Daily Thoughts Part 34

_MS. Presidential Address_. 1871.

The Only Refuge. October 30.

Prayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the witches and the fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortal brain.

_Two Years Ago_, chap. xix. 1856.

England's Forgotten Worthies. October 31.

Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and glory around them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about what they saw in an "artistic" or "critical" point of view as in a scientific one. . . . They gave G.o.d thanks and were not astonished. G.o.d was great: but that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics.

n.o.ble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superst.i.tion enough about them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasm which is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism! We do not trust enough in G.o.d, we do not really believe His power enough, to be ready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a G.o.d-made earth, for anything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is discovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a feeling--true index, forsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind!!

Smile if you will: but those were days (and there never were less superst.i.tious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living G.o.d, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in our covert atheism, term "secular and carnal."

_Westward Ho_! chap. xxiii.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

OCTOBER 18.

St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist.

It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in that. And the physician has set his mind to do one thing--to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against them to the end. In his exclusive care for the body the physician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for G.o.d, for the Bible, for immortality. Is he not witnessing for G.o.d when he shows by his acts that he believes G.o.d to be a G.o.d of life, not of death; of health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and weakness? Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?

"_Water of Life_," _and other Sermons_.

OCTOBER 28.

St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs.

He that loseth his life shall save it. The end and aim of our life is not happiness but goodness. If goodness comes first, then happiness may come after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even blessedness.

Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross. There hung your King!

The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows. Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and h.e.l.l,--He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them right royally. And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is divine,--G.o.dlike, as joy itself. All that man's fallen nature dreads and despises G.o.d honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. . . . And now--Blessed are tears and shame, blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await the Resurrection-day.

_National Sermons_.

November.

"The giant trees are black and still, the tearful sky is dreary gray. All Nature is like the grief of manhood in its soft and thoughtful sternness.

Shall I lend myself to its influence, and as the heaven settles down into one misty shroud of 'shrill yet silent tears,' as if veiling her shame in a cloudy mantle, shall I, too, lie down and weep? Why not? for am I not 'a part of all I see'? And even now, in fasting and mortification, am I not sorrowing for my sin and for its dreary chastis.e.m.e.nt? But shall I then despond and die?

"No! Mother Earth, for then I were unworthy of thee and thy G.o.d! We may weep, Mother Earth, but we have Faith--faith which tells us that above the cloudy sky the bright clear sun is s.h.i.+ning, and will s.h.i.+ne. And we have Hope, Mother Earth--hope, that as bright days have been, so bright days soon shall be once more! And we have Charity, Mother Earth, and by it we can love all tender things--ay, and all rugged rocks and dreary moors, for the sake of the glow which _has_ gilded them, and the fertility which will spring even from their sorrow. We will smile through our tears, Mother Earth, for we are not forsaken! We have still light and heat, and till we can bear the suns.h.i.+ne we will glory in the shade!"

_MS._ 1842.

Sympathy of the Dead. November 1.

Believe that those who are gone are nearer us than ever; and that if (as I surely believe) they do sorrow over the mishaps and misdeeds of those whom they leave behind, they do not sorrow in vain. Their sympathy is a further education for them, and a pledge, too, of help--I believe of final deliverance--for those on whom they look down in love.

_Letters and Memories_. 1852.

Nature's Parable. November 2.

There is a devil's meaning to everything in nature, and a G.o.d's meaning too. As I read nature's parable to-night I find nothing in it but hope.

What if there be darkness, the sun will rise to-morrow; what if there seem chaos, the great organic world is still living and growing and feeding, unseen by us all the night through; and every phosphoric atom there below is a sign that in the darkest night there is still the power of light, ready to flash out wherever and however it is stirred.

_Prose Idylls_. 1849.

Pa.s.sing Onward. November 3.

Liturgies are but temporary expressions of the Church's heart. The Bible is the immutable story of her husband's love. _She_ must go on from grace to grace, and her song must vary from age to age, and her ancient melodies become unfitted to express her feelings; but He is the same for ever.

_MS._ 1842.

See how the autumn leaves float by decaying, Down the wild swirls of the dark-br.i.m.m.i.n.g stream; So fleet the works of men back to their earth again-- Ancient and holy things pa.s.s like a dream.

_A Parable_. 1848.

The Divine Intention. November 4.