Precept and Practice – JUNE 5 – Messengers from God
Even in the little worrying vexations of life, when we are like pilgrims walking with peas in our shoes, still there is the scent of flowers, the song of the birds, and the sweet light of heaven about our path.
Grey
Every waving field of corn, the sweet-scented hay of the meadow, every leaf on the bough and every bird among the leaves, is a messenger direct from God.
Jenkin Lloyd Jones
Presentiment of better things on earth
Sweeps in with every force that stirs our souls,
To admiration, self-renouncing love,
Or thoughts, like light, that bind the world in one:
Sweeps, like the sense of vastness, when at night
We hear the roll and dash of waves that break
Nearer and nearer with the rushing tide,
Which rises to the level of the cliff,
Because the wide Atlantic rolls behind,
Throbbing respondent to the far-off orbs.
George Eliot
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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 