Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 There are three lessons I would write, read more

Commemoration of Douglas Downes, Founder of the Society of Saint Francis, 1957 There are three lessons I would write, Three words, as with a burning pen, In tracings of eternal light, Upon the hearts of men. Have Hope. Though clouds environ round, And gladness hides her face in scorn, Put off the shadow from thy brow: No night but hath its morn. Have Faith. Where'er thy bark is driven - The calm's disport, the tempest's mirth - Know this: God rules the hosts of heaven, The inhabitants of earth. Have Love. Not love alone for one, But man, as man, thy brother call; And scatter, like a circling sun, Thy charities on all.

We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful read more

We must sometimes get away from the Authorized Version, if for no other reason, simply because it is so beautiful and so solemn. Beauty exalts, but beauty also lulls. Early associations endear, but they also confuse. Through that beautiful solemnity, the transporting or horrifying realities of which the Book tells may come to us blunted and disarmed, and we may only sigh with tranquil veneration when we ought to be burning with shame, or struck dumb with terror, or carried out of ourselves by ravishing hopes and adorations.

When we once begin to form good resolutions, God gives us every opportunity of carrying them out.

When we once begin to form good resolutions, God gives us every opportunity of carrying them out.

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 To be right with God has often meant to be read more

Feast of St. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, Teacher, 373 To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with men.

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer read more

Feast of John Vianney, Curè d'Ars, 1859 Prayer is not a way of making use of God; prayer is a way of offering ourselves to God in order that He should be able to make use of us. It may be that one of our great faults in prayer is that we talk too much and listen too little. When prayer is at its highest we wait in silence for God's voice to us; we linger in His presence for His peace and His power to flow over us and around us; we lean back in His everlasting arms and feel the serenity of perfect security in Him.

Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little read more

Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company; the least little remembrance will always be acceptable to Him. You need not cry very loud; he is nearer to us than we are aware of.

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 The deceit, the lie of the devil consists of this, that he read more

Feast of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Teacher, Martyr, 1945 The deceit, the lie of the devil consists of this, that he wishes to make man believe that he can live without God's Word. Thus he dangles before man's fantasy a kingdom of faith, of power, and of peace, into which only he can enter who consents to the temptations; and he conceals from men that he, as the devil, is the most unfortunate and unhappy of beings, since he is finally and eternally rejected by God.

Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 The concept of Israel as the chosen people does not read more

Feast of Martin, Monk, Bishop of Tours, 397 The concept of Israel as the chosen people does not imply a certain divine favoritism, as some seem to think, but an opportunity of grace, a calling that involved the assumption of the servant role among the nations. It was the fact that they had interpreted themselves as special objects of God's favor, and rejected the servant role, that led to their own rejection.

The Christian cell in a factory or a professional circle, funding its own activities, deciding its own pattern of work, read more

The Christian cell in a factory or a professional circle, funding its own activities, deciding its own pattern of work, studying the Bible and perhaps celebrating the Lord's supper as an entity on its own, comes very much closer to Independency as Robert Browne saw it than the unholy isolationism of a prosperous suburban church, with 200 members who scarcely know each other by sight. If a sizable proportion of the Free Church ministry were enabled to become itinerant once again -- not necessarily itinerant in the geographical sense, but itinerant in the complex mazes of contemporary society, fathers in God to Christian organisms evolved by the lay men and women who spend their lives in these mazes -- new heart would be put into both ministry and laity, and incidentally, new impetus given to the search for Christian unity.