Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 read more

Feast of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, Spiritual Writer, 1626 Commemoration of Sergius of Radonezh, Russian Monastic Reformer, Teacher, 1392 The more we study the early Church, the more we realize that it was a society of ministers. About the only similarity between the Church at Corinth and a contemporary congregation, either Roman Catholic or Protestant, is that both are marked, to a great degree, by the presence of sinners.

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 Infant Baptism... has been a witness for the Son of read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 Infant Baptism... has been a witness for the Son of Man and the universality of His Kingdom, like no other. It has taught parents that to bring children into the world is not a horrible crime. It has led them to see Christ and His redemption of humanity through all the mists of our teachings and our qualifications. It has explained the nature of His Kingdom to the hearts even of the poorest. Christ has preached at the fonts, when we have been darkening counsel in the pulpits.

If people gathered to a political meeting, and the chief speaker spoke to them only for some quarter of an read more

If people gathered to a political meeting, and the chief speaker spoke to them only for some quarter of an hour, they would be annoyed, would feel with some resentment that he had not taken them seriously, had dealt much too cavalierly with the question of the hour, an Ulster boundary, or such like. But the things of the soul are far more momentous, and to be asked to deal with huge, unfathomable facts like the Cross in a few minutes, means that people are not really interested in these things. This is, of course, a snippety age, with a snippety press, and snippety novels. But must we preachers follow and be snippety, too?

This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul; A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book read more

This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul; A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book Wherein who rightly look May spell the splendors with their mortal eyes, And steer to Paradise.

In the communities of the faithful, men had to impress upon themselves and upon others what Jesus said and did, read more

In the communities of the faithful, men had to impress upon themselves and upon others what Jesus said and did, for the more convinced they were that he was neither a Jewish pretender nor an unsubstantial deity like one of the deities of the cults, the more urgent it was for them to recall that his words were the rule of their life, and that his actions in history had created their position in the world; they had to think out their faith, to state it against outside criticism, and to teach it within their own circle, instead of being content with it as a mere emotion; they had also to refresh their courage by anticipating the future, which they believed was in the hands of their Lord. The common basis of their life was the conviction that they enjoyed a new relationship with God, for which they were indebted to Jesus. The technical term for this relationship was "covenant", and "covenant" became eventually in their vocabulary "testament". Hence the later name for these writings of the church, when gathered into a sacred collection, was "The New Testament" -- New because the older relationship of God to his people, which had obtained under Judaism, with its Old Testament was superseded by the faith and fellowship which Jesus Christ his Son had inaugurated. It was the consciousness of this that inspired the early Christians to live, and to write about the origin and applications of this new life. They wrote for their own age, without a thought of posterity, and they did not write in unison but in harmony.

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know read more

Broadly speaking, I learned to recognize sin as the refusal to live up to the enlightenment we possess: to know the right order of values and deliberately to choose the lower ones: to know that, however much these values may differ with different people at different stages of spiritual growth, for one's self there must be no compromise with that which one knows to be the lower value.

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, read more

Let no man think to kill sin with few, easy, or gentle strokes. He who hath once smitten a serpent, if he follow not on his blow until he be slain, may repent that ever he began the quarrel. And so will he who undertakes to deal with sin, and pursues it not constantly to the death.

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 read more

Feast of Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, Teacher, 1153 Commemoration of William & Catherine Booth, Founders of the Salvation Army, 1912 & 1890 Be careful to be found a wise and faithful servant, and communicate the heavenly to your fellow servants without envy or idleness. Do not take up the vain excuse of your rawness of inexperience which you may imagine or assume. For sterile modesty is never pleasing, not that humility laudable which passes the bounds of reason. Attend to your work; drive out bashfulness by a sense of duty, and act as a master. But I am not sufficient for these things, you say. As if your offering were not accepted from what you have, and not from what you have not. Be prepared to answer for the single talent committed to your charge, and take no thought for the test. For he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. Give all, as assuredly you shall pay to the uttermost farthing; but of a truth out of what you have, not what you have not.

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because read more

Commemoration of Margery Kempe, Mystic, after 1433 That crowd of Jews would have followed Christ at that moment because He was giving them what they wanted [bread], and they wished to use Him for their plans and dreams and purposes. That attitude to Christ still lingers in men's minds. We would like Christ's gifts without Christ's Cross; we would like to use Christ instead of allowing Him to use us.