Monday, August 23, 2010
Commemoration of Rose of Lima, Contemplative, 1617

The renovation of our social system is a work so vast that no one of us, nor all of us put together, can define all the measures that will have to be taken before we attain even the Cab-Horse Ideal of existence for our children and our children’s children. All that we can do is attack, in a serious, practical spirit, the worst and most pressing evils, knowing that if we do our duty, we obey the voice of God. He is the Captain of our Salvation. If we but follow where he leads we shall not want for marching orders, nor need we imagine that he will narrow the field of operations.

I am laboring under no delusions as to the possibility of inaugurating the millennium by any social specific. In the struggle of life, the weakest will go to the wall, and there are so many weak. The fittest, in tooth and claw, will survive. All that we can do is to soften the lot of the unfit and make their suffering less horrible than it is at present. No outside propping will make some men stand erect. All material help from without is useful only in so far as it develops moral strength within. And some men seem to have lost even the very faculty of self-help. There is an immense lack of common sense and of vital energy on the part of multitudes. [Continued tomorrow]

... William Booth (1829-1912), In Darkest England, London: Funk & Wagnalls, 1890, p. 43-44 (see the book; see also John 3:19; Isa. 60:2; Rom. 12:9; more at Duty, Evil, Obedience, Renewal, Salvation, Social, Struggle)

 
Compilation Copyright, 1996-2024, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day,
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Last updated: 08/20/20

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