Precept and Practice – JUNE 26 – Peace
Winds and wild waves in headlong huge commotion
Scud dark with tempest o’er the Atlantic’s breast,
While underneath few fathoms deep in ocean
Lie peace and rest.
Storms in mid-air the rack before them sweeping
Hurry and hiss like furies hate possessed,
While overhead white cloudlets pure lie sleeping
In peace and rest.
Heart! O wild heart! why in the storm world
ranging
Flit’st thou thus midway passion’s slave and jest,
When all so near, above, below, unchanging
Are Heaven and rest?
Printed in ‘The Spectator’
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
Suffolk Vicar 