Daily Thoughts Part 39

Think less of what you _feel_--even of trying _to be_ anything. Look out of yourself at G.o.d. Pray and praise, and G.o.d will give you His Spirit often when you feel most dull.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Christ's Church. December 12.

. . . What a thought it is that there is a G.o.d! a Father, a King! a Husband not of individuals, that is a Popish fancy, which the Puritans have adopted--but of the Church--of collective humanity. Let us be content to be members; let us be, if we may, the feet, lowest, hardest worked, trodden on, bleeding, brought into harshest contact with the evil world! Still we are members of Christ's Church! . . .

_Letters and Memories_. 1843.

Confound me not. December 13.

Have charity, have patience, have mercy. Never bring a human being, however silly, ignorant, or weak, above all, any little child, to shame and confusion of face. Never by petulance, by suspicion, by ridicule, even by selfish and silly haste, never, above all, by indulging in the devilish pleasure of a sneer, crush what is finest, and rouse up what is coa.r.s.est in the heart of any fellow-creature.

_Westminster Sermons_. 1872.

The Divine Hunger and Thirst. December 14.

G.o.d grant us to be among "those who really hunger and thirst after righteousness," and who therefore long to know what righteousness is, that they may copy it--those who long to be freed not merely from the punishment of sin after they die, but from sin itself while they live on earth, and who therefore wish to know what sin is that they may avoid it.

_Preface to Tauler's Sermons_. 1854.

Religion or G.o.dliness? December 15.

This is the especial curse of our day, that religion does not mean, as it used, the service of G.o.d--the being like G.o.d and showing forth G.o.d's glory. No, religion means nowadays the art of getting to heaven when we die, and saving our own miserable souls, and getting G.o.d's wages without doing G.o.d's work--as if that was G.o.dliness, as if that was anything but selfishness, as if selfishness was any the better for being everlasting selfishness!

_Village Sermons_. 1849.

Christ's Coming. December 16.

Christ may come to us when we are fierce and prejudiced, with that still small voice--so sweet and yet so keen, "Understand those who misunderstand thee. Be fair to those who are unfair to thee. Be just and merciful to those whom thou wouldst like to hate. Forgive and thou shalt be forgiven." He comes to us surely, when we are selfish and luxurious, in every sufferer who needs our help, and says, "If you do good to one of these, my brethren, you do it unto Me."

_Last Sermon_. _MS._ 1874.

G.o.d's Nature. December 17.

When will men open their eyes to the plain axiom that nothing is impossible with G.o.d, save that He should transgress His own nature by being unjust and unloving?

_Preface to Tauler_. 1854.

Educators of Men. December 18.

There are those who consider--and I agree with them--that the education of boys under the age of twelve years ought to be entrusted, as much as possible, to women. Let me ask--of what period of youth and manhood does it not hold true? I pity the ignorance and conceit of the man who fancies that he has nothing left to learn from cultivated women. I should have thought that the very mission of woman was to be, in the highest sense, the educator of man, from infancy to old age; that that was the work towards which all the G.o.d-given capacities of women pointed.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

The Earthly Body. December 19.

Let us remember that if the body does feel a burden now (as it must at moments), what a happiness it is to have a body at all: how lonely, cold, barren, would it be to be a "disembodied spirit." As St. Paul says, "Not that we desire to be unclothed, but to be clothed upon"--to have a spiritual, deathless, griefless life instilled into the body.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Home at Last. December 20.

When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown, And all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep home and take your place there, The spent and maimed among: G.o.d grant you find one face there You loved when all was young.

_The Water Babies_. 1862.

The Bible. December 21.

The hearts and minds of the sick, the poor, the sorrowing, the truly human, all demand a living G.o.d who has revealed Himself in living acts; a G.o.d who has taught mankind by facts, not left them to discover Him by theories and sentiments; a Judge, a Father, a Saviour, an Inspirer; in a word, their hearts demand the historic truth of the Bible--of the Old Testament no less than the New.

_Sermons on Pentateuch_. 1863.

Shaking of Heaven and Earth. December 22.