Consider the Lilies

Rabbi Duncan once said (William Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica, pp. 36-37):

There are times when I cannot rest in the ethical, when I cannot find any satisfaction in historical facts. The very evangel satisfies me not. I cannot read my Bible, and I cannot pray. But I go out into my garden to consider the lilies how they grow. [], they seem to preach: -- Carking care, away!

Charles Spurgeon, Lectures to My Students, p. 182:

Without books a man may learn much by keeping his eyes open. Current history, incidents which transpire under his own nose, events recorded in the newspaper, matters of common talk -- he may learn from them all. The difference between eyes and no eyes is wonderful. If you have no books to try your eyes, keep them open wherever you go, and you will find something worth looking at. Can you not learn from nature? Every flower is waiting to teach you. "Consider the lilies," and learn from the roses. Not only may you go to the ant, but every living thing offers itself for your instruction. There is a voice in every gale, and a lesson in every grain of dust it bears. Sermons glisten in the morning on every blade of grass, and homilies fly by you as the sere leaves fall from the trees. A forest is a library, a cornfield is a volume of philosophy, the rock is a history, and the river at its base a poem. Go, thou who hast thine eyes opened, and find lessons of wisdom everywhere, in heaven above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. Books are poor things compared with these.

Christina Georgina Rossetti, Poems, pp. 95-96:

"Consider the Lilies of the Field"

Flowers preach to us if we will hear: --
The rose saith in the dewy morn,
I am most fair;
Yet all my loveliness is born
Upon a thorn.
The poppy saith amid the corn:
Let but my scarlet head appear
And I am held in scorn;
Yet juice of subtle virtue lies
Within my cup of curious dyes.
The lilies say: Behold how we
Preach without words of purity.
The violets whisper from the shade
Which their own leaves have made:
Men scent our fragrance on the air,
Yet take no heed
Of humble lessons we would read.

But not alone the fairest flowers:
The merest grass
Along the roadside where we pass,
Lichen and moss and sturdy weed,
Tell of His love who sends the dew,
The rain and sunshine too,
To nourish one small seed.

How One Student Spent £100

George Smeaton, one of Scotland's greatest 19th century ministers and Biblical scholars, went to Edinburgh University in 1829 as a 15 year-old. It was an adjustment for him, according to Thomas Smith (who was with him on that first day, and later as a professorial colleague, and still later preached Smeaton's funeral sermon), but Smeaton soon overcame the disadvantages of his earlier education and went on during his final year to win a prize of £100 given by Dr. Thomas Chalmers to the best student of his class. One wonders, how did he spend the money?

His son, Oliphant Smeaton, tells the story, which is recounted first by William Knight, Some Nineteenth Century Scotsmen (1903), pp. 108-109; and later by John W. Keddie, George Smeaton: Learned Theologian and Biblical Scholar (2007), p. 26.

Characteristically a "bibliophile," he at once laid the sum out in books, securing among other things a complete edition of Migne's "Patristic Library" in seventy folio volumes, a first edition of "Calvini Opera," a fine copy of "Poli Synopsis," the famous folio "Erasmus" in five volumes, and other treasures.

This laid the foundation of a library to which he continued to add until the time of his death, and which at that time numbered considerably over fifteen thousand volumes, and was as varied as it was choice. I had the privilege of presenting it, afterwards, to the New College, where it now remains.

What are You?

How would you answer this question: What are you? How would you describe yourself?

We are all connected, and yet, distinct and unique. Some emphasize the former:

Terence wrote (Heauton Timorumenos) "Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto", or "I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me."

Others begin with the general and progress towards the specific:

Samuel Spearing (19th century former slave-turned-Black Republican Florida lawmaker) described himself as "a man first, a Christian second, an American third, a Baptist fourth, and, oh yes, I'm a Black man too."

John "Rabbi" Duncan (19th century Scottish Presbyterian) said of himself that "I'm first a Christian, next a catholic, then a Calvinist, fourth an evangelical, and fifth a Presbyterian. I cannot reverse this order." Someone responded to him with the suggestion that these labels "were like circles within each other, the first the widest and the best." He expanded on that thought: "I like better to think of them as towers rising one above the other, though narrowing as they as they rise. The first is the broadest, and is the foundation laid by Christ; but we are build on that foundation, and, as we ascend, our outlook widens." (William Knight, Colloquia Peripatetica: Deep-sea Soundings: Being Notes of Conversations With the Late John Duncan, LL.D., p. 8)

So, what are you? How would you describe yourself?