Daily Thoughts Part 23

_Prose Idylls_. 1857.

How to attain. July 21.

If our plans are not for time but for eternity, our knowledge, and therefore our love to G.o.d, to each other, to everything, will progress for ever. And the attainment of this heavenly wisdom requires neither ecstacy nor revelation, but prayer and watchfulness, and observation, and deep and solemn thought.

Two great rules for its attainment are simple enough--Never forget what and where you are, and grieve not the Holy Spirit, for "If a man will do G.o.d's will he shall know of the doctrine."

_Letters and Memories_. 1842.

The Divine Discontent. July 22.

I should like to make every one I meet discontented with themselves; I should like to awaken in them, about their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent first of upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part. For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the n.o.ble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.

_Lecture on Science of Health_. 1872.

Dra et labora. July 23.

"Working is praying," said one of the holiest of men. And he spoke truth; if a man will but do his work from a sense of duty, which is for the sake of G.o.d.

_Sermons_.

Distrust and Anarchy. July 24.

Over the greater part of the so-called civilised world is spreading a deep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man towards his neighbour, and a practical unbelief in every man whom you do see, atones for itself by a theoretic belief in an ideal human nature which you do not see. Such a temper of mind, unless it be checked by that which alone can check it, namely, the grace of G.o.d, must tend towards sheer anarchy. There is a deeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political anarchy,--which the abuse of the critical spirit leads to,--the anarchy of society and of the family, the anarchy of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor human beings as orphans in the wilderness to cry in vain, "What can I know?

Whom can I love?"

_The Critical Spirit_. 1871.

A Future Life of Action. July 25.

Why need we suppose that heaven is to be one vast lazy retrospect? Why is not eternity to have action and change, yet both like G.o.d, compatible with rest and immutability? This earth is but one minor planet of a minor system. Are there no more worlds? Will there not be incident and action springing from these when the fate of this world is decided? Has the evil one touched this alone? Is it not self-conceit which makes us think the redemption of this earth the one event of eternity?

_Letters_. 1842.

An Ideal Aristocracy. July 26.

We may conceive an Utopia governed by an aristocracy that should be really democratic, which should use, under developed forms, that method which made the mediaeval priesthood the one great democratic inst.i.tution of old Christendom; bringing to the surface and utilising the talents and virtues of all cla.s.ses, even the lowest.

_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867.

Our Weapons. July 27.

G.o.d, who has been very good to us, will be more good, if _we allow Him_!

Worldly-minded people think they can manage so much better than G.o.d. We must _trust_. Our weapons must be prayer and faith, and our only standard the Bible. As soon as we leave these weapons and take to "knowledge of the world," and other people's clumsy prejudices as our guides, we must inevitably be beaten by the World, which knows how to use its own arms better than we do. What else is meant by becoming as a little child?

_MS. Letter_. 1843.

Uneducated Women. July 28.

Take warning by what you see abroad. In every country where the women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels or translations of them--in every one of those countries the women, even to the highest, are the slaves of superst.i.tion, and the puppets of priests. In proportion as women are highly educated, family life and family secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to no confessor or director, but to her own husband or her own family.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1860.

Pardon and Cure. July 29.

After the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin. And that cure, like most cures, is a long and a painful process.

But there is our comfort, there is our hope--Christ the great Healer, the great Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains of our old sins, the consequences of our own follies. Not, indeed, at once, or by miracle, but by slow education in new and n.o.bler motives, in purer and more unselfish habits.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1861.

Eternal Law. July 30.

The eternal laws of G.o.d's providence are still at work, though we may choose to forget them, and the Judge who administers them is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, the Everlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded.

Whosoever shall fall on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shall indeed be broken, but of him it is written, "A broken and a contrite heart, O G.o.d, Thou wilt not despise."

_Discipline and other Sermons_. 1866.