Being and Doing – 9 October – Love and Sorrow
ADAM BEDE had not outlived his sorrow – had not felt it slip from him as a temporary burthen, and leave him the same man again. Do any of us? God forbid. It would be a poor result of all our anguish and our wrestling, if we won nothing but our old selves at the end of it – if we could return to the same blind loves, the same self-confident blame, the same light thoughts of human suffering, the same frivolous gossip over blighted human lives, the same feeble sense of the Unknown towards which we have sent forth irrepressible cries in our loneliness. Let us rather be thankful that our sorrow lives in us as an indestructible force, only changing its form, as forces do, and passing from pain into sympathy – the one poor word which includes all our best insight and our best love.
GEORGE ELIOT
SURELY it is not true blessedness to be free from sorrow, while there is sorrow and sin in the world; sorrow is then a part of love, and love does not seek to throw it off.
GEORGE ELIOT
IN a world like ours, the measure of our love will be the measure of our tribulation.
Love cannot be content while any suffer, cannot rest while any sin.
A. MACKENNAL
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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.
Suffolk Vicar 