Part 14
"Those who have never sought to attain true humility ... have yet to learn how it lies at the root of all our dear Lord's teaching.... The first step towards the inner life is to attain a childlike spirit in Heavenly things.... It is solely God's gift."
GROU.
Love the Destroyer of Sin
OCTOBER 21
"It is quite idle, by force of will, to seek to empty the angry passions out of our life. Who has not made a thousand resolutions in this direction, only and with unutterable mortification to behold them dashed to pieces with the first temptation? The soul is to be made sweet not by taking the acidulous fluids out, but by putting something in--a great love, God's great love. This is to work a chemical change upon them, to renovate and regenerate them, to dissolve them in its own rich fragrant substance. If a man let this into his life, his cure is complete; if not, it is hopeless."
_The Ideal Life_, HENRY DRUMMOND.
"The secret of success consists not in the habit of making numerous resolutions about various faults and sins, but in one great, absorbing, controlling purpose to serve God and do His will! If this be the controlling motive of life, all other motives will be swept into the force of its mighty current and guided aright."
Love the Destroyer of Sin
OCTOBER 22
"For the most of us the more hopeful plan is to overcome our passions by thinking of something else. This something else need by no means be a serious thing. For it happens sometimes that ideas that do not soar above trivialities may nevertheless have sent down such roots into a man's life, and become so fruitful of suggestion, that they prove more effective allies than more imposing and pretentious resources. Whence it comes that a sport, or a pastime, have before now weaned many from cares and sorrows which seemed proof against even the consolations of religion. Be it granted that, severely construed, this is a proof of the frivolity of human nature. But it is none the less an illustration of the expulsive power of ideas."
_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.
"He proposed to make sin impossible by replacing it with love. If sin be an act of self-will, each person making himself the centre, then Love is the destruction of sin, because Love connects instead of isolating. No one can be envious, avaricious, hard-hearted; no one can be gross, sensual, unclean, if he loves. Love is the death of all bitter and unholy moods of the soul, because Love lifts the man out of himself and teaches him to live in another."
_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
Mental Hygiene
OCTOBER 23
"It is poor strategy to wage against evil feelings or propulsions a war of mere repression. We have seen that this is so in educational control of others. It is not less so in control of ourselves. If we would really oust our evil proclivities, we must cultivate others that are positively good. It is not enough to hate our failings or our vices with a perfect hatred. We must love something else. In other words, we must contrive to open mind and heart to tenants in whose presence unwelcome intruders, unable to find a home, will torment us only for a season and at last take their departure. 'There is a mental just as much as a bodily hygiene.'"
_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.
"Moses said, 'Do this or do that.' Jesus refrained from regulations--He proposed that we should love. Jesus, while hardly mentioning the word, planted the idea in His disciples' minds, that Love was Law. For three years He exhibited and enforced Love as the principle of life, until, before He died, they understood that all duty to God and man was summed up in Love. Progress in the moral world is ever from complexity to simplicity. First one hundred duties; afterwards they are gathered into ten commandments; then they are reduced to two: love of God and love of man; and, finally, Jesus says His last word: 'This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you.'"
_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
"As Night Enters, Darkness Departs"
OCTOBER 24
"If sin be a principle in a man's life, then it is evident that it cannot be affected by the most pathetic act in history exhibited from without; it must be met by an opposite principle working from within. If sin be selfishness, as Jesus taught, then it can only be overcome by the introduction of a spirit of self-renunciation. Jesus did not denounce sin: negative religion is always impotent. He replaced sin by virtue, which is a silent revolution. As the light enters, the darkness departs, and as soon as one renounced himself, he had ceased from sin."
_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
"'Why could not we cast him out?'
"Let His love fill you with love, and then the conquering of your sins by His help shall be in its course one long enthusiasm and at the end a glorious success. That is your hope; and that hope, if you will, you may seize to-day."
PHILLIPS BROOKS.
Stepping-stones
OCTOBER 25
"The block of granite which was an obstacle in the pathway of the weak, becomes a stepping-stone in the pathway of the strong."
CARLYLE.
"Out of difficulties grow miracles."
"I hold it truth with him who sings To one clear harp in divers tones, That men may rise on stepping stones Of their dead selves to higher things."
TENNYSON.
"Why wilt thou defer thy good purpose from day to day? Arise and begin this very instant, and say, 'Now is the time to be doing, now is the time to be striving, now is the fit time to amend myself.'"
THOMAS À KEMPIS.
Never Lose a Battle
OCTOBER 26
"A fourth maxim is 'never if possible to lose a battle.' And none can be sounder. For it is always to be remembered that a single lapse involves here something worse than a simple failure. The alternative is not between good habit or no habit, but between good habit and bad. For, as Professor Bain points out, the characteristic difficulty here lies in the fact that in the moral life rival tendencies are in constant competition for mastery over us. The loss of a battle here is therefore worse than a defeat. It strengthens the enemy, whether this enemy be some powerful passion, or nothing more than the allurements of an easy life. It has worse effects still. For if by persistence in well-doing we all of us create a moral tradition for our individual selves, so do we by every failure hang in the memory a humiliating and paralysing record of defeat."
_The Making of Character_, Professor MACCUNN.
"If one surrender himself to Jesus, and is crucified on His cross, there is no sin he will not overcome, no service he will not render, no virtue to which he will not attain."
_The Mind of the Master_, Dr. JOHN WATSON.
Living in the Present
OCTOBER 27
"Be not anxious about to-morrow. Do to-day's duty, fight to-day's temptation, and do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things which you cannot see, and could not understand, if you saw them."
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
"Do not disturb thyself by thinking of the whole of thy life. Let not thy thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles which thou mayest expect to befall thee: but on every occasion ask thyself, What is there in this which is intolerable and past bearing? for thou wilt be ashamed to confess. In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains thee, but only the present. But this is reduced to a very little, if thou only circumscribest it, and chidest thy mind, if it is unable to hold out against even this."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays."
EMERSON.
Day by Day
OCTOBER 28
"By trying to take in the idea of life as a whole we only give ourselves mental indigestion; a day at a time is as much as a man can healthily swallow."
EDNA LYALL.
"Think that this day will never dawn again. The heavens are calling you and wheel around you, Displaying to you their eternal beauties, And still your eye is looking on the ground."
_The Divine Comedy_, DANTE.
"To-Day is a king in disguise: let us unmask the king as he passes."
EMERSON.
Day by Day
OCTOBER 29
"Lo, here hath been dawning Another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it Slip useless away!"
CARLYLE.
"The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited, nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
"When night comes, list thy deeds; make plain the way 'Twixt heaven and thee; block it not with delays: But perfect all before thou sleep'st; then say, 'There's one Sun more strung on my Bead of days.' What's good store up for Joy, the bad, well scann'd, Wash off with tears, and get thy Master's hand."
HENRY VAUGHAN.
Gaining or Losing Ground
OCTOBER 30
"Gaining or losing all the time is our condition, morally and spiritually. We cannot stand utterly still. If we are not improving we are losing ground. Outside forces compel that, in addition to the forces that are working within. We are pressing forward and being helped in that direction, or we are being pressed backward and are yielding to that pressure. Let us not deceive ourselves with the idea that even though we are making no progress we are at least holding our own. We can no more stand still than time can."
"Whose high endeavours are an inward light, That makes the path before him always bright.
"And through the heat of conflict, keeps the law In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
"Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpassed."
_The Happy Warrior_, WORDSWORTH.
Pressing Forward
OCTOBER 31
"Plutarch records that when Simonides offered to teach Themistocles the art of memory the latter said: 'Teach me rather the art of forgetting.' How much the world needs to learn that art. Paul spoke of forgetting the things that are behind. We should forget our mistakes and failures, so far as these cause discouragement. We should forget our successes if they cause pride or preoccupy the mind. We should forget the slights that have been put upon us or the insults that have been given us. To remember these is to be weak and miserable, if not worse. He who says he can forgive but he cannot forget is deceived by the sound of words. Forgiveness that is genuine involves forgetfulness of the injury. True forgiveness means a putting away of the wrong behind the back and remembering it no more. That is what God does when He forgives, and that is what we all must do if we truly forgive."
"... It is wise to forget past errors. There is a kind of temperament which, when indulged, greatly hinders growth in real godliness. It is that rueful, repentant, self-accusing temper, which is always looking back, and microscopically observing how that which is done might have been better done. Something of this we ought to have. A Christian ought to feel always that he has partially failed, but that ought not to be the only feeling. Faith ought ever to be a sanguine, cheerful thing; and perhaps in practical life we could not give a better account of faith than by saying, that it is, amidst much failure, having the heart to _try again_. Our best deeds are marked by imperfection; but if they really were our best, 'forget the things that are behind'--we shall do better next time."
F. W. ROBERTSON.
The Evil of Brooding
NOVEMBER 1
"Throughout the Gospel history we discern our Lord's care to keep men in a fit condition to serve God by active work. All that would impair their efficiency is to be shunned. Now, to repine and brood over some past error cuts the sinews of action; from this the Apostles therefore are always diverted, and they are to be watchful to prevent others from sinking into dejection and folding their hands in despair. A man who is hopeless has no heart for work, but when he is so far encouraged as to be able to exert himself his despondency soon disappears."
_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.
"Disappointment should always be taken as a stimulant, and never viewed as a discouragement."
C. B. NEWCOMB.
"I always loved 'At evening time it shall be light,' and I am sure it comes true to many a young troubled soul, which in its youthful zeal and impatience cannot help eating its heart out over its own and other people's failings and imperfections, and has not yet learnt the patience which comes from realising that in this world we see but the beginning of things."
Aspiration
NOVEMBER 2
"If a man constantly aspires, is he not elevated?"
THOREAU.
"The thing we long for,--That we are For one transcendent moment! Before the Present, poor and bare, Can make its sneering comment!
* * * * *
Longing is God's fresh heavenward will With our poor earthward striving; We quench it that we may be still Content with merely living; But would we learn that heart's full scope Which we are hourly wronging, Our lives must climb from hope to hope And realise our longing!
* * * * *
Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good God not only reckons The moments when we tread His ways, But when the spirit beckons-- That some slight good is also wrought Beyond self-satisfaction, When we are simply good in thought, Howe'er we fail in action."
LOWELL.
There shall never be one Lost Good
NOVEMBER 3
"Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name? Builder and Maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands! What, have fear of change from Thee Who art ever the same? Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands? There shall never be one lost good! What was shall live as before; The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more; On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect round.
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good, shall exist, Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor power Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the melodist, When eternity confirms the conception of an hour. The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, The passion that left the ground to lose itself in the sky, Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard; Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by-and-bye."
_Abt Vogler_, ROBERT BROWNING.
Struggling
NOVEMBER 4
"If what shone afar so grand Turn to nothing in thy hand, On again, the virtue lies In the struggle, not the prize."
R. M. MILNES.
"One would like one's own failures to be one's friends' stepping stones.... I am trying to teach myself that if one _has_ been working, one has not necessarily been working to good purpose, and that one may waste strength and forces of all sorts, as well as time."
_Mrs. Ewing's Letters._
"Rise ... as children learn, be thou Wiser for falling."
TENNYSON.
True Patience
NOVEMBER 5
"There are those who think it is Christian patience to sit down by the wayside to endure the storm, crying in themselves, 'God is hard on me, but I will bear His smiting'; but their endurance is only idleness which is ignoble, and hiding from the battle which is cowardice. Or they cry, 'I am the victim of Fate, but I will be patient'--as if any one could be a victim if God be love, or as if there were such a thing as blind fate, when the order of the world is to lead men into righteousness; when to be victor and not victim is the main word of that order. No, the severity of the battle is to force us into self-forgetfulness; and this lazy resignation, this wailing patience, is mere self-remembrance. The true patience is activity of faith and hope and righteousness in the cause of men for the sake of God's love of them; is in glad proclamation of the gospel; is in wielding the sword of the Truth of God against all that injures mankind."
_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.
"Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss, But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. What though the mast be now blown overboard, The cable broke, the holding anchor lost, And half our sailors swallowed in the flood-- Yet lives our Pilot still."
SHAKESPEARE.
The Appetite for Condolence
NOVEMBER 6
"It is right to exercise a great deal of self-restraint in speaking of our troubles, and not to let the appetite for condolence grow on us."
_Studies in the Christian Character_, Bishop PAGET.
"Carlyle says, 'My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate--he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past,' and my mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume."
_The Story of my Life_, AUGUSTUS HARE.
"Hacket's motto, 'Serve God and be cheerful.'"
"The Sharp Ferule of Calamity"
NOVEMBER 7
"It is to keep a man awake, to keep him alive to his own soul and its fixed design of righteousness, that the better part of moral and religious education is directed; not only that of words and doctors, but the sharp ferule of calamity under which we are all God's scholars till we die."
_The Life of R. L. Stevenson_, GRAHAM BALFOUR.
"The best help is not to bear the troubles of others for them, but to inspire them with courage and energy to bear their burdens for themselves and meet the difficulties of life bravely."
Lord AVEBURY.
The Essentials of Happiness
NOVEMBER 8
"We weigh ourselves down with burdens of sorrow which are the results of our selfish thoughts and selfish desires; and every one of these burdens lessens our power to live righteously in ourselves, and to live usefully for others."
_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.
"When you find yourself overpowered, as it were by melancholy, the best way is to go out, and do something kind to somebody or other."
_Letters of Spiritual Counsel_, KEBLE.
"The grand essentials of happiness are, something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
CHALMERS.
"Happiness is easy when we have learnt to renounce."
MME. DE STAËL.
Unrest
NOVEMBER 9
"Self-interest is but the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for man with self-surrender."
_Amiel's Journal._
"What are the chief causes of _Unrest_? If you know yourself, you will answer Pride, Selfishness, Ambition. As you look back upon the past years of your life, is it not true that its unhappiness has chiefly come from the succession of personal mortifications and almost trivial disappointments which the intercourse of life has brought you? Great trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to breast them; but it is the petty friction of our everyday life with one another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic circle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will, the taking down of our conceit, which make inward peace impossible. Wounded vanity, then, disappointed hopes, unsatisfied selfishness--these are the old, vulgar, universal sources of man's unrest."
_Pax Vobiscum_, HENRY DRUMMOND.
Rest
NOVEMBER 10
"Now, what is the first step towards the winning of that rest? It is the giving up of self-will and the receiving of God's will as our own--and what that means is clear. It is to make our life at one with God's character, with justice and purity, with truth and love, with mercy and joy. It is the surrender of our own pleasure and the making of God's desire for us the master of our life. That is the first step--a direction of the soul to God. The second has to do with mankind. It is the replacing of all self-love by the love of our fellow-men; a direction of the soul to God through man.
"These two ways are in reality one; and there is no other way, if we search the whole world over, in which we may attain rest. Simple as it sounds, it is the very last way many of us seek. We fight against this truth, and it has to be beaten into us by pain. Clear as it seems, it is a secret which is as difficult to discover as the Elixir of Life, but it is so difficult because we do not will to discover it."
_The Gospel of Joy_, STOPFORD BROOKE.
The Duty of Happiness
NOVEMBER 11
"I cannot think but that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty."
Lord AVEBURY.
"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
DICKENS.
"Half the world is on the wrong scent in the pursuit of happiness. They think it consists in having and getting, and in being served by others. It consists in giving and in serving others."
HENRY DRUMMOND.
Discontent
NOVEMBER 12
"He or she that is idle, be they of what condition they will, never so rich, so well allied, fortunate, happy--let them have all things in abundance and felicity that heart can wish and desire,--all contentment--so long as he, or she, or they are idle, they shall never be pleased, never well in mind or body, but weary still, sickly still, vexed still, loathing still, weeping, sighing, grieving, suspecting, offended with the world, with every object, wishing themselves gone or dead, or else carried away with some foolish phantasy or other."
BURTON.
"We are never more discontented with others than when we are discontented with ourselves. The consciousness of wrong-doing makes us irritable, and our heart in its cunning quarrels with what is outside it, in order that it may deafen the clamour within."
_Amiel's Journal._
"Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if thou wilt ever dig."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
Self-centred People
NOVEMBER 13
"It is self-centred people that are lonely--the richer the gift, the richer the giver. No one was ever the worse for giving."
F. F. MONTRÉSOR.
"Misanthropy is always traceable to some vicious experience or imperception--to some false reading in the lore of right and wrong, or it proceeds from positive defects in ourselves, from a departure from things simple and pure, whereby we forfeit happiness without losing the sense of the proper basis on which it rests; yet even thus perverted by the prejudices of the world, we still find a soothing pleasure in contemplating that happiness which belongs to simplicity and virtue."
ACTON.
"The largest and most comprehensive natures are generally the most cheerful, the most loving, the most hopeful, the most trustful. It is the wise man, of large vision, who is the quickest to discern the moral sunshine gleaming through the darkest cloud."
Contentment
NOVEMBER 14
"Contentment comes neither by culture nor by wishing; it is reconciliation with our lot, growing out of an inward superiority to our surroundings."
J. K. MCLEAN.
"If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself, about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch, you will make misery for yourself out of everything which God sends you: you will be as wretched as you choose."
CHARLES KINGSLEY.
"Do not let your head run upon that which is none of your own, but pick out some of the best of your circumstances, and consider how eagerly you would wish for them, were they not in your possession."
MARCUS AURELIUS.
Contentment
NOVEMBER 15
"Man seeks pleasure and self--great unforeseen results follow. Man seeks God and others--and there follows pleasure."
ARNOLD TOYNBEE.