Gold Nugget 144 - Days of Memory

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      In themselves all days may be equally sacred.  Nevertheless, a difference of character, history, and associations will divide our days out into very various classes, and will mark some for especial interest.  There are days that stand out in history like great promontories along the coast.  We must all have lived through days the memory of which is burnt into our souls.  There are the red-letter days, days of honour and gladness; and there are the black-letter days of calamity. …

      We have no prophetic visions.  But there may be days when God has seemed to draw especially near to us.  Truth has then been most clear and faith most strong.  The memory of such days is a help for the darker seasons of doubt and dreary solitude. …

      A diary of sentiments is not always a wholesome production; but a journal of events should be full of instruction. … It is good sometimes to turn aside from the noisy scenes of the present and walk in the dim cloisters of the sweet, sad past, communing with bygone days and musing over the deeds of olden times.  Our own rushing, heedless age would be the better for such meditations among the tombs, not to grow melancholy in the thought of death, but to learn wisdom in the lessons of the ages.  … We have the whole roll of the world’s history from which to select instances of inspiring lives.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Ezekiel II p.35, Ezekiel 24:2, (W. F. Adeney)

See also Romans 14:5

 

Gold Nugget 144

Days of Memory

 

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Gold Nugget 143 - The Literary Man

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      The writer at his desk uses his magic fluid as an elixir vitae for ideas which would otherwise be still-born and be speedily buried in oblivion.  By means of this potent agency he is able to give body and endurance to the fleeting fancies of the hour.  The greatest truths are thus preserved and transmitted. … Civilization has grown up on the food of literature. 

      The sword destroys; the pen creates.  When the work of the warrior is lost in the wreck of ages, the work of the writer still endures.  The victories of Nebuchadnezzar have left not a showdown behind them; but the Psalms of David are more powerful to-day than when the sweet singer of Israel first chanted them to his shepherd’s harp. …

      Bad literature is worse than the plague.  In private life the pen may record scandal that had better have been forgotten; it may write spiteful words that will rankle the mind of the reader who peruses them long years after the heedless writer has forgotten that he ever committed the folly of putting them to paper.  The power of the pen is a warning to the humblest writer to be aware of what he sets down.  But there is a noble use of this power. …

      All who have the gift or the vocation of writing are called to a career which should be one of help to their fellow-men.  The literary man is tempted to be indolent and selfish, to dream his life away without coming into contact with the misery of his fellow-men, and without doing much to alleviate that misery. …

      A writer is tempted to set down striking words, even if they should not be quite true, or though, perhaps, they should needlessly pain some fellow-man.  Smartness if often cruel.  Writing, like every other act of life, needs to be consecrated to Christ and executed for his glory.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Ezekiel p.163-164, Ezekiel 9:2, (W. F. Adeney)

 

Gold Nugget 143

The Literary Man

 

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Gold Nugget 142 - Another Sphere

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It is man’s natural tendency to try and to do without God, to trust the bow, and the chariots of human providing.  The story of the prodigal is repeated constantly.  Every man says in effect, “Father, give me my portion; let me see how I can do for myself without thee.”  It is only by-and-by, when he finds that there are worse friends than the Father, and wearier places than the home, that clothed in rags, with failing heart and many a tear, he says, “I will arise, and go to my Father.” …

      In proportion as our powers develop, our liability to trust to them, and not to him who gave them, increases.  In our day physical sciences have grown, and the principles so educed have been swiftly and boldly applied to our necessities.  We are pointed to evidences in every direction of the constancy of law and the absence of fortuity.  Indeed, the religious fallacy of Judah has been formulated into the philosophy of Positivism, which recognizes nothing but that which the intellect can prove, and excludes everything spiritual and supernatural.  It points out that in human distresses we should turn to science, not to God; and that the study of political economy and natural science may fairly supersede the preaching of righteousness as a means of salvation to a people.

      We do not disparage scientific discoveries, but rather rejoice that they are made so frequently and fearlessly.  We only ask men to recognize that there is another sphere not discoverable by the intellect, which underlies and impinges upon the sphere of sensuous life, and that, while things are temporal, there are things unseen which are eternal. 

      Well may one of the characters in ‘The New Republic’ be represented as saying to such teachers, “Your mind is so occupied with subduing matter, that it is entirely forgetful of subduing itself – a thing, trust me, that is far more important.”  But the disappointment of men’s shrewdest anticipations proves that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.  “The shields of the earth” (the means of defence, temporal and spiritual) “belong to the Lord.”

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Hosea p.26, Hosea 1:7, (A. Rowland)

 

Gold Nugget 142

Another Sphere

Gold Nugget 141 - Sad Facts

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      Some men are found who condemn all worship as superstition, all earnestness as fanaticism, all piety as hypocrisy; the same men speak of atheism under the euphemism of free-thought; with them godlessness is emancipation from spiritual bondage! …

      There are those who call clemency weakness, and oppression vigour; who denounce considerateness as mawkish sentimentality, and honour a brutal selfishness as cleverness and spiritedness; who sneer at conscientiousness as being “priggish,” and talk of roguery as if it reflected honour on its agents. …

      There are too many, especially among the young, who consider dissipation to be another thing for “life,” and who decry purity and self-restraint as dullness and poverty of spirit; they have honourable terms for the vilest and foulest sins, and terms of discredit for the cause of virtue and self-respect.  This is everything misnamed, and not only misnamed but mistaken.  These words are more than mere labels; they represent the thought which is beneath; they stand for false conceptions.

      All things, human and Divine, are seen in false lights, are regarded as other than they are , indeed as the very opposites of what they are; the evil and shameful thing is positively admired as well as praised; the holy and the beautiful thing is actually hated as well as cursed!  These are the sad facts which are before our eyes.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah p.96, Isaiah 1:20, (W. Clarkson)

 

Gold Nugget 141

Sad Facts

Gold Nugget 140 - Noblesse Oblige

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      Noblesse oblige.  In a distracted state of society, it is especially incumbent on those whose means place them beyond the reach of want, and allow them ample leisure, to come to the relief of their neighbours by undertaking those civil duties and offices on which the welfare of the body politic depends.  But it is exactly at such times that we find this class of persons most inclined to ignore this obligation, and withdraw wholly from political life.

      Some, like Plato, justify themselves under the plea that nothing can be done to save society, and that they may be excused for taking refuge under the first shelter that offers while the storm rages and exhausts itself.  Others plead the vulgarizing effect of active political life, and claim the right of keeping their superfine humanity free from the smears and stains which mixture with the crowd would bring upon it.

      On one excuse or another, or not unfrequently without condescending to make any excuse, the upper classes in a distracted state stand aloof, neglect their civil duties, and refuse all the calls that are made on them to come to the rescue, and do their best to save the “ruin” that is tottering to its fall.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah I p.55, Isaiah 3:1-7, (G. Rawlinson)

 

Gold Nugget 140

Noblesse Oblige

Gold Nugget 139 - Fall of a Great Nation

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      Ruin does not often come on states at once, even when God has determined on it.  There re many steps in the fall of a great nation. …

      When the intervals between one great man and another lengthen; when wise men, capable of giving the state good counsel, grow rare; when mediocrity everywhere prevails, and no one steps forth conspicuous by marked superiority to his fellows; - then it may at once be proclaimed that decline has set in, and that the nation is verging towards its fall. 

      The great and the wise are the salt which preserve society from corruption.  Without them all goes wrong; the pulse of the national life slackens, energy disappears, foreign aggression is weakly resisted, a general debilitation becomes apparent in every part and function of the of the body politic.  No state can long resist the insidious malady, which, like atrophy or anaemia, steals gradually over the entire frame, exhausting it and bring about its dissolution. …

      When the great and the wise fail, government necessarily falls into the hands of the incompetent.  If not “children” in age, they will be “babes” in respect of policy and statecraft. … A childish desire seizes them to attract attention, and conquest, or imprudent and unsuitable alliances … The state is brought into difficulties and entanglements, and the wisdom is wanting that should have seen a way out of them.  One embarrassment follows another.  Unexpected circumstances arise, and it is not perceived how they should be met.  The unwisdom of the good is perhaps as fatal as the folly of the wicked … Meanwhile other causes are at work, which advance the general confusion and accelerate the final catastrophe.

 

The Pulpit Commentary, Isaiah p.54-55, Isaiah 3:1-7, (G. Rawlinson)

 

Gold Nugget 139

Fall of a Great Nation