Daily Thoughts: selected from the writings of Charles Kingsley by his wife

Antinomies.  July 15

Spiritual truths present themselves to us in “antinomies,” apparently contradictory pairs, pairs of poles, which, however, do not really contradict, or even limit, each other, but are only correlatives, the existence of the one making the existence of the other necessary, explaining each other, and giving each other a real standing ground and equilibrium.  Such an antinomic pair are, “He that loveth not knoweth not God,” and “If a man hateth not his father and mother he cannot be My disciple.”

    Letters and Memories.  1848.

False Refinement.  July 16

God’s Word, while it alone sanctifies rank and birth, says to all equally, “Ye are brethren, work for each other.”  Let us then be above rank, and look at men as men, and women as women, and all as God’s children.  There is a “refinement” which is the invention of that sensual mind, which looks only at the outward and visible sign.

    MS. Letter.  1843.

Music’s Meaning.  July 17

Some quick music is inexpressibly mournful.  It seems just like one’s own feelings—exultation and action, with the remembrance of past sorrow wailing up, yet without bitterness, tender in its shrillness, through the mingled tide of present joy; and the notes seem thoughts—thoughts pure of words; and a spirit seems to call to me in them and cry, “Hast thou not felt all this?”  And I start when I find myself answering unconsciously, “Yes, yes, I know it all!  Surely we are a part of all we see and hear!”  And then, the harmony thickens, and all distinct sound is pressed together and absorbed in a confused paroxysm of delight, where still the female treble and the male bass are distinct for a moment, and then one again—absorbed into each other’s being—sweetened and strengthened by each other’s melody. . . .

    Letters and Memories.  1842.

Vagueness of Mind.  July 18

By allowing vague inconsistent habits of mind, almost persuaded by every one you love, when you are capable by one decided act of leading them, you may be treading blindfold a terrible path to your own misery.

    MS. Letter.  1842.

A Faith for Daily Life.  July 19

That is not faith, to see God only in what is strange and rare; but this is faith, to see God in what is most common and simple, to know God’s greatness not so much from disorder as from order, not so much from those strange sights in which God seems (but only seems) to break His laws, as from those common ones in which He fulfils His laws.

    Town and Country Sermons.

Charms of Monotony.  July 20

I delight in that same monotony.  It saves curiosity, anxiety, excitement, disappointment, and a host of bad passions.  It gives a man the blessed, invigorating feeling that he is at home; that he has roots deep and wide struck down into all he sees, and that only the Being who can do nothing cruel or useless can tear them up.  It is pleasant to look down on the same parish day after day, and say I know all that is beneath, and all beneath know me.  It is pleasant to see the same trees year after year, the same birds coming back in spring to the same shrubs, the same banks covered by the same flowers.

    Prose Idylls.  1857.

How to attain.  July 21

If our plans are not for time but for eternity, our knowledge, and therefore our love to God, to each other, to everything, will progress for ever.  And the attainment of this heavenly wisdom requires neither ecstacy nor revelation, but prayer and watchfulness, and observation, and deep and solemn thought.

Two great rules for its attainment are simple enough—Never forget what and where you are, and grieve not the Holy Spirit, for “If a man will do God’s will he shall know of the doctrine.”

    Letters and Memories.  1842.

The Divine Discontent.  July 22

I should like to make every one I meet discontented with themselves; I should like to awaken in them, about their physical, their intellectual, their moral condition, that divine discontent which is the parent first of upward aspiration and then of self-control, thought, effort to fulfil that aspiration even in part.  For to be discontented with the divine discontent, and to be ashamed with the noble shame, is the very germ and first upgrowth of all virtue.

    Lecture on Science of Health.  1872.

Dra et labora.  July 23

“Working is praying,” said one of the holiest of men.  And he spoke truth; if a man will but do his work from a sense of duty, which is for the sake of God.

    Sermons.

Distrust and Anarchy.  July 24

Over the greater part of the so-called civilised world is spreading a deep distrust, a deep irreverence of every man towards his neighbour, and a practical unbelief in every man whom you do see, atones for itself by a theoretic belief in an ideal human nature which you do not see.  Such a temper of mind, unless it be checked by that which alone can check it, namely, the grace of God, must tend towards sheer anarchy.  There is a deeper and uglier anarchy than any mere political anarchy,—which the abuse of the critical spirit leads to,—the anarchy of society and of the family, the anarchy of the head and of the heart, which leaves poor human beings as orphans in the wilderness to cry in vain, “What can I know?  Whom can I love?”

    The Critical Spirit.  1871.

A Future Life of Action.  July 25

Why need we suppose that heaven is to be one vast lazy retrospect?  Why is not eternity to have action and change, yet both like God, compatible with rest and immutability?  This earth is but one minor planet of a minor system.  Are there no more worlds?  Will there not be incident and action springing from these when the fate of this world is decided?  Has the evil one touched this alone?  Is it not self-conceit which makes us think the redemption of this earth the one event of eternity?

    Letters.  1842.

An Ideal Aristocracy.  July 26

We may conceive an Utopia governed by an aristocracy that should be really democratic, which should use, under developed forms, that method which made the mediæval priesthood the one great democratic institution of old Christendom; bringing to the surface and utilising the talents and virtues of all classes, even the lowest.

    Lectures on Ancien Régime.  1867.

Our Weapons.  July 27

God, who has been very good to us, will be more good, if we allow Him!  Worldly-minded people think they can manage so much better than God.  We must trust.  Our weapons must be prayer and faith, and our only standard the Bible.  As soon as we leave these weapons and take to “knowledge of the world,” and other people’s clumsy prejudices as our guides, we must inevitably be beaten by the World, which knows how to use its own arms better than we do.  What else is meant by becoming as a little child?

    MS. Letter.  1843.

Uneducated Women.  July 28

Take warning by what you see abroad.  In every country where the women are uneducated, unoccupied; where their only literature is French novels or translations of them—in every one of those countries the women, even to the highest, are the slaves of superstition, and the puppets of priests.  In proportion as women are highly educated, family life and family secrets are sacred, and the woman owns allegiance and devotion to no confessor or director, but to her own husband or her own family.

    Lecture on Thrift.  1860.

Pardon and Cure.  July 29

After the forgiveness of sin must come the cure of sin.  And that cure, like most cures, is a long and a painful process.

But there is our comfort, there is our hope—Christ the great Healer, the great Physician, can deliver us, and will deliver us, from the remains of our old sins, the consequences of our own follies.  Not, indeed, at once, or by miracle, but by slow education in new and nobler motives, in purer and more unselfish habits.

    All Saints’ Day Sermons.  1861.

Eternal Law.  July 30

The eternal laws of God’s providence are still at work, though we may choose to forget them, and the Judge who administers them is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, even Jesus Christ the Lord, the Everlasting Rock, on which all morality and all society is founded.  Whosoever shall fall on that Rock, in repentance and humility, shall indeed be broken, but of him it is written, “A broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”

    Discipline and other Sermons.  1866.