Daily Thoughts Part 32

The Temper for Success in Life. October 9.

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

_MS._

Want of Simplicity. October 10.

Faith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to want faith, and to a.s.sist prayer by our own inventions and to explain away G.o.d's providence, then faith and prayer become intricate and uncertain.

We cannot serve G.o.d and mammon. We must either utterly depend on G.o.d (and therefore on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer), or we must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world. Choose!

_MS. Letter_.

True Rest. October 11.

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

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1867.

G.o.d's Image. October 12.

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

_Letters and Memories_. 1843.

Woman's Work. October 13.

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

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Self-Enjoyment. October 14.

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

"'Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye, There he sits singing the lang simmer day; La.s.sies gae to him, And kiss him, and woo him-- Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.'

An' muckle good cam' o't. Ye may fancy I'm talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle. But I tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a's wrong, and there's na hope for us on earth, we be a' sic liars--a' liars, I think--I'm a great liar often mysel, especially when I'm praying."

_Alton Locke_, chap. vii.

Temptations of Temperament. October 15.

A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.

_Sermons on David_.

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

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Egotism of Melancholy. October 16.

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

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

_MS. Letter_. 1843.

Poetry of Doubt. October 17.

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

_Miscellanies_. 1859.

Work of the Physician. October 18.

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

_National Sermons_. 1851.