Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 3 – Unsyllabled Sermons

No, rely upon it, the spiritual life is not knowing, nor hearing, but doing.   We only know so far as we can do;  we learn to do by doing;  and we learn to know by doing:  what we do, truly, rightly, in the way of duty, that and only that we are.   Sermons are crutches I believe often the worst things for spiritual health that were ever invented.

The Reverend F. W. Robertson’s Letters

It may be irrational, yet none the less it is a fact, that the world judges of Christianity, and is attracted, or repelled, far more powerfully by the conduct of professing Christians than by any dissertations upon the several Articles of the Christian Creed.   Spoken sermons have, no doubt, their place and use, but every year I believe less and less in the power and the importance of rhetorical sermons from the pulpit, and more and more in the importance and the power of the unsyllabled sermon preached by each individual life.   Each of our daily lives is more influential than any weekly sermon.   Day follows day, and on each day we are, by the silent energy of our example, either loosening or strengthening the faith of our children, our servants, and our friends.

(Bishop Diggle – Sermons for Daily Life)

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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