Category: Speaking to the Soul

The Episcopal Church consecrated two black bishops prior to the elevation of Demby and Delany in 1918. They were James Theodore Holly, consecrated in 1874 as missionary bishop of Haiti, and Samuel David Ferguson, consecrated in 1885 as missionary bishop of Liberia. Although both. . . suffered calumny at the hands of the mother church, and although both, victims of the racism and imperialism of the day, were succeeded by white bishops,

The idolatry of money means that the moral worth of a person is judged in terms of the amount of money possessed or controlled. The acquisition and accumulation of money in itself is considered evidence of virtue. . . . Where money is an idol, to be poor is a sin.

One of the greatest forces for revival in the Roman Church [was] the Society of Jesus. Like Valdesianism, it was a movement which sprang from the Iberian peninsula. It was founded by a Basque gentleman who had been a courtier of Charles V and who, like Valdés, had to take refuge from the Spanish Inquisition. Iñigo López de Loyola has become known to history as Ignatius after making the most of a scribal error over his Christian name when he matriculated in the University of Paris.

From what we know of Lord Shaftesbury’s character, it is not surprising that he should have thrown himself headlong into the Slavery question, which was attracting great attention in consequence of the revelations made in the volume by Mrs. Stowe, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” This book stirred up a hatred of slavery which is unprecedented. Lord Shaftesbury entered actively into the movement, prepared an address from the women on England to those in America, and the negro slave question was discussed in all its bearings.

A friend is called a guardian of love or, as some would have it, a guardian of the spirit itself. Since it is fitting that my friend be a guardian of our mutual love or the guardian of my own spirit so as to preserve all its secrets in faithful silence, let him, as far as he can, cure and endure such defects as he may observe in it; let him rejoice with his friend in his joys, and weep with him in his sorrows, and feel as his own all that his friend experiences.

The virtues inculcated in us through exposure to and practice in the church’s tradition aid us in the acquisition and development of “particular skills, patterns of experience, habits of perception and portions of knowledge” essential for understanding, embracing and communicating the gospel well.

Experience has shown it to be possible for men to live peaceably together within the same national limits and under the same flag who differ very widely in political opinions—so widely, in fact, that in old times the notion of including such discordant elements within a single civil framework would have been scouted as an “iridescent dream.”

James, the brother of the Lord, and the author of this Epistle, was nicknamed “Camel-knees” by the early Church. James had been so slow of heart to believe that his brother, Jesus, could possibly be the Christ, that, after he was brought to believe, he was never off his knees. And when they came to coffin him, it was like coffining the knees of a camel rather than the knees of a man, so hard, so worn, so stiff were they with prayer,

How do you set about praying? From our point of view, there is a fairly obvious order of priorities. We’re usually in some sort of mess, and we want God to get us out of it. Then we’ve usually got some fairly pressing needs, and we want God to supply them. It may strike us at that point that there’s a larger world out there. Again, we probably move from mess to wants: please sort out the Middle East, please feed the hungry, please house the homeless.

Until God ordains otherwise, a man ought to bear patiently whatever he cannot correct in himself and in others. Consider it better thus—perhaps to try your patience and to test you, for without such patience and trial your merits are of little account. Nevertheless, under such difficulties you should pray that God will consent to help you bear them calmly.