George MacDonald
George MacDonald
George MacDonaldwas a Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister. He was a pioneering figure in the field of fantasy literature and the mentor of fellow writer Lewis Carroll. His writings have been cited as a major literary influence by many notable authors including W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Walter de la Mare, E. Nesbit and Madeleine L'Engle. C. S. Lewis wrote that he regarded MacDonald as his "master": "Picking up a copy of Phantastes one...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1824
Human science cannot discover God. Human science is but the backward undoing of the tapestry web of God's science. It works with its back to him, and is always leaving his intent and perfected work behind it. Science is always going farther and farther away from the point where his work culminates in revelation.
As cold as everything looks in winter, the sun has not forsaken us. He has only drawn away for a little, for good reasons, one of which is that we may learn that we cannot do without him.
Ah, what is it we send up thither, where our thoughts are either a dissonance or a sweetness and a grace?
We have to do with God, to whom no one can look without the need of being good waking up in his heart; to think about God is to begin to be good.
Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call reality? -- not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still...All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass...There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.
I firmly believe people have hitherto been a great deal too much taken up about doctrine and far too little about practice. The word "doctrine," as used in the Bible, means teaching of duty, not theory.
LET A MAN THINK AND CARE ever so little about God, he does not therefore exist without God. God is here with him, upholding, warming, delighting, teaching him-making life a good thing to him. God gives him himself, though the man knows it not.
It is vain to think that any weariness, however caused, any burden, however slight, may be got rid of otherwise than by bowing the neck to the yoke of the Father's will. There can be no other rest for heart and soul than He has created. From every burden, from every anxiety, from all dread of shame or loss, even loss of love itself, that yoke will set us free.
It may be infinitely worse to refuse to forgive than to murder, because
Forgiveness is the giving and so the receiving of life. the latter may be an impulse of a moment of heat; whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.
I am so tried by the things said about God. I understand God's patience with the wicked, but I do wonder how he can be so patient with the pious!
Why should my love be powerless to help another?
I believe that no hell will be lacking which would help the just mercy of God to redeem his children.
There is no cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning.