Daily Thoughts | Page 3

fill of your golden cup, steadied, but not saddened, by the remembrance that for all things a good and loving God will bring them to judgment!
Happier still those who (like a few) retain in body and soul the health and buoyancy of twenty-one on to the very verge of forty, and, seeming to grow younger-hearted as they grow older-headed, can cast off care and work at a moment's warning, laugh and frolic now as they did twenty years ago, and say with Wordsworth--
"So was it when I was a boy, So let it be when I am old, Or let me die."
Two Years Ago, chap. xix. 1856.

Work and Duty. January 17.
If a man is busy, and busy about his duty, what more does he require for time or for eternity?
Chalk Stream Studies. 1856.

Members of Christ. January 18.
. . . Would you be humble, daughter? You must look up, not down, and see yourself A paltry atom, sap-transmitting vein Of Christ's vast vine; the pettiest joint and member Of His great body. . . .
. . . Let thyself die-- And dying, rise again to fuller life. To be a whole is to be small and weak-- To be a part is to be great and mighty In the one spirit of the mighty whole-- The spirit of the martyrs and the saints.
Saint's Tragedy, Act ii. Scene vi. 1847.

Beauty a Sacrament. January 19.
Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's handwriting--a way-side sacrament; welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, and thank Him for it, who is the Fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in simply and earnestly with all your eyes; it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.
True Words to Brave Men. 1844.

The Ideal of Rank. January 20.
With Christianity came in the thought that domination meant responsibility, that responsibility demanded virtue. The words which denoted Rank came to denote, likewise, high moral excellencies. The nobilis, or man who was known, and therefore subject to public opinion, was bound to behave nobly. The gentle-man--gentile-man--who respected his own gens, or family, or pedigree, was bound to be gentle. The courtier who had picked up at court some touch of Roman civilisation from Roman ecclesiastics was bound to be courteous. He who held an "honour," or "edel" of land, was bound to be honourable; and he who held a "weorthig," or "worthy," thereof, was bound himself to be worthy.
Lectures on Ancien Regime. 1866.

An Indulgent God. January 21.
A merely indulgent God would be an unjust God, and a cruel God likewise. If God be just, as He is, then He has boundless pity for those who are weak, but boundless wrath for the strong who misuse the weak. Boundless pity for those who are ignorant, misled, and out of the right way; but boundless wrath for those who mislead them and put them out of the right way.
Discipline Sermons. 1867.

The Fifty-First Psalm. January 22.
It is such utterances as these which have given for now many hundred years their priceless value to the little Book of Psalms ascribed to the shepherd outlaw of the Judean hills, which have sent the sound of his name into all lands throughout all the world. Every form of human sorrow, doubt, struggle, error, sin--the nun agonising in the cloister; the settler struggling for his life in Transatlantic forests; the pauper shivering over the embers in his hovel and waiting for kind death; the man of business striving to keep his honour pure amid the temptations of commerce; the prodigal son starving in the far country and recollecting the words which he learnt long ago at his mother's knee; the peasant boy trudging afield in the chill dawn and remembering that the Lord is his Shepherd, therefore he will not want--all shapes of humanity have found, and will find to the end of time, a word said here to their inmost hearts. . . .
Sermons on David. 1866.

Waiting for Death. January 23.
Death, beautiful, wise, kind Death, when will you come and tell me what I want to know? I courted you once and many a time, brave old Death, only to give rest to the weary. That was a coward's wish--and so you would not come. . . . I was not worthy of you. And now I will not hunt you any more, old Death. Do you bide your time, and I mine. . . . Only when you come, give me not rest but work. Give work to the idle, freedom to the chained, sight to the blind!
Two Years Ago, chap. xv. 1856.

The One Refuge. January 24.
Safe! There is no safety but from God, and that comes by prayer and faith.
Hypatia. 1852.

Future Identity. January 25.
I believe that the union of those who have loved here will in