Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an read more

Feast of Barnabas the Apostle The essential amorality of all atheist doctrines is often hidden from us by an irrelevant personal argument. We see that many articulate secularists are well-meaning and law-abiding men; we see them go into righteous indignation over injustice and often devote their lives to good works. So we conclude that "he can't be wrong whose life is in the right" -- that their philosophies are just as good guides to action as Christianity. What we don't see is that they are not acting on their philosophies. They are acting, out of habit or sentiment, on an inherited Christian ethic which they still take for granted though they have rejected the creed from which it sprang. Their children will inherit some what less of it.

Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865 Is not the popular idea of read more

Feast of Anskar, Archbishop of Hamburg, Missionary to Denmark and Sweden, 865 Is not the popular idea of Christianity simply this, that Jesus Christ was a great moral teacher and that, if only we took his advice, we might be able to establish a better social order and avoid another war? Now, mind you, that is quite true; but it tells you much less than the whole truth about Christianity, and it has no practical importance at all. It is quite true that, if we took Christ's advice, we should soon be living in a happier world. You need not even go as far as Christ. If we did all that... Confucius told us, we should get on a great deal better than we do. And so what?... If Christianity only means one more bit of good advice, then Christianity is of no importance. There has been no lack of good advice for the last four thousand years. A bit more makes no difference.

You have... the Gospel written upon vellum; it deserveth to be set with diamonds, except that the heart of man read more

You have... the Gospel written upon vellum; it deserveth to be set with diamonds, except that the heart of man were a fitter repository for it. ... The Colloquies of Erasmus February 13, 1999 Faith is the source of energy in the struggle of life, but life still remains a battle which is continually renewed upon ever-new fronts. For every threatening abyss that is closed, another yawning gulf appears. The truth is -- and this is the conclusion of the whole matter -- the Kingdom of God is within us. But we must let our light shine before men in confident and untiring labor that they may see our good works and praise our Father in Heaven. The final ends of all humanity are hidden within His hands.

Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian 735 Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, read more

Feast of the Venerable Bede, Priest, Monk of Jarrow, Historian 735 Commemoration of Aldhelm, Abbot of Mamsbury, Bishop of Sherborne, 709 If you here stop and ask yourselves why you are not as pious as the primitive Christians were, your own heart will tell you that it is neither through ignorance nor through inability, but purely because you never thoroughly intended it.

And do these objectors mean to say that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, therefore read more

And do these objectors mean to say that, because God has redeemed us from the curse of the law, therefore we owe him nothing, we have no duty now to him? Has not redemption rather made us doubly debtors? We owe him more than ever: we owe his holy law more than ever; more honor, more obedience. Duty has been doubled, not canceled, by our being delivered from the law; and he who says that duty has ceased, because deliverance has come, knows nothing of duty, or law, or deliverance.

I have no rest, but in a nook, with the Book.

I have no rest, but in a nook, with the Book.

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 The Church seems to have lost heart somewhat, has allowed the read more

Feast of Charles Simeon, Pastor, Teacher, 1836 The Church seems to have lost heart somewhat, has allowed the old assurance and enthusiasm to cool below the temperature at which big things get done, is always whimpering and complaining about something, has developed a foolish trick of gathering into corners in discouraged groups and bleating disconsolately that God seems to be strangely little in our day, the very mood that so maddened the Hebrew prophets that they itched to lay violent hands upon their countrymen, and literally shake it out of them. We Church people have become so prone to loud and abusive self-depreciation that the thing amounts to a disease... and though these doleful spirits are not altogether serious, the world is listening, and takes us, not unnaturally, at our own dismal and unflattering valuation.

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 Outward as well read more

Commemoration of Swithun, Bishop of Winchester, c.862 Commemoration of Bonaventure, Franciscan Friar, Bishop, Peacemaker, 1274 Outward as well as inward morality helps to form the idea of a true Christian freedom. We are right to lay stress on inwardness, but in this world there is no inwardness without an outward expression.

Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 [Dr. Johnson to a Quaker:] Oh, let us read more

Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 [Dr. Johnson to a Quaker:] Oh, let us not be found, when our Master calls us, ripping the lace off our waistcoats, but the spirit of contention from our souls and tongues.