Character and Conduct – 26 May – Sin

…that our faults look worse than they are, that inside we have good dispositions, and good desires, and warm feelings, and religious emotions, and that it is only the outside that is marked by those evil stains.   This is a delusion and a grievous delusion.   You cannot be good and do wrong.    You cannot be righteous and do unrighteousness.   Granted that you may slip once into a sin which notwithstanding is not really a part of your nature.   Still, this cannot happen several times over.   Make no mistake.   If you do wrong the deed is a real part of your life, and cannot be removed out of it by any fancy of yours that it is on your circumstances, your temptations, your peculiar disadvantages that the blame can be cast, still less by any wishes or emotions or feelings even of the most religious kind.

Bishop TEMPLE

THE strength of a man’s virtue is not to be measured by the efforts he makes under pressure, but by his ordinary conduct.

PASCAL

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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.