Sunday.
The Consecrated Life.
How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?--Gospel for the Day.
Thy life is God's, thy time to come is gone,
And is His right.
Herbert.
Thou that in life's crowded city art arrived, thou know'st not how
By what path or on what errand--list and learn thine errand now!
From the palace to the city on the businessof thy King
Thou wert sent at early morning to return at evening.
Dreamer, waken!--loiterer, hasten!--what thy task is, understand!
Thou art here to purchase substance, and the price is in thy hand.
Has the tumult of the market all thy sense and reason drowned?
Do its glistening wares attract thee? or its shouts and cries confound?
Oh! beware lest thy Lord's business be neglected while thy gaze
Is on every show and pageant which the giddy square displays!
Ruckert.
Oh let our adoration for all that He hath done
Peal out beyond the stars of God, while voice and life are one!
And let our consecration be real, and deep, and true,
Oh, even now our hearts shall bow, and joyful vows renew!
"In full and glad surrender we give ourselves to Thee,
Thine utterly, and only, and evermore to be!
O Son of God, Who Iovest us, we will be Thine alone,
And all we are, and all we have, shall henceforth be Thine own!"
F. R. Havergal.
------------------------------
[066]
Monday. 1st after Epiphany.
The Consecrated Life.
If ye offer the lame and sick is it not evil?--Mal. i. 8.
I was not good enough for man
And so was given to God!
C. Kingsley.
My God must have my best, e'en all I had.
Herbert.
All we have we affer,
All we hope to be:
Body, soul, and spirit,
All we yield to Thee.
Thring.
While life is good to give, I give.
E. Arnold.
Deep in the warm vale the village is sleeping,
Sleeping the firs on the bleak rock above;
Nought wakes, save grateful hearts, silently creeping,
Up to the Lord in the might of their love,
What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I bring Thee,
Odour and light, and the magic of gold;
Feet which must follow Thee, lips which must sing Thee.
Limbs which must ache for Thee ere they grow old.
What Thou hast given to me, Lord, here I tender,
Life of mine own life, the fruit of my love;
Take him, yet leave him me, till I shall render
Count of the precious charge, kneeling above!
C. Kinglsey.
They give their best--O tenfold shame
On us their fallen progeny,
Who sacrifice the blind and lame,
Who will not wake or fast with Thee!
Keble.
Week of The First Sunday After Epiphany
"The Consecrated Life"
"Better is it that thou hadst not vowed than thou shouldest vow and not pay."
A Prayer for the Week
Here we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively sacrifice unto Thee. And although we be unworthy, through our manifold sins, to offer unto Thee any sacrifice, yet we beseech Thee to accept this our bounden duty and service.
------------------------------
[064]
Saturday. 1st after Epiphany.
The Consecrated Life.
Called to be saints.--1 Cor. i. 2.
What offering, what transcendent monument
Shall our sincerity to Thee present?
--Not work of hands; but trophies that may reach
To highest Heaven--the labour of the Soul!
That builds, as Thy unerring precepts teach,
Upon the internal conquests made by each,
Her hope of lasting glory for the whole!
Wordsworth.
Bring thine all, thy choicest treasure,
Heap it high and hide it deep!
Thou shalt win o'erflowing measure,
Thou shalt climb where skies are steep.
For as Heaven's true only light
Quickens all those forms so bright,
So where Bounty never faints
There the Lord is with His saints.
Keble.
Who shall dare make common or unclean
What once has on the Holy Altar been?
Newman.
Know that His might is yours, Whose breathing seal'd your vows!
Keble.
Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee!
All may of Thee partake,
Nothing can be so mean,
Which with this tincture (for Thy sake)
Will not grow bright and clean.
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine!
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws
Makes that and th' action fine.
Herbert
The Epiphany
"The Universal Fellowship"
"Ye are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus."
The Readings for the week-days intervening between the Epiphany and the following Sunday are to be taken from the Sixth Week of the season, "The Supreme Fatherhood," pp. 103-110.
------------------------------
[062]
Feast of The Epiphany.
The Universal Fellowship.
To make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery.--Ephesians III. 9.
God, being so great, great gifts most willingly imparts;
But we continue poor that have such narrow hearts.
Trench.
He sees the gleams
Of better thoughts across the murkiest gloom,
The seeds of good amid the howling wastes,
And perfects them at last; and in the depths
Of His divine forbearance, suffereth long,
And passeth by transgression. That vast throng,
The multitude of peoples, nations, tongues,
Shall stand before His Throne, and every act
Of human kindness He will own as His,
And crown, as service rendered unto Him.
Plumptre.
Ye that once were far off are made nigh in the blood of Christ.
Ephes. II. 13. (R. V.)
Small, Great, are merely terms we bandy here:
Since to the Spirit's absoluteness, all
Are like!
Browning.
Lord visit Thou our souls
And teach us by Thy grace,
Each dim revealing of Thyself
With loving awe to trace!
All who speak truth to me commissioned are;
All who love God are in my Church embraced.
Not that I have no sense of preference--
None deeper!--but I rather love to draw,
Even here, on earth, on toward the future law
And Heaven's fine etiquette, where "Who?" and "Whence?"
May not be asked; and at the Wedding Feast,
North shall sit down with South, and West with East!
Burbidge.
January 4.
Onward and Upward.
Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto
perfection.--Heb. vi. 1.
Thou who canst *think* as well as *feel*,
Mount from the earth! Aspire! Aspire!
Wordsworth.
Thou might'st have been one of us,
Cleaving the storm and fire;
Aspiring though faith to the glorious,
Higher and ever higher;
Till the world of storms look tremulous
Far down, like a smitten lyre!
Mac Donald.
Man was made to grow, not stop;
That help he needed once and needs no more,--
Having grown but an inch by,--is withdrawn.
For he hath new needs,--and new helps to these.
This imparts solely, man should mount on each
New height in view; the help whereby he mounts--
The ladder-rung his foot has left,--may fall,
Since all things suffer change, save God the Truth
Man apprehends Him newly at each stage
Whereat earth's ladder drops,--its service done;
And nothing shall prove twice what once was proved.
Browning.
Then be it so!
For in better things we yet may grow,
Onward and upward still our way,
With the joy of progress from day to day;
Nearer and nearer every year
To the visions and hopes most true and dear!
Children still of a Father's love,
Childrin still of a home above!
Thus we look back
Without a sigh, o'er the lengthening track.
F. R. Havergal.
------------------------------
[060]
January 5. The New Year.
Onward and Upward.
We know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perect is
come, then that which is in part shall be done away.--1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10.
Man knows partly but conceives beside,
Creeps ever on from fancies to the fact,
And in this striving, --this converting air
Into a solid he may grasp and use,--
Finds Progress,--man's distinctive mark alone,
Not God's, and not the beasts'. God is,--They are,--
Man partly is, and wholly hopes to be!
Browning.
Learn the mystery of Progression duly,
Do not call each glorious change Decay;
But know we only hold our treasures truly
When it seems as if they pass'd away!
Nor dare to blame God's gifts for incompleteness!
In that want their beauty lies; they roll
Towards some infinite depth of love and sweetness,
Bearing onward man's reluctant soul.
A. Procter.
O eye, and O soul, is your thirst yet sated?
Or what more do ye claim for your own?
Must this world, at the best, be so lightly rated,
For the sake of a better, unknown?
Lyton.
Ends accomplished turn to means.
Browning.
Hints haunt me ever of a more beyond;
I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,
Of a completion over-soon assumed,--
Of adding up too soon.--
Clough.
So oft the doing of God's will
Our foolish wills undoeth!
And yet what idle dream breaks ill
Which morning-light subdueth?
And who would murmur and misdoubt
When God's great Sunrise finds him out?
E. B. Browning.
January 1. The New Year.
Onward and Upward.
Choose you this day whom ye will serve.
Josh. xxiv. 15.
Thou canst not choose but serve,--man's lot is servitude,--
But thou hast thus much choice, a bad lord or a good.
Trench.
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood for for the good or evil side!
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light.
Lowell.
Are your minds set upon righteousness?
Ps. lviii. 1. (P. B.)
Merely thyself, O man, thou canst not long abide,
But must for less or greater presently decede.
Trench.
God! fight we not within a cursed world
Whose very air teems thick with leagued fiends?
Each Word we speak has infinite effects--
Each Soul we pass must go to heaven or hell--
And this our one chance through eternity
To drop and die, like dead leaves in the brake!
Be earnest, earnest, earnest!
Do what thou dost as if the stake were Heaven,
And that thy last deed ere the Judgment-day!
Whin all's done, nothing's done. There's rest above--
Below let work be death, if work be love!
Kingsley.
------------------------------
[057]
January 2.
Onward and Upward.
Fargitting those things that are behind and reaching forth unto those things
that are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling.--Phil.
iii. 14.
Our only greatness is that we aspire.
J. Ingelow.
Go with the spiritual life, the higher volition and action,
With the great girdle of God, go and encompass the earth!--
Not for the gain of the gold, for the getting, the hoarding, the having,
But for the joy of the deed;--but for the Duty to do!
Clough.
A blessing such as this our hearts might reap,
The freshness of the garden they might share,
Through the long day an heavenly freshness keep,
If knowing how the day and the day's glare
Must beat upon them, we would largely steep
And water them betimes with dews of Prayer.
Trench.
If every year we would root out one vice we should sooner become perfect
men.
Thos. A Kempis.
Alas, long-suffering and most patient God,
Thou needst be surelier God to bear with us
Than even to have made us! Thou aspire, aspire
From henceforth for me! Thou who hast Thy self
Endured this flesh-hood, knowing how as a soaked
And sucking vesture it can drag us down
And choke us in the melancholy Deep,
Sustain me, that with Thee I walk these waves
Resisting!--Breathe me upward, Thou in me
Aspiring, Who art the Way, the Truth, the Life--
That to Truth henceforth seem indifferent,
No Way to Truth laborious, and no Life,
Not even this life I live, intolerable!
E. B. Browning.
------------------------------
[058]
January 3. The New Year.
Onward and Upward.
New wine must be put into new bottles.--Mark ii. 22.
Joy for the promise of our loftier homes!
Joy for the promise of another birth!
For oft oppressive unto pain becomes
The riddle of the earth.
Burbidge.
Man must pass from old to new,
From vain to real, from mistake to fact,
From what once seemed good, to what now proves best;
How could man have progression otherwise?
Browning.
I therefore go and join head, heart and hand,
Active and firm, to fight the bloodless fight
Of science, freedom, and the truth in Christ.
S. T. Coleridge.
The distant prospect always seems more fair,
And when attained, another yet succeds
Far fairer than before.
Kirke White.
You need the lower life to stand upon
In order to reach up unto that higher;
And none can stand a-tip-toe in the placce
He cannot stand in with two stable feet.
E. B. Browning.
A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet,
It is the distant and the dim
That we are sick to greet;
For flowers that grow our hands beneath
We struggle and aspire,--
Our hearts must die, except they breathe
The air of fresh Desire.
Houghton.
Go where thou wilt, seek whatsoever thou wilt, thou shalt not find a higher
way above, nor a safer way below, than the way of the Holy Cross.
Thos. A Kempis.
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[053]
The New Year and The Season Of Epiphany
------
"Thy Light Is Come"
------
The Feast of the Circumcision - Jan. 1st
The Epiphany - Jan. 6th
The Conversion of St. Paul* - Jan. 25th
The Feast of the Presentation* - Feb, 2nd
*When there are less than *four* Sundays after the Epiphany, one or both of
these festivals will fall within the following Season.
------------------------------
[054]
Feast of the Circumcision.
The Divine Brotherhood.
In all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.--Heb. 11. 7.
Thou would'st like wretched man be made,
In everything but sin,
That we as like Thee might become
As we unlike have been.
Stennett.
He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
Heb. 11. 11.
Give me an heart that beats
In all its pulses with the common heart
Of human kind, which the same things make glad,
The same make sorry! Give me grace enough
Even in their first beginnings to detect
The endeavours which the proud heart still is making
To cut itself from off the common root,
To set itself upon a private base,
To have wherein to glory of its own,
Beside the common glory of the kind!
Each such attempt in all its hateful pride
And meanness, give me to detect and loathe,--
A man, and claiming fellowship with men!
Trench.
He is bound to me,
For human love makes aliens near of kin.
J. Ingelow.
Such was the life Thou livedst; self-abjuring,
Thine own pains never easing,
Our burdens bearing, our just doom enduring,
A life without self- pleasing.
Faber.
------------------------------
[055]
The New Year
"Onward and Upward"
"Forward out of darkness, forward into light!"
A Prayer for the Week
O Lord, Thou knowest what is best for us, give whatThou wilt, and how
much thou wilt, and when Thou wilt! Deal with me as Thou thinkest good,
and asbest pleaseth Thee, and is most for Thine honour! Set me where
Thou wilt, and deal with me in all things just as Thou wilt!
Confirm and strengthen me in all goodness, and grant that the rest of my life
hereafter may be pure and holy, so that at the last I may come to Thine
eternal joy!
December 30.
Retrospect.
We are unprofitable sevrants.--Luke xvii. 10.
I never glanced behind to know
If I had kept my primal light from wane,
And thus insensibly am--what I am.
Browning.
Sin, not till it is left, will duly sinful seem;
A man must waken first, ere he can tell his dream.
Trench.
Comfort me not!--for if aught be worse than failure from over-stress
Of a life's prime purpse, it is to sit down content with a little success.
Lytton.
Let us look back on life:--was any change,
Any now blest experience, but at first
A pang, remorse-like, shot to the inmost seats
Of moral being?
Clough.
Too true it is, my time of power was spent
In idly watering weeds of casual growth,--
That wasted energy to desperate sloth
Declined, and fond self-seeking discontent,--
Too true it is that, knowing now my state,
I weakly mourn the sin I ought to hate,
Nor love the law I yet would fain obey;
But true is is, above all law and fate
Is Faith, abiding the appointed day.
H. Coleridge.
In doing is this knowledge won,
To see what yet remains undone.
With this our pride repress,
And give us grace, a growing store,
That day by day we may do more
And may esteem it less.
Trench.
------------------------------
[050]
December 30. The Dying Years.
Retrospect.
What I have written, I have written.--John xix. 22.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting
cannot be numbered. Eccles. i. 15.
The year departs! a blessing on its head!
We mourn not for it, for it is not dead:
Dead? What is that? A word to joy unknown,
Which love abhors, and faith will never own.
The passing breezes gone as soon as felt,
The flakes of snow that in the soft air melt,
The smile that sinks into a maiden's eye,
They come, thay go, they change, they do not die.
So the Old Year--that fond and formal name--
Is with us yet,--another and the same.
And are the thoughts that ever more are fleeing,
The moments that make up our being's being,
The silent workings of unconscious love
Or the dull hate which clings and will not move,
Are these less vital than the wave or wind
Or snow that melts and leaves no trace behind?
H. Coleridge.
To forget is not to be restored;
To lose with time the sense of what we did
Cancels not what we did; what's done remains!
Clough.
Now, it is gone. Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How,
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee--an eternal Now!
S.T. Coleridge.
Alas! alas!
Whatever hath been written shall remain,
Nor be erased nor written o'er again;
The Unwritten only still belongs to thee,
Take heed and ponder well what that shall be!
Longfellow.
------------------------------
[051]
Watch Night.
Hitherto hath the Lord helpe us.--1 Samuel vii. 12.
Mark how there still has run, enwoven from above,
Thro' thy life's darkest woof, the golden thread of love.
Trench.
I have always had one lode-star; now,
As I look back, I see that I have wasted
Or progressed as I looked towards that star--
A need, a trust, a yearning after God.
Browning.
Have I laid by from summer hours
Ripe fruits as well as leaves and flowers?
Hath my past year a growth to harden,
As well as fewer sins to pardon?
Is God in all things more and more
A king within me than before?
Faber.
What hath been bringeth what shall be, and is,
Worse--better--last for first and first for last;
The Angels in the Heavens of Gladness reap
Fruits of a holy past!
E. Arnold.
The Past is something, but the Present more;
Will it not, too, be past? Nor fail withal
To recognise the Future in your hopes;
Unite them in your manhood, each and all,
Nor mutilate the perfectness of life!--
You can remember; you can also hope.
Clough.
The Holy Innocents. Christmas-tide.
The Ministry of Children.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength.--Psalm viii. 2.
Children are God's apostles, day by day
Sent forth to preach of love, and hope, and peace.
Lowell.
Like lamp beside sepulchral urn,
Much teaching that it ne'er did learn,
Revealing by felicity,
Foretelling by simplicity,
And preaching by its sudden cries,
Alone with God the baby lies.
H. Coleridge.
The chidhood shows the man
As morning shows the day.
Milton.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
Prov. xxii. 6.
The most childish sin which man can do
Is yet a sin which Jesus never did,
When Jesus was a child, and yet a sin
For which, in lowly pain, He lived and died;
And for the bravest sin that e'er was praised
The King Eternal wore the crown of thorns.
H. Coleridge.
Er thou wert born into this breathing world
God wrote some characters upon thy heart.
Oh, let them not like beads of dew impearl'd
On morning blades before the noon depart!
But morning drops before the noon exhale!
And yet those drops appear again at even,
So chidish innocence on earth must fail
Yet may return to usher thee to heav'n.
H. Coleridge.
------------------------------
[ 047]
The Dying Year
"Retrospect"
"It were better that we were not at all, than that we should live still in wickedness."
A Prayer For The Week
We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done, and there is no health in us. But Thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us!--Forgive us all that is past, and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please Thee in newness of life!
------------------------------
[048]
December 29. The Dying Year.
Retrospect.
Where is the flock that was given thee, thy beautiful flock?--Jer. xiii. 20.
Think first what you are! Call to mind what you were!
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health and genius, and an ample scope.
Return you Me guilt, lethargy, despair?
S. T. Coleridge.
Famisht hopes press fast behind me, weakly wailing,
Faint before me fleets the good I have not done!
Lytton.
No action, whether foul or fair,
Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere
A record written by fingers ghostly,
As a blessing or a curse, and mostly
In the greater weakness or greater strength
Of the acts which follow it,--till at length
The wrongs of ages are redressed
And the fustice of God made manifest.
Longfellow.
Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face,
Nor seen nor loathed until held from us a small space.
Trench.
I had a noble purpose and the strength
To compass it; but I have stopp'd half-way,
And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil
To objects little worthy of the gift.
Why linger round them still? Why check my fault?
Why seek for consolation in defeat,
In vain endeavours to derive a beauty
From ugliness? Why seek to make the most
Of what no power can change, nor strive instead
With mighty effort to redeem the past
And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down
To hold a stedfast course till I arrive
At their fit destination and my own?
Browning.
Christmas Day.
Perfect God and Perfect man.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. - Gospel for the Day.
Blest day which aye reminds us, year by year,
What 'tis to be a Man; to curb and spurn
The tyrant in us; that ignobler self
Which owns no good save ease, no ill save pain,
No purpose, save its share in that wild war
In which through countless ages living things
Compete in internecine greed!
While ever out of the eternal heavens
Looks patient down the great, magnanimous God,
Who, Maker of all worlds, did sacrifece--
All to Himself? Nay, but Himself to one;
Who taught mankind on that first Christmas Day
What 'twas to be a Man; to give, not take;
To serve, not rule; to nourish, not devour;
To help, not crush; if need, to die, not live?
Kingsley.
Thou cam'st fron Heaven to Earth, that we
Might go from Earth to Heaven with Thee;
And though Thou found'st no welcome here,
Thou didst provide us mansions there.
H. Vaughan.
What is man, that Thou are mindful of him? and the son of man that Thou visitest him?
Ps. viii.4.
Immanuel! God with us in His meekness,
Immanuel! God with us in His might,
To bind our wounds, to gift with strength our weakness,
To bring us, angels, to the home of light!
Shiloh is come; His feet our earth have trod;
Now thanks and glory to the Child our God!
Morgan.
------------------------------
[044]
St. Stephen. Christmas-Tide.
Faithful unto Death.
They stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit."--Acts vii. 39.
Who follows in His train?
Who best can drink his cup of woe
Triumphant over pain;
Who patient bears his cross below,
He follows in His train!
Heber.
Many loved Truth and lavished life's best oil
Amid the dusk of books to find her,
Content at last for guerdon of their toil
With the cast mantle she hath left behind her,
Many in sad faith sought for her,
Many with crossed hands sighed for her;
But these our brothers fought for her,
At life's dear peril wrought for her,
So loved her that they died for her!
Their higher instinct knew,
They love her best who to themselves are true,
And what they dare to dream of, dare to do!
They followed her and found her
Where all may hope to find,
Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind,
But beautiful,--with danger's sweetness round her:
Where faith made whole with deed
Breathes its awakening breath
Into the lifeless creed.
Lowell.
If high feelings live, the Man a Martyr dies.
Houghton.
Blssed are those who die for God
And earn the Martyr's crown of light;
Yet he who lives for God may be
A greater Conqueror in His sight.
A. Procter.
------------------------------
[045]
St. John the Evangelist.
The Sanctuary of Home.
Then saith He to the Disciple, "Behold thy Mother!" and from that Desciple took her to his own home.--John XIX. 27.
Sweet is the smile of Home; the mutual look
Where hearts are of each other sure;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook,
The haunt of all affections pure.
Keble.
The many make the household
But only One the Home.
Lowell.
O Near ones, dear ones, you in whose right hands
Our own rests calm; whose faithful hearts all day
Wide open wait till back from distant lands
Thought, the tired traveller, wends his homeward way!
Helpmates and hearthhmates, gladdeners of gone years,
Tender companions of our serious days,
Who colour with your kisses, smiles, and tears
Life's worn web woven over wonted ways,
Oh shut the world out from the heart you cheer!
Tho' small the circle of your smiles may be,
The world is distant, and your smiles are near,
This makes you more than all the world to me!
Lytton.
Let them learn first to shew piety at home, and to requite their parents; for that is good and acceptable before God.
1 Tim. v. 4.
Home is the resort
Or love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where
Supporting and supported, polished friends
And dear relations mingle into bliss!
Thomson.
[038]
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[039]
Christmas
And
The Dying Year
"God To Men Is Drawing Near"
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
Dec, 24th and 25th
Festivals of St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents
Dec. 26th-28th
The Dying Dear
Dec. 29th-31st
------------------------------
[040]
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------------------------------
[041]
Christmas Eve. Christmas-Tide
"Perfect God and Perfect Man"
This I did for thee.--What hast thou done for Me?"
Saints Commerorated In Christmas-Tide
St. Stephen
Dec 26th
"Faithful unto Death"
St. John The Evangelist
Dec 27th
"The Sanctuary of Home"
The Holy Innocents
Sec 28th
"The Ministry of Children"
------------------------------
[042]
Will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? - 2 Chron. vi. 18.
Let not the hearts, whose sorrow cannot call
This Christmas merry, slight the festival;
Let us be merry that may merry be,
But let us not forget that many mourn;
The smiling Baby came to give us glee
But for the weepers was the Saviour born.
H. Coleridge.
O Blessed day, which giv'st the eternal lie
To self, and sense, and all the brute within;
Oh! come to us amid this war of life;
To hall and hovel come! to all who toil
In senate, shop, or study! and to those
Ill-warned and sorely-tempted--
Come to them, blest and blessing, Christmas Day!
Tell them once more the tale of Bethlehem,
The kneeling shepherds, and the Babe Divine;
And keep them men indeed, fair Christmas Day!
Kingsley.
Was it a fancy bred of vagrant guess,
Or well-remember'd fact--that He was born
When half the world was wintry and forlorn,
In Nature's utmost season of distress?
And did the simple earth indeed confess
Its destitution and ist craving need,
Wearing the white and penitential weed,
Meet symbol of judicial barrenness?
So be it: for in truth 'tis ever so,
That when the winter of the soul is bare,
The seed of heaven at first begins to grow,
Peeping abroad in desert of despair.
H. Coleridge.
Wednesday. Fourth Week in Advent.
The Way of Joy.
Thou hast loved righteousness and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.--Heb. i. 9.
In heaven above
And earth below, they best can serve true gladness
Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.
Wordsworth.
Nor hath thy knowledge of adversity
Robbed thee of any faith in happiness,
But rather cleared thine inner eyes to see
How many simple ways there are to bless.
Lowell.
Renounce joy for my fellows' sake? That's joy
Beyond joy; but renounced for mine, not theirs!
Why, the physician called to help the sick,
Cries 'Let me , first of all, discard my health!'
No, Son! the richness hearted in such joy
Is in the knowing what are gifts we give,
Not in a vain endeavour not to know!
Therefore, desire Joy, and thank God for it.
Browning.
I looked for Evil, stern of face and pale;
Came Good, too fair to tell.
I leant on God when other joys did fail;
He gave me these as well.
S. Williams.
The men who met him rounded on their heels
And wonder'd after him, because his face
Shone like the countenance of a priest of old
Against the flame about a sacrifice
Kindled by fire from heaven; so glad was he.
Tennyson.
None here is happy but in part:
Full bliss is divine;
There dwells some wish in every heart,
And doubtless one in thine.
Cowper.
Maker and High Priest
I ask Thee not my joys to multiply,--
Only to make me worthier of the least.
E, B. Browning
------------------------------
[033]
Thursday.
The Way of Joy.
If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them.--John xvi. 17.
My Master, they have wronged Thee and Thy love!
They only told me I should find the path
A *Via Dolorosa* all the way! . . .
Narrow indeed it is! . . . Oh, why
Should they misrepresent Thy words, and make
'Narrow' synonymous with 'very hard'?
For Thou, divinest Wisdom, Thou hast said
Thy ways are ways of pleasantness, and all
Thy paths are peace; and that the path of him
Who wears Thy perfect robe of righteousness
Is as the light that shineth more and more
Unto the perfect day. And Thou hast given
An olden promise, rarely quoted now,
Because it is too bright for our weak faith:
'If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend
Days in prosperity, and they shall spend
Their years in pleasure.'
Frances Havergal.
For he, and he only, with wisdom is blest
Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they grow,
Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest,
To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity flow.
Wordsworth.
'Tis mine--to boast no joy
Unsobered by such sorrows of my kind
As sully with their shade my life that shines.
Browning.
Thou hast proved that purest Joy is Duty.
H. Coleridge.
'Tis joy enough, my All in All
At Thy dear feet to lie;
Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
And none can higher fly!
Cowper.
------------------------------
[034]
Friday. Fourth Week in Advent.
The Way of Joy.
Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.--Matt, XXV,21.
O Lord! our separate lives destroy!
Merge in Thy gold our soul's alloy,
Pain is our own, and Thou art Joy.
Houghton.
Oh! for the joy Thy presence gives!
What peace shall reign when Thou art here!
Thy presence makes this den of thieves
A calm, delightful house of prayer.
Cowper.
But oh! the folly of distracted men
Who griefs in earnest, joys in jest pursue,
Preferring like brute beasts, a loathsome den
Before a Court, e'en that above, so clear,
Where are no sorrows, but delights more true
Than miseries are here!
Herbert.
Life's inadequate to Joy.
Browning.
What pleasures could I want, whose King I served
Where joys my fellows were?
Herbert.
Because the Few with signal virtue crowned,
The heights and pinnacles of human mind,
Sadder and wearier than the rest are found,--
Wish not thy soul less high or less refined!
True that the dear delights which every day
Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs;
True, that, though free from Passion's lawless sway,
A loftier being brings severer cares.
Yet have they hidden pleasures, even mirth
By those undreamt of who have only trod
Life's valley smooth; and if the rolling earth
Tho their nice ear have many a painful tone,
They know, Man does not live by Joy alone,
But by the presence and the power of God.
Houghton.
------------------------------
[035]
Saints Commemorated in Advent
St. Andrew
Nov. 30th
"The Disciplne of Duty"
St. Thomas
Dec. 21st
"Loyalty in Weakness"
* * St. Andrew's Day accasionally falls in the week preceding Advent.
------------------------------
[036]
St. Andrew. Saints' Days in Advent.
The Discipline of Duty.
Jesus saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, (for they were fishers;) and He saith unto them, Follow me! and I will make you fishers of men.--Gospel for the Day.
But two ways are offered to our will--
Toil with rare triumph, Ease with safe disgrace;--
Nor deem that acts heroic wait on chance!
The man's whole life preludes the single deed
That shall decide if his inheritance
Be with the sifted few of matchless breed,
Or with the unmotived herd that only sleep and feed.
Lowell.
Year after year , we slide from day to day
Like a sleek stream, from bay to sinuous bay
Wearing the course it evermore hath held.
The crumbling banks, that have so long compell'd
The stream to wind, to haste, to strive, or stay,
Drop down at last, and quite choke up the way
That once they foil'd. The river that rebelled
Becomes a marsh, prolific of ill weeds.
Such is the life of him who streams along
A lazy course, unweeting of his deeds;
Till duty, hope, love, custom, prayers and creeds
Crumble away, and yield to helpless wrong,
That from the mere disuse of right proceeds.
H. Coleridge.
Oh righteous doom, that they who make
Plesure their only end,
Ordering the whole life for its sake,
Miss that whereto they tend;
While they who bid stern Duty lead,
Content to follow,--they
Of duty only taking heed,
Find pleasure by the way.
Trench.
------------------------------
[037]
St. Thomas.
Loyalty in Weakness.
Let us also go, that we may die with Him.
John xi. 16.
Who can come near to God with a heart not on fire?
Souls must tire upon earth who in heaven would rest.
Is it hard to serve God, timid soul? Hast thou found
Gloomy forests, dark glens, mountain-tops on thy way?
All the hard would be easy, the tangle unwound,
Wouldst thou only desire as well as obey!
Faber.
The desire of our soul is to Thy name and to the remembrance of Thee.
Isaiah xxvl. 8.
Is there, on earth, a spirit frail,
Who fears to take their word,
Scarce daring, through the twilight pale,
To think he sees the Lord?
With eyes too tremblingly awake
To bear with dimness for His sake!
Read and confess the Hand Divine
That drew thy likeness here so true in every line!
For all thy rankling doubts so sore
Love thou thy Saviour still!
Him for thy Lord and God adore,
And ever do His will!
Though vexing thoughts may seem to last,
Let not thy soul be quite o'ercast;--
Soon will He shew thee all His wounds and say
"Long have I known thy name--know thou My
Face alway!"
Keble.
Oh how powerful is the pure love of Jesus, which is mixed with no self-interest, nor self-love!
Thos. A Kempis.
[029]
Sunday.
The Way of Joy.
Rejoice in the Lord alwoy; and again I say, Rejoice!--Epistle for the Day.
Earthly joy
Is but a bubble.
Herbert.
So soon made happy? Hadst thou learned
What God accounteth happiness,
Thou would'st not find it hard to guess
What hell may be His punishment
For those who doubt if God invent
Better than they.
Browning.
In every gladness, Lord, Thou art
The deeper Joy behind.
MacDonald.
I thank Thee too, that Thou hast made
Joy to abound;
So many gentle thoughts and deeds
Circling us round,
That in the darkest spot of Earth
Some love is found.
I thank Thee more that all our joy
Is touched with pain;
That shadows fall on brightest hours,
That thorns remain;
So that Earth's bliss may be our guide,
And not our chain.
For Thou, Who knowest, Lord, how soon
Our weak heart clings,
Hast given us joys tender and true,
But all with wings,--
So that we see, gleaming on high,
Diviner things.
A. Procter.
------------------------------
[030]
Monday. Fourth Week in Advent.
The Way Of Joy.
Ye shall rejoice in all that ye put your hand to.--Deut. XIL 7.
Take joy home,
And make a place in thy great heart for her,
And give her time to grow, and cherish her!
Then will She come and often sing to thee.
When thou art working in the furrows; ay,
Or weeding in the sacred hour of dawn.
It is a comely fashion to be glad--
Joy is the grace we say to God.
J. Ingelow.
Who is the angel that cometh?
Joy?
Look at his glittering rainbow wings--
No alloy
Lies in the radiant gifts he brings;
Tender and sweet,
He is come to-day,
Tender and sweet,
With chains of love on his tender feet.
'Blessed is he that cometh
In the name of the Lord.'
A. Procter.
Put case,--I never have myself enjoyed,
Known by experience what enjoyment means,--
How shall I--share enjoyment?--no, indeed!
Supply it to my fellows?--ignorant
As so I should be of the thing they crave,
How it affects them, works for good or ill? . . .
Just as I cannot, till myself convinced
Impart conviction, so, to seal forth Joy
Adroitly, needs must I know Joy myself.
Browning.
Divinity hath surely touched my heart;
I have possessed more Joy that earth can lend.
Bridges.
------------------------------
[031]
Tuesday.
The Way Of Joy.
As the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.--Isa. lxii. 5.
When first Thy sweet and gracious eye
Voushsafed e'en in the midst of youth and night
To look upon me, who before did lie
Weltering in sin,
I felt a sugared strange delight,
Passing all cordials made by any art,
Bedew, embalm and over-run my heart
And take it in.
Since that time many a bitter storm
My soul hath felt, e'en able to destroy,
Had the malicious and ill-meaning harm
His swing and sway;
But still Thy sweet original Joy
Sprung from Thine eye, did work within my soul,
And surging griefs when they grew bold, control
And get the day.
If Thy first glance so powerful be
A mirth but opened and sealed up again,
What wonders shall we feel when we shall see
Thy full-eyed love!
When Thou shalt look us out of pain
And one aspect of Thine spend in delight
More than a thousand suns disburse in light
In heaven above!
Herbert.
God tastes an infinite Joy
In infinite ways—one everlasting bliss;--
From Whom all Being emanates, all power
Proceeds;--in Whom is life for evermore,
Yet Whom Existence in its lowest forms
Includes. Where dwells enjoyment there is He;
With still a flying point of bliss remote,
A happiness in store afar, a sphere
Of distant glory in full view.
Browning.
We had a late afternoon thunder shower, so we took a walk after dinner. It was still light, cool from the storm, and everything looked fresh.
When we got home, we could hear loud laughing and some even louder rapp-pish music down the street--our next door neighbors were having a party. (It's still partially rural, so it wasn't as if they were right in our backyard or anything.)
And then somebody behind us started lighting off fireworks! So we sat outside to enjoy the evening. It was just getting dark.
Tim and J lit a small fire to experiment with the burning properties of sap. There were the revelling sounds of the party next door. Our neighbors on the other side were sitting on their front porch, also enjoying the evening. Fireflies were coming up all around us. A nice fireworks display was going off behind us. Miss M was a little afraid of the noise of the fireworks, so she was sitting in my lap. She liked the lights of the fireworks, though, and her brothers' fire fascinated her. She watched everything in silence for a few minutes, and then she blurted out, "I'm happy!"
It almost sounded like she was surprised!
No, I didn't forget this book. But ever since the CM conference and my experience with the leg cramps, I've been reading everything I could about how to deal with them. But now I'm back to Being Human (by Ranald MacAuley and Jerram Barrs). This book deserves a second reading, so I'll be re-reading it with Miss Roxie when she gets her copy.
This chapter is about how to understand the role of the mind in a Christian philosophy that isn't based on Platonic dualism. In light of scientific evidence and criticism that casts doubt on the truth of Scripture, the tendency is to go towards one of two extremes - either stubbornly refuse to consider or accept science or critism (evangelicalism), or to decide that faith is something different and removed from the reason of the mind and based on experience (liberal theology). Traditional evangelicals bury their head in the sand and accuse anything that comes from the secular world or appeals to the intellect as evil. Liberals look at faith as being divorced from reason. It doesn't matter whether the story of Adam really happened, they say. What matters is that I feel the presence of God in my heart.
But there's a middle ground. "Thou it is possible to declare the truth while knowing little about it, believers should never consider ignorance a virtue, but always seek to understand what Christianity is and how it relates to contemporary ideas. In this way we grow as Christians and become better able to help others see both what is wrong in alternative systems of thought which deny God and also the truth revealed in the Bible. The very fact that truth exists will be a source of wonder and excitement . . . As this happens the division between religious and non-religious topics of conversation disappears. Since almost everything one talks about necessarily relates in some way or other to the biblical world view, conversations will tend to lead toward the discussion of the basic truths of the Christian faith without any artificial manipulation . . . We have nothing to fear intellectually; it is other world views which are false, and demonstrably so."
There's also no need to discourage honest skepticism - if God is truth, then we don't have to be afraid that too much prying and questioning will reveal weaknesses that will erode faith.
We're finished for the year! This is the first year we've done this - usually we work through most of the summer and take 2 or 3 weeks off in August before starting the new year (I've always been afraid that once I stopped for longer than that, I'd never start again . . .)
This year the boys wanted a "real" summer vacation. So we haven't taken off a week here and there so much during this school year, and today was our last day of school - tomorrow begins eight glorious weeks of free time!
Well, not totally free - we'll still have an hour and a half in the morning for chores, devotions and a readaloud (we're going to try Waverley by Sir Walter Scott - how's that for ambitious?) and the boys will have a few other things to do. Tim will be working on math and Latin, J will be working on spelling, grammar and Algebra, and L will be practicing basic math skills, a little bit of writing, and I'll be reading him Hillyer's Child's Geography of the World. He's starting Year 5 next year and we have the option of doing either the Hillyer book or Halliburton's Book of Marvels. We have both and I don't want him to miss either one, so I'm reading him one over the summer.
It sounds like a lot, but we'll be getting done before noon every day and the stuff we're doing is either fun stuff or things they've needed focused time with (like L and his basic math facts).
Aside from that, they're going to be reading books of their choice. We looked at the Barnes and Noble summer reading program - if your child reads a certain number of books, Barnes and Noble will award him with a free book. But we didn't like their selection of book awards, and it's only for little kids. So I'm going to buy them a book of their choice for every six books they read.
L will probably get his book, he plans to read Paddington Bear and Boxcar Children books, and those are pretty easy for him. J will likely start out overly-ambitious and pick books like The Silmarillion, Ben Hur, and The Bride of Lammermoor - and never finish even one because he spent the summer adding a new deck onto the house instead of reading. T will probably end up with a complete new library before the summer's over.
What will I do with eight whole weeks? I'm hoping to clear out piles of stuff that's built up in my bedroom for the last four years, since I was pregnant. We have plans for re-arranging the room with different storage, and that should help, but that project won't happen overnight.
We like to read the Declaration of Independence every July 4th, but the younger ones sometimes need a little help to get the gist of it. So I did a search online and found this paraphrase.
[026]
Friday. Third Week in Advent.
Right judgment.
Give therejore thy servant an understanding heart that I may discern between good and bad.--1 Kings iii. 9.
They do but grope in learning's pedant round,
Who on the fantasies of sense bestow
An idol substance, bidding us bow low
Before those shades of being which are found
Stirring or still, on man's brief trial-ground;--
As if such shapes and moods, which come and go,
Had aught of Truth or Life in their poor show,
To sway or judge, and skill to sane or wound!
Son of immortal seed! high-destined Man!
Know thy dread gift--a creature, yet a cause:
Each mind is its own centre, and it draws
Home to itself, and moulds in its thought's span
All outward things, the vassals of its will,
Aided by Heaven, by earth unthwarted still.
Newman.
Let such men rest
Content with what they judged the best;
Let the unjust usurp at will;
The filthy shall be filthy still:
Miser, there waits the gold for thee!
Hater, indulge thine enmity!
Browning.
Fair Judgment,
Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.
Shakespeare.
And shall we then be restless in the search
For other proofs anf witnesses of God,
Before our hearts have rested on the One
He gave us in our very flesh to know?
Impatient for the noon-day, shall we miss
The sunrise we shall never see again?
H. Hamilton King.
If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged.
1 Cor. xi. 31.
------------------------------
[027]
The Fourth Week In Advent.
"The Way Of Joy"
"Rejoice greatly! . . .Behold, thy king cometh unto thee!"
A Prayer for the Week:
Lord! ev'n as thou all-present art,
Oh! may we still with heedful heart
Thy presence know and find!
Then come what will of weal or woe,
Joy's bosom-spring shall steady flow;
For though 'tis Heaven Thyself to see,
Where but Thy Shadow falls, grief cannot be!
------------------------------
[028]
Saturday. Fourth Week in Advent.
The Way of Joy.
Your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.--John xvi. 22.
Am I wrong to be always so happy? This world is full of grief;
Yet there is laughter of sunshine, to see the crisp green in the leaf.
Day light is ringing with song-birds, and brooklets are crooning by night,
And why should I make a shadow where God makes all so bright?
Earth may be wicked and weary, yet cannot I help being glad;
There is sundhine without and within me, and how should I mope or be sad?
God would not flood me with blessings, meaning me only to pine
Amid all the bounties and beauties He pours upon me and mine;
Therefore will I be grateful, and therefore will I rejoice;
My heart is singing within me! sing on, O heart and voice!
Walter Smith.
Every joy is gain,
And gain is gain however small.
Browning.
And if, in thy life on earth,
In the chamber, or by the hearth,
Mid the crowded city's tide,
Or high on the lone hill-side,
Thou canst cause a thought of peace,
Or an aching thought to cease,
Or a gleam of joy to burst
On a soul in gladness nurst;
Spare not thy hand, my child;
Though the gladdened should never know
The well-spring amid the wild
Whence the waters of blessing flow.
George MacDonald.
I've been following the posts about dumbing down our language at The Common Room and Dewey's Treehouse. I just read yesterday . . . well, no, let me see if I can find it. I followed a link to a poster's blog from another forum, which had a link to some Tips for Christian Bloggers. One of the tips was:
"5. Use common words. The web is indexed by strands of words and phrases (not by pictures or songs or cool graphics). Effectively reaching your potential audience means using these common words. When you write theologically, make sure you are using the terms most frequently used for your subject. Use creative words but never forget the most common ones, too. Get familiar with the common vernacular."
Okay, in that case, it's about using the most common phrases so that your blog posts come up when people do google searches. But I'm also familiar with the concept of using only small words and short sentences when discussing religion so that anyone can understand what you're saying. After all, it's salvation being discussed and nobody should be excluded because they don't have an expensive college degree.
Which makes me wonder, throughout history, it's often been Christians leading a lot of the trends and philosophical thinking. Now it's secular people desiring to dumb down the masses, and Christians are following that trend, falling right into it, playing along and exascerbating the problem in the name of the gospel. What's a Christian to do? Use big words and alienate the masses? How can we be the kind of force that Christians used to be who elevated the masses and educated them? I don't know, and, anyway, I'm getting off my purpose, which was to share this dialog.
The Headmistress started with these two posts about Big Words and Dick and Jane, and continued with a post about Language Wars. MamaSquirrel added her own post, The Headmistress posted another entry, and MamaSquirrel added yet one more.
It makes very interesting reading.
[022]
Monday. Third Week in Advent.
Right judgment.
Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.--John vii. 24.
The night
Wanes into morning, and the dawning light
Broadens, and all the shadows fade and shift!
I follow, follow,--sure to meet the sun,
And confident that what the future yields
Will be the Right,--unless myself be wrong.
Longfellow.
Shadows there are who dwell
Among us, yet apart,
Dear to the claim of God
Or kindly human heart;
Voices of earth and heaven
Call, but they turn away,
And Love, through such black night
Can see no hope of day.
And yet--our eyes are dim
And thine are keener far;
Then gaze till thou can'st see
The glimmer of some star!
The black stream flows along,
Whose waters we despise,--
Show us reflected there
Some fragment of the skies!
'Neath tongled thorns and briers
(The task is fit for thee)
Seek for the hidden flowers
We are too blind to see!
Then will I thy great gift
A crown and blessing call;
Angels look thus on men,
And God sees good in all.
A. Procter.
Such as everyone is inwardly, so he judgeth outwardly.
Thos. A Kempis.
------------------------------
[023]
Tuesday.
Right judgment.
Neither cast ye your pearls before swine.--Matt. vii. 6.
Deliver not the tasks of might
To weakness, neither hide the ray
From those, not blind, who wait for day,
Tho' sitting girt with doubtful light.
Make Knowledge circle with the winds;
But let her herald, Reverense, fly
Before her to whatever sky
Bear seed of men and growth of minds!
Watch what main-currents draw the years;
Cut Prejudice agaenst the grain;
But (gentle words are always gain)
Regard the weakness of thy peers!
Tennyson.
O Good and Great,
In Whom, in this bedarkened state,
I fain am stuggling to believe,
Let me not ever cease to grieve,
Nor lose the consciousness of ill
Within me;--and refusing still
To recognise in things around
What cannot truly there be found,
Let me not feel, nor be it true
That, while each daily task I do,
I still am giving day by day
My precious things within away
(Those Thou didst give to keep as Thine)
And casting,--do whate'er I may,--
My heavenly pearls to earthly swine!
Clough.
Seeing ye thrust the word of God from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of etrnal life, lo, We turn to the Gentiles.
Acts xiii. 46 ( R.V.)
------------------------------
[024]
Wednesday. Third Week in Advent.
Right judgment.
Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts?--James ii.4
Thou hast done well, perhaps,
To lift the bright disguise
And lay the bitter truth
Before our shrinking eyes.
When evil crawls below
What seems so bright and fair,
Thine eyes are keen and true
To find the serpent there:
And yet--I turn away--
Thy task is not divine,--
The evil angels look
On earth with eyes like thine.
Thou hast done well, perhaps,
To show how closely wound
Dark threads of Sin and Self
With our best deeds are found;--
How great and noble hearts
Striving for lofty aims
Have still some earthly chord
A meaner spirit claims;--
And yet--although thy task
Is well and fairly done,--
Methinds for such as thou
There is a holier one.
A. Procter.
Shall one like me
Judge hearts like yours?
Browning.
He that well and rightly considereth his own works will find little cause to judge hardly of another.
Thos. A Kempis.
There is no place where earth's sorrows
Are more felt than up in heaven;
There is no place where earth's failings
Have such kindly judgments given.
Faber.
------------------------------
[025]
Thursday.
Right judgment.
Ye shallnot be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's.--Deut. i. 17.
Time was when I believed that wrong
In others to detect,
Was part of genius, and a gift
To cherish, not reject.
Now better taught by Thee, O Lord!
This truth dawns on my mind--
The best effect of heavenly light
Is earth's false eyes to blind.
Faber.
The world is full of Judgment-Days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped.
Emerson.
What from this barren being do we reap?
Our senses narrow, and our reason frail,
Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep,
And all things weigh'd in custom's falsest scale;--
Opinion an omnipotence whose veil
Mantles the earth with darkness, until right
And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale,
Lest their own judgments should become too bright,
And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light!
Byron.
He's loved of the distracted multitude,
Who like not in their judgments, but their eyes.
Shakespeare.
The best men, doing their best,
Know peradventure least of what they do:
Men usefullest in the world are simply used;
The nail that holds the wood must pierce it first,
And he alone who wields the hammer sees
The work advanced by the earliest blow.
E. B. Browning.
Judge not; that ye be not judged.
------------------------------
The Third Weed In Advent
"Right judgment"
"Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come."
A Prayer for the Week
Grant us by Thy Holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in His holy comfort.
------------------------------
[020]
Saturday. Third Week in Advent.
Right judgment.
He that judgeth me is the Lord.--1 Cor. iv. 4.
By things which do appear
We judge amiss. The flower, which wears its way
Through stony *****s, lives on from day to day
Approved for living,--let the rest be gay
And sweet as summer! Heaven within the reed
Lists for the flute-note; in the folded seed
It sees the bud, and in the Will the Deed.
D. Greenwell.
Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye!
Heaven is above all yet. There sits a Judge
That no ding can corrupt.
Shakespeare.
There the tears of earth are dried,
There its hidden things are clear;
There the work of life is tried
By a juster Judge than here.
Father, in Thy gracious keeping
Leave we now Thy servant sleeping.
Ellerton.
How shall we judge their present, we who have never seen
That which is past for ever, and that which might have been?
Measuring by ourselves, unwise indeed are we!
Measuring what we know by what we can hardly see.
F. R. Havergal.
Be not proud of well-doing; for the judgment of God is far different from the judgment of men, and that often offendeth Him which pleaseth them.
Thos. A. Kempis.
God judges by a light
Which baffles mortal sight;
And the useless-seeming man the crown hath won.
In His vast world above,--
A world of broader love,--
God hath some grand employment for His son.
Faber.
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[021]
Sunday.
Right judgment.
With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you or of man's judgment.--Ep. For The Day.
They extol
Things vulgar and, well weigh'd, scarce warth the praise.
They praise and they admire they know not what,
And know not whom, but as one leads the other.
And what delight to be by such extoll'd,
To live upon their tongues, and be their talk,
Of whom to be disprais'd were no small praise?--
His lot who dares be singularly good!
Milton.
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
Shakespeare.
Where men of judgment creep, and feel their way,
The positive pronounce without dismay:
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks Absurdity strikes out of Pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear and strong.
Cowper.
But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? . . . for we must all stand before the judgment seat of God.
Rom. xiv. 10 (R.V.).
I know my own appointed patch in the world.
Browning.
For whom the heart of man shuts out,
Sometimes the heart of God takes in,
And fences them all round about
With silence 'mid the world's loud din.
Lowell.
Thou art not the more holy for being praised, nor the more worthless for being dispraised. What thou art, that thou art; neither by words canst thou be made greater than what thou art in the sight of God.
Thos. A Kempis.