BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Charles Kingsley was born at Holne Vicarage, Devonshire, in 1819. He was by temperament enthusiastic, impetuous, and great-hearted. His utterances were notable for their unusual earnestness. "I go at what I am about," he said, "as if there were nothing else in the world for the time being." In this way he completely lost himself in the work in hand. His favorite motto was "Be strong!" He had a poetic spirit, and was both vigorous and brilliant. He is known not only for his sermons and addresses, but also for his novels and some verse. He died in 1875.
KINGSLEY
1819-1875
THE SHAKING OF THE HEAVENS AND THE EARTH
Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which can not be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which can not be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire.—Hebrews xii., 26-29.
This is one of the royal texts of Scripture. It is inexhaustible, like the God who inspired it. It has fulfilled itself again and again, at different epochs. It fulfilled itself specially and notoriously in the first century. But it fulfilled itself again in the fifth century; and again at the Crusades; and again at the Reformation in the sixteenth century. And it may be that it is fulfilling itself at this very day; that in this century, both in the time of our fathers and in our own, the Lord has been shaking the heavens and the earth, that those things which can be shaken may be removed, as things that are made, while those things which can not be shaken remain.
All confess this to be true, each in his own words. They talk of this age as one of change; of rapid progress, for good or evil; of unexpected discoveries; of revolutions, intellectual, moral, social, as well as political. Our notions of the physical universe are rapidly altering, with the new discoveries of science; and our notions of ethics and theology are altering as rapidly. The era assumes a different aspect to different minds, just as it did the first century after Christ, according as men look forward to the future with hope, or back to the past with regret. Some glory in the nineteenth century as one of rapid progress for good; as the commencement of a new era for humanity; as the inauguration of a Reformation as grand as that of the sixteenth century. Others bewail it as an age of rapid decay; in which the old landmarks are being removed, the old paths lost; in which we are rushing headlong into skepticism and atheism; in which the world and the Church are both in danger, and the last day is at hand.