begin now...

Greetings from South Dakota.  My children and I arrived yesterday for a stay of nine days or so.  As always, it is a blessing to be home.  On the plane rides yesterday, I started reading the "Memoirs of Rufus Ellis" who has made several appearances in this space. The next few days will feature Rev. Ellis. Today, however, I post James Freeman Clarke's "Message of Faith Hope and Love" for July 20th.  As always, his mixture of practical common sense and true piety have deep appeal...

"LET us hold to all that we are able to see of spiritual realities, and so learn to believe and know more. If we cannot believe in the whole Bible, let us believe in a part of it. If we cannot believe in the miracles of Christ, let us believe in his goodness. If the sayings of Paul are dark, let us read the Sermon on the Mount and the parable of the Good Samaritan. If we cannot accept Christianity as a supernatural religion, let us hold fast to it as the best of all natural religions. If we cannot resist and conquer all the temptations that beset us, let us resist and deny all that we can. Begin now, begin to-day, with the determination to do all you can, to have all the faith and hope and love you can, and trust that your heavenly Father will give you help and power and strength to conquer at last all evil, and to gain all good. This is only common sense applied to religion. If I wish to climb Mount Shasta or the peak of Chimborazo, I do not satisfy myself by looking up, and saying, "What an inaccessible summit! " but I go up the mountain, step by step. So let us begin the long but grand ascent which leads to the love of God and love of man."


Blessings
(photo:  Mt. Shasta)

transfigured...

The state that James Freeman Clarke describes in today's "Message of Faith, Hope and Love" (also posted  at "Wonderful Epoch." is indeed a blessed one.  It also sometimes seems far away...

"AND so, sometimes, Christ becomes transfigured to us, as he once was to Peter and John. Sometimes we see him and understand him far better than at other times. Our hearts burn within us as he talks with us. He opens to us the Scriptures. Technicalities fall away. We do not ask any theological questions about Jesus, whether he was Son of God or of man, natural or supernatural. But we seem to see our Master and Friend as Stephen saw him, a dear human face, a look of compassionate tenderness to us, a pity for our temptations and sins, a divine heart, full of God, yet a human heart, all manhood, too. And the Scriptures grow clear in such moments, grow intensely interesting. Whereas they were before dull, now every word is filled with fresh life. The Bible becomes transfigured: it is like earth in this springtime, every part swelling into leaves and blossoms, every part instinct with life. We study the words of the Bible, always expecting to find something new in them."

Have a Blessed Sabbath

a living perpetual epistle...

I was very gratified to receive yesterday an email from a minister, not Unitarian, who discovered James Freeman Clarke through this space. Readers of this blog and of Wonderful Epoch, know of the importance of JFC in my own spiritual and religious life.  One of the many reasons this is so was his true ecumenical spirit both within Unitarianism and the larger body of Christ.  He embodied a spirit of Christian unity that is all too sadly lacking. James Freeman Clarke died on this day in 1888.  These words were spoken in a sermon by the great Boston Episcopalian preacher Phillips Brooks shortly after JFC's death...

" He belonged to the whole Church of Christ. Through him his Master spoke to all who had ears to hear. Especially, he was a living perpetual epistle to the Church of God which is in Boston. It is a beautiful, a solemn moment when the city, the Church, the world, gather up the completeness of a finished life like his, and thank God for it, and place it in the shrine of memory, to be a power and a revelation thenceforth so long as city and Church and world shall last. It is not the losing, it is rather the gaining, the assuring, of his life. Whatever he has gone to in the great mystery beyond, he remains a word of God here in the world he loved. Let us thank our Heavenly Father for the life, the work, the inspiration, of his true servant, his true saint, James Freeman Clarke."

Blessings

Why I love James Freeman Clarke...

Today's reading from JFC's "Messages of Faith, Hope and Love" (also posted at Wonderful Epoch)

"WE may throw ourselves away; but God will not throw us away. We belong to him still; and he "gathereth up the fragments which remain, that nothing be lost." In order to become pure, we may need sharp suffering; and then God will not hesitate to inflict it. In the other life, as in this, he will chasten us, not for his pleasure, but for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness. It is thus that God's love for the soul, and its worth, appear eminently, in that he will not let us destroy ourselves. When we pass into the other world, those who are ready, and have on the wedding-garment, will go in to the supper. They will find themselves in a state of being where the faculties of the body are exalted and spiritualized, and the powers of the soul are heightened; where a higher truth, a nobler beauty, a larger love, feed the immortal faculties with a divine nourishment; where our imperfect knowledge will be swallowed up in larger insight; and communion with great souls, in an atmosphere of love, shall quicken us for endless progress. Then faith, hope, and love will abide,— faith leading to sight, hope urging to progress, and love enabling us to work with Christ for the redemption of the race."


Blessings

use it or lose it...

James Freeman Clarke's "Message of Faith, Hope, and Love" (regularly posted over at Wonderful Epoch) for today is a classic statement of Unitarian self-culture...

"MAN has faculties by which he perceives God, duty, and immortality. But these faculties must be exercised, or they lose their power. The more we exercise the spiritual faculty, the more certain do spiritual things become. He who habitually obeys conscience sees more and more clearly the eternal distinction between right and wrong. To him who constantly looks forward with trust to a future life, immortality becomes more and more certain. The pure in heart who habitually look up to a heavenly ideal of goodness see God more and more. He who trusts in Providence comes to stand so firmly on that rock that no doubt can disturb, no disappointment shake his confidence that all things are working together for ultimate good. If a man does not use his spiritual powers, he gradually loses them."

Blessings

worship in spirit and truth...

Last week marked the anniversary of the founding of James Freeman Clarke's influential "Church of the Disciples."  Following is an excerpt from their "Service Book"-Introductory Sentences and Hymns for Morning Prayer. 

"The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a spirit, and they who worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Minister. Lift up your hearts.
Congregation, rising. We lift them up unto the Lord.

Ancient of Days.

Come, thou all-gracious Lord,
By heaven and earth adored,
Our prayer attend;
Come, and thy children bless;
Give thy good word success;
Make thine own holiness
On us descend.

Never from us depart;
Rule thou in every heart,
Hence, evermore.
Thy sovereign majesty
May we in glory see,
And to eternity
 Love and adore."

Have a blessed Sabbath everyone

the better resurrection...

These words from an Easter Sermon by James Freeman Clarke.  May everyone have a truly blessed Easter.

"WE, to-day, dear friends, enter into this region of faith. We also are risen with Christ. We sit in heavenly places with him. For heaven is not a place far off, above the skies, somewhere outside of the orbit of Saturn and Neptune; but it is a world of spiritual life all around us. Christ has abolished death to all who believe in him. Those who believe in him do not die : they go on, they go in, they go up.

While the disciples at Emmaus were talking with their Master, their eyes were opened, and they knew him. While we talk with Jesus on this Easter Sunday, our eyes are opened, and we know him. He is our friend, the friend of every soul that needs him. He is the friend of every poor, sinful, broken heart that thinks it has no friend on earth. He is the friend of all who wish to have his help. The true Christ is not in the past: he is here. He is not dead and gone : behold 1 he is alive forevermore. He has not come merely to give us a right to be with him in some future heaven. He has brought heaven down to us here. He is with us always, even to the end of the world.

Therefore, on this Easter Sunday morning, while its sun shines so brightly around us, let us all thank God, and take courage. Let us not look backward, but forward; not downward, but upward; not be desponding, but hopeful. Are there any of us here who feel lonely, bereaved, desolate ? Behold! the heavens are opened, and an innumerable company of friends are waiting for you to welcome you when you go up, and lead you to him who liveth and was dead, and is alive forevermore. Are there any of us who are hesitating to do what we know to be right, not ready yet to do our duty, still postponing till to-morrow what we ought to do to-day ? Let us on this bright Easter morning begin to do our work in full faith that God will enable us to accomplish it in this or in some other world. O weary heart, arise and be strong ! Sad soul, be glad to-day, for Christ has arisen ! Sinful soul, turn to God, and forsake your sins, and be made alive ! Take part in the better resurrection, which lifts out of evil into good. Make this day the beginning of a new life, which shall never know any end, but shine brighter to the perfect day."

Blessings
(Painting is "Christ on the Road to Emmaus" by Roghman Roelant

let your speech be always with grace...

 A devout Catholic friend of mine visited our church yesterday morning because I was preaching and then, before church, a woman who is fairly new to our community pulled me aside and said, "I really like this church, and I wonder, do Unitarians believe in God?, because I do sometimes."  We had a good talk and it got me thinking about true "Catholicity" in a worship service.  That, in turn, put me in mind of this description of John A. Andrew's (who became the Civil War time Gov. of Mass.) first exposure to James Freeman Clarke, who would become his minister...

John A. Andrew, after hearing him  (JFC) preach for the first time, in 1841, wrote to a friend : —

" I have forgotten to give you my impressions of Rev. J. F. Clarke. In the first place I liked the flavor of the man. He carried his service as though he felt it a good thing to worship God and wanted the people to feel the same. I liked his sermon thoroughly. It was upon well-seasoned speech. ' Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.' And the sermon was itself a good illustration of the theme. Its spirit was Christian to the core, and did not disturb my Orthodox conscience in the least. I think I felt the catholicity of the man : he did not say a word that could be fairly understood to touch any man's honest convictions uugeutly. The whole service I enjoyed heartily ; and not the least agreeable experience was the being invited to seats at least half-a-dozen times while I was waiting for my friend at the entrance."

Blessings

fill life full...

No adequate spiritual explanation can be given for the horrible devastation in Haiti and the region (despite the efforts of Pat Robertson to do so.)  We are left with our response:

This from James Freeman Clarke:

"YOU can put into a minute of time only just so much manual labor; but you can add to the same minute thought and love. It is the action of the higher human powers which lengthen life, which turn an hour into a day and one year into ten. Some of the greatest souls who have lighted up the earth have had a short life, if measured by years, but how long, if we consider the number of their great endeavors and accomplishments. Not only genius, but goodness, lengthens our days. How long are the lives of those generous souls who live for others! Most of us each day think of what we can get or do for ourselves; but there are those who acquire the habit of helping others, of comforting, of adding cheerfulness and strength, wherever they go. To those who thus give much is given in return,— contentment, trust in God, confidence in their fellow-men, sweet hopes, peaceful memories.

To fill life full, you must open it upwards toward truth, beauty, goodness. Mere excitement is not life; for all excitements weary, and are succeeded by depression. The hard routine of work into which no love and no thought enter, and which is done from necessity, not duty, leaves us in a lethargy. In order to "redeem time," we must look up, and not down. Seeking things below takes our strength out of us: waiting on the Lord for his higher gifts renews our strength day by day."

Seems pretty hard even on the good days.  And yet...

Prayers and Blessings

a far and mortifying distance...

I am usually a pretty dedicated resolution maker, and an "earnest" if largely unsuccessful resolution keeper.  This year I have decided to make no formal resolutions but to try to live more fully in a certain spirit-it is the spirit put forth this morning first by James Freeman Clarke:

"TO get the most out of the coming year, we must put the most into it. And we put the most into it by living in a spirit of earnestness, doing with our might what our hand finds to do, not trifling with the golden hours, but receiving each as a precious gift from God. Only such earnest purpose makes the day a blessing, insures progress from good to better, and causes us to live in eternity while we are in time. They are the happiest who value every hour, who put good work into it, who do not procrastinate, who do everything now, and do it as well as it can be done. These make of life a fine art....So we "redeem the time,"

And next by Henry Ware Jr. in his New Year's sermon (begun here on New Year's Eve)

"And what is the business, this object for which God has placed man here? It is, in few words, to form his character for eternity. And what is this character to be? Holy, disinterested and pure; devout toward God and benevolent towards men, self-governed and free from sin-a character of which earth has yet seen but one perfect model...and that in the person of Jesus Christ-the meek and lowly, the holy, harmless and undefiled, and separate from sin. Him we are to imitate. His character is to become ours.

And is this to be done in a day? or in a year? or in many years?...Fashion to yourself what manner of man you should be, if you had the spirit of Jesus, if you had made it your great and chief concern to imitate his excellences. Do you find yourself near to it now?...Alas! it is at a far and mortifying distance, that we follow his glorious steps; scarcely do we seem to reflect a ray from his bright excellence. Yet that is our pattern. There is our business in this world..."

May we all seek to redeem a few more days this year...Blessings

a great unspeakable gift...

I was going to excerpt this morning more of Henry Ware Jr's passionate and duty filled New Year's sermon begun yesterday. But as the sun starts to rise revealing a beautiful New England morning, the trees white with yesterday's snow, the world's aspect pure, I am more inclined to pass on these words from James Freeman Clarke...Happy New Year to all.!  (tomorrow, back to Ware and Duty!)

"WHAT a wonderful thing it is that we should be alive! If we live millions of years, nothing can happen to us more wonderful than this,— that we have begun to be, that we are born into this great universe, infinite in extent, everlasting in duration, and filled with the presence of divine power, wisdom, and love. We have been created, by a divine foreknowledge and purpose, to be living souls, capable of knowledge, love, action, progress, goodness, joy. We have been placed in one of the many mansions of our Father's house, to grow up into what he means us to be. This entrance into the universe is such an amazing event that it might easily overwhelm us with its wonder. We are so softly cradled into being that we do not feel the enormous change. But, to make the most of life, we must see this wonder of existence. We must feel what a great, unspeakable gift was bestowed on each of us in that we live."

Amen and blessings

all was spirit and all was life...

I had a talk yesterday with a friend and member of our church who has had a powerful spiritual experience (indeed is living a powerful spiritual experience) and has rejoined the Catholic Church.  Whenever I talk to this deeply passionate and articulate man, I am struck by many things. Yesterday, I was most struck by his combination of deep faith and his strong belief that such faith was not bound to any one religion or denomination.  It is a tendency (probably to some degree in all of us) to bind the two and liberal religionists are certainly no exception.  This morning, my devotional reading included James Freeman Clarke's "The Word of God Not Bound."  One of the guiding reasons for this blog is to relate the combination of deep piety and "rational religion" of the Boston Unitarians...this from Clarke is a pretty fine statement of that spirit.

"THE WORD OF GOD NOT BOUND.

LIBERAL Christianity may be defined, not as any belief, nor as any system of opinions, but as something going deeper. It is a habit of mind ; a way of considering all opinions as of secondary importance ; all outward statements, methods, operations, administrations, as not belonging to the essence of religion. Liberal Christianity comes from that spiritual insight which penetrates the shell and finds the kernel; sees what is the one thing needful, and discovers it to be not the form, but the substance; not the letter, but the spirit; not the body, but the soul; not the outward action, but the inward motive; not the profession, but the life.

In this sense, the Apostle Paul was the first Liberal Christian, and the founder of that Liberal Christianity which is not confined to any sect or party, any denomination or church; but which inspires and animates to-day the best men in all denominations, from the Roman Catholics on the one side to the most radical come-outers on the other side. And the motto and maxim of Liberal Christianity, everywhere, is given in our text, that " The word of God is not bound." The most zealous Roman Catholic is a Liberal Christian when, however strongly he believes in the superior value of his own church, he yet does not believe that the word of God is bound to it, but cheerfully admits that there may be good Christians outside of it. A Trinitarian is a Liberal Christian who, holding the dogma of the Trinity himself, does not think it the only essential form of words according to which God may be seen and worshipped. A Unitarian is a Liberal Christian only when he believes that a sincere believer in the Trinity can be as much of a liberal and rational Christian as himself. Liberal Christianity does not exclude zeal for one's own church, or one's own belief ; but it fully recognizes that these belong not to the vital and eternal part of religion, but to the temporal and fugitive part.

If this be so, why, you may ask, do I not call Jesus himself the founder of Liberal Christianity? Because, as long as he taught, all Christianity was liberal, and could not be otherwise. The body had not come, the forms had not arrived ; as yet dogma did not exist. Christianity was then all life, essence, spirit. It had not begun to run into any ruts of routine....All was spirit and all was life."

Blessings

common life teems with wonders...

Regular readers of this space know that James Freeman Clarke comes the closest to being the exemplar of the spirit or atmosphere of the Boston Unitarianism that I hope to promote. Conservatively transcendental, liberally Christian, truly accepting of difference, lover of common life lived well, Clarke was, to put it simply, a good man.

This description of one of his literary heroes, Goethe, could just as well apply to him (it comes from John Wesley Thomas' "James Freeman Clarke: Apostle of German Culture to America.

"He received in his cradle the happy birth-gift of an insatiate curiosity, and a firm belief in the significance of all things...he possesses a faith in the deeply marvelous character of the universe, which fits him for the companionship of Plato. There are no words which occur more frequently in his writings than those which express this feeling of the marvelous; such as 'Wunderlich,' Wunderbar," and so on...The chief advantage of studying his writings is, to see in them what a wealth of thought he could find under the surface of our everyday existence, and how to an earnest mind common life teems with wonders..."

Blessings

(note: the painting is by Sally Dean. See her wonderful blog at http://sallydean365flowers.blogspot.com/)

the real alchemy...

One more (for now) from James Freeman Clarke.

HOW TO CHANGE TIME INTO LIFE.

"I AM COME THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE LIFE; AND THAT THEY MIGHT HAVE IT MORE ABUNDANTLY."

THE purpose for which we exist is to turn time into life. A regular allowance of time is given to men — the same ration, every day, of twenty-four hours to each of us ; then we are to see what we can make of it. How much can we get of real life out of each day, so that when the day is gone it will leave us so much more alive than we were before. Some men continue to increase in the amount they have of mental, moral, spiritual life and energy, as long as they remain here. While the body is growing old, mind and heart are growing young ; while the outward man perishes, the inward man is being renewed day by day.

This is the real alchemy, the true, philosopher's stone which can turn baser metals into gold. Time has no value in itself ; it is a base metal ; its only value is in our ability to transmute it into something valuable. Time cannot be kept; it slips through our fingers forever ; but while it is passing through them we may be able to change it into something which will last always, that is, immortal or undying life — or what the Scriptures call eternal life. For immortal life, eternal life, simply means that kind of life which does not decay and change; not future existence, but present fullness of being... Our business is to change the bodily existence, measured by time, into spiritual existence, belonging to eternity.

How, then, is this to be done ?...What we need in order to turn time into life is to have faith in the value of things; to believe that there are strange and marvellous mysteries all around us, waiting to be known ; that our life is surrounded by wonder and awe, -ready to be revealed ; that man is capable of immense progress, and has in him depths below depths of capacity ; that God is in the world, and that he is and must be good ; that evil is transient, good permanent; that, notwithstanding all the wickedness around us, there is more good than evil in human nature ; that the good in man is permanent, the evil transient; that it is God's will to save the world from its sin and woe, and that it will be saved. With this sort of faith, all things, all persons become interesting; we love our work, and pursue it with ardor. Life then seems hopeful, and we have not time enough to do all we wish, to see all we wish, to learn all we wish. This it is to do all things to the glory of God..."

Blessings

consider the lilies...

Part three of James Freeman Clarke's sermon on "The Two Handles" (see the last two posts) and a discussion of one the the most beautiful and difficult teachings in scripture...

"We are troubled, some of us, every day, by the question, " Shall I do this, or not ? Shall I do this thing, or another ? " You will commonly find that each of these questions has two handles—the handle of duty, and that of pleasure ; the handle of right, and that of expediency ; the handle of gratification, and that of usefulness to others; the handle of custom, and that of personal conviction. All depends on this — on which handle do we take hold. It seems wise and safe and prudent to do as others do; to consult the probabilities of success or failure ; to do what all men will approve ; to do what we shall enjoy doing ourselves. But no one can tell, but he who tries it, what a contentment there is when we simply decide to do what is right, whether others will hear, or whether they will forbear ; what a satisfaction comes to those who go the way where their own soul calls them, though they go wholly alone ; what peace there is in the heart when we have once made up our minds to listen to the small and still voice of God speaking to the conscience ; what ample compensation there is when we take life by this handle — compensation in a certain solid assurance of rocky foundations beneath our feet...


Every to-morrow has two handles as we go to meet it — the handle of anxiety, and that of trust. Pagan and Christian wisdom agree in teaching us that we ought not to be anxious. "As to what the morrow may bring, do not trouble yourself," says Horace. " Let the morrow take thought for the things of itself," says Jesus. And yet we allow our days to be spent in anxious thoughts, our hearts to be corroded with care, all the joys of life turned to gloom, all its sunshine shaded by this anxiety. How shall we live? How shall we provide for our children ? How shall we meet our engagements ? And then, to these anxieties, we add others about our soul; and the Church teaches us to be anxious about the other world, in addition to our anxieties about this. And so black Care rides behind the horseman, and modern civilization seems darkened more than ever before by these gloomy shadows thrown up from below the horizon by the clouds which hang above the setting or rising sun.

But "consider the lilies, how they grow;" "consider the birds, how they build their nests; "...How little we really need of all these supposed necessities of civilization ! You go from homes full of various comfort and ornament, and spend a month in the Adirondack woods, sleeping on a bed of spruce boughs, eating trout from the lake and mush from the pan, and you say, " This is true life; I never knew what it was to live before." Now you are taking life by the right handle, cutting down your necessaries to the lowest mark, and then having the luxuries of sky and lake, forest and waterfall, peaceful days, and sweet sleep in the open air ; yet you come home and forget all this experience, and calmly resume the whole burden of anxiety, and become the slaves of routine, of housekeeping, of living in a certain style in which other people live ; and the Sermon on the Mount goes for nothing.

Consider the lilies, how they grow !"


Blessings

confident of good...

The theology of James Freeman Clarke could arguably be summed up in the phrase, "confident of good." It is his context and starting point. This from his sermon, "The Two Handles" continued:

Christianity may be taken hold of by the handle of Love, or by that of Fear. The Church has too often taken hold of it by the handle of Fear, making God an arbitrary King and Christ a Judge, instead of showing us God as a Father and Christ as a Friend. In the funereal papyri of Egypt there are pictures illustrating the judgment of each soul before Osiris. There is a pair of scales — in the one are put the good deeds of the man, in the other his evil deeds, and his fate depends on which scale is the heaviest. In like manner hell and heaven are presented by many Christian teachers as the only alternatives hereafter. But the probability is that there, as here, we may often be in heaven and in hell, too ; or pass from hell to heaven as we choose the good and reject the evil. There, as here, we may be working our way up with occasional or frequent relapses. Christians backslide here, — why not there ? Who has told us, with authority, that the Eternal World may not have its varieties and alternations, its progress and its arrested progress, no less than this ? This is probable ; but what is certain is that Christianity was taught by Jesus and his apostles as good news ; that it was a gospel of hope, not of fear ; that its primary announcement was not " Hell is at hand," but " The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand ; " that Jesus came not as the Judge of sinners, but as their Friend ; that he did not favor the self-satisfied Pharisee, but the penitent Publican ; that the word which fell most easily from his lips was " Thy sins are forgiven thee ; go, and sin no more." What is certain is, that the essential power of the gospel is in revealing a Father loving all his children, letting His sun shine on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the just and the unjust; revealing a Father who provides for all his children, forgetting and neglecting none. It reveals a Father accepting our love for each other as identical with love for himself, and charity as one form of piety...

These, then, are the two handles always presented to us, and every day, if we listen, we shall hear God say to us, " Choose to-day which to take ! " We can take hold, in everything which befalls us, of the handle of doubt, of anxiety, of fault-finding, of fear; of pleasure, custom, expediency, personal gratification and self-seeking; or we can take hold of the handle of trust, of hope, of candid liberal judgment, of duty, of personal conviction, of right, of generous, self-forgetting good-will. Our days will be sweet or bitter, events will seem gloomy or bright, the world a good world, or a bad world, according as we take everything by one handle or the other. The art of life consists in taking each event which befalls us with a contented mind, confident of good. This makes us grow younger as we grow older, for youth and joy come from the soul to the body more than from the body to the soul. With this method and art and temper of life, we are well known even if unknown ; we live, though we may be dying; we rejoice always, though in the midst of sorrows, and possess all things, though destitute of everything.

Blessings

the 2 handles...

My theme for this year's Religious Education Program is "the 2 handles." Taken from the words of the Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, "The 2 handles" has long been a favorite "proverb" of mine. A few years ago, I was pleased to find that James Freeman Clarke had preached a sermon on the proverb. It demonstrates all the virtues that have made JFC one of my true heroes and its vision of what it means to live a religious life is one that I hope we can get across in our Religious Education program this year. Some excerpts (to be continued for the next two or three days...)

"THE TWO HANDLES.

EPICTETUS, the wise slave, who was in Greece what Dr. Franklin was in America, and whose proverbs have the same touch of common sense in them as have the Proverbs of Solomon, gives us in one place a parable of " The Two Handles." " Everything," says he, " has two handles. By the one it can be easily carried ; by the other not at all. Thus, if your brother has injured you, do not take hold of this event on the side of the injury, for that handle will not support it" (it is, as we say, intolerable), " but take hold of it by the other handle, and say, ' Well, he is my brother, after all, we were brought up together in the same house.' "

Precisely the same idea is expressed, and the same illustration used by Jesus in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. When the elder son returned from the field, and saw the rejoicing over his unworthy brother's return, he took hold of the fact by the handle of his brother's bad conduct and his own good conduct. " I have always done right, and he has behaved shamefully. You never gave me a kid, and you have killed the calf for him." But notice how the father presents to him the other handle : " This, thy brother, was dead, and is alive again. All I have is yours ; you and I are doing this together for him." Observe the value of that little pronoun " we." He does not say, " It was meet that I should do it," but " It was meet that we should make merry and be glad," thus assuming that the brother and father were both united in this generous reception of the penitent.

Almost everything has a pleasant and an unpleasant handle; there is something agreeable and something disagreeable in all that we see and meet and have to do with. Some take such things by the pleasant and agreeable handle, and others take them by the opposite one...

Why does genius glorify and transfigure all that it touches ? Because genius takes all facts, all events, by the right handle...In truth, to genius no fact is insignificant. Genius, like piety, calls nothing common or unclean...

I have, in my life, heard many young people complain bitterly of their circumstances, so unfavorable to the development of their character, so unsuitable to their tastes and capacities. They should take these things by another handle... Faithfulness in any place and work which God has given us, where God has placed us, wins at last the crown of rejoicing. Take hold of it by that handle. It is my work ; I am here to do it. I am a sentinel at this post, and the safety of the whole army may depend on my loyalty and truth. No one lives to himself and no man dies to himself. Every one can learn and impart some random truths from the commonest things around him, if he has a quiet eye in which to harvest them. Geese may save the capital by opportune cries — which is a comfort to geese everywhere. We are members, all of us, of a great body ; and God himself watches us, day by day, to see whether we are faithful to our task."

Blessings

for the use of all...

One more, for now, of James Freeman Clarke on the Apostle Paul. May everyone have a blessed Sabbath...

"Paul believes fully, and with his whole soul, in human progress, — personal progress for the individual, and the development of a happy and pure society. Mr. Emerson once spoke of himself as " a perpetual seeker, with no past behind him." He was only repeating what Paul said of himself, " Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect. ... I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do; forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of God's great invitation in Jesus Christ" (Phil. iv. 13).

The wisest thinker of modern times declared it to be the great object of life, and the chief duty of man, " to grow." Paul had long before urged his disciples to constant growth. " Be not like children," said he, — vacillating from one belief to another, carried about like a weathercock with every wind of doctrine, — " but grow up in all things into him who is the head, even Christ" (Eph. iv. 14). And by this he does not mean individual growth alone, but social progress — growth of the whole community. He compares the whole society of Christian believers to the human body, which grows by the interaction of every part, — nerves, heart, lungs, and all other organs doing their work; " by the effectual working of every part, making increase of the body" (Eph. iv. 16). So the Christian body is built up of a like mutual help and common sympathy. In the Christian community every man was to do his part; to one was given the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge, to another faith, to another a gift of healing. Each was to use his gift for the good of the whole, and what one had, he had for the use of all...

Thus Paul had an idea of the steady outward progress of the whole Christian community. All rested on one deep principle, — faith in Jesus as the Christ. It would not come — this growth — from science or philosophy, from conscience or reason, from circumstances or environment; it would only come from faith in this divine ideal,— Christ, the fullness of the manifestation of God.
It was by faith in this ideal Jesus that Paul Lived and worked. "

Blessings

few born angels...

The Apostle Paul has elicited a comment or two and it is right that he should do so. He is, to quote Whitman, "Large...and contains multitudes." JFC talks of his conflicted soul in this excerpt:

"ONE of the most striking features in the character of Paul is the intense conflict in his soul between his ardent desire for righteousness, holiness, perfect goodness, on one side, and on the other his passionate nature, which he found it so hard to guide and control. There are saints who have risen above temptation. There are those born with such a love for what is good, such an abhorrence of whatever is wrong, that they do not know what it is to be overcome of evil. They have no such conflict; they are too high up. There is another class who are too low down. They simply follow their lower nature and its impulses ; they have no sense of responsibility calling on them to do better or be better. Therefore there is no conflict in their souls. But Paul represents the third class, whose life is a perpetual battle with themselves ; who find in their souls two natures, one inclining to right, the other to wrong. They are impetuous, susceptible to every influence, easily moved from without or within; with souls aflame, and imaginations which cover all things with an illusive glow. What they wish they wish ardently; what they dislike they dislike vehemently. Their life is a series of crises and catastrophes, at one time longing for goodness as the angels in heaven long for it and love it; at other times giving up in despair all hope of improvement, and letting themselves go wherever caprice or the will of the moment directs. They make a thousand resolutions and break them all. They struggle sincerely to conquer bad habits and form good ones; they surround themselves with incentives and helps of all kinds. Their whole heaven is bright, and all the sky serene. Then comes in a moment an unexpected storm, and all the scaffolding of their virtue goes down; so they are left desperate, reckless, hopeless.

This is the class of persons to which Paul belonged, and no one has narrated this experience in more thrilling words than he. Listen to what he says in the seventh chapter of Romans. How he describes the awful struggle with evil which he himself had been through: —

" I was alive without the law once." I was once innocent, following my childish nature freely, before I saw any great law of duty. I was a creature of impulse, and had no sense of sin or evil.

" But when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." That is, as soon as my conscience was roused to see my duty, and I felt a desire to do something good and to become good, I found how little power I had, how often I went wrong, and had no vital force to accomplish my purpose. The law was holy, just and good. The law said, " Love God and love man," and I knew that was right; but how could I obey it ? The law is spiritual, but I am tied to my body, the slave of habit, the creature of passionate desire and caprice. I know what is right, and I do what is wrong. I mean to do right, I long to be better, but somehow I always drift back into evil . " For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do." " For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do."

This is the picture of the terrible battle which many of us have to fight. For there are few born angels, and few who have gone wholly above this struggle."

Blessings

not merely toleration (liberal Christianity II)...

James Freeman Clarke on the Apostle Paul, liberty, Liberal Christianity, sectarianism, the transient and permanent, and the only enduring thing...love.

"Paul's liberality, therefore, was not merely toleration; he not only allowed people to be free, and to be themselves, but he insisted that they must be free — must be themselves. Freedom, to him, was a vital thing; a real step onward.

Most men who contend for Christian liberty mean thereby liberty for themselves and their own party to believe or disbelieve certain doctrines; to adopt or reject certain practices. But sometimes we find a man like the apostle Paul, like John Milton, like Jeremy Taylor, like William Ellery Charming, who believes in freedom as a principle, not for the sake of his own particular interest; and this spirit alone deserves to be called Liberal Christianity.

This nobler kind of liberality can rest only on a deep spiritual faith. A man must see spiritual truth so clearly as to be able to separate it from the form and words in which it comes. He must be able to distinguish the things seen, which are temporal, from the things not seen, which are eternal. This power Paul had in the highest degree. It is remarkable that he, the theologian par excellence, the leader in Christian theology, the first who brought out distinctly a system of Christian doctrine, should be the man to declare that all such systems are transient; that we can know only in part, and that when the perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. It is he who says that all intellectual convictions, all kinds of knowledge are to disappear, all creeds and all beliefs come to an end; " whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away." And it is not John, the mystic, the one who preaches always love, love, love, as Demosthenes taught action, action, action, — it is not John who chants that magnificent strain of adorable music to charity or love, but Paul, the theologian. He it was, who having thought so much, and studied so much, and said words of wisdom which will never die while the world lasts, laid them all down at the feet of Love, and said, " Love never faileth.

I say, therefore, that he was the founder of Liberal Christianity, because he was not only willing that men should be free, but ready to help them to become so; because he believed in liberty as a principle, and told men to "stand fast" in it, and not "be subject to any yoke of bondage;" because he saw that the essence of religion was inward and not outward, in the spirit and not the letter; because he saw that all forms, beliefs, knowledge, were transient and would pass away, but that faith, hope, and love would endure. Bigotry, intolerance, sectarianism, have never had, after Christ himself, so deadly a foe in the world as the apostle Paul."

Bessings