Character and Conduct – 6 April – Accidie
… THE sin of accidie, which is ‘a sorrowfulness so weighing down the mind that there is no good it likes to do’. It has attached to it as its inseparable comrade a distress and weariness of soul, and a sluggishness in all good works, which plunges the whole man into lazy languor, and works in him a constant bitterness. And out of this vehement woe springs silence and a flagging of the voice, because the soul is so absorbed and taken up with its own indolent dejection, that it has no energy for utterance, but is cramped, and hampered, and imprisoned in its own confused be-wilderment, and has not a word to say.’
The Spirit of Discipline, Bishop PAGET.
TRY it for a day, I beseech you, to preserve yourself in an easy and cheerful frame of mind. Compare the day in which you have rooted out the weed of dissatisfaction with that on which you have allowed it to grow up, and you will find your heart open to every good motive, your life strengthened and your breast armed with a panoply against every trick of fate; truly, you will wonder at your own improvement.
RICHTER.
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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.
Suffolk Vicar 