Being and Doing – 25 October – Experimental Christianity

TO EXAMINE its evidence is not to try Christianity;  to admire its martyrs is not to try Christianity;  to compare and estimate its teachers is not to try Christianity;  to attend its rites and services with more than Mahometan punctuality is not to try or know Christianity.   But for one week, for one day, to have lived in the pure atmosphere of faith and love to God, of tenderness to man;  to have beheld earth annihilated, and Heaven open to the prophetic gaze of hope;  to have seen evermore revealed behind the complicated troubles of this strange, mysterious life, the unchanged smile of an Eternal Friend, and everything that is difficult to reason solved by that reposing trust which is higher and better than reason, – to have known and felt this, I will not say for a life, but for a single blessed hour, that, indeed, is to have made experiment of Christianity.

W. A BUTLER

BE ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.

S. James i 22

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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.