Precept & Practice – FEBRUARY 26 – Never Despair
Never despair, but if you do, work in despair.
None should dwell too deeply on the past full of mistakes, regrets, and might-have-beens. By so doing the mind grows limp and discouraged, and the soul’s energy is dulled.
Astor
Be penitent, and prayerful, but discourage looking back; we cannot bring the past again; reject it, and forget it. Rather look up, look round, look forward, onward, upward. Here is the wisdom, here the mercy, here all help in life.
Martin F. Tupper
What is past is past. There is a future left to all men who have the virtue to repent and energy to atone.
Lytton
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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
Suffolk Vicar 