one step removed
from barbarism. Is that a hard word? Only there _are_ the barbarians
round us at every street corner--grown barbarians, it may be, now all but
past saving, but bringing into the world young barbarians whom we may yet
save, for God wishes us to save them. . . . Do not deceive yourselves
about the little dirty, offensive children in the street. If they be
offensive to you, they are not to Him who made them. "Take heed that ye
despise not one of these little ones: for I say unto you, their angels do
always behold the face of your Father which is in heaven."

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871.

Fellowship of Sorrow. May 14.

How was He,
The blessed One, made perfect? Why, by grief--
The fellowship of voluntary grief--
He read the tear-stained book of poor men's souls,
As we must learn to read it. Lady! lady!
Wear but one robe the less--forego one meal--
And thou shalt taste the core of many tales,
Which now flit past thee, like a minstrel's songs,
The sweeter for their sadness.

_Saint's Tragedy_, Act ii. Scene v.
1847.

Heaven and Hell. May 15.

Heaven and hell--the spiritual world--are they merely invisible places in
space which may become visible hereafter? or are they not rather the
moral world of right and wrong? Love and righteousness--is not that the
heaven itself wherein God dwells? Hatred and sin--is not that hell
itself, wherein dwells all that is opposed to God?

_Water of Life Sermons_.

The Awfulness of Life. May 16.

Our hearts are dull, and hard, and light, God forgive us! and we forget
continually what an earnest, awful world we live in--a whole eternity
waiting for us to be born, and a whole eternity waiting to see what we
shall do now we are born. Yes, our hearts are dull, and hard, and light.
And therefore Christ sends suffering on us, to teach us what we always
gladly forget in comfort and prosperity--what an awful capacity of
suffering we have; and more, what an awful capacity of suffering our
fellow-creatures have likewise. . . .

We sit at ease too often in a fool's paradise, till God awakens us and
tortures us into pity for the torture of others. And so, if we will not
acknowledge our brotherhood by any other teaching, He knits us together
by the brotherhood of suffering.

_All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1871.

Hope and Fear. May 17.

Every gift of God is good, and given for our happiness, and we sin if we
abuse it. To use your