"Beautiful Thoughts"

“Beautiful Thoughts” From Henry Drummond

Arranged by Elizabeth Cureton

1892

The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. — Rom. i. 20.

To My Dear Friend

Helen M. Archibald

This Book

Is Affectionately Inscribed.

Preface.

My first thought of writing out this little book of brief selections sprang from the desire to assist a dear friend to enjoy the Author’s helpful books.

The epigrammatic style lends itself to quotation. Taste of the spring brings the traveller back to the same fountain on a day of greater leisure. Many times these “Beautiful Thoughts” have enlightened my darkness, and I send them forth with a hope and prayer that they may find echo in other hearts. E. C.

January 1st. Christianity wants nothing so much in the world as sunny
people, and the old are hungrier for love than for bread, and the Oil of
Joy is very cheap, and if you can help the poor on with a Garment of
Praise it will be better for them than blankets. The Programme of
Christianity, p. 33.

January 2d. No one who knows the content of Christianity, or feels the universal need of a Religion, can stand idly by while the intellect of his age is slowly divorcing itself from it. Natural Law, Preface, p. 22

January 3d. A Science without mystery is unknown; a Religion without mystery is absurd. However far the scientific method may penetrate the Spiritual World, there will always remain a region to be explored by a scientific faith. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 28.

January 4th. Among the mysteries which compass the world beyond, none is greater than how there can be in store for man a work more wonderful, a life more God-like than this. The Programme of Christianity, p. 62.

January 5th. The Spiritual Life is the gift of the Living Spirit. The spiritual man is no mere development of the Natural man. He is a New Creation born from Above. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 65.

January 6th. Love is success, Love is happiness, Love is life. God is Love. Therefore LOVE. The Greatest Thing in the World.

January 7th. Give me the Charity which delights not in exposing the weakness of others, but “covereth all things.” The Greatest Thing in the World.

January 8th. There is a sense of solidity about a Law of Nature which belongs to nothing else in the world. Here, at last, amid all that is shifting, is one thing sure; one thing outside ourselves, unbiassed, unprejudiced, uninfluenced by like or dislike, by doubt or fear.... This more than anything else makes one eager to see the Reign of Law traced in the Spiritual Sphere. Natural Law, Preface, p. 23.

January 9th. With Nature as the symbol of all of harmony and beauty that is known to man, must we still talk of the supernatural, not as a convenient word, but as a different order of world,... where the Reign of Mystery supersedes the Reign of Law? Natural Law, Introduction, p. 6.

January 10th. The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every department of Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. The process goes on, and Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the borders of the Spiritual World are reached. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 13.

January 11th. No single fact in Science has ever discredited a fact in
Religion. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 30.

January 12th. I shall never rise to the point of view which wishes to “raise” faith to knowledge. To me, the way of truth is to come through the knowledge of my ignorance to the submissiveness of faith, and then, making that my starting-place, to raise my knowledge into faith. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 28. Quotation from Beck: Bib. Psychol.

January 13th. If the purification of Religion comes from Science, the purification of Science, in a deeper sense, shall come from Religion. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 31.

January 14th. With the demonstration of the naturalness of the supernatural, scepticism even may come to be regarded as unscientific. And those who have wrestled long for a few bare truths to ennoble life and rest their souls in thinking of the future will not be left in doubt. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 32.

January 15th. The religion of Jesus has probably always suffered more from those who have misunderstood than from those who have opposed it. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 67.

January 16th. It is impossible to believe that the amazing successions of revelations in the domain of Nature, during the last few centuries, at which the world has all but grown tired wondering, are to yield nothing for the higher life. Natural Law, Introduction, p. 32.

January 17th. Is life not full of opportunities for learning love? Every man and woman every day has a thousand of them. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 18th. What is Science but what the Natural World has said to natural men? What is Revelation but what the Spiritual World has said to Spiritual men? Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 73.

January 19th. Life depends upon contact with Life. It cannot spring up out of itself. It cannot develop out of anything that is not Life. There is no Spontaneous Generation in religion any more than in Nature. Christ is the source of Life in the Spiritual World; and he that hath the Son hath Life, and he that hath not the Son, whatever else he may have, hath not Life. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 74.

January 20th. It is a wonderful thing that here and there in this hard, uncharitable world, there should still be left a few rare souls who think no evil. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 21st. The physical Laws may explain the inorganic world; the biological Laws may account for the development of the organic. But of the point where they meet, of that strange borderland between the dead and the living, Science is silent. It is as if God had placed everything in earth and heaven in the hands of Nature, but reserved a point at the genesis of Life for His direct appearing. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 69.

January 22d. Except a mineral be born “from above” — from the Kingdom just ABOVE it — it cannot enter the Kingdom just above it. And except a man be born “from above,” by the same law, he cannot enter the Kingdom just above him. Natural Law, Bio-genesis, p. 72.

January 23d. If we try to influence or elevate others, we shall soon see that success is in proportion to their belief of our belief in them. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 24th. The world is not a play-ground; it is a school-room. Life is not a holiday, but an education. And the one eternal lesson for us all is how better we can love. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 25th What a noble gift it is, the power of playing upon the souls and wills of men, and rousing them to lofty purposes and holy deeds. Greatest Thing in the World.

January 26th. The test of Religion, the final test of Religion, is not
Religiousness, but Love. Greatest Thing in the World.

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