Precept & Practice – APRIL 25 – Allowances

Giving people time; not quickly taking them at their word;  not closing up the account, or forcing a complex matter to a speedy issue;  not insisting that men must mean all that their words, or even their deeds, imply;  making allowance for the different capacity, and form, and character, and movement of different minds;  remembering by what different avenues, and with what different stages and tokens of acceptance, the same truth may be penetrating different hearts;- is not this the bearing which we may learn from our Saviour, as He, the Lord of all, quietly seeks another village instead of that which has sent back His messengers and refused His offer?…..   Who are we, what is our insight into other men’s hearts, that we should foreclose the time of their growth;  that we should call for speed, when God, it may be, is patiently disengaging their minds from difficulties that we have never known;  that we should let ourselves resent their present refusal of that truth which, perhaps, they are already preparing to welcome later on with a depth, an intensity, a thoroughness of acceptance far beyond all that we have ever rendered to it?

Bishop Paget (Studies in the Christian Character.)

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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