Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 31 – Looking Forward If the old year has brought to you trial and sorrow, sin or failure, bid them farewell and look forward to the New Year.  It is the habit at this time to look back and mourn over what has been; to linger round its crosses and to think… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 31 – Looking Forward

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 30 – The Roads Last Turn Let me but live my life from year to year,  With forward face and unreluctant soul,  Not hastening to, nor turning from the goal; Nor mourning things that disappear  In the dim past, nor holding back in fear  From what the future veils; but with… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 30 – The Roads Last Turn

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 29 – Sorrow and Selfishness There is no selfishness greater than a life which forgets in the isolation of sorrow that others are sorrowing and need our help. (Reverend Stopford A. Brooke) We lose our griefs by making others cease to grieve. Physical strength is measured by what one can carry; … Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 29 – Sorrow and Selfishness

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 28 – Sorrow and Selfishness There are doubtless cases not infrequent, in which the mind is unduly overpowered by affliction;  in which the tranquillity of the reason is wholly overset, and the energy of the will utterly prostrated.   Here, beyond controversy, is a state of mind morally wrong:  for God never absolves us from… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 28 – Sorrow and Selfishness

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… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 27 – The Divine Art of Sympathy

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 26 – Bearing Sorrow There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies the first stocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength.   It is in the slow, changed life that follows – in the time when sorrow has… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 26 – Bearing Sorrow

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 25 – Loneliness Then there are the lonely and the sorrowful who say that they cannot bear or share in the happiness of this time (Christmas).   The contrast is too great for the lonely, and the associations too bitter for the sorrowful;  and indeed I am grieved for them. The image of happy… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 25 – Loneliness

Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 24 – Hope God does not give us strange flowers every year,  When the spring winds blow o’er the pleasant places  The same dear things lift up the same fair faces: The violet is here. It all comes back: the odour, grace and hue: Each sweet relation of its life repeated… Continue reading Precept and Practice – DECEMBER 24 – Hope