Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife

Hypatia, chap. xxvi.  1852.

Empty Profession.  September 24

What is the sin which most destroys all men and nations?  High religious profession, with an ungodly, selfish life.  It is the worst and most dangerous of all sins; for it is like a disease which eats out the heart and life without giving pain, so that the sick man never suspects that anything is the matter with him till he finds himself, to his astonishment, at the point of death.

National Sermons.  1851.

True Poetry.  September 25

Let us make life one poem—not of dreams or sentiments—but of actions, not done Byronically as proofs of genius, but for our own self-education, alone, in secret, awaiting the crisis which shall call us forth to the battle to do just what other people do, only, perhaps, by an utterly different self-education.  That is the life of great spirits, after, perhaps, many many years of seclusion, of silent training in the lower paths of God’s vineyard, till their hearts have settled into a still, deep, yet swift current, and those who have been faithful over a few things are made rulers over many things.

MS. Letter.  1842.

Office of the Clergy.  September 26

There is a Christian as well as political liberty quite consistent with High Church principles, which makes the clergy our teachers—not the keepers of our consciences but of our creeds.

Letters and Memories.  1842.

Opinions are not Knowledge.  September 27

. . . As to self-improvement, the true Catholic mode of learning is to “prove all things,” as far as we can, without sin or the danger of it, to “hold fast that which is good.”  Let us never be afraid of trying anything new, learnt from people of different opinions to our own.  And let us never be afraid of changing our opinions.  The unwillingness to go back from once declared opinion is a form of pride which haunts some powerful minds: but it is not found in great childlike geniuses.  Fools may hold fast to their scanty stock through life, and we must be very cautious in drawing them from it—for where can they supply its place?

Letters and Memories.  1843.

The Worst Punishment.  September 28

God reserves many a sinner for that most awful of all punishments (here)—impunity.

Sermons.

The Divine Order.  September 29

Ah, that God’s will were but done on earth as it is in the material heaven overhead, in perfect order and obedience, as the stars roll in their courses, without rest, yet without haste—as all created things, even the most awful, fire and hail, snow and vapour, wind and storm, fulfil God’s word, who hath made them sure for ever and ever, and given them a law which shall not be broken.  But above them; above the divine and wonderful order of the material universe, and the winds which are God’s angels, and the flames of fire which are His messengers; above all, the prophets and apostles have caught sight of another divine and wonderful order of rational beings, of races loftier and purer than man—angels and archangels, thrones and dominions, principalities and powers, fulfilling God’s will in heaven as it is not, alas! fulfilled on earth.

All Saints’ Day Sermons.  1867.

True Resignation.  September 30

. . . Christianity heightens as well as deepens the human as well as the divine affections.  I am happy, for the less hope, the more faith. . . .  God knows what is best for us; we do not.  Continual resignation, at last I begin to find, is the secret of continual strength.  “Daily dying,” as Bœhmen interprets it, is the path of daily living. . . .

Letters and Memories.  1843.

SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS

SEPTEMBER 21

St. Matthew, Apostle, Evangelist, and Martyr

There is something higher than happiness.  There is blessedness; the blessedness of being good and doing good, of being right and doing right.  That blessedness we may have at all times; we may be blest even in anxiety and in sadness; we may be blest, even as the martyrs of old were blest, in agony and death.

Water of Life Sermons.

SEPTEMBER 29

Feast of St. Michael and All Angels

The eternal moral law which held good for the sinless Christ, who, though He were a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which He suffered, must hold good of you and me, and all moral and rational beings—yea, for the very angels in heaven.  They have not sinned.  That we know; and we do not know that they have ever suffered.  But this at least we know, that they have submitted.  They have obeyed, and have given up their own wills to be ministers of God’s will.  In them is neither self-will nor selfishness; and, therefore, by faith, that is, by trust and loyalty, they stand.  And so, by consenting to lose their individual life of selfishness, they have saved their eternal life in God, the life of blessedness and holiness, just as all evil spirits have lost their eternal life by trying to save their selfish life and be something in themselves and of themselves without respect to God.

All Saints’ Day Sermons.

October

A beautiful October morning it was; one of those in which Dame Nature, healthily tired with the revelry of summer, is composing herself, with a quiet satisfied smile, for her winter’s sleep.  Sheets of dappled cloud were sliding slowly from the west; long bars of hazy blue hung over the southern chalk downs, which gleamed pearly gray beneath the low south-eastern sun.  In the vale below, soft white flakes of mist still hung over the water meadows, and barred the dark trunks of the huge elms and poplars, whose fast-yellowing leaves came showering down at every rustle of the western breeze, spotting the grass below.  The river swirled along, glassy no more, but dingy gray with autumn rains and rotting leaves.  All beyond the garden told of autumn, bright and peaceful even in decay; but up the sunny slope of the garden itself, and to the very window-sill, summer still lingered.  The beds of red verbena and geranium were still brilliant, though choked with fallen leaves of acacia and plane; the canary plant, still untouched by frost, twined its delicate green leaves, and more delicate yellow blossoms, through the crimson lace-work of the Virginia creeper; and the great yellow noisette swung its long canes across the window, filling all the air with fruity fragrance.

Two Years Ago, chap. i.

Blessing of Daily Work.  October 1

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do that day which must be done whether you like it or not.  Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.

Town and Country Sermons.  1861.

The Forming Form.  October 2

As the acorn, because God has given it “a forming form,” and life after its kind, bears within it not only the builder oak but shade for many a herd, food for countless animals, and at last the gallant ship itself, and the materials of every use to which Nature or Art can put it, and its descendants after it, throughout all time, so does every good deed contain within itself endless and unexpected possibilities of other good, which may and will grow and multiply for ever, in the genial light of Him whose eternal mind conceived it, and whose eternal spirit will for ever quicken it, with that life of which He is the Giver and the Lord.

Preface to Tauler’s Sermons.  1854.

Special Providences.  October 3

And as for special Providences.  I believe that every step I take, every person I meet, every thought which comes into my mind—which is not sinful—comes and happens by the perpetual Providence of God watching for ever with Fatherly care over me, and each separate thing that He has made.

MS. Letter.

Virtue.  October 4

Nothing, nothing can be a substitute for purity and virtue.  Man will always try to find substitutes for it.  He will try to find a substitute in superstition, in forms and ceremonies, in voluntary humility and worship of angels, in using vain repetitions, and fancying he will be heard for his much speaking; he will try to find a substitute in intellect, and the worship of intellect and art and poetry, . . . but let no man lay that flattering unction to his soul.

Sermons on David.  1866.

God-likeness.  October 5

“We can become like God—only in proportion as we are of use,” said –.  “I did not see this once.  I tried to be good, not knowing what good meant.  I tried to be good, because I thought it would pay me in the world to come.  But at last I saw that all life, all devotion, all piety, were only worth anything, only Divine, and God-like and God-beloved, as they were means to that one end—to be of use.”

Two Years Ago, chap. xix.  1856.

The Refiner’s Fire.  October 6

“Not quite that,” said Amyas.  “He was a meeker man latterly than he used to be.  As he said himself once, a better refiner than any whom he had on board had followed him close all the seas over, and purified him in the fire.  And gold seven times tried he was when God, having done His work in him, took him home at last.”

Westward Ho! chap. xiii.

The Prayer of Faith.  October 7

With the prayer of faith we can do anything.  Look at Mark xi. 24—a text that has saved more than one soul from madness in the hour of sorrow; and it is so simple and wide—wide as eternity, simple as light, true as God Himself.  If we are to do great things it must be in the spirit of that text.  Verily, when the Son of God cometh shall He find faith in the earth?

Letters and Memories.  1843.

Mountain-Ranges.  October 8

We fancy there are many independent sciences, because we stand half-way up on different mountain-peaks, calling to each other from isolated stations.  The mists hide from us the foot of the range beneath us, the depths of primary analysis to which none can reach, or we should see that all the peaks were but offsets of one vast mountain-base, and in their inmost root but One!  And the clouds which float between us and the heaven shroud from us the sun-lighted caps themselves—the perfect issues of synthetic science, on which the Sun of Righteousness shines with undimmed lustre—and keep us from perceiving that the complete practical details of our applied knowledge is all holy and radiant with God’s smile.  And so, half-way up, on the hillside, beneath a cloudy sky, we build up little earthy hill-cairns of our own petty synthesis, and fancy them Babel-towers whose top shall reach to heaven!

MS. Note-book.  1843.

The Temper for Success in Life.  October 9

The men whom I have seen succeed best in life have always been cheerful and hopeful men, who went about their business with a smile on their faces, and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men, facing rough and smooth alike as it came, and so found the truth of the old proverb that “good times and bad times and all times pass over.”

MS.

Want of Simplicity.  October 10

Faith and prayer are simple things, . . . but when we begin to want faith, and to assist prayer by our own inventions and to explain away God’s providence, then faith and prayer become intricate and uncertain.  We cannot serve God and mammon.  We must either utterly depend on God (and therefore on our own reason enlightened by His spirit after prayer), or we must utterly depend on the empirical maxims of the world.  Choose!

MS. Letter.

True Rest.  October 11

What is true rest?  To rest from sin, from sorrow, from doubt, from care; this is true rest.  Above all, to rest from the worst weariness of all—knowing one’s duty and not being able to do it.  That is true rest; the rest of God who works for ever, and yet is at rest for ever; as the stars over our heads move for ever, thousands of miles a day, and yet are at perfect rest, because they move orderly, harmoniously, fulfilling the law which God has given them.  Perfect rest in perfect work; that surely is the rest of blessed spirits till the final consummation of all things.

Water of Life Sermons.  1867.

God’s Image.  October 12

. . . “Honour all men.”  Every man should be honoured as God’s image, in the sense in which Novalis says—that we touch Heaven when we lay our hand on a human body! . . .  The old Homeric Greeks, I think, felt that, and acted up to it, more than any nation.  The Patriarchs too seem to have had the same feeling. . . .

Letters and Memories.  1843.

Woman’s Work.  October 13

Let woman never be persuaded to forget that her calling is not the lower and more earthly one of self-assertion, but the higher and diviner one of self-sacrifice; and let her never desert that higher life which lives in and for others, like her Redeemer and her Lord.

Lecture on Thrift.  1869.

Self-Enjoyment.  October 14

“How do ye expect,” said Sandy, “ever to be happy, or strong, or a man at a’, as long as ye go on only looking to enjoy yersel—yersel?  Mony was the year I looked for nought but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it was a’

 
“‘Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye,
There he sits singing the lang simmer day;
   Lassies gae to him,
   And kiss him, and woo him—
   Na bird is so merry as Sandy Mackaye.’
 

An’ muckle good cam’ o’t.  Ye may fancy I’m talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle.  But I tell ye nay.  I’ve got that’s worth living for, though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a’s wrong, and there’s na hope for us on earth, we be a’ sic liars—a’ liars, I think—I’m a great liar often mysel, especially when I’m praying.”

Alton Locke, chap. vii.

Temptations of Temperament.  October 15

A man of intense sensibilities, and therefore capable, as is but too notorious, of great crimes as well as of great virtues.

Sermons on David.

The more delicate and graceful the organisation, the more noble and earnest the nature, the more certain it is, I fear, if neglected, to go astray.

Lecture on Thrift.  1869.

Egotism of Melancholy.  October 16

Morbid melancholy results from subjectivity of mind.  The self-contemplating mind, if it be a conscientious and feeling one, must be dissatisfied with what it sees within.  Then it begins unconsciously to flatter itself with the idea that it is not the “moi” but the “non moi,” the world around, which is evil.  Hence comes Manichæism, Asceticism, and that morbid tone of mind which is so accustomed to look for sorrow that it finds it even in joy—because it will not confess to itself that sorrow belongs to sin, and that sin belongs to self; and therefore it vents its dissatisfaction on God’s earth, and not on itself in repentance and humiliation.

The world looks dark.  Shall we therefore be dark too?  Is it not our business to bring it back to light and joy?

MS. Letter.  1843.

Poetry of Doubt.  October 17

The “poetry of doubt” of these days, however pretty, would stand us in little stead if we were threatened by a second Armada.

Miscellanies.  1859.

Work of the Physician.  October 18

The question which is forcing itself more and more on the minds of scientific men is not how many diseases are, but how few are not, the consequences of men’s ignorance, barbarism, folly, self-indulgence.  The medical man is felt more and more to be necessary in health as he is in sickness, to be the fellow-workman not merely of the clergyman, but of the social reformer, the political economist, and the statesman; and the first object of his science to be prevention, and not cure.

National Sermons.  1851.

Love Many-sided.  October 19

There are many sides to love—admiration, reverence, gratitude, pity, affection; they are all different shapes of that one great spirit of love—the only feeling which will bind a man to do good, not once in a way but habitually.

National Sermons.  1851.

The only Path to Light.  October 20

The path by which some come to see the Light, to find the Rock of Ages, is the simple path of honest self-knowledge, self-renunciation, self-restraint, in which every upward step towards right exposes some fresh depth of inward sinfulness, till the once proud man, crushed down by the sense of his own infinite meanness, becomes a little child once more, and casts himself simply on the generosity of Him who made him.  And then there may come to him the vision, dim, perhaps, and fitting ill into clumsy words, but clearer, surer, nearer to him than the ground on which he treads, or than the foot which treads it—the vision of an Everlasting Spiritual Substance, most Human and yet most Divine, who can endure; and who, standing beneath all things, can make their spiritual substance endure likewise, though all worlds and eons, birth and growth and death, matter and space and time, should melt indeed—

 
And like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.
 

Preface to Tauler’s Sermons.  1854.

Proverbs False and True.  October 21

There is no falser proverb than that devil’s beatitude, “Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”  Say rather, “Blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he enjoys everything once at least, and if it falls out true, twice also.”

Prose Idylls.  1857.

True Sisters of Mercy.  October 22

Ah! true Sisters of Mercy! whom the world sneers at as “old maids,” if you pour out on cats and dogs and parrots a little of the love that is yearning to spend itself on children of your own.  As long as such as you walk this lower world one needs no Butler’s Analogy to prove to us that there is another world, where such as you will have a fuller and a fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion.

Two Years Ago, chap. xxv.  1856.

The Divine Fire.  October 23

 
Well spoke the old monks, peaceful, watching life’s turmoil,
“Eyes which look heavenward, weeping still we see:
God’s love with keen flame purges, like the lightning flash,
Gold which is purest, purer still must be.”
 

Saint’s Tragedy, Act iii. Scene i.

1847.

The Cross a Token.  October 24

Have patience, have faith, have hope, as thou standest at the foot of Christ’s Cross, and holdest fast to it, the anchor of the soul and reason, as well as of the heart.  For, however ill the world may go, or seem to go, the Cross is the everlasting token that God so loved the world that He spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for it.  Whatsoever else is doubtful, that at least is sure—that good must conquer, because God is good, that evil must perish, because God hates evil, even to the death.

Westminster Sermons.  1870.

The True Self-Sacrifice.  October 25

What can a man do more than die for his countrymen?

Live for them.  It is a longer work, and therefore a more difficult and a nobler one.

Two Years Ago, chap. xix.  1856.

Now as Then.  October 26

Men can be as original now as ever, if they had but the courage, even the insight.  Heroic souls in old times had no more opportunities than we have; but they used them.  There were daring deeds to be done then—are there none now?  Sacrifices to be made—are there none now?  Wrongs to be redrest—are there none now?  Let any one set his heart in these days to do what is right, and nothing else; and it will not be long ere his brow is stamped with all that goes to make up the heroical expression—with noble indignation, noble self-restraint, great hopes, great sorrows; perhaps even with the print of the martyr’s crown of thorns.

Two Years Ago, chap. vii.  1856.

One Anchor.  October 27

In such a world as this, with such ugly possibilities hanging over us all, there is but one anchor which will hold, and that is utter trust in God; let us keep that, and we may yet get to our graves without misery though not without sorrow.

Letters and Memories.  1871.

Self-Control.  October 28

Settle it in your minds, young people, that the first and the last of all virtues and graces which God can give is Self-Control, as necessary for the saint and the sage lest they become fanatics and pedants, as for the young in the hey-day of youth and health.

Sermons on David.  1866.

Nature’s Permanence.  October 29

We abolish many things, good and evil, wisely and foolishly, in these fast-going times; but, happily for us, we cannot abolish the blue sky, and the green sea, and the white foam, and the everlasting hills, and the rivers which flow out of their bosoms.  They will abolish themselves when their work is done, but not before.  And we, who, with all our boasted scientific mastery over Nature, are, from a merely mechanical and carnal point of view, no more than a race of minute parasitic animals burrowing in the fair Earth’s skin, had better, instead of boasting of our empire over Nature, take care lest we become too troublesome to Nature, by creating, in our haste and greed, too many great black countries, and too many great dirty warrens of houses, miscalled cities, peopled with savages and imps of our own mis-creation; in which case Nature, so far from allowing us to abolish her, will by her inexorable laws abolish us.

MS. Presidential Address.  1871.

The Only Refuge.  October 30

Prayer is the only refuge against the Walpurgis-dance of the witches and the fiends, which at hapless moments whirl unbidden through a mortal brain.

Two Years Ago, chap. xix.  1856.

England’s Forgotten Worthies.  October 31

Among the higher-hearted of the early voyagers, the grandeur and glory around them had attuned their spirits to itself and kept them in a lofty, heroical, reverent frame of mind; while they knew as little about what they saw in an “artistic” or “critical” point of view as in a scientific one. . . .  They gave God thanks and were not astonished.  God was great: but that they had discovered long before they came into the tropics.

Noble old child-hearted heroes, with just romance and superstition enough about them to keep from that prurient hysterical wonder and enthusiasm which is simply, one often fears, a product of our scepticism!  We do not trust enough in God, we do not really believe His power enough, to be ready, as they were, as every one ought to be on a God-made earth, for anything and everything being possible; and then when a wonder is discovered we go into ecstasies and shrieks over it, and take to ourselves credit for being susceptible of so lofty a feeling—true index, forsooth, of a refined and cultivated mind!!

Smile if you will: but those were days (and there never were less superstitious ones) in which Englishmen believed in the living God, and were not ashamed to acknowledge, as a matter of course, His help, and providence, and calling, in the matters of daily life, which we now, in our covert atheism, term “secular and carnal.”

Westward Ho! chap. xxiii.

SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS

OCTOBER 18

St. Luke, Physician and Evangelist

It is good to follow Christ in one thing and to follow Him utterly in that.  And the physician has set his mind to do one thing—to hate calmly, but with an internecine hatred, disease and death, and to fight against them to the end.  In his exclusive care for the body the physician witnesses unconsciously yet mightily for the soul, for God, for the Bible, for immortality.  Is he not witnessing for God when he shows by his acts that he believes God to be a God of life, not of death; of health, not of disease; of order, not of disorder; of joy and strength, not of misery and weakness?  Is he not witnessing for Christ when, like Christ, he heals all manner of sickness and disease among the people, and attacks physical evil as the natural foe of man and of the Creator of man?

“Water of Life,” and other Sermons.

OCTOBER 28

St. Simon and St. Jude, Apostles and Martyrs

He that loseth his life shall save it.  The end and aim of our life is not happiness but goodness.  If goodness comes first, then happiness may come after; but if not, something better than happiness may come, even blessedness.

Oh! sad hearts and suffering! look to the Cross.  There hung your King!  The King of sorrowing souls; and more, the King of Sorrows.  Ay, pain and grief, tyranny and desertion, death and hell,—He has faced them one and all, and tried their strength and taught them His, and conquered them right royally.  And since He hung upon that torturing Cross sorrow is divine,—godlike, as joy itself.  All that man’s fallen nature dreads and despises God honoured on the Cross, and took unto Himself, and blest and consecrated for ever. . . .  And now—Blessed are tears and shame, blessed are agony and pain; blessed is death, and blest the unknown realms where souls await the Resurrection-day.

National Sermons.