Precept & Practice – MARCH 4 –  Models and Examples

Distinguish between a model and an example.

You copy the outline of a model:  you imitate the spirit of an example.   Christ is our Example:  Christ is not our Model.   You might copy the life of Christ:  make Him a model in every act:  and yet you might be not one whit more of a Christian than before.   You might wash the feet of poor fishermen as He did, live a wandering life with nowhere to lay your head.   You might go about teaching, and never use any words but His words, never express a religious truth except in Bible language:  have no home, and mix with publicans and harlots.   Then Christ would be your Model:  you would have copied His life like a picture, line for line, and shadow for shadow; and yet you might not be Christlike.   On the other hand, you might imitate Christ, get His Spirit, breathe the atmosphere of thought which He breathed:  do not one single act which He did, but every act in His spirit:  you might be rich, whereas He was poor:  never teach, whereas He was teaching always:  lead a life in all outward particulars the very contrast and opposite of His;  and yet the spirit of His self-devotion might have saturated your whole being, and penetrated into the life of every act and the essence of every thought.   Then Christ would have become your Example:  for we can only imitate that of which we have caught the spirit.

The Reverend F. W. Robertson

The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord.

The Bible

oooOOOooo

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