Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 The higher faiths call their followers to strenuous moral effort. read more

Commemoration of Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, Martyr, 1012 The higher faiths call their followers to strenuous moral effort. Such effort is likely to be arduous and painful in proportion to the height of the ideal, desperate in proportion to the sensitiveness of the conscience. A morbid scrupulousness besets the morally serious soul. It is anxious and troubled, afraid of evil, haunted by the memory of failure. The best of the Pharisees tended in this direction, and no less the best of the Stoics. And so little has Christianity been understood that the popular idea of a serious Christian is modeled upon the same type of character. (Continued tomorrow).

There are more readers of the English Bible in this country than in any other, and the time seemed to read more

There are more readers of the English Bible in this country than in any other, and the time seemed to me to have come for a frank and direct translation of the Greek New Testament into our modern spoken American English. We take great pains to provide Asiatica and Africana with special versions, so that they may read the Bible each in his own tongue wherein he was born; and why not do as much for our young people, and our fellow citizens generally?

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 There is a great difference between a read more

Commemoration of Wilson Carlile, Priest, Founder of the Church Army, 1942 There is a great difference between a lofty spirit and a right spirit. A lofty spirit excites admiration by its profoundness; but only a right spirit achieves salvation and happiness by its stability and integrity. Do not conform your ideas to those of the world. Scorn the "intellectual" as much as the world esteems it. What men consider intellectual is a certain facility to produce brilliant thoughts. Nothing is more vain. We make an idol of our intellect as a woman who believes herself beautiful worships her face. We take pride in our own thoughts. We must reject not only human cleverness, but also human prudence, which seems so important and so profitable. Then we may enter -- like little children, with candor and innocence of worldly ways -- into the simplicity of faith; and with humility and a horror of sin we may enter into the holy passion of the cross.

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 You, too, are called to be an open letter, as Paul puts read more

Commemoration of Johann Sebastian Bach, musician, 1750 You, too, are called to be an open letter, as Paul puts it, written by Christ's own hand, showing those round about you what things Christ can do. We are to go into the world and so to live our ordinary lives that, all unconsciously to us, those among whom we move will look at us again, and will begin to say, You know I used to doubt if there was much in Christianity save talk. But I have revised my opinion. There's So-and-so (that's you, you understand), that is a man in whom the thing is obviously working out. He used to be so touchy, so opinionative, so mean and shabby in his views, so dully ordinary. Yet now, undoubtedly, the man has won to self-control and a large generous mind, and -- yea, I know it's a queer thing to say -- but he has won to something more, something that somehow (though he never speaks about those things) makes you remember Jesus Christ!

Evildoers delight in hiding themselves; shun appearing; are bewildered when discovered; being accused, deny; not even when tortured, readily or read more

Evildoers delight in hiding themselves; shun appearing; are bewildered when discovered; being accused, deny; not even when tortured, readily or always confess; certainly mourn when condemned; sum up against themselves, impute either to fate or to the stars the impulses of a wicked mind; for they will not have that to be their own, which they acknowledge to be evil. But what doth the Christian like this? None is ashamed, none repenteth, save that he was not such long ago. If he be marked down, he glorieth; if accused, maketh no defense; being questioned, confesseth even of his own accord; being condemned, giveth thanks. What manner of evil is this, which hath not the natural marks of evil, fear, shame, shrinking, penitence, sorrow? What manner of evil is this, whereof he that is accused rejoiceth?

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 [He said:] That all possible kinds of mortification, if they were void of read more

Feast of Edward the Confessor, 1066 [He said:] That all possible kinds of mortification, if they were void of the love of God, could not efface a single sin.. That we ought, without anxiety, to expect the pardon of our sins from the blood of Jesus Christ, only endeavoring to love Him with all our hearts. That God seemed to have granted the greatest favors to the greatest sinners, as more signal monuments of His mercy.

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always read more

Continuing a short series on forgiveness: With this sweet hope of ultimate acceptance with God, I have always enjoyed much cheerfulness before men; but I have at the same time laboured incessantly to cultivate the deepest humiliation before God. I have never thought that the circumstance of God's having forgiven me was any reason why I should forgive myself; on the contrary, I have always judged it better to loathe myself the more, in proportion as I was assured that God was pacified towards me (Ezekiel 16:63).

At this day... the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to employ the read more

At this day... the earth sustains on her bosom many monster minds, minds which are not afraid to employ the seed of Deity deposited in human nature as a means of suppressing the name of God. Can anything be more detestable than this madness in man, who, finding God a hundred times both in his body and his soul, makes his excellence in this respect a pretext for denying that there is a God? He will not say that chance has made him different from the brutes; ... but, substituting Nature as the architect of the universe, he suppresses the name of God.

The Old-Testament doctrine of salvation gives us no encouragement, on strictly hermeneutical grounds, to argue from what was true politically read more

The Old-Testament doctrine of salvation gives us no encouragement, on strictly hermeneutical grounds, to argue from what was true politically of Israel to what could or should be true of any modern political state. Even if we were first to grant the presence of a "Christendom" situation [where] Church and State would be virtually coextensive, the nation of Israel would still remain unique. The focus of salvation is on the historical action of God in forming a people for Himself, and there is no indication anywhere in the Bible that God promises political salvation even inside the context of the full salvation of His people, let alone outside it.