te death; to them there is no death, but only a change of place, a
change of state; they pass at once into some new life, with all their
powers, all their feelings, unchanged; still the same living, thinking,
active beings which they were here on earth. I say active. Rest they
may, rest they will, if they need rest. But what is true rest? Not
idleness, but peace of mind.

_Water of Life Sermons_. 1862.

An absolutely Good God. November 8.

Fix in your minds--or rather ask God to fix in your minds--this one idea
of an absolutely good God; good with all forms of goodness which you
respect and love in man; good, as you, and I, and every honest man,
understand the plain word good. Slowly you will acquire that grand and
all-illuminating idea; slowly and most imperfectly at best: for who is
mortal man that he should conceive and comprehend the goodness of the
infinitely good God! But see, then, whether, in the light of that one
idea, all the old-fashioned Christian ideas about the relation of God to
man--whether Providence, Prayer, Inspiration, Revelation, the
Incarnation, the Passion, and the final triumph of the Son of God--do not
seem to you, not merely beautiful, not merely probable, but rational, and
logical, and necessary, moral consequences from the one idea of an
Absolute and Eternal Goodness, the Living Parent of the universe?

_Westminster Sermons_. 1873.

Nature's Lesson. November 9.

Learn what feelings every object in Nature expresses, but do not let them
mould the tone of your mind; else, by allowing a melancholy day to make
you melancholy, you worship the creature more than the Creator.

_MS. Letter_. 1842.

Morals and Mind. November 10.

Not upon mind, not upon mind, but upon morals, is human welfare founded.
The true subjective history of man is not the history of his thought, but
of his conscience: the true objective history of man is not that of his
inventions, but of his vices and his virtues. So far from morals
depending upon thought, thought, I believe, depends on morals. In
proportion as a nation is righteous--in proportion as common justice is
done between man and man, will thought grow rapidly, securely,
triumphantly; will its discoveries be cheerfully accepted and faithfully
obeyed, to the welfare of the whole common weal.

_Inaugural Lecture_, _Cambridge_. 1860.

Fastidiousness. November 11.

Do not let us provoke God (though that is _really_ imp