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

Sermons for the Times.  1855.The Great Unknown.  March 21

“Brother,” said the abbot, “make ready for me the divine elements, that I may consecrate them.”  And he asking the reason therefor, the saint replied, “That I may partake thereof with all my brethren before I depart hence.  For know assuredly that within the seventh day I shall migrate to the celestial mansions.  For this night stood by me in a dream those two women whom I love, and for whom I pray, the one clothed in a white, the other in a ruby-coloured garment, and holding each other by the hand, who said to me, ‘That life after death is not such a one as you fancy: come, therefore, and behold what it is like.’”

Hypatia, chap. xxx.  1852.Loss nor Gain, March 22

Nothing is more expensive than penuriousness; nothing more anxious than carelessness; and every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back.

Sermons for the Times.  1855.Ancient Greek Education, March 23

We talk of education now.  Are we more educated than were the ancient Greeks?  Do we know anything about education, physical, intellectual, æsthetic (religious education in our sense of the word of course they had none), of which they have not taught us at least the rudiments?  Are there not some branches of education which they perfected once and for ever, leaving us northern barbarians to follow or not to follow their example?  To produce health, that is, harmony and sympathy, proportion and grace, in every faculty of mind and body—that was their notion of education.

Ah! the waste of health and strength in the young!  The waste, too, of anxiety and misery in those who love and tend them!  How much of it might be saved by a little rational education in those laws of nature which are the will of God about the welfare of our bodies, and which, therefore, we are as much bound to know and to obey as we are bound to know and to obey the spiritual laws whereon depend the welfare of our souls.

Lecture on Thrift.  1869.Body and Soul.  March 24

Exalt me with Thee, O Lord, to know the mystery of life, that I may use the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly, and, by using to Thy glory the natural body, may be fit to be exalted to the use of the spiritual body.  Amen.

MS.  1842.Moderation.  March 25

Let us pray for that great—I had almost said that crowning grace and virtue of Moderation, what St. Paul calls sobriety and a sound mind.  Let us pray for moderate appetites, moderate passions, moderate honours, moderate gains, moderate joys; and if sorrows be needed to chasten us, moderate sorrows.  Let us not long violently after, or wish too eagerly to rise in life.

Water of Life Sermons.  1869.Poetry in the Slums.  March 26

“True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at home. . . .  Hech! is there no the heaven above them there, and the hell beneath them? and God frowning, and the devil grinning?  No poetry there!  Is no the verra idea of the classic tragedy defined to be man conquered by circumstance? canna ye see it there?  And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man conquering circumstance? and I’ll show ye that too—in many a garret where no eye but the good God’s enters to see the patience, and the fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the love stronger than death, that’s shining in those dark places of the earth.”

“Ah, poetry’s grand—but fact is grander; God and Satan are grander.  All around ye, in every gin-shop and costermonger’s cellar, are God and Satan at death-grips; every garret is a haill Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained.”

Alton Locke, chap. viii.  1849.Time and Eternity.  March 27. . . Our life’s floorIs laid upon Eternity; no crack in itBut shows the underlying heaven. Saint’s Tragedy, Act iii. Scene ii.Work.  March 28

Yes.  Life is meant for work, and not for ease; to labour in danger and in dread, to do a little good ere the night comes when no man can work, instead of trying to realise for oneself a paradise; not even Bunyan’s shepherd-paradise, much less Fourier’s casino-paradise, and perhaps, least of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our own art-paradise, the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it.

Prose Idylls.  1849.Teaching of Pictures.  March 29

Pictures raise blessed thoughts in me.  Why not in you, my toiling brother?  Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude two hundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever.  How still the meadows are!  How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky!  No wonder that thy worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, “Oh, that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest.”  Ah! but gayer meadows and bluer skies await thee in the world to come—that fairyland made real—“the new heavens and the new earth” which God hath prepared for the pure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in this sore fight of life.

True Words for Brave Men.  1849.Voluntary Heroism.  March 30

Any man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who will, can live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences.

It is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards society and man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not against duty.

Lecture on Heroism.  1872.The Ideal Holy One.  March 31

Have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience, “Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere—or else, how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness?  But where? oh, where?  Not in the world around strewn with unholiness.  Not in myself, unholy too, without and within.  Is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is He?  Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, ‘the lightning of His glance were death.’” . . .

And then, oh, then—has there not come that for which our spirit was athirst—the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music—for it is the very music of the spheres—in those words, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come”?

Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One—spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained.  Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly.  Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity.  And who is He?  Who, save the Cause and Maker and Ruler of all things past, present, and to come?

Sermon on All Saints’ Day.  1874.Charles Kingsley’s Dying Words,“HOW BEAUTIFUL GOD IS.”SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALSMARCH 25The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,commonly calledLady Day

It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways by which the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with the grandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest, the most tender, the most human.  What more grand, or deep, or divine words can we say than, “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,”—and yet what more simple, human, and tender words can we say than, “Who was born of the Virgin Mary”?  For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with her babe upon her knee?  Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to those who can say, “I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary.”

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The paper edition of this book has blank pages where the owner can write diary notes, etc.  This is why the page numbers in the eText often miss out numbers.—DP.