Precept and Practice – OCTOBER 4 – Mending the Rents

We may dwell upon bright and hallowed moments of lives that have been darkened by many shadows;  polluted by many sins;  those moments may be welcomed as revelations to us of that which God intended His creatures to be;  we may feel that there has been a loveliness in them which God gave them, and which their own evil could not take away.   We may think of this loveliness as if it expressed the inner purpose of their existence;  the rest may be for us as if it were not.

As nature with her old mosses and her new spring foliage hides the ruins which man has made, and gives to the fallen tower and broken cloister a beauty scarcely less than that which belonged to them in their prime so human love may be at work too, softening and concealing and busy with her hand in healing the rents which have been made in God’s nobler temple, the habitation of His own Spirit.   If it were lawful in the old time to cover with love and hope a multitude of transgressions, it cannot be less lawful now that the earth is overshadowed with a mercy that blotteth out iniquity and transgression and sin;  when the blood of sprinkling has a mightier voice than that which cries for vengeance, when the atoning sacrifice reveals heights and depths and breadths of love in which we must rejoice to be lost.

Reverend F. D. Maurice

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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