Precept & Practice – JANUARY 9 – Self-Surrender

This thing became to Hugh his practical religion;  to commit himself unceasingly, in joy and trouble alike, in the smallest matters, to the Eternal Will;  until he grew to feel that if there were anything true in the world, it was the power of that perpetual surrender.   It was surprising to him to find how anxiety melted into tranquillity, if one could but do that.   Not only, he learnt, must great decisions be laid before God, but the smallest acts of daily life.   How often one felt the harassing weight of small duties, the distasteful business, the anxious conversation, the dreary occasion; fatigue, disappointment, care, uncertainty, timidity!

If one could but put the matter into the hands of God, instead of rehearsing, and calculating, and anticipating, what a peace flowed into one’s spirit!   Difficulties melted away like mist before it.   The business was tranquilly accomplished;  the interview that one dreaded provided its own obvious solution, vexations were healed, troubles were suddenly revealed as marvellously unimportant.

One blundered still, went perversely wrong, yielded falteringly to an impulse knowing it to be evil;  but even such events had a wholesome humiliation about them which brought healing with it.

The essence of the whole situation was to have in one’s heart the romance of pilgrimage, to expect experience, both sweet and bitter, to desire the goal rather than the prize;  and to find the jewels of patience, hopefulness, and wisdom by the way, where one had least expected them.

A. C. Benson (Beside Still Waters)

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW