SEPTEMBER 23
"If we want to get religion into life, or anything whatever in us into life, we are bound to have no contentment, no rest, no dreaming, no delays, till we get thought into shape, feeling into labour, some conviction, some belief, some idea, into form without us, among the world of men. This is the main principle, and it applies to every sphere of human effort. So much for the habit whereby we gain power to bring religion into daily life.
"Righteousness, shaped from within to without in the world of men, is justice, and the doing of justice. This is the first need of commonwealths, the first duty of individuals, and the practical religion of both. A still higher form into which we may put our religion in life is in doing the things which belong to love; and love is the higher form because it secures justice. These are the things we should shape into life because we love them. To be faithful always to that which we believe to be true; to be faithful to our principles and our conscience when trial comes, or when we are tempted to sacrifice them for place or pelf; to be faithful to our given word; to keep our promises when we might win favour by eluding or breaking them; to cling to intellectual as well as to moral truth; to so live among men that they may know where we are; to fly our flag in the storm as well as in the calm. It is to pass by with contempt the dark cavern where men worship Mammon; to fix our thought and effort on the attainment of righteousness in public and in private homes, to have the courage to attempt what seems impossible through love of the ideals of truth and beauty, and to prefer to die on the field of work and self-devotion rather than to live in idleness and luxury."
Stopford Brooke.
SEPTEMBER 24
"There are also some who forget that the laws of the spiritual world are no less inflexible and inviolable than those of the physical world; that conduct is everything; and that the faith which saves, and which, working by love, makes conduct, is something much deeper and more substantial than the muttering of an unfelt creed, or than the melancholy presumption that to think ourselves saved is by itself a passport into the everlasting habitations."
Bishop Thorold.
"Holiness is an infinite compassion for others: Greatness is to take the common things of life and walk truly among them: Happiness is a great love and much serving."
"Heaven does not make holiness, but holiness makes heaven."