登陆注册
4610300000003

第3章 INTRODUCTORY(3)

It is not in the great tragedies of life only that character is tested and strengthened and consolidated. No man who is not himself under God's moral and spiritual instruments could believe how often in the quietest, clearest, and least tempestuous day he has the chance and the call to say, Yea, Lord, Thy will be done.

And, then, when the confessedly tragic days and nights come, when all men admit that this is Gethsemane indeed, the practised soul is able, with a calmness and a peace that confound and offend the bystanders, to say, to act so that he does not need to say, Not my will, but Thine. And so of all the other forms and features of moral character; so of humility and meekness, so of purity and temperance, so of magnanimity and munificence, so of all self-

suppression and self-extinction, and all corresponding exalting and magnifying and benefiting of other men. Whatever other passing uses this present world, so full of trial and temptation and suffering, may have, this surely is the supreme and final use of it--to be a furnace, a graving-house, a refining place for human character. Literally all things in this life and in this world--I

challenge you to point out a single exception--work together for this supreme and only good, the purification, the refining, the testing, and the approval of human character. Not only so, but we are all in the very heat of the furnace, and under the very graving iron and in the very refining fire that our prefigured and predestinated character needs. Your life and its trials would not suit the necessities of my moral character, and you would lose your soul beyond redemption if you exchanged lots with me. You do not put a pearl under the potter's wheel; you do not cast clay into a refining fire. Abraham's character was not like David's, nor David's like Christ's, nor Christ's like Paul's. As Butler says, there is 'a providential disposition of things' around every one of us, and it is as exactly suited to the flaws and excrescences, the faults and corruptions of our character as if Providence had had no other life to make a disposition of things for but one, and that one our own. Have you discovered that in your life, or any measure of that? Have you acknowledged to God that you have at last discovered the true key of your life? Have you given Him the satisfaction to know that He is not making His providential dispositions around a stock or a stone, but that He has one under His hand who understands His hand, and responds to it, and rises up to meet and salute it?

And we cease to wonder so much at the care God takes of human character, and the cost He lays out upon it, when we think that it is the only work of His hands that shall last for ever. It is fit, surely, that the ephemeral should minister to the eternal, and time to eternity, and all else in this world to the only thing in this world that shall endure and survive this world. All else we possess and pursue shall fade and perish, our moral character shall alone survive. Riches, honours, possessions, pleasures of all kinds: death, with one stroke of his desolating hand, shall one day strip us bare to a winding-sheet and a coffin of all the things we are so mad to possess. But the last enemy, with all his malice and all his resistless power, cannot touch our moral character--

unless it be in some way utterly mysterious to us that he is made under God to refine and perfect it. The Express Image carried up to His Father's House, not only the divine life He had brought hither with Him when He came to obey and submit and suffer among us; He carried back more than He brought, for He carried back a human heart, a human life, a human character, which was and is a new wonder in heaven. He carried up to heaven all the love to God and angels and men He had learned and practised on earth, with all the earthly fruits of it. He carried back His humility, His meekness, His humanity, His approachableness, and His sympathy.

And we see to our salvation some of the uses to which those parts of His moral character are at this moment being put in His Father's House; and what we see not now of all the ends and uses and employments of our Lord's glorified humanity we shall, mayhap, see hereafter. And we also shall carry our moral character to heaven;

it is the only thing we have worth carrying so far. But, then, moral character is well worth achieving here and then carrying there, for it is nothing else and nothing less than the divine nature itself; it is the divine nature incarnate, incorporate, and made manifest in man. And it is, therefore, immortal with the immortality of God, and blessed for ever with the blessedness of God.

同类推荐
  • 佛说出生无边门陀罗尼仪轨

    佛说出生无边门陀罗尼仪轨

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 释迦谱

    释迦谱

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 伤寒医诀串解

    伤寒医诀串解

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说尊上经

    佛说尊上经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 练兵实纪

    练兵实纪

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 快穿:宿主有点不正常

    快穿:宿主有点不正常

    ------------------佛系看书----------------席憬:弱小、可怜、又无助系统:变态、跳脱、爱搞事席憬:嗯?系统:没没没,我什么都没说(小声bb:明明就是嘛,哪里弱小可怜又无助了,明明就是一个变态的宿主,还喜欢看小黄文带坏它)……系统:喵,前方帅哥出没,宿主快点扑倒。(身边空空如也)咦?宿主人呢?刚刚明明还在这里的。席憬表示,人家只是个爱情小白,这只妖孽,麻烦你打哪来回哪去,诶诶诶,不回去?那我走。
  • 异世妖才

    异世妖才

    叶浩穿越到异世,并非只是偶然,异世的叶家乃是千年前第一家族,而叶浩身具叶家血脉,正是被血脉之力召唤而来。千年前的叶家被灭,背后隐藏着什么;作为叶家唯一的后嗣,叶浩怎样解开重重迷团重振叶家威名?而当谜团解开后,叶浩才发现另一个事实……
  • 寒夜行:身穿异世女boss

    寒夜行:身穿异世女boss

    大小姐韩叶在一场空难中,身穿至某架空王朝,没有任何背景,没有任何依靠,没有任何金手指的她如何在异世中顽强存活下来?而这一路艰险,她最终又情归何处?
  • 从零开始读懂管理学

    从零开始读懂管理学

    现代管理方式中,管理不是玩弄权术,不是指责批评,而是需要智慧、方法和技巧的,是每个有志于成为管理人才所必须掌握和实践的一门学问,一门艺术。《从零开始读懂管理学》以实用性和趣味性为原则,对有关管理工作的方方面面做了详细全面的介绍,深入浅出,通俗易懂,是管理者和职场人士必备的管理学成功指南。书中推荐的管理方法科学实用,切实可行;同时结合管理心理学理论,给每一位管理者提供了有效的帮助。
  • 医妃遮天:惹上至尊邪王

    医妃遮天:惹上至尊邪王

    她,21世纪著名外科医生,医术精湛,一遭穿越成为了太子府人人可欺负的小妾。从死人堆里爬出来,控制了瘟疫,给皇帝治痔疮……他,一国太子,身份尊贵,却有着多重身份。天下第一阁至尊阁阁主、天下第一高手都是他的囊中之物。她运用自己的医术和智慧从一个小妾一步一步成为太子妃,并且与这个世界最卓越的男子并肩而行。而他为了她倾尽天下!【情节虚构,请勿模仿】
  • 啊,桑梓

    啊,桑梓

    郑通和编著的《啊桑梓》为散文集,分两部分:前部分《桑梓的年轮》为主,是系列散文,写作者家乡龙海市的文物保护单位和重要的史迹。后部分写家乡的人事物。《啊桑梓》从内容到语言,都具乡土色彩、地方个性。反映桑梓的风物及其艰难的历程,注意史料的准确性,又注意散文的真实性、形象性。都是作者亲身察访、查考,并经历的。
  • 古鼎

    古鼎

    重器古鼎在河南安阳悄然出土,消息不胫而走,一时间,各路人马蜂拥而至,可出土的古鼎却踪影难觅。正当各方势力绞尽脑汁之际,巨鼎又不费吹灰之力地呈现在众人眼前。是谁在背后玩障眼术?巨宝又将花落谁家?
  • Moving Target

    Moving Target

    This is an important and illuminating collection of essays and lectures by the winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature. William Golding writes about places as diverse as Wiltshire, where he lived for over half a century, Dutch waterways, Delphi, Egypt ancient and modern, and planet Earth herself. Other essays discuss books and ideas, and provide a fascinating background to the appreciate Golding's own writing and imagination. It includes Golding's Nobel Speech. "e;Golding come through this collection as reserved and wary, but delightful...His writing is a joy"e;. (Sunday Times).
  • 艾蜜儿宇航日记

    艾蜜儿宇航日记

    31世纪的孤女艾蜜儿最大的梦想,是希望自己赶快成长到可以打工的年纪,然后赚一大笔钱。体验一下有钱人的生活。这天,一架从天而降的宇宙飞船出现在她的门前,当她不怕死地决定先“验验货”的那一刻起,她的命运开始发生逆转。飞船被炸、被太空人贩子拐卖、误上“贼船”、奇怪的打工任务、与海盗船长共处一室、遭遇不明生物,艾蜜儿的宇宙冒险生活很新鲜,又充满着不可预知的危险性。一个瘦小单薄、身无所长的地球少女如何在全是成年男性的外星海盗船上生存下来?茫茫宇宙中。大大小小的行星星罗棋布,各类航线错综复杂,如何才能找到回家的路?看来,艾蜜儿要面对的难题,不仅仅是有勇气就能解决自白……
  • 三毛的流金岁月:三毛扮演者王龙基的精彩人生

    三毛的流金岁月:三毛扮演者王龙基的精彩人生

    《三毛的流金岁月:三毛扮演者王龙基的精彩人生》内容简介:马路上,三毛盖着一张报纸睡觉。一个坐轿车的有钱人,从车窗丢下一个烟蒂。于是,苦命的三毛又遭了一回火灾……差不多和三毛同龄的我,为可怜的三毛担心,也为他不平。