Daily Thoughts Part 27

_MS. Letter_. 1843.

Training of Beauty. August 25.

There is many a road into our hearts besides our ears and brains; many a sight and sound and scent even, of which we have never _thought_ at all, sinks into our memory and helps to shape our characters; and thus children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds will most likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness and affection and n.o.bleness of mind, even by the expression of the countenance.

_True Words to Brave Men_. 1848.

Ignorance of the Cynic. August 26.

Be sure that no one knows so little of his fellow-men as the cynical, misanthropic man, who walks in darkness because he hates his brother. Be sure that the truly wise and understanding man is he who by sympathy puts himself in his neighbours' place; feels with them and for them; sees with their eyes, hears with their ears; and therefore understands them, makes allowances for them, and is merciful to them, even as his Father in heaven is merciful.

_Westminster Sermons_. 1872.

Penitential Prayer. August 27.

Faith in G.o.d it is which has made the fifty-first Psalm the model of all true penitence for evermore. Penitential prayers in all ages have too often wanted faith in G.o.d, and therefore have been too often prayers to avert punishment. This, this--the model of all true penitent prayers--is that of a man who is to be punished, and is content to take his punishment, knowing that he deserves it, and far more besides.

_Sermons on David_. 1866.

A Real Presence. August 28.

Believe the Holy Communion is the sign of Christ's perpetual presence; that when you kneel to receive the bread and wine, Christ is as near you--spiritually, indeed, and invisibly, but really and truly as near you as those who are kneeling by your side.

And if it be so with Christ, then is it so with those who are Christ's, with those whom we love. . . . Surely, like Christ, they may come and go even now, though unseen. Like Christ they may breathe upon our restless hearts and say, "Peace be unto you," and not in vain. For what they did for us when they were on earth they can more fully do now that they are in heaven.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1862.

A Living G.o.d. August 29.

Man would never have even dreamed of a Living G.o.d had not that Living G.o.d been a reality, who did not leave the creature to find his Creator, but stooped from heaven, at the very beginning of our race, to find His creature.

_Sermons on David_. 1866.

Thine, not mine. August 30.

Whensoever you do a thing which you know to be right and good, instead of priding yourself upon it as if the good in it came from you, offer it up to your Heavenly Father, from whom all good things come, and say, "Oh, Lord! the good in this is Thine and not mine; the bad in it is mine and not Thine. I thank Thee for having made me do right, for without Thy help I should have done nothing but wrong. For mine is the laziness, and the weakness, and the selfishness, and the self-conceit; and Thine is the kingdom, for Thou rulest all things; and the power, for Thou doest all things; and the glory, for Thou doest all things well, for ever and ever.

Amen."

_Sermons_.

The Unquenchable Fire. August 31.

A fire which cannot be quenched, a worm which cannot die, I see existing, and consider them among the most blessed revelations of the gospel. I fancy I see them burning and devouring everywhere in the spiritual world, as their a.n.a.logues do in the physical. I know that they have done so on me, and that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most healthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know too well that I often do the same ineffectually. But, in the comfort that the worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmly forward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of that world whereof it is written, "He shall reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet, and death and h.e.l.l shall be cast into the lake of fire."

The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give new light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe, the chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living Foundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written that _Death_ and _h.e.l.l_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the fate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and G.o.d's universe be--what it must be some day--_very good_.

Because I believe in a G.o.d of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And G.o.d shall be All in All. Those last are wide words.

_Letters and Sermons_. 1856.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

AUGUST 24.

St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr.

Blessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is no less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art, all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes, dim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_.

September.

That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote--

"Nor ever had the breeze of pa.s.sion Stirred her heart's clear depths."

The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats are always brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in them. When they are clearest they are still tinged brown or gray with some foreign matter held in solution--the brown of selfish sensuality or the gray of morbid melancholy. But when they are free again! when they hurry over rock and weed and sparkling pebble-shallow, then they are clear! Then all the foreign matter, the defilement which earth pours into them, falls to the ground, and into them the trout work up for life and health and food; and through their swift yet yielding eddies--_moulding themselves to every accident_, _yet separate and undefiled_--shine up the delicate beauties of the subaqueous world, the Spirit-glories which we can only see in this life through the medium of another human soul, but which we can never see unless that soul is stirred by circ.u.mstance into pa.s.sion and motion and action strong and swift. Only the streams which have undergone long and _severe struggles_ from their very fountain-head have clear pools.