Holderness

“ In Stead’s Holderness Glossary, this is described as a boys’ or girls’ game, in which the pavement is chalked with numbered crossed lines, and a pebble or piece of crockery is propelled onward by the foot, the performer hopping on one leg, the number reached on the chalk-line being scored to him or her. At Whitby it is called “Pally-ully,” and played with rounded pieces of pot the size of a penny. Divisions are chalked on the pavement, and the “pally-ullies” are impelled within the lines by a hop on one leg, and a side shuffle with the same foot (Whitby Glossary) . ”

“ From his mother, their son Robert is given as receiving eight bovates in Barnby. This Robert's son is called Robert de Barnby, who married Margaret daughter of John de Dronsfield: their son Edmund married Alice daughter and heiress of John de Midhope, which, says Hunter, "was a great advance to this family. They were further enriched by the marriage with the niece and co-heir of Sir Anthony Nutthil, one of the attainted Lancastrians. The Nutthil lands lay in Holderness. ”

“ And when the time of our labor is drawing near to an end, and the pillar of our strength is declining to the ground, graciously enable us to pass through the valley of the shadow of death, supported by thy rod and thy staff, to those mansions beyond the skies where love, and peace, and joy forever reign before thy throne.—Amen. ”

“ As he rode on musingly, and felt the gentle breeze from the river, flowing calm and peacefully, as if nothing in this outward world could disturb the eternal harmony with which God had rounded and perfected every wave that its rippling murmur should be heard through ages to come as it had been through ages past, a quiet peace overspread his soul, and he felt a willingness to trust all with unshaken confidence to Him who had power to command the winds and the sea, and they obey him. ”

“ Another, and different race of men, splendid alike in strength and gentleness, will walk the earth and climb its sky, bearing down the soul’s constrictions and frontiers, even unto the ramparts around the throne of life. ”

“ Notwithstanding, with your permission, we are driven by force from our possessions and our homes. We are now in the desert, in woods, and under the open canopy of heaven; but this we patiently endure, and praise God that we are counted worthy to suffer for his name. ”

“ As in the Cave of the Winds the most restless spirit surely might find peace, so in the eternal changefulness of the forest under the touch of forces fierce or serene we find the soul of quiet because the powers at work are beyond our control, control us utterly, hold us in an immense and soothing grasp where thought and energy are fused and contend no more. ”

“ You have built up a wall of your own excellencies that you cannot see God; and then you cry, ‘He hath hidden Himself from me.’ Pull down your miserable mud walls, and let the light of Heaven shine in upon you. ”

“ But the roughest part began when our Lord Jesus turned His feet from the shaded seclusion of Nazareth, and turned into the open road. At once came the Wilderness, the place of terrific temptation, and of intense spirit conflict. The fact of temptation was intensified by the length of it. Forty long days the lone struggle lasted. The time test is the hardest test. The greatest strength is the strength that wears, doesn't wear out. That Wilderness had stood for sin's worst scar on the earth's surface. ”

“ P. CORNEILLE. What if the wicked nature, which is as a sea casting out mire and dirt, rage against thee? There is a river, a sweet, still, flowing river, the streams whereof will make glad thy heart. And, learn but in quietness and stillness to retire to the Lord, and wait upon Him; in whom thou shall feel peace and joy, in the midst of thy trouble from the cruel and vexatious spirit of this world. So, wait to know thy work and service to the Lord every day, in thy place and station; and the Lord make thee faithful therein, and thou wilt want neither help, support, nor comfort. ”

“ You would escape for your life; you would prefer a lodging in some vast wilderness. But what will you do when the Lord "ariseth to shake terribly the earth?" When the great day of his wrath shall come, whither shall you fly? "Behold, he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they that pierced him." Where now will you find shelter from that "fire that shall devour before Him?" Where in the wide universe will you then find an all-availing friend? ”

“ In the fold is rest for the weary limbs that have been plodding through valleys of the shadow of death, and dusty ways; peace for the panting hearts that are trembling at every danger, real and imaginary. Inside the fold is tranquillity, repose for the wearied frame, safety, and the companionship of the Shepherd; and without, ravening foes and a dreary wilderness, and flinty paths and sparse herbage and muddy pools. Inside is life; without is death. ”

“ Wherein a holier race shall walk in peace,
Sharers, by faith acquired through our stress,
In treasuries of splendour past our guess,
In whose deep hearts our pain and joy shall live,
As in their airiest temples, their sublimest towers
There shall rest token of our humbler shafts
In line and curve inbuilt into their art,
Our hope and aim ingrown into their faiths. ”

“ The path of duty conducts to the home of peace and light, be the way ever so full of thorns. Go only steadfastly forward, weary pilgrim, go, go, and thou wilt come to the holy land!' And I have gone—I have gone on through the long, weary day, for above thirty years ”

“ Do not thy members reach inward to the spirit of the mountain, which like a great beast of burden has lain asleep for a million years, yet has a heart of life? Tell of those who have gone before; of the sun worshippers, who from your apex, making of an attribute a god, have glorified the day, God’s first creation; of the Indians, creatures of the forest shade, as silent as its shadows; who, coming into the bright light of your summit, from this wider vista, have felt more completely the power and dignity of God and lacking a better name have called him the Great Spirit ”

“ Out here with nature, stripped of all the gloss and glitter of civilization; alone, without that sense of security which comes to us when we are huddled with our fellows; a single atom upon the troubled sea of life—my own perplexities seemed to dwindle, and a feeling of peace swept over my care-worn spirit. ”

“ My thoughts fly from this wilderness to the polished circles of the world, till recollecting its vices and follies, I bury myself in the woods, but find it necessary to emerge again, that I may not lose sight of the wisdom and virtue which exalts my nature. ”

“ When I think of our people, thrust into the wilderness wandering and seeking for a place where the soles of their feet might rest, and see, then, the world arrayed against them, and think of the little chance that appeared before them, for success and the accomplishment of their purposes, I wonder that more of them did not tremble and falter than did; but some of them were true in the midst of it all, even unto death. ”

“ How blessed it is to think of you as “beneath the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” safe in His strength, building on His foundation, and covered from the devourer by divine protection and affection. Always bear in mind that His presence, power, and peace meet all human needs and reflect all bliss. ”

“ Imagine me, at this distance from all to whom I have been accustomed to look for dependence, a being alone in creation almost, literally alone in this strange land, making an excursion of eighty miles across the country, partly in coaches, partly in postchaises, without a being to protect me or appeal to, and upon such an errand,—and yet as safe as if a host were escorting me, calm, quiet, and perfectly easy as if I were taking a ride to Hingham; and then tell me, if the confiding spirit which our sacred religion creates in our souls is not worth all that we could possess besides. ”

“ The mighty hills, they stand for me — The type of vast eternity! — Across the changeful sea of life, Beyond the want, the woe, the strife. Where peaceful lies the wished-for goal, And naught disturbs the anchored soul. ”

“ All fixedness, all endurance depend on Him, whether it be the firm seating of the hills around us, or the everlasting permanency of the eternal throne! Ay, brethren, God is every thing; and all of high, and great, and noble, depends on Him. ”

“ Let us not weary ourselves by resisting them. When we would rest our bodies we cease to support them; we recline on the lap of earth. So, when we would rest our spirits, we must recline on the Great Spirit. ”

“ The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! ”

“ Good land, it makes me sweat jest to think on’t. How could I test the strength of that mighty network of resistless influences that draws that soul by a million links up toward Goodness and down toward Evil—binds it to the outside world, and the spiritual and divine? ”

“ All things beside seem to be called in for shelter, and what stays out must be part of the original frame of the universe, and of such valor as God himself. It is invigorating to breathe the cleansed air. ”

“ Then he said, "A few days will suffice to regain the full strength of life in our limbs—already my mind is as vigorous as of old. At last, then, I become the ruler of the earth, and the races of men shall for evermore be such as my will has planned." ”

“ Under its dreaming eyes men might, fearfully and with reverence, carry on their affairs,—fearfully and with reverence, catching the breath, speaking low, growing silent and stern in the presence of the North. ”

“ Troubled their hearts with the ceaseless surge and the thunder—
Till in fear they turned, and they gazed on the inland hight,
And the mountains that called by day and beckoned by night,
And, each to the other unknown, by that call was shaken:
O, lost is the soul that the voice of the hight shall not waken,
Nor heavenward climb by the paths high hearts have taken.
II
Inland the new souls urged, by river and marsh,
Treading with stedfast feet the roadways harsh. ”

“ Thy Master sits not in the unapproached mountains, Nor dwells in the mirage which floats on the air, Nor shalt thou discover His magical fountains In pathways of sand that encircle despair. In selfhood's dark desert cease wearily seeking The odorous tracks of the feet of thy King ”

“ Therefore will we not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea—though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.’ This is the language of strong faith in the peace of Christ. How is it with you amid such turmoil, and commotion? Is all peaceful within? Do you feel secure in the name of the Lord, as in a strong fortress, as in a city well supplied, and defended? ”

“ One of the great dividing-lines in human life is the threshold-line. On one side of this line a man has his 'world within the world,' the sanctuary of love, the sheltered place of peace, the scene of life's most personal, sacred, and exclusive obligations. And on the other side lies the larger life of mankind wherein also a man must take his place and do his work. ”

“ Heaven left you intact a kingliness of nature—a loftiness of spirit, unabased by assaults levelled not against yourself, but your pride; your personal dignity, though singularly sensitive, though bitterly galled, stood proof. What might lower lesser men, lowered not you; Heaven left you that dignity, for it belongs alike to your intellect and your virtues—but suffered it to be a source of your anguish. ”

“ No one shall enter its stronghold,—no one receive its blessing, except, "he that hath clean hands and a pure heart;" clean [Pg 117] hands that have done no cruel deed,—pure heart, that knows no base desire. ”

“ Those that are in this Kingdom, and in whom the power of it is, are fitted to fly with the Church into the wilderness, and to continue in such a solitary, dispersed, desolate condition till God call them out of it. They have wells and springs opened to them in this wilderness, whence they draw the waters of salvation, without being in bondage to the life of sense. ”

“ Yet there is strength in all this calm. "He setteth fast the mountains," is the emblem of Divine omnipotence, "being girded with power." But these mountains are not always set fast. The "everlasting hills do bow." ”

“ Braced to endurance by the long frozen winters, plainly fed and plainly clad, in peril, like Saint Paul, of sea and wilderness, narrow of vision but steadfast to principles, they fronted life resolutely, honouring and illustrating the supreme worth of freedom. ”

“ But the authorities who had studied the life of the valley in relation to pleasure and pain, saw that there was a danger in this relation of the more powerful to the less powerful. For as the numbers of the inhabitants increased the power grew more and more concentrated in the hands of a few, and there was a tendency for the inhabitants in general to be compelled more and more to go through the painful part of actions, leaving the pleasurable parts for the more powerful. ”

“ And when we reflect aright, do not God's power and glory make themselves manifest in just as wonderful a guise behind a low hedge or a garden fence, as in the romance of the primeval forest, or the surpassing grandeur of the Swiss Alps? ”

“ He will feel himself a master spirit in the wilderness he traverses, and not the victim of every new combination of circumstances which nature affords or fate allots, as if to try his skill and prowess. ”

“ Leaving their homes, those men dared to face the unknown, to brave the hardships and perils of the deep and of the wilderness, actuated by an ambition which we to-day would not be ashamed to acknowledge. ”