Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 28 – Silent Unto the Lord

Dissipated thoughts, exuberant, unweighed words, impatience under solitude, distracted prayers, object-less frittering away of time, passive, half-unconscious dreaming,  – all this is want of recollection.   It loosens our hold upon God, it blunts our sense of His Presence, and makes us impatient of His companionship.

(F. W. Feder)

There is a constant attitude in the presence of God, which is, I think, what is meant in to ‘pray without ceasing,’ which is enjoined upon us, and which is also described as ‘waiting upon the Lord.’   My father, who was a Hebrew scholar, told me that the word in the original is to be ‘silent unto,’ or before the Lord. – ‘They that are silent unto the Lord shall renew their strength.’

(J. Bellowes)

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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