The Historic Faith; Short Lectures on the Apostles' Creed

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1883 Excerpt: ... Note ix. loss, the faculty and the habit of meditation have not as yet been cultivated among us. Our national character, and, at present, the prevailing spirit of realism are alien from it. Yet the praise to God's glory which comes through the devout consideration of His action in men is true work. This is a subject for spiritual meditation; and periods of quiet retirement may be made available for pursuing it. But, as it is, we are apt to dwell on the littlenesses of men, or if not, upon the picturesque aspects of their lives, to bring them down in some measure to our level, and not to aspire to their highest. It is, however, through such aspiration alone, quickened by the thoughtful study of that which the Spirit wrought in them, that we can enter into fellowship with their true life. Weaknesses, faults, errors, accidents of time and place, fall away. We learn to look upon the love, the courage, the faith, the selfsacrifice, the simplicity of truth which they embodied, and so become invigorated by vital contact with the eternal manifested through men. We rise, so far as we can rise under the pressure of earthly limitations, to some perception of the heavenly life, in which all that is personal is gathered up without the loss of personality in One, even 'in Christ.' This fellowship of spirit with spirit is closer, and may be more powerful, than the precious fellowship which we can hold with books. That leads to this. The record of a life imaged in word and deed, the effective by meditation. 257 energy of a life shewn in thoughts grasped and made Note Ix. ready for use, help to gain an energetic sympathy with those who have laboured and written for the truth. And there is no limit to this inspiring communion. It embraces the living and the dead. It acknowl...