Precept & Practice – JANUARY 15 – Circumstances

That is the insensate stupidity of circumstances.   Is it?   Perhaps, after all, it is only the great dark wisdom of them, or of the veiled figure behind them, the warp and woof of whose seamless robe are freedom and necessity.   Circumstances, in the form of Jews, did not give Stephen a bishopric, or a comfortable pastorate:  they simply stoned him;  and the witnesses laid down their garments at a young man’s feet whose name was Saul.   The onward impulse that the stoning of Stephen gave to Christianity is with it yet.

Are circumstances, then, in the last issue, our friends or foes?   There is only one answer – they are what we choose to make them.   For all their stress, for all their clamour, they have yet a secret word for those who listen patiently, and the word is one of hope.   They will not always fly our kites;  but they will always save our souls, if we let them.   Provided, of course, that we mean by salvation the utmost yield or output of which the soul is capable…..   the greatest possible glory to God, and the greatest possible service to man.  Incidentally, also, the soul’s deepest bliss.

May Kendall

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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