Character and Conduct – 20 June – Balance

CULTURE implies all which gives a mind possession of its powers.

EMERSON

THERE are very, very few from whom we get that higher, deeper, broader help which it is the prerogative of true excellence in judgment to bestow:  help to discern, through the haste and insistence of the present, what is its real meaning and its just demand;  help to give due weight to what is reasonable, however unreasonably it may be stated or defended;  help to reverence alike the sacredness of a great cause and the sacredness of each individual life, to adjust the claims of general rules and special equity;  help to carry with one conscientiously, on the journey towards decision, all the various thoughts that ought to tell upon the issue;  help to keep consistency from hardening to obstinacy, and common sense from sinking into time-serving;  help to think out one’s duty as in a still, pure air, sensitive to all true signs and voices of this world, and yet unshaken by its storms.

Studies in the Christian Character, Bishop PAGET

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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.