James Martineau
James Martineau
James Martineau was an English religious philosopher influential in the history of Unitarianism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth21 April 1805
community morality moral
The health of a community is an almost unfailing index of its morals.
life possibility poor
There is no human life so poor and small as not to hold many a divine possibility.
heart humble home
Nothing less than the majesty of God, and the powers of the world to come, can maintain the peace and sanctity of our homes, the order and serenity of our minds, the spirit of patience and tender mercy in our hearts. Then will even the merest drudgery of duty cease to humble us, when we transfigure it by the glory of our own spirit.
summer fall heart
However constant the visitations of sickness and bereavement, the fall of the year is most thickly strewn with the fall of human life. Everywhere the spirit of some sad power seems to direct the time; it hides from us the blue heavens, it makes the green wave turbid; it walks through the fields, and lays the damp ungathered harvest low; it cries out in the night wind and the shrill hail; it steals the summer bloom from the infant cheek; it makes old age shiver to the heart; it goes to the churchyard, and chooses many a grave.
morning jesus prayer
It was in His parting sorrow--that Jesus asked His disciples to remember Him; and never was entreaty of affection answered so; for ever since has His name been breathed in morning and evening prayers that none can count, and has brought down some gift of sanctity and peace on the anguish of bereavement, and the remorse of sin.
dream heart long
High hearts are never long without hearing some new call, some distant clarion of God, even in their dreams; and soon they are observed to break up the camp of ease, and start on some fresh march of faithful service.
prayer heaven looks
The heavens, with their everlasting faithfulness, look down on no sadder contradiction than the sluggard and the slattern in their prayers.
jesus heart self
This it is that gives a majesty so pure and touching to the historic figure of Christ; self-abandonment to God, uttermost surrender, without reserve or stipulation, to the guidance of the Holy Spirit from the Soul of souls; pause in no darkness; hesitation in no perplexity, recoil in no extremity of anguish, but a gentle unfaltering hold of the invisible Hand, of the Only Holy and All Good--these are the features that have made Jesus of Nazareth the dearest and most sacred image to the heart of so many ages.
running forever soul
When speech is given to a soul holy and true, time, and its dome of ages, becomes as a mighty whispering-gallery, round which the imprisoned utterance runs, and reverberates forever.
prayer heaven bereavement
Heaven and God are best discerned through tears; scarcely perhaps are discerned at all without them. The constant association of prayer with the hour of bereavement and the scenes of death suffice to show this.
time heart should
We should count time by heart-throbs.
nature agency law
God is infinite; and the laws of nature, like nature itself, are finite. These methods of working, therefore, which correspond to the physical element in us, do not exhaust His agency. There is a boundless residue of disengaged energy beyond.
time spirit moments
God has so arranged the chronometry of our spirits, that there shall be thousands of silent moments between the striking hours.
prayer atmosphere language
Religion is no more possible without prayer than poetry without language, or music without atmosphere.