Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Irresponsible spending is the scandal of Christian America, in the face read more

Feast of Alban, first Martyr of Britain, c.209 Irresponsible spending is the scandal of Christian America, in the face of the world's need. The American standard of living has risen to unprecedented heights, although a large portion of the world exists on a sub-human level. Philanthropy, as we practice it, is not enough --- although the word philanthropy actually means brotherhood. Our stewardship of God's goods requires that we administer in God's name -- that is, with full awareness that the world is His and that His love is directed toward us no more fully than toward every man.

God wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything.

God wants us to know that when we have Him we have everything.

Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885 Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269 read more

Feast of Cyril & Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs, 869 & 885 Commemoration of Valentine, Martyr at Rome, c.269 I will tell you what to hate: hate hypocrisy, hate cant, hate intolerance, oppression, injustice; hate pharisaism. Hate them as Christ hated them, with a deep, living, godlike hatred.

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in read more

I read in Shakespeare of the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo of the sacredness of childhood, in Tennyson the ugliness of hypocrisy, in George Eliot the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of service. Irving teaches me the lesson of cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the hatefulness of sin, Longfellow gives me the soft, tranquil music of hope. Lowell makes us feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow men. Whittier sings to me of divine Fatherhood and human brotherhood. These are Christian lessons: who inspired them? Who put it into the heart of Martin Luther to nail those theses on the church door of Wittenberg? Who stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola? Who thrilled and electrified the soul of John Wesley? Jesus Christ is back of these all.

The self-centered regret which a man feels when his sin has found him out -- the wish, compounded of pride, read more

The self-centered regret which a man feels when his sin has found him out -- the wish, compounded of pride, shame, and anger at his own inconceivable folly, that he had not done it: these are spoken of as repentance. But they are not repentance at all... It is the simple truth that that sorrow of heart, that healing and sanctifying pain in which sin is really put away, is not ours in independence of God; it is a saving grace which is begotten in the soul under the impression of sin it owes to the revelation of God in Christ. A man can no more repent than he can do anything else without a motive; and the motive which makes evangelic repentance possible does not enter into his world till he sees God as God makes Himself known in the death of Christ. All true penitents are children of the Cross. Their penitence is not their own creation: it is the reaction towards God produced in their souls by this demonstration of what sin is to Him, and of what His love does to reach and win the sinful.

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not read more

Feast of David, Bishop of Menevia, Patron of Wales, c.601 There is nothing capricious about religion. We do not get the soul in different ways, under different laws, from those in which we get the body and the mind. If a man does not exercise his arm, he develops no biceps muscles and if a man does not exercise his soul, he acquires no muscle in his soul, no strength of character, no vigour of moral fibre, nor beauty of spiritual growth. Love is not a thing of enthusiastic emotion. It is a rich, strong, manly, vigorous expression of the whole round Christian character -- the Christ-like nature in its fullest development. And the constituents of this great character are only to be built up by ceaseless practice.

Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 It is sufficient to know in the general that our read more

Commemoration of Thomas Bray, Priest, Founder of SPCK, 1730 It is sufficient to know in the general that our employment [in Paradise] shall be our unspeakable pleasure and every way suitable to the glory and happiness of that state, and as much above the noblest and most delightful employments of this world as the perfection of our bodies and the power of our souls shall then be above what they now are in this world. For there is no doubt that he who made us and endued our souls with a desire of immortality and so large a capacity of happiness, does understand very well by what ways and means to make us happy, and hath in readiness proper exercises and employments for that state, and every way more fitted to make us happy than any condition or employment in this world is suitable to a temporal happiness.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.

When a man listens to the voice of the tempter within him, he is inclined to do as others do, read more

When a man listens to the voice of the tempter within him, he is inclined to do as others do, not to resist when temptation seems great. But when he looks into the laws of God, and hears the words of Christ, his natural sense of right and wrong is restored to him, and he becomes elevated, purified, and sanctified.