All Saints' Day and Other SermonsKingsley, Charles
Religion
All Saints' Day and Other Sermons
Kingsley, Charles
Church of England -- Sermons; Sermons, English -- 19th century
sickens them--with some case of human folly, baseness, foulness--which,
however much their soul revolts from it, they must handle, they must toil
over many weeks and months, in hope that that which is crooked may be
made somewhat straight, till their whole soul was distempered, all but
degraded, by the continual sight of sin, till their eyes seemed full of
nothing but the dance of death, and their ears of the gibbering of
madmen, and their nostrils with the odours of the charnel house, and they
longed for one breath of pure air, one gleam of pure light, one strain of
pure music, to wash their spirits clean from those foul elements into
which their duty had thrust them down perforce?
And then, oh then, has there not come to such an one--I know that it has
come--that for which his spirit was athirst, the very breath of pure air,
the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music, for it is
the very music of the spheres, in those same words, "Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come;" and he has
answered, with a flush of keenest joy, Yes. Whatever else is unholy,
there is an Holy One, spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained.
Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly.
Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate
with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount
of purity. And who is He? Who save the Cause and Maker, and Ruler of
all things, past, present, and to come? Ah, Gospel of all gospels, that
God Himself, the Almighty God, is the eternal and unchangeable
realisation of all that I and all mankind, in our purest and our noblest
moments, have ever dreamed concerning the true, the beautiful, and the
good. Even though He slay me, the unholy, yet will I trust in Him. For
He is Holy, Holy, Holy, and can do nothing to me, or any creature, save
what He OUGHT. For He has created all things, and for His pleasure they
are and were created.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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