AUGUST 29. Truth scarce ever carried it by vote at its first appearance: new opinions are suspected and opposed without other reason, but because they are not already common. But truth, like gold, is not the less so for being newly brought out of the mine; though not yet current by the public stamp, it may be as old as nature, and not the less genuine. John Locke, born Aug. 29, 1637. True Christian consistency implies progress in knowledge and holiness, and such changes as are demanded by increasing light. Charles G. Finney, born Aug. 29, 1792. AUGUST 30. The influence of names is in exact proportion to the want of knowledge. AUGUST 31. He that is down needs fear no fall; He that is low, no pride; He that is humble ever shall Have God to be his guide. John Bunyan, died Aug. 31, 1688, aged 60. SEPTEMBER 1. To enforce the sense of duty; to strengthen the will; to kindle the flame of religious affection; to turn the thoughts to whatever is pure, honest, lovely and of good report; to make Sunday last through the week; to bring consolation to sorrow; to organize charity; to stimulate Christian activity; to summon youth to holy living and brave dying; to drive clouds of darkness from the ways of men and from the wayside; to bring the kingdom of God into the world; these are the functions of the Christian priesthood. George Frisbie Hoar, born Aug. 29, 1826. SEPTEMBER 2. Patience hath a countenance serene, a forehead smooth, with no wrinkle of grief or anger, eyes cast down in humility, not in melancholy. Her mouth beareth the seal of honorable silence. Her clothing about her bosom is white, and closely fitted to the body, neither puffed out nor ruffled. She sitteth on the throne of the gentle Spirit, who is not in the whirlwind, nor in the black cloud, but in the still, small voice, such as Elijah heard at the third time. (I. Kings xix. 12). Tertullian, 160-230. SEPTEMBER 3. John Howard (born Sept. 2, 1726, died Jan. 20, 1790) visited all Europe to dive into the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the infection of hospitals, to survey the mansions of sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression and contempt, to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. Edmund Burke. The want and injustice of the present social state are not necessary. Taking men in the aggregate, their condition is as they make it. Economic law and moral law are essentially one. Henry George, born Sept. 2, 1830. SEPTEMBER 4. To be catholic, and remain a Protestant, is the real thing for mankind. Louis A. Thiers, died Sept. 3, 1877, aged 80. For my own person I never touched a penny which I had not earned by my own honest work, nor ever shall. Louis Kossuth. SEPTEMBER 5. I seek to imitate the modern. Socrates. At five and twenty, he (Benjamin Franklin) formed the design of becoming perfectly wise. I dared to undertake the same thing, though not twenty. Humanity is the aggregate of all human beings, past, present, future. Solidarity and continuity are essential attributes of "The Religion of Humanity." The dead live again. In some the soul of Plato or of Jesus is risen. Auguste Comte, died Sept. 5, 1857, aged 59. SEPTEMBER 6. The highest humanity is the highest Christianity. Parts of the Divine Nature are beyond our reach. It is impossible to be like God in His infinity, omniscience; but it is possible to be like Christ in sincerity, courage, faith, purity, love. And if we make the struggle, the Christian life may be one long epiphany, a continually brightening manifestation of God in our souls. The earthly manifestation of the Fatherhood of God is the brotherhood of men. The picture the prophet of the future presents (Isaiah xi. 13) is not of a world in which Judah and Ephraim cease to exist, but of a world in which Ephraim will no longer vex Judah, nor Judah envy Ephraim. It supposes not the extinction of varieties among Christians, but their co-operation. Edwin Hatch, born Sept. 4, 1835. SEPTEMBER 7. The Twentieth century begins with a new conception of Catholicity. Uniformity of doctrine is impossible, the solitary prevalence of one denomination undesirable. man who knows only his fellow-religionists is like one who studies himself in a mirror. The Sixteenth century was the era of reformation; the Seventeenth of separation; the Eighteenth of toleration; the Nineteenth of religious equality. Some of us believe and desire that the Twentieth may be the century of reunion. Alexander Mackennal. SEPTEMBER 8. Next to the fugitives Moses led out of Egypt, the little shipload of outcasts who landed at Plymouth are destined to influence the history of the world. The spiritual thirst of mankind has for ages been quenched at Hebrew fountains, but the embodiment in human institutions of truths uttered by the Son of Man was to be mainly the work of Puritan thought and devotion. There can be no nobler aim or more practical wisdom than to make the law of man a living counterpart of the law of God. J. R. Lowell. |