Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. read more

Commemoration of Frederick Denison Maurice, Priest, teacher, 1872 We can do nothing, we say sometimes, we can only pray. That, we feel, is a terribly precarious second-best. So long as we can fuss and work and rush about, so long as we can lend a hand, we have some hope; but if we have to fall back upon God -- ah, then things must be critical indeed!

We are building may splendid churches in this country, but we are not providing leaders to run them. I would read more

We are building may splendid churches in this country, but we are not providing leaders to run them. I would rather have a wooden church with a splendid parson, than a splendid church with a wooden parson.

Where every day is not the Lord's, the Sunday is his least of all. There may be a sickening unreality read more

Where every day is not the Lord's, the Sunday is his least of all. There may be a sickening unreality even where there is no conscious hypocrisy.

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world read more

Feast of Cuthbert, Bishop of Lindisfarne, Missionary, 687 The humblest and the most unseen activity in the world can be the true worship of God. Work and worship literally become one. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever; and man carries out that function when he does what God sent him into the world to do. Work well done rises like a hymn of praise to God. This means that the doctor on his rounds, the scientist in his laboratory, the teacher in his classroom, the musician at his music, the artist at his canvas, the shop assistant at his counter, the typist at her typewriter, the housewife in her kitchen -- all who are doing the work of the world as it should be done are joining in a great act of worship.

Beginning a short series of verse on Christ: ... They haled him, trembling, to the Judgement Seat. read more

Beginning a short series of verse on Christ: ... They haled him, trembling, to the Judgement Seat. "O Lord, behold the man who made the nails that pierced Thy feet!" The Master laid a thin, scarred hand upon the shame-bowed head. "They were good nails," he said...

The wonder of the life of Jesus is this -- and you will find it so and you have found read more

The wonder of the life of Jesus is this -- and you will find it so and you have found it so if you have ever taken your New Testament and tried to make it the rule of your daily life -- that there is not a single action that you are called upon to do of which you need be, of which you will be, in any serious doubt for ten minutes as to what Jesus Christ, if he were here, Jesus Christ being here, would have you do under those circumstances and with the materials upon which you are called upon to act.

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the read more

Commemoration of Gilbert of Sempringham, Founder of the Gilbertine Order, 1189 I am quite prepared to promise the secularists secular education if they on their side will promise not to have moral instruction. Secular education seems to me intellectually clean and comprehensible. Moral instruction seems to me unclean, intolerable; I would destroy it with fire. Teaching the Old Testament by itself means teaching ancient Hebrew ethics, which are simple, barbaric rudimentary, and, to a Christian, unsatisfying. Teaching moral instruction means teaching modern London, Birmingham and Boston ethics, which are not barbaric and rudimentary, but are corrupt, hysterical and crawling with worms, and which are to a Christian, not unsatisfying but detestable. The old Jew who says that you must fight only for your tribe is inadequate; but the modern prig who says you must never fight for anything is substantially and specifically immoral. I know quite well, of course, that the unreligious ethics suggested for modern schools do not verbally assert these things; they only talk about peaceful reform, true Christianity, and the importance of Count Tolstoy. It is all a matter of tone and implication--but then, so is all teaching. Education is implication. It is not the things you say which children respect; when you say things, they very commonly laugh and do the opposite. It is the things you assume that really sink into them. It is the things you forget even to teach that they learn.

Modern attempts to get away from the sheer historical facts of the Resurrection are, at best, based on a total read more

Modern attempts to get away from the sheer historical facts of the Resurrection are, at best, based on a total misunderstanding. The whole Bible proclaims the need for, and the achievement of, a salvation that will remake creation, and it is just such a salvation, at once supernatural and historical, that was won on Easter Day. If the Resurrection narratives are [merely] a subtle way of convincing us that God still loves us, or that there is a life beyond death, they must be reckoned among the oddest and most ill-conceived stories ever written.

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, 0 read more

Feast of Christina Rossetti, Poet, 1894 Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, 0 Christ, beneath Thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss, And yet not weep? Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved; Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky: A horror of great darkness at broad noon I only I. Yet give not o'er But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.