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God, and now a guest in his Father's House. ________ carried on his face the reflection of the face of Christ." |
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God, and now a guest in his Father's House. ________ carried on his face the reflection of the face of Christ." |
I AM glad that The Churchman's Association of New York is publishing this little book which expresses, in his own words, Bishop Lloyd's unfailing spirit of faith, and hope, and love. Bishop Lloyd's great characteristics were his sincerity and simplicity, his wide sympathy, his kindly humor, his considerateness and charity towards people of every sort; and all those qualities were founded upon, and grew naturally out of, his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and his devotion to the Church which he was called to serve as Priest and Bishop.
It was his faith in Christ and his true human sympathy which drew people to him; and those who loved him, as all did who knew him, will hear him still speaking in these pages.
WILLIAM THOMAS MANNING
Bishop of New York
[5] Try making it your business to wash the slate off clean every night before you go to sleep, on the basis that what He gave us to do is all included in the day we are living in. On this ground we owe it to the work we have to do absolutely to refuse to think about anything that is gone, just as we are not to permit ourselves to be anxious about anything that has not yet happened.
The reason for this is that we need all the strength and courage and quietness that He gives us for the use of the day we are living in.
Try this. You will know you have been successful when there is a song inside you, and you will know that somehow it went wrong if it looks like a cloud is rising.
If this last seems to happen, don't worry. Just try to get it right the next time. Everything will be all right
________ He did not set us a task and demand that it be done perfectly. He said rather, "Walk with me and let me show you how." I think His chief business in dealing with all those who belong to Him is to pick them up when they fall down and wipe the dust off so that they can start again
________ [6] There can be no doubt that the first obligation of every soul that has been given Life from above and lived because our Lord has given him of Himself, is the high privilege of passing on to those who have never had a chance the truth which brings a man his life in abundance. But the accomplishment of this task involves many and varied expressions of life, and no one has more than one man's strength to work with. The result is that all of us must work in the place where we are set, being sure that if the work is done faithfully, in His own time the Master is going to make this help to accomplish His purpose
________ The real things of life cannot be put into words. The older I grow the more supremely valuable comes to be the ability to know His companionship. Once this becomes practicable, it seems to me that He Himself will do anything that needs to be done. As to how He accomplishes that I think depends on the temperament of the person with whom He is dealing. He made you demonstrative and easy of speech. He made me reticent and (sometimes) hopelessly silent. I think He knows us both, and it is a constant source of amazement to me that He is willing to make use of us.
Be happy in your life and rejoice in the good things He makes you able to do on His behalf
________ [7] Truthfulness is sincerity; it is being in the smallest act what you want people to believe you are
________ The beautiful thing about a man is not that he won but that he played fair
________ The measure of a man's manhood is that his ideals cling to him, though it makes the day's work harder and cuts across profits
________ [8] Didn't the people in the congregation ever hear a baby cry before? You tell that little mother to come to church every time she possibly can
________ As to that little daughter, of course I want to see her whenever she wants to see me, and I want to talk to her about anything she wants to talk to me about. But don't make her come, and don't bring her! Come with her--if you will it will give me great pleasure--but let it be on her initiative
________ I wish I could make you believe that the children do not belong to you, and that all you have to do with them is to walk straight before them. Himself will develop them, using the means that He sees fit. My observation is that oftentimes the means He uses are very alarming.
Your chiefest anxiety must be, just because you say your prayers, not lest they shall fail, but that you should never seem to lack faith in them. Let them work it out themselves. You started them right I know, and as they come up against the incidents of life they must learn how to interpret them. Some day you will have the joy of seeing them interpret life's experiences in terms of reality
________ [9] The most definite thing I remember in my mother is the quality of her voice. I recall no occasion when I ever heard a tone of irritation or querulousness, so that the background that is most vivid is one of serenity
________ I can recall as a very small child the amazement with which I would find wrangling in a house where I happened to be. I knew of nothing in my home like it. I was young enough to know that it was different without being able to explain the cause.
_______When I was a small boy I was taught never to say anything about a man unless I said it to his face. It is a hard rule, but I have tried to follow it
________ [10] I cannot understand how anybody can live and not know what he is going to do, just because I never remember a time when I did not know what I was going after. I knew when I was five years old where my office would be. I knew I was going to practice law, and I knew I had to go to school before I could get to it. But happily everybody is not alike; the world would be a very stupid place if they were
________ Looking back there are certain things I wish I had known when I began. One is that school and college are in no wise different from learning how to use mechanic's tools. The more carefully we can acquire the use of these, the better mechanics we shall be. All school and college does is to teach you how to use the muscles that the mind works with.
If I could have known when I began the inestimable value of accurate knowledge it would have saved me time that it appalls me to think about and would have made me more efficient.
As to what a man is going to do after he has learned to use his tools, it seems to me as I get older to be relatively unimportant. The expression of himself in terms of the things that he believes to be essentially true and therefore permanent is the great thing. Sometimes bent, sometimes circumstance, brings a man into contact with this thing. What he wants is to be able to do it when he meets it
________ [11] I wish I could make you know now how it tempts a man to call himself bad names to come up against a thing that he knows ought to be done and that he knows how to put over, and to be conscious that his ability to do it is past because the particular instrument is atrophied. Train all of yourself as far as you know how. Some day you will want it urgently
________ I wish that you would not worry yourself about the things that men believe in connection with God and our relation to Him. Let the Eternal Father and the revelation of Himself in the person of our Lord be as axioms. We cannot prove them, but if a man does not know these two things it seems to me it is not a question of his ability or his fidelity, but a question of his imagination. It is like being able to see things only superficially without being able to appreciate their relation to other things. Forget that and let your thinking be on the basis that these things are true: that God controls and that all that is to be known about a man in his relation to spirit or matter is showed in the person of our Lord.
Don't think about this in the terms of religion. Think of it in the terms of practical experience. We have an intricate machine to handle. We have a goal that is not measured by physical measurements. What our Lord does for us is to teach us how to do this thing. There is no choice. It is that or nothing
________ [12] I want to write down so that you will keep it--some day you will know I am right--the recommendation that you study to save you from cheapening yourself, or the work that you will do as a man, by being deceived into thinking that you are the source of it. A man cannot know what his power is until the One Who gave it to him has showed him how to use it. Nor can a man value the gifts with which God has enriched him until God shows him how to use them.
So be content to work on the theory that the God Who made you expects you to work by the model He set you, which is His own perfectness. If you will do this you will know from the start that if you are going to win out you must have help. Nothing mortal can be perfect. Attaining the perfectness that is your model depends on the Power that was bestowed; nor can it be attained while a man is in the flesh. A man's measure is in the fact that nothing can move him from the conviction that when he has been able to do anything, it will be after he has spent his life trying to be right.
Don't think of this in terms of "religion." Be sure that it is true because it is in the nature of things. It is the basis on which a man is made and was created. Go on and live your life, going after the thing to which you have given yourself with both hands. But keep in mind all the time, and have the courage to follow it, that a man's self expression is utterly dependent on the friendship and guidance of his Friend, God manifest in the flesh
________ [13] Something happened the other day--I have forgotten what it was--that made me wonder whether my grandsons read their Bibles. If this is not the case, correct it now. I know how easy it is for people to lay aside the Bible because they associate the Bible with religion.
As a matter of fact, what old Mr. Reverdy Johnson said to me when I was ten years old is perfectly true. He was eighty years old and more, and blind, and had worked with my father at the profession of the law all the time my father practiced. I went to pay my respects to the old gentleman, and he spoke of the fact that he understood I was to follow my father in his profession. I said, "Of course." Then he reached out until he got his hand on two books that he put into my hand and said, "Boy, if you are going to be a lawyer it is necessary for you to know these two books because they are the only two books that will ever tell you the truth about human nature." One was the Bible and the other was Shakespeare.
I never forgot it, and the older I grow the more I am persuaded that the man with a really broad outlook on life is the man who knows his Bible.
Read your Bible until you have absorbed the contents of it. Forget all the disputes about the book and read it as from the point of view that it is the only record that tells us directly how the Eternal touches human experience
________ [14] Your mother told me that this is your birthday. I want to tell you how good it is for me to think that you have got through eighteen years and are still going straight and going strong. I like to think about it the more because I know that by this time you have about made up your mind as to what kind of person you want to be, and what kind of things you plan to go after; and I want you to know the satisfaction I have in believing that you want to go in the way that will make men respect you and will want to do things that are worth while.
Naturally on your birthday you will think of your confirmation. I want to call your attention to the fact that this is your constant reminder that the God who made us is our Father and is on our side, not merely to back you in what you do, but to show you how. Keep this in mind and you will always have the comfortable feeling that you are not by yourself.
Then take things in both hands and go after what you want, provided first you know you can ask God's blessing on it. Don't be afraid, and don't measure yourself by anybody else. Know that you are the man who has got it to do and that you can do it if you will not be afraid, because God is on your side.
God gave you a beautiful temper; cultivate it. Never go back on [yourself] and you will find that our Lord is on your side, no matter how hard the fight is. God bless you!
________ [15] You know I am persuaded that no man has ever lived except our Lord himself who realized what the power of a man is, but I can almost say that I am equally certain that there is no man who knows that the Eternal is his pattern, and spends his life trying with God's help to use what comes to him instead of being driven by it, but realizes as he goes that his power is limited only by his own courage.
One thing I should like to suggest. You say, "I cannot decide whether I would rather be a fairly successful small-town lawyer," etc. With all due deference to the superior wisdom of your generation, I believe you have put the cart before the horse. I do not believe anybody has a right to talk about what he would rather do. His job is to find out what he has got to do, and to get busy getting himself ready for it. A Christian man is on the earth to be used by his Master, and whatever a Christian man does must be determined by his most careful judgment as to how he can best express himself.
The beautiful thing about life is that it does not make any difference what a man calls his job, because the job a man does gets its whole character and color from the man who is doing it
________ No matter how cold your feet are, never again put into words the suggestion that you cannot do what you undertook. You know you can, and you know you are no coward, and you know you have brains and you know you pray to God. What can lick a man who has these things?
________ [16] Thank you, my son, for yours this morning. Your mother told me that you were going to be confirmed, and of course it gave me great satisfaction to hear it.
I should like it if you could think of your confirmation as the beginning of a partnership between you and our Lord, in which your part would be to do what you can to help Him teach people how good a thing it is to love their heavenly Father.
But apart from this, I should like you to think of your confirmation as a token which our Lord Himself bestows upon you, to keep you in mind all the time that whenever you have anything to do, He is there to help you; that if you do not understand things, He is there to show you; and that if you get lonesome or in trouble, He is always there to stand by you as your friend.
Then when you come to make your communion you will naturally think of it as meeting and speaking to Him, so that you can have a chance to tell Him what has been happening and to ask Him why things went wrong.
I am glad you are doing it. If you will abide by your side of the contract, you will find it makes you. free; that is to say you will never be thinking about what to think, or depending on somebody else to show you how to do it. God bless you!
I am glad your examinations were passed successfully, and I congratulate you that you can live in peace until June comes
________ [17] You are glad to be back just for the personal satisfaction it gives you. To me it did not make a bit of difference whether you went back or not, but I knew that if you did not go back you could not help feeling it was a count against you, and every time a man is compelled to do anything he cannot resist a feeling of having been beat. Especially on a young man this unconsciously has influence, making him feel uncertain when he faces a thing that has to be done.
I want you to know that you can do it. I have not the least question about it. Men are differently constituted. To some men examinations are like answering riddles. It is easy for them. For other men it is hopeless to try to answer a riddle, but this has nothing to do with a man's intelligence or capacity to accomplish what he goes after. I speak feelingly because I am like that myself. I never answered a riddle in my life, and the examinations I have stood I never knew how I got by. If I had been measured by that I should have been in the scrapheap when I was younger than you are.
Now go at things quietly. Say your prayers and know you can do it, and the Lord will make you able. You have got the stuff. It is a question of putting your mind on the thing to be done and having the courage to stick to it. You have all that. You could not be your father's son and not have it. What I want you to do is not to think about things as if they were uncertain
________ [18] It is the high privilege of every human to form the habit of thinking about our Lord as his personal friend, so that it will become more and more a habit to depend on Him, not only to protect us and show us the way to go in, but to teach us how to do things. I think the relation after a while becomes entirely personal, so that you will go to Him and talk with Him with the same frankness and confidence that you feel to your father, expecting to be definitely helped and showed how to do it. It is a question of personal affection after all. While this is for the present for you a theory, it will grow of itself. Don't try to make it grow. Most of all do your best to keep from being artificial in any sense. Try to avoid doing things because you must. Do things because He says that is the right way to do it and because you want to be like Him.
If you can catch what I am saying it will relieve your mind of all those strange impressions that we have got to do something different, or be something different from what God made us. The highest expression of Christian living, and the surest witness that God's Spirit moves upon us is that we are simple and natural and just as God made us, having eliminated what we know to be ugly.
Down in your heart you know that for your own sake you want to help anybody you can, but this is generally done by our manners rather than by anything we say
________ [19] Don't call it "tact"! Call it "sympathy"! Sympathy is the divine gift which makes us able to see through others' eyes and know what others think about things and what hurts them and why. "Tact" is the cheap imitation which insincerity tries to substitute for the real thing you have got
________ I have wondered how things were going with you. I am glad you are not by yourself. . . .
Don't worry because you have seemed to be without words. I fancy if you could observe yourself you would find a great numbness. Be content and wait, knowing that this too will pass. Meantime give thanks that in the darkness you need no light to guide you. Of course the truest thing in your life is that which He gives you--the high privilege of being confident that no matter how inarticulate you may be, nothing can come between you and His presence
________ I want to suggest a thing that you know as well as I do. When you find you cannot pray, why try to do it? Why not sit quietly and let Him talk to you? After all, this is likely to be more useful, and I am sure that you will find that it brings you the serenity you long for, and the quietness that will at once save you from the temptation to be sorry for yourself; giving you the understanding to know what He wants you to learn
________ [20] Self-control is largely exhibited in never getting in a hurry, and this is useful because if you once get in a hurry, you cannot use your mind. This shows the wisdom of keeping everything that happens to you on the outside, so that you can observe it.
Remember that the reason you call yourself a Christian is because it reminds you that the Almighty God who made you is your partner in what you are doing, and will show you how to use it. There is nothing in this world for us to defend ourselves against, or to use as if we were slaves. All the conditions and accidents and happiness as well as the troubles in life are things to be used, not forces to be resisted or to defend ourselves against
________ There are two things you want to keep in mind. Everything else will take care of itself. The first is that you never have any contact with anybody except in an atmosphere of consideration. This will save you from the mistake that is most general and makes most for mischief. It will save you from attributing motives. You can say anything or do anything to anybody if you will let their motives alone. This is because nobody can know what made another person do anything. Consideration for that other person is the surest safeguard for this particular thing
________ [21] You have an impulse to self-depreciation. I want you to know that this is sacrilegious. The loving Father made you and gave you particular gifts. For you to fail to reverence these because your disposition is to give other people the right of way is wrong. Never compare yourself with anybody except the Eternal. Recognize that other people have gifts, and thank God on their behalf. But always keep in mind that your job is to develop yourself and to follow your own best judgment. You have every reason to know that you have good gifts. Everybody likes you. You made good at school. The best exhibit of right living came to you when the school chose you for May Queen. None of these things is occasion for you to inflate yourself; they were given to you--you did not do it. But they are token that you have the right thing in you, and when you feel disposed to depreciate yourself, remember the tokens you received of appreciation. That is what these are for.
I want you to go into the school neither boasting nor afraid. It is impossible for you to think yourself superior to somebody else. I know your self-respect will always keep you from that kind of thing. But what you are in danger of is to go there and think everybody has everything that you have not. You are going there not to receive something, but to make your contribution.
So keep your eyes off other people. Play the game all the time so that nobody will have a right to accuse you. Then sing in your heart
________ [22] I wish I could sit down by you and tell you not to talk about "religion" at all. Religion is the exercise that you require of yourself in order to learn how to live.
The joy of living is in knowing that our Lord has changed human relations and that we bear the same relation to things physical that our Father bears. He will show us how to meet these, so that no matter how badly they hurt, they will end in benediction.
So don't talk about believing that loving the most people is the best thing to do. Recognize it as the only thing to do.
You know if there is anybody you do not love, it is like putting a bit of poison into your system. There is nobody living who is worth such damage to oneself, and nothing that anybody can do is reason for doing a thing that hurts you.
You cannot help loving people. Let it be for blessing. You have not got to make every soul your boon companion, but every soul is human and therefore beautiful.
Think about the beauty. I have an impression that if we could see only the beautiful things in life, nothing would ever go wrong.
What our Lord wants us to learn is that if there is anything ugly a man made it so. We want to keep our eyes off it and pray to Him that what seemed ugly may be turned into what is beautiful. Then we shall begin to live
________ [23] Don't make yourself unhappy wondering what the task is to which you ought to give yourself. It seems to me clear that just as the Kingdom of God is within one, so the task set for one is immediately at hand if he has eyes to see it.
Take things as they come, and above all profit by the long experience of another.
See to it that life is a joy as it passes. Don't mar this by being apprehensive for any cause.
I am certain that life is intended to be simple and that the complexities of human experience were intended to be kept on the outside of us and were provided in order that life might be continually interesting, and not to add to its burden.
There is real fun in finding answers to riddles, but there is no sort of pleasure in letting a riddle press on your neck because you cannot answer it
________ Meantime Pulpits and Personalities came and I have read it with keen interest. I think the Janitor did us all a good turn when he wrote that. I wish it would tempt people to realize that there is no occasion for heated controversies. The causes for disagreement would disappear if this Church could get rid of the impression that uniformity must be had as a divine obligation. Thank you very much for letting me see it
________ [24] All my life I have been trying to find what for lack of a better word I will call a rational basis for all the religious acts that are required of a Christian man. Any suggestion of an afterthought or supplementary demand seems to me to offend the majesty of the Eternal, and to think that the destiny of a creature who is made in God's image should depend on an accident has always offended me.
That God should repay a man for service is not to be thought, and I confess that the first glimmer I got of the significance of the Revelation was in Mr. Darwin's Origin of Species. That came to me just like a light in a dark place, and the more I have followed those men who have been working at the development of the physical universe, the more it has seemed to me that the glory
of man is that God touched his creature and made him able to think God; and the glory of the Incarnation is that the same God who made us showed Himself in the terms of His creature's limitations, in order that that creature might climb up to the place where he was destined to dwell.If I am right--and I believe it could be demonstrated by a man who had the wit we should find that our theological dogmas would have to be restated. I believe these are true, but they are stated in the terms of the understanding of the generation which put them into words. They want to be restated in the terms of present knowledge
________ [25] Everybody agrees that it goes without saying that we have never found an answer to a problem until the answer can be stated in positive terms
________ The "creed" is not a theological statement; it is a declaration of fact concerning the Revelation which is not only the reason for being of the Church, but the foundation upon which all the Church's teaching rests
________ Sometimes I get the impression that our Lord allows His servants to be sharers of His suffering in proportion to their ability to understand. Is not this the reason why being allowed to suffer is the highest honor that can be accorded to us?
However, it is into very deep places that such thoughts lead us. I suspect the most practical thing is for us to thank God that in our suffering we have been able to see the light, and our surest wisdom is to ask to be permitted to keep the impressions and the clear conviction that come to us in such experience
________ [26] I like to think of the birth of our Lord as the crowning act of creation in our physical world. I like to think that when He came the slate was washed clean and everything started off on a new basis; that humans are no longer part of the physical world; that they are grown up to take charge of it and to complete in the world what was in the mind of the Creator when it began.
This kind of feeling makes me thrill when I read the words that indicate that our Lord was in it from the beginning, and that all that preceded was preparation for His coming.
I like to think of the present as being the dispensation in which God Himself rules; the Kingdom of God is come. And I like to think of the challenge to man being that he accepts share as the controller of that which is preparing for what shall be.
This is the reason why I do not love to think of a Christian's resting any argument on what a man thought. I like to think of the normal and natural mental attitude of a man being the recognition of the necessity to go up where Christ is before he can think about anything.
Why isn't that better than to guess at things as though there had been no Revelation? Why isn't it better to think of a man's studying to learn how to accept life, and to think of life, and to understand life in the terms of the Revelation that was showed us in the Incarnate One, than studying to defend himself against physical things?
________ [27] I find myself having an increasing desire to help somebody to realize that the Word of God became incarnate first to offer Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of humankind, and then to make people able to live according to the law of their Father's life; after the Christ had given the ability to do this and had provided in Himself the food which would sustain in them the life that came down from heaven--thus making it possible for mortals to overcome in themselves those things which must perish, and attain to His completeness through faith in Him as the revealer of our Father's perfectness.
I know that I constantly reiterate this one thing, and I can easily understand how a reporter might fail to catch my meaning.
I am taking the trouble to say all this because I would not put the least obstacle in the way of anyone who is trying to be right. Most of all I do desire that everyone should know that what I say is in the last analysis only my best understanding of the truth that He wants all men to receive; so that if what I say offends the other man he may know that after all there is no occasion for offense, but rather sympathy for me that I cannot understand more definitely.
Now I know you are mad. Take a long breath and love me again and do what I say. Some day you will be very grateful________ [28] The older I grow the more I am persuaded that what the Church was created and sent to do was to proclaim the Incarnation, in order that all men might understand that they were no longer subject to physical conditions, but master of them.
Just because the Catholic Faith can only be declared in such a statement as includes no definition--infinite verity cannot be defined. The Revelation is a showing of infinite verity--it comes to be that the Catholic Faith is the acceptance of a fact in God's own act of creation, when the Word of God took our nature upon Him. And that is the Faith.
What the Faith means comes through experience. The Church is the teacher and shows its children how to develop a right experience. The measure of success in any man's life is his growing up into the likeness of the Word of God become flesh, just because the law of God's life is the law that is controlling this present time in which He is gathering together His elect.
What is the matter with that? Nobody believes it, and I cannot find anything that bears me out, but it seems to me to go without saying.
Throw this away if you want to. Don't bother with it--but I have got to say it!
Maybe you will know that the reason I cannot find any support for my position is because I am wrong; but I do not believe it
________ [29] Behind all this is that which is finished. The Incarnation has changed the nature of man, and the Eternal One has turned over to man the privilege of changing the direction of evolution
________ What we suffer from is the instinctive disposition of humans to get back to the jungle, and the hope of the future is in the fact that having got back to the jungle they cannot be happy there, but must return to the task of lifting the creation up.
It seems to me we see a token of this in so much talk about shortening the day's work; and in the amazing thing that they call technocracy.
I do not know what it signifies, but it seems to point to the fact that the formula men have been working at is about to be changed, and that having been changed in the light of men's experience will bring a result that is more in keeping with human aspirations
________ I cannot escape a feeling that the Church is responsible because it talks about religion instead of reminding men of the Faith; and a Christian man's faith is that there is actually a fact in the processes of life which a man can use for a starting point, knowing that starting from the fact the rest will have something to stand on
________ [30] Two things may be taken for granted; The first is that if the Old Testament means no more than it seems to mean to you, it would have been superseded long ago with the rest of the old documents. If Christianity were no more than it seems to be in your article, then it would have been outgrown.
What I want you to do,--not for your own sake but for other people's sake and just because as I said just now you seem to be a man of excellent gifts--is to lay down the working theory propounded by the Christ by the side of the theory that your statement would indicate, and ask yourself which is likely to survive.
Then I would beg you to look for the reason why the Christ's words carry with them the assurance of survival, and I believe you will find this suggested in the statement that was made long ago concerning Abraham when the record declares that the reason he left his people and went out not knowing wither he went was because he had finally reached the conclusion that nothing in the physical universe was great enough for a man to worship....
Forgive my obtruding myself. I should not have to apologize if you could know that the impression your argument made on me was not one of antagonism, but rather suggestion that great gifts were being wasted
________ [31] The older I grow the more I wish I had power to make people believe that the only thing that He made us need to do is to sit down at His feet and let Him tell us about it. The conditions of our world would drop into place as a timeclock.
Unless you are weary, may I propound another theory? You know for years I have been telling you that I was persuaded the word "religion" did more to hide our Lord and His incarnation from men who were trying to see Him than all the ungodliness and atheism. I am sure I am right.
Gradually it has been borne in upon me that the fundamental difficulty in this is that we talk about the Scriptures as religious books, and as books that reveal religion; so putting them in the same category as all the other speculations of the sages and the men whose spirits God has illumined.
I have come to the place where I am persuaded that the scriptures of neither the Old nor the New Testament ought to be regarded as religious. They are records of the facts concerning the evolution of human nature.
Think about this, and think of all the Old Testament being for the purpose of making clear the process by which humans grew up into knowing why the first verse of Genesis is true.
On the same basis read the New Testament as the record, not of something religious, but of the facts in God's creation. The Incarnation is the crown of the physical creation. The Incarnation is the announcement that the Kingdom of God is come. Everything is new and different. Man's relation to all creation is changed
________ [32] I am not in any way identified with the group to which you belong, but it seems to me that you have said most clearly and in a way that is very convincing what needs to be said....
While I do not believe that any of us has a technical right to the term "Catholic" as belonging to ourselves, your statement seems to me to be very properly described by this term.
Perhaps what gave me the most satisfaction was that evidently the man who wrote it was an American.
I wish all the men of your group could accept what you say con amore. They have it in their hands to render a great service not only to the Church but to the American people.
What grieves me is the fact that so often I get the impression that these men who claim for themselves a universal title should seem to have been stung by the bug of sectarianism. It is useless to say that there is no hope of the members of the Body of our Lord being made able to function normally as long as this poison is in the blood of it
________ In my judgment The Catholic Church is the only thing on the earth today that really matters....
I being judge, there is nothing of which the American people is more blissfully ignorant than of what the Catholic tradition is or means
________ [33] You know just as well as I do that there is but one Church. Our Lord Himself ordained it. That Church is the living witness to the Incarnation.
He Himself said it is going to be here bearing witness to the Incarnation until He comes to take charge of things Himself.
Meantime He never told anybody he had to think in the terms of men's definitions. He never told us that everybody had to do the same thing.
But He did say that the reason He established His Church was that by the very manifestation of it people would know that He is the Lord.
That is the reason why I am jealous when you put the emphasis on an accident.
If there is one thing the American people do not know anything about, it is the fact that Christ ordained and sent His Church, and you know as well as I do that you and I cannot establish a Church
________ The only proof we have that what we say is true is that the Church has said it
________ [34] Nothing is so apt to make on forget one's obligation to be kind as conscious security from the dangers or suffering of which one is spectator. So it is not to be wondered at that the Church also, being mortal, should in the security of her prerogative seem to lose sight of that which she would be quick to claim as her dearest privilege--the right to make her own the suffering of the most obscure, and to shed tears for the sin of the least one.
Long service makes it easy for the servant to lose sight of the fact that he is a servant, and to assume the attitude of master and dispenser; so it is not to be wondered at if the Church has at times acted as though she might in her own power pass judgment on human life; thus finding not excuse but necessity for hardness and cruelty.
We think of such things as belonging to the far away past, and happily the pushing back of man's horizon may be safely relied on to put an end to evil deeds receiving Christian sanction. And yet the same tendency will be present in human nature until the day dawns when all shall have come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, and it will be likely to find expression as long as there are timid or weak men who may find themselves clothed with authority; or where there may be one whose stupid ambition tempts him to appropriate the honor which belongs to his Lord. For it is pathetically true that the shortest road to unquestioned authority is by way of the ruthlessness which makes the weak ones afraid
________ [35] Without the circuit riders I do not see how the people in America could have been saved from paganism. All the other dear friends who have helped to build up the religious life of the American people have been able to do it because they always had something to push against. You and I believe that what men call the Protestant Episcopal Church stands for what from the beginning the Church has borne witness to. Why not call men's attention to this?
Why spend our time protesting against what somebody says or does that we do not believe the Church would stand for, and why waste our energy advertising the things that we believe militate against the Church's usefulness? Every man has a right to think for himself. What you and I are for is to call people's attention to the fact that if they want to know what is safe to believe concerning things that nobody can know, they should follow what the Church has taught through the ages.
Leave every man to express this in his own terms. You have no more quarrel with the Roman Church than you have with the Baptists, and you know they both minister to the building up of God's Kingdom.
But why should we quarrel with either because they do not know the best way? You and I know the best way--or think we do. Why not be content to proclaim it?
________ [36] The time has passed when there was any reason for disputation concerning what the Catholic Church teaches.
On this ground the Church has allowed the interpretation of the Faith as it is presented at St._'s, just because there is nothing of the Faith in the manner of interpreting it and men are differently constituted.
The Church has seen fit to allow it when men have brought back that which before what we call the Reformation was the uniform expression of the Faith.
When the Church separated itself from the Church of Rome because of the decree of the Council of Trent, certain things were omitted because they had been identified with superstitions. But the Church today seems to consider that the need for such discrimination has passed, and therefore it allows men to use such means of interpretation as in the past have found place in the Church, resting in the confidence that what is artificial will finally be outgrown.
I believe this is all to the good, because people are differently constituted. Maybe I think this because my spiritual health seems to be safeguarded by plainness. Father H. would starve if he could not have the accessories which help a man to give expression to those things which cannot be put into words
________ [37] When the time came that those who had companied with our Lord had passed, we find that the creed had been made more explicit in its terms, but this was always for the purpose of keeping clear "the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship."
When at last the Church emerged from the period in which the tradition of the Apostles had been the controlling influence, we find the Church definitely organized for work, with the Bishop's office as the center around which all was built up.
There had never been any question as to what the Faith was. Everywhere the Bishop's office was taken for granted as demonstration of the Church's unity in the Faith. This can be accounted for most simply on the theory that the Church had been led to create the office of Bishop in order that the Body might be articulate and so made able to bear witness to that which the Apostles had seen and heard.
This theory seems to be borne out by the fact that everywhere the same emphasis was put on the significance of the office of a Bishop. . . .
Everywhere and always the Bishop has assumed the obligation of witnessing to the "doctrine and fellowship of the Apostles." . . . Today the Bishop's office provides the only unanswerable proof of our Lord's life and resurrection. By the same token we know that the sacrament offered by the Church is the sacrament of our Lord
________ [38] I am not unmindful of the many accretions which have accumulated about the Bishop's office as time has elapsed. That is inevitable in human acts. These need not be considered because every one of them can be taken away before we can get back to the significance of the office of Bishop in the Church of God
________ As to the Church's order, I am more and more persuaded that the Bishop's office is the living witness to the resurrection of our Lord and to the truth of the Sacraments which He ordained.
As men speak, I do not see by what other means the living witness which He commanded His Church to bear could have been maintained.
If I am right then an end is put to questions as to various modes of administration, and whatever theories have been added as to the significance of the Church's ministry can be dismissed
________ In what I said about there being no need for a Church, I did not mean that there would be no organization of the people who accepted the Revelation. I was thinking of the Church as a created Body for the purpose of bearing witness to the Incarnation
________ [39] Let us begin with the fact upon which all agree; that the present distress in the world is due first of all to the unrepented sin of the Church in disregarding the Mind of the Church's Head. Time has proved that the divisions of the Church have resulted in the establishment of groups which are practically antagonistic. The consequence is that the Church cannot bear witness to the Revelation which He showed in His incarnation just because the world which He redeemed is confused by jangling voices which are trying to prove their own contention. This will continue until the Church learns that it is living in a state of sin, and repentance will have taught us all to substitute humility for pride.
The question is, how can we hope for the accomplishment of this which we all know must be before the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our God and of His Christ?
I am persuaded that . . . Christian men must learn to live in such fellowship that they will lose the disposition to prove themselves right and be consumed with a desire to find out why they disagree, so that they may be at one.
The sure hope that this is coming is the fact that the world is full of Christian men who long for this consummation and who are persuaded that the divisions of Christendom are not in accordance with the mind of our Lord
________ [40] As I understand it, the Word of God became incarnate for the purpose of making clear to human nature, so far as mortals may apprehend this, the truth about the eternal God: to show the human what is the truth about human relations to the Eternal and to the physical universe; to show man how a human lives who knows the truth; to make men able to be and to do what He showed; to give man power to do the work of a man.
In His showing the truth we have what the theologians call the Atonement. In making men able to live the truth we have what is meant by the redemption and the forgiveness of sins. Himself said that the Kingdom of God has come. It seems to me that this means because of the Revelation.
After He had finished His work He went away, leaving the Revelation which He had showed to the Body which He had created in His own likeness, and endowed with His power, and inspired with His Spirit, for the express purpose of bearing witness before all mankind to the Revelation which He had showed in His own Person.
If we may have an opinion this means to say that He bestowed upon human nature a new factor and showed man a new way to walk in--not new in the sense of different, but new in the sense of complete as compared with incomplete
________ [41] In the nature of the case the process by which human nature would grow up into His likeness would be age-long. Meantime that Body was to be the living witness that the Revelation was showed, and what was showed in the Revelation.
How could this be possible except the Body was articulate? And how can we think of the Body being articulate except in the Orders of the Church?
For instance, on Easter Day every minister of the Gospel will proclaim that Christ is risen again from the dead. How do we know it except as the living witness He ordained testifies to it--that is the Orders which have come down through the ages, standing for the same thing?
Next Sunday morning we shall all administer the Blessed Sacrament. How do we know that it is the Sacrament which He ordained, and that the Sacrament stands for what He declared, except in the Order which administers that Sacrament?
I confess I do not see any other means by which these essential values could be preserved. That is the reason why I believe that by His Spirit He taught the Church to constitute the Orders of the ministry
________ [42] My conviction [that Christ by His Spirit taught the Church to constitute the Orders of the ministry] is only the more fixed as we observe that the Church's order grew as everything that is natural grows. It did not begin fixed and established as though it were a mechanical performance. It grew up in the Church until finally the whole Church was administered by the Orders of the ministry which were finally accepted, and ever since this has been the basis on which we rested our case. Even the Bible itself is known and declared to be the Word of God because it has been safeguarded by the Church, just as the truth about the Resurrection and the Lord's Supper has been preserved.
Please be careful to note that in what I have said there is included no single thought concerning the saving of a man's soul. The individual is saved by his faith in Jesus, that He is the Christ; just as civilization, when it comes, will rest upon the same faith.
What I am concerned for is the preservation of the witness that the Church was ordered to bear to the fact that the Revelation was showed, and what the Revelation contained. I do not pretend to say that He might not have provided another means, but it does seem to me to be written so that one who runs may read that the Church has survived in spite of itself because the Orders of the Church have been the living witness to the truth committed to her keeping
________ [43] The conference at Lausanne to me was interesting chiefly in the fact that every company of Christians represented there declared their fidelity to the Catholic Faith, showing that fundamentally the Church is one.
The disagreement is caused by definitions. No definition can be a matter of faith.
Suppose that we could get rid of the heresy that the Church is here to save men's souls, and emphasize again the truth that the Church is here to help men whose souls are saved to live according to their birthright, don't you think it would be easier for men to get together to compare their definitions as to what the articles of faith mean and, through learning why they disagree, arrive at a statement to which all can subscribe?
If we could do this the question of the Church's orders and the Church's Sacraments, and the message the Church was sent to deliver would cease to be matters of discussion, and we should get down to the practical basis of finding how to present the truth entrusted to the Church, so that people could profit by it
________ [44] I believe that the greatest heresy that hinders the Church today is the belief that it is an organization to save men's souls from perdition. The Church never taught this, and I do not believe that individuals could consciously make such an assertion. But there is fixed too definitely in the minds of the unthinking that the only use they have for the Church and for the faith of a Christian is to serve them as insurance against the suffering which they know they deserve.
_____ Experience teaches me that when people begin to talk about things that do not matter, that one is fortunate who can keep his mouth shut! It breaks one's heart that in a time like this men can be disputing with such vehemence about things that nobody can know anything about and so diverting the thought of those who are uninformed from things that make for their peace. I fancy the Master must be sorely distressed. However the whole process of the human family has been marked by just this kind of stupidity, and still people continue to grow; so I suppose there is no occasion to be disturbed. We have rather a right to expect that He will make even this to praise Him
________ [45] Don't you quote me! I am in the bad books of many of my brethren and you must save my face.
But above all things keep in mind that though I have been a priest for fifty years, I have never yet wanted to contradict the axioms, or to set my private opinions against the wisdom of the Church through the ages
________ My difficulty is in the fact that all these statements seem to approach the thought of the Church from the point of view of an organization that men have created for the accomplishment of a purpose. This for me causes confusion which appears to me to make even a correct statement convey a wrong impression.
The more I think about it the more I am persuaded that the Church as the Christ created it can only be described as a body which grows by the accretion of individuals who identify themselves with the Christ.
So it seems to me the only definition I know of the Church that would serve is the whole body of faithful people. The names by which they identify themselves are an accident.
This Body cannot be divided. The Christ Himself said that it would remain until He comes. Division of the Body would mean death. The groups into which the Church finds itself divided come of differences of personal opinion as to what the Revelation means
________ [46] A large factor in the difficulty of the reunion of Christendom is in what we understand by the word "authority."
In some places in these statements authority seems to be understood as power to compel. So far as I can see, the authority given to the Church was exactly that with which Christ Himself spoke. He never used any power to compel; His authority was, as I have read somewhere, that of an expert
________ There are certain things that the whole Church must come to accept as matters of course before our Lord's wish can be entirely fulfilled. The whole Body must know that it is for the purpose of witnessing to the Incarnation. All must agree on what words mean. For instance, faith is one thing; the interpretation of the faith is another. The Church can never put these two things into the same category
________ One more thing: I believe the whole Church must come to realize that it was sent here to declare what God in Christ Jesus has done for human nature and not for the purpose of saving men's souls.
I am afraid I cannot make you understand. Be content to know that with all my heart I wish for the reunion of Christendom
________ [47] It does not seem to me a matter for argument that when Christendom presents a united front it must be on the basis of the Catholic tradition. All men must agree that what has always and everywhere been believed is the only foundation on which they can build, while they reserve the right which a man must claim of interpreting as he understands. Yet I suppose if there is any one thing that the Christian community in America, speaking generally, knows nothing about, nor cares anything for, it is the Catholic tradition.
And what troubles me most of all is that this Church seems consistently to teach that the Catholic tradition is of no significance. It seems to encourage people to think that private opinion is the final ground of decision.
I have been wondering why this should even seem to be true, and I believe it is due to what I am tempted to call the unfortunate habit that has grown up among us of quarrelling about matters that are indifferent. Just because the attention of everybody is so attracted by the disputations about definitions, and forms, and ceremonies, we are in real danger of leading the general public to suppose that the Catholic tradition is identified with Romanism; and of course if this is the only alternative thoughtful men can have no choice
________ [48] When I see men who have given themselves without reserve to the priest's office fighting one another because of the manner of administration, or on account of the terms they use or the vestments they wear, it distresses me the more because such argumentation only diverts their attention from essential things. If it were a matter of course that so long as the Book of Common Prayer is the norm men would in these things be guided by their own and the congregation's best judgment as to what will best serve the edification of the Church, would it not make for counsel instead of contention?
I do not suppose that there is any question that when the Church of England repudiated certain definitions and forbade certain practices it was because the time required it; not because the Church in England had any idea of breaking away from Catholic tradition. What the Church in England decided then time has justified, and for me the decision is as valuable now as then; but many disagree with me. They think the new day demands much that was laid aside then, and have brought back again many of those things which the Church in England saw fit to discard; and nobody would dare to say that these men are not faithful.
Why cannot the whole matter be lifted out of the realm of contention, leaving the question of difference of opinion and practice to be settled by experimentation, on the general principle that what is true will survive and what is artificial will be sloughed off?
[49] I am perfectly certain you are right when you speak of the lack of influence the Church exerts. For years I have been trying to find an answer to that question. More and more it has been borne in upon me that the reason for the Church's lacking influence is largely due to the fact that unconsciously she is propagating a system of theology and not the Faith.
I was almost convinced that this was the truth the other day when talking to a gentleman almost my own age who has been a devout communicant of the Church since his youth. I was impressed by his seeming evidently at a loss when in the course of our conversation question was raised as to the difference between the Buddha and the Christ. His uncertainty made me wonder if after all we were not offering to the people a system of religion which might save their skins instead of challenging them to demonstrate in their own lives what the Christ has showed us just because they know He has saved them from their sins
________ [50] The reason why the Church is in the world today without seeming to have any positive influence on public opinion is just because it has been diverted from the purpose for which it was created and sent, to an association of individuals bent on getting something for themselves. I know that when people have found out that the only way by which they can show their own high thanksgiving for the Gift that has been given them in the revelation of the Word of God, is by devoting themselves to sharing in proclaiming that Revelation, the Church will become an evidently positive force in the building of civilization.
Nor do I know any way by which people can do this more surely than by making the offerings they devote to the propagation of the Gospel the definite expression of their high appreciation of the liberty that Christ gave them.
Keep it up. Keep on having your missions, and some day the people who jeer at you will come and beg your pardon and thank you for having opened their eyes
________ I think I was born a gambler because I fancy it is the gambler's instinct in me that has made me have so much fun. Many a time I have been in a place where it looked as if I were going into a pit, and I believe the best thing in my life is that I can recall such occasions with keenest satisfaction, just because I did not get panic stricken
________
[51] It will all blow over; I suppose it is finished now. Of course the newspapers never got it straight, though they had enough truth to go on to float the reports.
I suppose it is over now, but I feel as if I need a ton of disinfectant. I have been smelling bad smells so long that I have almost forgotten the natural fragrance of things. Happily the Church cannot be smashed by these witless performances, and somehow good will come out of this also
________ You make me laugh when you demonstrate that the world is upside down. It is just because it is so completely topsy-turvy that I feel as if the time had come for a change. As men speak, nothing but imbecility could get the country into the condition that it is in, so I conclude it is the Almighty doing it Himself. I know this is not a degenerate people, and yet the performances lately are the perfect demonstration of degeneracy. This is so complete that it seems to me the Almighty Himself is showing people what fools they are. The only thing we can reasonably say we know is that the earth is going to keep on revolving; which means that when He has shaken the people hard enough He will give them another chance.
The same One Who brought the earth out of chaos rules it, and He is the Father of mankind. Meantime if, as the Loving One promised should happen, we should be ground up into bits, this also is perfectly all right. He will put us together again presently. Why not keep smiling? [Written in 1936.]
________ [52] Some newspaper charged the Church with being colorless and insisting on remaining on the fence. My comment was born of the knowledge that I have that if one refuses to become an advocate he is bound to be charged with having no opinion, and this is just as true for the Church as it is for the individual. But I glory in the fact that hitherto the Church has had the courage to stand for the truth for which it was sent to bear witness and has refused to become an advocate of any opinion with regard to that truth.
It is inevitable that groups will be formed within the Church which contend mightily for their private opinion, and I suppose this is essential for development; nor can any harm come of it as long as everybody can keep sharp distinction between the truth which cannot be defined and the definitions which individuals must formulate in order to think clearly
________ The book...was amazingly useful, but I got from it the impression that it was written from the viewpoint of a man becoming religious. It seems to me that the ideal is that a man should never find out whether or not he is religious, but should, just as the normal expression of himself, go after the thing that is beautiful and worth while
________ [53] I believe we may as well try to legislate out of existence the plague of yellow fever. Scourges have been more or less eliminated because we found out the bug that caused them; and it seems to me that war is in the same category
________ Of course war is in the face of the revelation showed us in the person of Jesus Christ, but as E. S. Martin said once in an editorial, we are apt to forget that the spirit of peace is identified with the spirit of truth, and the spirit of truth will never allow peace to prevail until truth prevails. Furthermore, the increasing effort on the part of religious organizations to control legislation fills me with dread. I do not believe that the Churches, as such, can know what is the best thing
________ I have your circular inviting me to add my name to the open letter it is proposed to send to the people of Japan. . . . I do not quarrel with what you would like, but to send a letter to a foreign government saying that American citizens take issue with the government that the American people have set up, somehow offends me. By what token can any individual know why the government sees fit to pursue a particular policy?
________ [54] The simple fact that what He said appeals to the highest and best in us does not signify simply because this may be a matter of temperament or development. Other men in other ages and environments have demonstrated the same thing far and away beyond the apprehension of their contemporaries; but coming ages have found this insufficient simply because the experience of men outgrew it. How do we know that this will not be the case again?
For instance, how do we know that what we read in the paper this morning is not an advance on what you have been teaching, when men in Moscow declared that dedication to the service of humanity was higher than any conception of any deity?
In other words, have we got a safe starting point anywhere except in the absolute, and is there any absolute except in the One who created us? May we expect the mind of the Creator to be perfectly showed in any created thing, however lift-up that creature may be above his fellows?
________ [55] I cannot understand it. Sometimes I think if we could know the reason why He lets us be ground up, we should enjoy so being ground. But He knows what He is doing, and maybe the most useful thing of all is in learning how to be glad of the grinding without knowing why it is done. Certainly He knows about it, and certainly He never lets anything go to waste. But knowing this does not relieve me of my distress at being unable to be of any use to you.
He will give you the courage to endure, and you will find that after all if one will stand still, he will see how God has taken care of him. The difficulty is in being able to stand still. I wish I could make you able to know just how to do that, but I cannot. All I can say is--God help you!
________ I have thought about you oftentimes, and when I read your letter I was the more interested because it showed what one comes at last to believe the surest mark of human intelligence--the power to become a part of the situation into which one happens to fall. I am glad this is true for you because I know how it makes you forget that the burden you carry is a very considerable weight
________ [56] As a matter of fact, a man is shut up to the facts that confront him, and the only thing we can do is the best we can as the days come one after another. It is good to know that the One we serve is always present with understanding sympathy to show us how to do what He has set us to do. I believe that the most one can do when any condition confronts him is to be sure that he will receive con amore that which circumstances seem to require.
My experience leaves the impression that our great difficulty is that it is so easy to conclude that the thing we want to do is the thing that He has set for us to do. Nor do I know how to safeguard this. The farthest I have got is that we shall do the best we can not to make a choice until we know what we have got to do, continually petitioning Him to save us from deceiving ourselves.
I have gone on this basis many years. After the event many times I have wondered whether I was successful in having no choice except that which He made for me. But life's experience is convincing witness that He has never been indifferent but has always stood by and converted even a man's folly into means for accomplishing the thing which He had sent him to do. It is good to think about.
I know I am right in this; so I look forward with perfect contentment, knowing that the rest of my days He will save me from doing a thing that will contradict what I have stood for, and that is about all anybody could ask
________ [57] The strangest thing in life is that I can look back over all the course I have come, where nothing with which I have been identified has actually come to fruition, and can recall it all, even the blunders, with keenest pleasure
________ My opinions seem to be crystallizing into convictions--though for one to talk about having convictions concerning a thing nobody can know anything about is a pretty bold statement.
But I have long been under the impression--and today it seems to be approaching demonstration--that it is a waste of time to talk about anything that is out of joint as the result of the evil doing of people. I know it is a form of words we have been using for a long time, and words we use so necessarily give color to our point of view. But as I think about the present amazing situation, it seems to me to be an exhibit of the fashion in which the best that people could think has been worked out to a conclusion, and the conclusion necessarily proves that their formula was not correct. I feel this because people seem to be so good and so universally are striving to get things right. The clamor that is raised up by the heedless and the irresponsible deceives us, and we think that they are the people who are doing things. All the time direction is being given to the development of society by those who are working over time to find a solution of the problem and who have no time for the clamor and the noise
________ [58] It breaks my heart to read about your personal anxieties. I do not know what to say. Looking back I can recall the time when I knew just the apprehension you are feeling, and I can say to you that when in my emergency I fell back on the letter of the contract, and remembered that He had bound Himself to see me through if I stuck to my side of the bargain and was busy to do what He told me in the way He said it was to be done, it turned out all right. I have stood on the brink of precipices where I knew I was going to be pushed over, and where it was perfectly clear that if I went I should be broken; but somehow I never went over. I could a tale unfold if I had time; but all this makes me know that if you will sit tight and do it the way He says to do it, the rest will be taken care of. I know this is perfectly easy for a man by himself, and I know how hard it is to suffer in the person of another; but your wife is your partner, and I am ready to gamble on the fact that she will never squeal if you do not lose courage
________ A scientific training must of necessity make men apprehend finally what a man's life is for; but I find myself almost impatient. I am getting old, and I am sometimes afraid that humans will not arrive at the understanding of what is the mark of human intelligence before I am gone, and I want to be here when humans have finally found out that human life and mechanical operations are not in the same category
________ [59] I like to think of the faith of a Christian as conviction concerning a fact in history: that God manifested Himself in His Son in order that a man might know what a man is like and what is a man's relation to God; that God in Christ has bestowed upon human nature the same power which God uses and which our Lord taught us to call the Holy Ghost
________ I have come on the days when I am happy in being able to do what I have to do. . . . The nearer one comes to the end of his day's work, the more desirable seems to be the opportunity to tell people, whether they hear or not, what is the way to go in.
You have a pleasant anticipation in coming to the end of your day's work and knowing that the only thing to be regretted is that your own limitations have hindered you from availing yourself more profitably of the privilege that was bestowed upon you when you were entrusted with the care of the priest's office.
I am telling you all this that you may have it surely fixed in your mind, because as I look back I find myself more and more amazed that when I was confronted with the passing contradictions I allowed them to affect the serenity of me. The real thing life brings is the privilege of reaching out your hand to the person who needs the kind of help that none but our Lord can give
________ [60] Have no fear of "annoying little things" disturbing us. The fact is this sort of thing never comes into the office. It has a quality of enlarging whatever comes, so that in this place we deal only with greatness
________ He did not come groping as mortals grope, striving for the light. He is the Master come into His own, to show those whom He created the truth of that nature which we call human, but which He showed to be the manifestation of the Father in physical conditions
________ I never came into the clear light until I knew that the witness the Church has borne through the ages was not figuratively but literally true. He is the Word of God Incarnate. Easter will show you, and then you will know how much more beautiful are all the things you have written than you thought they were
________ We have nothing to do with what may hit us. It is bad business even to think about it because it keeps one from enjoying the present minute. But all will be well, and I can think of no better satisfaction in a man's life than to know when the end comes that he never squealed. That is what I am hoping for, and you and I will applaud each other.
_______ [61] A very little boy who had expected to see Bishop Lloyd at a confirmation service expressed his disappointment as follows:--
"No! That wasn't the Bishop! He had on the Bishop's clothes, but he wasn't the Bishop. The Bishop would look right at me and he would say, 'God bless you, little man.' "
The general order followed in the arrangement of these extracts is as follows:--
I-Helpful Counsels of general application, pp. 5-7
II-The Bishop's attitude towards children, and impressions received in his own childhood, pp. 8, 9.
III-Counsels to adolescents approaching confirmation, pp. 10-17.
IV-Pastoral Counsels of encouragement and advice, pp. 18-24.
V-Theological Reflections and Observations on the nature and mission of the Church,
its organization and the causes of dissention among its members, and factors which make for unity.1 The Creed, and suffering as a help to understanding, p. 25.
2 The Incarnation, and the conquest revelation of man's relation to the universe, pp. 26, 27, 29, 30, 40
3 The Incarnation and the Jungle, p. 29.
4 The Church.
Its character and a definition, pp. 44, 45
Its origin, p. 33
Its organization, pp. 37, 38, 42.
Its Mission, pp. 27, 33, 38, 41, 42.
A Misconception, (Suppose that we could get rid of the heresy that the Church is here to save men's souls.), pp. 43, 44
The Antidote, (The individual is saved by his faith in Jesus, that He is The Christ.), pp. 42, 46.[63] INDEX OF ARRANGEMENT 5 The Bishop's Office, pp. 37, 38.
6 The Church and the Churches, p. 35.
Faults of the Church, pp. 29, 49, 50.
Glory of the Church, p. 52.
Unity of the Church, pp. 34, 39, 43.
Nature of Authority, p. 46.
The Root of Dissention, pp. 28, 35, 42, 44, 47, 48. Tolerance, pp. 35, 36.VI-The Catholic Tradition.
What it is not, pp. 43, 44, 45.
What it is, pp. 45, 47.VII-Miscellany.
Changing Standards and the need of the Absolute as a final determinant, p. 54.
The Scriptures as a test for Philosophical Speculation, p. 30.
The Scriptures not religious books, nor records of religion revealed,
but records of the facts concerning the evolution of human nature, p. 31.
The Religious Man, pp. 31, 52.
A World upside down, p. 51.
War and Peace, p. 53.
Uses of Adversity, p. 55.
Guidance, p. 56.VIII-The Bishop, p. 61.