Precept and Practice – JUNE 27 – Living Gospels

In mountain countries there is one range, one line of lofty summits, which always conveys a new sense of beauty, of awe, of sublimity, which nothing else can give – the range of eternal snow.   High above all the rest we can see the white peaks standing out in the blue sky, catching the first rays of the rising sun, and the last rays of the sun as it departs.   So is it with the range of high Christian character, which our Lord has set before us in the Sermon on the Mount.

High above all earthly, lower happiness, the blessedness of those Eight Beatitudes towers into the heaven itself.   They are white with the snows of eternity;  they give a grace, a meaning, a dignity, to all the rest of the earth over which they brood.   And when the shades of evening gather round us, when the darkness of sorrow and sickness closes in, when other common, worldly characters become cold and dead and lifeless, then those higher points of true Christian goodness stand out brighter and brighter;  the gleaming daylight can be seen reflected on their summits, when it has vanished everywhere besides;  they are still there, living gospels to instruct and cheer us.   On the tops of mountains, how beautiful are their feet who, even by silent goodness, bring peace and goodwill to men. 

Dean Stanley

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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