Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815 – 1881)
English churchman, Dean of Westminster, known as Dean Stanley.
Page 1 of 1
Give us a man, young or old, high or low, on whom we know we can thoroughly depend who will stand firm when others fail the friend faithful and true, the adviser honest and fearless, the adversary just and chivalrous; in such an one there is a fragment of the Rock of Ages a sign that there has been a prophet amongst us.
The cross of Christ is the pledge to us that the deepest suffering may be the condition of the highest blessing; the sign, not of God's displeasure, but of His widest and most compassionate face.
The best antidote against evils of all kinds, against the evil thoughts that haunt the soul, against the needless perplexities which distract the conscience, is to keep hold of the good we have. Impure thoughts will not stand against pure words and prayers and deeds. Little doubts will not avail against great certainties. Fix your affections on things above, and then you will less and less be troubled by the cares, the temptations, the troubles of things on earth.
That is a true sentiment which makes us feel that we do not love our country less, but more, because we have laid up in our minds the knowledge of other lands and other institutions and other races, and have had enkindled afresh within us the instinct of a common humanity, and of the universal beneficence of the Creator.
Christ pitied because He loved, because He saw through all the wretchedness, and darkness, and bondage of evil; that there was in every human soul a possibility of repentance, of restoration; a germ of good, which, however stifled and overlaid, yet was capable of recovery, of health, of freedom, of perfection.
It is through the multitudinous mass of living human hearts, of human acts and words of love and truth, that the Christ of the first century has become the Christ of the nineteenth.
Blessed are they who, in the calm moments of retirement, of worship, of prayer, of silent waiting, have found that to "the weary and heavy laden " Christ can indeed give rest; that compared with the heavy bondage of the world or the exactions of human systems, His yoke indeed is easy, and His burden is light.
We must never throw away a bushel of truth because it happens to contain a few grains of chaff.
There is such a thing as a worldly spirit, and there is such a thing as an unworldly spirit and according as we partake of the one or the other, the savor of the sacrifice of our lives is ordinary, common-place, poor, and base; or elevating, invigorating, useful, noble, and holy.
We cannot be scholars of Christ without trying to understand what is the place and the work in the world for which each of us is fitted. Every thing which befalls us is part of our education. Every event and condition of life is a lesson which is to be turned to account to make us more worthy of Him who by suffering was made perfectwho Himself entered not into glory, till first He had suffered pain.
Christianity is, above all other religions ever known, a religion of sacrifice. It is a religion founded on the greatest of all sacrifices, the sacrifice of the Incarnation, culminating in the sacrifice on Calvary.
God grant that as our horizon of duty is widened, our minds may widen with it; that as our burden is increased, our shoulders may be strengthened to bear it. God grant to us that spirit of wisdom and understanding, uprightness, and godly fear, without which, even in greatest things there is nothing; with which, even in the smallest things there is every thing.
You never get to the end of Christ's words. There is something in them always behind. They pass into proverbs they pass into laws they pass into doctrines they pass into consolations; but they never pass away, and, after all the use that is made of them, they are still not exhausted.
High above all earthly lower happiness, the blessedness of the eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself. They are white with the snows of eternity; they give a space, a meaning, a dignity to all the rest of the earth over which they brood.
The true religion of Jesus Christ our Saviour is that which penetrates, and which receives all the warmth of the heart, and all the elevation of the soul, and all the energies of the understanding, and all the strength of the will.
Every one of us knows how painful it is to be called by malicious names, to have his character undermined by false insinuations, to be overreached in a bargain, to be neglected by those who rise in life, to be thrust on one side by those who have stronger wills and stouter hearts. Every one knows, also, the pleasure of receiving a kind look, a warm greeting, a hand held out to help in distress, a difficulty solved, a higher hope revealed for this world or the next. By that pain and by that pleasure let us judge what we should do to others.
The greatness of God is the true rebuke to the littleness of men. The greatness of Christ is the true rebuke to the littleness of Christians.
Speak, Lord, our souls are hushed to hear what Thou hast to say to us. Great is the stake, overwhelming may be the risks most glorious are the opportunities. Speak, Lord, and show us what our duty is how high, how difficult, yet how happy, how blessed show us what our duty is, and, O great God and Father, give us strength to do it.
In the true, original, catholic, evangelical religion of Jesus Christ, and in this alone, all the divided religions of Christendom find their union, their repose, their support. Find out His mind, His character, His will; and in His greatness we shall rise above our littlenesses; in His strength we shall lose our weakness; in His peace we .shall forget our discord.
The more we can be raised above the petty vexations and pleasures of this world into the eternal life to come, the more shall we be prepared to enter into that eternal life whenever God shall please to call us hence.
Page 1 of 1