To a Waterfowl

Whither, 'midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight, to do thee wrong, As, darkly seen against the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.  Seek’st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of …

For Zachary Mays' post: George MacDonald's chapter 'Justice' from 'Unspoken Sermons III' was based upon a sermon from Shakespeare, with text from 'The Rape of Lucrece,' and emphasis upon the closing line: "Time's glory is to calm contending kings, To unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light; To stamp the seal of time in aged …

“For the only air of the soul, in which it can breathe and live, is the present God and the spirits of the just: that is our heaven, our home, our all-right place. Cleansed of greed, jealousy, vanity, pride, possession, all the thousand forms of the evil self, we shall be God's children on the …

All in the Meaning

From a report of George MacDonald's sermon given at the memorial for his brother-in-law George Powell: "Men interpret a saying according to what they know of the man who utters it, and a word that might be utterly worthless out of the mouth of one man may be regarded as very precious out of the …

Who Trusts Can Understand

“He who trusts can understand; he whose mind is set at ease can discover a reason.” – George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons This reminds me of the passage that says, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trust with in thee.” It is also a good reminder that …

Not Absence but Mastery of Passions

"The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions." – Alfred Lord Tennyson

A Secret Thread

“You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together by a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them, though you cannot put it into words: but most of your friends do not see it at all, and often wonder why, liking this, …

Ready for the Voice

“Ginny was not in the way of thinking much about God. Little had been taught her concerning him, and nothing almost that was pleasant to meditate upon—nothing that she could hide in her heart and be dreadfully glad about when she lay alone in her little bed, listening to the sound of the burn that …

Taste it Like Honey

" You think that, because hitherto you have exprienced truth only with the abstract intellect. I will bring you where you can taste it like honey and be embraced by it as by a bridegroom. Your thirst shall be quenched." – CS Lewis

Reading: Preface to Paradise Lost, CS Lewis

- The modern idea of a great man is one who stands at the lonely extremity of some single line of development – One either as pacific as Tolstoy or as military as Napoleon, either as clotted as Wagner or as angelic as Mozart. Milton is certainly not that kind of great man. He is …