Out of the Deep | Page 4

to make you patient; ask Him to
change your wills into the likeness of His will. Then will your eyes be
opened; then will you see in the Scriptures a sure promise of hope, and
glory, and redemption for yourself and all the world; then you will see
in the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's body and blood a sure sign and
warrant, handed down from hand to hand, from age to age, from year to
year, from father to son, that His promises shall be fulfilled--that
patience shall have her perfect work--that hope shall become a
reality--that not one of the Lord's words shall fail or pass away till all
be fulfilled.
National Sermons.
God means some good to you by prostrating you--perhaps He means by
giving you blessings almost without your asking, to show you how
little avails morbid sensitiveness or self-tormenting struggles.
Synthetical minds are subject to this self-torture. Such a period in your
life is the time to become again a little child! I do not mean a
re-regeneration, but a permitting of the mind to assume that tone of
calm wonder and infantile trust, which will allow all the innate
principles within--all God-bestowed graces which have been bruised
and bowed by the tempest, to blossom gently upwards again, in "the
clear shining after rain"--a breathing time in life--not too much
retrospection or self-examination--keep that for the healthy and
vigorous hours of the mind--but a silent basking in the light of God's
presence--a time for faith, more than for labour; for general and
unexpressed, more than for particular or earnest prayer.
Letters and Memories.

Sorrow, though dreary, is not 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, revealing the mind
of our God Himself--all things moving smoothly and surely, in spite of
apparent checks and disappointments, towards the appointed End!
Letters and Memories.
In all the chances and changes of this mortal life, it is our one comfort
to believe firmly and actively in the changeless kingdom, and in the
changeless King. This alone will give us calm, patience, faith, and hope,
though the heavens and the earth be shaken around us. For so only shall
we see that the kingdom, of which we are citizens, is a kingdom of light,
and not of darkness; of truth, and not of falsehood; of freedom, and not
of slavery; of bounty and mercy, and not of wrath and fear; that we live
and move and have our being, not in a "Deus quidam deceptor," who
grudges His children wisdom, but in a Father of Light, from whom
comes every good and perfect gift; who willeth that all men should be
saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth. In His kingdom we are;
and in the King whom He has set over it we can have most perfect trust.
For us that King stooped from heaven to earth; for us He was born, for
us He toiled, for us He suffered, for us He died, for us He arose again,
for us He sits for ever at God's right hand. And can we not trust Him?
Let Him do what He will. Let Him lead us whither He will.
Wheresoever He leads must be the way of truth and life. Whatsoever
He does, must be in harmony with that infinite love which He
displayed for us upon the Cross. Whatsoever He does must be in
harmony with that eternal purpose by which He reveals to men God
their Father. Therefore, though the heaven and the earth be shaken
around us, we will trust in Him; for we know that He is the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
National Sermons.
If we believe that God is educating men, the when, the where, and the
how, are not only unimportant, but considering Who is the teacher,

unfathomable to us; and it is enough to be able to believe that the Lord
of all things is influencing us through all things.
Essays.
Provided we attain at last to the truly heroic and divine life, which is
the life of virtue, it will matter little to us by what strange and weary
ways, or through what painful and humiliating processes, we have
arrived thither. If God has loved us, if God will receive us, then let us
submit loyally and humbly to His law--"Whom the Lord loveth He
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."
All Saints' Day Sermons.
I believe that the wisest plan of bearing sorrow is sometimes not to try