Precept & Practice – APRIL 24 – Mutual Toleration

In order to be satisfied even with the best people, we need to be content with little, and to bear a great deal.   Even the most perfect people have many imperfections, and we ourselves have no fewer.   Our faults combined with theirs make mutual toleration a difficult matter, but we can only ‘fulfil the law of Christ’ by ‘bearing one another’s burdens.’   There must be a mutual, loving forbearance. 

Fénelon

When shall we duly estimate the importance of bearing patiently with our neighbour!   It is the last and most important lesson in the doctrine of the Saints, and blessed is the soul which has learnt it.   We wish to be borne with in our own infirmities, which always appear to us worthy of indulgence, while we esteem those of our neighbours to be wholly different, and not to be endured! 

S. Francis de Sales

Patience is never conquered;  she is always victorious, and ever remains at last mistress of the position. 

Catherine of Sienna

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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