Precept and Practice – AUGUST 10 – Love – God’s Sacrament

It is through its efficacy that we know the love that is God’s sacrament, that reveals His timeless love in time.   For it cannot fail to help and bless: it cannot miss its goal.   Circumstances may kill its body;  but they may not kill its soul.   Unguessed and unspoken, it still avails.   There is deep truth in the story of the woman who touched the hem of Christ’s garment, and was made whole.   We forget it. It seems to us unpractical to believe that mere love is the greatest thing we can give each other.   We must always be giving each other bread, or money, or jewels, or books, or counsel;  and then we think we have accomplished something.   But love is the real gift, no other can take its place;  but it can take the place of all the rest.   Nor do we love at random.   There is no wasted affection, no affection that simply enriches the soul of the giver – a consummation that to the true giver would be a bitter mockery.   There is a spiritual economy in the universe;  and God and man are not playing at cross-purposes.   God is the mediator between human souls;  and His mediation is just, and constant, and unerring.   We doubt it when our love is small and grudging, and feverishly anxious for visible results.   But a great love never doubts it.  That is content to love its utmost, and leave the issue to God.

(May Kendall)

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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