Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife

April

St. Francis called the birds his brothers.  Perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even as angels did in heaven.

It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago.

What if a man’s idea of “The Church” be somewhat too narrow for the year of grace 18–, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all? that there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a “divine and wonderful order,” linking earth to heaven, and to the very throne of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God Himself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the grave to do his Father’s work?  Is it no honour to him that he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he thinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in the most ancient and august traditions of his native land?  True, he may have much still to learn. . . .

That glorious word know—it is God’s attribute, and includes in itself all others.  Love, truth—all are parts of that awful power of knowing at a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in its essence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe through all Time.  I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and I never, if I can remember, use it myself of myself.

The story of Ruth is the consecration of woman’s love.  I do not mean of the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is.  I mean that depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God has put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend so strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and from whom they can receive no earthly reward—the affection which made women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which brought Mary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb—the affection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow are left in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and conquer therein.

Live a life of feeling, not of excitement.  Let your religion, your duties, every thought and word, be ruled by the affections, not by the emotions, which are the expressions of them.  Do not consider whether you are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be yourself—what God makes you.

St. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass darkly.  But this he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought a blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.  He says the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to bring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again—how and when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lord shall destroy death the whole creation shall be renewed.

Reverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely, insolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in nations, is a sign rather of weakness than of strength.

We do not in the Church of England now pray for the dead.  We are not absolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so.  But we believe they are where they ought to be—that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in which is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this world; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deeds done in the body; and that they are in the hands of a perfectly just God, who rewardeth every man according to his work.  It seems therefore unnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray for them who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state which they have deserved.

How Christ’s death takes away thy sins thou wilt never know on earth—perhaps not in heaven.  It is a mystery which thou must believe and adore.  But why He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou hast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at—Christ upon His Cross.  He died because He was Love—love itself, love boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable—love which inhabits eternity, and therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man, but must love men still—must go out to seek and save them, must dare, suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake—just because it is absolute and perfect Love which inhabits eternity.

Make a rule, and pray to God to help you to keep it, never, if possible, to lie down at night without being able to say, I have made one human being at least a little wiser, a little happier, or a little better this day.  You will find it easier than you think, and pleasanter.

A well-educated moral sense, a well-educated character, saves from idleness and ennui, alternating with sentimentality and excitement, those tenderer emotions, those deeper passions, those nobler aspirations of humanity, which are the heritage of the woman far more than of the man, and which are potent in her, for evil or for good, in proportion as they are left to run wild and undisciplined, or are trained and developed into graceful, harmonious, self-restraining strength, beautiful in themselves, and a blessing to all who come under their influence.

Novels will be read; but that is all the more reason why women should be trained, by the perusal of a higher, broader, deeper literature, to distinguish the good novel from the bad, the moral from the immoral, the noble from the base, the true work of art from the sham which hides its shallowness and vulgarity under a tangled plot and a melodramatic situation.  They should learn—and that they can only learn by cultivation—to discern with joy and drink in with reverence, the good, the beautiful, and the true, and to turn with the fine scorn of a pure and strong womanhood from the bad, the ugly, and the false.

Expect great things from God, and also expect the least things, for the great test of faith is shown about the least matters.  People will believe their soul is sure to be saved who have not the heart to expect that God will take away some small burden.

Theology signifies the knowledge of God as He is.  And it is dying out among us in these days.  Much of what is called theology now is nothing but experimental religion, which is most important and useful when it is founded on the right knowledge of God, but which is not itself theology.  For theology begins with God, but experimental religion, right or wrong, begins with a man’s own soul.

Ah, that we could believe that God is love, and that he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him!  Then we should have no need to be told to cultivate sweetness and light, for they would seem to us the only temper which could make life tolerable in any corner of the universe.

“Woman is no more capable than man of living on mere contemplation.  We must have an object to whom we may devote the fruits of thought, and unless we have a real one in active life we shall be sure to coin one for ourselves, and spend our spirits on a dream.”

“True, true,” chimed in the counsellor, “spirit is little use without body, and a body it will find; and therefore, unless you let people’s brains grow healthy plants, they will grow mushrooms.”

“What better can the Lord do for a man, than take him home when he has done his work?”

“But, Master Yeo, a sudden death?”

“And why not a sudden death, Sir John?  Even fools long for a short life and a merry one, and shall not the Lord’s people pray for a short death and a merry one?  Let it come as it will to old Yeo!”

Pray night and day, very quietly, like a little weary child, to the good and loving God, for everything you want, in body as well as soul—the least thing as well as the greatest.  Nothing is too much to ask God for—nothing too great for Him to grant: glory be to Thee, O Lord!  And try to thank Him for everything . . .  I sometimes feel that eternity will be too short to praise God in, if it was only for making us live at all!  And then not making us idiots or cripples, or even only ugly and stupid!  What blessings we have!  Let us work in return for them—not under the enslaving sense of paying off an infinite debt, but with the delight of gratitude, glorying that we are God’s debtors.

Man?  I am a man, thou art a woman—not by reason of bones and muscles, nerves and brain, which I have in common with apes, and dogs, and horses—I am a man, thou art a man or woman, not because we have a flesh, God forbid! but because there is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray which nature did not give, and which nature cannot take away.  And therefore, while I live on earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the flesh, that I may be indeed a man.

The very worst calamity, I should say, which could befall any human being would be this—to have his own way from his cradle to his grave; to have everything he liked for the asking, or even for the buying; never to be forced to say, “I should like that, but I cannot afford it.  I should like this, but I must not do it.”  Never to deny himself, never to exert himself, never to work, and never to want—that man’s soul would be in as great danger as if he were committing great crimes.

“The Lord be with you, dearest lady,” said Adrian Gilbert.  “Strange how you women sit at home to love and suffer, while we men rush forth to break our hearts and yours against rocks of our own seeking!  Ah! hech! were it not for Scripture I should have thought that Adam, rather than Eve, had been the one who plucked the fruit of the forbidden tree.”

He was not one of those “ungodly” men of whom David speaks in his Psalms, who rob the widow and the fatherless.  His morality was as high as that of the average, his honour higher.  But of “godliness” in its true sense—of belief that any Being above cared for him, and was helping him in the daily business of life: that it was worth while asking that Being’s advice, or that any advice would be given if asked for—of any practical notion of a heavenly Father or a Divine educator—he was as ignorant as thousands of persons who go to church every Sunday, and read good books, and believe firmly that the Pope is Antichrist.

As we rose to go, my eye caught a highly-finished drawing of the Resurrection painted above the place where the desk and faldstool and lectern, holding an open missal book, stood.  I should have rather expected, I thought to myself, a picture of the Crucifixion.  She seemed to guess my thought, and said, “There is enough in an abode of heavy hearts, and in daily labours among poverty and suffering, to keep in our minds the Prince of Sufferers.  We need rather to be reminded that pain is not the law but the disease of our existence, and that it has been conquered for us in body and soul by Him in whose eternity of bliss a few years of sadness were but as a mote within the sunbeam’s blaze.”

Woman is the teacher, the natural and therefore divine guide, purifier, inspirer of man.

Good Friday, Easter Day, and Ascension, are set as great lights in the firmament of the spiritual year;—to remind us that we are not animals born to do what we like, and fulfil the simple lusts of the flesh—but that we are rational moral beings, members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven, and that, therefore, like Christ, we must die in order to live, stoop in order to conquer.  They remind us that honour must grow out of humility; that freedom must grow out of discipline; that sure conquest must be born of heavy struggles; righteous joy out of righteous sorrow; pure laughter out of pure tears; true strength out of the true knowledge of our own weakness; sound peace of mind out of sound contrition.

Can we go wrong if we keep our Passion-week as Christ kept His?  And how did He keep it?  Not by shutting Himself up apart, not by the mere thinking over the glory of self-sacrifice.  He taught daily in the temple; instead of giving up His work, He worked more earnestly than ever as the terrible end drew near.  Why should not we keep Passion-week, not by merely hiding in our closets to meditate even about Him, but by going about our work each in his place, dutifully, bravely, as Christ went?

Without self-sacrifice there can be no blessedness either in earth or in heaven.  He that loveth his life will lose it.  He that hateth his life in this paltry, selfish, luxurious world shall keep it to life eternal.

And so with those who are Christ’s whom we love.  Partakers of His death, they are partakers of His resurrection.  Let us believe the blessed news in all its fulness, and be at peace.  A little while and we see them, and again a little while and we do not see them.  But why?  Because they are gone to the Father, to the Source and Fount of all life and power, all light and love, that they may gain life from His life, power from His power, light from His light, love from His love; and surely not for nought.  Surely not for nought.  For if they were like Christ on earth, and did not use their powers for themselves alone; if they are to be like Christ when they see Him as He is, then, more surely, will they not use their powers for themselves, but as Christ uses His, for those they love.

From the earliest times the Cross has been the special sign of Christians.  St. Paul tells us his great hope, his great business, what God had sent him into the world to do, was this—to make people know the love of Christ; to look at Christ’s Cross, and take in its breadth and length and depth and height.