November 13

“Prayer has the power of sanctifying life, because it brings God into life. Twice in the day it has been for ages the habit of the race to use this talisman, once for the sanctification of the day; once for the sanctification of the night. The morning prayer chimes in with the joy of the creation, with the quick world, as it awakes and sings. Such a prayer is the guard of life. It makes us conscious of our Father’s presence, so that we hear His voice in the hour of our folly and our sin. ‘My child, this morning you called Me to your side, do not drive Me away. Bridle that passionate temper, restrain that excitement which is sweeping you beyond the power of will; keep back that foolish word which will sting your neighbour’s heart; do not do that dishonesty; be not guilty of that cowardice. I am by your side.’”

STOPFORD BROOKE

“With the practice of prayer I should earnestly recommend the use of some book of devotion, like Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying – some book which will make us acquainted with the feelings, and reflections, and resolutions of good men, who have gone through the very self-same struggle with Adversity.”

Dr ARNOLD

November 12

“We need to ‘watch unto prayer.’ Watching unto prayer implies that we are storing up matter for our prayers; so watching our steps and words, and thoughts, so taking account of our hours as they pass, so marking the defects and failures of our common life, as to know what to pray about, and what to pray for, and what to pray against, when the time comes.”

J. HAMPDEN GURNEY

“Is it not true that most people fail much in prayer, because they will not take the trouble to prepare for prayer? With a written list of the subjects we select for our prayers, a few collects or prayers from books of devotion carefully selected and marked, and a fixed time allotted to our prayers, we shall find we can do much better than we generally do now.”

Bishop WALSHAM HOW

November 11

“Let there be many windows in your soul.
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself
And high as God.
Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendour from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with their golden seas of love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths,
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of Reason and of Knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars,
And to the voice of nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you from their peace-crowned heights,
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half truths and grasp the whole.”

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX

"Make truth lovely, and do not try to arm her – mankind will then be far less inclined to content with her.”

JOUBERT

November 10

“Partial views grow perilous, not when they are held firmly, but when they are held as if they were universal.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Since the value of words must change with widened or contracted thought, no formula expressed in words can be exhaustive.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Words which at one time sum up earlier experience become at another time centres, as it were, round which new and foreign thoughts crystallise.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“To claim completeness for our opinions is to abandon the encouragement of progress; and on the other hand, difficulties frankly met reveal new paths of truth.”

Bishop WESTCOTT

November 9

“In spiritual Truth, whatever we know is infinitely precious, and we are bound at all costs to uphold the convictions which are borne in upon us.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“At the same time, we are not bound by any equal obligation to force them upon others.”

Bishop WESTCOTT

“It is well for anyone to argue against opinions which he thinks false, to examine the grounds upon which they profess to rest, to endeavour to convert those who hold them to a different way of thinking. But all this in no way justifies the attempt to persuade anyone to go against their conscience as long as their conscience remains unconvinced. To convince someone that their conscientious convictions are not true is quite a different thing from persuading that person to disobey them while they still thinks them true. The fact is, that true Christian society and true Christian friendship cannot exist on any other basis than that of respecting each other’s consciences.”

Bishop TEMPLE

November 8

“The more readily we admit the possibility of our own cherished convictions being mixed with error, the more vital and helpful whatever is right in them will become; and no error is so conclusively fatal as the idea that God will not allow us to err, though he has allowed all others to do so. . . .
“In every nation, they that fear God and work righteousness are accepted of Him. See that you understand what that righteousness means, and set hand to it stoutly; you will always measure your neighbour’s creed kindly in proportion to the substantial fruits of your own.”

RUSKIN

“We are quite right in regarding with suspicion, and in narrowly questioning and examining, all new-fangled views, whether social or religious. And yet there should be a readiness in us, though not to abandon for one moment the old truth, yet to recognise any new form in which it may be presented. . . . Truth is many-sided like a cube; and we should never be so tenacious of the aspect of it which is familiar to us, as not to be ready to come round and view it under another’s aspect.”

GOULBURN

November 7

“It is true that the wickedness of persecuting people on account of their religious opinions is not now practised or defended in this country, but we have still amongst us some evils arising out of the same source – the mistaking of a false unity of form and opinion for the union of spirit and faith. There are many persons, for instance, in our own Church, who dwell much more on the differences of form and opinion which exist between them and good dissenters, than on the unity of spirit between all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity. It is certainly natural and proper that one should feel more closely united towards those whose principles, and feelings, and opinions are quite like our own; if, indeed, such a marvellous agreement is anywhere to be found; and, therefore, one may feel more closely drawn towards a very good and enlightened dissenter. But the evil is that many persons feel more friendly disposed, I do not say to absolutely wicked, but to careless and unspiritual Churchmen, than to zealous and holy dissenters; and this is to undo Christ’s work, to put an earthly and unimportant bond of union in the place of that union of goodness and holiness which was to bind men to one another in Him and in His Father.”

Dr ARNOLD

“When a particular belief is fruitful in nobleness of character, we need trouble ourselves very little with scientific demonstrations that it is false.”

FROUDE

November 6

“I have always been thinking of the different ways in which Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest – I mean that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much.”

GEORGE ELIOT [pen-name of Mary Ann Evans]

“It seems to me a waste of time which we can ill afford, and a sort of ‘quarrel by the way’ which our Christian vow of enmity against moral evil makes utterly unreasonable, when Christians suspend their great business, and loosen the bond of their union with each other, by venting useless regrets and complaints against one another’s errors, instead of labouring to lessen one another’s sins.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
I have one great principle that I never lose sight of; to insist strongly on the difference between Christian and non-Christian, and to sink into nothing the difference between Christian and Christian.”

Dr ARNOLD

November 5

“Christianity has abler advocates than in its professed defenders, in those many quiet and humble men and women who, in the light of it and strength of it, lead holy, beautiful, and self-denying lives.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“Wherever there is genuine love for good and goodness, no speculative superstructure of opinion can be so extravagant as to forfeit those graces which are promised, not to clearness of intellect, but to purity of heart.”

FROUDE

“Good love, however ill-placed,
Is better for man’s soul in the end
Than if he loved ill, what deserves love well,
A Pagan, kissing for a step of Pan
The wild goat’s hoof-print on the loaming down,
Exceeds our modern thinker who turns back
The strata – granite, limestone, coal and clay,
Concluding coldly with, ‘Here’s law, where’s God?’”

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING

“It is only the principles of Truth, Goodness, and Right, which are to last for ever. The forms in which these exhibit themselves will necessarily vary with the age and state of society.”

GOULBURN

November 4

“Thy greatness makes us brave, as children are
When those they love are near.”

FABER

“A tender child of summers three
Seeking her little bed at night,
Paused on the dark stair timidly,
‘O mother, take my hand,’ said she,
‘And then the dark will all be light.’

“We older children grope our way
From dark behind to dark before,
And only when our hands we lay,
Dear Lord, in Thine, the night is day,
And there is darkness never more.

“Reach downwards to the sunless days
Wherein our guides are blind as we,
And faith is small, and hope delays,
Take Thou the hands of prayer we raise,
And let us feel the light of Thee!”

WHITTIER

“He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of Life.”

S. JOHN viii 12