eads 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 mediaeval 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 Regime_. 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
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