Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 28 – One Thing I of the Lord Desire
One thing I of the Lord desire,
For all my way hath miry been,
Be it by water or by fire,
Oh! make me clean.
Erewhile I strove for perfect truth,
And thought it was a worthy strife,
But now I leave that aim of youth
For perfect life.
If larger vision Thou impart,
Grateful and glad my soul shall be,
And yet to have a purer heart
Is more to me.
Yea only as the heart is clean,
May larger vision still be mine,
For mirrored in its depths are seen
The truths divine.
I watch to shun the miry way
And stanch the flow of guilty thought,
But watch and wrestle as I may,
Pure I am not.
So wash Thou me, without, within,
Or purge by fire, if that must be,
No matter how, if only sin
Die out in me.
(Walter Smith)
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
Suffolk Vicar 