Thank God, our Christian chance is not permanently gone from us [in world affiars]. Ecclesiastics seems for the most part read more

Thank God, our Christian chance is not permanently gone from us [in world affiars]. Ecclesiastics seems for the most part to have failed, failed both man and God; but God has not failed, Jesus has not failed. The God-man still remains the only leader into cooperation whose wisdom is sufficient for a permanent, competent, and free Society. The dictators and would-be dictators will not do. They overreach themselves. Eventually they will destroy one another, and kill off most of us. But even that disaster will not eradicate the desire of men and women to lay down lives for that which is more than themselves. Men will continue to demand not the freedom from that degree of unity for which the dictatorships stand, but rather a finer, more noble, more perceptive kind of unity: a human solidarity which is not nationalistic but world-embracing, a human integration which in aim and purpose is not secularist but spiritual. What the world unwittingly is groping after is allegiance to the eternal, the compassionate, the completely integrating Christ.

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 A just pride, a proper and becoming pride, are terms which read more

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 A just pride, a proper and becoming pride, are terms which we daily hear from Christian lips. To possess a high spirit, to behave with proper spirit when used ill -- by which is meant, a quick feeling of injuries, and a promptness in resenting them -- entitles to commendation; and a meek-spirited disposition, the highest Scripture eulogium, expresses ideas of disapprobation and contempt. Vanity and vainglory are suffered without interruption to retain their natural possession of the heart.

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Keep clear of concealment -- keep clear of the need of read more

Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist Keep clear of concealment -- keep clear of the need of concealment. It is an awful hour when the first necessity of hiding something comes. The whole life is different thenceforth. When there are questions to be feared and eyes to be avoided and subjects which must not be touched, the bloom of life is gone.

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life : Such a Way, as gives read more

Feast of George Herbert, Priest, Poet, 1633 Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life : Such a Way, as gives us breath : Such a Truth, as ends all strife : And such a Life as killeth death. Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength : Such a Light, as shows a feast : Such a Feast, as mends in length : Such a Strength, as makes his guest. Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart : Such a Joy, as none can move : Such a Love, as none can part : Such a Heart, as joyes in love.

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things read more

Feast of Luke the Evangelist Beginning a short series about the early church: Now if all these things should come to pass, the determined expectation of which caused the Jews to reject Christ -- if he should actually appear, with miraculous splendor, as the restorer of the Jewish nation, and city, and Temple, reigning over the whole world as a great earthly sovereign, and reserving peculiar privileges for his own nation -- if, I say, all these expectations should be fulfilled, to which the Jews have so long and so obstinately clung, surely this would not be so much a conversion of the Jews to Christianity as a conversion of Christians to Judaism; it would not be bringing the Jews to the gospel by overcoming their national prejudices, but rather carrying back the gospel to meet the Jewish prejudices; it would be destroying the spiritual character of our religion, and establishing those erroneous views which have hitherto caused the Jews to reject it. We may conclude, then, that all the promises and predictions in Scripture relative to the future glories of the Jews and of Jerusalem, are to be understood of the Christian church, of which the Jewish church was a figure; and all that is said of feasting, and splendor, and wealth, and worldly greatness and enjoyment, is to be interpreted spiritually of the inward comfort and peace of mind, and "joy of the Holy Ghost", which is promised to sincere Christians in this life, and of the unspeakable happiness prepared for them after death.

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 We read more

Feast of Aelred of Hexham, Abbot of Rievaulx, 1167 Commemoration of Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, Scholar, 689 We must alter our lives in order to alter our hearts, for it is impossible to live one way and pray another.

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Sin is a base and ill-natured thing, and renders read more

Commemoration of Felix, Bishop, Apostle to the East Angles, 647 Sin is a base and ill-natured thing, and renders a man not so apt to be affected with the injuries he hath offered to God as with the mischief which is likely to fall upon himself.

Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 You must not lose confidence in God because you lost read more

Feast of John Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, Teacher, 407 You must not lose confidence in God because you lost confidence in your pastor. If our confidence in God had to depend upon our confidence in any human person, we would be on shifting sand.

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful read more

Feast of Mary, Martha & Lazarus, Companions of Our Lord There is a covenant, ... and God is faithful to His covenant. But the substance of that covenant is all pure mercy and grace. If men presume to claim for themselves, upon the basis of the covenant, some relationship with God other than that of the sinner needing God's grace, the covenant has been perverted. And when that has happened, God, in the sovereign freedom of His grace, destroy these pretensions, calls "No people" to be His people, breaks off natural branches and grafts in wild slips, filling them with the life that is His own life imparted to man. There is no law in His Kingdom save the law of pure grace. That is why they come from east and west to sit down with Abraham and Isaac, while the sons of the Kingdom are cast out; for the sons of the Kingdom have no place there unless they are willing to sit down with all whom the Lord of the feast shall call, and to receive His mercy in exactly the same way as the publicans and sinners.