Charles Kingsley, Christian, Socialist and Social Reformer

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Methuen & Company, 1892 - 251 pages
 

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Page 100 - Plain living and high thinking are no more : The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone ; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws...
Page 151 - Sweet competition ! Heavenly maid ! Now-a-days hymned alike by penny-a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all society — the only real preserver of the earth ! Why not of heaven too ? Perhaps there is competition among the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank by doing the maximum of worship on the minimum of grace ? We shall know some day. In the meanwhile, " these are " thy works, thou Parent of all good ! " Man eating man, eaten by man, in every variety of method and degree.
Page 244 - One saw him in town alleys, preaching the gospel of godliness and cleanliness, while smoking his pipe with soldiers and navvies. One heard him in drawing-rooms, listened to with patient silence, till one of his vigorous or quaint speeches bounded forth, never to be forgotten. How children delighted in him ! How young, wild men believed in him, and obeyed him too ! How women were captivated by his chivalry, older men by his genuine humility and sympathy ! ... Of all this the world knew little ; —...
Page 99 - MILTON ! thou shouldst be living at this hour : England hath need of thee : she is a fen Of stagnant waters : altar, sword, and pen, Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, Have forfeited their ancient English dower Of inward happiness. We are selfish men ; Oh ! raise us up, return to us again ; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Page 93 - Selfishness can collect, not unite, a herd of cowardly wild cattle, that they may feed together, breed together, keep off the wolf and bear together. But when one of your wild cattle falls sick, what becomes of the corporate feelings of the herd then?
Page 149 - But my only quarrel with the Charter is that it does not go far enough in reform. I want to see you free; but I do not see how what you ask for will give you what you want. I think you have fallen into just the same mistake as the rich of whom you complain...
Page 245 - some say that the age of chivalry is past, that the spirit of romance is dead. The age of chivalry is never past, so long as there is a wrong left unredressed on earth, or a man or a woman left to say, I will redress that wrong, or spend my life in the attempt.
Page 67 - ... Each word we speak has infinite effects — Each soul we pass must go to heaven or hell — And this our one chance through eternity To drop and die, like dead leaves in the...
Page 126 - Say how ye saw the mouth o' hell, and the twa pillars thereof at the entry — the pawnbroker's shop o' one side and the gin-palace at the other — twa monstrous deevils, eating up men, and women, and bairns, body and soul. Look at the jaws o' the monsters, how they open and open, and swallow in anither victim and anither.

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