Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 17 – Confession of Sin

God can’t bless you while you have one falsehood in your soul;  his pardoning mercy can’t reach you until you open your heart to him, and say,  ‘I have done this great wickedness;  O God, save me, make me pure from sin.’   While you cling to one sin and will not part from it, it must drag you down to misery after death, as it has dragged you to misery here in this world, my poor, poor Hetty.   It is sin that brings dread, and darkness, and despair:  there is light and blessedness for us as soon as we cast it off:  God enters our souls then, and teaches us, and brings us strength and peace.

(George Eliot)

I couldn’t live in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. 

(George Eliot)

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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