Character and Conduct – 9 May – Ungraciousness

We can recall occasions in which we have been impatient, inconsiderate, self-willed, self-asserting.   We have sharply resented some want of good taste:  we have made light of a scruple or of a difficulty which weighed heavily on another:  we have yielded ungraciously a service which may have been claimed inopportunely:  we have been exact in requiring conventional deference to our judgment:  we have not checked the keen word, or the smile which might be interpreted to assert a proud superiority.

In all this we may have been justifiable according to common rules of conduct; but we have given offence.   We have not, that is, shewn, when we might have shewn, that Christian sympathy, devotion, fellowship, come down to little things;  that the generosity of love looks tenderly, if by any means it may find the soul which has not revealed itself.

Bishop WESTCOTT

SEEK the graces of God with all your strength;  but above all seek the graces that specially belong to heaven.   Try hard to be humble, to be free from all conceit, to question your own opinions, to give up your own way, to put simplicity first among all excellences of character, to be ready to think yourself in the wrong, to prefer others to yourself;  for this character is nearest to God’s heart, and to babes who are of this sort does God reveal His most secret mysteries.

Bishop TEMPLE

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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.