Character and Conduct – 2 February – Commune with your Own Heart and be Still

PERHAPS one very simple, but alas too often neglected rule, may be suggested to those who are indeed desirous of realising through all the petty vicissitudes and monotonous or trivial round of their daily life, the Divine presence and power.   ‘Devotion early in the day before the day’s worries begin.   It is the only way to keep the spirit Godward through them all.’   Devotion, it is needless to add, is not ‘saying prayers’ in words either of our own or any one else’s – nor is it only or chiefly ‘making request.’   It is pre-eminently worship, the deliberate homage of the mind and heart – of the whole being to God who is its source.   And here steadfastness of will, showing itself in determined concentration of attention, is the indispensable condition of success;  for such concentration is by no means always an easy matter to attain, even when the effort is ‘made early in the day before the day’s worries begin.’   Sometimes there are sleepless ‘worries’ which assert their presence with the first dawn of consciousness;  sometimes we are mentally or physically lazy, inert or languid.   Well, if we habitually give in to such difficulties in a way of which we should be utterly ashamed were any other object of mental effort in question, we must not be surprised if the entirely natural result ensues that we fail to ‘realise’ what we have never honestly set ourselves to treat as real.

… Amid the thronging duties, the ceaseless cares, the toilsome or pleasurable round of daily life, we must take and we must keep time to ‘commune with our own hearts and in our own chamber, and be still.’

E. M. CAILLARD

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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.