Sorrow

There is no evil in sorrow. True, it is not an essential good, a good in itself, like love; but it will mingle with any good thing, and is even so allied to good that it will open the door of the heart for any good. — George MacDonald

A Series of Revolutions

"CHRISTENDOM has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave." –GK Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Walk

Remember He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can’t see it. So quietly submit to be painted—i.e., keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station (you really know quite well enough what they are!), asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone. You are in the right way. …

Where He Is

"Observe this in our Lord's dealings with men; He always takes a man where he is. He does not begin telling him things that he is incapable of understanding. There lay in the heart of Jesus a whole eternity of living truth which was incomprehensible and is incomprehensible to opinions generally. Some of us, when …

A Pageant Played in Vain

Watching the thought that moves Within my conscient brain, I learn how often that appearance proves A pageant played in vain. Holding what seems the helm, I make a show to steer, But winds, for worse and better, overwhelm My purpose, and I veer. Thus, if thy guidance reach Only my head, then all Hardest …

Something Beyond

I think all Christians would agree with me if I said that though Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, out of all that, into something beyond. One has a glimpse of a country where they do not talk …

Remembering Shakespeare

To be, or not to be- that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles, And by opposing end them. To die- to sleep- No more; and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, …

What an Idea This Is

"What an idea this is! Could any human being have dared to frame it? Either it is an invention--(and, having a little good in one, I know I could not dare invent such a thing) or, He did not speak the truth, and can you imagine such a man as we see Him here, who …

The “Atmosphere” of Truth

I was just re- listening to this bit from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: “Do you think I wouldn’t obey my own rules?” (CS Lewis, Aslan speaking.) And it struck me again - this time in the light of Lewis's The Abolition of Man (or should I say "the dark shadow?"), that good people …

Good Tidings

“His parents found him in the temple; they never really found him until he entered the true temple—their own adoring hearts. The temple that knows not its builder, is no temple; in it dwells no divinity. But at length he comes to his own, and his own receive him;—comes to them in the might of …