True Manliness: From the Writings of Thomas HughesHughes, Thomas
Religion
True Manliness: From the Writings of Thomas Hughes
Hughes, Thomas
Conduct of life
At such times have you not longed for light and guidance? What would
you have not given for a well of light and hope and strength, springing
up within you and renewing your powers and energies? What would you not
have given for the inward certainty that the road you were travelling
was the right one, however you might stumble on it; that the line
of battle in which you stood was the line for all true men, and was
marching break at the point which had been given you to hold, whatever
might become of you? Well, be sure that light and guidance, that
renewal of strength and hope, that certainty as to your side and your
road, you are meant to have; they have been prepared, and are ready,
for every man of you, whenever you will take them. The longings for
them are whispered in your hearts by the Leader, whose cross, never
turned back, ever triumphing more and more over all principalities and
powers of evil, blazes far ahead in the van of our battles. He has
been called the Captain of our Salvation, the Lion of the tribe of
Judah, the Lamb who was slain for the world; He has told us his name,
the Son of God and the Son of Man; He has claimed to be the redeemer,
deliverer, leader of mankind.
CXX.
My younger brothers, I am not speaking to you the words of enthusiasm
or excitement, but the words of sober every-day knowledge and
certainty. I tell you that all the miseries of England and of other
lands consist simply in this and in nothing else, that we men, made in
the image of God, made to know him, to be one with him in his Son, will
not confess that Son our Lord and Brother, to be the Son of God and
Son of man, the living Head of our race and of each one of us. I tell
you that if we would confess him and lay hold of him and let him enter
into and rule and guide us and the world, instead of trying to rule and
guide ourselves and the world without him, we should see and know that
the kingdom of God is just as much about us now as it will ever be.
I tell you that we should see all sorrow and misery melting away and
drawn up from this fair world of God’s like mountain mist before the
July sun.
CXXI.
I do not ask you to adopt any faith of mine. But as you would do good
work in your generation, I ask of you to give yourselves no peace till
you have answered these questions, each one for himself, in the very
secret recesses of his heart, “Do I, does my race, want a head? Can we
be satisfied with any less than a Son of man and a Son of God? Is this
Christ, who has been so long worshipped in England, He?”
If you can answer, though with faltering lips, “Yes, this is He,” I
care very little what else you accept, all else that is necessary or
good for you will come in due time, if once he has the guidance of you.
CXXII.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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