H. M._

Ivy House, Holkham: September 1, 1892.

The sacraments are tremendous realities to me, just because they are a
living protest against all Popish, High Church, Low Church schemes of
thought--because they are a protest that man does nothing, God does
all--that everything is a sacrament of the grace of God. They explain
all life to me. They teach me what love means, for when man might least
expect it, love comes deluging in, and the outward and visible is
overwhelmed with the inward and spiritual. Oh, if bread and wine and
water are capable of being transformed into the highest means of grace
and hopes of glory; may not living, human, breathing persons--may not
those {77} I love--be sacraments as well? When we come near human beings
we love, we should come with the same feelings of reverence as when we
kneel at that altar, for we are coming to that which is part of God's
image--made in His likeness. And as we speak to them, when they answer
purely and simply, the Word of God speaks through them. This is not
degrading the sacraments--nay, but raising all human life--nay, raising
the sacraments as well, for it brings them into relation with real life,
and transforms the poor magical abstractions into eternal realities.

_To W. A. B., who had told him that he had made up his mind to take up
school work till he was old enough to be ordained._

Holkham: September 3, 1892.

A home circle reminds me, I think, more than anything else of that other
home, that other family--the home of a Father and of a Son, the family
circle of the Three who live in one unity. We should thank God for every
family circle on earth into which we are allowed to enter, and in whose
life He allows us to share--for any true family on earth--yes, and every
little child who is born into this strange world of ours is a sure and
certain pledge--a real sacrament--that God loves us still, has not
forgotten us, is giving us little glimpses into His own family life, is
making existence here a more perfect image of life in heaven. We should
come into such a family circle with the same feelings of awe as when we
bend on our knees to receive the Holy Communion. For here, too, we enter
into Holy Communion--the {78} communion of simple, human, happy family
life; here, too, we approach a sacrament, outward and visible signs of
happy, quiet, home life--the signs of an inward and spiritual grace--the
grace which lies below and interprets all huma