Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 23 – Mutual Restoration

This was a cheering lesson, and it was made to bear on the duty of mutual restoration.   They were to wash one another’s feet.   It is not the way of the world to do this.   If, in a body aiming at holiness of life, one of the society should go wrong, it might seem the readiest way of upholding the society’s good name to thrust out the offending member at once;  but Christians are not to deal with one another thus.

It is just when a man goes wrong that he most wants his brethren’s support.

Who else is there to stand by him?   So if a disciple does amiss, the rest are told to wash his feet as Christ had washed theirs not making out that he was clean – fully allowing that he was sullied, but telling him that the soil would wash off;  telling him that they had not given him up as being bad to the core, and that they were sure that his Father in Heaven had not cast him off.

So doing, they might lift him back into self-respect.

(The Reverend Henry Latham – Pastor Pastorum)

oooOOOooo

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