Daily Reading for September 2 • The Martyrs of New Guinea, 1942

Whether on the battle front, or in desolate displacement camps, believers experience the numinous, healing, recreating presence of God. God is unreservedly the God of salvation revealed in the One who has passed through death and now abides among his people. The diversity of this Church is both its strength and its weakness, its hidden wealth, and its fragmentation. We close with an acclamation from one of Sudan’s most popular vernacular hymns:

Let us give thanks.
Let us give thanks to the Lord in the day of devastation;
and in the day of contentment.

Jesus has bound the world round
with the pure light of the word of his Father.

When we beseech the Lord and unite our hearts and have hope,
then the evil power has no strength.
God has not forgotten us.

Evil is departing and holiness is advancing,
these are the things that shake the earth.

From “Death has Come to Reveal the Faith: Spirituality in the Episcopal Church of the Sudan Amidst Civil Conflict” by Marc Nikkel, in Anglicanism: A Global Communion, edited by Andrew Wingate, Kevin Ward, Carrie Pemberton, and Wilson Sitshebo. Copyright © 1998. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY.www.churchpublishing.org

Daily Reading for September 1 • David Pendleton Oakerhater, Deacon and Missionary, 1931

The end of the four day covered wagon journey brought the Missionaries to Darlington, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, arriving on Tuesday, June 14, 1881. It was a homecoming of sorts for Oakerhater. Darlington was where he had been sentenced to prison by Lt. Col. Neill’s command of “strike off eighteen from the right.” He was a different man now.

Eager to return to their people, Paul Zotom, the Kiowa Deacon, and Henry Taawayite, the Comanche Deacon, resumed their journey, realizing their homecoming a few days later. Reverend Wicks stayed at Darlington hoping to start their mission immediately. Which they did. On the same day that Zotom and Taawayite left for the Kiowa and Comanche Agency in Anadarko, Oakerhater performed the first Christian funeral service by a Cheyenne ever known among the Cheyennes. The whole management of the service for the son of Big Horse was given over to him and the funeral was conducted after the forms of the Episcopal Church.

As irony would have it, at the time of Oakerhater’s arrival in the Indian Territory the Cheyenne were in the midst of their Sun Dance celebration. Oakerhater was well aware of the Sun-Dance and its meaning. He understood the significance of the event and its importance to his people. He fully understood what the Missionaries were up against introducing the white man’s “new road” at this particular moment in time. . . .

It had been decided that the first service would be held on the coming Sunday. . . . Wicks described this initial meeting as follows: “When I reached the place at the appointed hour I found some fifty young men and a few older ones assembled, with quite a number of women. These young men were the very ones whom David had led in war seven years ago, and were dressed in the gay attire appropriate to the great feast. Right below us a few hundred yards away, the medicine dance was going on, hundreds thronging every side of the great lodge, a striking contrast to our quiet Christian talk. David seated his people in a circle and led me to the center of it to open the talk. I told David to say first to them that we would look to God for His blessing. They all bowed their heads reverently in the prayer as though trained to it for years. David acted as interpreter, I began by telling them why I had come to them, who had sent me, and what we wished to do for them. Then one of the Chiefs, Sand Hill, stepped forward and thanked me, expressing the desire to be taught the good way; another Chief, Mad Wolf, followed in the same strain. David then addressed them briefly, and our first council closed. I invited them to service at the school-house on a Sunday morning and they promised to come.”

Oakerhater’s brief message to his people was delivered in Cheyenne. Oakerhater told them: “Men, you all know me. You remember me when I led you out to war I went first and what I told you was true. Now I have been away to the East and I have learned about another captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He is my leader. He goes first, and all He tells me is true. I come back to my people to tell you to go with me now in this new road, a war that makes all for peace, and where we never have only victory.”

From He Goes First: The Story of Episcopal Saint David Pendleton Oakerhater by K. B. Kueteman; found at http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Oakerhater/bio.html

Daily Reading for August 31 • Aidan, 651, and Cuthbert, 687, Bishops of Lindisfarne

On another occasion, Cuthbert was invited to worship with the community of men and women at the abbey of Coldingham, where Ebba was abbess. This monastery stood high on the cliffs overlooking the North Sea from which Lindisfarne could be seen far away in the south. One night, seeking time for quiet prayer, Cuthbert climbed down the cliffs, secretly followed by one of the brothers who was curious to see what he was up to. He saw Cuthbert wade into the sea until the water was up to his neck: there, with arms outstretched, he spent the night giving praise to God and singing to the sound of the waves. At daybreak, he returned to shore and began to pray again, kneeling on the beach. While he was doing this, two otters ran out of the sea and rubbed themselves against his legs and feet as if to dry them. Cuthbert blessed the creatures, before making his way to the monastic church for the singing of the canonical hymns at their appointed hour.

The watching monk was now filled with fear. He had been privileged to see something special but he was sure Cuthbert was aware of his spying. He approached Cuthbert, stretched himself on the ground and asked for forgiveness. “What is the matter, brother? What have you done? Have you been spying on me in my nightly vigil?” The poor man was too fearful to respond. Cuthbert then said, “Brother, you are forgiven but on one condition: that you promise to tell no one of this until after my death.” The promise was given and Cuthbert blessed the brother. After Cuthbert died, he told as many people as he could.

From The Holy Island of Lindisfarne by David Adam. Copyright © 2009. Used by permission of Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. www.morehousepublishing.com

Daily Reading for August 30 • Charles Chapman Grafton, Bishop of Fond du Lac, and Ecumenist, 1912

Many good Christian people will say about this or like correspondences, “What a pity it is that clergymen should indulge in such discussions. It does no good. It does not convince anyone. It only widens the breach between Christians. It arouses hot, perhaps angry, feelings. It disturbs the peace of the inner life. Let us live together in peace, without fault-finding criticisms!”

There is much of truth in all this. To a devout person, a controversy is always a painful matter. The divisions in Christendom must be weakening to Christianity, and painful to our Lord. But we must remember that, as each one must, as St. Paul declares, give a reason for the faith that is in him, the duty of investigation rests upon all. Our Lord bade His hearers search the Scriptures, and see if these things He taught were so. It will not therefore do for us, any more than for the Jews, to say we were brought up in a certain faith, and therefore will not inquire. Whatever the Holy Spirit has taught us by experience, as for instance our conversion, if a Methodist, or the Real Presence, if a Roman Catholic, we should not reopen. But many questions which divide Christendom, we should, in the spirit of charity, be willing to investigate.

Ought we not at least to try to understand one another? Sad as are the divisions of Christians, is it not likely that each body stands for some truth or practice, which has either been overlooked, or disproportionately stated? In the love of Christ which should bind all Christians together, we should strive, not to exaggerate, but to minimize our differences. We must remember that all who are baptized are members of Christ, and so of His Church. And as the Holy Spirit, given to all at Pentecost, dwells in the whole body, we ought to be willing to learn from one another.

From “An Eirenicon, or Olive-Branch”: A Correspondence between the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Fond du Lac and the Rector of St. Patrick’s Church, Fond du Lac (Fond du Lac: The Daily Commonwealth, 1909).

Daily Reading for August 29 • The Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and John Bunyan, Writer, 1688

This book will make a traveller of thee,
If by its counsels thou wilt ruled be;
It will direct thee to the Holy Land,
If thou wilt its directions understand:
Yea, it will make the slothful active be;
The blind also delightful things to see.

Art thou for something rare and profitable?
Wouldest thou see a truth within a fable?
Art thou forgetful? Wouldest thou remember
From New-year’s day to the last of December?
Then read my fancies: they will stick like burs.
And may be, to the helpless, comforters.

This book was writ in such a dialect,
As may the minds of listless men affect:
It seems a novelty, and yet contains
Nothing but sound and honest gospel strains.

Wouldst thou divert thyself from melancholy?
Wouldst thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly?
Wouldst thou read riddles and their explanation?
Or else be drowned in thy contemplation?
Dost thou love picking meat? Or wouldst thou see
A man in the clouds, and hear him speak to thee?
Wouldst thou be in a dream, and yet not sleep?
Or wouldst thou in a moment laugh and weep?
Wouldest thou lose thyself and catch no harm,
And find thyself again without a charm?
Wouldst read thyself, and read thou knowest not what,
And yet know whether thou art blest or not,
By reading these same lines? Oh then come hither,
And lay my book, thy head, and heart together.

From the Author’s Apology to The Pilgrim’s Progress from this World to that which is to Come by John Bunyan (New York: Robert Carter, 1876).

Daily Reading for August 28 • Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and Theologian, 430 and Moses the Black, Desert Father and Martyr, c. 405

If the listeners are to be moved rather than instructed, so as not to become sluggish in acting upon what they know, and so as to give a real assent to things they admit are true, more forceful kinds of speaking are called for. Here what is necessary is words that implore, that rebuke, that stir, that check, and whatever other styles may avail to move the audience’s minds and spirits. Some people, of course, do it all in a dull, unattractive, and cold sort of way, while others do it with wit, elegance, and feeling. In any case, those who can speak and discuss things wisely, even though they cannot do so eloquently, must now undertake the task we are concerned with in such a way as to benefit their listeners. Beware, on the other hand, of those whose unwisdom has a flood of eloquence at its command, and all the more so, the more their audience takes pleasure in things it is profitless to hear, and assumes that because they hear them speaking fluently, they are also speaking the truth. . . .

Precisely this is eloquence, then, in the matter of teaching: to ensure, not that what was thought repellent should be found to be pleasing, or that something disliked should still be done, but that a point that was obscure or simply missed should be indicated and cleared up. If this is done, however, in a disagreeable way, only a few listeners will get any profit from it, and those the most serious, who are eager to know what there is to be learned, however dismally and crudely it is expressed. When they have attained this object, they feed enjoyably on truth itself; it is indeed the characteristic trait of good minds and dispositions to love in words what is true, not the words themselves.

What, after all, is the use of a golden key if it cannot open what we want, or what is wrong with a wooden key if it can, since all we are looking for is that closed doors should be opened to us? But yes, there is a certain similarity between feeding and learning; so because so many people are fussy and fastidious, even those foodstuffs without which life cannot be supported need their pickles and spices.

From The Uses of Rhetoric by Augustine of Hippo, quoted in Richard Lischer, ed., The Company of Preachers: Wisdom on Preaching, Augustine to the Present (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002).

Daily Reading for August 27 • Thomas Gallaudet, 1902, with Henry Winter Syle, 1890

Mr. Syle was born, November 9th, 1846, in Shanghai, China, where his father was stationed as a missionary. When in his fifth year, he was sent to America, on account of his health. At the age of six, he lost his hearing from scarlet fever. His education, which was carried on in the private school of Mr. D. E. Bartlett, at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., and at St. John’s College, Cambridge, England, was interrupted more than once, and by various causes; but whenever he studied, he won high distinction. He took his Bachelor’s degree at Yale, in 1869, by the unusual and very trying course of presenting himself for a vigorous written examination in all the branches of the four years’ curriculum, which he passed with the highest credit. For five years, he taught in the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, pursuing meanwhile a course of professional study in the Columbia College School of Mines.

Leaving New York, he received an appointment as assayer in the Philadelphia Mint, and, while holding this position, pursued a course of theological study, preparing himself for the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which he was ordained priest in 1887. He resigned his position at the Mint, to devote himself to religions work among the deaf, and, as the nucleus of this work, he gathered a congregation which, under his ministrations, grew into an independent church. His field of labor expanded in many directions, until his time and strength, freely expended, were largely overdrawn, and an attack of the epidemic influenza found him with no vital force left to resist its attack. . . .

It is not too much to say, that in point of scholarship and literary culture he was easily first among the deaf persons of this country, and perhaps of the world. Every ambition common to noble minds he shared—the love of distinction, the consuming thirst for knowledge, the desire for association with his intellectual peers; but his crowning glory is this, that he unhesitatingly sacrificed every one of these, as well as all less exalted aims, whenever they conflicted with the ruling purpose of his life. . . . As philanthropy underlay his studies, his social activities and his professional work, so a sincere but unostentatious piety inspired and pervaded his philanthropy. No more brilliant intellect, no more strenuous will, no purer soul has ever adorned our profession.

From a paper presented by Professor Weston Jenkins on the life of Henry Winter Syle, in Proceedings of the Eleventh National Convention of American Instructors of the Deaf, held at Berkeley, California, July 1886.

Daily Reading for August 26

I feel like writing you a rather bracing, disagreeable, east-windy sort of letter. When I read yours my first impulse was to send you a line begging you only to let yourself alone. Don’t keep on pulling yourself to pieces: and please burn that dreadful book with the list of your past sins! If the past really oppresses you, you had far better go to confession, and finish that chapter once and for all! It is emphatically your business now to look forwards and not backwards: and also to look forwards in an eager and optimistic spirit. Any other course is mere ingratitude, you know. . . .

Your responsibility ends when you have made sure that you are honest in will and intention, and are doing your best. There are no unbearable responsibilities in this world but those of our own seeking. Once life is realized as a succession of acts of loving service, undertaken in a spirit of joy, all that moonshine vanishes. . . .

People seem often to forget that Hope is a cardinal virtue necessary to salvation like Faith and Love: an active principle which ought to dominate life. I do think it would be so much better if you would go on quite simply and trustfully for a bit. After all, we value far more in our human relationships the sort of love that gives itself joyously and eagerly without introspection than the sort which is perpetually occupied with its own unworthiness or shortcomings.

From a letter to a friend dated May 30, 1907, in The Letters of Evelyn Underhill, edited with an introduction by Charles Williams (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1943).

Daily Reading for August 25 • Louis, King of France, 1270

This excellent learning then of Christ must be established in us, that we think us not to be born unto ourselves, but to the honor of God and wealth of all men. . . . This learning will induce men to desire no vengeance, but to be the sons of their Father in heaven, to overcome evil with good, to suffer hurt rather than to do it, to forgive other men’s offences, to be gentle in manners; . . . that in bearing rule they would not so much to excel as to profit all men; that they turn not to their own profit the things which are common, but bestow that they have, yea, and themselves also, upon the commonwealth; that in their titles of honour they refer all such things unto God. . . . For nothing is so comely, so excellent, so glorious to kings, princes, and rules, as in similitude to draw nigh unto the highest, greatest, and best king even Jesus Christ; instead of violence to exercise charity, and to be minister unto all men.

We must so cleave unto the learning of Christ, and be so circumspect therein, that we cloak not our own vices with other men’s faults. For though holy men have sometime done anything not to be followed, . . . yet ought we to do nothing that varieth from Christ; but as we have been like other men in sin, so should we be companions and partners also with them that repent and turn unto God. And as for other men’s deeds, we ought not churlishly so much to bark against them, neither with cruelness to fear them, as with softness and apt means to amend them, and allure them unto Christ.

From “Abridgement of Erasmus’s Enchiridion, or, The Means to be Used in Christian Warfare” by Myles Coverdale, in Writings and Translations of Myles Coverdale, edited by G. Pearson (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1844).

Daily Reading for August 24 • Saint Bartholomew the Apostle

An even, unvaried life is the lot of most men, in spite of occasional troubles or other accidents; and we are apt to despise it, and to get tired of it, and to long to see the world,—or, at all events, we think such a life affords no great opportunity for religious obedience. To rise up, and go through the same duties, and then to rest again, day after day,—to pass week after week, beginning with God’s service on Sunday, and then to our worldly tasks,—so to continue till year follows year, and we gradually get old,—an unvaried life like this is apt to seem unprofitable to us when we dwell upon the thought of it. Many indeed there are, who do not think at all;—but live in their round of employments, without care about God and religion, driven on by the natural course of things in a dull irrational way like the beasts that perish.

But when a man begins to feel he has a soul, and a work to do, and a reward to be gained, greater or less, according as he improves the talents committed to him, then he is naturally tempted to be anxious from his very wish to be saved, and he says, “What must I do to please God?” And sometimes he is led to think he ought to be useful on a large scale, and goes out of his line of life, that he may be doing something worth doing, as he considers it. Here we have the history of St. Bartholomew and the other Apostles to recall us to ourselves, and to assure us that we need not give up our usual manner of life, in order to serve God; that the most humble and quietest station is acceptable to Him, if improved duly,—nay, affords means for maturing the highest Christian character, even that of an Apostle. Bartholomew read the Scriptures and prayed to God; and thus was trained at length to give up his life for Christ, when He demanded it.

From Sermon XXVII on the Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle by John Henry Newman, in Parochial and Plain Sermons, volume 2 (London: Longmans, Green, & Co., 1891).