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Untitled Article
we are true to ourselves and o ^ r faith , we follow up fearlessly and confidingly ,, whatever we have pnce deliberately begun . Freed from that imbecile an < J heart sickening carefulness about our inward progress , that everlasting , torturing self-watch ing , which is so bitterly hpstile to the spirit of power , and of a sound mind ,
regarding the sluggish and bestial inertness of unexcited indolence , and the way ward fidgetiness of undirected power , as alike unworthy of * a child of the light and of the day , '—we view without fear and without mistrust , but with a calm , complacent , grateful cheerfulness , the results , be they what they may , of the earnest exercise of our powers . And at the same time that Christianity nourishes within us this wise and dignified self respect , it teaches us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think . ' By
keeping ever present to the mind , Him who is above all and in all , by ever reminding us that we have nothing which we have not received , it saves us from that unrighteous , stolid self-satisfaction in o . ur limited achievements , which is perhaps a still fiercer foe of high intellectual power . Rescued at once from the degrading idolatry , and the envious hatred of those whom the same wise
parent has placed higher than ourselves ^ and from the narrowspuled contempt of our less or differently gifted brethren , —deeply impressed with the abiding conviction that , in a few brief years , all among us who shall have exercised a good stewardship , will * shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father , '—we learn of Jesus to keep on our calm , earnest , elevated , steadfast course , looking neither to the right hand , nor to the left ; neither
childishly puffed up by our temporary supcesses , nor weakly depressed and fretted by our occasionally unavoidable discomfitures . t Nor is it only in reference to this nervous carefulness about our mental advancement , that Christianity may emphatically be said to ' lead captivity captive . ' Its heaven-born power is alike conspicuous , in disenthralling men frpm the wearing anxieties of every-day life . By fixedly impressing within us a sense of the
probationary and preparatory nature of this world ' s concerns , by making it a direct and unequivocal point of duty to * rejoice evermpre ., ' * walking by faith and not by sight , ' it enables and invites those who receive it to maintain that joyous , freedom of soul , that native virtuous hilarity , that cheerful confidence in all things working together for good , which , with most of us , adorns and blesses
the sprjng-time of life , but seldom lasts out to the sere and yellow leaf ; thus ha ^ rnonizing the simplicity and fire of youth , with the firni wisdom of rnore sedate manhood . Ag ^ PY Christianity holds out sure and permanent motives to hjgh n ^ entaj exe rtion , in the stress it lays upon benevolence . If we consider the numberless modes in which the fulfilment pf the
law pf love brings out and ripens the best parts of our own natijire , —if we reflect that the desire Qf doing good is one which may be acted out at all times , and in all places , and thus pos-
Untitled Article
6 $ Q On tfye Intellectual Influences of Christianity .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 630, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/54/
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