Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 5 – Commonplace Christianity

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is a larger and grander Gospel than the Gospel of commonplace Christianity.

Commonplace Christianity is often a very poor and trivial affair;  an affair of ceremonies and opinions and feelings;  and of these alone.   Sometimes commonplace Christianity is something lower and much worse;  being nothing else than a form of selfishness;  a selfishness desiring simply, and only spiritually, to be saved:  without regard to the salvation of others, or to the physical condition of the present life.

(Bishop Diggle – Sermons for Daily Life)

If men would only open their eyes to the fact which stares them in the face from history, and is made clear enough by the slightest glance at the condition of mankind, that humanity is of immeasurably greater importance than their own or any other particular belief, they would no more attempt to make private property of the grace of God than to fence in the sunshine for their own special use and enjoyment.

(Oliver Wendell Holmes – The Poet at the Breakfast Table)

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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