Oct. 26, 2007
The Cloud of Witness pages 46, 47, 48
[046]
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.
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.