Character and Conduct – 16 September – Bearing Sorrow

A GREAT Sorrow which changes life altogether is apt to produce a certain irritability, a sort of nervous jar.

Very often this is an affair of nerves, of physical health, but it is well to watch – ‘watch and pray.’

All sorts of things will jar and hurt us.   People will do and say things with perfect unconsciousness that they are wounding us to the quick.   Some careless allusion, some chance speech, will set our nerves quivering…   The worries, the jarring incidents, the introduction of discordant topics in the very presence of death, the disappointments, are all to lead us upwards.   It is a rough bit of road on which we are set to walk, and the sharp stones cut our feet, but every step brings us nearer God.

Do not let temper mar the days of Sorrow.

There most probably will be something to try our temper.   Who does not know the trials which seem peculiar to a break-up, a change in our outward life?

Who has not seen real Christians giving way to peevishness, fretfulness, petty dislikes, petty jealousies of near relations, of those who may be taking the place of the one they mourn? Perhaps there is nothing which so mars and spoils the religious life as bad temper and selfishness.

Nothing which is so apt to make outsiders shrug their shoulders at those who make frequent Communions, and go much to Church, and who, especially in dark hours, give way to crossness.   There is no better name.

Canon SCOTT HOLLAND

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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.