From Life of Dr Arnold
“In him the sight of evil, and the endeavour to remove it, were hardly ever disjoined.”
From Life of Dr Arnold
“For a brave man to know that an evil is, is simply to know that it has to be vanquished.”
FAIRBAIRN
Monday, August 31, 2009
August 8
“In all this there was no excitement, no predilection for one class of work above another; no enthusiasm for any one-sided object; but an humble, profound, and most religious conscientiousness that work is the appointed calling of man on earth, the end for which his various faculties were given, the element in which his nature is ordained to develop itself, and in which his progressive advance towards Heaven is to lie. . . . He felt every moment that he was doing or was not doing God’s work. He threw into every act, every labour, the consciousness of the divine mission given to all Christians by the Master.”
“In him the sight of evil, and the endeavour to remove it, were hardly ever disjoined.”
“For a brave man to know that an evil is, is simply to know that it has to be vanquished.”
“In him the sight of evil, and the endeavour to remove it, were hardly ever disjoined.”
“For a brave man to know that an evil is, is simply to know that it has to be vanquished.”
August 7
“There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness in work.”
“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”
“Labour is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred, celestial, Life-essence breathed into him by almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all knowledge, ‘self-knowledge’, and much else, so soon as work fitly begins.”
“Work is of a religious nature; work is of a brave nature; which it is the aim of all religion to be.
“All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness.”
“Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.”
“Labour is life; from the inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, the sacred, celestial, Life-essence breathed into him by almighty God; from his inmost heart awakens him to all nobleness, to all knowledge, ‘self-knowledge’, and much else, so soon as work fitly begins.”
“Work is of a religious nature; work is of a brave nature; which it is the aim of all religion to be.
“All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness.”
CARLYLE
August 6
“The loss, if loss there be, is mine,
And yet not mine if understood;
For one shall grasp and one resign,
One drink life’s rue, and one its wine,
And God shall make the balance good.
“O power to do! O baffled will!
O prayer and action! ye are one;
Who may not strive may yet fulfil
The harder task of standing still,
And good but wished with God is done!”
And yet not mine if understood;
For one shall grasp and one resign,
One drink life’s rue, and one its wine,
And God shall make the balance good.
“O power to do! O baffled will!
O prayer and action! ye are one;
Who may not strive may yet fulfil
The harder task of standing still,
And good but wished with God is done!”
WHITTIER
“God doth not need
Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best; His state
Is kingly; thousands at His bidding speed,
And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”
MILTON
Thursday, August 27, 2009
August 5
“Freely we serve
Because we freely love.”
Because we freely love.”
MILTON
“Be sure no earnest work
Of any honest creature, howbeit weak,
Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much,
It is not gathered as a grain of sand
To enlarge the sum of human action used
For carrying out God’s ends. No creature works
So ill, observe, that therefore he’s cashiered.
The honest man must stand and work,
The woman also – otherwise she drops
At once below the dignity of man,
Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work.
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.”
Of any honest creature, howbeit weak,
Imperfect, ill-adapted, fails so much,
It is not gathered as a grain of sand
To enlarge the sum of human action used
For carrying out God’s ends. No creature works
So ill, observe, that therefore he’s cashiered.
The honest man must stand and work,
The woman also – otherwise she drops
At once below the dignity of man,
Accepting serfdom. Free men freely work.
Whoever fears God, fears to sit at ease.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
August 4
“The only true secret of assisting the poor is to make them agents in bettering their own condition.”
“It is essential to remember that each man has his own view of his life, and must be free to fulfil it; that in many ways he is a far better judge of it than we, as he has lived through and felt what we have only seen. Our work is rather to bring him to the point of considering, and to the spirit of judging rightly, than to consider or judge for him.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“I am convinced that one of the evils of much that is done for the poor, springs from the want of delicacy felt and courtesy shown to them, and that we cannot beneficially help them in any spirit different to that in which we help those who are better off.”
GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]
“It is essential to remember that each man has his own view of his life, and must be free to fulfil it; that in many ways he is a far better judge of it than we, as he has lived through and felt what we have only seen. Our work is rather to bring him to the point of considering, and to the spirit of judging rightly, than to consider or judge for him.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“I am convinced that one of the evils of much that is done for the poor, springs from the want of delicacy felt and courtesy shown to them, and that we cannot beneficially help them in any spirit different to that in which we help those who are better off.”
OCTAVIA HILL
August 3
“Visit whom, when, and where you will, but let your visits be those of women to women. Consider to whom you go, to poor souls whose life, compared with yours, is a long malaise of body, soul, and spirit, and do as you would be done by; instead of reproving and fault-finding, encourage. . . .
“Do not interrupt and vex her with remedies which she does not understand, for troubles which you do not understand. But speak comfortably to her, and say, ‘I cannot feel with you, but I do feel for you.’ . . . I am convinced that the only way to help these poor women, humanly and really, is to begin by confessing that you do not know how to help them. . . . You must regulate your conduct to them and in their houses, even to the most minute particulars, by the very same rules that apply to persons of your own class. . . . Approach, then, these poor women as sisters. . . . learn lovingly and patiently, aye, and reverently . . . to understand their troubles, and by that time they will have learnt to understand your remedies.”
“We should treat the poor with the same delicacy of thoughtful respect as if they belonged to a higher class.”
“Do not interrupt and vex her with remedies which she does not understand, for troubles which you do not understand. But speak comfortably to her, and say, ‘I cannot feel with you, but I do feel for you.’ . . . I am convinced that the only way to help these poor women, humanly and really, is to begin by confessing that you do not know how to help them. . . . You must regulate your conduct to them and in their houses, even to the most minute particulars, by the very same rules that apply to persons of your own class. . . . Approach, then, these poor women as sisters. . . . learn lovingly and patiently, aye, and reverently . . . to understand their troubles, and by that time they will have learnt to understand your remedies.”
C. KINGSLEY, from Practical Lectures to Ladies
“We should treat the poor with the same delicacy of thoughtful respect as if they belonged to a higher class.”
Bishop WALSHAM HOW
August 2
“Bear ye one another’s burdens.”
“God has furnished us with constant occasions of bearing one another’s burdens. For there is no man living without his failings; no man that is so happy as never to give offence; no man without his load of trouble; no man so sufficient as never to need assistance; none so wise but the advice of others may, at some time or other, be useful for him; and, therefore, we should think ourselves under the strongest engagements to comfort, and relieve, and instruct, and admonish, and bear with one another.”
GAL. vi. 2
“God has furnished us with constant occasions of bearing one another’s burdens. For there is no man living without his failings; no man that is so happy as never to give offence; no man without his load of trouble; no man so sufficient as never to need assistance; none so wise but the advice of others may, at some time or other, be useful for him; and, therefore, we should think ourselves under the strongest engagements to comfort, and relieve, and instruct, and admonish, and bear with one another.”
THOMAS à KEMPIS
“Now thou may’st give
The famished food, - the prisoner liberty, -
Light to the darkened mind, - to the lost soul
A place in heaven! Take thou the privilege
With solemn gratitude. Speck as thou art
Upon earth’s surface, gloriously exult
To be co-worker with the King of Heaven.”
The famished food, - the prisoner liberty, -
Light to the darkened mind, - to the lost soul
A place in heaven! Take thou the privilege
With solemn gratitude. Speck as thou art
Upon earth’s surface, gloriously exult
To be co-worker with the King of Heaven.”
Mrs SIGOURNEY
August 1
“It is the business of anybody who can, to set right what anybody has set wrong.”
“What, in a world where cries for help
Must ever sound till sin shall cease,
Can be a goodlier work than this, -
Griefs to assuage, joys to increase?
“To cheer the oppressed, with righteous words
And aid them with a labouring arm;
The slaves of tyrant ignorance
To rescue, and then shield from harm;
“To offer cups of water pure
From rocky truth’s coll, plenteous well,
To souls confused with feverish woes
Unspoken and unspeakable.
“O, if no partner in the pains
By which love labours for my race,
Death, that takes home and crowns the brave,
Can but insure my long disgrace.”
Must ever sound till sin shall cease,
Can be a goodlier work than this, -
Griefs to assuage, joys to increase?
“To cheer the oppressed, with righteous words
And aid them with a labouring arm;
The slaves of tyrant ignorance
To rescue, and then shield from harm;
“To offer cups of water pure
From rocky truth’s coll, plenteous well,
To souls confused with feverish woes
Unspoken and unspeakable.
“O, if no partner in the pains
By which love labours for my race,
Death, that takes home and crowns the brave,
Can but insure my long disgrace.”
LYNCH
July 31
“Must all expenditure increase the material happiness of man? Are we never doing man good except when we are providing for his outward wants, or giving him an education which will enable him to get on in the world? Even in matters like food and dress, are we forced to restrain our expenditure to that which is absolutely necessary? Expenditure beyond the necessary on these things is certainly unproductive, but is it always useless? I answer that we are bound, not only to assist the poor, but also to charm our society, to shew that we have thought of others by our desire to delight them. Within certain limits, expenditure on dress is useful in producing a social ease and charm. When it is entirely neglected in a household, for instance, it produces domestic quarrels, and it really means not only carelessness of person but carelessness of pleasing.”
STOPFORD BROOKE
“What asks our father of his children save
Justice and mercy and humility,
A reasonable service of good deeds,
Pure living, tenderness to human needs,
Reverence, and trust, and prayer for light to see
The Master’s foot-prints in our daily ways?
No knotted scourge, nor sacrificial knife,
But the calm beauty of an ordered life
Whose every breathing is unworded praise.”
Justice and mercy and humility,
A reasonable service of good deeds,
Pure living, tenderness to human needs,
Reverence, and trust, and prayer for light to see
The Master’s foot-prints in our daily ways?
No knotted scourge, nor sacrificial knife,
But the calm beauty of an ordered life
Whose every breathing is unworded praise.”
WHITTIER
Monday, August 17, 2009
July 30
“Expenditure on food and dress for the sake of display is vile expenditure. In itself it is coarse, for its aim is not beauty, and it is unintelligent, for it is blindly led by fashion. It is, moreover, wicked, for it is destroying wealth, and the destruction of wealth is theft. But it is allowable within certain limits, when its aim is to give a refined pleasure to others, when it is a symbol of love, sympathy, or friendship.
“The notion that mere expenditure does good to the poorer classes, or adds to the general wealth, is a fallacy. To create a demand for perishable goods is not to employ our labour usefully. The capital you spent yesterday on ugly ornaments, or on delicacies for a supper, is destroyed as a means of benefiting the working classes, or adding to the wealth of the country, as absolutely as if you had thrown it into the Thames.”
“The great industries have cheapened luxuries and stimulated the passion for them. They have destroyed the human fellowship of craftsman and chief. They have degraded labour, in a large degree, into speculation. They have deprived labour of its thoughtful freedom, and turned men into ‘hands’. They have given capital a power of dominion and growth perilous above all to its possessor.
“So it has come to pass that in our fierce conflicts we are in peril of guiding our conduct by a theory of rights, and not by a confession of duties; of losing life in a search for the means of living.
“The first words attributed to man born outside the Paradise of God are words which disclose the secret of all social evil. ‘Am I,’ said the earliest murderer, ‘my brother’s keeper?” . . . Yes; and the same answer must come as often as the thoughtless, the self-indulgent, the idle, propose the question now.”
“The notion that mere expenditure does good to the poorer classes, or adds to the general wealth, is a fallacy. To create a demand for perishable goods is not to employ our labour usefully. The capital you spent yesterday on ugly ornaments, or on delicacies for a supper, is destroyed as a means of benefiting the working classes, or adding to the wealth of the country, as absolutely as if you had thrown it into the Thames.”
STOPFORD BROOKE
“The great industries have cheapened luxuries and stimulated the passion for them. They have destroyed the human fellowship of craftsman and chief. They have degraded labour, in a large degree, into speculation. They have deprived labour of its thoughtful freedom, and turned men into ‘hands’. They have given capital a power of dominion and growth perilous above all to its possessor.
“So it has come to pass that in our fierce conflicts we are in peril of guiding our conduct by a theory of rights, and not by a confession of duties; of losing life in a search for the means of living.
“The first words attributed to man born outside the Paradise of God are words which disclose the secret of all social evil. ‘Am I,’ said the earliest murderer, ‘my brother’s keeper?” . . . Yes; and the same answer must come as often as the thoughtless, the self-indulgent, the idle, propose the question now.”
Bishop WESTCOTT
July 29
“One’s own! what a charm there is in the words! How long it takes boy or man to find out their worth! How fast most of us hold on to them! Faster and more jealously the nearer we are to that general Home into which we can take nothing, but must go naked as we came into the world. When shall we learn that He who multiplieth possessions multiplieth troubles, and that the one single use of things which we call our own, is that they may be His who hath need of them.”
“I am certain that the good of human life cannot lie in the possession of things which for one man to possess is for the rest to lose; but rather in things which all can possess alike, or where one man’s wealth promotes his neighbour’s.”
TOM HUGHES
“I am certain that the good of human life cannot lie in the possession of things which for one man to possess is for the rest to lose; but rather in things which all can possess alike, or where one man’s wealth promotes his neighbour’s.”
SPINOZA
“’This tent is mine,’ said Yussouf, ‘but no more
Than it is God’s; come in and be at peace.’”
Than it is God’s; come in and be at peace.’”
LOWELL
July 28
“And remember, in the second place, what would happen if all the little people in the world held up their littleness like a shield before them, as you hold up yours. Grant that you are as small as you think you are, you are the average size of moral and intellectual humanity. Let all the Merozes in the land be humble like you, and where shall be the army? Only when men like you wake up and shake the paralysis of their humility away, shall we begin to see the dawn of that glorious millennium for which we sigh; which will consist not in the transformation of men into angels, nor in the coming forth of a few colossal men to be the patterns and the champions of life, but simply in each man, through the length and breadth of the great world, doing his best.”
“Do what lieth in thy power and God will assist thy good will.”
“God only asks from you what He gives you power to do.”
PHILLIPS BROOKS
“Do what lieth in thy power and God will assist thy good will.”
THOMAS à KEMPIS
“God only asks from you what He gives you power to do.”
Bishop WALSHAM HOW
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
July 27
“No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving; as well might the mountain streamlets say they have nothing to give the sea because they are not rivers.
“Give what you have; to some one it may be better than you dare to think.”
“Do not despond because your means of doing good appear trifling or insignificant; for though one soweth and another reapeth, yet it is God that giveth the increase; and who can tell whether He will not cause that which is sewn to bear fruit an hundred fold?”
“There must be a perpetual crusade carried on against small evils – very wearing sometimes. It is necessary to believe that in thus setting in order certain spots on God’s earth, still more in presenting to a few of His Children a somewhat higher standard of right, we are doing His work, and that He will not permit us to lose sight of His large laws, but will rather make them evident to us through small details.”
“Give what you have; to some one it may be better than you dare to think.”
LONGFELLOW
“Do not despond because your means of doing good appear trifling or insignificant; for though one soweth and another reapeth, yet it is God that giveth the increase; and who can tell whether He will not cause that which is sewn to bear fruit an hundred fold?”
JEAN INGELOW
“There must be a perpetual crusade carried on against small evils – very wearing sometimes. It is necessary to believe that in thus setting in order certain spots on God’s earth, still more in presenting to a few of His Children a somewhat higher standard of right, we are doing His work, and that He will not permit us to lose sight of His large laws, but will rather make them evident to us through small details.”
OCTAVIA HILL
July 26
“All work must be done very simply and quietly because God puts it into our hands to do, and then He will undoubtedly bless it. Do not allow yourself to become overwhelmed with work. You may be fully aware of your unfitness, and long for another to do it better, but if God has told you to do certain work for Him, then you must do it. Another might certainly do it better, but you have nothing to do with that. God has sent you to do it and no one else. He will give you all the strength you need to enable you to do it rightly. ‘My God shall supply all your need.’ Do not let self creep in. It is only self that makes you think about it at all, and say you cannot do it. You can do it perfectly well if He tells you to do it and it is not self-sought. Even if it be spiritual work, and you fear the souls of others may suffer through you, you need not fear. He has called you, and He will help you. Only trust to Him, and remember it is not you who do it, but He who works through you. Keep very quiet and calm, and rest in God, then He will not let you feel overwhelmed. Be as simple and natural as possible about everything. Try always to see clearly that right is right and wrong is wrong.”
“All our natural endowments, all our personal histories, all our contrasted circumstances, are so many opportunities for peculiar work.”
H. MONSELL
“All our natural endowments, all our personal histories, all our contrasted circumstances, are so many opportunities for peculiar work.”
Bishop WESTCOTT
July 25
“Humanity is great;
And if I would not rather pore upon
An ounce of common, ugly, human dust,
An artisan’s palm, or a peasant’s brow,
Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God,
Than track old Nilus to his silver roots.
. . . . . . . . . . . . set it down
As weakness, - strength by no means,
We, we are shocked at Nature’s falling off,
We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains;
We will not, when she sneezes, look at her
Not even to say, ‘God bless her’. That’s our wrong.
For that she will not trust us often with
Her larger sense of beauty and desire,
But tethers us to a lily or a rose
And bids us diet on the dew inside,
Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy
Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world
To this world undisparaged, undespoiled,
And (while we scorn him for a flower or two,
As being, Heaven help us, less poetical)
Contains himself both flower and firmament,
And surging seas and aspectable stars,
And all that we would push him out of sight
In order to see nearer. Let us pray
God’s grace to keep God’s image in repute.”
And if I would not rather pore upon
An ounce of common, ugly, human dust,
An artisan’s palm, or a peasant’s brow,
Unsmooth, ignoble, save to me and God,
Than track old Nilus to his silver roots.
. . . . . . . . . . . . set it down
As weakness, - strength by no means,
We, we are shocked at Nature’s falling off,
We dare to shrink back from her warts and blains;
We will not, when she sneezes, look at her
Not even to say, ‘God bless her’. That’s our wrong.
For that she will not trust us often with
Her larger sense of beauty and desire,
But tethers us to a lily or a rose
And bids us diet on the dew inside,
Left ignorant that the hungry beggar-boy
Bears yet a breastful of a fellow-world
To this world undisparaged, undespoiled,
And (while we scorn him for a flower or two,
As being, Heaven help us, less poetical)
Contains himself both flower and firmament,
And surging seas and aspectable stars,
And all that we would push him out of sight
In order to see nearer. Let us pray
God’s grace to keep God’s image in repute.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
"He who feels contempt
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he hath never used, and thought with him
Is in its infancy.”
For any living thing, hath faculties
That he hath never used, and thought with him
Is in its infancy.”
WORDSWORTH
July 24
“There is some soul of goodness in things evil
Would men observingly distil it out.”
Would men observingly distil it out.”
SHAKESPEARE
“We must learn to see the good in the midst of much that is unlovely.”
GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]
“I would be bold, and bear
To look into the swarthiest face of things,
For God’s sake who made them.”
To look into the swarthiest face of things,
For God’s sake who made them.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
“Everyone must admire the courage which she displayed, but those who know by experience what the lowest of the masses in our large towns are like – how all decency and every vestige of humanity seems to be stamped out of their nature – will alone be in a condition to appreciate her power. That power should more properly be called the utmost cultivation of all her faculties. This enabled her first to see the image of God, defiled and darkened though it might be, impressed upon every living soul, - to feel her kinship with it, to lay her hand, not upon the defilements and impurity, but through the means of her infinite love and tenderness, upon the one spot yet capable of being healed, thus kindling the faintest spark into a living flame.”
From Biography of Sister Dora
July 23
“’Father of all’! he urges his strong plea
Thou lovest all; Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee.
“All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear
None from that Presence which is everywhere.
Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.
“Through sins of sense, perversities of will,
Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill
Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.
“Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal!
In Thy long years, life’s broken circle whole,
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?”
Thou lovest all; Thy erring child may be
Lost to himself, but never lost to Thee.
“All souls are Thine; the wings of morning bear
None from that Presence which is everywhere.
Nor hell itself can hide, for Thou art there.
“Through sins of sense, perversities of will,
Through doubt and pain, through guilt and shame and ill
Thy pitying eye is on Thy creature still.
“Wilt thou not make, Eternal Source and Goal!
In Thy long years, life’s broken circle whole,
And change to praise the cry of a lost soul?”
WHITTIER
“I dislike extremely a passage in which you appear to consider the disregard of individuals as a lofty condition of mind. My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathise with individual suffering and individual joy.”
GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]
July 22
“Despise no soul, however debased, grimed, or soiled. These souls are God’s. . . . For all souls Jesus died. . . . At least, O Christians, pray for them. Give God what God can justly claim. ‘All souls are mine.’”
“Many who talk loudly of progress and the perfectibility of the human race do not see the beauty and worth of every human soul, even in the midst of its utmost ignorance or bondage to sin.”
KNOX LITTLE
“Who heeds not how the lower gusts are working,
Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,
And sees beneath the foulest faces lurking
One God-built shrine of reverence and love.
Who feels that God and Heaven’s great deep are nearer
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh.
Who does not hold his soul’s own freedom dearer
Than that of all his brethren, low or high.
Who to the right can feel himself the truer
For being gently patient with the wrong,
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,
And finds in Love the heart’s blood of his song.”
Knowing that one sure wind blows on above,
And sees beneath the foulest faces lurking
One God-built shrine of reverence and love.
Who feels that God and Heaven’s great deep are nearer
Him to whose heart his fellow-man is nigh.
Who does not hold his soul’s own freedom dearer
Than that of all his brethren, low or high.
Who to the right can feel himself the truer
For being gently patient with the wrong,
Who sees a brother in the evil-doer,
And finds in Love the heart’s blood of his song.”
LOWELL
“Many who talk loudly of progress and the perfectibility of the human race do not see the beauty and worth of every human soul, even in the midst of its utmost ignorance or bondage to sin.”
From Catherine of Siena
Thursday, August 6, 2009
July 21
“I think we made rather too many rules, and that we re-made them too often. I make fewer now, and easier ones, and let them much more alone. I wonder if I really keep them better? But if not, may God, I pray Him, send me back the restless zeal, the hunger and thirst after righteousness, which He gives in early youth! It is so easy to become more thick-skinned in conscience, more tolerant of evil, more hopeless of good, more careful of one’s own comfort and one’s own property, more self-satisfied in leaving high aims and great deeds to enthusiasts, and then to believe that one is growing older and wiser. And yet those high examples, those good works, those great triumphs over evil, which single hands effect sometimes, we are all grateful for, when they are done, whatever we may have said of the doing. But we speak of saints and enthusiasts for good, as if some special gifts were made to them in middle age which are withheld from other men. Is it not rather that some few souls keep alive the lamp of zeal and high desire which God lights for most of us while life is young?”
“Consider Him . . . lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”
Mrs EWING
“Consider Him . . . lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
“Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin.”
HEB. xii 3
July 20
“Great men, taken up in any way, are profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly, upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He is the living light-fountain which it is good and pleasant to be near, - the light which enlightens, which has enlightened, the darkness of the world, - in whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them. . . . No nobler feeling than this of admiration for one higher than himself dwells in the breast of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying influence in man’s life. Religion I find stands upon it; not Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions, - all religions hitherto known. Hero-worship, heart-felt, prostrate admiration, submission – burning, boundless, for a noblest Godlike form of man, - is not that the germ of Christianity itself? The greatest of all heroes is One whom we do not name here. . . . No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.”
“A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way, not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping.”
CARLYLE
“A man conscious of enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the memory of great workers who had to fight their way, not without wounds, and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping.”
GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]
July 19
“For the world still needs
Its champion of old, and finds him still.
Not always now with mighty sinews and thews
Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain
And voice to move men’s souls to love the right
And hate the wrong; even tho’ the bodily form
Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail
The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay
The monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,
Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man
Disguised as love of God. . . . . . . .
And tho’ men cease
To worship at my shrine, yet not the less
I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains
I bore for others, which have kept the heart
Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm
Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
To do and bear, and taught the race of men
How godlike ‘tis to suffer thro’ life, and die
At last for others’ good!”
Its champion of old, and finds him still.
Not always now with mighty sinews and thews
Like mine, though still these profit, but keen brain
And voice to move men’s souls to love the right
And hate the wrong; even tho’ the bodily form
Be weak, of giant strength, strong to assail
The hydra heads of Evil, and to slay
The monsters that now waste them: Ignorance,
Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of Man
Disguised as love of God. . . . . . . .
And tho’ men cease
To worship at my shrine, yet not the less
I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains
I bore for others, which have kept the heart
Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm
Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
To do and bear, and taught the race of men
How godlike ‘tis to suffer thro’ life, and die
At last for others’ good!”
LEWIS MORRIS (from Herakles)
July 18
“Nay, best it is, indeed,
To spend ourselves upon the general good;
And, oft misunderstood,
To strive to lift the limbs and knees that bleed;
This is the best, the fullest meed.
Let ignorance assail or hatred sneer;
Who loves his race he shall not fear;
He suffers not for long
Who doth his soul possess in loving and grows strong.
“Ay, labour, thou art blest,
From all the earth thy voice, a constant prayer,
Soars upward day and night;
A voice of aspiration after right;
A voice of effort yearning for its rest;
A voice of high hope conquering despair.”
To spend ourselves upon the general good;
And, oft misunderstood,
To strive to lift the limbs and knees that bleed;
This is the best, the fullest meed.
Let ignorance assail or hatred sneer;
Who loves his race he shall not fear;
He suffers not for long
Who doth his soul possess in loving and grows strong.
“Ay, labour, thou art blest,
From all the earth thy voice, a constant prayer,
Soars upward day and night;
A voice of aspiration after right;
A voice of effort yearning for its rest;
A voice of high hope conquering despair.”
LEWIS MORRIS
The holiest task by Heaven decreed,
An errand all divine,
The burden of our common need
To render less, is thine.
“The paths of pain are thine. Go forth
With patience, trust, and hope;
The sufferings of a sin-sick earth
Shall give thee ample scope.”
An errand all divine,
The burden of our common need
To render less, is thine.
“The paths of pain are thine. Go forth
With patience, trust, and hope;
The sufferings of a sin-sick earth
Shall give thee ample scope.”
WHITTIER
July 17
“There is work for all of us. And there is special work for each, work which I cannot do in a crowd, or as one of a mass, but as one man, acting singly according to my own gifts, and under a sense of my personal responsibilities. . . . I have a special work to do, as one individual, who, by God’s plan and appointment, have a separate position, separate responsibilities, and a separate work; a work which, if I do not do it, must be left undone.”
RUSKIN
“Therefore, though few may praise, or help, or heed us,
Let us work on with head, or heart, or hand,
For that we know the future ages need us;
And we must help our time to take its stand.
“Each single struggle has its far vibration,
Working results that work results again;
Failure and death are not annihilation,
Our tears exhaled will make some future rain.”
Let us work on with head, or heart, or hand,
For that we know the future ages need us;
And we must help our time to take its stand.
“Each single struggle has its far vibration,
Working results that work results again;
Failure and death are not annihilation,
Our tears exhaled will make some future rain.”
R. A. VAUGHAN
July 16
“It was Wednesday evening, and Merle walked down through the fields to preach, burning with one thought – the worth of a man.
“What Tom’s one year of Christian life had done! And all around were lives as precious – not all as gifted, but everyone as capable of being filled with the spirit of God – sinking to the low level of a careless, tippling life – drifting up to the great cities, where we call them ‘redundant masses’, and wonder how to endure the pressure of so great a multitude – and each unit might be a temple of the Holy Ghost. For Tom himself might have sunk with all the rest, into the slough, had no hand arrested him. And Christians can live to dress and dine, and think it much to spend an hour a week in surface labour, while this tremendous ruin of the most precious thing created is going on.”
There is work which everyone of us ought to be doing at our very doors. You have a fellowship, everyone of you, in this solidarity of evil. You cannot wipe off from your souls, as with a wet cloth, as though it were no concern of yours, the stains left by the sins of others. From each one of you radiates invisibly an interminable web work, of which the implicated consequences, if summed together, are incalculable. But if it be so in evil. . . . so is it also, thank God! with any good you do; it may put on white robes, and go forth as an angel to bless the world. Oh, if we could all, everyone of us, be made to feel how awful is our common responsibility for the general evil, how urgent is our individual duty to labour for the common good, we should see in a regenerated world the fulfilment of the olden prophecy. . . . “
“What Tom’s one year of Christian life had done! And all around were lives as precious – not all as gifted, but everyone as capable of being filled with the spirit of God – sinking to the low level of a careless, tippling life – drifting up to the great cities, where we call them ‘redundant masses’, and wonder how to endure the pressure of so great a multitude – and each unit might be a temple of the Holy Ghost. For Tom himself might have sunk with all the rest, into the slough, had no hand arrested him. And Christians can live to dress and dine, and think it much to spend an hour a week in surface labour, while this tremendous ruin of the most precious thing created is going on.”
E. B. BAYLY
There is work which everyone of us ought to be doing at our very doors. You have a fellowship, everyone of you, in this solidarity of evil. You cannot wipe off from your souls, as with a wet cloth, as though it were no concern of yours, the stains left by the sins of others. From each one of you radiates invisibly an interminable web work, of which the implicated consequences, if summed together, are incalculable. But if it be so in evil. . . . so is it also, thank God! with any good you do; it may put on white robes, and go forth as an angel to bless the world. Oh, if we could all, everyone of us, be made to feel how awful is our common responsibility for the general evil, how urgent is our individual duty to labour for the common good, we should see in a regenerated world the fulfilment of the olden prophecy. . . . “
Archdeacon FARRAR
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
July 15
“There drift through this great city thousands of outcasts, women who have sinned, men who have never heard a word of kindness from their very birth. They are the hundredth sheep. If you wish to be to them, when they cross your path, like Christ and God, do not stand apart, help to save a few from the terror of despair. Have you never asked yourself how much you may have done indirectly to swell those dreadful ranks, how thoughtlessness again and again repeated in matters that pertain to everyday life – for so wonderfully is society knit together – may have driven many into the outcast life.
“The ruin of many a woman lies at the door of the fine lady who hurries her workwoman to finish her dress, or who, to save herself a little trouble, or that she may indulge a momentary expense, refuses to pay her bills. One would think from the way in which the payment of debts has to be dragged out of the rich, that they think tradesmen can coin money to pay their under-workers. The wages of poor women are kept down, and their money held back, by this selfish thoughtlessness, and when wages are low, women are driven to ruin.”
“Remember now and always that life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality based upon eternity, and encompassed by eternity. Find out your task; stand to it; ‘the night cometh when no man can work.’”
“The ruin of many a woman lies at the door of the fine lady who hurries her workwoman to finish her dress, or who, to save herself a little trouble, or that she may indulge a momentary expense, refuses to pay her bills. One would think from the way in which the payment of debts has to be dragged out of the rich, that they think tradesmen can coin money to pay their under-workers. The wages of poor women are kept down, and their money held back, by this selfish thoughtlessness, and when wages are low, women are driven to ruin.”
STOPFORD BROOKE
“Remember now and always that life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality based upon eternity, and encompassed by eternity. Find out your task; stand to it; ‘the night cometh when no man can work.’”
CARLYLE
July 14
“Oh, dark is the background to the sunny landscape of our comfortable lives. Behind our rich houses and costly comforts are bleak rooms and worn clothes, through which the wintry wind drives its dagger, where starvation creeps into the bed with mother and child and eats into blood and bone, where, at the best, life is a long and weary strife against the force of laws which pitilessly inflict their worst sentence upon the innocent and weak. This is a ghastly burden, and it lies heavy upon millions in this country.”
“I have just been looking over a newspaper, one of the most painful and solemn studies in the world, if it be read thoughtfully. So much of sin and so much of suffering in the world are there displayed, and no one seems able to remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of comforts, is very startling when I contrast it to the lot of millions whose portion is so full of distress or trouble. May I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me grace to labour in my generation for the good of my brethren, and for His glory!”
STOPFORD BROOKE
“I have just been looking over a newspaper, one of the most painful and solemn studies in the world, if it be read thoughtfully. So much of sin and so much of suffering in the world are there displayed, and no one seems able to remedy either. And then the thought of my own private life, so full of comforts, is very startling when I contrast it to the lot of millions whose portion is so full of distress or trouble. May I be kept humble and zealous, and may God give me grace to labour in my generation for the good of my brethren, and for His glory!”
Dr ARNOLD
July 13
“Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first-fruits of all thine increase.”
“Wealth is honourable, and may be used most blessedly when men regard themselves as being what indeed they are – stewards of it, and not the owners; when they know how to acquire without avarice, and how to expend without grudging; but the wealth of the callous, the selfish, the greedy, the luxurious – their gold and silver is rusted, and its rust shall be a witness against the, and shall eat their flesh as it were fire. . . . If only every man and woman among you recognised the plain truth that you can no longer shift onto others’ shoulders the sacred responsibilities which God, and no other, lays individually upon you; if, in other words, Christians could only be aroused to be Christians, to feel as Christians, to live as Christians, to labour as Christians, we should soon sweep away the subterranean horrors of this deep, dar, under-world of woe that underlies life’s shining surface – dim, populous dens of multitudinous toil unheeded by the heedless.”
PROV. iii. 9
“Wealth is honourable, and may be used most blessedly when men regard themselves as being what indeed they are – stewards of it, and not the owners; when they know how to acquire without avarice, and how to expend without grudging; but the wealth of the callous, the selfish, the greedy, the luxurious – their gold and silver is rusted, and its rust shall be a witness against the, and shall eat their flesh as it were fire. . . . If only every man and woman among you recognised the plain truth that you can no longer shift onto others’ shoulders the sacred responsibilities which God, and no other, lays individually upon you; if, in other words, Christians could only be aroused to be Christians, to feel as Christians, to live as Christians, to labour as Christians, we should soon sweep away the subterranean horrors of this deep, dar, under-world of woe that underlies life’s shining surface – dim, populous dens of multitudinous toil unheeded by the heedless.”
Archdeacon FARRAR
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