Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 27 – Righteousness – A Direction

Not only is this the source of actual crime – but also it is the source of all the poor, unworthy life that there is in the world.   The people who are not exactly thieves;  the people who even while they are working have not their hearts really set to work, but are facing towards idleness and amusement;  that character which in business is always ‘sailing rather close to the wind,’ and, still more common in the world, that kind of life which perhaps plumes itself on never breaking a commandment or doing anything wrong, and yet that has no real love of goodness, no genuine desire for goodness that is the kind of life which keeps the world back, and keeps the church back, and keeps the tone of society low and mean.   If it were simply a fair fight between the honest men and the rogues, the honest men would win all the time;  but the trouble is, that the battle for the right is crippled by there being so many who expect to be counted in on that side, but who want to be on that side just as little as possible and whose faces are the other way.

This is God’s call to us.   Not just to keep from certain forbidden things, or from crossing some actual line of sin – but to set our faces clear the other way – towards right, towards all the just, pure, kind, godly life.   It is Christ and all his setting forth that has brought this out most fully for us…..   No longer law, but love, no longer the mere keeping from a certain list of forbidden things, but active forward-looking service.

(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