Character and Conduct – 25 January – Being and Doing

PERFECTION is being, not doing – it is not to effect an act, but to achieve a character.   If the aim of life were to do something, then, as in an earthly business, except in doing this one thing the business would be at a standstill.   The student is not doing the one thing of student-life when he has ceased to think or read.   The labourer leaves his work undone when the spade is not in his hand, and he sits beneath the hedge to rest.   But in Christian life, every moment and every act is an opportunity for doing the one thing of becoming Christ-like.   Every day is full of a most expressive experience.   Every temptation to evil temper which can assail us to-day will be an opportunity to decide the question whether we shall gain the calmness and the rest of Christ, or whether we shall be tossed by the restlessness and agitation of the world.   Nay, the very vicissitudes of the season, day and night, heat and cold, affecting us variably, and producing exhilaration or depression, are so contrived as to conduce towards the being which we become, and decide whether we shall be masters of ourselves, or whether we shall be swept at the mercy of accident and circumstance, miserably susceptible of merely outward influences. Infinite as are the varieties of life, so manifold are the paths to saintly character;  and he who has not found out how directly or indirectly to make everything converge towards his soul’s sanctification, has as yet missed the meaning of this life.

FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON

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

Collected by Constance M Whishaw and first published in 1905 as a follow up to her volume of Daily Readings for members of the Being and Doing Guild who asked for an additional volume

In her preface Whishaw writes:

‘This collection of noble thoughts expressed by men and women of past and present ages who have endeavoured to leave the world a little better than they found it.’

It is my hope in publishing the her readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.