Daily Thoughts Part 35

I am superst.i.tious enough, thank G.o.d, to believe that not a stone or a handful of mud gravitates into its place without the will of G.o.d; that it was ordained, ages since, into what particular spot each grain of gold should be washed down from an Australian quartz reef, that a certain man might find it at a certain moment and crisis of his life.

_Science Lectures_.

Christ Weeping over Jerusalem. November 5.

That which is true of nations is true of individuals, of each separate human brother of the Son of man. Is there one young life ruined by its own folly--one young heart broken by its own wilfulness--or one older life fast losing the finer instincts, the n.o.bler aims of youth, in the restlessness of covetousness, of fas.h.i.+on, of ambition? Is there one such poor soul over whom Christ does not grieve? One to whom, at some supreme crisis of their lives, He does not whisper--"Ah, beautiful organism--thou too art a thought of G.o.d--thou too, if thou wert but in harmony with thyself and G.o.d, a microcosmic _City of G.o.d_! Ah! that thou hadst known--even thou--at least in this thy day--the things which belong to thy peace"?

_MS. Sermon_. 1874.

Love Expansive. November 6.

The mystics think it wrong to love any created thing, because our whole love should be given to G.o.d. But as flame increases by being applied to many objects, so does love. He who loves G.o.d most loves G.o.d's creatures most, and them for G.o.d's sake, and G.o.d for their sake.

_MS. Note-book_. 1843.

Still the same. November 7.

Those who die in the fear of G.o.d and in the faith of Christ do not really taste death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a change of state; they pa.s.s at once into some new life, with all their powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking, active beings which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest they may, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Not idleness, but peace of mind.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1862.

An absolutely Good G.o.d. November 8.

Fix in your minds--or rather ask G.o.d to fix in your minds--this one idea of an absolutely good G.o.d; good with all forms of goodness which you respect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man, understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand and all-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who is mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the infinitely good G.o.d! But see, then, whether, in the light of that one idea, all the old-fas.h.i.+oned Christian ideas about the relation of G.o.d to man--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the Incarnation, the Pa.s.sion, and the final triumph of the Son of G.o.d--do not seem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, and logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of an Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the universe?

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873.

Nature's Lesson. November 9.

Learn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do not let them mould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to make you melancholy, you wors.h.i.+p the creature more than the Creator.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Morals and Mind. November 10.

Not upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human welfare founded.

The true subjective history of man is not the history of his thought, but of his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of his inventions, but of his vices and his virtues. So far from morals depending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. In proportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice is done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely, triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfully obeyed, to the welfare of the whole common weal.

_Inaugural Lecture_, _Cambridge_. 1860.

Fastidiousness. November 11.

Do not let us provoke G.o.d (though that is _really_ impossible) by complaining of His gifts because they do not come just in the form _we_ should have wished. . . .

_MS. Letter_. 1844.

Unconscious Faith. November 12.

For the rest, Amyas never thought about thinking or felt about feeling; and had no ambition whatsoever beyond pleasing his father and mother, getting by honest means the maximum of "red quarrenders" and mazard cherries, and going to sea when he was big enough. Neither was he what would be nowadays called by many a pious child, for though he said his Creed and Lord's Prayer night and morning, and went to service at the church every forenoon, and read the day's Psalms with his mother every evening, and had learnt from her and his father that it was infinitely n.o.ble to do right and infinitely base to do wrong, yet he knew nothing more of theology or of his own soul than is contained in the Church Catechism.

_Westward Ho_! chap. i. 1855.

Silence. November 13.

There are silences more pathetic than all words.

_MS._

The Nineteenth Century. November 14.

. . . What so maddening as the new motion of our age--the rush of the express train, when the live iron pants and leaps and roars through the long chalk cutting, and white mounds gleam cold a moment against the sky and vanish; and rocks and gra.s.s and bushes fleet by in dim blended lines; and the long hedges revolve like the spokes of a gigantic wheel; and far below meadows and streams and homesteads, with all their lazy old-world life, open for an instant, and then flee away; while awestruck, silent, choked with the mingled sense of pride and helplessness, we are swept on by that great pulse of England's life-blood rus.h.i.+ng down her iron veins; and dimly out of the future looms the fulfilment of our primeval mission to conquer and subdue the earth, and s.p.a.ce too, and time, and all things--even hardest of all tasks, yourselves, my cunning brothers; ever learning some fresh lesson, except the hardest one of all, that it is the Spirit of G.o.d which giveth you understanding?

Yes, great railroads, and great railroad age, who would exchange you, with all your sins, for any other time? For swiftly as rushes matter, more swiftly rushes mind; more swiftly still rushes the heavenly dawn up the eastern sky. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." "Blessed is the servant whom his Lord, when He cometh, shall find watching."

_Prose Idylls_.

Unreality. November 15.