Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 11 – Integrity

By integrity I do not mean simply sincerity or honesty;  integrity rather according to the meaning of the word as its derivation interprets it entireness – wholeness soundness:  that which Christ means when He says, ‘If thine eye be single (or sound), thy whole body shall be full of light.’

This integrity extends through the entireness or wholeness of the character.   It is found in small matters as well as great;  for the allegiance of the soul to truth is tested by small things rather than by those which are more important.   There is many a man who would lose his life rather than perjure himself in a court of justice, whose life is yet a tissue of small insincerities.

It is evidently not the element of untruth here that is displeasing, but the element of harmfulness.  Now he is a man of integrity who hates untruth as untruth:  who resents the smooth and polished falsehood of society which does no harm:  who turns in indignation from the glittering whitened lie of sepulchral Pharisaism which injures no one.

Integrity recoils from deceptions which men would almost smile to hear called deception….   It is just these trifles which go to the formation of character.

He that is habituated to deceptions and artificialities in trifles will try in vain to be true in matters of importance:  for truth is a thing of habit rather than of will.

You cannot in any given case, by any sudden and single effort, will to be true, if the habit of your life has been insincerity…..   It is a perilous thing to separate feeling from acting;  to have learnt to feel rightly without acting rightly…..

‘We pity wretchedness and shun the wretched.’  We utter sentiments, just, honourable, refined, lofty – but somehow, when a truth presents itself in the shape of a duty, we are unable to perform it.

(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