Precept and Practice – AUGUST 17 – The Power of Thought

Nor do we yet at all understand the extraordinary influence exerted on others by any steady, earnest concentration of thought;  science is but just awakening to the fact that there is an unknown power which we have hitherto never dreamed of.

I have great hope that in this direction, as in all others, science may show us the hidden workings of our Father.

(Edna Lyall)

It is the utterance of a false cynicism to say that ‘we catch a fever but do not catch strength.’   We do catch strength and we communicate it.   We have all been able from time to time, in the most expressive phrase, to enter into the griefs, the wrongs, the failures, of others;  and as we have done so we have found within our reach a power of relief and restoration proportioned to our power of sympathy.

If we may dare to use the phrase, there is a virtue which goes out from him who truly feels for another to the object of his love, not without effort, not without loss.   We must feel that which we alleviate.

There is a sense in which we must pay for all we give.   But when our gift is made, and has its work, then the joy of the freshly quickened life flows back upon us, and we are allowed to reap the fruit of the sacrifice.

(Bishop Westcott – The Victory of the Cross)

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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