Daily Thoughts Part 40

"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but heaven" (Hebrews xii. 26- 29). This is one of the royal texts of Scripture. It declares one of those great laws of the kingdom of G.o.d which may fulfil itself once and again at many eras and by many methods; which fulfilled itself most gloriously in the first century after Christ; again in the fifth century; again at the time of the Crusades; and again at the great Reformation in the sixteenth century,--and is fulfilling itself again at this very day.

_Westminster Sermons_. 1872.

Self-Respect the Voice of G.o.d. December 23.

Never hurt any one's self-respect. Never trample on any soul, though it may be lying in the veriest mire; for that last spark of self-respect is as its only hope, its only chance; the last seed of a new and better life; the voice of G.o.d which still whispers to it, "You are not what you ought to be, and you are not what you can be. You are still G.o.d's child, still an immortal soul. You may rise yet, and fight a good fight yet, and conquer yet, and be a man yet, after the likeness of G.o.d who made you, and Christ who died for you." Oh! why crush that voice in any heart? If you do the poor creature is lost, and lies where he or she falls, and never tries to rise again.

_Good News of G.o.d Sermons_. 1859.

Christmas Eve. December 24.

We will have no sad forebodings on the eve of the blessed Christmas-tide.

He lives, He loves, He reigns; and all is well; for we are His and He is ours.

_Two Years Ago_, Introduction. 1856.

The Miracle of Christmas Night. December 25.

After the crowning miracle of this most blessed night all miracles are possible. The miracle of Christmas night was possible because G.o.d's love was absolute, infinite, unconquerable, able to condescend to anything that good might be done. . . . This Christmas night is the one of all the year which sets a physicist on facing the fact of miracle, and which delivers him from the bonds of sense and custom by reminding him of G.o.d made Man.

_Letters and Memories_. 1858.

Redemption. December 26.

All things are blessed now, but sin; for all things, excepting sin, are redeemed by the life and death of the Son of G.o.d. Blessed are wisdom and courage, joy and health and beauty, love and marriage, childhood and manhood, corn and wine, fruit and flowers, for Christ redeemed them by His life. . . . Blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await the Resurrection Day, for Christ redeemed them by His death.

Blessed are all days, dark as well as bright, for all are His, and He is ours; and all are ours, and we are His for ever.

_National Sermons_. 1848.

Fellow-workers with Christ. December 27.

To abolish the superst.i.tion, the misrule, the vice, the misery of this world. That is what Christ will do in the day when He has put all enemies under His feet. That is what Christ has been doing, step by step, ever since that day when first He came to do His Father's will on earth in great humility. Therefore, that is what we must do, each in our place and station, if we be indeed His subjects, fellow-workers with Him in the improvement of the human race, fellow-soldiers with Him in the battle against evil.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1867.

The bright Pathway. December 28.

There is a healthy ferment of mind in which one struggles through chaos and darkness, by means of a few clues and threads of light--and--of one great bright pathway, which I find more and more to be _the_ only escape from infinite confusion and aberration, _the_ only explanation of a thousand human mysteries--I mean the Incarnation of our Lord--the fact that there really is--a G.o.d-Man!

_MS. Letter_. 1844.

New Wors.h.i.+p. December 29.

Blessed, thrice blessed, is it to find that hero-wors.h.i.+p is not yet pa.s.sed away! that the heart of man still beats young and fresh; that the old tales of David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Socrates and Alcibiades, Shakespeare and his nameless friend, of love "pa.s.sing the love of woman," enn.o.bled by its own humility, deeper than death and mightier than the grave, can still blossom out, if it be but in one heart here and there, to show man still how, sooner or later, "he that loveth knoweth G.o.d, for G.o.d is love."

_Miscellanies_. 1850.

Links in the Chain. December 30.

The heart will cry out at times, Oh! blissful future! Oh, dreary present! But let us not repine. What is dreary need not be barren.

Nothing need be barren to those who view all things in their real light, as links in the great chain of progression both for themselves and for the Universe. To us all Time should seem so full of life: every moment the grave and the father of unnumbered events and designs in heaven and earth, and the mind of our G.o.d Himself--all things moving smoothly and surely in spite of apparent checks and disappointments towards the appointed end.

_Letters and Memories_. 1844.

Past, Present, Future. December 31.

Surely as the years pa.s.s on they ought to have made us better, more useful, more worthy. We may have been disappointed in our lofty ideas of what ought to be done, but we may have gained more clear and practical notions of what can be done. We may have lost in enthusiasm, and yet gained in earnestness. We may have lost in sensibility, yet gained in charity, activity, and power. We may be able to do far less, and yet what we do may be far better done. And our very griefs and disappointments--have they been useless to us? Surely not. We shall have gained instead of lost by them if the Spirit of G.o.d has been working in us. Our sorrows will have wrought in us patience, our patience experience, and that experience hope--hope that He who has led us thus far will lead us farther still, that He who has taught us in former days precious lessons--not only by sore temptations but most sacred joys--will teach us in the days to come fresh lessons by temptations, which we shall be more able to endure; and by joys which, though unlike those of old times, are no less sacred, but sent as lessons to our souls by Him from whom all good gifts come.

_Water of Life Sermons_.

Out of G.o.d's boundless bosom, the fount of life, we came; through selfish, stormy youth, and contrite tears--just not too late; through manhood, not altogether useless; through slow and chill old age, we return whence we came, to the bosom of G.o.d once more--to go forth again, it may be, with fresh knowledge and fresh powers, to n.o.bler work. Amen.

_The Air Mothers_. 1869.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

DECEMBER 21.

St. Thomas, Apostle and Martyr.