Character and Conduct – 17 September – The Meaning of Religion

THE meaning of religion is a rule of life;  it is an obligation to do well;  if that rule, that obligation, is not seen, your thousand texts will be to you like the thousand lanterns to the blind man.   As he goes about the house in the night of his blindness, he will only break the glass and burn his feet and fingers:  and so you, as you go through life in the night of your ignorance, will only break and hurt yourselves on broken laws.

Before Christ came, the Jewish religion had forbidden many evil things;  it was a religion that a man could fulfil, I had almost said, in idleness; all he had to do was to pray and to sing psalms, and to refrain from things for-bidden.   Do not deceive yourselves; when Christ came, all was changed.   The injunction was then laid upon us not to refrain from doing, but to do.   At the list day He is to ask us not what sins we have avoided, but what righteousness we have done, what we have done for others, how we have helped good and hindered evil:  what difference has it made to this world and to our country and our family and our friends, that we have lived.   The man who has been only pious and not useful will stand with a long face on that great day, when Christ puts to him His questions.

But this is not all that we must learn:  we must beware everywhere of the letter that kills, seek everywhere for the spirit that makes glad and strong.   For example, these questions that we have just read are again only the letter.

We must study what they mean, not what they are. – We are told to visit them that are in prison.   A good thing, but it were better if we could save them going there.   We are told to visit the sick;  it were better still, and we should so better have fulfilled the law, if we could have saved some of them from falling sick.

The Life of R. L. Stevenson, GRAHAM BALFOUR

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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.