Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 27 – The Divine Art of Sympathy

There is, however, a discipline by which we learn the lesson of service.   It is a discipline not only for undergraduates, but for all of us. It is not outward of authority, but inward the soul.   The best Universities cannot teach ‘the divine art of sympathy.’   It is the Divine Master who must teach that Divine art.   He teaches us by the strain and burden of life and by its sorrows.   It is not those who live easily like the gods of Epicurus that do most for their fellows;  it is those who have learned in the school of suffering the deeper lessons of the Master, and learning His lessons have, by the contagion of His great example, learned something of His love, who seek the healing of their own grief and supplying of their own need in healing the grief and helping the need of their neighbour.

(J. L. Paton – From a Letter)

If we had lost our chief good, other people’s good would yet remain, and it is worth trying for.

(George Eliot)

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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