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

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin,

commonly called

Lady Day

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.”

For since He was born of woman, and thereby took the manhood into God, birth is holy, and childhood holy, and all a mother’s joys and a mother’s cares are holy to the Lord; and every Christian mother with her babe in her arms is a token and a sign from God, a pledge of His good-will towards men, a type and pattern of her who was highly-favoured and blessed above all women.  Everything has its time, and Lady-Day is the time for our remembering the Blessed Virgin.  For our hearts and reasons tell us (and have told all Christians in all ages), that she must have been holier, nobler, fairer in body and soul, than all women upon earth.

    MS. Sermon.

April

Wild, wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark, dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold, cold Church, in thy death sleep lying,
Thy Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter Day.

Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing,
Rest fair corpse, where thy Lord Himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord, above Thy bride low lying,
Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.

    The Dead Church.

The Song of Birds.  April 1

St. Francis called the birds his brothers.  Perfectly sure that he himself was a spiritual being, he thought it at least possible that the birds might be spiritual beings likewise, incarnate like himself in mortal flesh, and saw no degradation to the dignity of human nature in claiming kindred lovingly with creatures so beautiful, so wonderful, who (as he fancied in his old-fashioned way) praised God in the forest even as angels did in heaven.

    Prose Idylls.  1867.

True Reformers.  April 2

It is not the many who reform the world; but the few who rise superior to that Public Opinion which crucified our Lord many years ago.

    MS. Lecture at Cambridge.  1866.

High Ideals.  April 3

What if a man’s idea of “The Church” be somewhat too narrow for the year of grace 18–, is it no honour to him that he has such an idea at all? that there has risen up before him the vision of a perfect polity, a “divine and wonderful order,” linking earth to heaven, and to the very throne of Him who died for men; witnessing to each of its citizens what the world tries to make him forget, namely, that he is the child of God Himself; and guiding and strengthening him from the cradle to the grave to do his Father’s work?  Is it no honour to him that he has seen that such a polity must exist, that he believes that it does exist, or that he thinks he finds it in its highest, if not in its most perfect form, in the most ancient and august traditions of his native land?  True, he may have much still to learn. . . .

    Two Years Ago, chap. iv.  1856.

Divine Knowledge.  April 4

That glorious word know—it is God’s attribute, and includes in itself all others.  Love, truth—all are parts of that awful power of knowing at a single glance, from and to all eternity, what a thing is in its essence, its properties, and its relations to the whole universe through all Time.  I feel awestruck whenever I see that word used rightly, and I never, if I can remember, use it myself of myself.

    Letters and Memories.  1842.

Woman’s Love.  April 5

The story of Ruth is the consecration of woman’s love.  I do not mean of the love of wife to husband, divine and blessed as that is.  I mean that depth and strength of devotion, tenderness, and self-sacrifice, which God has put into the heart of all true women; and which they spend so strangely, and so nobly often, on persons who have no claim on them, and from whom they can receive no earthly reward—the affection which made women minister of their substance to our Lord Jesus Christ, which brought Mary Magdalene to the foot of the cross and to the door of the tomb—the affection which made a wise man say that as long as women and sorrow are left in the world, so long will the gospel of our Lord Jesus live and conquer therein.

    Water of Life Sermons.

Feeling and Emotion.  April 6

Live a life of feeling, not of excitement.  Let your religion, your duties, every thought and word, be ruled by the affections, not by the emotions, which are the expressions of them.  Do not consider whether you are glad, sorry, dull, or spiritual at any moment, but be yourself—what God makes you.

    MS. Letter.  1842.

The Beasts that perish.  April 7

St. Paul says that he himself saw through a glass darkly.  But this he seems to have seen, that the Lord, when He rose from the dead, brought a blessing even for the dumb beasts and the earth on which we live.  He says the whole creation is now groaning in the pangs of labour, about to bring forth something, and that the whole creation will rise again—how and when and into what new state we cannot tell; but that when the Lord shall destroy death the whole creation shall be renewed.

    National Sermons.  1851.

Reverence for Age.  April 8

Reverence for age is a fair test of the vigour of youth; and, conversely, insolence towards the old and the past, whether in individuals or in nations, is a sign rather of weakness than of strength.

    Lecture on Westminster Abbey.
    1874.

Prayers for the Dead.  April 9

We do not in the Church of England now pray for the dead.  We are not absolutely forbidden by Scripture to do so.  But we believe they are where they ought to be—that they are gone to a perfectly just world, in which is none of the confusion, mistakes, wrong, and oppression of this world; in which they will therefore receive the due reward of their deeds done in the body; and that they are in the hands of a perfectly just God, who rewardeth every man according to his work.  It seems therefore unnecessary, and, so to speak, an impertinence towards God, to pray for them who are in the unseen world of spirits exactly in the state which they have deserved.

    MS. Sermon.

Diversities of Gifts.  April 10

Why expect
Wisdom with love in all?  Each has his gift—
Our souls are organ pipes of diverse stop
And various pitch: each with its proper notes
Thrilling beneath the self-same breath of God.
Though poor alone, yet joined, they’re harmony.

    Saints’ Tragedy, Act ii.  Scene v.
    1847.

The Atonement.  April 11

How Christ’s death takes away thy sins thou wilt never know on earth—perhaps not in heaven.  It is a mystery which thou must believe and adore.  But why He died thou canst see at the first glance, if thou hast a human heart and will look at what God means thee to look at—Christ upon His Cross.  He died because He was Love—love itself, love boundless, unconquerable, unchangeable—love which inhabits eternity, and therefore could not be hardened or foiled by any sin or rebellion of man, but must love men still—must go out to seek and save them, must dare, suffer any misery, shame, death itself, for their sake—just because it is absolute and perfect Love which inhabits eternity.

    Good News of God Sermons.

A Day’s Work.  April 12