Letters and Memories. 1842.
The Mind of Christ. November 30.
How can we attain to the blessed and noble state of mind—the mind of Christ, who must needs be about His Father’s business, which is doing good? Only by prayer and practice. There is no more use in praying without practising than there is in practising without praying. You cannot learn to walk without walking; no more can you learn to do good without trying to do good.
Sermons for the Times. 1855.
SAINTS’ DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.
NOVEMBER 1.
All Saints’ Day.
Commemoration of the Blessed Dead.
“If any man serve Me, him will My Father honour,” said the Blessed One. And if God honours His servants, shall not we honour them likewise? We may not, as our forefathers did blindly, though lovingly, worship them as mediators and lesser gods, and pray to them instead of to their Father in heaven to whose throne of grace we may all come boldly through Christ Jesus, or believe that their relics will work miracles in our behalf, thus honouring the creature instead of the Creator. This we may not do, but we may honour the Creator in His creature, and honour God in those who have lived godly and God-like lives; and when they have passed away from among us—souls endued by God with manifold virtues and precious gifts of grace—we may give thanks and say, These, O God, are the fruits of Thy Spirit. Thou honourest them in heaven with Thy approving smile. We will honour them on earth, not merely with our lips, but in our lives. What they were we too might be, if we were as true as they to the inspiration of Thy Spirit. Help us to honour their memories, as Thou and they would have us do, by following their example; by setting them before us, and not only them, but every holy and noble personage of whom we have ever heard, as dim likenesses of Christ—even as Christ is the likeness of Thee. Amen.
MS. Sermon.
NOVEMBER 30.
St. Andrew, Apostle and Martyr.
Form your own notions about angels and saints in heaven—as you will, . . . but bear this in mind: that if the saints in heaven live the everlasting life, they must be living a life of usefulness, of love, and of good works. The everlasting life cannot be a selfish, idle life, spent only in individual happiness.