Being and Doing – 16 January – Blessedness

ENDLESS controversies have stormed, and are still storming, around that name which He so significantly and emphatically appropriated – The Son of Man.’  But from amid all the controversy that veils it, one fact, clear, sharp, and unchallenged, stands out as the very life and seal of His human greatness – He pleased not Himself.’  By every act He did, every word He spoke, and every pain He bore, He put away from Him happiness as the aim and end of man.  He reduced it to its true position of a possible accessory and issue of man’s highest fulfilment of life – an issue, the contemplation of which might be of some avail as the being first awoke to its nobler capabilities, but which, the more the life went on towards realisation, passed the more away from conscious regard.

J.C. BROWN, from Ethics of George Eliot.

GOD has ordained that happiness, like every other good thing, should cost us something: He has willed that it should be a moral achievement, and not an accident.

DE GASPARIN.

oooOOOooo

These quotes are from ‘Being and Doing’ A selection of helpful thoughts from various authors arranged for daily reading.

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1908 for members of the Being and Doing Guild whose object is to do all they can for the relief of suffering and misery.

Most of the writers are 19th Century Christians from Britain and Europe who were committed to living their faith through deeds as well as words – Being AND Doing.

For many years these words have kept me company and encouraged me on the journey of faith.  I hope they will encourage others also.