Oct. 26, 2007
The Cloud of Witness pages 56, 57, 58
[056]
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.
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.