Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 24 – Righteousness – A Direction

I set my face unto the Lord God

(Daniel ix. 3)

That is the real question about life:  which way are you facing;  in which direction are you really looking and living?   Righteousness, not a position, but a direction…..   The common idea, then, of the difference between right and wrong is, that right and wrong are two separate territories as it were, and that there is a boundary line dividing them, like the frontier line between two countries, and that anywhere on the right side of that boundary line is right.   Or, people figure particular sins as if they were separate provinces in the general territory of wrong, each sin with its own boundary line, on one side of which you are in sin – but that so long as you have not actually crossed that line into sin, you are all right.   And a great deal of the moral discussion of the world has been spent on trying to map out these exact lines where the right ends and the wrong begins, the line up to which you may go without sinning…..   A glance into real life, and at some of the very commonest matters of right and wrong, is sufficient to show that, at any rate, there is a great deal of life in which it is quite impossible to draw any such distinct lines between right and wrong!

(Brooke Herford – Anchors of the Soul)

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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