^ 
 
 scf\ 
 
PICKINGS 
 
 FROAI 
 
 A POCKET OF PEBBLES" 
 
^ '' '^'^^ 
 
 ^\ 
 
 >>PICKINGS < 
 
 BV. 
 
 WILLIAM "PHILPOT". 
 
 With Introductory Note by 
 A. K. Grosart, LL.D., F.S.A. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 WHITE, STOKES, AND AI.LEN, 
 
 182 Fifth Avenue. 
 
 [All rights reserved.] 
 
 <!) 
 
INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 
 
 I HAVE been asked by the Publisher 
 to introduce these "Pickings" from 
 "A Pocket of Pebbles ", by my " brother 
 beloved", the Rev. William l!. 
 Philpot. I confess my first impulse 
 was to plead the old saw, "Good wine 
 needs no bush ", or unmetaphorically, 
 to decline, as holding it superfluous 
 to come between readers and such a 
 book. Next, there arose the inevitable 
 feeling of one reverentially and lovingly 
 familiar with the original volume (in 
 its two editions) and which one rather 
 wished doubled or trebled than lessened, 
 "Wherefore 'Pickings'?" Sheridan 
 so received Dodd's ' ' Beauties of Shake- 
 speare ", adding " But where are all 
 
€ ItttroSuctorg |tote. 
 
 the rest" — accentuating "all" — and 
 on the first blush of it, I did not relish 
 diminution by even one of these 
 "Pebbles" of fine Thought, Fancy, 
 Word-play, wise Teaching, penetrative 
 Criticism, seer-like Warning, daintiest 
 phrasing. I became, however, recon- 
 ciled to the small task of love by pleas- 
 ing myself with the notion that per- 
 chance my fore-word may lead more 
 to buy and read. I further venture 
 a prophetic hope that this tinier tome 
 will quicken capable and reflective 
 readers to secure the complete work, 
 from the classic press of my other 
 bookish and most loveable friend. 
 Master Robert Roberts, of Boston, 
 Lincolnshire. 
 
 Leaving it to be found out how it is 
 the Author designates his book "A 
 
Pocket of Pebbles", and resisting 
 repetition of the well-worn anecdote 
 of Sir Isaac Newton, I may illustrate 
 the two MOODS under which these 
 "Pickings" will be best read and 
 pondered. 
 
 First— If you take a piece of mica- 
 streaked or seamed stone, — wave-pol- 
 ished " pebble " — and put it in the 
 water, the golden-silvern gleam is lost. 
 To get that, you must lay it in the 
 sunshine— as last summer I did a glori- 
 ous find on Lago Como's shore. 
 
 Second— If you lift a streaked and 
 veined and speckled stone — again 
 wave-polished " pebble " — and put it 
 on the sand, the streaks and veins and 
 speckling are equally lost. To get 
 these, you must lay it in the water— as 
 
Introtrnflorg ^oie. 
 
 at same time and place 1 did a frag- 
 ment of agate. 
 
 Similarly, there are in these " Pick- 
 ings", thoughts and fancies, musings 
 and introspections for hours of gladness, 
 and there are others that must be 
 steeped in tears, or that will only re- 
 veal their depth, their graciousness, 
 their apt consolation, their wise sug- 
 gestiveness, to Sorrow. 
 
 Light and shadow, wisdom and wit, 
 pathos and humour, antique-flavoured 
 moralizing, and present-day penetra- 
 tiveness lace and interlace in my dear 
 friend's winsome little book. I right 
 cordially commend it to gentle and 
 simple. 
 
 I know not that I can better close 
 this " Introductory Note " than by 
 adding a dedicatory sonnet prefixed by 
 
me to my collection of the Works of 
 Abraham Cowley in the Chertsev 
 Worthies' Library : — 
 
 TO 
 THE REV. WILLIAM B. PHJLPOT, 
 Author of "A Pocket of Pebbles, with a few 
 Shells ; being Fragments of Reflections, 
 now and then with a Cadence, made up 
 mostly by the Sea-shore," 
 I dedicate, admiringly and gratefully, this 
 first worthy edition of the Works of Cowley. 
 
 The lapse of time has made thy very name 
 Poetical ; and more, it stirs our love, 
 E'en as 'twere of a personal friend, above 
 The mists that now, CoWLEY, becloud thy 
 
 fame. 
 As, when the sun is set, a swift-shot flame 
 Gleams in the skies, and upwards still doth 
 
 move. 
 Touching with rosy splendour stream and 
 grove. 
 
lo IivtrobnctorB gott. 
 
 So Cowley 'tis with thee. I may not claim 
 
 That thou art now in men's mouths as of old. 
 Or for thy works the lustre once they held ; 
 
 But pleasant memories still thy name enfold; 
 
 Thought— fancy— English rare, of days of eld, 
 
 AVere thine ; and to a chosen few, to-day. 
 
 They still are dear ; Philpot, thou'lt not 
 
 gainsay. 
 
 Alexander B. Grosart, 
 
 LL.D., F.S.A. 
 
PICKINGS FROM 
 
 ^ iorket oi i^bblcs". 
 
 Of art in life. 
 
 A large part of life is, or ought to 
 be, spent in making up our imperfec- 
 tions and redeeming old mistakes. 
 In many a drawing, some wrong 
 form in an early stage, some strong 
 or misplaced light, or some unjust 
 shadow, requires for its expunging, 
 or its retiring, for its bringing up, 
 or else for its keeping, valuable 
 hours which might have been spent 
 in doing many things in the pic- 
 
12 ^itktngs from 
 
 ture which therefore have yet to be 
 done. 
 
 "Bellona pronuba". 
 
 One of the happiest marriages I 
 know was on this wise. A well-to-do 
 farmer's wife died, and left a large, Lut 
 small, family. He had an excellent 
 house-keeper. He became attached to 
 her ; but his love cooled, and he was 
 for breaking it off. Nothing of the 
 sort ! Her ladyship had insight enough 
 to see that he was only a weak man ; 
 and she knew no less well that she was a 
 strong woman, a help meet for him, and 
 capable of doing, and wanting to do, 
 the best for him ; and so she sued him 
 there and then— "sued" for his hand ! 
 He, finding it so, Hke a sensible man, 
 made the best of— I will not say a bad 
 job; for I affirm that this is one of the 
 
^ l&ochet of pebbles. i? 
 
 brightest and happiest couples I know. 
 She never "has any words" with the 
 first family, who respect and love her 
 from oldest to youngest ; from first, as 
 I hope to last. 
 
 A heap of stones, and therefore 
 not to be numbered with my 
 pebbles. 
 
 A Parson's business is that of a 
 stone-breaker. But there is usually 
 not a stone-breaker in the parish who 
 has such hard work before him. The 
 power of co7rjertmg people ought, it 
 seems to me, to be a primary requisite 
 in the eyes of those who pass Christian 
 ministers into Holy Orders. 
 
 A word to the— unwise. 
 
 Ye lovers, be not one-eyed. If, oh 
 eligible young woman, a man has home, 
 and land, and money, but not love — you 
 
14 ^irkings from 
 
 will of course not be such a little fool 
 as to wish for him because of those? 
 But if he professes love for you before 
 he has a home and fair means of com- 
 mon life to offer you, or at least a good 
 hope of these within reasonable time — 
 his love, whatever it may turn to after- 
 wards, is now but an airy, ideal, 
 theoretical, unembodied, unsubstantial 
 thing, not yet the least to be leaned on. 
 Love, if we would personify the little 
 god completely, must have both sub- 
 stance and spirit — a fair amount of wit 
 being taken for granted. 
 
 Of laborious trifling. 
 
 Seeing that no right-minded man 
 liveth to himself alone, it might seem 
 uninteresting, not to say stupid— except 
 we have to get our bread by it — to 
 steep ourselves in any special know- 
 
^ pocket of |3cbl)lcs. 15 
 
 ledge which none shall have but we. 
 This however is sometimes made up 
 for and rendered rational, if men leave 
 behind them books which keep for the 
 use of the rising, changing, and grow- 
 ing world the upshot of the exercise of 
 special gifts. Such may become useful 
 some day, except their chosen topics 
 be in their very nature useless. I am 
 told of a man who, having wearied him- 
 self over the majestic inhumanities of 
 the Lucretian deity, fell asleep and 
 dreamt this ghastly line — " Immemora- 
 bilium perfurva crepuscula palpans"; 
 which his learned brother translates, 
 " Handling the tawny twilights of 
 immemorables." 
 
 The other side of the picture. 
 
 Those who live always in natural 
 and rightful enjoyment must perforce 
 
i6 ^irkings front 
 
 fail to realize the keenness of relish 
 with which a man mostly steeped in 
 unnatural misery welcomes such a 
 parenthesis of pleasure as from time to 
 time may come. Can you not some- 
 times minister that comfort to your 
 poorer neighbour? 
 
 Sin brought home. 
 
 It is curious to observe, how much 
 more enormous and outrageous we are 
 apt to count a piece of dishonesty, if 
 we ourselves are pinched by it. The 
 other day a man in my neighbourhood 
 was dishonest about an insurance busi- 
 ness. I thought it sad, and a heinous 
 thing in the land ; — but only when I 
 found afterwards that this very man 
 had actually taken a tax out of my 
 own pocket and not paid it into the 
 Bank — my indignation knew no bounds. 
 
^ pocket of pebbles. 17 
 
 Turn deinurn T felt what a crime dis- 
 honesty was ! 
 
 Of social estimates. 
 
 The world is fouler than some, and 
 fairer than others can imagine. 
 
 Of the making of gifts. 
 
 When j'ou give anything away, as 
 money, 3'ou should not do so with any 
 feeling of triumph in the power of dis- 
 posal, but with humility, and with a 
 sense ofresponsibility to the Giver of all 
 things good. We none of us have any- 
 thing which we have not received. This, 
 like most of these things, is not new. 
 Enough if I remind my readers, and 
 myself, that it is tnce. 
 
 Of occasions. 
 
 To let an opportunity go is the act 
 of a fool ; but in the polarity of stupi- 
 
i8 ^trktngs from 
 
 dity, to go out of your way for disaster 
 and to "go to market for sorrow " is the 
 act of a madman. 
 
 "Lacteoli animi". 
 
 Rational wonder is but the opening 
 of the mind to draw the breasts of 
 knowledge. 
 
 Laws and laws. 
 
 The laws of nature must be qualified 
 by the laws of society. The man who 
 forgets this runs his head at every turn 
 against living walls harder than his 
 block. 
 
 Of pace in expression of thought. 
 
 The power of speaking ought obvi- 
 ously to be commensurate with the 
 power of writing ; for the same mental 
 power, be it great or small, is at the 
 
31 ^otket of ^ebbUs. -lo 
 
 bottom of both. This inequality is a 
 question of /ace, and is a superable 
 accident. If indeed in his writing a 
 man do not accustom himself to have 
 his thoughts in fair order before he so 
 expresses himself, then it is only to be 
 expected that his tongue will hang fire 
 just as his pen does, and his failure in 
 speaking may be fairly set down as 
 merely his own fault. But many men 
 who write currente cala77to cannot 
 speak on the very same topic with run- 
 ning tongue. How is this ? It is 
 because the pace at which he writes 
 must at its quickest be slower than the 
 pace requisite for a fluent oration. To 
 remove this incongruity, the symbols 
 of written language must be so arranged 
 as to admit of the same pace in writing 
 as in speaking. Then he who can write 
 with facility will naturally, and from 
 
20 ^irkings from 
 
 uniform pace of thought, be able also 
 to speak with felicity. 
 
 The blackberry season. 
 A man with leisure and education is 
 like one on horseback in a lane in the 
 blackberry season. He can get fine, 
 ripe blackberries, that have been be- 
 yond the reach of the little vulgar 
 boy. Who does not envy such high 
 riders ? 
 
 "Insipiens sapientia." 
 
 People sometimes do dispassionately 
 and after long deliberation, earnest 
 consideration, and reconsideration, 
 things more wild and outrageous than 
 other people do by their first unreflecting 
 and unconscious impulse. The marvel 
 is, that this is sometimes true of the 
 very same persons ! 
 
Si ^ofhct oi pebbles. 
 
 Works and hours. 
 
 What to do and what not to do, what 
 pertains and what does not pertain to 
 our eternal life, what is a primary and 
 what a secondary duty, and what is 
 not a duty at all, but merely a useless 
 or illegitimate pleasure, is often a pain- 
 ful question. "Gather up the frag- 
 ments, that nothing be lost" refers 
 closely to tz7J2e in this regard. 
 
 Of platitudes. 
 
 In public speaking, or in treating of 
 any subject, be original amidst your 
 accurate array of facts, and have a 
 bony framework of knowledge under- 
 lying the nerves of your originality ; 
 else what you say is flaccid and pulpy 
 stuff, and not lively oracle. 
 
^ifkings from 
 
 Of the taking of gifts. 
 
 If you lightly take gifts, you blind 
 yourself, and you bind yourself. 
 
 The origin of love. 
 
 If any of our emotions of love or our 
 impulses of affection begin from our 
 spirit and flow to the spirit of the object, 
 then and then only are they in order. 
 It is from the bottom of the soul that 
 love should take its rise. To be moved 
 towards another in other wise than 
 from the heart is out of place, and is 
 disturbing and dangerous. We cannot 
 well desire more than one at a time 
 from the heart ; and if such a desire be 
 held in due check by social obligation, 
 a man cannot, I should think, go far 
 wrong in these matters. It is, however, 
 only the Spirit proceeding from the 
 
31 ^0Ckct of Nibbles. 23 
 
 Father and the Son who can order all 
 emotions duly. 
 
 Of limits in sympathy. 
 
 Take care not to give way too far to 
 that feeling of universal sympathy, 
 whose frequent formula is "it is all 
 the same." It soon comes to universal 
 apathy. 
 
 Language of a yawn. 
 
 Wb.o has not often noticed that some 
 of the most crucial, telling, obstinate, 
 and determined observations are made 
 with a yawn, as the heart of a letter is 
 sometimes deferred to the postscript? 
 Always take the more careful note of 
 what a man says to you with a yawn ! 
 
 A word for the dead. 
 
 In the march of mind it is habitual 
 for writers to beat down their prede- 
 
24 |3i£kin3S from 
 
 cessors, and to tread ruthlessly over 
 their carcases the moment they have 
 fallen. It may well be so where the 
 impressions of such writers have been 
 based on facts wholly false : but it is 
 too much our habit to forget that, when 
 facts have all been before the mind, 
 the special impressions of men are all 
 valuable, so far as they are genuine, no 
 matter who comes before or after 
 other. 
 
 A fool's laughter. 
 
 The discovery of truth is often, but 
 most unjustly, retarded by the laugh 
 raised at some isolated failure of an 
 early enquirer. 
 
 Of moods. 
 
 Our own moods vary widely, yet we 
 cannot at the moment precisely com- 
 
S" pocket ot ^ebbliB. 25 
 
 prehend our being in a mood entirely 
 different from the one in which we are. 
 
 Prayer and air. 
 
 Prayers which are inaudible, are 
 naturally best adapted for the hearing 
 of the Invisible : yet the air being also 
 His, it is natural that this also should 
 vibrate with the voice of prayer. 
 
 A sonnet. 
 
 Some bird is warbling for my joy — but 
 
 where 
 I weet not : wistfully I gaze 
 Through all the tremulous rounds of 
 
 leafage there ; 
 All ear and eye about me, lo ! I raise 
 Peering enquiryfor myfount of praise- 
 That half-articulate sonneter, too rare 
 To be commended in elaboured lays : — 
 Ah me ! I fail to find her anywhere— 
 
26 ^ifkings ftom 
 
 Blest could I know who blesses me. — 
 'Tis so 
 
 I prove the sweet effects of some kind 
 soul. 
 
 Whose wishes waft about me as I go ; 
 
 I feel some hidden help doth make me 
 whole. 
 
 How like that sightless song this sound- 
 less prayer ! 
 
 Some one is praying for me : — tell me, 
 where ? 
 
 A proverb to be put out. 
 
 Take care of the proverb " Wherever 
 there is smoke, there is fire " ; — That 
 smoke very often arises from that little 
 member which is set on fire of hell. 
 
 The best walk and the highest 
 talk. 
 
 " Lord, teach us to pray" did not 
 merely mean "give us words to say". 
 
• Jl ^ockft of Pebbles. 27 
 
 but "teach us what it is, in the heat of 
 the day, among the trees of this re- 
 gained garden, to walk and to talk 
 with our Father". 
 
 Advantage of a mean, but no 
 mean advantage. 
 
 in matters of marked import, most 
 successful lines of vigorous action, at 
 least in gentle minds, are a mean be- 
 tween diffidence and dash. 
 
 " I know not seems". 
 
 Be very careful to accommodate 
 your modes of thought and your views 
 of personal ambition, not to what this or 
 that person thinks " high " or " low", 
 but to what is high and low, true and 
 false, and the like. " Nearer my God 
 to Thee"— this must be our motto. 
 
28 ^irkmgg from 
 
 Of limits of ambition. 
 
 How are we to regard that which we 
 have not, but which we think it would 
 be good for us to have? All such 
 things from lowest to highest come 
 under the same rule. That rule is 
 quite clear. We must not fasten our 
 minds on anything, except habits of 
 excellence, and say, "I mean to attain 
 that, come what may". It is unrestful, 
 and in some degree dangerous — I do not 
 say always irreligious, but dangerous 
 —even with respect to a lawful object 
 of ambition, to fix our gaze on it and 
 go throughya^ to get it; for the tempta- 
 tion may be sore to go through 7i.e/as 
 also. Not but what a man may be so 
 penetrated with a sense of his powers 
 that he may be convinced, and in some ■ 
 sort may feel inspired with the convic- 
 
^ ^ofkrt of ^ehblcs. 29 
 
 tion, that to work them in some unat- 
 tained sphere may be his duty. But to 
 live rightly under this conviction, and 
 amidst these endeavours to rest in 
 faith, requires constant watchfulness. 
 A man must be very careful not to form 
 any fixed idea that God wants him for 
 any special work. If the work is mani- 
 festly to be done and nobody else can 
 do it — especially if it be near at hand, 
 and the time for its doing be passing or 
 about to pass — then in God's name let 
 him "go gallantly on", as Chevalier 
 Bunsen, Arnold's friend, told me he 
 had said to Florence Nightingale; but 
 even then let him be humbly prepared 
 at any moment to find the cup of his 
 purpose suddenly put aside from his 
 lips. Many, as the man I have last 
 named, have come to the edge of their 
 hopes of great work, and had but a 
 
30 ^irfeittQs fcom 
 
 peep into the land where other men 
 were to enter into their labours. But 
 these high examples go beyond my 
 original purpose. I began to write 
 this rather that by help of God I might 
 clear and establish what has to be said 
 about the hopes and desires of common 
 life. Suppose I see before me or beside 
 me, but not within my reasonable 
 reach, a condition which commends 
 itself to my imagination as highly 
 adapted to my powers and mj' tastes. 
 The fact that this seevis so is to be en- 
 tirely merged, drowned, and lost in the 
 fact that it is not within my reach. 
 Circumstances stand round me and 
 sever me from that object of my wishes. 
 God makes them stand there. What 
 seems is imagination, however vivid it 
 may be. All that lies in the land of 
 uncertainty. It may be a ghost. It 
 
^ ^otktt of Nibbles. 31 
 
 may be a picture painted by the devil. 
 Indeed, being clean contrary to what 
 God allows to me, it is most probable, 
 nay I may say certain, that it is one 
 of the Jaia Morgana, one of those 
 mephitic ignesfatui, called up by the 
 foul fiend in the bad air of selfishness ; 
 an image, or child of desire, which has 
 nothing to do with my Father and my 
 God — except to flout and oppose His 
 omniscient love for me. To hanker 
 after it were vanity ; to follow it, in- 
 sanity. 
 
 Vice is its own reward. 
 
 One of the most fearful ways by 
 which you can deteriorate, is by think- 
 ing other people bad, especially the 
 other sex. If you hold an idea that 
 they are mostly given up to sin and 
 are careless of character, as some love 
 
32 ^pickings from 
 
 to maintain, your soul is apt to come 
 crushing down like a house with dry- 
 rot ; or like the lungs of a man long 
 diseased, that slough off into cavernous 
 death. 
 
 Love-couplet. 
 
 Those whom love couples love will hold 
 
 so fast, 
 That love at first will still be love at 
 
 last. 
 
 TTOV (TTbi; 
 
 The worst part of your becoming 
 worse is if you do not know it. If you 
 light upon some old friend, or find 
 some piece of writing of your better 
 days, it is melancholy if you are smitten 
 with the sense — quajttuin mutatus ab 
 illo. Vet you may indeed bethink you 
 for your comfort, that in other ways 
 
Si pocket of ^itbles. 33 
 
 you may be changing for the better. 
 What however is the set of the main 
 current of your being ? 
 
 A root question. 
 
 Which begins first, faith or know- 
 ledge—who can say ? With children, 
 probably_/ie:zV/* ; but to a man who has 
 grown up — I mean down — into ignor- 
 ance of God, the noting of some fact, or 
 the attaining some piece of knowledge 
 about Him may be accompanied by 
 belief in the way of simultaneity. Then, 
 believing that He is, you find, by dili- 
 gently seeking Him, your knowledge 
 growing. But to know Him is to love 
 Him. This is to be at peace. Amidst 
 pains and distresses of body, mind, and 
 estate, notwithstanding all passing 
 changes, you rest on the Eternal. No- 
 body fully believes this to be so, till he 
 3 
 
34 pickings from 
 
 finds it to be so. Everj'body who finds it 
 to be so " believes". All men may find it 
 to be so whom we rightly call " good " 
 — for reverence enters into our idea of 
 goodness. The existence of the Father 
 can however be arrived at both by 
 analysis and synthesis. Every exam- 
 ined detail leads you up to God, Whom 
 hitherto you knew not ; and taking 
 God for the foundation and starting 
 point of observation, knowing in Whom 
 you believe, you descend to the details 
 of creation and providence by the same 
 chain by which you might, logically 
 speaking, have up-clomb. Morally 
 speaking, can the soul climb without 
 some sort of behef ? that is the ques- 
 tion. It is akin to that enquiry as to 
 the priority, connateness, or posteri- 
 ority of matter or of spirit, which is 
 among the things above proof. Here 
 
31 ^orket of pebbles. 35 
 
 faith answers In the analogy to spirit ; 
 the appreciation of fact, to matter. It 
 is true that the "honest and good 
 heart " will, either immediately or medi- 
 ately, reach God ; but then that honest 
 and good heart is not wholly ignorant 
 of God to begin with. Such a heart, 
 like the sound syllogism, involves the 
 Petitio Principii ; only, instead of 
 reaching his Universal through an 
 enumeration of particulars, a process 
 not applicable here, he finds Him by an 
 examination of the one great crucial 
 instance Himself. 
 
 Of Traitors. 
 
 For thirty pieces of silver Judas sold 
 his Saviour to the Priests, and himself 
 to the devil. The whole spiritual world 
 seemed nothing to him, and a little 
 hard cash seemed everything. When 
 
36 pickings from 
 
 it was too late, he saw it all. This was 
 not an exceptional sin, save incidentally. 
 It is so with all sin. Every man who 
 prefers pleasure to duty is of the com- 
 pany of Judas. It is only in circum- 
 stantial detail that he is less infamous. 
 
 From bad to worse. 
 
 It may indeed not be good for a man 
 to be alone— but that is infinitely better 
 than being with any one with whom he 
 ought not to be ! 
 
 The requisite for spiritual 
 students. 
 
 Dr. Koelle, author of the Polyglotta 
 A/rtcatta, tells me that, when he learns 
 a new language — which at one time 
 was about once a week— he begins by 
 writing its grammar. So, let the man 
 who wishes to cultivate the spiritual 
 
^ J^ocket of ^tbbhs. 37 
 
 life study the laws thereof for himself. 
 He must not simply go upon books of 
 devotion made by others, though upon 
 these he may well lean, as when a 
 person learns to skate. Indeed all the 
 best men and women maintain their 
 most advanced spiritual life by feeding 
 on such diet, especially on the highest 
 fare which is before them. What I 
 here lay stress upon is, that the life of 
 the spirit cannot be learned by merely 
 paying attention to what is outside our 
 own soul. Spiritual life cannot be 
 duly appreciated as knowledge by the 
 student who is not of a nature to re- 
 ceive it. This is why men merely 
 scientific fail to see the beauty and 
 truth of Christianity. They bring to 
 the examination of the highest phe- 
 nomena only the same kind of eye 
 which serves them in the lower. They 
 
38 pickings from 
 
 see nothing, and then employ the 
 authority of their deserved eminence in 
 "science" to persuade men that there 
 is nothing farther to see ! As for those 
 who look to thevi for guidance in 
 matters higher than apes and acids, 
 motes and moths, embryos and gases, 
 we know that " if the blind lead the 
 blind, both shall fall into the ditch " ; — 
 and the sooner the better for the world 
 — I do not say for themselves. 
 
 A greater than David is here. 
 
 When the Psalmist says " Shall the 
 dead rise up and praise Thee?" in 
 Christ's name, and in the light of His 
 love, we thankfully answer '■'yes". If 
 the Psalmist, even without our experi- 
 ence and our additional ground of faith, 
 found in that limited trust in his God 
 enough to live upon, how much more 
 
^ ^orket of pebbles. 39 
 
 ought 7ve gratefully to feel, that in this 
 House of our Father, which the Son hath 
 prepared for us, we " have enough and 
 to spare ". 
 
 "Wherefore deal ye so madly?" 
 
 In religion it mostly is, as in philo- 
 sophy it always has been, that men get 
 hold of a set of theories, chop them into 
 hard phrases, boil them up with verbi- 
 age, and ladle out their stuff to those 
 that live on it. One party cries 
 " Church, Church," when they have 
 no Church, or only a formal one. 
 Another commonly disports itself in 
 dilating upon high-sounding abstrac- 
 tions. It seems to me that our teach- 
 ing should first seek to impart or 
 revive the seed of new life, and then to 
 tackle with the facts and puzzles of the 
 heart and conscience, bringing the 
 
4Q ^ickittQs from 
 
 healing power to bear on these, one 
 by one. Face the special malady : — 
 " Where does the pain lie ? what is its 
 cause?" That being discovered, rise 
 to your special cure, your special text, 
 your special truth — your theory, if you 
 have got one for the occasion. Other- 
 wise theoretic preaching too often flies 
 in the air. Not but what it is whole- 
 some to expatiate with reverent love on 
 the high and grand graces and virtues 
 of the absolutely divine life, and to 
 " reason well on immortality". This is 
 true philosophy, though not to be used 
 to the exclusion, of the more special 
 and practical teaching of which I have 
 spoken. The other mode is not philo- 
 ' sophy in any sense. It often works 
 upon a bargain supposed to have 
 been gone through by the Eternal 
 Father and Jesus, in a manner far more 
 
^ pocket of ■^ebbhs. 42 
 
 nauseating, if possible, than those other 
 modes of treating religious questions, 
 to which some objections are partially 
 reasonable. 
 
 " Flentibus adflent". 
 
 Our power of overcoming evil by 
 good depends mainly on our power of 
 compassion. 
 
 Of the circle. 
 
 The order of our physical cosmos, 
 as you would expect from the unity of 
 God, finds a parallel in our moral life. 
 In both, order is preserved by a com- 
 bination of movements. The move- 
 ment of the earth round the sun is 
 arranged co-ordinately with its motion 
 round its axis. The result of these 
 combined movements is the sensation 
 of repose. So in morals there is a 
 
42 ^ifkings front 
 
 general law of right under which 
 human spirits revolve. But there is 
 also a social law, and there are obliga- 
 tions varying with the individual, 
 which serve as a compensative check, 
 and so preserve society in courses 
 which are fairly even, and which ap- 
 proximate to the perfect figure. 
 
 Of the law of force and the 
 force of law. 
 
 When once you resign yourself to 
 the fancy that you " cannot help it" ; 
 when once you let a phantasy of neces- 
 sity jump on your back and throw a 
 bit into your jaws : when you begin to 
 breathe that impious and blasphemous 
 thought — then there is no recklessness 
 into which you are not ready to plunge. 
 That base and scheming and miserable 
 stroke of madness dashes you aside 
 
31 pocket of pebbles. 43 
 
 from the right path. It is the origin of 
 what is evil to you, and makes you 
 bold for any wrong. Take care you 
 do not say, " I can't help it." Even if 
 you feel disposed to say it about little 
 things which are apparently irrelevant 
 to morals, you must suspect danger. 
 Nothing in fact with which will is con- 
 cerned z's irrelevant to moral life. Note 
 the little speck within your fruit, the 
 little rift in the instrument of j'our life's 
 music. Will is Will, whatever be the 
 matter on which it be called to work ; 
 and if it is allowed to be weak in some 
 small thing to-day, the plague is begun, 
 and you form a precedent for avowing 
 helplessness in some greater thing to- 
 morrow. He that admits weakness in 
 one point is potentially impotent in all. 
 Sceiui intra se tacite quicogitat-ullion, 
 Facti primmn habet. This will-weak- 
 
44 pickings fxom 
 
 ness opens the door to indefinite crime. 
 What but " T/iy will be done " can 
 secure us ? In the recognition of God's 
 will as permanent within us our 
 strength is found. It was not mock- 
 humilit3% but sober common sense and 
 a clear perception of causes and se- 
 quences, which led that holy man to 
 say when he saw a felon going to 
 Tyburn, "But for the grace of God 
 there goes John Bradford." 
 
 Of garden gates. 
 
 Oh young man, leave not open the 
 garden-gate of your heart for the swine 
 to come in and trample down the 
 rtower-beds of the graces of your God ! 
 
 Of unsettled lees. 
 
 When good men move about too 
 much and pass to and fro among in- 
 citements to pleasure, it is as when a 
 
31 Rochet ot pebbles. 45 
 
 bottle of good wine is shaken. Thus the 
 dregs and lees of the soul make the life 
 cloudy. 
 
 Of an old watch. 
 
 Abstract yourself for a moment, with 
 5'our watch in your hand, from this 
 beautiful order in which you live, and 
 move, and are. Imagine yourself 
 walking on the high places of heaven, 
 in some place which is not as a place, 
 some state or condition in which you 
 can see the universe lying at your feet. 
 It is better thus to abstract yourself, 
 for otherwise you form part of the 
 argument, and this does not minister 
 to lucidity. But say you see, both in 
 its broad working and in its delicate 
 details of order and law, the Universe 
 at your feet. Except you have carried 
 with you the doubts of carnal question- 
 
46 pickings front 
 
 ists, would it not at once strike you 
 that what you see must have come into 
 existence as much by will and purpose 
 and personal intervention as the watch 
 which you hold in your hand ? This is 
 an old image, but it bears dwelling on. 
 If that watch was contrived by a mind, 
 so surely also was that Universe. 
 Moreover, as a man constructed the 
 parts of the watch, and brought them 
 under the condition of the natural laws 
 of motion, so it must have been some- 
 one like man— or rather someone to 
 whom man is like — some Personage, 
 Who gave life within itself to the uni- 
 verse, as to one infinite living creature. 
 And if this be true of the outside world 
 of matter, shall not the observer, when 
 he goes back again in thought to his 
 own place in that universe, argue 
 much more clearly and certainly the 
 
Jl pocket of pebbles. 47 
 
 same origin for himself— namely, a 
 Personal Will ? If a man dwells in the 
 body of dust, and yet is not of it, so 
 God, while independent of the uni- 
 verse, may still be in it and give it life. 
 God animates the body of the universe, 
 in all its ranges, just as a man's spirit, 
 indivisible and invisible, animates the 
 body of a man. The fact that the seen 
 part of a man becomes unseen — without, 
 as we believe, carrying into death that 
 part of him which has made the body 
 seem for a time to have life in itself— 
 looks like a prophecy that the "unseen 
 universe " will survive the universe 
 which in part is seen. 
 
 "Things are not what they 
 seem". 
 
 Falsehood can never dg an aspect of 
 truth. 
 
48 IPirkings front 
 
 An "a fortiori" receptivity. 
 
 If willing in the day of our Maker's 
 power, shall we not much more be 
 willing in the day of our Father's 
 love ? 
 
 "Voces repercussse". 
 Prayer and its answer are, for in- 
 stantaneous and exact response, like 
 the voice and its echo against that 
 great Rock, under which we find 
 shadow and shelter in this weary land. 
 The words of prevailing prayer come 
 back upon the soul in an answer of 
 rejoicing praise. "When I called, 
 Thou didst answer : and when I was 
 yet speaking, Thou didst hear ". The 
 reflection is however sometimes clearer 
 in the waters of the soul than that 
 which is reflected, and the echo 
 sweeter than the parent sound — mostly 
 
^ ^orket of pebbles. 49 
 
 multiplying itself with "re-sounding 
 grace". 
 
 A word of a body-doctor. 
 
 Business is a kind of material body, 
 without which the spiritual life is a 
 kind of ghost. In the perfect life they 
 are essential to each other. Business, 
 whatever attaches to each man's posi- 
 tion, is dead, if a man's spirit do not 
 animate it. This spirit however, if it 
 have no body to animate, has but a 
 shadowy life. So also material pos- 
 session, or the fair power of obtaining 
 food, raiment, and roof, forms that 
 corporeal substance and local habita- 
 tion, without which the spirit of love, 
 however quick and fresh, is but an airy- 
 nothingness flying between the cold 
 moon and the earth. 
 4 
 
so pickings from 
 
 Of " promoters". 
 
 People who float a worldly enterprise 
 by which they hope to gain advantage 
 through the utiHsing of other people, 
 commonly keep a private boat swing- 
 ing astern. 
 
 A form of conversion. 
 
 In proportion as the truth makes 
 men free, freedom will make men 
 truthful. 
 
 Pshaw ! pah ! fie ! 
 I was reading a book full of fine 
 writing and vivid picturing, but every 
 here and there I became aware of a 
 smell of sulphur in it : something like 
 the whiffs which puff before your nose 
 and eyes as you are contemplating a 
 beautiful view out of the window of a 
 railway carriage. No young person in 
 
51 ^3ackct of pebbles. 51 
 
 these days should pick up books at hap- 
 hazard. They should seek good ad- 
 vice as to what they read. He who 
 said " Take heed how ye hear", would 
 also say "Take heed how ye read". 
 There may be moral death in those 
 currents of bad air. The modesty of 
 a life may wither in an hour. 
 
 "Natura recurret." 
 
 If a man, through mistaken kindness, 
 be elevated to great offices, and even 
 though these offices involve dignity, 
 emolument, and the sahitari, appeti, 
 decedi, asszirgi, dedtici, reditci, consuli, 
 and the like honours— yet if, having 
 some genuine and special gift, he finds 
 in this post no scope to put it out to 
 the exchangers, he is not rightly happy ; 
 but he is apt to be ill at ease, discon- 
 tented, and at last to flag. 
 
52 firkin gs fvom 
 
 Of an octopus. 
 
 If o'er thee little sins have taken hold, 
 Take heed— or else thine end may soon 
 be told. 
 
 Of a law of disease. 
 
 As "to the pure all things are pure ", 
 so to the impure all things are impure. 
 Quantum in ccelum, tantuin in Tar- 
 tar a. 
 
 " Amo, amas, amat, et cetera." 
 
 A BROKEN PEBBLE. 
 
 * 4f- * * 
 
 Then all the phases, told a thousand 
 
 times 
 By tongue, or pen, or scene ; — yet ever 
 
 new, 
 And rife with wise concern to all that 
 
 live. 
 
31 pocket cf J^zbbles. 53 
 
 For who that lives but knows so^fie 
 
 mood and tense, 
 Learned off by heart in this world's 
 
 public school— 
 If not the present — i/uii is best to 
 
 know, 
 Most if indicative, no doubt subjoined— 
 Perhaps the past, finished or still in 
 
 course, 
 A preterite indefinite, with a hope— 
 Or, it may be, the future, with a glance 
 Of foolish wisdom at the future done — 
 All, all have learned, or else may come 
 
 to learn. 
 Some mood and tense of that old verb, 
 
 " to love." 
 
 Single thought, social crime. 
 
 Bring vividly before your mind any 
 practical moral difficulty. The course 
 of your probation, say, brings you into 
 
54 59i<^liJ't9s from 
 
 a certain crisis. These crises may be 
 i^reater or less, but no crisis is unim- 
 portant. Such perplexities form part 
 of the holy war of our life. Every 
 man has them, more or less ; and it is 
 futile to say that your circumstances 
 differ from those of other people : nay, 
 it is highly dangerous to say so, for 
 your ne.xt step is to try and get out of 
 your difficulty by some way by which 
 other people's consciences do not allow 
 them to get out of theirs.' You are 
 tempted to argue, " If my difficulty is 
 an exception, my escape may perhaps 
 also be excused if it be exceptional " ; 
 and that means sin. So put away at 
 once and for ever the idea that your 
 situatio7i differs essentially from that 
 in which most people are placed. You 
 do not know, and cannot guess, how 
 many good Christians are manfully 
 
31 13ock£t of ?3fbbU0. 55 
 
 struggling through equal misfortune. 
 Well — you want a solution — ease, rest, 
 in short covifort. You desire to fol- 
 low some particular course suited to 
 your mind. It is natural you should 
 thus wish, especially if that course be 
 one in itself right ; but does God make 
 it right for you ? This reservation is 
 so important that it is wrong, however 
 natural it may in this case seem, to 
 desire anything except broadly and 
 unreservedly God's will as expressed 
 in His known commands. No man is 
 in a safe or wholesome condition who 
 writhes under his cross. The only 
 wholesome tone of heart is " Thy will 
 be done ; I desire nothing but thine 
 arrangement, O God my Father". 
 This principle or feeling, and nothing 
 else, working in the soul can draw us 
 back, by the constraining love and 
 
56 pickings from 
 
 grace of the Spirit of Christ and God, 
 from the fearful gulfs of crime or death 
 which lie between us and the objects to 
 which we are being drawn, when we 
 over-strongly desire a rest which our 
 Father is not yet pleased to give us. 
 Our rest must, I say, lie in the doing 
 and abiding of God's will. 
 
 A feeling after God. 
 
 ' ' I will at once set my will to work 
 to resist this desire of being idle." 
 What is the / here ? Is " / " the will 
 itself? or is it an " I " behind the will ? 
 01 again, is it a name given to distinct 
 parts of the being, as each from time 
 to time comes forward in dominance or 
 prominence? or does it represent the 
 composite being ? If this last be the 
 case, then you mean that the whole of 
 you, namely j/ou, will set to v/ork, or 
 
Jl ^ocktt of l^tbhhs. 57 
 
 set your will to work, to resist that part 
 of you which desires to be idle ? But 
 in this case the part which desires to 
 be idle will take part with " you " in 
 your whole against itself as a part, and 
 set the will to work against itself ! 
 This will not hold. So does the matter 
 resolve itself to a struggle between you 
 and this desire ? Desire says, " You 
 shall not set will to work to keep me 
 down." But your very complaint is, 
 that desire is an overpowering element 
 in you. Desire bribes and buys up the 
 will. So we have not yet found what, 
 behind the overpowered will, is the 
 " I" that can renew its strength. Does 
 not " I " mean the divine Sovereign 
 Power whom I recognise in my island 
 of life, and in virtue of which I partake 
 of the Divine Nature ? Therefore do 
 you not mean to say " I will, in God's 
 
58 ^trhings from 
 
 name, set in motion this inner agency, 
 namely my will, to subdue that rebel 
 desire " ? Thus it is that the voice of 
 God speaks within you. What, I 
 should like to know, is a man, who does 
 not recognise that Power resident in 
 his life, to do, while under the super- 
 human strain of a conjuncture of temp- 
 tations? What is left for him but to 
 fall? "Lord, to whom shall we go? 
 Thou only hast the words of eternal 
 life ". 
 
 What should I seek beside thy 
 perfect will ? 
 We must not make anything, even 
 peace and a wholesome moral atmos- 
 phere, however much to be desired, a 
 sine qti& non in our demands on Provi- 
 dence. We must not imagine any 
 demands at all, but must keep a tabula 
 
^ ^ocktt of ^fbblcs. 59 
 
 rasa of all our personal wishes. We 
 must find our only rest in "Thy will 
 be done ", and thus calmly face what- 
 ever demands upon our action or our 
 endurance the solemn hours and the 
 holy moments may bring us. This 
 obedience unto death is the only spirit 
 which befits those engaged, as we are, 
 to fight under the banner of Christ. 
 
 Of flowing drapery. 
 
 Except "principle", there ought to 
 be nothing hard and fast in humanity. 
 All rules relating to our dealing there- 
 with ought to fit to it like a Coan vest. 
 Our rules ought to enswathe it as the 
 atmosphere invests the earth. The 
 free play of the winds of feeling ought 
 to curve our conduct about all its 
 beautiful forms, lest they be hidden 
 and cramped. We are not dealing 
 
6o ^kkings from 
 
 with necessary matter, nor with things 
 demanding or always admitting rigid 
 demonstration or fixed application ; 
 we must measure at least many human 
 cases with a ruler of lead, showing all 
 the contours of their waved moulding ; 
 not so much with inflexible justice as 
 with the equity of kindly sympathy; 
 with that equity which, as one has well 
 said, is not better than justice, but a 
 better justice. Fair play is indeed a 
 jewel. 
 
 Another small pebble— for the 
 pocket. 
 
 It will not ruin thee this sum to lack, 
 Which it would ruin hint to pay thee 
 back ! 
 
 Of tuning an instrument. 
 
 It is one of the largest, most interest- 
 ing, and most practical questions, how 
 
31 ^ocktt of laehbks. 61 
 
 the parts of the life may co-operate. 
 It should be a standing topic for 
 preachers ; but it requires the utmost 
 wisdom and delicacy. It embraces all 
 gospel-teaching. Men in possession 
 of the seed of the Christ-Spirit may 
 convert souls, which is the first and 
 main thing, but to guide the details of 
 the Christian life, and to treat cases of 
 conscience, surely requires also the 
 highest culture. 
 
 Of weighing anchor. 
 It is most unwise to let ourselves be 
 brought to anchor by any gloomy 
 thoughts. Anybody may do so who is 
 silly enough for it. Reckon over the 
 things that have happened to you, 
 except you have been unusually fortu- 
 nate, in the last ten or twenty years, 
 and you may in ten or twenty minutes 
 
62 pickings from 
 
 come to regard yourself as the most 
 ill-used creature on the face of the 
 earth. Losses of goods, real or per- 
 sonal, in all senses of the words — 
 repeated failures and countless disap- 
 pointments — why, if you contemplate 
 these "in the lump", and these only, 
 their dolorous aspect will soon colour 
 your eye ; and then in what a black 
 atmosphere may you imagine yourself 
 to be living ! But it were an untrue esti- 
 mate. " Forget those things which are 
 behind, and reach forth to those things 
 \yhich are before." Is not the whole of 
 hope and the whole of heaven before 
 you? Never dream that /leaz'eu need 
 be among the things that are left behind 
 you and lost ! Be not faithless, but 
 believing, and then all happiness is 
 de/ore you and lies yet within your 
 reach. You may yet be more than 
 
Jl ^ocktt of iBcbblcs. 63 
 
 conqueror through Him that loves you 
 as His own, and will love you to the 
 end. 
 
 A piece of spiritual grammar. 
 
 If a Christian Is ill— he is ill unto the 
 Lord. It Is as active work to suffer 
 God's win as to do It. The soul, like 
 the deponent verb, then wears a pas- 
 sive form, but has an active meaning. 
 
 A metathesis. 
 
 People often confuse the casual and 
 the causal. In fact nothing is casual. 
 The best definition given of chance is 
 "the absence of known cause." 
 
 The Judge before the door. 
 
 Let every day be to thee a day of 
 judgment. Seek of the scrutinising and 
 trutinising mercy of the Most High to 
 
64 ?9kktngs from 
 
 examine thy thoughts day by day, to 
 cleanse thee from thy secret faults, and 
 to lead thee into the land of upright- 
 ness. Thou wilt meet the Great day 
 well if thou get the Great Judge to 
 judge thee every day. 
 
 Of "taking things easy". 
 
 Friend, art thou fain to lead a quiet 
 
 life? 
 Bear, and forbear, before thou plunge 
 
 in strife. 
 
 ' fit TdXT10€S e|X'7r^4>UK€V dvOpWTTODV 
 
 (jLcvw. — Soph. 
 
 Remember that Jesus, " the same 
 yesterday, to-day, and for ever", is not 
 responsible for any foolish things which 
 the Church and the Churches — still 
 less for what wayward and irrespon- 
 
Jl ^ocktt of pebbles. 65 
 
 sible individuals— from time to time 
 may have said, may be saying, or yet 
 may say. 
 
 "AX€i, (ivXa, 6Xa (Greek song), or 
 "Meunier, meunier, ton moulin 
 va trop vite". 
 
 A real grievance is the only grist for 
 the mill of discontent. If the grind- 
 stones have nothing between them, 
 they grind themselves smooth ; and 
 then, and not till then, will the sound 
 of the grinding be low. If they get 
 an imagined grievance between them, 
 "the common sense of most," which 
 soon sees through a millstone, leaves 
 that business to a few ; and the charac- 
 ter of these is soon added up, and they 
 are not long in wearing themselves out. 
 A wise legislator will keep removing 
 one after another all reasons for indig- 
 5 
 
66 pickings from 
 
 nation, and all temptations and facili- 
 ties for wrong deeds and for wild and 
 whirling words ; and will, by degrees, 
 still the noise of national waves and 
 the madness of the people. Easy-goinj; 
 persons generally complain of nothing— 
 when there is nothing to complain of. 
 
 " Distinguo". 
 Ware, as a rule, the bearing of a tale ; — 
 But where to tell were just, thou mui-t 
 not fail. 
 
 A piece of contradictory 
 opposition. 
 
 Silence does not give consent. 
 
 A piece of fairness. 
 
 Be careful how you regard your 
 heighbour's character. With all his low 
 habits he is, for aught you know, con- 
 
^ Porhtt of pebbles. 67 
 
 tending against them more sincerely and 
 making head against them more effectu- 
 ally, than you are against those which 
 may beset yourself. No one knows 
 the things of a man, save the spirit of 
 a man which is in him, and — He who 
 knows what is in man, and Who is the 
 Judge of quick and dead. Not but 
 what there are those who must at once 
 be known by their fruits; thistles, from 
 which it is plain that no man can ever 
 gather figs. 
 
 Of not being left on the 
 platform. 
 
 However this or that nation or gene- 
 ration of the Society of men may deal 
 with their own hopes and chances of 
 salvation, God's Kingdom must come, 
 and the Communion of Saints must go 
 on. Whoever else may linger, do you 
 
68 ^irkings from 
 
 jump, I tell you, into that Express 
 Train. 
 
 Turning the tables upon 
 discontent. 
 
 I will not grieve that I am thus bereft. 
 But think how ill I merit all that's left. 
 
 Take heed how ye— read. 
 
 If you have an interest in your mind 
 and are still training it, I should advise 
 you, after j^ou have been reading about 
 a matter, to ask yourself before you 
 dismiss it — first, how much of what you 
 have read is worth making a part of 
 your knowledge : then, whether you 
 have really made that a part thereof. To 
 a reading age, the same Voice that said 
 " For every idle word that men shall 
 speak" would, I think, have said, not 
 only " For every idle word that men 
 
^ pocket of pebbles. 69 
 
 and women shall write", but also " For 
 every idle book that men and women 
 and youths and maidens shall reac/, 
 they shall give account thereof in the 
 day of Judgment". In this matter of 
 "light" literature the Enemy, be it well 
 known, is very busy in sowing Tares. 
 Every maiden should, and every young 
 lady will, take the advice of competent 
 judges before plunging into converse, 
 for so it is, with authors and author- 
 esses. If they do not take care, the 
 reading of an hour may poison the 
 sweetness, and wither the beauty of a 
 life. 
 
 Of the great gulf. 
 
 It is important not to contemplate 
 with the mind's eye the wrong pleasure, 
 while it is important to contemplate 
 rather with the spirit's eye the great 
 
70 ^tckmjjB from 
 
 gulf fixed between that false pleasure 
 and the true. That gulf may seem 
 narrow, or it may seem to be no gulf 
 at all ; but once leap at those flowers 
 of wild delight which hang there, and 
 probably forthwith, certainly ere long, 
 you will find yourself, with their few 
 leaves in your hot hands, tumbling 
 headlong into the abyss. 
 
 The sign of the Cross. 
 
 Christ's cross was mainly an outward 
 and visible sign of His inward and 
 spiritual pain. 
 
 Of dark pools. 
 
 We stand now over some of the 
 mysteries of Eternity as children that 
 look with fear down into deep, dark 
 ponds on winter evenings. On some 
 eternal summer-day we may pass by 
 
^ ^ockit of ^fbblfs. 7 c 
 
 that way and find them dried to the 
 abiding ground, and the mystery at an 
 end ! 
 
 Of travelling. 
 
 When setting out on a long journey 
 we take much thought and make much 
 preparation. We think of where we 
 are going to, how we shall get there, 
 what will be needed for the way, what 
 dangers are to be encountered, what 
 difficulties to be overcome, what com- 
 panions we shall have with us, and 
 lastly, what requisites there are for our 
 comfortable continuance when we get 
 to our journey's end and to the place 
 where we would be. In all these re- 
 spects the wise man will look to his 
 passage over the space of time, how 
 wide or how narrow soever, which lies 
 between the present moment and that 
 
72 ^ir kings fxom 
 
 of "quick-coming death". Lord of 
 heaven and earth, to whom the wise 
 all aspire, in whose light Jesus, my 
 Master, lived and lives, guide me by 
 Thy counsel, and after that receive me 
 — with mercy. 
 
 Of hair-breadth care. 
 
 It requires care, both in State and 
 Church, to keep defence from looking 
 like defiance. 
 
 The unwisdom of 2000 years. 
 
 Caiaphas and the rest were probably 
 many of them " well-meaning " men, 
 " firm" men, men not easily disturbed 
 from their "consistency"; they were 
 men of "settled convictions," "steady 
 principles," "cautious men"— in a word, 
 what some unreflecting people love to 
 call " sound Churchmen". Their sin 
 
31 ^otkzt of f cbhUs. 73 
 
 was that they thought they saw. They 
 simply regarded reconsideration to be 
 a sin ; and, though this was a thought of 
 foolishness, they, remained in the sin of 
 not reconsidering. So they tried to 
 put out the Light. The same sin 
 keeps men now from seeing Who 
 Christ really is. The Saviour is thus 
 crucified in the Spirit over and over 
 again, in all circles," high" and "low". 
 Indeed, the best are only feeling after 
 Him, with more or less success, if haply 
 they may find Him. 
 
 A transparent pebble. 
 
 Like one that stands in ihe glow of 
 the sunrise, so, washed in the light of 
 Christ, we may well lose much of our 
 local colour. In Thy light we shall not 
 only see light — but ie light. "Be ye 
 light in the Lord." 
 
74 pickings from 
 
 An emigrant couple. 
 
 Sequestered from the crew, as best they 
 may, 
 
 In sunnj' nook beside the breezy prow, 
 
 By use of voyage made familiar now— 
 
 How sweet through all the long Atlan- 
 tic day, 
 
 Neath the broad heaven's shadow- 
 shifting brow 
 
 To list the changeful waters in their 
 play— 
 
 Which falling off in furrows clear a 
 way, 
 
 While the winds chaunt as only they 
 know how. 
 
 Thrice blest to gaze into each other's 
 eyes 
 
 In idle interval of destinies, 
 
 .'Vnd read, as in the volume of the book, 
 
31 pocket of ^ebbks. 75 
 
 Trust and dependence there in every 
 
 look; 
 To make each other's breast by turns a 
 
 pillow, 
 And dream of golden homes beyond 
 
 the billow. 
 
 (ii.) 
 
 So love the twain, as only those caa 
 know. 
 
 Who, winged as seeds upon the west- 
 ward wind, 
 
 The blue above them and the green 
 below. 
 
 Fare forth with resolute heart and even 
 mind — 
 
 Before them ocean, home and friends 
 behind. 
 
 They know not rightly to what land 
 they go, 
 
76 ^ickiiiQS from 
 
 But this at least they know — that 
 
 Heaven is kind. 
 And Faith and Hope and Love endear 
 
 them so, 
 As none can tell but two such souls as 
 
 they— 
 And more than e'en their own sweet 
 
 sense can say. 
 The uncertain sea their only known 
 
 abode, 
 They lean each on the other, both on 
 
 God; 
 And all the fret and change of this 
 
 world's weather 
 But twine their twi-une fates more fast 
 
 together. 
 
 Of speaking with authority. 
 
 That which gives authority in the 
 utterance of something just and right, 
 or merciful and faithful, is, not the 
 
51 ?3orket of ^rbbks. 77 
 
 adopting of this or that formula, but 
 the expression of the moral sense upon 
 its own knowledge and responsibility. 
 ' ' We speak that we do know. " This 
 tells with natural force, arrests the 
 attention, and bites the heart. We feel 
 that we are being addressed out of 
 Eternity. We hear, as Chateaubriand 
 somewhere has it, the sound of some- 
 thing falling from heaven. 
 
 Of public schools. 
 
 Children should be given the keys of 
 all knowledge, and the chief ingredi- 
 ents of things. They should he put in 
 possession of main ideas in accordance 
 with the most approved discoveries,and 
 tj'pical specimens of all the best human 
 utterances, not omitting those of wit and 
 humour. Each mental form should be 
 rightly channelled out. It is surely a 
 
78 ^irktngs from 
 
 great omission not to teach in a simple 
 practical manner, if only in illustrative 
 conversations, the laws of thought : — I 
 do not say they need study Trendelen- 
 burg, or the Posterior Analytics. But 
 in all, through all, and above all — they 
 should have the tablets of their hearts 
 engraven with the highest laws, and 
 should be taught God, Christ, and the 
 Holy Spirit, in the conscience. If not, 
 they remain disorderly apes, with the 
 dangerous addition of an " advanced " 
 intelligence, and cultivated not only for 
 mischief but for sin. 
 
 Of a donkey-cart and a little 
 donkey. 
 
 I once saw a little child try to wheel 
 a small donkey-cart. The cart to his 
 surprise and joy went on at a rapid 
 rate. The child crowed again with pride. 
 
^ J^ochct ot ^ebilcs. 79 
 
 It did not see that its Father was giv- 
 ing it good pushes from behind! Nor 
 did the Father spoil the child's exulta- 
 tion by disabusing it of the illusion; 
 but it was a very little child — and, I 
 need hardly say, of no great wit. 
 
 "Words, words," "without 
 thoughts." 
 With some, prayer and praise are, 
 too often, no more and no less than 
 when men say "bless your life "and 
 "good-bye," — which latter often means 
 "go to the — crows." 
 
 At sixes and sevens. 
 
 One of the saddest marks of disorder 
 is, when a man so ill divides his time 
 that, whenever he would enjoy some 
 otherwise legitimate leisure and some 
 otherwise refreshing pleasure, he finds 
 
8o tpickiufis from 
 
 himself clamoured after by duties un- 
 done. 
 
 Of soul-talk. 
 
 Always listen intently to any sane 
 man who can tell you what God hath 
 done for his soul. There is no topic of 
 such exciting and such abiding interest. 
 You are there face to face with eternal 
 verities. 
 
 Of points of view. 
 
 Look at a wheat-field from all ways 
 but one, and it will seem to you sown 
 broadcast, and you will be less able to 
 judge of its culture or its produce. 
 But if you move along till you can 
 glance up the rows of the drill, all 
 starts into order.— How much depends 
 on the point of view from which we 
 
Jl pocket of ^Ebblfs. 8i 
 
 regard matters. Look at things Kftder 
 the sun. 
 
 Of accusing or else excusing 
 one another. 
 
 One man accuses, another excuses, 
 everybody — except himself. The latter 
 is the more graceful character, but 
 '^ est vtodtis in rebus" . 
 
 Of alternatives. 
 Caterpillars, accustomed to one leaf, 
 have been known to die, rather than 
 eat of another. I am informed that in 
 the times before the flood of '48 a little 
 German principality used to kill its 
 criminals by giving them nothing but 
 veal and red wine. (I grant that my 
 informant was a red Republican.) It 
 is clear that there is much that is mor- 
 bid, as well as something that may be 
 wholesome, about the desire in some 
 6 
 
82 ^kkhtQB from 
 
 of us to live upon the teaching of some 
 one person, and so to assume his colour 
 at the loss of our own. God hath said 
 "of every tree of the garden thou 
 mayest freely eat " — except one. Some 
 people so entirely pervert the right 
 way of the Lord, that they are wont to 
 eat of that one only ! They surely die. 
 
 On the Prince Consort— a 
 
 translation. 
 
 " Redit OS placidum moresque benigni 
 
 Et venit ante oculos et pectore vivit 
 
 imago. " — Vergil. 
 [Quoted by Professor Sedgwick at a meeting 
 in the University of Cambridge, in propos- 
 ing a memorial for the Prince Consort.] 
 
 Those kindly ways, that gentle face 
 
 On all our memories rise ; 
 His image in our heart holds place. 
 
 And lives before our eyes. 
 
^ pocket of ^ciblcs. 83 
 
 Of the nobly born. 
 
 In a man of great family and of noble 
 blood, these accidents — if indeed thej- 
 are accidents, and if they do not enter 
 into the essence of the man, even as 
 the nature of the oak-tree pervades 
 the latest leaf that dances on its top- 
 most sprig — are only ridiculous if he 
 seem unduly to be conscious of them. 
 Everybody in his senses must surelj' 
 note that " noble blood" is of a nature 
 to be a blessing. To come of a race 
 guarded through long generations from 
 the corroding causes which accompany 
 need ; never to have had the flame of 
 genius repressed, nor the genial cur- 
 rents of the family soul frozen by 
 penury ; always to have had engrained 
 in the stock the delicate sensibilities 
 and the kindly traditions of a studious 
 
84 ^jrkings from 
 
 civility ; to inherit the fine feeling and 
 the high honour, which, wherever else 
 it may be found, has mostly in such a 
 family tree become a second nature ; 
 to have enjoyed, under wise tuition, 
 from childhood up, the pabulzan fur- 
 nished by the library of a great and 
 good house ; to have fed on the cream 
 of the best literature of all times past 
 and present ; to have had blowing 
 through his life — those winds of God — 
 the breathings of the sweetest poets 
 and the maxims of the purest moral- 
 ists ; to have assimilated the forth- 
 flowings of the sublimest oratory ; 
 above all, to have learned to cherish 
 noble traditions of the history at once 
 of his family and his country ; to 
 own forefathers who have worked and 
 bled in the best causes ; lastly, to have 
 been born and bred to the manner of 
 
3^ ^orhft of ^cbblea. 85 
 
 high-minded statesmanship, and thus 
 to have both his inspirations and his 
 aspirations of the loftiest — I can only 
 say that the man who calls all that 
 nothing must be a fool. Not but what 
 it holds quite true that, if a man with 
 all these antecedents be not in' the 
 Kingdom of Heaven, the least in that 
 Kingdom, though he have had none of 
 those blessings, has risen higher in the 
 world than he. 
 
 The law of eyes. 
 
 The Gospel bids us be single-eyed 
 — but not one-eyed. 
 
 'Twere better to pluck out one eye, 'tis 
 
 true. 
 Than having two to enter into 
 
 Hell :- 
 
86 ^icMxtQS from 
 
 But then, to en ter Heaven keeping two, 
 The Lord, methinks, would say were 
 quite as well. 
 
 A fortification agate. 
 Tke spirit stands to its food as the 
 mind to its food. Now we observe 
 that the mind, like the body in that, 
 thrives upon food convenient for it. 
 The more just thoughts of an intellec- 
 tual nature the mind thinks, the more 
 sound books it eats, the more argument 
 it exercises, and the more it converses 
 with reasonable men — the stronger, 
 more active, and more rich it grows. 
 And even though it may rarely repro- 
 duce the facts it learns, nor ever repeat 
 the forms of argument it has fed on, 
 yet, from the exercise it takes, and from 
 the habits it forms, it is more fit to 
 grapple with the difficulties that pre- 
 
Jl pocket of ^fbblJB. 87 
 
 sent themselves. Now so it obviously 
 must be with the spirit of man . What 
 is the food of the spirit ? The things 
 of tJie Spirit, above all, the Word of 
 God ; holy thoughts, wise sayings, 
 high principles, and converse with 
 the sane people of God. The more it 
 feeds on these, the stronger it grows, 
 the loftier it is, the purer it is. What 
 makes the spirit weak and sickly among 
 us? and why do our spirits sometimes 
 seem to fall into the sleep of death? It 
 is surely from not taking enough of 
 wholesome food ; from not reading or 
 hearing the Word of God more ; from 
 not dwelling in the love of our God 
 and Saviour more ; from not quench- 
 ing our thirst more at the divine 
 fountains, but rather quenching the 
 Spirit by whom our spiritual thirst 
 can alone be quenched ; from not in 
 
88 pickings from 
 
 joyful regularity nourishing our con- 
 science more with heavenly monitions ; 
 from not praj'ing more, and not watch- 
 ing more unto prayer. This it is 
 which alone can keep down the lower 
 desires. If we walked in the Spirit 
 more, we should fulfil the desires of 
 the flesh and of the mind less. Our 
 spirits, in fine, like our minds and like 
 our bodies, grow thin, withered, gaunt, 
 and emaciated, from not feeding more 
 freely on that which is alone their 
 proper and natural diet. " He that 
 eatetk me, eve7t he shall live by 
 me.'" 
 
 God's two homes. 
 Two homes h^th God from which he 
 
 ne'er will part — 
 The highest Heaven, and the humble 
 
 heart. 
 
31 l3orhct of ?9rbbles. 89 
 
 Blow, blow, thou winter wind. 
 
 Marriages for beauty or for wit are 
 like those beach-residences, which, 
 being built as summer-houses for pass- 
 ing lodgers, give but a windy shelter 
 to those who try to live in them 
 through the wild winter. 
 
 "Abide with us." • 
 
 Lord Christ, what— -where should I 
 have been — 
 
 Had it not been for Thee ? 
 And, if Thou bide not by me still. 
 
 Where — -what may I not be ? 
 
 Of tolerating intolerance. 
 
 Toleration perpetrates suicide when 
 she tolerates within herself a powerful 
 Intoleration, which is backed up by all 
 the worst and strongest prejudices of 
 corrupted humanity. 
 
go $)trkirtQs from 
 
 "Blow upon thy garden and let 
 the spices flow." 
 
 Thy voice is the mere melody of thy 
 
 heart : — 
 Those sightless chords— as some ^olian 
 
 lyre. 
 That in confiding converse with the 
 
 air 
 Remurmureth all the Heaven's sweet 
 
 breath will bring — 
 Are set where dewy wafts of fragrant 
 
 thought 
 Thrill through them from the garden 
 
 of thy God, 
 And lend them all they say. 
 
 Of saturate solution. 
 
 When the Scripture says " I suppose 
 the world itself would not contain the 
 
^ iPocket of pebbles. 91 
 
 books that should be written," the ex- 
 pression, except indeed it be merely a 
 loose hyperbole, seems to utter a sense 
 of that which even now has welnigh 
 come about. Have not the few seeds 
 of Christ's remembered words already 
 multiplied into an almost infinite crop 
 of books? And do they not still show 
 such a geometric proportion of fertility, 
 that no library can hope to garner all 
 the varied forms of life and immortality 
 which He is bringing to light by His 
 Gospel? No man, however clear his 
 mind and retentive his memory, can 
 profess to grasp and retain the whole 
 range of that which is worth knowing 
 in Christology ; to say nothing of those 
 other regions of knowledge to which 
 the Truth that makes men free is con- 
 stantly drawing us. This interpretation 
 makes it no hyperbole to say what the 
 
92 ^tckinga from 
 
 Scripture says. Indeed one cannot con- 
 ceive that the writer, except he simply 
 adopted a common expression, should 
 have had anything else in his mind. 
 There can be no other idea attached 
 to the words save that which I have 
 noted ; namely that, in the mental and 
 spiritual capacity and receptivity of 
 the world, the solution of the Christ- 
 nature would become more than satu- 
 rate. What marvellous fecundity there 
 is in the Divine words ! To take one 
 out of hundreds of like instances, I 
 know of a country parson — admittedly 
 therefore a dullard by the force of the 
 term — who has a small library full of 
 Theological things well said, but who 
 hardly has time to absorb and use even 
 those. Why ? Because, in pondering 
 merely the great Christian documents, 
 he finds so many things to say, which 
 
Jt pocket of pebbles. 93 
 
 simply flow through his own narrow per- 
 sonal experience ofthe infinite applica- 
 tion of those few sayings of The Master. 
 Thus everyone who comes to know any- 
 thing of Christ finds that his own little 
 world cannot contain even the things 
 that Aave been written. 
 
 A prayer. 
 
 O Maker of our brother-band, 
 O Lover and Support of all — 
 
 Of what should fall let nothing stand ; 
 Of what should stand let nothing fall. 
 
 "You must love Him, ere to you 
 He will seem worthy of your 
 I ove. ' ' — Wordsworth. 
 Those alone do not believe in God 
 
 who do not know him. Belief increases 
 
 with knowledge, and knowledge with 
 
 belief. 
 
g\ ^ickinQS from 
 
 A piece of eternal knowledge. 
 
 Whatever else I know not, this I 
 
 know — 
 That I am Thine, whether I stay or 
 
 go. 
 
 New found land. 
 
 What new and pure delight will open 
 upon the soul, when he enters his new 
 abode, and the angels begin to show 
 him some of the beauties that are there 
 — such pleasures at least as he is cap- 
 able of in that new infancy of his being. 
 How pleasant it is, when we go into a 
 fresh country, or a neighbourhood 
 grander or more sublime than our 
 own, and take in new ideas. We 
 stand with uplifted eyes in moods of 
 attentive rapture, amidst the valleys 
 and mountains that wind away and 
 rise to Heaven ; or if we go into the 
 
^ pocket of T^tbbles. 95 
 
 Capitals and wander among their gal- 
 leries and treasures, every step we 
 take enlarges our conceptions of beauty 
 and our standard of wealth. And 
 much more, we trust, will it be so in an 
 infinitely higher range, if, by the grace 
 of God, we find ourselves in the better 
 country, that is in the Heavenly. 
 
 The apron-string. 
 
 My youth, on pleasure bent, found 
 ample swing 
 
 In the sweet tether of the " apron- 
 string." 
 
 The blessed mourners. 
 
 " Blessed are they that mourn." They 
 that take sorrow jauntily, or who 
 amidst work, pleasure, society, or 
 change, seek to quench thought and 
 feeling and so to forget their loss— are 
 
96 ^irkings from 
 
 not blessed in their grief. It is not 
 well to forget the loss of those whom 
 we love, but rather to remember it 
 rightly. 
 
 "Litera scripta manet." 
 
 You cannot help it now — look not so 
 
 sad — 
 Such sorrow cannot better what was 
 
 bad. 
 
 Of judges that know not the law. 
 
 Christ's main command is that we 
 pray to God. If a man do not keep 
 this main command, how can he know 
 that he knows God ? The part which 
 is best in him goes on in darkness. All 
 his foundations are out of course. Are 
 those men who do not even know the 
 highest life to be judges of that life ? 
 Is their authority to be taken against 
 
51 Iporkct of Nibbles. 97 
 
 its reality ? What can be more pre- 
 posterous? I do not want to press 
 matters too far home, but you may 
 depend upon it these men do not pray. 
 God's wind in due course shall blow 
 them and their inanities, not to say 
 insanities, into the blackness of dark- 
 ness for ever. 
 
 The Milken Way. 
 
 The Earth under Heaven is lain, 
 At the fount of her life and her rest ; 
 
 And yon is a beautiful vein 
 
 Streaking that bountiful breast. 
 
 Increase and multiply. 
 
 St. John, when he wrote to his read- 
 ers as his " children ", wrote from the 
 high position of one who had leaned, 
 and still was leaning, on the breast of 
 
98 pickings from 
 
 Christ. The new man is in the highest 
 degree philoprogenitive. Who would 
 not fain bring many sons to glory ? 
 
 " Odora vis." 
 
 Those firs that feather black on the 
 
 blue- 
 Yon is an English wood ; 
 That sea-line faint that bounds my 
 
 view — 
 Yon is our English flood : 
 The scent of the May from the whitened 
 
 vale as far as mine eye can tell— 
 It makes me love my life the more, that 
 
 this is an English smell. 
 
 The old man and the old dog. 
 
 Canine forms move among a set of 
 ideas and facts which they entirely 
 fail to catch ; and is not that exactly 
 the way in which men of mere intellect, 
 
31 pocket of ^ebbks. 99 
 
 or rather mere first-Adamic men, move 
 among Second-Adamic men ? They are 
 among them, but not of them. This 
 IS true whether the men in question be 
 virtuous or not. If, however, they are 
 virtuous, and come up to the first- 
 Adamic make by having good con- 
 sciences, then they look up to and love 
 Christians, and are, many of them, not 
 far from the Kingdom ; but still they 
 regard Christians with a kind of 
 wonder, and sometimes unjustly think 
 they "go too far." The fact is, the 
 latter are "new" men and women, 
 while those who are old-fashioned, after 
 the former type, and are not born again, 
 but who have the comfort of being 
 lovely and pleasant in their lives, often 
 are content with the attainments of 
 that grade of being, and do not care to 
 be risen with Christ ! But in some 
 
loo pickings from 
 
 parts of the planet the air is so full of 
 spores of the Christ-nature, and so 
 many seeds of divine words fly about, 
 that such honest and good hearts as 
 these are very likely to be dusted with 
 the farina of the new life ; and then 
 they arise, and their eyes are opened, 
 and they have joy unspeakable and 
 full of glory. 
 
 ^v irpos tv. 
 
 All that I have, without myself, 
 Is not enough for Thee ; — 
 
 Without Thyself, not all Thou hast 
 Can be enough for me. 
 
 Meet merriment. 
 
 Beyond doubt the climate of celestial 
 immortality, that glorious Conservatory 
 of the blest, will bring forth in the 
 lives of many of our kinsfolk and 
 
^ ^trrkft of pebbles. loi 
 
 acquaintance blooms of grace which 
 now the most far-seeing among us 
 would laugh outright at the thought 
 of. May we be there to see, and to be 
 the subjects of this shouting merriment 
 of the sons of God. 
 
 Twi-unity. 
 
 To the God-Man. 
 
 So closely art Thou in God's heart. 
 And God so close in Thine, 
 
 I wonder which is human part. 
 And which is Thy divine. 
 
 Of those "not blind, who wait 
 for ligiit ". 
 
 " Blessed are they that have not seen 
 and yet have believed." This seems 
 to mean also, Blessed are they who 
 have not seen with the mental eye how 
 
102 ^tfkJngs from 
 
 things are, but who yet know within 
 their hearts that what Christ tells them 
 is truth ; who, when He says, "What 
 I do thou knowest not now, but thou 
 shalt know hereafter," are too delicate 
 to press Him further, but who do not 
 on that account, in vulgar dudgeon, 
 "go away, and walk no more with 
 Him". 
 
 The boy and the boat. 
 
 Father, be by me when I come to die ; 
 
 Deal Thou with me, as I was wont of 
 yore 
 
 To deal with yon toy-craft, that heed- 
 fully 
 
 I sent forth-faring from the firm-set 
 shore :^ 
 
 When I am launching forth on Ever- 
 more, 
 
 Come to that verge of Immortality ; 
 
^ docket of f ebblc0. 
 
 Fix me fair linen, ample, aft and fore ; 
 
 Secure its threadage, lest it flap and 
 fly; 
 
 My rudder fast at some just angle set, 
 
 To catch what breezes are careering by; 
 
 These temper of Thy grace, lest billow- 
 beat 
 
 I founder in yon dread Infinity ; 
 
 But most I pray Thee, then to hold in 
 hand 
 
 A line — to draw me somewhere safe to 
 land. 
 
 Of the solitude of specialness. 
 
 As you advance you seem to be 
 getting more and more alone into your 
 speciality of capacity, your special 
 modes of doing your part on earth, and 
 your special facilities of accepting the 
 advices of Heaven. This being so, you 
 will feel that, but for God, you would 
 
ro4 ^k kings from 
 
 be left more and more lonely in life. 
 But as your Christ becomes revealed 
 in you, and as He reveals to you more 
 and more your hope of your special 
 glory, you feel less and less alone, be- 
 cause the Father is with you. You 
 may vi^ell pray as you look forward, 
 " If thy presence go not with me, 
 carry me not up hence." To grow, but 
 not to grow in Christ, is a desolate 
 prospect indeed. " The Lord knows" 
 to what such an one is coming. While 
 not varying from the species, pray 
 keep thy special individuality. 
 
 The Downs and the Alps. 
 
 Fair, as it fell, the morning snow 
 
 Arrays yon hills awhile ; 
 But waits to heaven again to go 
 
 When once the sun shall smile. 
 
^ ^oc'ktt of pebbles. los 
 
 So on my heart, this low-browed plot, 
 
 Thy morning mercies lie ; 
 But as my vulgar day grows hot, 
 
 They vanish by and by. 
 
 Yet ah, henceforth, when ought comes 
 down, 
 
 May such good luck betide. 
 That I may make it all mine own. 
 
 And lure it to abide. 
 
 Let me so praise Thee in my height, 
 And reach Thee with my crest, 
 
 That all Thy graces that alight 
 Grow parcel of my breast. 
 
 Siissex Downs, '76. 
 
 Of love and loss. 
 
 When we lose one we love, let us 
 learn to love the more one we cannot 
 lose. 
 
iy6 Etchings from 
 
 Of wet light. 
 
 When the Love of God breaks on 
 our landscape, with " clear shining 
 after rain", then — then — what was 
 dark becomes illumined, and outlines 
 of unimagined charm spring forth from 
 shadows which before seemed one 
 massive neutrality. — Dip every dull 
 pebble in the water of life. Wet light 
 thus does better service than " dry". 
 
 The Hour and the Man. 
 
 What if the end of the world were to 
 come down upon us instead of our 
 ending during its life-time? What if 
 our Sun were to suffer a sky-change, 
 such as we saw a kindred Sun suffer 
 but yesterday ? If we had an hour's 
 warning, how easy we should feel 
 during that hour about the persons who 
 
31 pocket of pebbles. 107 
 
 would not then be left behind ; or about 
 the works half done, which we might 
 not have had time to finish, and which 
 would not then need finishing. All 
 those feelings, which any of us may- 
 have, of desire to be remembered ; of 
 leaving, at least among our country- 
 men or friends, if not for world-wide 
 use, thoughts and emotions by which 
 our memor}' may be endeared, and by 
 which being dead we still may speak : 
 —none of these things then would 
 move us. Papers would want no 
 arranging ; no mementoes would want 
 leaving, no messages sending ; no dis- 
 agreeable anticipations would haunt 
 us, or flit before us, of being laid out 
 and wept for ; we should be on the 
 alert for flight, ready to be carried off 
 from the ruins of the world; looking 
 on the tip-toe of expectation for the 
 
io8 ^itkings from 
 
 coming of the Son of Man. We should 
 leave our houses, and walk abroad, and 
 watch the heavens ; and, if real and 
 humble believers, I think we should 
 lift up our heart and voice, and sing 
 aloud for our Redemption drawing 
 nigh. — And yet, if all our little affairs 
 are now in clear order, arranged for 
 death ; if we are working while it is 
 day ; if we are trusting our unfinished 
 works, as well we may, constantly in 
 the Master's hands ; if we leave with 
 calm common-sense the discomfiture of 
 our dissolution to be got over by our 
 Christian kindred in the course of 
 nature — why, thus we may contemplate 
 the end of this life, come when or how 
 it may, with much the same good- 
 humour as if we knew we had but 
 another hour on the planet ; and may 
 say always, " Come, Lord Jesus, come 
 
31 ^otket of ^ebbUs. 109 
 
 quickly". Nay this is the only con- 
 dition in which those at least should 
 be living, who are wont to travel on 
 lines dependent on the overwrought 
 nerves of one signalman, and where 
 immortals fly along the same rails 
 with " goods". 
 
 Of mad moodiness. 
 
 Some always think that everything 
 is against them. In moods of discon- 
 tent or unhappiness it is astonishing 
 wiiat trifles can assume an air of an- 
 tagonism. 
 
 A jewel. 
 
 \Vhat is charity itself but the eleva- 
 tion and refinement of fairness ? Have 
 perfect the one virtue of fairness, and 
 you will have all virtues perfect. So 
 indeed with each of the virtues all 
 
no pickings from 
 
 round — a dictujn of Aristotle, repeated 
 by St. James, which will bear the 
 closest investigation. 
 
 Spring weather. 
 
 I know a life much like an April day, 
 Here hung with clouds, and there alive 
 
 with sun ; 
 And neither in the selfsame mood will 
 
 stay, 
 While 'neath her heaven the winds of 
 
 feeling run. 
 Lo ! all is dark, where one short hour 
 
 agone 
 Were thousand sunbeams lovingly a: 
 
 play; 
 And presently, I trow, smiles many a 
 
 one 
 Will chase the grief that now can lower 
 
 so grey.— 
 
^ J^ocket of ^cbble5. m 
 
 Such weather, to my mind, is fairer 
 
 far 
 Than where the simmering hours all 
 
 summer are. 
 Thy sorrow, girl, is more than duly 
 
 sad — 
 But then thy gladness is divinely glad ; 
 And soon, methinks, a change will 
 
 light thy brow. 
 And all thine hours be what the best 
 
 are now. 
 Heidelberg, '52. 
 
 The Life-Book and the death- 
 book. 
 
 hiscription for the Register of 
 
 Burials. 
 
 May all who breathe this mortal breath 
 
 And strive this mortal strife. 
 
 Ere written in our book of death. 
 
 Stand in Thy Book of Life. 
 
112 ^irktngs from 
 
 Of better and of worse. 
 
 It is only by my fault that I am not 
 better than I am ; only by Thy mercy 
 that I am not worse than I am. 
 
 Night-prayer by the sea. 
 King of the vasty water-floods of grace, 
 With Thee I pace beside Thy waves 
 
 to-night — 
 My barren spirit, like this foot-marked 
 
 place. 
 Crossed and recrossed by thoughts that 
 
 were not right. 
 O may an even, washed, and ordered 
 
 space 
 Meet the fresh Eye of Day, so sweet 
 
 and bright ! 
 To-morrow may no wandering sin leave 
 
 trace 
 On that pure level left at morning-light I 
 
^ pocket of ^tbblts. 113 
 
 And hear me, Heavenly Spirit, when 
 
 I pray 
 Tliy boundless love to lave me day by 
 
 day ; 
 May no unsightly flotson lig, and bide 
 The sweeping refluence of Thy nightly 
 
 tide ;— 
 Here, Father, let me love with Thee 
 
 to walk. 
 And ever feel Thee smile and hear 
 
 Thee talk ! 
 Littl hamptoji, '69. 
 
 A brilliant engagement. 
 
 As in the moral life feelings are to 
 principles, so, in the intellectual, 
 cleverness is to the power of logical 
 inference. The same natures are apt 
 to have the corresponding terms of this 
 proportion. In which sex you com- 
 
114 ^jrktngs ftom 
 
 monly find which terms, it would be 
 invidious to enquire ! You may often 
 find in a mind a delicacy of observation, 
 a brilliancy of repartee, a rapidity of 
 application, and a wide range of ideas, 
 with an unusual facility of association ; 
 and you may accordingly form a censure 
 of there being very great ability. But 
 once come to close quarters, or 
 engage in a serious discussion, and you 
 will find that your truth has to fight its 
 way inch by inch through phalanxes of 
 all the common fallacies, and to storm 
 successive outworks of vulgar objec- 
 tion :— all those light powers collapse, 
 and that shining array of imposing 
 capacities troops off discomfited and 
 proves itself phantasmal. Teachers 
 will find it well, after having worked 
 the memory mainly (as I remember 
 hearing my great master, Arnold of 
 
31 ^orkft of l^ebblcs. 115 
 
 Rugby, say) till the age of 11, to teach 
 girls and boys the elementary laws of 
 reasoning. This should be done, not 
 chiefly in necessary truth — for life 
 has very little to do with such truth, 
 except in some of the sciences ; but in 
 contingent matter, that is to say, in the 
 matter of human life. To this practice 
 of reasoning those lighter powers 
 should be made to minister. 
 
 ■yvwp.T] viKav ifiepov viK(iS|jL€vov' 
 or "See the conquering hero 
 —goes". 
 
 Her talk was neither large nor small ; 
 Of neither mind nor mirth was lack ; 
 How gracefully she caught my ball. 
 And toyed with it, and tossed it back ! 
 
 'Twas pleasant to behold the play, 
 The flashing, merciless intent. 
 
ii6 pickings fccrm 
 
 Wherewith, before she stood at bay, 
 She spent her Hght-armed argument. 
 
 Self-gathered now she quick prepares 
 Her massed, her main defence — but lo ! 
 Scattered are all her pretty squares 
 Before my cry of " divido". 
 
 And yet, such honour fired her van. 
 When all her fairy lines are broke— 
 In winning ways, as women can. 
 Her cruel losses out she spoke. 
 
 I could not find the heart to beat. 
 And gladly strained a point to find 
 A way to cover the retreat 
 Of such a gallant little mind. 
 
 And though for very Truth's dear sake, 
 I dared not let her win the day, 
 I gave her — what she would not take ; — 
 The conquered man I moved away ! 
 
Jl pocket of pebbles. 117 
 
 "Tempora mutantur". 
 
 How soon passing events become the 
 subject of painting, poetry, and history. 
 We move and act among them, and 
 are a part of them to-day. To- 
 morrow, like Aeneas, who saw his 
 own doings on the brazen gates of the 
 Tyrian Queen, we have the whole hung 
 in galleries or described in books, and 
 moving us again, to indignation, to 
 merriment, or to tears. 
 
 The succession of clowns. 
 
 Note the extraordinary accuracy 
 with which St. John gives the account 
 of the endeavours made by the Jews 
 to overthrow the miracle of the opening 
 of the eyes of the man who had been 
 born blind. The same also may be 
 said of the narrative of the raising of 
 
ii8 ^ixhinss from 
 
 Lazarus. They doubtless took great, 
 if not equal pains to overthrow many 
 more, if not most of the great miracles. 
 These accounts seem given us as 
 samples. Thompson, Master of Trinity, 
 in a lecture on the Phsedrus of Plato, 
 told us that he did not remember a 
 better instance of that wisdom of clowns 
 (aypot/co9 crocpLu) which Socrates 
 " turns to scorn with lips divine", than 
 the explanation of the miracle of the 
 loaves and fishes given by that German 
 Professor who said that the multitude 
 brought food in their pockets ! 
 
 The seeds of time. 
 
 There are still nebulous and floating 
 masses of humanity— Tartars, Sclaves, 
 African tribes and the like— out of which 
 our Developer is gradually shaping 
 civil svocieties. From these, in due 
 
51 ^ofket of pebbles. 119 
 
 time, nations may form themselves, 
 that will orb about in the Family- 
 system of States. Perhaps, as they 
 grow into an orderly sense of right, they 
 will be warned by our recorded errors, 
 and will develop the fruits of Christian 
 life better and faster than our older 
 nations — which have so long been re- 
 volving in the sunshine of knowledge 
 and yet are so barren. Yet what ikey 
 will be depends in dreadful proportion 
 on what we are. 
 
 The wilderness turned into the 
 garden of the Lord. 
 
 In how many persons you do not 
 see — I had rather said in how few you 
 do see— the full beauty of their char- 
 acter and the free play of their nature. 
 This is especially so in the case of 
 those lower natures who have not yet 
 
I20 ^icktuga from 
 
 admitted the working of the Spirit of 
 Christ ; but it holds true of Christians 
 also. They never yet fulfil their 
 Master's joy. But kindly remember 
 how much this is due to their surround- 
 ings. Plant them in happy circum- 
 stances, where they shall be attended 
 by love and encompassed by sympathy; 
 and you will soon see what exquisite 
 flowers, hitherto unsuspected, will be 
 called forth, and will start up in their 
 lives. Then, if never before, will they 
 show themselves "free bloomers". 
 
 Of pleasure. 
 
 In vanquishing desire, our wisdom 
 is, not so much to bring ourselves to 
 imagine that a wrong pleasure is not a 
 pleasure, but, recognising that it is a 
 pleasure of a lower kind, we must 
 simply remember as a settled fact that 
 
Jl ^oclaei ot -i^ehbles. 121 
 
 pleasures which break the predica- 
 ments of duty are wrong and therefore 
 moreover full of danger. 
 
 Of business-like habits. 
 
 Be not lightly turned off from doing 
 one thing to doing another. If you 
 have made your plan to do one thing, 
 let that, except for cogent reasons, be 
 well done first. Do not, in an idle, 
 vagabond way, turn off to whatever 
 else may offer itself, for the mere plea- 
 sure of the moment. Let not your 
 actions be swayed hither and thither 
 by the vague currents of the hour, like 
 those long river-weeds, to use the poet's 
 image, which follow every movement of 
 the waters. At the same time I suppose 
 it must always be a trying and painful 
 thing for men of genius to postpone an 
 afflatus; and yet the mere needs of 
 
122 pickings from 
 
 life demand this, even when a man 
 has no other main work ; for he still 
 has to eat, drink, and sleep, and main- 
 tain some few relations with society. 
 How many great works do we owe to 
 the strong sacrifice of other claims; 
 and even the lives of very plain-going 
 persons require a certain amount of 
 generalship in this matter — that is, if 
 they are wont to become really inter- 
 ested in any works at all. 
 
 Of "the booby offspring of a 
 booby sire". 
 
 To-day I said to a young student 
 who was at home for the Cambridge 
 Vacation, " How does the work get 
 on?" He said in an off-hand, self- 
 satisfied manner, "Oh ! I^^«7work." 
 I had been a Tutor; and my counte- 
 nance naturally fell, and my blood was 
 
^ J^ocktt of J^tbbles. 123 
 
 up. But the father and mother, who 
 stood by (I speak without exaggera- 
 tion) positively laughed ! Nay but 
 they dzd laugh. Against all the efforts 
 of Tutors, their advice and reproof, 
 their attempts to warn him of idleness, 
 and to induce him to learn what his 
 father, after hard work, was paying for 
 him to be taught, lo and behold, the silly 
 smile of that very sire, showing himself 
 to his son as one who regards idleness 
 as a condition to be amused at, if not 
 an ideal to be aimed at ! How woe- 
 fully the difSculties of educators are 
 enhanced by the folly of homes. 
 
 With regard to the great 
 Geometrician. 
 
 Let your going out and coming in 
 be with humility, respect, and grace. 
 Often shut to the door, and confront 
 
124 pickings from 
 
 yourself with the Master-Builder of your 
 life and the Architect of the Universe. 
 Be able to lay your hand on your breast 
 and on the Book, and to call down a 
 blessing on your guileless resolutions. 
 Act on the square ; be what they call 
 in Lincolnshire a "level" man; rectify 
 your walk by the plummet of truth ; 
 observe all your relations with all your 
 brethren, and measure them with the 
 compasses of a sound judgment ; ob- 
 serve strict morals ; let brotherly love 
 continue; relieve to the best of your 
 ability those with whom, in the course 
 of your time, you are brought into 
 more especial brotherhood ; and let 
 these virtues distinguish you through 
 all the grades of your ascent through 
 life. This will be to live always in the 
 noonday. You will thus show signs of 
 always being with your Master; you 
 
Jl Rochet x){ ^ebbks. 125 
 
 will give tokens of keeping the best 
 company ; your words will be seasoned 
 with significant grace ; and so you will 
 pass pleasantly into that prepared and 
 abiding Building of God — the House 
 not made with hands, eternal in the 
 Heavens. 
 
 Of our approaches to the Father 
 by knowledge and love. 
 
 Not till I loved Thee did I know 
 Thee ; nor till I knew Thee did I love 
 Thee. I loved Thee at first under the 
 hazy veils of a faith that was but half 
 faith ; but when I came to know even 
 what I know of Thee now, the love I 
 had before seemed unmeet to be called 
 love ; and yet it was that which lured 
 me on to know Thee, and so to love 
 Thee, more. But, ah me ! how far is 
 
126 ?pirkmgs Ac. 
 
 mine eye still from seeing Thee as Thou 
 art, and my heart from loving Thee as 
 I ought ! 
 
 Of changing an "i" into an "o". 
 
 Love broadens, lengthens life ; below, 
 
 above, 
 Who loves the most to live will live the 
 
 most to Love 
 
 DEO GRATIAS. 
 
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