Commemoration of Martyrs of Japan, 1597 Those who charged the Christians with burning down Rome with fire brands were slanderers -- but they were, at least, far nearer to the nature of Christianity than those among the moderns who tell us that the Christians were a sort of ethical society, being martyred in a languid fashion for telling men they had a duty to their neighbours, and only mildly disliked because they were meek and mild!
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Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your read more
Feast of English Saints & Martyrs of the Reformation The Kingdom is to be in the midst of your enemies. And he who will not suffer this does not want to be of the Kingdom of Christ; he wants to be among friends, to sit among roses and lilies, not with the bad people but the devout people. O you blasphemers and betrayers of Christ! If Christ had done what you are doing, who would ever have been spared?
Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, read more
Commemoration of John Donne, Priest, Poet, 1631 Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those, whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure, then from thee much more, must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, And poppy, or charms, can make us sleep as well, And better than thy stroke. Why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die.
It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so read more
It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is, now at length, discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discernment; and nothing remained, but to set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule.
A man may carry the whole scheme of Christian truth in his mind from boyhood to old age without the read more
A man may carry the whole scheme of Christian truth in his mind from boyhood to old age without the slightest effect upon his character and aims. It has had less influence than the multiplication table.
The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His read more
The great question for us now is, Do we believe in that love of God which Christ taught by His words, and of which His followers saw in His voluntary death a crowning manifestation? And remember that even belief in the love of God will do us no good unless it awakes answering love in ourselves -- unless it adds to our hatred of the sin which separates us from God and increases our love of other men.
Feast of Matthias the Apostle Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences; we shall never have read more
Feast of Matthias the Apostle Life is not long enough for a religion of inferences; we shall never have done beginning, if we determine to begin with proof. We shall ever be laying our foundations; we shall turn theology into evidences, and divines into textuaries... Life is for action. If we insist on proofs for everything, we shall never come to action: to act you must assume, and that assumption is faith.
Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands read more
Commemoration of Brooke Foss Westcott, Bishop of Durham, Teacher, 1901 It may well be that the unknowable name stands for the ultimate mystery of Jesus Christ. His love we can experience; His salvation we can appropriate; His help we can claim; but their remains in Him the divine mystery of the Incarnation, which is beyond our understanding, and before which we can only worship and adore.
We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to read more
We are separated from one another by an unbridgeable gulf of otherness and strangeness which resists all our attempts to overcome it by means of natural association or emotional or spiritual union. There is no way from one person to another. However loving and sympathetic we try to be, however sound our psychology however frank and open our behaviour we cannot penetrate the incognito of the other man, for there are no direct relationships, not even between soul and soul. Christ stands between us, and we can only get into touch with our neighbors through Him.
This is great literature and great religious literature, this collection of ancient writings we call the Bible, and any translator read more
This is great literature and great religious literature, this collection of ancient writings we call the Bible, and any translator has a deep sense of responsibility as he undertakes to transmit it to modern readers. He desires his transcript to be faithful to the meaning of the original, so far as he can reach that meaning, and also to do some justice to its literary qualities. But he is well aware that his aim often exceeds his grasp. Translation may be a fascinating task, yet no discipline is more humbling. You may be translating oracles, but soon you learn the risk and folly of posing as an oracle yourself. If your readers are dissatisfied at any point, they may be sure that the translator is still more dissatisfied, if not there, then elsewhere -- all the more so, because, in the nature of the case, he has always to appear dogmatic in print.
