Part 9

The Service of God, CANON BARNETT.

"I believe that the mind can be profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality."

THOREAU.

Triviality

JANUARY 29

"They that use to employ their Minds too much upon Trifles, commonly make themselves incapable of any Thing that is Serious or Great."

LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.

"Be still and cool in thy own mind and spirit from thy own thoughts, and then thou wilt feel the principle of God to turn thy mind to the Lord, from whom cometh life; whereby thou mayest receive the strength and power to allay all storms and tempests. That is it which works up into patience, innocency, soberness, into stillness, staidness, quietness up to God, with His power. Therefore mind; that is the word of the Lord God unto thee, that thou mayest feel the authority of God, and thy faith in that, to work down that which troubles thee; for that is it which keeps peace, and brings up the witness in thee, which hath been transgressed, to feel after God with His power and life, who is a God of order and peace."

GEORGE FOX.

"It is not sin so much as triviality which hides God."

The Service of God, CANON BARNETT.

The Art of being Quiet

JANUARY 30

"It is only when we begin to think about life, and how we should live, that the art of being quiet assumes its real value; to the irrational creature it is nothing, to the rational it is much. In the first place, it removes what De Quincey, with his usual grand felicity of expression, calls 'the burden of that distraction which lurks in the infinite littleness of details.' It is the infinite littleness of details which takes the glory and the dignity from our common life, and which we who value that life for its own sake and for the sake of its great Giver must strive to make finite.

"Since unconscious life is not possible to the intellectual adult, as it is to the child--since he cannot go on living without a thought about the nature of his own being, its end and aim--it is good for him to cultivate a habit of repose, that he may think and feel like a man putting away those childish things--the carelessness, the thoughtless joy, 'the tear forgot as soon as shed,' which, however beautiful, because appropriate, in childhood, are not beautiful because not appropriate in mature age.

"The art of being quiet is necessary to enable a man to possess his own soul in peace and integrity--to examine himself, to understand what gifts God has endowed him with, and to consider how he may best employ them in the business of the world. This is its universal utility. It is unwholesome activity which requires not repose and thoughtful quiet as its forerunner, and every man should secure some portion of each day for voluntary retirement and repose within himself."

The Art of being Quiet

JANUARY 31

"One of the special needs of our day is more time for meditation and reflection."

Life Here and Hereafter, Canon MACCOLL.

"We are too busy, too encumbered, too much occupied, too active! We read too much! The one thing needful is to throw off all one's load of cares, of preoccupations, of pedantry, and to become again young, simple, child-like, living happily and gratefully in the present hour. We must know how to put occupation aside, which does not mean that we must be idle. In an inaction which is meditative and attentive the wrinkles of the soul are smoothed away, and the soul itself spreads, unfolds, and springs afresh, and, like the trodden grass of the roadside or the bruised leaf of a plant, repairs its injuries, becomes new, spontaneous, true, and original. Reverie, like the rain of night, restores colour and force to thoughts which have been blanched and wearied by the heat of the day. With gentle fertilising power it awakens within us a thousand sleeping germs, and, as though in play, gathers round us materials for the future, and images for the use of talent."

Amiel's Journal.

Inward Stillness

February 1

"Let each of us sit still, and keep watch for awhile in the silent house of his spirit.... As near as is the light to one sleeping in the light, so near is Christ, the Awakener, to every Eternal man, deeply as he may be asleep within his outer man."

JOHN PULSFORD.

"Let us then labour for an inward stillness, An inward stillness and an inward healing; That perfect silence where the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, But God alone speaks in us, and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our own spirits, That we may do His will, and that only."

LONGFELLOW.