Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 9 – Forlorn Hopes

We know how the old leaf-bearing impulse is thwarted, or transcended, if you choose, by the impulse to bear fruit, how fruit and flowers alike demand its sacrifice.   We often see men and women leading forlorn hopes quietly, people who deserve success, and whom it would have left unspoiled, who would have found a purer joy in it than the ambitious or selfish can ever find.   Yet they go on grey day after grey day, with so little obvious sunshine that we are inclined to quarrel with the universe on their behalf, if not on our own.   For it is not in human nature actually to prefer the forlorn hope.   We should all like to wave our banner over some conquered citadel.   Why cannot a triumphal entry be granted to such as these, with flags flying and beat of drum?

Simply because God’s conception of human victory is so much greater than ours that it cannot always adapt itself to our small triumphal processions.   Yet His most glorious hope lies hidden in the hope we call forlorn, like the jewel in a matrix of clay;  and it will prevail at last.   Those who hold this faith do not lose it in the face of what we call death.   For they believe that their treasures of experience, their love, that is so slowly learning complete self-forgetfulness and much pain, their severance and gratitude for stronger and better souls, are not only their own priceless possessions, but part of the wealth of God, that they belong to His essential being, and mean more, not less, to Him than to them. 

(May Kendall)

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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