that their operation, though exquisitely painful, is most
healthful. I see the world trying to quench and kill them; I know too
well that I often do the same ineffectually. But, in the comfort that
the worm cannot die and the fire cannot be quenched, I look calmly
forward through endless ages to my own future, and the future of that
world whereof it is written, "He shall reign until He hath put all
enemies under His feet, and death and hell shall be cast into the lake of
fire."

* * * * *

The Day of the Lord will be revealed in flaming fire, not merely to give
new light and a day-spring from on high to those who sit in darkness and
the shadow of death, but to burn up out of sight, and off the universe,
the chaff, hay, and stubble which men have built on the One Living
Foundation, Christ, in that unquenchable fire, of which it is written
that _Death_ and _Hell_ shall one day be cast into it also, to share the
fate of all other unnatural and abominable things, and God's universe
be--what it must be some day--_very good_.

* * * * *

Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I
believe in a loving anger of His, which will and must devour and destroy
all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive, in His universe, till all
enemies shall be put under His feet, to be pardoned surely, if they
confess themselves in the wrong and open their eyes to the truth. And
God shall be All in All. Those last are wide words.

_Letters and Sermons_. 1856.

SAINTS' DAYS, FASTS, & FESTIVALS.

AUGUST 24.
St. Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr.

Blessed are they who once were persecuted for righteousness' sake, for
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Great indeed is their reward, for it is
no less than the very beatific vision to contemplate and adore that
supreme moral beauty, of which all earthly beauty, all nature, all art,
all poetry, all music, are but phantoms and parables, hints and hopes,
dim reflected rays of the clear light of everlasting day.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_.

September.

That poet knew but little of either streams or hearts who wrote--

"Nor ever had the breeze of passion
Stirred her heart's clear depths."

The lonely fisher, the lover of streams and living fountains, knows that
when the stream stops it is turbid. The deep pools and still flats are
always brown--always dark--the mud lies in them, the trout _sleep_ in
them. When they are clearest they are stil