Precept and Practice – JULY 21 – Unselfishness
Could we but crush that ever-craving lust
For bliss, which kills all bliss, and lose our life, Our barren unit life, to find again
A thousand lives in those for whom we die;
So were we men and women and should hold Our rightful place in God’s great universe,
Wherein in Heaven and earth, by will and nature
Nought lives for self.
(The Reverend Charles Kingsley)
The men and women, though they be poor, ignorant, blundering, who day by day are quietly setting aside their own pleasure for the sake of some other person, taste a sweetness and get in themselves a growth which makes the world a sacred place for them.
(G. S. Merriam)
So far as you try to be good in order to be personally happy – you miss happiness a great and beautiful law of our being. Happiness is the result of our own energy and cannot be poured upon the soul, and is almost independent of circumstances: it is made by us, not for us.
(The Reverend F. W. Robertson)
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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 