Character and Conduct – 20 September – The Christian Law

THE sanction of this Law (the Christian Law) is not fear of punishment, but that self-surrender to an ever-present Lord, of those who are His slaves at once and His friends, which is perfect freedom.   This Law animates the heart of him who receives it with the invigorating truth that character is formed rather by what we do than by what we refrain from doing.   It requires that every personal gift and possession should minister to the common welfare, not in the way of ransom, or as a forced loan, but as an offering of love.   It reaches to the springs of action, and gives to the most mechanical toil the dignity of a divine service.   It makes the strong arm co-operate in one work with the warm heart and the creative brain.   It constrains the poet and the artist to concentrate their magnificent powers on things lovely and of good report, to introduce us to characters whom to know is a purifying discipline, and to fill the souls of common men with visions of hidden beauty and memories of heroic deeds.   It enables us to lift up our eyes to a pattern of human society which we have not yet dared to contemplate, a pattern which answers to the constitution of man as he was made in the Divine image to gain the Divine likeness.   It forbids us to seek repose till, as far as lies in us, all labour is seen to be not a provision for living, but a true human life;  all education a preparation for the vision of God here and hereafter;  all political enterprise a conscious hastening of the time when the many nations shall walk in the light of the holy city, and the kings of the earth bring their glory into it.

Christian Social Union Addresses, Bishop WESTCOTT

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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.