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]?

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of read more

If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life, that we give to the question of what to do with two weeks' vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"; for faith consists in the knowledge read more

It would be the height of absurdity to label ignorance tempered by humility "faith"; for faith consists in the knowledge of God and Christ, not in reverence for the Church.

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.

The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. read more

The most dangerous man in the world is the contemplative who is guided by nobody. He trusts his own visions. He obeys the attractions of an interior voice but will not listen to other men. He identifies the will of God with anything that makes him feel, within his own heart, a big, warm, sweet interior glow. The sweeter and the warmer the feeling is, the more he is convinced of his own infallibility.

[If] there be any difference among professed believers as to the sense of Scripture, it is their duty to tolerate read more

[If] there be any difference among professed believers as to the sense of Scripture, it is their duty to tolerate such difference in each other, until God shall have revealed the truth to all.

It is to be feared lest our long quarrels about the manner of His presence cause the matter of His read more

It is to be feared lest our long quarrels about the manner of His presence cause the matter of His absence, for our want of charity to receive Him.

Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089 The great danger facing all of us... is read more

Commemoration of Lanfranc, Prior of Le Bec, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1089 The great danger facing all of us... is not that we shall make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel [that] life has no meaning at all -- not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life's greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God -- and be content to have it so -- that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one's friends may be spared -- satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father.

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure read more

Commemoration of Brigid, Abbess of Kildare, c.525 We can all call to mind movements which have begun as pure upsurges of fresh spiritual vitality, breaking through and revolting against the hardened structure of the older body, and claiming, in the name of the Spirit, liberty from outward forms and institutions. And we have seen how rapidly they develop their own forms, their own structures of thought, of language, and of organisation. It would surely be a very unbiblical view of human nature and history to think -- as we so often, in our pagan way, do -- that this is just an example of the tendency of all things to slide down from a golden age to an age of iron, to identify the spiritual with the disembodied, and to regard visible structure as equivalent to sin. We must rather recognise here a testimony to the fact that Christianity is, in its very heart and essence, not a disembodied spirituality, but life in a visible fellowship, a life which makes such total claim upon us, and so engages our total powers, that nothing less than the closest and most binding association of men with one another can serve its purpose. ... Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God February 2, 2000 THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE Persons that are well affected to religion, that receive instructions of piety with pleasure and satisfaction, often wonder how it comes to pass that they make no greater progress in that religion which they so much admire. Now the reason of it is this: it is because religion lives only in their head, but something else has possession of their heart; and therefore they continue from year to year mere admirers and praisers of piety, without ever coming up to the reality and perfection of its precepts.