Character and Conduct Part 43

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

The Christian Law

SEPTEMBER 20

"The sanction of this Law (the Christian Law) is not fear of punishment, but that self-surrender to an ever-present Lord, of those who are His slaves at once and His friends, which is perfect freedom. This Law animates the heart of him who receives it with the invigorating truth that character is formed rather by what we do than by what we refrain from doing. It requires that every personal gift and possession should minister to the common welfare, not in the way of ransom, or as a forced loan, but as an offering of love. It reaches to the springs of action, and gives to the most mechanical toil the dignity of a divine service.

It makes the strong arm co-operate in one work with the warm heart and the creative brain. It constrains the poet and the artist to concentrate their magnificent powers on things lovely and of good report, to introduce us to characters whom to know is a purifying discipline, and to fill the souls of common men with visions of hidden beauty and memories of heroic deeds. It enables us to lift up our eyes to a pattern of human society which we have not yet dared to contemplate, a pattern which answers to the const.i.tution of man as he was made in the Divine image to gain the Divine likeness. It forbids us to seek repose till, as far as lies in us, all labour is seen to be not a provision for living, but a true human life; all education a preparation for the vision of G.o.d here and hereafter; all political enterprise a conscious hastening of the time when the many nations shall walk in the light of the holy city, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it."

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

Trustees

SEPTEMBER 21

"For the Christian there can be but one ideal, the perfect development of every man for the occupation of his appointed place, for the fulfilment of his peculiar office in the 'Body of Christ'; and as a first step towards this, we are all bound as Christians to bring to our country the offering of our individual service in return for the opportunities of culture and labour which we receive from its organisation. We are all as Christians trustees and stewards of everything which we possess, of our time, our intellect, our influence, no less than of our riches. We ourselves are not our own: still less can we say of that which we inherit or acquire, 'It is my own.' We all belong, in the fulness of life 'in Christ,' to our fellow-citizens, and our nation belongs to mankind. What we hold for a time is to be administered for the relief of distresses, and for the elevation of those among whom we are placed. Personal and social egoism are equally at variance with this conception of humanity. The repression of individuality and the individual appropriation of the fruits of special vigour and insight equally tend to impoverish the race. Service always ready to become sacrifice is the condition of our growth, and the condition of our joy."

_Christian Social Union Addresses_, Bishop WESTCOTT.

"Not to Destroy, but to Fulfil"

SEPTEMBER 22

"Christ took the world as He found it, He left it as it was. He had no quarrel with existing inst.i.tutions. He did not overthrow the Church--He went to Church. He said nothing against politics--He supported the government of the country. He did not denounce society--His first public action was to go to a marriage. His great aim, in fact, outwardly, and all along, was to be as normal, as little eccentric as possible. The true fanatic always tries the opposite. The spirit alone was singular in Jesus; a fanatic always spoils his cause by extending it to the letter.

Christ came not to destroy, but to fulfil. A fanatic comes not to fulfil, but to destroy. If we would follow the eccentricity of our Master, let it not be in asceticism, in denunciation, in punctiliousness, and scruples about trifles, but in largeness of heart, singleness of eye, true breadth of character, true love to men, and heroism for Christ."

_The Ideal Life_, HENRY DRUMMOND.

"Religion has been treated as if it were a special exercise of a special power, not as if it were the possible loftiness of everything that a man could think or be or do."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Religion in Daily Life

SEPTEMBER 23

"If we want to get religion into life, or anything whatever in us into life, we are bound to have no contentment, no rest, no dreaming, no delays, till we get thought into shape, feeling into labour, some conviction, some belief, some idea, into form without us, among the world of men. This is the main principle, and it applies to every sphere of human effort. So much for the habit whereby we gain power to bring religion into daily life.

"Righteousness, shaped from within to without in the world of men, is justice, and the doing of justice. This is the first need of commonwealths, the first duty of individuals, and the practical religion of both. A still higher form into which we may put our religion in life is in doing the things which belong to love; and love is the higher form because it secures justice. These are the things we should shape into life because we love them. To be faithful always to that which we believe to be true; to be faithful to our principles and our conscience when trial comes, or when we are tempted to sacrifice them for place or pelf; to be faithful to our given word; to keep our promises when we might win favour by eluding or breaking them; to cling to intellectual as well as to moral truth; to so live among men that they may know where we are; to fly our flag in the storm as well as in the calm. It is to pa.s.s by with contempt the dark cavern where men wors.h.i.+p Mammon; to fix our thought and effort on the attainment of righteousness in public and in private homes, to have the courage to attempt what seems impossible through love of the ideals of truth and beauty, and to prefer to die on the field of work and self-devotion rather than to live in idleness and luxury."

STOPFORD BROOKE.

Unfelt Creeds

SEPTEMBER 24

"There are also some who forget that the laws of the spiritual world are no less inflexible and inviolable than those of the physical world; that conduct is everything; and that the faith which saves, and which, working by love, makes conduct, is something much deeper and more substantial than the muttering of an unfelt creed, or than the melancholy presumption that to think ourselves saved is by itself a pa.s.sport into the everlasting habitations."

Bishop THOROLD.

"Holiness is an infinite compa.s.sion for others: Greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them: Happiness is a great love and much serving."

"Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven."

PHILLIPS BROOKS.

Fasting

SEPTEMBER 25

"It makes me half afraid, half angry, to see the formal, mechanical way in which people do what they call their 'Lenten Penances,' and then rush off, only with increased ardour, to their Easter festivities. Literal fasting does not suit me--it makes me irritable and uncomfortable, and certainly does not spiritualise me; so I have always tried to keep my Lents in the n.o.bler and more healthful spirit of Isaiah lviii. I have kept them but poorly, after all; still, I am sure _that_ is the true way of keeping them."

_Letters from_ Bishop Fraser's _Lancas.h.i.+re Life_, Archdeacon DIGGLE.

"G.o.d does not call us to give up some sin or some harmful self-indulgence in Lent that we may resume it at Easter."

_The Guided Life_, Canon BODY.

Fasting

SEPTEMBER 26

"Fasting comes by nature when a man is sad, and it is in consequence the natural token of sadness: when a man is very sad, for the loss of relations or the like, he loses all inclination for food. But every outward sign that can be displayed at will is liable to abuse, and so men sometimes fasted when they were not really sad, but when it was decorous to appear so. Moreover a kind of merit came to be attached to fasting as betokening sorrow for transgressions; and at last it came to be regarded as a sort of self-punishment which it was thought the Almighty would accept in lieu of inflicting punishment Himself. Our Lord does not decry stated fasts or any other Jewish practices, they had their uses and would last their times; only He points men to the underlying truth which was at the bottom of the ordinance."

_Pastor Pastorum_, HENRY LATHAM.

The Great Law of Love

SEPTEMBER 27

"Those who go to Christ and not to custom for their view of that which is essential in religion, know the infinitesimal value of profession and ceremonies, beside the great law of love to our neighbour."

F. W. FARRAR.