes of rack floating in the sky, seem to cry to me: "Thou knowest us!

Thou knowest we have a meaning, and sing a heaven's harmony by night and day! Do us justice! Spell our enigma, and go forth and tell thy fellows that we are their brethren, that their spirit is our spirit, their Saviour our Saviour, their G.o.d our G.o.d!"

_Letters and Memories_. 1842.

The Great Question. May 3.

Is there a living G.o.d in the universe, or is there not? That is the greatest of all questions. Has our Lord Jesus Christ answered it, or has He not?

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866.

Our Father. May 4.

Look at those thousand birds, and without our Father not one of them shall fall to the ground; and art thou not of more value than many sparrows--thou for whom G.o.d sent His Son to die? . . . Ah! my friend, we must look out and around to see what G.o.d is like. It is when we persist in turning our eyes inward, and prying curiously over our own imperfections, that we learn to make a G.o.d after our own image, and fancy that our own hardness and darkness are the patterns of His light and love.

_Hypatia_, chap. xi.

Want of Sympathy. May 5.

If we do not understand our fellow-creatures we shall never love them.

And it is equally true, that if we do not love them we shall never understand them. Want of charity, want of sympathy, want of good feeling and fellow-feeling--what does it, what can it breed but endless mistakes and ignorances, both of men's characters and men's circ.u.mstances?

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873.

A Religion. May 6.

If all that a man wants is "a _religion_," he ought to be able to make a very pretty one for himself, and a fresh one as often as he is tired of the old. But the heart and soul of man wants more than that; as it is written, "My soul is athirst for G.o.d, even for the living G.o.d." I want a living G.o.d, who cares for men, forgives men, saves men from their sins: and Him I have found in the Bible, and nowhere else, save in the facts of life which the Bible alone interprets.

_Sermons on the Pentateuch_. 1863.

True Civilisation. May 7.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you; your duty to the man who lives next door, and to the man who lives in the next street. Do your duty to your parish, that you may do your duty by your country and to all mankind, and prove yourselves thereby civilised men.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866.

Nature and Grace. May 8.

Why speak of the G.o.d of Nature and the G.o.d of grace as two ant.i.thetical terms? The Bible never in a single instance makes the distinction, and surely if G.o.d be the eternal and unchangeable One, and if all the universe bears the impress of His signet, we have no right, in the present infantile state of science, to put arbitrary limits of our own to the revelation which He may have thought good to make of Himself in Nature. Nay, rather, let us believe that if our eyes were opened we should fulfil the requirement of genius and see the universal in the particular by seeing G.o.d's whole likeness, His whole glory, reflected as in a mirror in the meanest flower, and that nothing but the dulness of our simple souls prevents them from seeing day and night in all things the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilling His own saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

_Glaucus_. 1855.

Wisdom the Child of Goodness. May 9.

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

_Two Years Ago_, chap. ii. 1857.

Rule of Life. May 10.

Two great rules for the attainment of heavenly wisdom are simple enough--"Never forget what and where you are," and "Grieve not the Holy Spirit."

_MS. Letter_. 1841.