Character and Conduct Part 13

"Hallow the name of G.o.d, hallow His character, in all n.o.ble and good humanity.

"That is not difficult. But to hallow G.o.d's character in men and women who are not good, in sinful humanity--that is not so easy. Yet, if we would be true to this prayer of Christ, this too is part of our duty.

The evil are also the children of G.o.d. They have not hallowed His character, but abandoned its wors.h.i.+p. Nevertheless they cannot get rid of it. That divine thing lies hid, ineradicably, beneath their evil doing and evil thought. The truth, justice, love, piety, and goodness of G.o.d are in abeyance in the wrong-doer, but they are not dead in him.

They cannot die; nothing can destroy them. And we, whose desire it should be to save men, can, if we have faith in the indestructible G.o.d in men, pierce to this immortal good in the evil, appeal to it, and call it forth to light, like Lazarus, from the tomb. This we can do, if, like Jesus, we love men enough; if our faith that the evil are still G.o.d's children be deep and firm enough. In this we can keep closest to Christ, for it was His daily way of life; and divinely beautiful it was. He hallowed G.o.d's character in the criminal and the harlot. He saw the good beneath the evil. At His touch it leaped into life, and its life destroyed the death in the sinner's soul. It seems as if He said when He looked into the face of the wrong-doer, 'Father, hallowed be Thy character.' No lesson for life can be wiser or deeper than this. It ought to rule all our doings with the weak and guilty. It is at the very centre of the prayer, 'Hallowed be Thy name.'"

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"Always at the door Of foulest hearts, the angel-nature yet Knocks to return and cancel all its debt."

J. R. Lowell.

Raw Material

MARCH 19

"One also is filled with _hope_ at the figure of the clay, because it suggests the immense and unimagined possibilities of human nature. Upon first sight how poor a thing is this man, with his ignorances, prejudices, pettinesses, his envy, jealousy, evil temper. Upon second thoughts how much may be in this man, how much he may achieve, how high he may attain. This dull and unattractive man must not be despised, whether he be yourself or another: he is incalculable and unfathomable.

He is simply raw material, soul stuff, and one can no more antic.i.p.ate him than you could foresee a Turner from the master's colours--some of them very strange--or a Persian rug from a heap of wool. Out of that unpromising face, that sleeping intellect, those awkward ways, this crust of selfishness and a hundred faults, is going to be made a man whom the world will admire and honour."

_The Potter's Wheel_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

"To have faith is to create; to have hope is to call down blessing; to have love is to work miracles."

_The Roadmender_, MICHAEL FAIRLESS.

"The faith which saves others is the enthusiasm of patience."

_The Service of G.o.d_, Canon BARNETT.

Pessimism

MARCH 20

"The next thing to speak of is a tendency in the world which is the very opposite of that of which we have spoken, but which is equally characteristic of a time when a new life and spirit is on the verge of taking its form. As part of the fight of faith is to support and direct the first, so part of that battle is to weaken and oppose the doctrine that the world is going from bad to worse, that there is no regeneration for it, and that there ought to be none. On this doctrine I have frequently spoken, but I do not hesitate to speak of it again. It is the fas.h.i.+on to praise it; it deserves no praise, it is detestable. This is a favourite doctrine of the comfortable cla.s.ses who are idle and luxurious or merely fantastic, and of a certain type of scientific men, both of whom are profoundly ignorant of the working world and of the poor, who hate this doctrine and despise it. The sufferings of the poor and the oppressed are used as an argument in its favour, but, curiously enough, you scarcely ever find it held by the poor and the oppressed;--on the contrary, these are the creators and builders of Utopias: out of this cla.s.s grow those who prophesy a golden year. Those who have most reason to despair never despair."

_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.

"Of all bad habits despondency is among the least respectable, and there is no one quite so tiresome as the sad-visaged Christian who is oppressed by the wickedness and hopelessness of the world."

Service

MARCH 21

"Service implies self-giving. There is service which is just self-satisfaction, pleasing to the taste for doing and meddling, and there is service which is exactly measured to its pay. True service implies giving, the surrender of time or taste, the subjection of self to others, the gift which is neither noticed nor returned."

_The Service of G.o.d_, Canon BARNETT.

"Christian greatness is born of willingness to lay the lowliest duties on yourself, and the way to be first is to be ready to remain last."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

"n.o.bleness consists in a valiant suffering for others, not in making others suffer for us. The chief of men is he who stands in the van of men; fronting the peril which frightens back all others.... Every n.o.ble crown is, and on earth will for ever be, a crown of thorns."

_Past and Present_, CARLYLE.

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it to any one else."

d.i.c.kENS.

Service

MARCH 22

"They were to mortify the self-importance and vain dignity that will not render commonplace kindness. 'If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet.'"

_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

"Nothing is degrading which a high and graceful purpose enn.o.bles, and offices the most menial cease to be menial the moment they are wrought in love."

J. MARTINEAU.

"And service will be the personal tribute to Jesus, whom we shall recognise under any disguise, as his nurse detected Ulysses by his wounds, and whose Body, in the poor and miserable, will ever be with us for our discernment. Jesus is the leper whom the saint kissed, and the child the monk carried over the stream, and the sick man the widow nursed into health, after the legends of the ages of faith. And Jesus will say at the close of the day, 'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.'"

_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.

Service

MARCH 23

"We must not be perplexed or put out if we have to change our plans. G.o.d sends us. .h.i.ther and thither; we may think that we are wasting our special talents, when G.o.d has, after all, some particular need for our particular work at a particular time. And equally we must learn to measure our strength; we cannot all do the same things, we are not all adapted to the same work, or charged with the same duties. Why should we overstrain ourselves in that which is beyond our strength, or neglect plain duties for others less obvious? Ah! G.o.d receives many a Corban now which He will never accept; self-chosen work done at the expense of duty; work outside done to the neglect of our own proper work; work done at the entire expense of our home and social duties; the clear commandment of G.o.d shattered to pieces by some purely human tradition."

Canon NEWBOLT.

"Every Christian is the servant of men, always and everywhere, without respect to the distinctions of s.e.x, or cla.s.s, or nationality, or creed."

Canon BODY.

Mens Sana in Corpore Sano