Scottish-American theologian (1868-1953)
Sorrow rightly used may often give insight, forcing the mind to think and the eye to see; just as disease may read us many a lesson.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
All life is an argument for death.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
An uninterested spectator sees nothing; or, what is worse, sees wrongly.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Is it the thought of a dreamer to imagine that yet the love of God will so grip men's hearts that the love of men will be the natural motive of all our action?
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
The true insight after all is love. It clarifies the intellect, and opens the eyes to much that was obscure.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
As it is one of the greatest joys of life when a kindred soul is for the first time recognized and claimed, so it is one of the bitterest moments of life when the first rupture is made of the ties which bind us to other lives. Before it comes, it is hard to believe that it is possible, if we ever think of it at all. When it does come, it is harder still to understand the meaning of the blow. The miracle of friendship seemed too fair, to carry in its bosom the menace of its loss. We knew, of course, that such things had been, and must be, but we never quite realized what it would be to be the victims of the common doom of man.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Problems abound, but the manly and healthy view is that they exist to be bravely faced, and if possible solved.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Fear as a motive can always be counted on to have its deterring, restraining force, but no life is safe which is only ruled by fear.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
Influence is the greatest of all human gifts, and we all have it in some measure. There are some to whom we are something, if not everything. There are some, who are grappled to us with hoops of steel. There are some, over whom we have ascendency, or at least to whom we have access, who have opened the gates of the City of Mansoul to us, some we can sway with a word, a touch, a look. It must always be a solemn thing for a man to ask what he has done with this dread power of influence.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
The only permanent severance of heart comes through lack of a common spiritual footing. If one soul goes up the mountain top, and the other stays down among the shadows, if the two have not the same high thoughts, and pure desires, and ideals of service, they cannot remain together except in form.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly success is failure. In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of disinterestedness and devotion. Friendship in its accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its place in the kingdom of love, and through it we bring ourselves into training for a still larger love. The natural man may be self-absorbed and self-centered, but in a truer sense it is natural for him to give up self and link his life on to others. Hence the joy with which he makes the great discovery, that he is something to another and another is everything to him. It is the higher-natural for which he has hitherto existed. It is a miracle, but it happens.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Christianity does not condemn any natural human feeling, but it will not let these interfere with present duty and destroy future usefulness. It does not send men to search for the purpose of living in the graves of their dead hopes and pleasures. Its disciples must not attempt to live on the relics of even great incidents, among crucifixes and tombs. In the Desert, the heart must reach forward to the Promised Land, and not back to Egypt.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Too often men have tried to shut the door of the world's beauty and truth and joy, as if these were evil in themselves.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
To every soul of man the way to freedom is through submission. We must obey before we can command.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
Another common way of choosing friends, and one which also meets with its own fitting reward, is the selfish method of valuing men according to their usefulness to us. To add to their credit, or reputation, some are willing to include anybody in their list of intimates. For business purposes even, men will sometimes run risks, by endangering the peace of their home and the highest interests of those they love; they are ready to introduce into their family circle men whom they distrust morally, because they think they can make some gain out of the connection.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
From the purely selfish standard, every fresh tie we form means giving a new hostage to fortune, and adding a new risk to our happiness. Apart from any moral evil, every intimacy is a danger of another blow to the heart. But if we desire fulness of life, we cannot help ourselves.
HUGH BLACK
Friendship
Instead of being narrow and dismal, religion is the biggest and brightest thing that can come into a man's life, transforming every power and inspiring every energy, bathing it in peace and flooding it with joy.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
It is even a common notion that duty is precisely what we do not like. If there is any doubt, the safe rule is to find out what will be pleasant, and do the opposite! It does often happen that duty asks for sacrifice and demands the hard thing rather than the easy one, but to make pain a test of duty is to turn the world topsy-turvy.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
The lesson of life is love: the test of life is love: the task of life is the perfecting of love. Life blossoms into its natural fruition in love, as a flower blossoms in light. To dwell in love is to dwell in God and to have God dwelling in us.
HUGH BLACK
Christ's Service in Love
Trust is the first requisite for making a friend. How can we be anything but alone, if our attitude to men is one of armed neutrality, if we are suspicious, and assertive, and querulous, and over-cautious in our advances?
HUGH BLACK
Friendship