And think of the appeal Christ made to men and women! He had many, but His favourite was to their read more

And think of the appeal Christ made to men and women! He had many, but His favourite was to their chivalry and valour. Often He underlines the difficulties of discipleship, warns us what it will cost, that it means risk and loss and sacrifice, and pulling hard against fierce currents; and then He turns and looks at us, with that honouring trust of His in us that sets the blood tingling and makes the cheeks flush with pride. That, He says quietly, is why I am so sure that you will come: you are too big to keep out of it! And, indeed, in His own day, it was only daring and adventurous spirits who would risk declaring for Him, as it is only daring and adventurous spirits still who have the pluck to try to follow so original and unpopular a Master in the real living-out of life.

If we are honest, we freely admit that the Christian system involves difficulties; but so does every other system. No read more

If we are honest, we freely admit that the Christian system involves difficulties; but so does every other system. No thoughtful person gives up a position merely because he finds difficulties in it; he does not abandon it until he is able to find other and alternative systems with fewer difficulties... I learned from my professors of philosophy... that, while philosophy might not provide me with a watertight intellectual defense of the Christian faith, it would, if used aright, help me to reveal the weakness of its enemies. By careful analysis it is possible to see that there are glaring weaknesses and non-sequiturs in atheism, naturalism, positivism, scientism, and psychologism. The Christian must be a fighter, for he is always under attack. The Church will not be as strong as it ought to be until each local pastor uses his precious freedom from outside employment in order to become a scholarly participant in the intellectual struggle of our day and generation.

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality read more

Commemoration of John & Henry Venn, Priests, Evangelical Divines, 1813, 1873 If we allow the consideration of heathen morality and heathen religion to absolve us from the duty of preaching the gospel we are really deposing Christ from His throne in our own souls. If we admit that men can do very well without Christ, we accept the Saviour only as a luxury for ourselves. If they can do very well without Christ, then so could we. This is to turn our backs upon the Christ of the gospels and the Christ of Acts and to turn our faces towards law, morality, philosophy, natural religion. We look at the moral teaching of some of the heathen nations and we find it higher than we had expected... Or we look at morality in Christian lands, and we begin to wonder whether our practice is really much higher than theirs, and we say, "They are very well as they are. Leave them alone." When we so speak and think we are treating the question of the salvation of men exactly as we should have treated it had Christ never appeared in the world at all. It is an essentially pre-Christian attitude, and implies that the Son of God has not been delivered for our salvation. It suggests that the one and only way of salvation known to me is to keep the commandments. That was indeed true before the coming of the Son of God, before the Passion, before the Resurrection, before Pentecost; but after Pentecost that is no longer true. After Pentecost, the answer to any man who inquires the way of salvation is no longer "Keep the law," but "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.".

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Those who think God did this almost incredible thing call it Good read more

Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617 Those who think God did this almost incredible thing call it Good Friday because only an extremely good God could do a thing like that. All religions attempt to bridge the gulf between the terrific purity of God and the sinfulness of man, but Christianity believes that God built that bridge Himself. This particular Friday commemorates His deliberate action in allowing Himself to be caught up in the sin-suffering-death mechanism which haunts mankind. He didn't let it end there, for He went on, right through death. But the men who believe in Him can't forget the kind of Person such an act reveals. That's why they call it Good Friday.

Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896 Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958 In read more

Commemoration of William Morris, Artist, Writer, 1896 Commemoration of George Kennedy Bell, Bishop of Chichester, Ecumenist, Peacemaker, 1958 In some communities there remains, as a vestige of a false conception of the church building, a resistance to the sale and purchase of books on a table... anywhere on the premises. When this position is expressed, it must be attacked directly and unapologetically, because it represents a genuine evil, ... the idolatry of bricks and mortar, a heresy specifically undermined by the Apostle Paul in Athens when he said, "The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by man" (Acts 17:24). The notion that it is perfectly all right to sell a New Testament in the department store on Monday, but that it is wrong to sell it in the meetinghouse on Sunday, represents a confusion so great that it is truly appalling. As Christians, we believe in the Real Presence, but it is a severe denial of the divine power to claim that this Presence is limited geographically. If, in a building dedicated to worship, a seeker buys a book on Sunday morning and his life is deepened in consequence, the only important thing to say is that the Gospel has thereby been preached, and this is one of the major tasks of the Church.

I have a capacity in my soul for taking in God entirely. I am as sure as I live that read more

I have a capacity in my soul for taking in God entirely. I am as sure as I live that nothing is so near to me as God. God is nearer to me than I am to myself; my existence depends on the nearness and the presence of God.

Christmas Eve The soft light from a stable door Lies on the midnight lands; The wise men's star burns read more

Christmas Eve The soft light from a stable door Lies on the midnight lands; The wise men's star burns evermore, Over all the desert sands. Unto all peoples of the earth A little Child brought light; And never in the darkest place Can it be utter night. No flickering torch, no wavering fire, But Light the Life of men; Whatever clouds may veil the sky, Never is night again.

Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn read more

Feast of John Keble, Priest, Poet, Tractarian, 1866 We are born knowing nothing and with much striving we learn but a little; yet all the while we are bound by laws that hearken to no plea of ignorance, and measure out their rewards and punishments with calm indifference. In such a state, humility is the virtue of men, and their only defense; to walk humbly with God, never doubting, whatever befall, that His will is good, and that His law is right.

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 In our Ashrams of East read more

Commemoration of James Hannington, Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa, Martyr in Uganda, 1885 In our Ashrams of East and West, places of spiritual retreat, we begin with what we call "The Morning of the Open Heart", in which we tell our needs... We give four or five hours to this catharsis. The reaction of one member, who listened to it for the first time, was: "Good gracious, have we all the disrupted people in the country here?" My reply was: "No, you have a cross section of the church life honestly revealed." In the ordinary church, it is suppressed by respectability, by a desire to appear better than we really are.