George MacDonald
George MacDonald
George MacDonaldwas a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors including W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1824
Except the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus make a man sick of his opinions, he may hold them to doomsday for me; for no opinion, I repeat is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God.
Anything large enough for a wish to light upon, is large enough to hang a prayer upon.
The trees bathed their great heads in the waves of the morning, while their roots were planted deep in gloom; save where on the borders of the sunshine broke against their stems, or swept in long streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hue all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of the dacayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the long grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over which it passed in the motionless rivers of light.
But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's - not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!
But there is no veil like light--no adamantine armor against hurt like the truth.
Light-leaved acacias, by the door, Stood up in balmy air, Clusters of blossomed moonlight bore, And breathed a perfume rare.
The region belonging to the pure intellect is straitened: the imagination labours to extend its territories, to give it room. She sweeps across the boarders, searching out new lands into which she may guide her plodding brother. The imagination is the light which redeems from the darkness for the eyes of the understanding. Novalis says, 'The imagination is the stuff of the intellect' -affords, that is, the material upon which the intellect works.
What I would say is this, that the light is not blinding because God would hide, but because the truth is too glorious for our vision.
But when we are following the light, even its extinction is a guide.
We've done a better job at getting more complete representation.
If, instead of a gem, or even a flower, we should cast the gift of a loving thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the angels give
Do not measure God's mind by your own.
Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever-unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ "in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge," not the Bible, save as leading to Him.
To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved.