Precept and Practice – NOVEMBER 30 – Prayer

Every creature hath some kind of sense of its state:  it feeleth its weakness, its wants, its misery.   It hath some sense of that Power from which it came, who provideth for it, who is leading it some whither:  And it cannot but cry and complain to this Power, according to what it feels and desires.   The young Ravens cry to it for food;  the whole creation groaneth and panteth to it, to be delivered from its bondage.   Man, as he hath a clearer light than these, so he hath more clear addresses to it…..   By Prayer, I do not mean any bodily exercise of the outward man;  but the going forth of the Spirit of life towards the Fountain of Life, for fulness and satisfaction:  The natural tendency of the poor, rent, derived spirit, towards the Fountain of spirits.

(Isaac Penington)

Belief in a spiritual world and craving for communion with it are instincts as universal as thirst or hunger.   So is prayer.   There is no race of man which does not believe in a spiritual world, and which does not, in moments of anguish, lift up beseeching hands and imploring eyes to a being.

‘Life and Hereafter’

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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