Daily Thoughts Part 8

Secular and Sacred. March 10.

I grudge the epithet of "_secular_" to any matter whatsoever. But more; I deny it to anything which G.o.d has made, even to the tiniest of insects, the most insignificant grain of dust. To those who believe in G.o.d, and try to see all things in G.o.d, the most minute natural phenomenon cannot be secular. It must be divine, I say deliberately, divine, and I can use no less lofty word.

_Town Geology_. 1871.

Content or Happy? March 11.

My friends, whether you will be the happier for any knowledge of physical science, or for any other knowledge whatsoever, I cannot tell. That lies in the decision of a higher Power than I; and, indeed, to speak honestly, I do not think that any branch of physical science is likely, at first at least, to make you happy. Neither is the study of your fellow-men.

Neither is religion itself. We were not sent into the world to be happy, but to be right--at least, poor creatures that we are--as right as we can be, and we must be content with being right, and not happy. . . . And we shall be made truly wise if we be made content; content, too, not only with what we can understand, but content with what we do not understand--the habit of mind which theologians call (and rightly) faith in G.o.d, true and solid faith, which comes often out of sadness and out of doubt.

_Lecture on Bio-geology_. 1869.

Duty of Man to Man. March 12.

Each man can learn something from his neighbour; at least he can learn this--to have patience with his neighbour, to live and let live.

Peace! peace! Anything which is not _wrong_ for the sake of heaven-born Peace!

_Town and Country Sermons_. 1861.

Blessing of a True Friend. March 13.

A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our face, and laughs at us behind our back; who will give us counsel and reproof in the days of prosperity and self-conceit; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the day of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our battle as we can.

It is only the great-hearted who can be true friends: the mean and cowardly can never know what true friendship means.

_Sermons on David_. 1866.

True Heroines. March 14.

What is the commonest, and yet the least remembered form of heroism? The heroism of an average mother. Ah! when I think of that broad fact I gather hope again for poor humanity, and this dark world looks bright, this diseased world looks wholesome to me once more, because, whatever else it is or is not full of, it is at least full of mothers.

_Lecture on Heroism_. 1873.

Secret Atheism. March 15.

There is little hope that we shall learn the lessons G.o.d is for ever teaching us in the events of life till we get rid of our secret Atheism, till we give up the notion that G.o.d only visits now and then to disorder and destroy His own handiwork, and take back the old scriptural notion that G.o.d is visiting all day long for ever, to give order and life to His own work, to set it right where it goes wrong, and re-create it whenever it decays.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1866.

Tolerance. March 16.

If we really love G.o.d and long to do good and work for G.o.d, if we really love our neighbours and wish to help them, we shall have no heart to quarrel about _how_ the good is to be done, provided _it is_ done.

"Master," said St. John, "we saw one casting out devils in Thy name, and he followeth not us; wilt Thou that we forbid him? And Jesus said, Forbid him not."

_Sermons_.

The Hopes of Old Age. March 17.

Christianity alone deprives old age of its bitterness, making it the gate of heaven. Our bodies will fade and grow weak and shapeless, just when we shall not want them, being ready and in close expectation of that resurrection of the flesh which is the great promise of Christianity (no miserable fancies about "pure souls" escaped from matter, but)--of bodies, _our_ bodies, beloved, beautiful, ministers to us in all our joys, sufferers with us in all our sorrows--yea, our very own selves raised up again to live and love in a manner inconceivable from its perfection.

_MS._ 1842.

. . . No! I can wait: Another body!--Ah, new limbs are ready, Free, pure, instinct with soul through every nerve, Kept for us in the treasuries of G.o.d!

_Santa Maura_. 1852.

The Highest Study for Man, March 18.

Man is _not_, as the poet said, "the n.o.blest study of mankind." G.o.d is the n.o.blest study of man, and Him we can study in three ways. 1st. From His image as developed in Christ the Ideal, and in all good men--great good men. 2dly. From His works. 3dly. From His dealings in history; this is the real philosophy of history.

_Letters and Memories_. 1842.

Eclecticism. March 19.

An eclectic, if it mean anything, means this--one who in any branch of art or science refuses to acknowledge Bacon's great law, that "Nature is only conquered by obeying her;" who will not take a full and reverent view of the whole ma.s.s of facts with which he has to deal, and from them deducing the fundamental laws of his subject, obey them whithersoever they may lead; but who picks and chooses out of them just so many as may be pleasant to his private taste, and then constructs a partial system which differs from the essential ideas of Nature in proportion to the number of facts which he has determined to discard.

_Miscellanies_. 1849.