Precept & Practice – JANUARY 22 – Evil Habits

If you once allow yourself to fall into a habit of evil of whatever kind, the idea that you are helpless, that you are made so, that it is your nature, will very speedily creep in and try to lay hold of your mind.   Whether it be a sin of passion or of temper which comes only at times, leaving you free to live a right and perhaps even a religious life in the intervals, and returning with a sort of easy victory in the hour of temptation, making your falls all the more miserable by their contrast with your happier and better moments;  or some of those palsies of the soul which seem to benumb the will – sloth for instance, or selfishness;  or again, a petty fault which mars all your life without seeming ever to stain it deeply, making you ashamed and justly ashamed that you should find a difficulty in overcoming such a trifle;  in such cases, over and above the temptation to the sin itself, there soon comes the added temptation to treat it as hopeless, to give up in despair, to reconcile yourself to your enemy, and say that you are made so, and cannot do otherwise.   And this is indeed no trifling addition.   The one chance of escape from habitual sin is never to intermit the struggle:  do that, and you are quite sure to conquer;  some better opportunity for getting power over the temptation presents itself;  or the temptation seems to go away of itself, you do not know how; or it returns less and less frequently, till it returns no more;  it’s going may be in one way or in another;  but persevere in the battle, and go it surely will.   Thus ere now have Christians overcome bodily temptations, to some men the severest trials of all;  thus have Christians tamed down unruly temper;  thus have they conquered pride and vanity;  thus have they taught themselves to be true.

Archbishop Temple

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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