Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 He knoweth nothing as he ought to know it, who read more

Commemoration of Richard Baxter, Priest, Hymnographer, Teacher, 1691 He knoweth nothing as he ought to know it, who thinketh he knoweth anything without seeing its place and the manner how it relateth to God, angels, and men, and to all the creatures in earth, heaven and hell, time and eternity.

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life read more

Feast of Edmund of the East Angles, Martyr, 870 Commemoration of Priscilla Lydia Sellon, a Restorer of the Religious Life in the Church of England, 1876 Living for others, commitment to God's redeeming purposes, is a means of grace. We give because of our faith, and it deepens as we give. If we permit ourselves and our people to give casually, we are really teaching contempt.

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 read more

Feast of Timothy and Titus, Companions of Paul Commemoration of Dorothy Kerin, Founder of the Burrswood Healing Community, 1963 The problem is not that the churches are filled with empty pews, but that the pews are filled with empty people.

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," read more

Our Adversary majors in three things: noise, hurry and crowds. If he can keep us engaged in "muchness" and "manyness," he will rest satisfied.

The purifying worth of prayer consists in the increasing contrast which it sets up between the holy God and the read more

The purifying worth of prayer consists in the increasing contrast which it sets up between the holy God and the creature; subordinating that creature's fugitive activities and desires to the standard set by this solemn apprehension of Reality.

Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543 Seven principles for eradicating selfish ambition in the fellowship: 5. the ministry of read more

Commemoration of Scholastica, Abbess of Plombariola, c.543 Seven principles for eradicating selfish ambition in the fellowship: 5. the ministry of bearing "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). Thus the law of Christ is a law of bearing. Bearing means forbearing and sustaining... The Christian must suffer and endure the brother. It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated. It is, first of all, the freedom of the other person that is a burden to the Christian. The freedom of the other person includes all that we mean by a person's nature, individuality, endowment. It also includes his weaknesses and oddities, which are such a trial to our patience, everything that produces frictions, conflicts, and collisions among us. Then, there is the abuse of that freedom that becomes a burden for the Christian. In sin, fellowship with God and with his brother are broken. To cherish no contempt for the sinner but rather to prize the privilege of bearing him means not to have to give him up as lost, to be able to accept him, to preserve fellowship with him through forgiveness... The service of forgiveness is rendered by one to the others daily. It occurs, without words, in the intercessions for one another. He who is bearing others knows that he himself is being borne.

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 The ordinary group of worshipping Christians, as the preacher read more

Commemoration of William Augustus Muhlenberg of New York, Priest, 1877 The ordinary group of worshipping Christians, as the preacher sees them from the pulpit, does not look like a collection of very joyful people, in fact, they look on the whole rather sad, tired, depressed people. It is certain that such people will never win the world for Christ... It is no use trying to pretend: we may speak of joy and preach about it: but, unless we really have the joy of Christ in our hearts and manifest it, our words will carry no conviction to our hearers.

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other read more

Commemoration of Sundar Singh of India, Sadhu, Evangelist, Teacher, 1929 I am disposed to say grace upon twenty other occasions in the course of the day besides my dinner. I want a form for setting out upon a pleasant walk, for a moonlight ramble, for a friendly meeting or a solved problem. Why have we none for books, those spiritual repasts -- a grace before Milton, a devotional exercise proper to be said before reading [Spenser]?

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 God generally gives spiritual blessings and deliverances as He does temporal ones; that is, by the mediation of an active and vigorous industry. The fruits of the earth are the gift of God, and we pray for them as such; but yet we plant, and we sow, and we plough, for all that; and the hands which are sometimes lift up in prayer must at other times be put to the plough, or the husbandman must expect no crop. Everything must be effected in the way proper to its nature, with the concurrent influence of the divine grace, not to supersede the means, but to prosper and make them effectual.