Precept and Practice – SEPTEMBER 30 – God’s Work

There was a time when it was usual to draw a sharp line between religious and worldly things.   That time has happily gone by.   We all acknowledge more or less that all life is one.

(Bishop Westcott)

God’s business in this little world is the slow evolution of Humanity through the effort of free men to perfection.   Therefore all work which is concerned with that is His work – Science, Art, Literature, Law, Medicine, Invention, Labour on the Land, Manufacture, Engineering, Commerce, Trade, or even War.   Jesus was not so ignorant of the world of men as some have thought Him.   His intelligence was far too clear to call upon all men to be ministers or to think that the only work to be done in the world was preaching and pastoral work.   No, what He meant was that the work of the world was to be done by us, but in accordance with the character of God His Father, mastered by the rule of that character, impelled and restrained by its attributes, and incessantly pursuing its infinite perfection.   Every human work, done in that spirit, is a revelation of God, is the work of God.

(Reverend Stopford A. Brooke – The Gospel of Joy)

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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