Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife. Charles Kingsley
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not for ease; to labour in danger and in dread, to do a little good ere the night comes when no man can work, instead of trying to realise for oneself a paradise; not even Bunyan’s shepherd-paradise, much less Fourier’s casino-paradise, and perhaps, least of all, because most selfish and isolated of all, our own art-paradise, the apotheosis of loafing, as Claude calls it.
Pictures raise blessed thoughts in me. Why not in you, my toiling brother? Those landscapes painted by loving, wise, old Claude two hundred years ago, are still as fresh as ever. How still the meadows are! How pure and free that vault of deep blue sky! No wonder that thy worn heart, as thou lookest, sighs aloud, “Oh, that I had wings as a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest.” Ah! but gayer meadows and bluer skies await thee in the world to come—that fairyland made real—“the new heavens and the new earth” which God hath prepared for the pure and the loving, the just, and the brave, who have conquered in this sore fight of life.
Any man or woman, in any age and under any circumstances, who will, can live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences.
It is of the essence of self-sacrifice, and therefore of heroism, that it should be voluntary; a work of supererogation, at least, towards society and man; an act to which the hero or heroine is not bound by duty, but which is above though not against duty.
Have you never cried in your hearts with longing, almost with impatience, “Surely, surely, there is an ideal Holy One somewhere—or else, how could have arisen in my mind the conception, however faint, of an ideal holiness? But where? oh, where? Not in the world around strewn with unholiness. Not in myself, unholy too, without and within. Is there a Holy One, whom I may contemplate with utter delight? and if so, where is He? Oh, that I might behold, if but for a moment, His perfect beauty, even though, as in the fable of Semele of old, ‘the lightning of His glance were death.’” . . .
And then, oh, then—has there not come that for which our spirit was athirst—the very breath of pure air, the very gleam of pure light, the very strain of pure music—for it is the very music of the spheres—in those words, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come”?
Yes, whatever else is unholy, there is a Holy One—spotless and undefiled, serene and self-contained. Whatever else I cannot trust, there is One whom I can trust utterly. Whatever else I am dissatisfied with, there is One whom I can contemplate with utter satisfaction, and bathe my stained soul in that eternal fount of purity. And who is He? Who, save the Cause and Maker and Ruler of all things past, present, and to come?
It is one of the glories of our holy religion, and one of the ways by which the Gospel takes such hold on our hearts, that, mixed up with the grandest and most mysterious and most divine matters, are the simplest, the most tender, the most human. What more grand, or deep, or divine words can we say than, “I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,”—and yet what more simple, human, and tender words can we say than, “Who was born of the Virgin Mary”? For what more beautiful sight on earth than a young mother with her babe upon her knee? Beautiful in itself; but doubly beautiful to those who can say, “I believe in Him who was born of the Virgin Mary.”
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