It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that read more

It is for us, in whom the Christian Church is at this moment partially embodied, to declare that Christianity, that the Christian faith can do that for the world which the world needs. You say, "What can I do?" You can furnish one Christian life. You can furnish a life so faithful to every duty, so ready for every service, so determined not to commit every sin, that the great Christian Church shall be the stronger for your living in it, and the problem of the world be answered, and a certain great peace come into this poor, perplexed phase of our humanity as it sees that new revelation of what Christianity is.

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of read more

Feast of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby, 680 Commemoration of Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, Philanthropist, 1231 Commemoration of Mechtild, Bèguine of Magdeburg, Mystic, Prophet, 1280 If He hath promised to make us happy, though He hath not particularly declared to us wherein this happiness shall consist, yet we may trust Him that made us, to find out ways to make us happy, and may believe that He who made us, without our knowledge or desire, is able to make us happy beyond them both.

However important it may be to have a creed that is sound, or an emotion that is warm, the Christian read more

However important it may be to have a creed that is sound, or an emotion that is warm, the Christian life according to the Gospels is primarily determined by the direction of the will, the fixing of the desire, the habit of obedience, the faculty of decision. If you are determined in your purpose, if you have the will to do the Will, then with half a creed and less than half a pious ecstasy, you are at least in the line of the purpose of Jesus Christ; and as you will to do His will, may come some day to know the teaching.

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564 (1) God's children read more

Holy Saturday Commemoration of Albrecht Dürer, artist, 1528, and Michelangelo Buonarrotti, artist, spiritual writer, 1564 (1) God's children ought to walk in constant amazement of spirit as to God, His nature, and works. (2) The glorifying of God is the great work of God's children. (3) Delightful privacy with God argues strong affection. (4) Frequent prayer an argument of much of God's Spirit; true prayer is the pouring out of the heart to God; God's children are most in private with God; the prayers of God's people most respect spiritual mercies; God's people wait for and rest in God's answer. (5) God's people are sensible of their unworthiness. (6) God Himself is regarded as the portion of His people. (7) Ready obedience to God. (8) The patience of God's children under God's hand. (9) The mournful confession of God's people. (10) God's people long after God in an open profession of His ordinances. (11) Their hearts are ready and prepared. (12) God's people's sense of their own insufficiencies.

Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden. It read more

Unless we know the difference between flowers and weeds, we are not fit to take care of a garden. It is not enough to have truth planted in our minds. We must learn and labor to keep the ground clear of thorns and briars, follies and perversities, which have a wicked propensity to choke the word of life.

I will not judge a person to be spiritually dead whom I have judged formerly to have had spiritual life, read more

I will not judge a person to be spiritually dead whom I have judged formerly to have had spiritual life, though I see him at present in a swoon as to all evidences of the spiritual life. And the reason why I will not judge him so is this -- because if you judge a person dead, you neglect him, you leave him; but if you judge him in a swoon, though never so dangerous, you use all means for the retrieving of his life.

Form-criticism... has made an end of the false notion, which for a long time dominated critical scholarship, that it was read more

Form-criticism... has made an end of the false notion, which for a long time dominated critical scholarship, that it was possible throughout the gospels to distill from them a "Life of Jesus" that would be free from dogmatic presuppositions and not affected by any "retouching" derived from the faith of the Church. In fact, however, faith in Jesus Christ crucified and risen did not first appear at some later stage in the tradition, but was the foundation of the tradition, the very soil out of which it grew; and it is in light of that faith alone that the tradition can be understood. This faith in Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Exalted One, explains both the things which the primitive tradition makes known to us, with its manifest concern for the factual truth of the tradition about Jesus, and at the same time the peculiar liberty which the evangelists take in making alterations in the record in points of detail. In relating the acts and words of Jesus, they do not refer back to any sort of "archives" possessed by the community... Jesus Christ is not for them a figure of past history whose proper place is in a library.

Feast of Thomas the Apostle Long did I toil and knew no earthly rest, Far did I rove and found read more

Feast of Thomas the Apostle Long did I toil and knew no earthly rest, Far did I rove and found no certain home; At last I sought them in His sheltering breast, Who opes His arms and bids the weary come: With Him I found a home, a rest divine, And I, since then, am His, and He is mine. The good I have is from His stores supplied, The ill is only what He deems the best; He for my friend, I'm rich with naught beside, And poor without Him, though of all possessed; Changes may come, I take or I resign Content, while I am His, and He is mine. Whate'er may change, in Him no change is seen, A glorious Sun that wanes not nor declines; Above the storms and clouds He walks serene, And on His people's inward darkness shines; All may depart: I fret not, nor repine, While I my Saviours am, while He is mine. While here, alas! I know but half His love, But half discern Him, and but half adore; But when I meet Him in the realms above I hope to love him better, praise Him more, And feel, and tell, amid the choir divine, How fully I am His, and He is mine.

God's manifestation of Himself has not been for our personal experience only, but all creation, and all time, all mankind read more

God's manifestation of Himself has not been for our personal experience only, but all creation, and all time, all mankind and all man's life upon the earth, are manifestations of God; and the man turns to barrenness and folly who limits himself to his own narrow thought and futile endeavours. All human experience is revelation if the great purpose of life is the discipline of souls, and the one unchanging guidance for all men is duty.