Precept & Practice – MARCH 9 – Fault-finding

Now my seven little foxes are these :—

Nothing so surely burns away love as constant fault-finding.   For fault-finding once allowed as a habit between two near and dear friends comes in time to establish a chronic soreness, so that the mildest, the most reasonable suggestion, the gentlest implied reproof, occasions burning irritation;  and when this morbid state has once set in, the restoration of love seems well-nigh impossible.

…..That home-life, in our unsettled, changing state of society, may become peaceful and restful, there is one Christian grace, much treated of by mystic writers, that must return to its honour in the Christian Church.   I mean – the Grace of Silence.

No words can express, no tongue can tell, the value of not speaking.  ‘Speech is silvern, but silence is golden’ is an old and very precious proverb. 

H. Beecher Stowe (Little Foxes)

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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