Gifford Lectures, III.
We have toiled for many years and been troubled with many questionings, but what is the end of it all? We must learn to become simple again like little children. That is all we have a right to be: for this life was meant to be the childhood of our souls, and the more we try to be what we were meant to be, the better for us. Let us use the powers of our minds with the greatest freedom and love of truth, but let us never forget that we are, as Newton said, like children playing on the seashore, while the great ocean of truth lies undiscovered before us.
Life.
Nothing I like better than when I meet a man who differs from me; he always gives me something, and for that I am grateful. Nor am I at all so hopeless as many people, who imagine that two people who differ can never arrive at a mutual understanding.... Why do people differ, considering that they all begin with the same love of truth, and are all influenced by the same environment? Well, they often differ because one is ignorant of facts which the other knows and has specially studied.... But in most cases people differ because they use their words loosely, and because they mix up different subjects instead of treating them one by one.
Life.
THE WILL OF GOD
Through my whole life I have learnt this one lesson, that nothing can happen to us, unless it be the will of God. There can be no disappointment in life, if we but learn to submit our will to the will of God. Let us wait for a little while, and to those whose eyes are turned to God and eternity the longest life is but a little while,—let us wait then in faith, hope, and charity: these three abide, but the greatest of these is charity.
Life.