broken only by the tightening of an
infinitely closer bond. Verily God must be terrible to those that are far
from Him: for they fear He will do, yea, He is doing with them what they do
not, cannot desire, and can ill endure.
[ 143 ] "Peace in Our Time"
While they are such as they are, there is much in Him that cannot but
affright them: they ought, they do well, to fear, Him. ... To remove that
fear from their hearts, save by letting them know His love with its
purifying fire, a love which for ages, it may be, they cannot know, would be
to give them up utterly to the power of evil. Persuade men that fear is a
vile thing, that it is an insult to God, that He will none of it-while they
are yet in love with their own will, and slaves to every movement of
passionate impulse, and what will the consequence be? That they will insult
God as a discarded idol, a superstition, a falsehood, as a thing under whose
evil influence they have too long groaned, a thing to be cast out and spit
upon. After that how much will they learn of Him?
[ 144 ] Divine Fire
The fire of God, which is His essential being, His love, His creative
power, is a fire unlike its earthly symbol in this, that it is only at a
distance it burns-that the further from Him, it burns the worse.
[ 145 ] The Safe Place
If then any child of the Father finds that he is afraid before Him,
that the thought of God is a discomfort to him, or even a terror, let him
make haste-let him not linger to put on any garment, but rush at once in his
nakedness, a true child, for shelter from his own evil and God's terror,
into the salvation of the Father's arms.
[ 146 ] God and Death
All that is not God is death.
[ 147 ] Terror
Endless must be our terror, until we come heart to heart with the
fire-core of the universe, the first and the last of the living One.
[ 148 ] False Want
Men who would rather receive salvation from God than God their
salvation.
[ 149 ] A Man's Right
Lest it should be possible that any unchildlike soul might, in
arrogance and ignorance, think to stand upon his rights against God, and
demand of Him this or that after the will of the flesh, I will lay before
such a possible one some of the things to which he has a right. ... He has a
claim to be compelled to repent; to be hedged in on every side: to have one
after another of the strong, sharp-toothed sheep dogs of the Great Shepherd
sent after him, to thwart him in any desire, foil him in any plan, frustrate
him of any hope, until he come to see at length that nothing will ease his
pain, nothing make life a thing worth having, but the presence of the living
God within him.
[ 150 ] Nature
In what belongs to the deeper meanings of nature and her mediation
between us and God, the appearances of nature are the truths of nature, far
deeper than any scientific discoveries in and concerning them. The show of
things is that for which God cares most, for their show is the face of far
deeper things than they. ... It is through their show, not through their
analysis, that we enter into their deepest truths. What they say to the
childlike soul is the truest thing to be gathered of them. To know a
primrose is a higher thing than to know all the botany of it-just as to know
Christ is an infinitely higher thing than to know all theology, all that is
said about His person, or babbled about His work. The body of man does not
exist for the sake of its hidden secrets; its hidden secrets exist for the
sake of its outside-for the face and the form in which dwells revelation:
its outside is the deepest of it. So Nature as well exists primarily for her
face, her look, her appeals to the heart and the imagination, her simple
service to human need, and not for the secrets to be discovered in her and
turned to man's further use.
[ 151 ] The Same
By an infinite decomposition we should know nothing more of what a
thing really is, for, the moment we decompose it, it ceases to be, and all
its meaning is vanished. Infinitely more than astronomy even, which destroys
nothing, can do for us, is done by the mere aspect and changes of the vault
over our heads. Think for a moment what would be our idea of greatness, of
God, of infinitude, of aspiration, if, instead of a blue, far withdrawn,
light-spangled firmament, we were born and reared under a flat white
ceiling! I would not be supposed to depreciate the labors of science, but I
say its discoveries are unspeakably less precious than the merest gifts of
Nature, those which, from morning to night, we take unthinking from her
hands. One day, I trust, we shall be able to enter into their secrets from
within them-by natural contact. . . .
[ 152 ] Doubt
To deny the existence of God may . . . involve less unbelief than the
smallest yielding to doubt of His goodness. I say yielding; for a man may be
haunted with doubts, and only grow thereby in faith. Doubts are the
messengers of the Living One to the honest. They are the first knock at our
door of things that are not yet, but have to be, understood. . . . Doubt
must precede every deeper assurance; for uncertainties are what we first see
when we look into a region hitherto unknown, unexplored, unannexed.
[ 153 ] Job
Seeing God, Job forgets all he wanted to say, all he thought he would
say if he could but see Him.
[ 154 ] The Close of the Book of Job
Job had his desire: he saw the face of God-and abhorred himself in dust
and ashes. He sought justification; he found self-abhorrence. . . . Two
things are clearly contained in, and manifest from, this poem:- that not
every man deserves for his sins to be punished everlastingly from the
presence of the Lord; and that the best of men, when he sees the face of
God, will know himself vile. God is just, and will never deal with the
sinner as if he were capable of sinning the pure sin; yet if the best man be
not delivered from himself, that self will sink him into Tophet.
[ 155 ] The Way
Christ is the way out, and the way in: the way from slavery, conscious
or unconscious, into liberty; the way from the unhomeliness of things to the
home we desire but do not know; the way from the stormy skirts of the
Father's garments to the peace of His bosom.
[ 156 ] Self-Control
I will allow that the mere effort of will. . . may add to the man's
power over his lower nature; but in that very nature it is God who must rule
and not the man, how very well he may mean. From a man's rule of himself in
smallest opposition, however devout, to the law of his being, arises the
huge danger of nourishing, by the pride of self-conquest, a far worse than
even the unchained animal self-the demoniac self. True victory over self is
the victory of God in the man, not of the man alone. It is not subjugation
that is enough, but subjugation by God. In whatever man does without God, he
must fail miserably-or succeed more miserably. No portion of a man can rule
another, for God, not the man, created it, and the part is greater than the
whole. . . . The diseased satisfaction which some minds feel in laying
burdens on themselves, is a pampering, little as they may suspect it, of the
most dangerous appetite of that self which they think they are mortifying.
[ 157 ] Self-Denial
The self is given to us that we may sacrifice it: it is ours, that we,
like Christ, may have somewhat to offer- not that we should torment it, but
that we should deny it; not that we should cross it, but that we should
abandon it utterly: then it can no more be vexed. "What can this mean?-we
are not to thwart, but to abandon?" ... It means this:-we must refuse,
abandon, deny self altogether as a ruling, or determining, or originating
element in us. It is to be no longer the regent of our action. We are no
more to think "What should I like to do?" but "What would the Living One
have me do?"
[ 158 ] Killing the Nerve
No grasping or seeking, no hungering of the individual, shall give
motion to the will: no desire to be conscious of worthiness shall order the
life; no ambition whatever shall be a motive of action; no wish to surpass
another be allowed a moment's respite from death.
[ 159 ] Self
Self, I have not to consult you but Him whose idea is the soul of you,
and of which as yet you are all unworthy. I have to do, not with you, but
with the Source of you, by whom it is that (at) any moment you exist-the
Causing of you, not the caused you. You may be my consciousness but you are
not my being. ... For God is more to me than my consciousness of myself. He
is my life; you are only so much of it as my poor half-made being can
grasp-as much of it as I can now know at once. Because I have fooled and
spoiled you, treated you as if you were indeed my own self, you have
dwindled yourself and have lessened me, till I am ashamed of myself. If I
were to mind what you say, I should soon be sick of you; even now I am ever
and anon disgusted with your paltry mean face, which I meet at every turn.
No! Let me have the company of the Perfect One, not of you! Of my elder
brother, the Living One! I will not make a friend of the mere shadow of my
own being! Good-bye, Self! I deny you, and will do my best every day to
leave you behind.
[ 160 ] My Yoke Is Easy
The will of the Father is the yoke He would have us take, and bear also
with Him. It is of this yoke that he says It is easy, of this burden, // is
light. He is not saying "The yoke I lay upon you is easy, the burden light";
what He says is, "The yoke I carry is easy, the burden on My shoulders is
light." With the garden of Gethsemane before Him, with the hour and the
power of darkness waiting for Him, He declares His yoke is easy, His burden
light.
[ 161 ] We Must Be Jealous
We must be jealous for God against ourselves and look well to the
cunning and deceitful self-ever cunning and deceitful until it is informed
of God-until it is thoroughly and utterly denied. . . . Until then its very
denials, its very turnings from things dear to it for the sake of Christ,
will tend to foster its self-regard, and generate in it a yet deeper
self-worship.
[ 162 ] Facing Both Ways
Is there not many a Christian who, having begun to deny himself, yet
spends much strength in the vain and evil endeavor to accommodate matters
between Christ and the dear Self-seeking to save that which so he must
certainly lose-in how different a way from that in which the Master would
have him lose it!
[ 163 ] The Careless Soul
The careless soul receives the Father's gifts as if it were a way
things had of dropping into his hand ... yet is he ever complaining, as if
someone were accountable for the checks which meet him at every turn. For
the good that comes to him, he gives no thanks-who is there to thank? At the
disappointments that befall him he grumbles-there must be someone to blame!
[ 164 ] There Is No Merit in It
In the main we love because we cannot help it. There is no merit in it:
how should there be any love? But neither is it selfish. There are many who
confound righteousness with merit, and think there is nothing righteous
where there is nothing meritorious. "If it makes you happy to love," they
say, "where is your merit? It is only selfishness." There is no merit, I
reply, yet the love that is born in us is our salvation from selfishness. It
is of the very essence of righteousness. ... That certain joys should be
joys, is the very denial of selfishness. The man would be a demoniacally
selfish man, whom Love itself did not make joyful.
[ 165 ] Faith
Do you ask, "What is faith in Him?" I answer, The leaving of your way,
your objects, your self, and the taking of His and Him; the leaving of your
trust in men, in money, in opinion, in character, in atonement itself, and
doing as He tells you. I can find no words strong enough to serve for the
weight of this obedience.
[ 166 ] The Misguided
Instead of so knowing Christ that they have Him in them saving them,
they lie wasting themselves in soul-sickening self-examination as to whether
they are believers, whether they are really trusting in the atonement,
whether they are truly sorry for their sins-the way to madness of the brain,
and despair of the heart.
[ 167 ] The Way
Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself
whether you have this day done one thing because He said, Do it, or once
abstained because He said, Do not do it. It is simply absurd to say you
believe, or even want to believe, in Him, if you do not do anything He tells
you.
[ 168 ] The First and Second Persons
I worship the Son as the human God, the divine, the only, Man, deriving
His being and power from the Father, equal with Him as a son is the equal at
once and the subject of his father.
[ 169 ] Warning
We must not wonder things away into nonentity.
[ 170 ] Creation
The word creation applied to the loftiest success of human genius,
seems to me a mockery of humanity, itself in process of creation.
[ 171 ] The Unknowable
As to what the life of God is to Himself, we can only know that we
cannot know it-even that not being absolute ignorance, for no one can see
that, from its very nature, he cannot understand a thing without therein
approaching that thing in a most genuine manner.
[ 172 ] Warning
Let us understand very plainly, that a being whose essence was only
power would be such a negation of the divine that no righteous worship could
be offered him.
[ 173 ] The Two First Persons
The response to self-existent love is self-abnegating love. The refusal
of Himself is that in Jesus which corresponds to the creation in God. . . .
When he died on the cross, He did that, in the wild weather of His outlying
provinces, in the torture of the body of His revelation, which He had done
at home in glory and gladness.
[ 174 ] The Imitation of Christ
There is no life for any man other than the same kind that Jesus has;
His disciples must live by the same absolute devotion of his will to the
Father's: then is his life one with the life of the Father.
[ 175 ] Pain and Joy
The working out of this our salvation must be pain, and the handling of
it down to them that are below must ever be in pain; but the eternal form of
the will of God in and for us, is intensity of bliss.
[ 176 ] "By Him All Things Consist"
The bond of the universe ... is the devotion of the Son to the Father.
It is the life of the universe. It is not the fact that God created all
things, that makes the universe a whole; but that He through Whom He created
them loves Him perfectly, is eternally content in His Father, is satisfied
to be because His Father is with Him. It is not the fact that God is all in
all that unites the universe: it is the love of the Son to the Father. For
of no onehood comes unity; there can be no oneness where there is only one.
For the very beginnings of unity there must be two. Without Christ therefore
there could be no universe.
[ 177 ] "In Him Was Life"
We too must have life in ourselves. We too must, like the Life Himself,
live. We can live in no way but that in which Jesus lived, in which life was
made in Him. The way is, to give up our life. . . . Till then we are not
alive; life is not made in us. The whole strife and labor and agony of the
Son with every man is to get him to die as He died. All preaching that aims
not at this is a building with wood, and hay, and stubble.
[ 178 ] Why We Have Not Christ's "Ipsissima Verba"
God has not cared that we should anywhere have assurance of His very
words; and that not merely perhaps, because of the tendency in His children
to word-worship, false logic, and corruption of the truth, but because He
would not have them oppressed by words, seeing that words, being human,
therefore but partially capable, could not absolutely contain or express
what the Lord meant, and that even He must depend for being understood upon
the spirit of His disciple. Seeing it could not give life, the letter should
not be throned with power to kill.
[ 179 ] Warning
"How am I to know that a thing is true?" By doing what you know to be
true, and calling nothing true until you see it to be true; by shutting your
mouth until the truth opens it. Are you meant to be silent? Then woe to you
if you speak.
[ 180 ] On Bad Religious Art
If the Lord were to appear this day in England as once in Palestine, He
would not come in the halo of the painters or with that wintry shine of
effeminate beauty, of sweet weakness, in which it is their helpless custom
to represent Him.
[ 181 ] Row to Read the Epistles
The uncertainty lies always in the intellectual region, never in the
practical. What Paul cares about is plain enough to the true heart, however
far from plain to the man whose desire to understand goes ahead of his
obedience.
[ 182 ] The Entrance of Christ
When we receive His image into our spiritual mirror, He enters with it.
Our thought is not cut off from His. Our open receiving thought is His door
to come in. When our hearts turn to Him, that is opening the door to Him,
that is holding up our mirror to Him; then He comes in, not by our thought
only, not in our idea only, but He comes Himself and of His own will-comes
in as we could not take Him, but as He can come.
[ 183 ] The Same
Thus the Lord ... becomes the soul of our souls, becomes spiritually
what He always was creatively; and as our spirit informs, gives shape to,
our bodies, in like manner His soul informs, gives shape to, our souls. The
deeper soul that willed and wills our souls rises up, the infinite Life,
into the Self we call 7 and me, but which lives immediately from Him and is
His very own property and nature-unspeakably more His than ours . . . until
at length the glory of our existence flashes upon us, we face full to the
sun that enlightens what it sent forth, and know ourselves alive with an
infinite life, even the Life of the Father; know that our existence is not
the moonlight of a mere consciousness of being but the sun-glory of a life
justified by having become one with its origin, thinking and feeling with
the primal Sun of life, from whom it was dropped away that it might know and
bethink itself and return to circle forever in exultant harmony around Him.
[ 184 ] The Uses of Nature
What notion should we have of the unchanging and unchangeable, without
the solidity of matter? . . . How should we imagine what we may of God
without the firmament over our heads, a visible sphere, yet a formless
infinitude? What idea could we have of God without the sky?
[ 185 ] Natural Science
Human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry-web of God's
science, works with its back to Him, and is always leaving Him-His intent,
that is, His perfected work-behind it, always going farther and farther away
from the point where His work culminates in revelation.
[ 186 ] The Value of Analysis
Analysis is well, as death is well.
[ 187 ] Nature
The truth of the flower is, not the facts about it, be they correct as
ideal science itself, but the shining, glowing, gladdening, patient thing
throned on its stalk -the compeller of smile and tear. ... The idea of God
is the flower: His idea is not the botany of the flower. Its botany is but a
thing of ways and means-of canvas and color and brush in relation to the
picture in the painter's brain.
[ 188 ] Water
Is oxygen-and-hydrogen the divine idea of water? God put the two
together only that man might separate and find them out? He allows His child
to pull his toys to pieces: but were they made that he might pull them to
pieces? He were a child not to be envied for whom his inglorious father
would make toys to such an end! A school examiner might see therein the best
use of a toy, but not a father! Find for us what in the constitution of the
two gases makes them fit and capable to be thus honored in forming the
lovely thing, and you will give us a revelation about more than water,
namely about the God who made oxygen and hydrogen. There is no water in
oxygen, no water in hydrogen; it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination
of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier.
The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician
can analyze. The water itself, that dances and sings, and slakes the
wonderful thirst- symbol and picture of that draught for which the woman of
Samaria made her prayer to Jesus-this lovely thing itself, whose very
witness is a delight to every inch of the human body in its embrace-this
live thing which, if I might, I would have running through my room, yea,
babbling along my table-this water is its own self its own truth, and is
therein a truth of God. Let him who would know the truth of the Maker,
become sorely athirst, and drink of the brook by the way-then lift up his
heart-not at that moment to the Maker of oxygen and hydrogen, but to the
Inventor and Mediator of thirst and water, that man might foresee a little
of what his soul might find in God.
[ 189 ] Truth of Things
The truth of a thing, then, is the blossom of it, the thing it is made
for, the topmost stone set on with rejoicing; truth in a man's imagination
is the power to recognize this truth of a thing.
[ 190 ] Caution
But far higher will the doing of the least, the most insignificant,
duty raise him.
[ 191 ] Duties
These relations are facts of man's nature. ... He is so constituted as
to understand them at first more than he can love them, with the resulting
advantage of having thereby the opportunity of choosing them purely because
they are true: so doing he chooses to love them, and is enabled to love them
in the doing, which alone can truly reveal them to him and make the loving
of them possible. Then they cease to show themselves in the form of duties
and appear as they more truly are, absolute truths, essential realities,
eternal delights. The man is a true man who chooses duty: he is a perfect
man who at length never thinks of duty, who forgets the name of it.
[ 192 ] Why Free Will Was Permitted
One who went to the truth by mere impulse would be a holy animal, not a
true man. Relations, truths, duties, are shown to the man away beyond him,
that he may choose them and be a child of God, choosing righteousness like
Him. Hence the whole sad victorious human tale and the glory to be revealed.
[ 193 ] Eternal Death
Not fulfilling these relations, the man is undoing the right of his own
existence, destroying his raison d'etre, making of himself a monster, a live
reason why he should not live.
[ 194 ] The Redemption of Our Nature
When (a man) is aware of an opposition in him, which is not harmony:
that, while he hates it, there is yet present with him, and seeming to be
himself, what sometimes he calls the old Adam, sometimes the flesh,
sometimes his lower nature, sometimes his evil self; and sometimes
recognizes as simply that part of his being where God is not; then indeed is
the man in the region of truth, and beginning to come true in himself. Nor
will it be long ere he discover that there is no part in him with which he
would be at strife, so God were there, so that it were true, what it ought
to be-in right relation to the whole; for, by whatever name called, the old
Adam, or antecedent horse, or dog, or tiger, it would then fulfill its part
holily, intruding upon nothing, subject utterly to the rule of the higher;
horse, or dog, or tiger, it would be good horse, good dog, good tiger.
[ 195 ] No Mystery
Man bows down before a power that can account for him, a power to whom
he is no mystery as he is to himself.
[ 196 ] The Live Truth
When a man is, with his whole nature, loving and willing the truth, he
is then a live truth. But this he has not originated in himself. He has seen
it and striven for it, but not originated it. The more originating, living,
visible truth, embracing all truths in all relations, is Jesus Christ. He is
true: He is the live Truth.
[ 197 ] Likeness to Christ
His likeness to Christ is the truth of a man, even as the perfect
meaning of a flower is the truth of a flower.... As Christ is the blossom of
humanity, so the blossom of every man is the Christ perfected in him.
[ 198 ] Grace and Freedom
He gives us the will wherewith to will, and the power to use it, and
the help needed to supplement the power: . . . but we ourselves must will
the truth and for that the Lord is waiting. . . . The work is His, but we
must take our willing share. When the blossom breaks forth in us, the more
it is ours the more it is His.
[ 199 ] Glorious Liberty
When a man is true, if he were in hell he could not be miserable. He is
right with himself because right with Him whence he came. To be right with
God is to be right with the universe: one with the power, the love, the will
of the mighty Father, the cherisher of joy, the Lord of laughter, whose are
all glories, all hopes, who loves everything and hates nothing but
selfishness.
[ 200 ] No Middle Way
There is, in truth, no mid way between absolute harmony with the Father
and the condition of slaves-submissive or rebellious. If the latter, their
very rebellion is by the strength of the Father in them.
[ 201 ] On Having One's Own Way
The liberty of the God who would have his creatures free, is in contest
with the slavery of the creature who would cut his own stem from his root
that he might call it his own and love it; who rejoices in his own
consciousness, instead of the life of that consciousness; who poises himself
on the tottering wall of his own being, instead of the rock on which that
being is built. Such a one regards his own dominion over himself- the rule
of the greater by the less-as a freedom infinitely larger than the range of
the universe of God's being. If he says, "At least I have it in my own
way!", I answer, you do not know what is your way and what is not. You know
nothing of whence your impulses, your desires, your tendencies, your likings
come. They may spring now from some chance, as of nerves diseased; now from
some roar of a wandering bodiless devil; now from some infant hate in your
heart; now from the greed of lawlessness of some ancestor you would be
ashamed of if you knew him; or, it may be, now from some far-piercing chord
of a heavenly orchestra: the moment comes up into your consciousness, you
call it your own way, and glory in it.
[ 2O2 ] The Death of Christ
Christ died to save us, not from suffering, but from ourselves; not
from injustice, far less from justice, but from being unjust. He died that
we might live-but live as He lives, by dying as He died who died to Himself.
[ 203 ] Hell
The one principle of hell is-"I am my own!"
[ 204 ] The Lie
To all these principles of hell, or of this world-they are the same
thing, and it matters nothing whether they are asserted or defended so long
as they are acted upon -the Lord, the King, gives the direct lie.
[ 205 ] The Author's Fear
If I mistake, He will forgive me. I do not fear Him: I fear only lest,
able to see and write these things, I should fail of witnessing and myself
be, after all, a castaway- no king but a talker; no disciple of Jesus, ready
to go with Him to the death, but an arguer about the truth.
[ 206 ] Sincerity
We are not bound to say all we think but we are bound not even to look
what we do not think.
[ 207 ] First Things First
Oh the folly of any mind that would explain God before obeying Him!
That would map out the character of God instead of crying, Lord, what
wouldst thou have me to do?
[ 208 ] Inexorable Love
A man might flatter, or bribe, or coax a tyrant; but there is no refuge
from the love of God; that love will, for very love, insist upon the
uttermost farthing.-"That is not the sort of love I care about!"-No; how
should you? I well believe it.
[ 209 ] Salvation
The notion that the salvation of Jesus is a salvation from the
consequences of our sins is a false, mean, low notion. . . . Jesus did not
die to save us from punishment; He was called Jesus because He should save
His people from their sins.
[ 210 ] Charity and Orthodoxy
Every man who tries to obey the Master is my brother, whether he counts
me such or not, and I revere him; but dare I give quarter to what I see to
be a lie because my brother believes it? The lie is not of God, whoever may
hold it.
[ 211 ] Evasion
To put off obeying Him till we find a credible theory concerning Him is
to set aside the potion we know it our duty to drink, for the study of the
various schools of therapy.
[ 212 ] Inexorable Love
Such is the mercy of God that He will hold His children in the
consuming fire of His distance until they pay the uttermost farthing, until
they drop the purse of selfishness with all the dross that is in it, and
rush home to the Father and the Son and the many brethren-rush inside the
center of the life-giving fire whose outer circles burn.
[ 213 ] The Holy Ghost
To him who obeys, and thus opens the door of his heart to receive the
eternal gift, God gives the Spirit of His Son, the Spirit of Himself, to be
in him, and lead him to the understanding of all truth. . . . The true
disciple shall thus always know what he ought to do, though not necessarily
what another ought to do.
[ 214 ] The Sense of Sin
Sense of sin is not inspiration, though it may lie not far from the
temple door. It is indeed an opener of the eyes, but upon home defilement,
not upon heavenly truth.
[ 215 ] Mean Theologies
They regard the Father of their spirits as their governor! They yield
the idea of ... "the glad Creator," and put in its stead a miserable,
puritanical, martinet of a God, caring not for righteousness but for His
rights: not for the eternal purities, but the goody proprieties. The
prophets of such a God take all the glow, all the hope, all the color, all
the worth, out of life on earth, and offer you instead what they call
eternal bliss-a pale, tearless hell. . . . But if you are straitened in your
own mammon-worshipping soul, how shall you believe in a God any greater than
can stand up in that prison chamber?
[ 216 ] On Believing 111 of God
Neither let thy cowardly conscience receive any word as light because
another call it light, while it looks to thee dark. Say either the thing is
not what it seems, or God never said or did it. But of all evils, to
misinterpret what God does, and then say the thing, as interpreted, must be
right because God does it, is of the devil. Do not try to believe anything
that affects thee as darkness. Even if thou mistake and refuse something
true thereby, thou wilt do less wrong to Christ by such a refusal than thou
wouldst by accepting as His what thou canst see only as darkness . .. but
let thy words be few, lest thou say with thy tongue what thous wilt
afterward repent with thy heart.
[ 217 ] Condemnation
No man is condemned for anything he has done: he is condemned for
continuing to do wrong. He is condemned for not coming out of the darkness,
for not coming to the light.
[ 218 ] Excuses
As soon as a man begins to make excuse, the time has come when he might
be doing that from which he excuses himself.
[ 219 ] Impossibilities
"I thank thee, Lord, for forgiving me, but I prefer staying in the
darkness: forgive me that too."-"No; that cannot be. The one thing that
cannot be forgiven is the sin of choosing to be evil, of refusing
deliverance. It is impossible to forgive that. It would be to take part in
it."
[ 22O ] Disobedience
How many are there not who seem capable of anything for the sake of the
Church or Christianity, except the one thing its Lord cares about-that they
should do what He tells them. He would deliver them from themselves into the
liberty of the sons of God, make them His brothers: they leave Him to vaunt
their Church.
[ 221 ] The Same
To say a man might disobey and be none the worse would be to say that
no might be yes and light sometimes darkness.
[ 222 ] The God of Remembrance
I do not mean that God would have even His closest presence make us
forget or cease to desire that of our friend. God forbid! The Love of God is
the perfecting of every love. He is not the God of oblivion but of eternal
remembrance. There is no past with Him.
[ 223 ] Bereavement
"Ah, you little know my loss!"-"Indeed it is great! It seems to include
God! If you knew what He knows about death you would clap your listless
hands. But why should I seek in vain to comfort you? You must be made
miserable that you may wake from your sleep to know that you need God. If
you do not find Him, endless life with the living (being) whom you bemoan
would become and remain to you unendurable. The knowledge of your own heart
will teach you this:-not the knowledge you have, but the knowledge that is
on its way to you through suffering. Then you will feel that existence
itself is the prime of evils without the righteousness that is of God by
faith."
[ 224 ] Abraham's Faith
The Apostle says that a certain thing was imputed to Abraham for
righteousness: or, as the revised version has it, "reckoned unto him": what
was it that was thus imputed to Abraham? The righteousness of another? God
forbid! It was his own faith. The faith of Abraham is reckoned to him for
righteousness.
[ 225 ] The Same
Paul says faith in God was counted righteousness before Moses was born.
You may answer, Abraham was unjust in many things, and by no means a
righteous man. True: he was not a righteous man in any complete sense. His
righteousness would never have satisfied Paul; neither, you may be sure, did
it satisfy Abraham. But his faith was nevertheless righteousness.
[ 226 ] Perception of Duties
You may say this is not one's first feeling of duty. True: but the
first in reality is seldom the first perceived. The first duty is too high
and too deep to come first into consciousness. If anyone were born perfect
... the highest duty would come first into the consciousness. As we are
born, it is the doing of, or at least the honest trying to do many another
duty, that will at length lead a man to see that his duty to God is the
first and deepest and highest of all, including and requiring the
performance of all other duties whatever.
[ 227 ] Righteousness of Faith
To the man who has no faith in God, faith in God cannot look like
righteousness; neither can he know that it is creative of all other
righteousness toward equal and inferior lives.
[ 228 ] The Same
It is not like some single separate act of righteousness: it is the
action of the whole man, turning to good from evil-turning his back on all
that is opposed to righteousness, and starting on a road on which he cannot
stop, in which he must go on growing more and more righteous, discovering
more and more what righteousness is, and more and more what is unrighteous
in himself.
[ 229 ] Reckoned unto Us for Righteousness
With what life and possibility is in him, he must keep turning to
righteousness and abjuring iniquity, ever aiming at the righteousness of
God. Such an obedient faith is most justly and fairly, being all that God
Himself can require of the man, called by God righteousness in the man. It
would not be enough for the righteousness of God, or Jesus, or any perfected
saint, because they are capable of perfect righteousness.
[ 230 ] St. Paul's Faith
His faith was an act recognizing God as his law, and that is not a
partial act, but an all-embracing and all-determining action. A single
righteous deed toward one's fellow could hardly be imputed to a man as
righteousness. A man who is not trying after righteousness may yet do many a
righteous act: they will not be forgotten to him, neither will they be
imputed to him as righteousness.
[ 231 ] The Full-Grown Christian
He does not take his joy from himself. He feels joy in himself, but it
comes to him from others, not from himself-from God first, and from
somebody, anybody, everybody next.. .. He could do without knowing himself,
but he could not know himself and spare one of the brothers or sisters God
has given him. . . . His consciousness of himself is the reflex from those
about him, not the result of his own turning in of his regard upon himself.
It is not the contemplation of what God had made him, it is the being what
God has made him, and the contemplation of what God himself is, and what He
has made his fellows, that gives him his joy.
[ 232 ] Revealed to Babes
The wise and prudent must make a system and arrange things to his mind
before he can say, / believe. The child sees, believes, obeys-and knows he
must be perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect. If an angel, seeming to
come from heaven, told him that God had let him off, that He did not require
so much of him, but would be content with less ... the child would at once
recognize, woven with the angel's starry brilliancy, the flicker of the
flames of hell.
[ 233 ] Answer
"But how can God bring this about in me?"-Let Him do it and perhaps you
will know.
[ 234 ] Useless Knowledge
To teach your intellect what has to be learned by your whole being,
what cannot be understood without the whole being, what it would do you no
good to understand save you understood it in your whole being-if this be the
province of any man, it is not mine. Let the dead bury their dead, and the
dead teach their dead.
[ 235 ] The Art of Being Created
Let patience have her perfect work. Statue under the chisel of the
sculptor, stand steady to the blows of his mallet. Clay on the wheel, let
the fingers of the divine potter model you at their will. Obey the Father's
lightest word: hear the Brother who knows you and died for you.
[ 236 ] When We Do Not Find Him
Thy hand be on the latch to open the door at His first knock. Shouldst
thou open the door and not see Him, do not say He did not knock, but
understand that He is there, and wants thee to go out to Him. It may be He
has something for thee to do for Him. Go and do it, and perhaps thou wilt
return with a new prayer, to find a new window in thy soul.
[ 237 ] Prayer
Never wait for fitter time or place to talk to Him. To wait till thou
go to church or to thy closet is to make Him wait. He will listen as thou
walkest.
[ 238 ] On One's Critics
Do not heed much if men mock you and speak lies of you, or in goodwill
defend you unworthily. Heed not much if even the righteous turn their backs
upon you. Only take heed that you turn not from them.
[ 239 ] Free Will
He gave man the power to thwart His will, that, by means of that same
power, he might come at last to do His will in a higher kind and way than
would otherwise have been possible to him.
[ 240 ] On Idle Tongues
Let a man do right, not trouble himself about worthless opinion; the
less he heeds tongues, the less difficult will he find it to love men.
[ 241 ] Do We Love Light?
Do you so love the truth and the right that you welcome, or at least
submit willingly to, the idea of an exposure of what in you is yet unknown
to yourself-an exposure that may redound to the glory of the truth by making
you ashamed and humble? . . . Are you willing to be made glad that you were
wrong when you thought others were wrong?
[ 242 ] Shame
We may trust God with our past as heartily as with our future. It will
not hurt us so long as we do not try to hide things, so long as we are ready
to bow our heads in hearty shame where it is fit we should be ashamed. For
to be ashamed is a holy and blessed thing. Shame is a thing to shame only
those who want to appear, not those who want to be. Shame is to shame those
who want to pass their examination, not those who would get into the heart
of things. ... To be humbly ashamed is to be plunged in the cleansing bath
of truth.
[ 243 ] The Wakening
What a horror will it not be to a vile man .. . when his eyes are
opened to see himself as the pure see him, as God sees him! Imagine such a
man waking all at once, not only to see the eyes of the universe fixed upon
him with loathing astonishment, but to see himself at the same moment as
those eyes see him.
[ 244 ] The Wakening of the Rich
What riches and fancied religion, with the self-sufficiency they
generate between them, can make man or woman capable of, is appalling. ...
To many of the religious rich in that day, the great damning revelation will
be their behavior to the poor to whom they thought themselves very kind.
[ 245 ] Self-Deception
A man may loathe a thing in the abstract for years, and find at last
that all the time he has been, in his own person, guilty of it. To carry a
thing under our cloak caressingly, hides from us its identity with something
that stands before us on the public pillory. Many a man might read this and
assent to it, who cages in his own bosom a carrion bird that he never knows
for what it is, because there are points of difference in its plumage from
that of the bird he calls by an ugly name.
[ 246 ] Warning
"Oh God," we think, "How terrible if it were I!" Just so terrible is it
that it should be Judas. And have I not done things with the same germ in
them, a germ which, brought to its evil perfection, would have shown itself
the cankerworm, treachery? Except I love my neighbor as myself, I may one
day betray him! Let us therefore be compassionate and humble, and hope for
every man.
[ 247 ] The Slow Descent
A man may sink by such slow degrees that, long after he is a devil, he
may go on being a good churchman or a good dissenter and thinking himself a
good Christian.
[ 248 ] Justice and Revenge
While a satisfied justice is an unavoidable eternal event, a satisfied
revenge is an eternal impossibility.
[ 249 ] Recognition Hereafter
Our friends will know us then; for their joy, will it be, or their
sorrow? Will their hearts sink within them when they look on the real
likeness of us? Or will they rejoice to find that we were not so much to be
blamed as they thought?
[ 250 ] From Dante
To have a share in any earthly inheritance is to diminish the share of
the other inheritors. In the inheritance of the saints, that which each has
goes to increase the possession of the test.
[ 251 ] What God Means by "Good"
"They are good"; that is, "They are what I mean."
[ 252 ] All Things from God
All things are God's, not as being in His power-that of course-but as
coming from Him. The darkness itself becomes light around Him when we think
that verily He hath created the darkness, for there could have been no
darkness but for the light.
[ 253 ] Absolute Being
There is no word to represent that which is not God, no word for the
where without God in it; for it is not, could not be.
[ 254 ] Beasts
The ways of God go down into microscopic depths as well as up to
telescopic heights. ... So with mind; the ways of God go into the depths yet
unrevealed to us: He knows His horses and dogs as we cannot know them,
because we are not yet pure sons of God. When through our sonship, as Paul
teaches, the redemption of these lower brothers and sisters shall have come,
then we shall understand each other better. But now the Lord of Life has to
look on at the willful torture of multitudes of His creatures. It must be
that offenses come, but woe unto that man by whom they come! The Lord may
seem not to heed, but He sees and knows.
[ 255 ] Diversity of Souls
Every one of us is something that the other is not, and therefore knows
something-it may be without knowing that he knows it-which no one else
knows: and ... it is everyone's business, as one of the kingdom of light and
inheritor in it all, to give his portion to the rest.
[ 256 ] The Disillusioned
Loving but the body of Truth, even here they come to call it a lie, and
break out in maudlin moaning over the illusions of life.
[ 257 ] Evil
What springs from myself and not from God is evil: It is a perversion
of something of God's. Whatever is not of faith is sin; it is a stream cut
off-a stream that cuts itself off from its source and thinks to run on
without it.
[ 258 ] The Loss of the Shadow
I learned that it was not myself but only my shadow that I had lost. I
learned that it is better ... for a proud man to fall and be humbled than to
hold up his head in pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will
be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of
his work, is sure of his manhood.
[ 259 ] Love
It is by loving and not by being loved that one can come nearest to the
soul of another.
[ 260 ] From Spring to Summer
The birds grew silent, because their history kid hold on them,
compelling them to turn their words into deeds, and keep eggs warm, and hunt
for worms.
[ 261 ] The Door into Life
But the door into life generally opens behind us, and a hand is put
forth which draws us in backwards. The sole wisdom for man or boy who is
haunted with the hovering of unseen wings, with the scent of unseen roses,
and the subtle enticements of "melodies unheard," is work. If he follow any
of those, they will vanish. But if he work, they will come unsought.
[ 262 ] A Lonely Religion
There is one kind of religion in which the more devoted a man is, the
fewer proselytes he makes: the worship of himself.
[ 263 ] Love
Love makes everything lovely: hate concentrates itself on the one thing
hated.
[ 264 ] A False Method
It is not by driving away our brother that we can be alone with God.
[ 265 ] Assimilation
All wickedness tends to destroy individuality and declining natures
assimilate as they sink.
[ 266 ] Looking
"But ye was luikin' for somebody, auntie."-"Na. I was only jist
luikin'." ... It is this formless idea of something at hand that keeps men
and women striving to tear from the bosom of the world the secret of their
own hopes. How little they know that what they look for in reality is their
God!
[ 267 ] Progress
To tell the truth, I feel a good deal younger. For then I only knew
that a man had to take up his cross; whereas now I know that a man has to
follow Him.
[ 268 ] Providence
People talk about special providences. I believe in the providences,
but not in the specialty. . . . The so-called special providences are no
exception to the rule-they are common to all men at all moments.
[ 269 ] Ordinariness
That which is best He gives most plentifully, as is reason with Him.
Hence the quiet fullness of ordinary nature; hence the Spirit to them that
ask it.
[ 270 ] Forgiveness
I prayed to God that He would make me . . . into a rock which swallowed
up the waves of wrong in its great caverns and never threw them back to
swell the commotion of the angry sea whence they came. Ah, what it would be
actually to annihilate wrong in this way-to be able to say, "It shall not be
wrong against me, so utterly do I forgive it!" . . . But the painful fact
will show itself, not less curious than painful, that it is more difficult
to forgive small wrongs than great ones. Perhaps, however, the forgiveness
of the great wrongs is not so true as it seems. For do we not think it a
fine thing to forgive such wrongs and so do it rather for our own sakes than
for the sake of the wrongdoer? It is dreadful not to be good, and to have
bad ways inside one.
[ 271 ] Visitors
By all means tell people, when you are busy about something that must
be done, that you cannot spare the time for them except they want of you
something of yet more pressing necessity; but tell them, and do not get rid
of them by the use of the instrument commonly called the cold shoulder. It
is a wicked instrument.
[ 272 ] Prose
My own conviction is that the poetry is far the deepest in us and that
the prose is only broken-down poetry; and likewise that to this our lives
correspond. ... As you will hear some people read poetry so that no mortal
could tell it was poetry, so do some people read their own lives and those
of others.
[ 273 ] Integrity
I would not favor a fiction to keep a whole world out of hell. The hell
that a lie would keep any man out of is doubtless the very best place for
him to go to. It is truth . . . that saves the world!
[ 274 ] Contentment
Let me, if I may, be ever welcomed to my room in winter by a glowing
hearth, in summer by a vase of flowers; if I may not, let me think how nice
they would be, and bury myself in my work. I do not think that the road to
contentment lies in despising what we have not got. Let us acknowledge all
good, all delight that the world holds, and be content without it.
[ 275 ] Psychical Research
Offered the Spirit of God for the asking .. . they betake themselves to
necromancy instead, and raise the dead to ask their advice, and follow it,
and will find some day that Satan had not forgotten how to dress like an
angel of light. . . . What religion is there in being convinced of a future
state? Is that to worship God? It is no more religion than the belief that
the sun will rise tomorrow is religion. It may be a source of happiness to
those who could not believe it before, but it is not religion.
[ 276 ] The Blotting Out
If He pleases to forget anything, then He can forget it. And I think
that is what He does with our sins- that is, after He has got them away from
us, once we are clean from them altogether. It would be a dreadful thing if
He forgot them before that. . . .
[ 277 ] On a Chapter in Isaiah
The power of God is put side by side with the weakness of men, not that
He, the perfect, may glory over His feeble children ... but that He may say
thus: "Look, my children, you will never be strong with my strength. I have
no other to give you."
[ 278 ] Providence
And if we believe that God is everywhere, why should we not think Him
present even in the coincidences that sometimes seem so strange? For, if He
be in the things that coincide, He must be in the coincidence of those
things.
[ 279 ] No Other Way
The Old Man of the Earth stooped over the floor of the cave, raised a
huge stone, and left it leaning. It disclosed a great hole that went
plumb-down. "That is the way," he said. "But there are no stairs. You must
throw yourself in. There is no other way."
[ 280 ] Death
"You have tasted of death now," said the Old Man. "Is it good?" "It is
good," said Mossy. "It is better than life." "No," said the Old Man. "It is
only more life."
[ 281 ] Criterion of a True Vision
This made it the more likely that he had seen a true vision; for
instead of making common things look commonplace, as a false vision would
have done, it had made common things disclose the wonderful that was in
them.
[ 282 ] One Reason for Sex
One of the great goods that come of having two parents is that the one
balances and rectifies the motions of the other. No one is good but God. No
one holds the truth, or can hold it, in one and the same thought, but God.
Our human life is often, at best, but an oscillation between the extremes
which together make the truth.
[ 283 ] Easy Work
Do you think the work God gives us to do is never easy? Jesus says His
yoke is easy, His burden is light. People sometimes refuse to do God's work
just because it is easy. This is sometimes because they cannot believe that
easy work is His work; but there may be a very bad pride in it. ... Some,
again, accept it with half a heart and do it with half a hand. But however
easy any work may be, it cannot be well done without taking thought about
it. And such people, instead of taking thought about their work, generally
take thought about the morrow, in which no work can be done any more than in
yesterday. The Holy Present!
[ 284 ] Lebensraum
It is only in Him that the soul has room. In knowing Him is life and
its gladness. The secret of your own heart you can never know; but you can
know Him who knows its secret.
[ 285 ] Nature
If the flowers were not perishable, we should cease to contemplate
their beauty, either blinded by the passion for hoarding the bodies of them,
or dulled by the hebetude of commonplaceness that the constant presence of
them would occasion. To compare great things with small, the flowers wither,
the bubbles break, the clouds and sunsets pass, for the very same holy
reason (in the degree of its application to them) for which the Lord
withdrew from His disciples and ascended again to His Father-that the
Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, the Soul of things, might come to them and
abide with them, and so, the Son return, and the Father be revealed. The
flower is not its loveliness, and its loveliness we must love, else we shall
only treat them as flower-greedy children, who gather and gather, and fill
hands and baskets from a mere desire of acquisition.
[ 286 ] For Parents
A parent must respect the spiritual person of his child, and approach
it with reverence, for that too looks the Father in the face and has an
audience with Him into which no earthly parent can enter even if he dared to
desire it.
[ 287 ] Hoarding
The heart of man cannot hoard. His brain or his hand may gather into
its box and hoard, but the moment the thing has passed into the box, the
heart has lost it and is hungry again. If a man would have, it is the Giver
he must have; . .. Therefore all that He makes must be free to come and go
through the heart of His child; he can enjoy it only as it passes, can enjoy
only its life, its soul, its vision, its meaning, not itself.
[ 288 ] Today and Yesterday
This day's adventure, however, did not turn out like yesterday's,
although it began like it; and indeed today is very seldom like yesterday,
if people would note the differences. . . . The princess ran through passage
after passage, and could not find the stair of the tower. My own suspicion
is that she had not gone up high enough, and was searching on the second
instead of the third floor.
[ 289 ] Obstinate Illusion
He jumped up, as he thought, and began to dress, but, to his dismay,
found that he was still lying in bed. "Now then I will!" he said. "Here
goes! I am up now!" But yet again he found himself snug in bed. Twenty times
he tried, and twenty times he failed; for in fact he was not awake, only
dreaming that he was.
[ 290 ] Possessions
Happily for our blessedness, the joy of possession soon palls.
[ 291 ] Lost in the Mountains
The fear returned. People had died in the mountains of hunger, and I
began to make up my mind to meet the worst. I had not yet learned that the
approach of any fate is just the preparation for that fate. I troubled
myself with the care of that which was not impending over me. . . . Had I
been wearier and fainter, it would have appeared less dreadful.
[ 292 ] The Birth of Persecution
Clara's words appeared to me quite irreverent . . . but what to answer
here I did not know. I almost began to dislike her; for it is often
incapacity for defending the faith they love which turns men into
persecutors.
[ 293 ] Daily Death
We die daily. Happy those who daily come to life as well.
[ 294 ] On Duty to Oneself
"But does a man owe nothing to himself?"-"Nothing that I know of. I am
under no obligation to myself. How can I divide myself and say that the one
half of me is indebted to the other? To my mind, it is a mere fiction of
speech."-"But whence, then, should such a fiction arise?"-"From the dim
sense of a real obligation, I suspect-the object of which is mistaken. I
suspect it really springs from our relation to the unknown God, so vaguely
felt that a false form is readily accepted for its embodiment. .
[ 295 ] A Theory of Sleep
It may be said of the body in regard of sleep as well as in regard of
death, "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. . . ." No one can
deny the power of the wearied body to paralyze the soul; but I have a
correlate theory which I love, and which I expect to find true-that, while
the body wearies the mind, it is the mind that restores vigor to the body,
and then, like the man who has built him a stately palace, rejoices to dwell
in it. I believe that, if there be a living, conscious love at the heart of
the universe, the mind, in the quiescence of its consciousness in sleep,
comes into a less disturbed contact with its origin, the heart of the
creation; whence gifted with calmness and strength for itself, it grows able
to impart comfort and restoration to the weary frame. The cessation of labor
affords but the necessary occasion; makes it possible, as it were, for the
occupant of an outlying station in the wilderness to return to his Father's
house for fresh supplies. . . . The child-soul goes home at night, and
returns in the morning to the labors of the school.
[ 296 ] Sacred Idleness
Work is not always required of a man. There is such a thing as a sacred
idleness, the cultivation of which is now fearfully neglected.
[ 297 ] The Modern Bane
Former periods of the world's history when that blinding
self-consciousness which is the bane of ours was yet undeveloped. . .
[ 298 ] Immortality
To some minds the argument for immortality drawn from the apparently
universal shrinking from annihilation must be ineffectual, seeing they
themselves do not shrink from it. ... If there is no God, annihilation is
the one thing to be longed for, with all that might of longing which is the
mainspring of human action. In a word, it is not immortality the human heart
cries out after, but that immortal, eternal thought whose life is its life,
whose wisdom is its wisdom. . . . Dissociate immortality from the living
Immortality, and it is not a thing to be desired.
[ 299 ] Prayer
"O God!" I cried and that was all. But what are the prayers of the
whole universe more than expansion of that one cry? It is not what God can
give us, but God that we want.
[ 300 ] Self
I sickened at the sight of Myself; how should I ever get rid of the
demon? The same instant I saw the one escape: I must offer it back to its
source-commit it to Him who had made it. I must live no more from it but
from the source of it; seek to know nothing more of it than He gave me to
know by His presence therein... . What flashes of self-consciousness might
cross me, should be God's gift, not of my seeking, and offered again to Him
in every new self-sacrifice.
[ 301 ] Visions
A man may see visions manifold, and believe them all; . . . something
more is needed-he must have that presence of God in his soul of which the
Son of Man spoke, saying "If a man love me, he will keep my words; and my
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him."
[ 302 ] The Impervious Soul
As for any influence from the public officers of religion, a contented
soul may glide through them all for a long life, unstruck to the last,
buoyant and evasive as a bee among hailstones.
[ 303 ] An Old Garden
Not one of the family had ever cared for it on the ground of its
old-fashionedness; its preservation was owing merely to the fact that their
gardener was blessed with a wholesome stupidity rendering him incapable of
unlearning what his father, who had been gardener there before him, had had
marvelous difficulty in teaching him. We do not half appreciate the benefits
to the race that spring from honest dullness. The clever people are the ruin
of everything.
[ 304 ] Experience
Those who gain no experience are those who shirk the King's highway for
fear of encountering the Duty seated by the roadside.
[ 305 ] Difficulties
It often seems to those in earnest about the right as if all things
conspired to prevent their progress. This, of course, is but an appearance,
arising in part from this, that the pilgrim must be headed back from the
side-paths into which he is constantly wandering.
[ 306 ] A Hard Saying
There are those who in their very first seeking of it are nearer to the
Kingdom of Heaven than many who have for years believed themselves of it. In
the former there is more of the mind of Jesus, and when He calls them they
recognize Him at once and go after Him; while the others examine Him from
head to foot, and finding Him not sufficiently like the Jesus of their
conception, turn their backs and go to church or chapel or chamber to kneel
before a vague form mingled of tradition and fancy.
[ 307 ] Truisms
A mere truism, is it? Yes, it is, and more is the pity; for what is a
truism, as most men count truisms? What is it but a truth that ought to have
been buried long ago in the lives of men-to send up forever the corn of true
deeds and the wine of loving kindness-but, instead of being buried in
friendly soil, is allowed to lie about, kicked hither and thither in the dry
and empty garret of their brains, till they are sick of the sight and sound
of it and, to be rid of the thought of it, declare it to be no living truth
but only a lifeless truism? Yet in their brain that truism must rattle until
they shift to its rightful quarters in their heart, where it will rattle no
longer but take root and be a strength and loveliness.
[ 308 ] On Asking Advice
When people seek advice it is too often in the hope of finding the
adviser side with their second familiar self instead of their awful first
self of which they know so little.
[ 309 ] No Heel Taps
It must be remembered that a little conceit is no more to be endured
than a great one, but must be swept utterly away.
[ 310 ] Silence Before the Judge
Think not about thy sin so as to make it either less or greater in
thine own eyes. Bring it to Jesus and let Him show thee how vile a thing it
is. And leave it to Him to judge thee, sure that He will judge thee justly;
extenuating nothing, for He hath to cleanse thee utterly; and yet forgetting
no smallest excuse that may cover the amazement of thy guilt or witness for
thee that not with open eyes didst thou do the deed. . . . But again, I say,
let it be Christ that excuseth thee. He will do it to more purpose than
thou, and will not wrong thy soul by excusing thee a hair too much.
[ 311 ] Nothing So Deadening
Nothing is so deadening to the divine as an habitual dealing with the
outsides of holy things.
[ 312 ] Rounding and Completion
The only perfect idea of life is a unit, self-existent and creative.
That is God, the only One. But to this idea, in its kind, must every life,
to be complete as life, correspond; and the human correspondence to
self-existence is that the man should round and complete himself by taking
in to himself his Origin; by going back and in his own will adopting that
Origin.. . . Then has he completed the cycle by turning back upon his
history, laying hold of his Cause, and willing his own being in the will of
the only I AM.
[ 313 ] Immortality
"I cannot see what harm would come of letting us know a little-as much
at least as might serve to assure us that there was more of something on the
other side"-Just this; that, their fears allayed, their hopes encouraged
from any lower quarter, men would (as usual) turn away from the Fountain, to
the cistern of life. . . . That there are thousands who would forget God if
they could but be assured of such a tolerable state of things beyond the
grave as even this wherein we now live, is plainly to be anticipated from
the fact that the doubts of so many in respect of religion concentrate
themselves nowadays upon the question whether there is any life beyond the
grave; a question which . . . does not immediately belong to religion at
all. Satisfy such people, if you can, that they shall live, and what have
they gained? A little comfort perhaps-but a comfort not from the highest
source, and possibly gained too soon for their well-being. Does it bring
them any nearer to God than they were before? Is He filling one cranny more
of their hearts in consequence?
[ 314 ] The Eternal Now
The bliss of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they
shadow the bliss of those-few at any moment on the earth-who do not "look
before and after, and pine for what is not" but live in the holy
carelessness of the eternal now.
[ 315 ] The Silences Below
Even the damned must at times become aware of what they are, and then
surely a terrible though momentary hush must fall upon the forsaken regions.
[ 316 ] Dipsomania
It is a human soul still, and wretched in the midst of all that whisky
can do for it. From the pit of hell it cries out. So long as there is that
which can sin, it is a man. And the prayer of misery carries its own
justification, when the sober petitions of the self-righteous and the unkind
are rejected. He who forgives not is not forgiven, and the prayer of the
Pharisee is as the weary beating of the surf of hell, while the cry of a
soul out of its fire sets the heartstrings of love trembling.
[ 317 ] Reminder
But the sparrow and the rook are just as respectable in reality, though
not in the eyes of the henwife, as the egg-laying fowl, or the dirt-gobbling
duck.
[ 318 ] Things Rare and Common
The best things are the commonest, but the highest types and the best
combinations of them are the rarest. There is more love in the world than
anything else, for instance; but the best love and the individual in whom
love is supreme are the rarest of all things.
[ 319 ] Holy Laughter
It is the heart that is not yet sure of its God that is afraid to laugh
in His presence.
[ 320 ] The Self
Vain were the fancy, by treatise, or sermon, or poem, or tale, to
persuade a man to forget himself. He cannot if he would. Sooner will he
forget the presence of a raging tooth. There is no forgetting of ourselves
but in the finding of our deeper, our true self-God's idea of us when He
devised us-the Christ in us. Nothing but that self can displace the false,
greedy, whining self, of which most of us are so fond and proud. And that
self no man can find for himself . . . "but as many as received Him, to them
gave He power to become the sons of God."
[ 321 ] Either-Or
Of all teachings that which presents a far distant God is the nearest
to absurdity. Either there is none, or He is nearer to every one of us than
our nearest consciousness of self.
[ 322 ] Prayer
So thinking, she began to pray to what dim, distorted reflection of God
there was in her mind. They alone pray to the real God, the Maker of the
heart that prays, who know His son Jesus. If our prayers were heard only in
accordance with the idea of God to which we seem to ourselves to pray, how
miserably would our infinite wants be met! But every honest cry, even if
sent into the deaf ear of an idol, passes on to the ears of the unknown God,
the heart of the unknown Father.
[ 323 ] A Bad Conscience
She was sorely troubled with what is, by huge discourtesy, called a bad
conscience-being in reality a conscience doing its duty so well that it
makes the whole house uncomfortable.
[ 324 ] Money
He had a great respect for money and much overrated its value as a
means of doing even what he called good: religious people generally do.
[ 325 ] Scrubbing the Cell
The things that come out of a man are they that defile him, and to get
rid of them a man must go into himself, be a convict, and scrub the floor of
his cell.
[ 326 ] The Mystery of Evil
Middling people are shocked at the wickedness of the wicked; Gibbie,
who knew both so well, was shocked only at the wickedness of the righteous.
He never came quite to understand Mr. Sclater: the inconsistent never can be
understood. That only which has absolute reason in it can be understood of
man. There is a bewilderment about the very nature of evil which only He who
made up capable of evil that we might be good, can comprehend.
[ 327 ] Prudence
No man can order his life, for it comes flowing over him from behind. .
. . The one secret of life and development is not to devise and plan but to
fall in with the forces at work-to do every moment's duty aright-that being
the part in the process allotted to us: and let come-not what will, for
there is no such thing -but what the eternal thought wills for each of us,
has intended in each of us from the first.
[ 328 ] Competition
No work noble or lastingly good can come of emulation any more than of
greed: I think the motives are spiritually the same.
[ 329 ] Method
By obeying one learns how to obey.
[ 330 ] Prudence
Had he had more of the wisdom of the serpent ... he would perhaps have
known that to try too hard to make people good is one way to make them
worse; that the only way to make them good is to be good-remembering well
the beam and the mote; that the time for speaking comes rarely, the time for
being never departs.
[ 331 ] How to Become a Dunce
Naturally capable, he had already made of himself rather a dull fellow;
for when a man spends his energy on appearing to have, he is all the time
destroying what he has, and therein the very means of becoming what he
desires to seem. If he gains his end, his success is his punishment.
[ 332 ] Love
He was... one who did not make the common miserable blunder of taking
the shadow cast by love-the desire, namely, to be loved-for love itself; his
love was a vertical sun, and his own shadow was under his feet.... But do
not mistake me through confounding, on the other hand, the desire to be
loved-which is neither wrong nor noble, any more than hunger is either wrong
or noble-and the delight in being loved, to be devoid of which a man must be
lost in an immeasurably deeper, in an evil, ruinous, yea, a fiendish
selfishness.
[ 333 ] Preacher's Repentance
O Lord, I have been talking to the people;
Thought's wheels have round me whirled a fiery zone,
And the recoil of my word's airy ripple
My heart heedful has purled up and blown.
Therefore I cast myself before thee prone:
Lay cool hands on my burning brain and press
From my weak heart the swelling emptiness.
[ 334 ] Deeds
I would go near thee-but I cannot press
Into thy presence-it helps not to presume.
Thy doors are deeds.
[ 335 ] Prayer
My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not;
I think thy answers make me what I am.
Like weary waves thought follows upon thought,
But the still depth beneath is all thine own,
And there thou mov'st in paths to us unknown.
Out of strange strife thy peace is strangely wrought;
If the lion in us pray-thou answerest the lamb.
[ 336 ] The House Is Not for Me
The house is not for me-it is for Him.
His royal thoughts require many a stair,
Many a tower, many an outlook fair
Of which I have no thought.
[ 337 ] Hoarding
In holy things may be unholy greed.
Thou giv'st a glimpse of many a lovely thing
Not to be stored for use in any mind,
But only for the present spiritual need.
The holiest bread, if hoarded, soon will breed
The mammon-moth, the having pride....
[ 338 ] The Day's First Job
With every morn my life afresh must break
The crust of self, gathered about me fresh.
[ 339 ] Obstinate Illusion
Have pity on us for the look of things,
When blank denial stares us in the face.
Although the serpent mask have lied before
It fascinates the bird.
[ 340 ] The Rules of Conversation
Only no word of mine must ever foster
The self that in a brother's bosom gnaws;
I may not fondle failing, nor the boaster
Encourage with the breath of my applause.
[ 341 ] A Neglected Form of Justice
We should never wish our children or friends to do what we would not do
ourselves if we were in their positions. We must accept righteous sacrifices
as well as make them.
[ 342 ] Good
"But if a body was never to do anything but what he knew to be good, he
would have to live half his time doing nothing"-"How little you must have
thought! Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are
constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing
them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don't fancy it's
very good of you to do it. The thing is good-not you. . . . There are a
great many more good things than bad things to do."
[ 343 ] Thou Shalt Not Make Any Graven Image
"Could you not give me some sign, or tell me something about you that
never changes, or some other way to know you, or thing to know you by?"-"No,
Curdie: that would be to keep you from knowing me. You must know me in quite
another way from that. It would not be the least use to you or me either if
I were to make you know me in that way. It would be but to know the sign of
me-not to know me myself."
[ 344 ] How to Become a Dunce
A beast does not know that he is a beast, and the nearer a man gets to
being a beast the less he knows it.
[ 345 ] Our Insolvency
If we spent our lives in charity, we should never overtake neglected
claims-claims neglected from the very begining of the relations of men.
[ 346 ] A Sad Pity
"If ever I prayed, mother, I certainly have not given it up."-"Ever
prayed, Ian! When a mere child you prayed like an aged Christian!"-"Ah,
mother, that was a sad pity! I asked for things of which I felt no need. I
was a hypocrite. I ought to have prayed like a little child."
[ 347 ] On Method
"Can a conscience ever get too fastidious, Ian?"-"The only way to find
out is always to obey it."
[ 348 ] Wishing
She sometimes wished she were good; but there are thousands of
wandering ghosts who would be good if they might without taking trouble; the
kind of goodness they desire would not be worth a life to hold it.
[ 349 ] Fear
Until a man has love, it is well he should have fear. So long as there
are wild beasts about, it is better to be afraid than secure.
[350] The Root of All Rebellion
It is because we are not near enough to Thee to partake of thy liberty
that we want a liberty of our own different from thine.
[ 351 ] Two Silly Young Women
They had a feeling, or a feeling had them, till another feeling came
and took its place. When a feeling was there, they felt as if it would never
go; when it was gone they felt as if it had never been; when it returned,
they felt as if it had never gone.
[ 352 ] Hospitality
I am proud of a race whose social relations are the last upon which
they will retrench, whose latest yielded pleasure is their hospitality. It
is a common feeling that only the well-to-do have a right to be hospitable.
The ideal flower of hospitality is almost unknown to the rich; it can hardly
be grown save in the gardens of the poor; it is one of their beatitudes.
[ 353 ] Boredom
It is not the banished demon only that wanders seeking rest, but souls
upon souls in ever growing numbers. The world and Hades swarm with them.
They long after a repose that is not mere cessation of labor; there is a
positive, an active rest. Mercy was only beginning to seek it, and that
without knowing what it was she needed. Ian sought it in silence with God;
she in crepitant intercourse with her kind. Naturally ready to fall into
gloom, but healthy enough to avoid it, she would rush at anything to do- not
to keep herself from thinking, for she had hardly begun to think, but to
escape that heavy sense of non-existence, that weary and testless want which
is the only form life can take to the yet unliving.
[ 354 ] Counting the Cost
I am sometimes almost terrified at the scope of the demands made upon
me, at the perfection of the self-abandonment required of me; yet outside of
such absoluteness can be no salvation. In God we live every commonplace as
well as most exalted moment of our being. To trust in Him when no need is
pressing, when things seem going right of themselves, may be harder than
when things seem going wrong.
[ 355 ] Realism
It is when we are most aware of the j'attitude of things that we are
most aware of our need of God, and most able to trust in Him. . . . The
recognition of inexorable reality in any shape, or kind, or way, tends to
rouse the soul to the yet more real, to its relations with higher and deeper
existence. It is not the hysterical alone for whom the great dash of cold
water is good. All who dream life instead of living it, require some similar
shock.
[ 356 ] Avarice
"Did you ever think of the origin of the word Avarice?" -"No."-"It
comes-at least it seems to me to come- from the same root as the verb have.
It is the desire to call things ours-the desire of company which is not of
our kind-company such as, if small enough, you would put in your pocket and
carry about with you. We call the holding in the hand, or the house, or the
pocket, or the power, having: but things so held cannot really be had;
having is but an illusion in regard to things. It is only what we can be
with that we really possess-that is, what is of our kind, from God to the
lowest animal partaking of humanity."
[ 357 ] The Lobster Pot
She had not learned that the look of things as you go, is not their
look when you turn to go back; that with your attitude their mood will have
altered. Nature is like a lobster pot: she lets you easily go on, but not
easily return.
[ 358 ] The First Meeting
And all the time it was God near her that was making her unhappy. For
as the Son of Man came not to send peace on the earth but a sword, so the
first visit of God to the human soul is generally in a cloud of fear and
doubt, rising from the soul itself at His approach. The sun is the cloud
dispeller, yet often he must look through a fog if he would visit the earth
at all.
[ 359 ] Reminder
Complaint against God is far nearer to God than indifference about Him.
[ 360 ] The Wrong Way with Anxiety
All the morning he was busy . . . with his heart in trying to content
himself beforehand with whatever fate the Lord might intend for him. As yet
he was more of a Christian philosopher than a philosophical Christian. The
thing most disappointing to him he would treat as the will of God for him,
and try to make up his mind to it, persuading himself it was the right and
best thing-as if he knew it (to be) the will of God. He was thus working in
the region of supposition and not of revealed duty: in his own imagination,
and not in the will of God. . . . There is something in the very presence
and actuality of a thing to make one able to bear it; but a man may weaken
himself for bearing what God intends him to bear, by trying to bear what God
does not intend him to bear. . . . We have no right to school ourselves to
an imaginary duty. When we do not know, then what he lays upon us is not to
know.
[ 361 ] Deadlock
We are often unable to tell people what they need to know, because they
want to know something else.
[ 362 ] Solitude
I began to learn that it was impossible to live for oneself even, save
in the presence of others-then, alas, fearfully possible. Evil was only
through good; selfishness but a parasite on the tree of life.
[ 363 ] Death
You will be dead so long as you refuse to die.
[ 364 ] Tbe Mystery of Evil
The darkness knows neither the light nor itself; only the light knows
itself and the darkness also. None but God hates evil and understands it.
[ 365 ] The Last Resource
"Lilith," said Mara, "you will not sleep, if you lie there a thousand
years, until you have opened your hand and yielded that which is not yours
to give or to withhold." "I cannot," she answered, "I would if I could, for
I am weary, and the shadows of death are gathering about me."-"They will
gather and gather, but they cannot infold you while yet your hand remains
unopened. You may think you are dead, but it will only be a dream; you may
think you have come awake, but it will still be only a dream. Open your
hand, and you will sleep indeed- then wake indeed."-"I am trying hard, but
the fingers have grown together and into the palm."-"I pray you put forth
the strength of your will. For the love of life, draw together your forces
and break its bonds!"
The princess turned her eyes upon Eve, beseechingly. "There was a sword
I once saw in your husband's hands," she murmured. "I fled when I saw it. I
heard him who bore it say it would divide whatever was not one and
indivisible."
"I have the sword," said Adam. "The angel gave it me when he left the
gate."
"Bring it, Adam," pleaded Lilith, "and cut me off this hand that I may
sleep."
"I will," he answered.
SOURCES
1 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Child in the Mist
2-9 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Consuming Fire
10 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Higher Faith
11-13 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, // Shall Not be Forgiven
14-21 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The New Name
22-24 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Heart with the Treasure
25-30 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Temptation in the Wilderness
31-39 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Eloi
40-42 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Hands of the Father
43-49 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, Love Thy Neighbor
50-51 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, Love Thine Enemy
52 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The God of the Living
53-62 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Way
63-71 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Hardness of the Way
72-84 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Cause of Spiritual
Stupidity
85-95 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Word of Jesus on Prayer
96-107 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, Man's Difficulty Concerning
Prayer
108-118 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Last Farthing
119-126 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, Abba, Father
127-141 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, Life
142-147 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Fear of God
148-154 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Voice of Job
155-164 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, Self-Denial
165-167 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Second Series, The Truth in Jesus
168-177 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Creation in Christ
178-180 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Knowing of the Son
181-183 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Mirrors of the Lord
184-199 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Truth
200-202 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, Freedom
203-206 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, King-ship
207-215 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, Justice
216-219 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, Light
220-223 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Displeasure of Jesus
224-238 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, Righteousness
239-249 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Final Unmasking
250-257 UNSPOKEN SERMONS, Third Series, The Inheritance
258 Phantasies, Chapter 22
259 Phantasies, Chapter 23
260 Alec Forbes, Volume I, Chapter 32
261 Alec Forbes, Volume I, Chapter 33
262 Alec Forbes, Volume II, Chapter I
263 Alec Forbes, Volume II, Chapter 10
264 Alec Forbes, Volume II, Chapter 12
265 Alec Forbes, Volume III, Chapter 4
266 Alec Forbes, Volume III, Chapter 26
267-268 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter I
269 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 3
270-271 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 5
272 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 7
273 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 9
274 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter n
275 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 15
276 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 28
277-278 Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood, Chapter 30
279-280 The Golden Key
281 The Shadows
282 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 2
283 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 3
284 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 13
285 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 19
286 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 23
287 The Seaboard Parish, Chapter 32
288 The Princess and the Goblin, Chapter 5
289 The Princess and the Goblin, Chapter 27
290 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter n
291 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 17
292 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 18
293 Wilfred, Cumbermede, Chapter 22
294 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 42
295 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 48
296 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 55
297 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 57
298 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 58
299-300 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 59
301 Wilfred Cumbermede, Chapter 60
302-303 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 7
304 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 17
305-306 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 36
307 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 39
308 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 54
309 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 66
310 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 67
311 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 74
312 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 76
313 Thomas Wingfold, Curate, Chapter 94
314-315 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 2
316 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 6
317 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 7
318 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 8
319 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 23
320 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 24
321 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 25
322 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 29
323 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 37
324 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 39
325 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 40
326 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 41
327-328 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 44
329-330 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 47
331 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 50
332 Sir Gibbie, Chapter 59
333 Diary of an Old Soul, January 31
334 Diary of an Old Soul, May 16
335 Diary of an Old Soul, May 26
336 Diary of an Old Soul, July 16
337 Diary of an Old Soul, August 7
338 Diary of an Old Soul, October 10
339 Diary of an Old Soul, November 3
340 Diary of an Old Soul, November 9
341 The Princess and the Curdie, Chapter I
342 The Princess and the Curdie, Chapter 3
343 The Princess and the Curdie, Chapter 7
344 The Princess and the Curdie, Chapter 8
345 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 5
346 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 7
347 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 9
348-349 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter n
350 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 15
351-352 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 16
353 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 17
354 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 22
355 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 30
356 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 32
357-358 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 33
359 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 39
360 What's Mine's Mine, Chapter 41
361 Lilith, Chapter 9
362 Lilith, Chapter 16
363 Lilith, Chapter 31
364 Lilith, Chapter 39
365 Lilith, Chapter 40
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Alec Forbes of Howglen. 3 vols. 1865
Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood. 3 vols. 1867
Dealings with the Fairies 1867
The Disciple and other Poems 1867
Unspoken Sermons, 1st Series 1867
2nd Series 1885
3rd Series 1889
Guild Court. 3 vols. 1868
Robert Falconer. 3 vols. 1868
The Seaboard Parish. 3 vols. 1868
The Miracles of our Lord. 1 vol. 1870
At the Back of the North Wind 1871
Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood 1871
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The Princess and the Goblin 1872
The Vicar's Daughter. 3 vols. 1872
Wilfrid Cumbermede. 3 vols. 1872
Gutta Percha Willie: the Working Genius 1873
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Malcolm. 3 vols. 1875
The Wise Woman, a Parable 1875
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St. George and St. Michael. 3 vols. 1876
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The Marquis of Lossie. 3 vols. 1877
Sir Gibbie. 3 vols. 1879
Paul Faber, Surgeon. 3 vols. 1879
A Book of Strife, in the form of the Diary of an
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Mary Marston. 3 vols. 1881
Castle Warlock, a homely romance. 3 vols. 1882
Weighed and Wanting. 3 vols. 1882
The Gifts of the Christ Child, and other Tales.
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Afterwards published with title of Stephen Archer
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Orts 1882
Donal Grant. 3 vols. 1883
A Threefold Cord. Poems by Three Friends,
edited by George MacDonald 1883
The Princess and Curdie 1883
The Tragedie of Hamlet-with a study of the
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What's Mine's Mine. 3 vols. 1886
Home Again, a Tale. 1 vol. 1887
The Elect Lady, 1 vol. 1888
Cross Purposes, and The Shadows: Two Fairy
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A Rough Shaking, a Tale 1890
The Light Princess and other Fairy Stories
(reprinted from Dealings with the Fairies) 1890
There and Back. 3 vols. 1891
The Flight of the Shadow. 1 vol. 1891
A Cabinet of Gems, cut and polished by Sir Philip
Sidney, now for their more radiance presented
without their setting by George MacDonald 1891
The Hope of the Gospel 1892
Heather and Snow. 2 vols. 1893
Lilith, a Romance, 1 vol. 1895
Rampolli: Growths from a Long-planted Root,
being translations chiefly from the German,
along with A Year's Diary of an Old Soul
(Poems) 1897
Salted with Fire, a Tale, 1 vol. 1897
Poetical Works of George MacDonald. 2 vols. 1893
The Portent and Other Stories (reprints) n.d.
Fairy Tales of George MacDonald (reprints) 1904
Scotch Songs and Ballads (reprints) 1893