Being and Doing – 17 June – Individual Responsibility

Note: The language of some posts about women are very much of their age and may be seen as victim blaming and mansplaining – even when written by women.  Please read them with care.

WE WANT in England – women who will understand and feel what love of country means, and act upon it; who will lose thought of themselves, and their finery, and their pleasure, in a passionate effort to heal the sorrow and to destroy the dishonour, dishonesty, and vice of England; to realise that as mothers, maidens, wives, and sisters, they have but to bid the men of this country to be true, brave, loving, just, honourable, and wise, and they will become so, just as they will become frivolous, base, unloving, ashamed of truth and righteousness, if women are so:  to be not content to live only for their own circles, but to take upon their hearts the burden of the poor, the neglected, and the sinful, for whom many now exercise a dainty distant pity and no more.

STOPFORD BROOKE

We are responsible, not only for doing, but also for leaving undone: else the servant who hid his lord’s talent in the earth would have escaped condemnation.

Archbishop WHATELY

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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.