But why did the Holy Spirit not come to them while Christ was present, rather than immediately after his departure? Instead, although Christ ascended on the fortieth day, the Spirit came to them when the day of Pentecost had come. . . . It was necessary for them to have a longing for the event, and so receive the grace. For this reason Christ himself departed, and then the Spirit came.
The Spirit is simple in being. His powers are many. They are entirely present everywhere and in everything. He is distributed but does not change. He is shared yet remains whole. Consider the analogy of the sunbeam: each person on whom its kindly light falls rejoices as if the sun existed for him alone, yet it illumines land and sea and is master of the atmosphere. In the same way, the Spirit i
As Eliot spent much of his youth in Essex, where the zealous religious attitudes that came to be called “Puritan” were particularly widespread, he may have been influenced by them in his earliest years. His [Jesus] College educational experience would have been very different, directed towards preserving orthodoxy, though while in Cambridge he would have had the opportunity to meet other students and academics with a variety of religious sympathies. These would have included Puritans from Emmanuel College,
It is, however, when we turn to his educational treatises that we are most struck with the sound philosophy and almost modern psychology of his teaching. Alcuin is never the mere crammer, but always the true teacher. “We need,” he makes his pupils say, in the introduction to his Treatise on Grammar, “to be instructed slowly,
Dunstan went to school in Glastonbury Abbey, but in 923 he joined his uncle who had been translated from the See of Wells to that of Canterbury. This brought him close to the court of King Aethelstan, and over the next few years he was to spend much time there. . . . Dunstan enjoyed the court, and responded readily to its artistic influences, learning drawing and metalwork, how to write poetry, singing and playing music.
Holy gift, surpassing comprehension!
Wond’rous mystery of each fiery tongue!
Christ made good his promise in Ascension:
O’er the twelve the clove flames have hung!
Though born and bred at the East, I had spent six months in Michigan and Minnesota, in 1863, and there seen something of the Indian problem. I had seen that there was nothing in the van of civilization to ameliorate the condition of the Red man, because the van of civilization is often its vilest off-scourings:
O Lord Most High, eternal King,
By you redeemed, your praise we sing.
The bonds of death are burst by thee,
And grace has won the victory.
While the historic faith of Christianity stands, and it is more than ever necessary to assert its supernatural character, it is only possible to do so convincingly if we are ready to learn much from the contemporary conflicts. In particular, if we are to convey to secularism the belief in transcendence, it must be a transcendence realized in the midst of secular life and not apart from it.
When I asked what I was to speak about today, the suggestion was made I talk about the roots, or beginnings, of the Social Security Act. So I have thought about the roots. I suppose the roots—the idea that we ought to have a systematic method of taking care of the material needs of the aged—really springs from that deep well of charitableness which resides in the American people,