MS.
Lifting of the Veil. August 21.
I seldom pass those hapless loungers who haunt every watering-place without thinking sadly how much more earnest, happier, and better men and women they might be if the veil were but lifted from their eyes, and they could learn to behold that glory of God which is all around them like an atmosphere, while they, unconscious of what and where they are, wrapt up each in his little selfish world of vanity and interest, gaze lazily around them at earth, sea, and sky—
And have no speculation in those eyes
Which they do glare withal
Glaucus. 1855.
The Cross—its meaning. August 22.
To take up the cross means, in the minds of most persons, to suffer patiently under affliction. It is a true and sound meaning, but it means more. Why did Christ take up the cross? Not for affliction’s sake, or for the cross’s sake, as if suffering were a good thing in itself. No. But that He might thereby do good. That the world through Him might be saved. That He might do good at whatever cost or pain to Himself.
Sermons.
The Crucifix. August 23.
If I had an image in my room it should be one of Christ glorified, sitting at the right hand of God. The crucifix has been the image, because the idea of torture and misery has been the idea in the melancholy and the ferocious (for the two ultimately go together),. . . and thus ascetics became inquisitors. . . .