Daily Thoughts Part 17

Vineyards in Spring. May 31.

Look at the rows of vines, or what will be vines when the summer comes, but are now black, knotted and gnarled clubs, without a sign of life in the seemingly dead stick. One who sees that sight may find a new beauty and meaning in the mystic words, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches." It is not merely the connection between branch and stem common to all trees; not merely the exhilarating and seemingly inspiring properties of the grape, which made the very heathen look upon it as the sacred and miraculous fruit, the special gift of G.o.d; not merely the pruning out of the unfruitful branches, to be burned as firewood--not merely these, but the seeming death of the Vine, shorn of all its beauty, its fruitfulness, of every branch and twig which it had borne the year before, and left unsightly and seemingly ruined, to its winter sleep; and then bursting forth again by an irresistible inward life into fresh branches, spreading and trailing far and wide, and tossing their golden tendrils to the sky.

This thought surely--the emblem of the living Church, springing from the corpse of the dead Christ, who yet should rise to be alive for evermore--enters into, it may be forms an integral part of, the meaning of that prophecy of all prophecies.

_Prose Idylls_. 1864.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

MAY 1.

St. Philip and St. James, Apostles and Martyrs.

Christ's cross says still, and will say to all Eternity, "Wouldst thou be good? Wouldst thou be like G.o.d? Then work and dare, and if need be, suffer for thy fellow-men." On the Cross Christ consecrated, and as it were offered to the Father in His own body, all loving actions, unselfish actions, merciful actions, heroic actions, which man has done or ever will do. From Him, from His spirit, their strength came; and therefore He is not ashamed to call them brethren. He is the King of the n.o.ble army of martyrs; of all who suffer for love and truth and justice' sake; and to all such He says, thou hast put on My likeness; thou hast suffered for My sake, and I too have suffered for thy sake, and enabled thee to suffer likewise, and in Me thou too art a Son of G.o.d, in whom the Father is well pleased.

_Sermons_.

Feast of the Ascension.

"Lo, I am with you always," said the Blessed One before He ascended to the Father. And this is the Lord who we fancy is gone away far above the stars till the end of time! Oh, my friends, rather bow your heads before Him at this moment! For here He is among us now, listening to every thought of our poor simple hearts. He is where G.o.d is, in whom we live, and move, and have our being, and that is everywhere. Do you wish Him to be any nearer?

_National Sermons_.

. . . Oh, my Saviour!

My G.o.d! where art Thou? That's but a tale about Thee, That crucifix above--it does but show Thee As Thou wast once, but not as Thou art now. . . .

_Saint's Tragedy_, Act iv. Scene i.

June.

Three o'clock, upon a still, pure, Midsummer morning. . . . The white glare of dawn, which last night hung high in the north-west, has travelled now to the north-east, and above the wooded wall of the hills the sky is flus.h.i.+ng with rose and amber. A long line of gulls goes wailing inland; the rooks come cawing and sporting round the corner at Landcross, while high above them four or five herons flap solemnly along to find their breakfast on the shallows. The pheasants and partridges are clucking merrily in the long wet gra.s.s; every copse and hedgerow rings with the voice of birds; but the lark, who has been singing since midnight in the "blank height of the dark," suddenly hushes his carol and drops headlong among the corn, as a broad-winged buzzard swings from some wooded peak into the abyss of the valley, and hangs high-poised above the heavenward songster. The air is full of perfume; sweet clover, new-mown hay, the fragrant breath of kine, the dainty scent of sea-weed, and fresh wet sand. Glorious day, glorious place, "bridal of earth and sky,"

decked well with bridal garments, bridal perfumes, bridal songs.

_Westward Ho_! chap. xii.

Open Thou mine Eyes. June 1.

I have wandered in the mountains mist-bewildered, And now a breeze comes, and the veil is lifted; And priceless flowers, o'er which I trod unheeding, Gleam ready for my grasp.

_Saint's Tragedy_, Act i. Scene ii.

1847.

The Spirit of Romance. June 2.

Some say that the spirit of romance is dead. The spirit of romance will never die as long as there is a man left to see that the world might and can be better, happier, wiser, fairer in all things than it is now. The spirit of romance will never die as long as a man has faith in G.o.d to believe that the world will actually be better and fairer than it is now, as long as men have faith, however weak, to believe in the romance of all romances, in the wonder of all wonders, in that of which all poets'

dreams have been but childish hints and dim forefeelings--even

"That one divine far-off event Towards which the whole creation moves,

that wonder which our Lord Himself has bade us pray for as for our daily bread, and say, "Father, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven."

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1865.

The Everlasting Music. June 3.

All melody and all harmony upon earth, whether in the song of birds, the whisper of the wind, the concourse of voices, or the sounds of those cunning instruments which man has learnt to create, because he is made in the image of Christ, the Word of G.o.d, who creates all things; all music upon earth, I say, is beautiful in as far as it is a pattern and type of the everlasting music which is in heaven, which was before all worlds and shall be after them.

_Good News of G.o.d Sermons_. 1859.

Gifts are Duties. June 4.

Exceeding gifts from G.o.d are not blessings, they are duties, and very solemn and heavy duties. They do not always increase a man's happiness; they always increase his responsibility, the awful account which he must render at last of the talents committed to his charge. They increase, too, his danger.

_Water of Life Sermons_.

Summer Days. June 5.

Now let the young be glad, Fair girl and gallant lad, And sun themselves to-day By lawn and garden gay; 'Tis play befits the noon Of rosy-girdled June; . . . . .

The world before them, and above The light of Universal Love.

_Installation Ode_, _Cambridge_. 1862.