Thoughts of Thinkers

Southern Cross, Volume 8, Issue 20, 18 August 1900, Page 6

Thoughts of Thinkers

We are not sent into this world to do anything into which we cannot put onr hearts. We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done strenuously ; other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done heartily ; neither is it to be done by halves and shifts, but with a will ; and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at all.—Carlyle.

1 Study to be quiet,’ that is, study to dismiss all bustle and worry out of your inward life. Study also to 1 do your own business,’ and do not try to do the business of other people. A great deal of ‘ creaturely activity ’ is expended in trying to do other people’s business. It is often very hard to ‘ sit still ’ when we see our friends, according to our ideas, mismanaging matters, and making such dreadful blunders. But the Divine order, as it is also the best human order as well, is for each one of us to do our own business, and to refrain from meddling with the business of any one else. Hannah Whittall Smith. * * * The world wants men who are saved from secret faults. The world can put on an outside goodness, and go very far in uprightness and morality, and it expects that a Christian shall go beyond it, and be free from secret faults. A little crack will spoil the ring of the coin. . . . The world expects, and rightly, that the Christian should be more gentle, and patient, and generous, than he who does not profess to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus. For the sake of those who take their notion of religion from our lives, we need to pub up this prayer earnestly, ‘ Cleanse thou me from secret faults.’ —Mark Gfuy Pearse. * * * ■ Pour forth all the odour, colour, charm, and happiness you have to all your friends, to your home, to your daily society, to the poor and sorrowful, the joyous and the prosperous. Charm the world by love. Brighten darkened lives, soften the rude, make a sunshine of peace in stormy places, cover the faults and follies of men with the flowers of love. Love others by ceasing to love yourself, and you will sperad the delight of youth over all you meet, and in doing so you will live intensely, for you will have within not only your own life, but also the lives of all whom you bless by love. —Stopford A. Brooke. # . * What comfort, what strength, what economy there is in order—material order, intellectual order, moral order. To know where one is going, and what one wishes—this is order ; to keep one’s word and one’s engagements —again order; to have everything ready under one’s band, to be able to dispose of all one’s forces, and <o have all one’s means, of whatever kind, under one’s command —still order ; to discipline one’s habits, one’s efforts, one’s wishes ; to organise one’s life, to distribute one’s time, to take the measure of one’s duties and make one’s rights respected ; to employ one’s capital and resources, one’s talent and one’s chances profitably—all this belongs to and is included in the word order. Order means light and peace, inward liberty and free command over oneself; order is power. Aesthetic and moral beauty consist, the first in a true perception of order, and the second in submission to it, and in the realisation of it, by, in, and around oneself. Order is man’s greatest need, and his true wellbeing.