March 21

“I never saw a more perfect instance of the spirit of power and of love, and of a sound mind; intense love almost to the annihilation of selfishness – a daily martyrdom for twenty years, during which she adhered to her early-formed resolution of never talking about herself; thoughtful about the very pins and ribands of my wife’s dress, about the making of a doll’s cap for a child, - but of herself, save only as regarded her ripening in all goodness, wholly thoughtless, enjoying everything lovely, graceful, beautiful, high-minded, whether in God’s work or man’s, with the keenest relish; inheriting the earth to the very fulness of the promise, though never leaving her crib, nor changing her posture; and preserved through the very valley of the shadow of death from all fear or impatience, or from every cloud of impaired vision, which might mar the beauty of Christ’s spirit’s glorious work.”

Letter from Dr Arnold on the death of his Sister

March 20

“As one looks around upon the community to-day, how clear the problem of hundreds of unhappy lives appears. Do we not all know men for whom it is just as clear as daylight that that is what they need, the sacrifice of themselves for other people? Rich men who, with all their wealth, are weary and wretched; learned men whose learning only makes them querulous and jealous; believing men whose faith is always souring into bigotry and envy, - every man knows what these men need; just something which shall make them let themselves go out into the open ocean of a complete self-sacrifice. They are rubbing, and fretting and chafing themselves against the wooden wharves of their own interests to which they are tied. Some time or other a great, slow, quiet tide, or a great, strong, furious storm, must come and break every rope that binds them, and carry them clear out to sea; and then they will for the first time know the true, manly joy for which a man was made, as a ship for the first time knows the full joy for which a ship was made, when she trusts herself to the open sea and, with the wharf left far behind, feels the winds over her and the waters under her, and recognises her true life. Only, the trust to the great ocean must be complete. No trial trip will do. No ship can tempt the sea and learn its glory, so long as she goes moored by any rope, however long, by which she means to be drawn back again if the sea is too rough. The soul that trifles and toys with self-sacrifice never can get its true joy and power. Only the soul that with an overwhelming impulse and a perfect trust gives itself up for ever to the life of other men, finds the delight and peace which such complete self-surrender has to give.”

PHILLIPS BROOKS

January 6

January 6

“This is not the mere being good, it is the definite surrender of oneself and one’s life at any cost. I feel God has been calling you to the highest point of union with His Divine Life, and you must aim to be very true in following. And that following is not in the outer sections of your life, though they are the bulwarks and stays of it, but it is in the inner surrender of the soul, the willingness that self should suffer, be buffeted, cut down, cease to exist; - no longer ‘I like,’ but that God wills it. – that life has no will but to respond unhesitatingly to the Divine Will. One by one everything must be offered to God. The dying self offeres it to God a thousand times, and then shrinks back and takes to itself that which it has offered.
“But God loves us too well, and is too true with us, not to oblige us to be true with him.”

H. MONSELL

“Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination to me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.
“Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

ISAIAH i. 13 – 17