September 14th. The Christian life is the only life that will ever be
completed. Apart from Christ the life of man is a broken pillar, the race
of men an unfinished pyramid. One by one in sight of Eternity all human
Ideals fall short, one by one before the open grave all human hopes
dissolve. Natural Law, p. 314.
September 15th. I do not think we ourselves are aware how much our
religious life is made up of phrases; how much of what we call Christian
experience is only a dialect of the Churches, a mere religious
phraseology with almost nothing behind it in what we really feel and
know. Pax Vobiscum, p. 12.
September 16th. The ceaseless chagrin of a self-centred life can be
removed at once by learning Meekness and Lowliness of heart. He who
learns them is forever proof against it. He lives henceforth a charmed
life. Pax Vobiscum, p. 29.
September 17th. Great trials come at lengthened intervals, and we rise to
breast them; but it is the petty friction of our everyday life with one
another, the jar of business or of work, the discord of the domestic
circle, the collapse of our ambition, the crossing of our will or the
taking down of our conceit, which makes inward peace impossible. Pax
Vobiscum, p. 28.
September 18th. There are people who go about the world looking out for
slights, and they are necessarily miserable, for they find them at every
turn--especially the imaginary ones. One has the same pity for such men
as for the very poor. They are the morally illiterate. They have had no
real education, for they have never learned how to live. Pax Vobiscum, p.
31.
September 19th. Christ never said much in mere words about the Christian
graces. He lived them, He was them. Yet we do not merely copy Him. We
learn His art by living with Him. Pax Vobiscum, p. 32.
September 20th. Christ's invitation to the weary and heavy-laden is a
call to begin life over again upon a new principle--upon His own
principle. "Watch My way of doing things," He says. "Follow Me. Take life
as I take it. Be meek and lowly, and you will find Rest." Pax Vobiscum,
p. 32.
September 21st. If a man could make himself humble to order, it might
simplify matters, but we do not find that this happens. Hence we must all
go through the mill. Hence death, death to the lower self, is the nearest
gate and the quickest road to life. Pax Vobiscum, p. 35.
September 22d. Whatever rest is provided by Christianity for the children
of God, it is certainly never contemplated that it should supersede
personal effort. And any rest which ministers to indifference is immoral
and unreal--it makes parasites and not men. Natural Law, p. 335.
September 23d. Just because God worketh in him, as the evidence and
triumph of it, the true child of God works out his own salvation--works
it out having really received it--not as a light thing, a superfluous
labour, but with fear and trembling as a reasonable and indispensable
service. Natural Law, p. 335.
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