Daily Thoughts Part 25

We sit in a cloud, and sing like pictured angels, And say the world runs smooth--while right below Welters the black, fermenting heap of life On which our State is built.

_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.

Love and Knowledge. August 5.

He who has never loved, what does he know?

_MS._

Sicc.u.m Lumen. August 6.

How shall I get true knowledge? Knowledge which will be really useful, really worth knowing. Knowledge which I shall know accurately and practically too, so that I can use it in daily life, for myself and others? Knowledge too, which shall be clear knowledge, not warped or coloured by my own fancies, pa.s.sions, prejudices, but pure and calm and sound; Sicc.u.m Lumen, "Dry Light," as the greatest of philosophers called it of old.

To all such who long for light, that by the light they may live, G.o.d answers through His only begotten Son: "Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find."

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873.

This World. August 7.

What should the external world be to those who truly love, but the garden in which they are placed, not so much for sustenance or enjoyment of themselves and each other, as to dress it and to keep it--_it_ to be their subject-matter, not they its tools! In this spirit let us pray "Thy kingdom come."

_MS._ 1842.

The Life of the Spirit. August 8.

The old fairy superst.i.tion, the old legends and ballads, the old chronicles of feudal war and chivalry, the earlier moralities and mysteries--these fed Shakespeare's youth. Why should they not feed our children's? That inborn delight of the young in all that is marvellous and fantastic--has that a merely evil root? No, surely! it is a most pure part of their spiritual nature; a part of "the heaven which lies about us in our infancy;" angel-wings with which the free child leaps the prison-walls of sense and custom, and the drudgery of earthly life. It is a G.o.d-appointed means for keeping alive what n.o.ble Wordsworth calls those

". . . . obstinate questionings, . . . . . .

Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised."

_Introductory Lecture_, _Queen's College_.

1848.

A Quiet Depth. August 9.

The deepest affections are those of which we are least conscious--that is, which produce least _startling_ emotion, and most easy and involuntary practice.

_MS._ 1843.

Acceptable Sacrifices. August 10.

Every time we perform an act of kindness to any human being, ay, even to a dumb animal; every time we conquer our worldliness, love of pleasure, ease, praise, ambition, money, for the sake of doing what our conscience tells us to be our duty,--we are indeed wors.h.i.+pping G.o.d the Father in spirit and in truth, and offering Him a sacrifice which He will surely accept for the sake of His beloved Son, by whose Spirit all good deeds and thoughts are inspired.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871.

Chivalry. August 11.

Chivalry; an idea which, perfect or imperfect, G.o.d forbid that mankind should ever forget till it has become the possession--as it is the G.o.d- given right--of the poorest slave that ever trudged on foot; and every collier lad shall have become

"A very gentle, perfect knight."

_Lectures on Ancien Regime_. 1867.

G.o.d waits for Man. August 12.

Patiently, n.o.bly, magnanimously, G.o.d waits; waits for the man who is a fool, to find out his own folly; waits for the heart that has tried to find pleasure in everything else, to find out that everything else disappoints, and to come back to Him, the fountain of all wholesome pleasure, the well-spring of all life, fit for a man to live.

G.o.d condescends to wait for His creature; because what He wants is not His creature's fear, but His creature's love; not only his obedience, but his heart; because He wants him not to come back as a trembling slave to his master, but as a son who has found out at last what a father he has still left him, when all beside has played him false. Let him come back thus.

_Discipline and other Sermons_.

Thrift. August 13.

The secret of thriving is thrift; saving of force; to get as much work as possible done with the least expenditure of power, the least jar and obstruction, the least wear and tear. And the secret of thrift is knowledge. In proportion as you know the laws and nature of a subject, you will be able to work at it easily, surely, rapidly, successfully, instead of wasting your money or your energies in mistaken schemes, irregular efforts, which end in disappointment and exhaustion.

_Lecture on Thrift_. 1869.

Revelations. August 14.