Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 6 – The Mission of Pain

We know how sickness or sorrow comes down heavily on us, crushing in what we are pleased to call our ‘plans,’ and ‘interrupting,’ as we say, ‘our opportunities for usefulness, spoiling our life.’   My dear friend, this is life itself.   It is this very interruption that we live for.   What does God care about the wretched books you intend to write, the petty occupations you think you discharge so gracefully?

…..Do not pick and choose among events, try and interpret each as it comes.

The mission of pain may well be a quick consolation unto them who are its victims.   They mourn at times that they are refused a share of the labour of life, and are laid as a burden on their friends.   It appears unto those saints in their patience that they are a reduction on the sum-total of life and a daily drain on human kindness.   They make too little of themselves:  they do not understand that they are one of the potent forces of salvation.   What no ordinary means of Grace has been able to do for members of their household and a circle beyond, they have wrought.   From beds of weariness as from a Cross they have done mighty works, and in weakness they have been more eloquent than the voices of preachers in a public place.

(Reverend John Watson)

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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