Precept and Practice – OCTOBER 6 – A Bruised Reed

The declaration of our Lord’s character, that ‘He will not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax,’ is intended to comfort and cheer those who can barely stand upright, or perhaps have not stood upright, those whose religious life can hardly be said to have the heat of a real flame, but only the smouldering that makes the flax smoke.   Such men, conscious that they love God and God’s service, but love faintly and fitfully, would be crushed at once if they were told, ‘Nothing is of any value unless it is complete. Serve God thoroughly, or you might just as well not serve Him at all.’   If we were in all cases met with the stern requirement of an unbending rule, if every weak effort to serve God were treated as worthless because it was weak, if all religious life that did not get beyond smouldering were utterly disregarded as valueless, many of us would find it impossible even to begin to repent.   God’s heart goes forth to meet His erring children.   The Good Shepherd goes forth to seek His wandering sheep.   The last struggle of the weak creature towards the great Creator;  the slightest throb of real feeling;  the passing warmth of transient generosity of self-sacrifice, all these have their true value in the heavenly account. From these beginnings sometimes comes at last the saintly life.   These weak stirrings are often the first breath of the Divine inspiration. God will not despise them.   Where a man would be inclined to say, ‘This half repentance is no repentance at all:  this shallow love is worse than no love:  this halting service is an insult, not an homage;’  there God says, ‘Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’

Archbishop Temple

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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