While it is right to stress the dangers of the permissive society, the argument from danger is not in itself read more

While it is right to stress the dangers of the permissive society, the argument from danger is not in itself a good argument, because it seems to imply that, if the danger could be removed, if there was no risk of a child and no peril of infection, then the objection would be removed, too. It tends to imply that the objection is to the attendant dangers and not to the thing itself. But if sexual intercourse before and outside marriage is against the teaching of Jesus, then the thing is not only dangerous, it is wrong in itself.

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also read more

Such is our dependence upon God that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power. This happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us, should be our greatest consolation. What a happiness is it that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence; to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with him, by prayer! He Himself invites us to it.

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 How often we look upon read more

Feast of Josephine Butler, Social Reformer, 1906 Commemoration of Apolo Kivebulaya, Priest, Evangelist, 1933 How often we look upon God as our last and feeblest resource! We go to him because we have nowhere else to go. And then we learn that the storms of life have driven us, not upon the rocks, but into the desired haven.

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as read more

Commemoration of William Wilberforce, Social Reformer, 1833 We know that one school of psychology already regards religion as a neurosis. When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to 'cure' It? Such 'cure' will , of course, be compulsory; but under the humanitarian theory it will not be called by the shocking name of Persecution. No one will blame us for being Christians, no one will hate us, no one revile us. The new Nero will approach us with the silky manners of a doctor, and though all will be in fact {compulsory}, all will go on within the unemotional therapeutic sphere where words like 'right' and 'wrong' , or 'freedom' and 'slavery' are never heard. And thus when the command is given, every prominent Christian in the land may vanish overnight into Institutions for the Treatment of the Ideologically Unsound, and it will rest with the expert gaolers to when (if ever) they are to emerge. But it will not be persecution. Even if the treatment is painful, even if it is life-long, even if if it is fatal, that will be only a regrettable accident, the intention was purely therapeutic.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Commemoration of Bartolomè de las Casas, Apostle to the Indies, 1566 Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under read more

Feast of Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 A great many of those about me would be imprisoned under any law; in France, as here, they would be regular jail-birds. But I loved them better and better -- and still I knew how little was my love for them compared to Christ's. It is easy enough for a man to be honest and a "Good Christian" and keeper of "the moral law", when he has his own little room, his purse well filled -- when he is well shod and well fed. It is far less easy for a man who has to live from day to day, roaming from city to city, from factory to factory. It is far less easy for someone just out of jail, with nothing to wear but old down-at-the-heels shoes and a shirt in rags. All of a sudden, I understood our Lord's words: "I was in prison ... and you visited me not." All these men, lazy, outside the law, starving: these failures of all kinds -- they were dear to Christ -- they were Christ, waiting in prison for someone to lean over Him -- and if we were true Christians, we would do them every kindness.

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Thou wayfaring Jesus -- a pilgrim and stranger, Exiled from read more

Feast of Hildegard, Abbess of Bingen, Visionary, 1179 Thou wayfaring Jesus -- a pilgrim and stranger, Exiled from heaven by love at Thy birth: Exiled again from Thy rest in the manger, A fugitive child 'mid the perils of earth -- Cheer with Thy fellowship all who are weary, Wandering far from the land that they love: Guide every heart that is homeless and dreary, Safe to its home in Thy presence above.

It is not in the power of the devil to do so much harm, as God can do good; nay, read more

It is not in the power of the devil to do so much harm, as God can do good; nay, we may be bold to say, it is not in the will, not in the desire of the devil to do so much harm, as God would do good.

Those talents which God has bestowed upon us are not our own goods but the free gifts of God; and read more

Those talents which God has bestowed upon us are not our own goods but the free gifts of God; and any persons who become proud of them show their ungratefulness.