Character and Conduct – 1 June – Heredity

THE father says of his profligate son whom he has never done one wise or vigorous thing to make a noble and pure-minded man: ‘I cannot tell how it has come.  It has not been my fault.   I put him into the world and this came out.’   The father whose faith has been mean and selfish says the same of his boy who is a sceptic.   Everywhere there is this cowardly casting off of responsibilities upon the dead circumstances around us.   It is a very hard treatment of the poor, dumb, helpless world which cannot answer to defend itself.   It takes us as we give ourselves to it.   It is our minister fulfilling our commissions for us upon our own souls.   If we say to it, ‘Make us noble,’ it does make us noble.   If we say to it, ‘Make us mean,’ it does make us mean.   And then we take the nobility and say, ‘Behold, how noble I have made myself’ And we take the meanness and say, ‘See how mean the world has made me.’

PHILLIPS BROOKS

SPEAKING of ancestors – What right have I to question them, or judge them, or bring them forward in my life as being responsible for my nature?   If I roll back the responsibility to them, had they not fathers?  and had not their fathers fathers ?  and if a man rolls back his deeds upon those who are his past, then where will responsibility be found at all, and of what poor cowardly stuff is each of us ?

The Mettle of the Pasture, JAMES LANE ALLEN.

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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 them here readers may be inspired to imitate the example of the authors.