Friday, January 31, 2014

From In Memoriam

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,

Except, like them, thou too canst say

My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,

Imaginations calm and fair,

The memory like a cloudless air,

The conscience as a sea at rest:

But when the heart is full of din,

And doubt beside the portal waits,

They can but listen at the gates,

And hear the household jar within.

— Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Thursday, January 30, 2014

The Four Freedoms

In the future days which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor — anywhere in the world."

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt (born January 30, 1882)

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)

Friday, January 10, 2014

Praise and the Pure Mind

The love of popularity, a desire for approbation, when made a principle of action, is perhaps the most corrupting and the most disappointing of all the affections of our nature.  It is corrupting, because it turns the regards of the mind in a selfish direction, defiles the motives by substituting the love of praise for the love of praiseworthiness, — and destroys truth and simplicity of soul by introducing among the inward sources of life temptations of a foreign and worldly character, that either interfere with the pure and natural movements of the mind, or dishonour and deform them by bringing to their aid the alien supports of selfish ends.  A man desiring, on any question, to see where right and principle would lead him, can no more bring his own accommodation and indulgence into the foreground of his thoughts without corrupting his moral sight, than a man can introduce the love of commendation into the consultations of his soul, without at once insulting and silencing the divine oracle of his spirit.  The praise of God is the only praise the love of which can influence a pure mind; for there only the two motives, the love of approbation, and a supreme regard for the highest truth of the conscience, cannot interfere.  We do not say that it is the only praise, which when it comes as a reward is pure or sweet, — but that when regarded as a motive, as one of the determining influences of the character, it is, for adults, the only praise that is safe and holy.

— John Hamilton Thom (born January 10, 1808)

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Ceaseless Aspiration

High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams; and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service. And, looking higher still, we find those who never wait till their moral work accumulates, and who reward resolution with no rest with whom, therefore, the alternation is instantaneous and constant; who do the good only to| see the better, and see the better only to achieve it; who are too meek for transport, too faithful for remorse, too earnest for repose; whose worship is action, and whose action ceaseless aspiration.

— James Martineau (1805-1900)

New Year's Morning

Always a night from old to new

Night and the healing balm of sleep!

Each morn is New Year's morn come true,

Morn of a festival to keep.

All nights are sacred nights to make

Confession and resolve and prayer;

All days are sacred days to wake

New gladness in the sunny air.

Only a night from old to new;

Only a sleep from night to morn.

The new is but the old come true;

Each sunrise sees a new year born.

— Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885)

Monday, December 30, 2013

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

Say not, the struggle naught availeth,

The labor and the wounds are vain,

The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars

It may be, in yon smoke concealed,

Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,

Seem here no painful inch to gain,

Far back, through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only

When daylight comes, comes in the light:

In front the sun climbs slow, now slowly;

But westward, look! the land is bright.

— Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861)

Arthur Hugh Clough

What the Poor Hate

Pure and exalted atheists talk themselves into believing that the working classes are turning with indignant scorn from the churches. The working classes are not indignant against the churches in the least. The things the working classes really are indignant against are the hospitals. The people has no definite disbelief in the temples of theology. The people has a fiery and practical disbelief in the temples of physical science. The things the poor hate are the modern things, the rationalistic things doctors, inspectors, poor law guardians, professional philanthropy. They never showed any reluctance to be helped by the old and corrupt monasteries. They will often die rather than be helped by the modern and efficient workhouse.

— G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

Sunday, December 29, 2013

From Pain and Sorrow

From the background of pain and sorrow often break out the noblest and most winning manifestations of humanity. The depth of human sympathy, the wealth of its love, is displayed in scenes of tribulation and need. The robes of charity show their whiteness amid the gloom of poverty and distress. Christlike patience is born of suffering, the soul shines out in its essential splendor through the medium of bodily anguish, and faith trims her lamp in the shadow of the grave. Shall we call this existence a trivial thing, whose very miseries are the occasions of the noblest triumphs, whose trials may be converted into divine strength, whose tears may change into celestial dew, and nourish flowers of immortal hope? 

— Edwin H. Chapin (born December 29, 1814)

Edwin H. Chapin (1814-1880)

Truth Prevails!

I have nothing better to say than the truth, or what I hold to be the truth.  But why seek truths that are not pleasant?  We cannot help it.  No man can suppress the truth.  Truth finds a crack or crevice to crop out of; it bobs up to the surface and all the volume and weight of waters can not keep it down.  Truth prevails!  Life, death, truth—behold, these three no power can keep back.  And since we are doomed to know the truth, let us cultivate a love for it.  It is of no avail to cry over lost illusions, to long for vanished dreams, or to call to the departing gods to come back.  It may be pleasant to play with toys and dolls all our life, but evidently we are not meant to remain children always.  The time comes when we must put away childish things and obey the summons of truth, stern and high.  A people who fear the truth can never be a free people.  If what I will say is the truth, do you know of any good reason why I should not say it?  And if for prudential reasons I should sometimes hold back the truth, how would you know when I am telling what I believe to be the truth, and when I am holding it back for reasons of policy?

The truth, however unwelcome, is not injurious; it is error which raises false hopes, which destroys, degrades and pollutes, and which, sooner or later, must be abandoned.

— M.M. Mangasarian (born December 29, 1859)

Saturday, December 28, 2013

The Religion of Humanity

The Religion of Humanity gratefully accepts the work of prophets and apostles in olden time, — not those of one religion alone, but the sages and spokesmen of all faiths. Yet it does not believe that the spirit of wisdom and power that spoke through them has gone so far away that it cannot reach the human mind today. It affirms that, to the willing car, to the open mind, the spirit of truth may yet come with all its ancient power. The Religion of Humanity has its Bibles, — not only the good words of one faith, but of all faiths, — the best words of all literatures, past and present. And it would use all these external helps, past and present, — the prophets, apostles, preachers, sacred words, illustrious examples of consecrated and noble living, — not to overawe and overpower with their authority the present mental and moral life of mankind, but rather to stimulate that life to a like self-reliance and to a nobler fidelity to those unseen inner laws that are stamped on each soul, — the law of Reason and the law of Duty.

— William J. Potter (ordained December 28, 1859)

William J. Potter (1829-1893)