Character and Conduct – 28 June – Justice and Mercy

IT is not even, amongst men, the best and purest who are found to be the severest censors and judges of others.   Quickness to detect and expose the weakness and frailties of a fellow-man, harshness in condemning them, mercilessness in punishing them, are not the characteristics which experience would lead us to expect in a very high and noble nature…   To be gentle, pitying, forbearing to the fallen, to be averse to see or hear of human faults and vices, and when it is impossible not to see them to be pained and grieved by them, to be considerate of every extenuating circumstance that will mitigate their culpability, to delight in the detection of some redeeming excellence even in the vilest…   Is not all this the sort of conduct which, as experience teaches us, betokens, not moral apathy or indifference, but the nature which is purest and most elevated beyond all personal sympathy with vice…    If, then, human goodness is the more merciful in proportion as it approaches nearer to perfection…  might we not conclude that when goodness becomes absolutely perfect, just then will mercy reach its climax and become absolutely unlimited?

Principal CAIRD

WHITTIER

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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.